When Waking Up Meets Growing Up
Cuando el Despertar se Encuentra con el Madurar
A reflection on the point where spiritual awakening and psychological maturity converge into something complete, and on what remains after that integration.
When Waking Up Meets Growing Up
A reflection on the point where spiritual awakening and psychological maturity converge into something complete, and on what remains after that integration.
There is something that happens when both of those come together that is final and complete. That doesn't mean you stop growing up. Growing up is infinite; it never ends. But there is something that gets completed, in a sense.
There is always potential for more. What I am pointing to, though, is that after total waking up and a very specific degree of growing up, what is seen is that the integration is done to a degree you could say is complete.
The traditional names for this completion
In Hinduism, or more precisely in technical Advaita (not what you typically hear in Western nonduality circles), this is called sahaja samadhi. In Buddhism, it is essentially the recognition that nirvana and samsara are the same thing. I mention this simply to name it as a recognizable stage.
What happens at that point is that growing up becomes the fun and the play. There is nothing left to get and nowhere left to go. There is no longer something that is missing.
Necessary but not sufficient
This does not happen through waking up alone. Waking up is required for it to happen, but it is not sufficient.
A note on language
One teacher I have been close to in recent years describes total waking up as a "liberating glimpse." When he is being more technical, he refers to it as nirvikalpa samadhi. The part I am describing as the completed integration he calls sahaja samadhi. In less technical terms, he simply calls it "the establishment of peace."