Written by: Sandra Ehlers, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What if you could feel ecstasy in the touch of raindrops to your skin? And what if the warmth of sunshine could evoke orgasmic union with the cosmos?
After a variety of bewildering experiences, I was beginning to realize the hidden nature of myself as a living being. Not only is our life force an inherently sexual, creative energy. What’s more, we can channel this energy into a more expansive experience – one of being in full body ecstatic union with the universe.
I know it sounds wild! Let's unpack this bold claim through more tangible details.
It's 2020. I'm out walking in light summer rain, droplets moisturizing my skin. However, this is not just the ordinary feeling of raindrops to the skin.
This time, being touched by droplets feels like receiving the most intimate kiss by nature; a shared exchange of a greater love. It sends thrills of pleasure through my whole being – an intimacy that in human language can only be compared to sexual union. It is a subtly orgasmic experience, soaking every part of my body in a mild ecstasy. Just like in the union of lovers in sexual intimacy, I and the rain are different bodies, yet there is a feeling of merging that causes these pleasant thrills within.
This communion with the rain was a continuation of a series of meditations on nature over time. I had been learning to let the boundaries of myself go, allowing my consciousness to merge with the consciousness of the elements.
Having worked with the energy of water, I’d noticed how water in all its forms – ocean, river, rain and moist ground, could give a sense of arousal simply by dropping my sense of separation towards it.
And similarly, sensing the blades of grass around my body as I lay down on the ground, or walking barefoot on soil, I felt the aspects of earth as deep, though subtle, waves of sensuality.
Even the warmth of sunshine to the skin can fill our being with an indescribable visceral pleasantness.
Something I've learned from all these experiences and more, is that this can be a felt experience on any scale. It can feel fairly similar whether we hone in on a blade of grass, or on a larger area of nature, or even on the whole cosmos.
How does this work? Can we all get to experience ecstatic communion with nature?
Yes, I believe that we all can. Because what I've learned is that this communion is teachable: the system for it is called tantra, and I will share more about it in future articles.
Just be prepared to run into the one thing standing in the way for all of us: the mind
In all its cleverness, the mind can find many ways to keep us from experiencing our innate ecstatic nature. If we aspire to experience something beyond the usual, we first need to understand how the mind may be hindering our progress.
How the mind holds us back – 3 key ways
1. We are afraid of ourselves
Without a doubt, the most important limitation to profound awareness expansion is the fear of ourselves. While this fear that can show up in endless ways, grouping and examining them can help our understanding. Let’s begin with three fundamental fears we all share to some degree.
Fear of questioning our self-concept
Imagine discovering that you are not who you thought you were. Take a moment to really consider the possible consequences. If the work or hobby you built your identity around doesn’t define you, then what does? If you find out that what you enjoy today was based on conditioning, is that still what you enjoy once the conditioning is gone? If you find out that your values were actually the values of your culture or family, what values are real and true for you?
When we are unsure about what “authentic self” means to us personally, the journey of discovering it may just rock the foundation of our self-concept. We know this intuitively even before pursuing self-expansion.
This fear of standing without a clear self identity is one that touches us at the core. Unfortunately, we don’t realize the magic we miss out on by holding ourselves back.
Fear of challenging our concept of love
As many of us who are expanding spiritually have noticed, aligning more to our own core values leads to unexpected consequences: we see our relationships in a new light. If we stay firm in our own values, the people we interact with on a daily basis can either accept them, or begin to distance themselves from us.
And if friendships fade away when we go through transformation and need their support the most – were they ever our real friends? If the marriage falls apart as we begin to expand in a new direction, was the love ever real? How do we know that love was real, when what we thought was love seems revealed as an illusion?
Re-evaluating our concept of love naturally feels threatening. If we want to feel a deeper love, we must accept this fear and not let it limit what love could be.
Our inner power
One of the most frightening realizations on the awakening journey is the potency of our mind to shape our reality. It is frightening because we are called to take responsibility for every aspect of life. What could feel more overwhelming, both emotionally, mentally and physically?
And if that’s not enough, awareness expansion allows us to see what else is possible. Rather than getting to stay in our comfort zone, new visions arise and call on us to step into a life of less limitation. This is scary, because we can see that in becoming a new version of ourselves, we must let go of the old.
So how do we deal with all this?
All the fears that arise when our awareness expands are real and valid. It doesn’t help anyone to sweep them under the carpet. To the contrary, acknowledging the existence of our fears helps us move through them – allowing us to move forward instead of staying stuck. Thus, we can stay in the stream of awareness expansion instead of allowing our consciousness to contract.
In short, walk forward with the fear. Embrace it, witness it, and watch it transform.
2. We fall back into ignorance
In my own journey of consciousness expansion, I keep noticing a tendency to forget experiences that were slightly beyond comprehension. I also see this in my work with others. When we encounter something extraordinary; something inexplicable and magical, it touches our entire being more deeply than we ever knew was possible.
Initially, such a profound experience may bring about overwhelming gratitude and awe. As this settles, and we begin to integrate the experience, we come to feel more established in this elevated state, taking it as our new normal. It seems unimaginable to go back to the old, contracted state of living.
Unfortunately, what often happens next is life. For whatever reason, we drop the practice. We let the sense of wonder and innocent exploration go. We become “busy”. And while our new normal may be elevated from before, a degree of dissociation from our experiences of magic creeps in; so slowly over time that we barely even notice. Let this continue, and you will find that your most wonderful experiences have been forgotten!
Why do we forget?
Daily, we draw on memories to create our personal picture of reality. Memories shape our perception of everything we see around us. And the selection of memories we draw on to make sense of the world, is as much subject to the law of attraction as anything else in life.
This means that when you are in an elevated state of consciousness, you will more easily remember your most wonderful, elevated memories. And on the other hand, when you are moving through a low, you will have an easier time to remember your bad memories.
To keep ourselves from forgetting our consciousness expanding experiences, there are two things we cannot afford to forget.
First and most importantly, whatever your spiritual practice is, meaning whatever you do to keep your consciousness clear and expansive, stay at it. It doesn’t matter what your background and capabilities are; we all need daily practice to counteract the relentless daily distractions.
Second, write your experiences down in a journal. Especially the ones that touched your heart!
Looking back at my own daily journal notes, I am often amazed by my ability to forget what I’ve been through. Most especially the memories that were most profoundly expanding my experience of love…
We often assume that memories that touched us deeply will be easy to remember – when in fact, the opposite can be true! This surprising fact brings us to the last point…
3. We are afraid of love
When life takes a darker turn, and we are deeply hurt by loss or trauma, we can find ourselves unprepared to move with full awareness through the overwhelming pain. Unable to meet it, the heart closes down. In other words, to some degree we close down to our emotions.
This is especially true for our most heart-stirring experiences, because they have the potency to bring up the full depth of our loss and ungrieved pain. To avoid having to feel the grief, a layer of “forgetting” is wrapped around the beautiful memory – pain and love are now tied together.
When this has happened, and we begin to recognize it, the first gift we must give ourselves is self-compassion. Remember that emotional self-protection is a normal human response to overwhelming experiences. We close down because we cannot see any other way forward. Pushing ourselves to heal before we are ready for it is often not very helpful.
Once ready to move through grief, something that can help is to expect yourself to be temporarily overwhelmed. If you can make the radical decision to accept overwhelm as it arises, this reduces your resistance to it, which helps you move through the pain with less struggle.
Finally, grief calls us to expand our very foundation of love. It challenges us to see that what felt lost still exists inside us. We are never truly separate. I know, it sounds cliché. Yet this is the lesson of loss is one we all get the chance to learn.
Grief, when fully felt, invites us to expand our capacity to recognize the love in ourselves. Seeing how we hold the key to love, we can then extend that love to others beyond our previous limitations.
The journey of inner union
A journey of awakening is always one of not knowing what to expect. We cannot help feeling unprepared, lost and afraid at times – but with practice, we can come to see the true beauty of the process.
When aspiring to union, whether with another person or with nature, the first step is the same as in all healing: to learn to accept and love all parts of ourselves.
We fear love because parts of us have learned that love hurts. When we learn to accept the truths of these parts fully, a space opens up within; a possibility to give ourselves a new experience. What if, in that space of possibility, we could teach ourselves that love, intimacy and ecstasy can be safe, wonderful, and entirely approachable?
Imagine if none of us had any fear of love – what might the world be like?
I hope you are inspired to see how inner healing is not limited to chipping away at reactiveness and emotional pain. Healing prepares us for new ways of looking at life and the cosmos altogether. From having a mind that constricts us to perceive only stress and obstacles, we can slowly and gradually move towards a vaster experience – yet more intimate than we could have ever imagined.
On the path of tantra, there truly is no limits to the love, intimacy and ecstasy you can experience. Other than the limits you place on yourself, of course.
If you want to learn more, I recommend the 3-month Infinite Love Immersion, specifically designed to help prepare for an experience of love beyond boundaries. It is suited to empower any spiritual awakening journey regardless of personal faith, free from dogma. A unique kind of Kundalini Activation is also offered as an option, as the immersion offers a safe container for Kundalini awakening.
Also make sure to check out current workshops, and how you can work with me on my website.
If you want to learn more about deep healing, joy, spiritual awakening, tantra, and other key topics, follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook – and join the Satya Sangha Newsletter for first invites, offers, free resources and more!
Sandra Ehlers, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sandra Ehlers is a Self-Integration & Kundalini Awakening Guide, Trauma Informed Yoga Meditation Teacher, Event Facilitator, Reiki Master, and Writer. Her work is dedicated to inner union – not only through expanded awareness, but as a lived, embodied experience of wholeness in the world. The focus is on transforming and integrating all levels of conscousness; physical, emotional, mental, energetic and spiritual – creating a foundation for deepened present-moment awareness, equanimity, aliveness, and ultimately, bliss. Alongside workshops, classes and retreats, Sandra offers 1:1 support to self-alignment through the Completion Process and other modalities.
