Back in 2012 I met the Dzoghen Matser Chogyal Namkhai Norbu in Pasadena, California and received the ati guruyouga transmission with the pointing out the nature of mind. I was under the impression that by receiving the transmission realization was instaneous. After the teaching I even approached Namkhai Norbu afterwards and asked him "Rinpoche I followed your instructions, but nothing happened. Did I miss something?" He laughed and said "just keep practicing." What was explained in regards to the nature of mind went completely over my head. Zero understanding. The following year he surpisingly came to Pasadena again and was hosting a 3 day retreat. After the day's teaching I approached him again to ask questions.
I said to him "Rinpoche how do I realize the nature of mind."
He looked at me and just stared into my eyes silently for a couple minutes then said "how do you feel?" I said "I feel present." He said "now relax."
I said "That's it?"
He nodded "That's it."
Again went right over my head although I felt something did happen in that moment. I was just unsure exactly what.
Many years later after returning from China I was driving to work on the 5 freeway in Orange County, California. The night before I read those lines "Moksha is to know you were never born." In my car, out of nowhere my heart cracked open and I experienced recognition of the Self. I couldn’t tell where my hands ended and where the steering wheel began. My heart cracked open and everyone and everything was myself. I felt that the hearts of all the people in their cars on the freeway were nodes in the network of an eternal consciousness. The cars were me. The highway was me. The sky was me. Every sound, every sight, every taste and thought was swallowed up in the universal Self.
Direct recognition of consciousness itself occurred and there was perfect realization of the deathless immutable witness. The Self had become disentangled from the prison of thought, from the body and from time. Consciousness was the Self, the source of all worlds and all beings. I abided in uninterrupted bliss and awareness for hours and hours at a time. The words and pointing out Namkhai Norbu gave me all those years before came to fruition. I knew somehow the moment I read Ramana and the moment he stared into my eyes were connected. I had discovered my nature. My left brain functioning was inhibited and it became very difficult to process loans. I awoke as everything and my heart had never been so immaculately perfect. This continued for 10 days. During that time I didn’t need more than 2 hours a night of sleep. In the early morning deities and masters appeared in my room during out of body experiences, which happened almost every night during that period.
Meditation was spontaneous. If I didn’t use my mind, the Self would abide in perfect stillness and continuity. I was one with everything, all the time. The percentage of moments in awareness during that opening, was 80-90% of total moment comprising the day. It was unbelievable. After the 10th day a sense of self began to creep in and claim the state of realization that had arisen. I called my best friend Ricardo and while experiencing myself as the phone and him also as myself, I said “it happened.”
He responded “what happened.”
I said “I entered enlightenment.”
Later that night thinking I was beyond all sin I thought why not watch some porn? This crazy heart awakening and self realization had occurred after 120 days of no porn, sex or masturbation, but by this point everything is God so what’s the issue? I pulled out my phone. Can't even remember the porn star I looked up. In a moment of regretful and accidental ejaculation, the I Am Everything collapsed as I thought the most famous word to all practitioners of seminal retention “Noooooooooooo!”
The sense of Ryan came right back to the forefront. The magic God presence and uninterrupted continuity was gone. The unity consciousness was gone. The explosion of seed imploded the I Am Everything! Disappointed and in disbelief I fell asleep and the next morning awoke as my ordinary self. I was cast from the garden of Eden. Ashamed and with my dick literally in my hand I was expelled from the benediction. I entered another dark night, now fueled by waiting and attempting to regain the presence I’d lost. At the time I didn’t have a teacher and even if I’d remained with my former one she would not have understood this state of realization. I spent the next several months waiting for that level of clarity and unity to return as if presence was an experience. It took a long time for me to understand that presence is not an experience at all. Presence is the nature of experience.
I’d have hours or days in unity consciousness but couldn’t recognize it to be continuously present. I was defining and conceiving it to be only stillness and all the fireworks that came with unity such as bliss and rapture. My understanding was incomplete and so I suffered. Gradually it became clear that consciousness was not a witness yet still remained to be conceived as a substrate, a backdrop to experience. The mind was like a mirror but the mirror was conceived to be something apart from it's reflections. Consciousness or mind was still a something. Still a void, a screen upon which experience arose and passed. At the same time this substrate was felt to be everything when eyes were open.
Presence was eventually realized as immediate. I no longer waited for awakening to come nor feared its departure. I realized presence is not coming or going at all. You're only either aware or distracted. Presence cannot be lost nor gained. It is only recognized.