Awakening, witnessing… joy shedding tears…
by David Ciussi

From its 7800 feet height, the peak of the Monte d’Oro in Corsica “sparkled at the window” of my room, despite the night’s darkness … I was musing nostalgically about awakening, that inaccessible summit of the “highest consciousness of Being”… Since my tender childhood, I have been drawn to the “religious”; I dedicated so much attention to it! That night though, I was serene. I contemplated the power and mystery of the heavens, feeling vulnerable but amused by the obstinacy of my quest. As with any night, I was thanking life, existence and the whole of creation. Then, diving as usual into the depths of my inner self, I fell asleep with a sense of a mysterious presence of fathomless and extraordinary celestial beauties. I was a spectator to the spectacle of my spirit… a pageant of shooting stars, moons, suns, galaxies. Then … without me making any effort… mysteriously, life took me into its arms, with a fervent, affectionate, intimate and soothing embrace. Intertwined with one another, this union has never ended.

For thirty years I had been on the path. Each “experience of consciousness” that was given to me to live, lead me to “heaven” but a few days later it was “hell”… I had no instruction manual for the descent … going back to ordinary life was difficult. For 15 years, I had been a student of an Indian tradition, I recognized my inner experiences by reading the Vedas. I would “meditate” three hours a day… I was committed, passionate, ardent and sincere in my search but there was no contact, no verification, no friction, no validation, no encouragement from a Master whom I could easily meet. These roller coaster games were compelling me, giving me structure, embodying themselves in my flesh, giving me a denser presence; but at the time, I was oblivious to the process. I had to explore and test all the dead-ends of a naïve spirituality and of beliefs in external forces.

In the last 3 years of my search, daily and nightly “initiations” succeeded each other with a strong rhythm without manifesting themselves perceptibly in my “daily personality,” even though I was facing huge obstacles in my professional, social and financial situation. The challenges of loss and of detachment were coming fast… It is then that I discovered, to my surprise, that there were Sages in the West. I thus met Yvan Amar, Stephen Jourdain and Jean Klein. Meetings with these “lighthouses” illuminated me, allowing sometimes caustic but always authentic dialogues. Everything became luminous, evident. I was integrating the brilliant qualities of a diamond, although “I” was neither pure nor transparent… The Awakening was still but a concept. Then came that special night at a cherished Friend’s place in Corsica.

“I became the mystery, consciousness in the core of my spirit’s diamond purity, a presence such that it can’t be lost, abandoned, doubted, or misinterpreted.” In the Bing Bang of my spirit I felt infinitely loved, since always, the innocent witness to the unveiling of the secret of awakening. All was untangled, reconciled, soothed, simplified, immaculate. I am the conscious continuity of the natural states of wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep. "

“I am pure consciousness, pure presence without thoughts, I am infinitely that, omnipresent and eternal, and simultaneously I am not that… a sublime presence that leaves no trace; it is totally and continuously reborn, including past, present and future, in the fullness of its glory, now. Now renewed and reborn, now invisible and present, now, now, now…”

The beauty and splendour of that moment encircles my presence with a translucent aurora, thousands of sunrises and sunsets would be nothing but a pale image next to the splendour and magnificence of this embrace. At the center of my being flows secretly the movement of oceans returning to the Source… Nectars and perfumes exhale sweet aromas and flourish as in the spring of Eden just sowed by the gesture of creation… I feel blessed and baptised by the spirit of silence that speaks of the origin of all human languages… I am the temple and the luminous clarity shining throughout the universe and its galaxies… I am architecture and choreography; I see the sublime gesture of the sculptor modeling, chiseling and encrusting with precious stones each and every particle of his creation… I return grace… and my joy is shedding tears…

At this very moment, I feel a sweet and glorious gratitude towards the tradition of all the masters that initiated this path with the highest attentiveness.

The evidence of the awakening, for which I hoped so much, was finally taking root in my amazed spirit bathed in the grace of being baptized by divine hands.
The immediate consequence was to cleanse me of all my illusions and beliefs to reach the most intimate value of our humanity. I experimented myself as an Hologram of the mystery, unifying the microcosm and the macrocosm, paradoxes, diversity, the undifferentiated, the interior and the exterior. I am here and now, simultaneously individual, universal and undifferentiated consciousness.
All the value of the “I know, I don’t know” I was experiencing at the beginning of my search finally makes sense.
Living in the I-don’t-know state doesn’t make one ignorant or stupid, but on the contrary it gives inner omniscience and radically deconditions of the known identity, dual identity, identified with a personal role. Attending this sublime surge of the source of our origin also offers a vision of the “all here-all inside”, which is a sublime, intelligible, playful and innocent knowledge of the self, the laws of nature and of the human soul. This brings an ineffaceable joy and a feeling of cosmic peace that reveal the divine nature of all things.

At the very heart of my individuality, the “wizard-ego” mechanism is seen, and therefore, the illusion loses its power to fascinate and stops imposing a mental object on my immaculate spirit.

Once the metamorphosis is initiated, the spirit immediately becomes the witness and the servant of the Living Mystery, describing the now of eternity. Here the student unravels and discovers himself. The mystery of the pedagogy of joy becomes progressively evident. The way to use it appears and is continually updated. To illustrate, let’s remember that scene in an Indiana Jones movie where he has to cross an endless abyss on an invisible bridge. He must trust his intuition. At the very moment his foot meet the emptiness, the bridge appears. It is in such manner that I start to learn again how to function in a new relationship with reality and to witness that you are all free, at peace, and infinitely loved.

Living the joy of being the paradox “I am that, I know and I don’t know” is a playful way of accepting risk that gives in return the full bouquet and flavour to the spirit of discovery, showing all the potential of creativity and intelligence that human beings are capable of. Creation has an unshakable trust in its creature.

Yes, awakening makes a tabula rasa of all identification to a spiritual ego needy for admiration… Awakening offers everything, but gives no external power. It only gives the pedagogy of the movement of return to all things, a loving passage so intimate and so subtle that no external entity can enter. The frenetic search of the lost seeker has come to an end. The sacred and glorious present is the playground of the enchanted explorer.

The innumerable experiences of unity felt through the day and through
lucid dreams finally find their meaning and their pedagogic continuity, just like the thread joining the pearls of a necklace. This infinitely fine and discrete thread is the support of the different states of consciousness. This thread is constantly there in all the phenomena of the world of appearances. It is the natural consciousness given to everyone even if the subject is unaware of its existence. It holds the principle of apparition, maintenance and destruction of the phenomenal world. All this simultaneously, in all things and beings. For the individual, awakening gives the key to truth, reality and the glorious terrestrial moment!