Spiritual Experience: Shaktipat and Surrender Meditation
I believe every day can bring a spiritual experience. After all, it’s an integral part of life, if we let it to be. Still, I want to share memories from times when I actively searched for something deeper. On the outside. Whether I found it or not, in the places I expected it… or next door.
[ I wrote about one of them here: The gifts of Noble Silence (from a Buddhist retreat) and another here: Vision Quest, notes from Sedona. More, from Zen Intensives, Awakening Women Institute, and solitary Big Sur adventure, coming soon]
Before I continue, I want to make two points:
- there are parts of our spiritual quests and experiences that should remain private. This is how we honor them and our own Sacred Space. This also prevents us from entering into conversations of what happened to whom. If we start being competitive in this area… first, it’s crazy. second: it goes against everything we want to do in the spiritual work
- when me or anyone else shares an experience, it doesn’t matter exactly what we experienced. Everyone’s experience will be unique. We take different paths to our inner peace and revelations.
Surrender and Awaken
In the beginning of 2017 I found myself in an orbit of Durga Ma*, a spiritual teacher and a translator of ancient texts (not the Hindu Goddess) Her teachings resonated very much with me and after every lesson, I felt I’m connected deeper to the Divine Matrix**, the fabric of life. When she told me about the event to receive Shaktipat, I naturally said yes, without asking about the details. I didn’t know what it is. I didn’t research this. I went with the feeling, I accepted it, in a search for a deeper spiritual experience.
DEFINITION
Durga Ma explained Shaktipat is the awakening of Prana (life force), while the awakening the Kundalini (DNA) is secondary here.
Definition from wikipedia: Shaktipat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch – the last usually to the ajna chakra or third eye of the recipient. Shaktipat is considered an act of grace (anugraha) on the part of the guru or the divine. It cannot be imposed by force, nor can a receiver make it happen.
Though I will not be sharing Durga Ma’s teachings, that have a 40,000 year old lineage (they are available directly from her, link below) I want to share some of my experiences during the surrender meditation, after the lecture, talk, and the Shaktipat initiation.
My Surrender Meditation experience.
For someone who have practiced zen meditation for over 2 decades, the Surrender, otherwise known as Experiential meditation brought a sense of a relief: more feminine, and not as strict. It’s a practice of surrender: of the body, mind, heart, spirit – to the Divine (The Goddess)
The “Technique”
It doesn’t come easy to me to meditate for a whole hour – during this event – it was. No anxiety I sometimes felt in a zendo. Whenever I encountered resistance from my body, whenever it became uncomfortable – I surrendered… Whenever I found my mind resisting, when it was elsewhere, thinking, analyzing – I surrendered. Whenever I found my emotions going to dark places – I surrendered. And that means always surrendering to the LIGHT.
As I allowed myself to surrender, I was guided on a vivid and engaging journey. Similar to a hypnotherapy session with a spiritual theme, or even a past life regression.
The Journey
- I started in the ancient times, looked into many faces, some were crying, I faced the lions, and walked in processions… not for the first time in my regression / meditation I saw white flags… Maybe the procession were for a priestess, whom I saw earlier.
- Then the sea waves took me to a sunny shore, and on a grassy hill above the sea, there was a white light structure, with few people walking around. it looked so blissful, for my own funeral. (later, I took these images and feeling, and allowed myself to understand and integrate them)
- My legs got so painfully numb, that the pain was everything I could focus on. I surrendered, and a calming compassionate energy helped me to go thru this. I was able to identify who it came from.
- Going deeper, and deeper I lost part of the story. I felt down. Then negative emotions brought me up to the surface. People I was (in the past?) mad at showed up, and the anger showed up to. Totally confused – I thought – I’m trying to be enlightened here. How can I meditate and be angry INSIDE of my meditation? shoo! And as I surrendered to the lesson, I saw how strong I need to become to keep such people at a distance. I also looked at the times when I am acting like those people.
- I surrendered… I lifted myself up to the crossed leg sitting position and I was smiling. Feeling liberated. Like I won a battle.
- DIVISION. I got up from the floor and felt divided. My left side was black and my right side was white. I could feel the division in a physical way, and I felt the line, the place the two parts met. As I attempted to remove it LIGHT started pouring from above. And my mind became light. (I looked up the meaning of both, color symbolism and in the tarot card, Temperance, because I left like embodying this figure, whose simplified meaning is Harmony)
- Then a door opened in front of my eyes to a space filled with light. Big, colorful flowers started blooming in front of my eyes. This is again not the first time in meditation, or guided meditation when the flowers much bigger than me are so alive, showing me the way. If the Earth laughs in flowers, could joy be the guidepost?
Though I have not seen the clock, I didn’t opened my eyes for the whole time, when 60 min passed, I opened my eyes, and my teacher walked in. I announced smiling: this is the end.
Beliefs are always limiting. Knowing is not. – Durga Ma
*You can find more about Durga Ma’s teaching here: http://durgama.com/
** I use the term Divine Matrix in place of “God” or “Source”