Glimpse of Awakening

For the past few days I have feeling panic attacks again. And each time, I use Bhante Vimalaramsi's smiling method to overcome it. I have also been revising on Echkart Tolle by watching his youtube videos.

This morning whilst lying down in bed, my mind was racing with very negative thoughts of fear about my health after waking up from a dream about visiting a shop and driving a Honda car. Then, suddenly awareness arose that I am personalizing the thoughts of fear. And there was immediate relief.  I then remembered what Eckhart Tolle says about spaciousness around negative thoughts. That we suffer because we identify with it as me. A few times after that, negative thoughts tried to surface but each time, I manage of become aware of taking the thoughts personally, remembering Bhante Vimalaramsi's words about "taking things personally".  I also remembered Sadhguru's Isha Kriya meditation about: "I am not the body, I am not even the mind".

This was a glimpse of awakening. Prior to it, the method of meditation I used was a mixture of smiling and awareness of breath and relaxing and some remembering of Sadhguru's I am not the body and not even the mind and also Eckhart Tolle's teachings on trying to become aware of unconscious thoughts that try to pull awareness into it.

The immediate thought that struck me after the awakening was:  "Now I understand why Eckhart says that intense suffering can be your teacher and it will cause awakening". Because the pain was too intense, the awareness stepped back and saw that taking it personally was causing all the suffering. Awareness also saw that it was not the sufferer and it was already free from it. What a relief.

Throughout the day, whenever I felt negative thoughts begin to arise, I ask the question:  "Who does not like it?" to borrow Bhante Vimalaramsi's phrase, and the negative feeling subsided.