Ajnanda Shon
Whilst there are many interesting details to Ajnanda's "life story", what truly matters is realization and the liberation it reveals.
Realization has revealed deeper freedom from the noise of dualistic thoughts, the pain of dualistic emotions and the aches of dualistic cravings. Some speak of Awareness, some speak of Love, some speak of Being. Yet Holistic Awakening means realizing all three and all three as one. That is Threefold Enlightening, which Ajnanda realized and realizes.
Realizing Boundless Awareness On a crisp and sunny Autumn Day in 2006, something utterly simple yet totally profound happened. Not really experience, more like a direct view, whilst looking at a blank, white wall. The same one the eyes had casually glanced over countless times before. In a single moment, something instantly fell away and Awareness recognized itself. It felt clear, lucid, spacious, but absent of good old “me”. The body gasped. For Awareness was seeing itself as the wall and reflecting back in no time. It felt a very direct seeing where no object felt separate or distant anymore.
At first there was surprise but in the days and weeks that followed, this sense settled down, with no sense of a boundary. Boundlessness, being everywhere, all the time. It did not move with body, but the body moved within it. It was just everywhere. Extraordinary, yet absolutely simple. Awareness had been there throughout life, even with earliest memories as an infant. It was realized that such memories happening in that Awareness in the Now.
Realizing Boundless Love Yet in unbounded Awareness, all was not in harmony. Despite such realization, there was still crying. No revelation of great contentment or bliss, meaning, Love or fulfillment that had always been hoped to melt away life's sorrows. Was the spirituality of Buddha and Jesus so deeply wrong? Was it all about Awareness and nothing else? If Awareness was everything, then how did Love or Being come into it?
In one way, everything was just experienced in Awareness. It was better in that there was no feeling lost in emotional pain anymore. But why did the abyssal emotions still arise in the first place? Just as much pain, grief, despair and a barren desolation still experienced, in Infinite Awareness. Yes, no longer drowning in emotions, this was good, but still. No longer was there feeling flooded or identified with such emotions, but they clearly bubbled up from a feeling of deeper separation - “I felt afraid of that”, “I missed my mother”. Not a mental separation. All was one in pure, boundless Awareness. But this was deeper sense of separation, the duality was emotional. That clinched it. continuing the effortless practice into greater depths, weeks and months passed. Then, a wave of energy descended from Mind to Heart. The unfolding realization was going further, drawing down. With no limit, with freshness and spontaneity, vibrant and vital. This, the very essence of purest, sweetest goodwill to all. Love was simply everywhere. Feeling in my heart that the "I" was absent, came the realization, not that I love everything, but that Love is everywhere, just as Awareness was and is everywhere too. Not generated by the ego, but the nature of the Boundless itself.
Realizing Boundless Being Though much emotional pain had gone, deep desolation and sorrow persisted. The probing went deeper to face my fears and depths of bleakness. Yet, in such darkness, no evil or sinister agent was felt, just fears of my own psyche. But they were bad enough.
Descending to what felt the floor of the ocean, with no sense of me left, presence dissipated into limitless void in which was felt pure and boundless Being. Still black, but it felt perfectly fine. Actually, far beyond fine. A bolt of energy went through the body. This somehow knew the purpose of my entire life and the purpose of all else. Why it had all been so, past, present, future, made perfect sense. It was without any effort, analysis or thought. Just immediately and instantly perceived. It was not posible to put that into clear or succinct language and still not possible to this day. The energy was so intense, it could not be experienced for more than a few seconds.
What remains is the peace of the still quiet waters is silent Being. The ego had to empty itself to realize Being, in all its deepest beauty. The pure fulfillment indescribable. Unspeakable sense of sacred meaning in simple ordinariness of life. A total oneness with the experience of all life and with the existence of all things.
Holistic Awakening The search for finding who I am, spiritual liberation and unconditional fulfillment was definitely over. For what was left was blissful, grounded clarity that sees the illusion of all passing experiences. There was holistic realization in three aspects, as boundless Love, Awareness and Being, which then settled into a single realization of Love Awareness Being. Through the unfolding, increasing freedom came about in many ways:
Liberation from feeling trapped in thoughts, feeling swamped by emotions, from the deep grief and sorrow from losing my mother at five, from childhood terror that led to panic attacks, from the deep ache of unrequited love, from anxiety over long term chronic illness, from the fear of going blind or losing one's feet, from the anxiety of no long term security, from chronic long-term background anxiety without reason and from the fear of death, even into oblivion.
Such unhappiness was and is no longer the experience of life. And as the destructive emotions such as anger, fear and grief diminished to bare trace, so causeless peace, bliss, contentment, meaning, purpose and fulfillment have been revealed in boundless Love Awareness Being.
This sense of peace and fulfillment is not dependent on any particular circumstance or event. Possible it is to live unconditional peace and contentment, regardless of health, money, status, family, as well as physical, worldly and social experiences or even hopes for the future in this life or the next. Even amidst physical pain or exhaustion. Even now, Enlightening carries on deeper and deeper, towards a final release from all bondage to this plane of existence. It is still a miracle, for the ego accomplished it not. The Boundless does all. Yet it still has to be allowed to do so. In my case, that was titanic, for Ajnanda used to think of himself as a fighter. You know, someone who pursues dreams ardently. Yet the ego had to let go of itself. At the beginning of the graceful way of Enlightening, it was not thought it possible.
Reflections The union of the seeming duality. Witness, witnessing and witnessed, are no longer. The human being, a transient passing body exists within the Infinite with which it is one. It was and is the vehicle for the Infinite, the Boundless, to realize itself as all. The threefold nature was really unexpected, from the beginning of discovery. Mind more and more silent when not needed. The serene bliss with contented heart. Now at times even in sleep, the luminous bright white light of the Infinite shines in radiant beauty.
