Here is what Barry wrote about the session, with comments from me in brackets.

P's Session

P came for a session feeling there was more to what he was doing with feelings which was witnessing them and watching them pass from the enlightened or emptiness state. He also was still feeling some remorse from his “fall from grace” or descent back into more normal consciousness after his enlightenment experience.

[I have been sensing that there was a need for a shift in how I relate to what comes up and wants to be seen, beyond just witnessing. What I realized was missing was to feel into it (which I have in the past, but I got more stuck in just the witnessing lately. And although the despair about the fall from grace has been resolved quite a bit, there is still something left. There was a sense of not seeing something important about it.]

We went into a feeling within, and a black hole opened up within him.

[I saw my life before the fall from grace as golden, and the fall from grace period as blackness. I felt into the blackness, and was surprised that it was a comforting, velvety blackness, peaceful, and full. At some point, an image of a black hole (the astronomy type) came up, and also of being drawn into it - first my feet and legs and then the rest of me, being spaghettified as they say in astronomy circles.]

He was both drawn to and afraid of the black hole and the dark light. It feel very peaceful and soft and velvety, and he was very drawn to this. As he went toward the black hole he came into a large knot of fear. A fear of dissolving and becoming nothing.

[My body was slowly being absorbed into the black hole, and there was no way to resist it. At the same time, there was a fear of letting go - especially of allowing the chest and head area to be drawn into the black hole. There was a fear of disintegration, of not having any identity, and of becoming nothing.]

I asked him to simply be with the fear and thoughts and simply hold them in the inner space. As he held the fear it began to dissolve and he continued closer into the black hole. More fear arose and passed and as it did, he began to experience ripples of joy which became more and more intense. It got so intense he didn’t know if he could take it.

[There was so much joy coming up that I felt I couldn't stand it...!]

Then more fear arose. He went halfway into the black hole, so that part of his body was in and part of it was out. More fear of dissolution, then full surrender and he was in the black hole. Then he had a major realization that his body was one with everything, that at a manifest level he was one with all that is.

[With Barry's encouragement, I was able to allow the velvety blackness to hold the fear, which made it OK and I was able to fully go into the black hole.]

Sitting in the black hole little knots began to pop up. Consciousness would travel around the body, embracing each knot in the blackness. As this occurred the knot would dissolve. He saw that each of the knots was a knot of judgment or separation, hardness.

[I saw how the hardness of judgment and a sense of separation was not compatible with the velvety blackness. It was too hard. To contracted. And I also saw how my voice had some of this hardness in it, and would have to change within the velvety blackness.]

Then the knots began to unfold into golden light. He was all golden light from the heart up and black light from the heart down. Then it reversed, and he was all golden light in the lower part of the body, and black light in the upper. Then his right arm turned gold and the rest of his body black, then this too reversed.

[I had held my abdomen area with my left hand up until this point, and then shifted to using my right hand. That is when I noticed how the velvety blackness was in my whole body except my right arm, which was golden light. After a little while, the blackness went into the right arm, and the golden light streamed through the arm and then out through the rest of the body.]

He then remembered an image that his wife Jennifer put up on the refrigerator of a blackness void and the sun rising above it.

[I looked up and saw this Rumi card, black with streams of golden light swirling through it and a golden sunrise. I realized that it was the perfect image of what was going on for me right then, and that Jen had put it up and that she was my teacher in all of this. It was amazing.]

He was blown away, as he realized she got it also. She too was at the enlovenment diksha.

[Jen got the Enlovenment diksha right away, more than I did. I was puzzled by it, she just dropped into it. The night before this phone session, I had asked her to give me an Enlovenment diksha so I could experience it more fully and learn more about it. She did, holding my heart area, and we both experienced it strongly.]

He became aware that he had been reading about the darkness and knew mystics talked about it, but now he was beginning to understand. I found myself saying he had experienced the enlightenment and now he was becoming endarkened. He broke into joyous laughter of acknowledgment. He realized that Jennifer had been in the endarkenment all along and began to again laugh with joy and gratitude.

[It was pretty funny to go from the Enlightenment to the Endarkenment, and seeing that there is a larger whole holding and embracing the two. Even in the midst of the Enlightenment, I knew there was more. I somehow knew there was this too, but didn't know what it was at the time. Only that it had to do with far deeper, fuller and richer maturing and embodiment.]

There was a discussion about the three soul centers and how enlightenment is the head, enlovenment in the heart, and endarkenment in the hara. He could see he was moving into totally new territory, more than a new dimension of experience. A whole new dimension of being.
[This is a whole new territory for me, although there was a small intuition about it much earlier - without knowing what it was. Everything has to change now, within this velvety darkness. Everything changes.]

P was very grateful and commented on how he felt Karen and Barry were different than other teachers he had in the past. He saw that they were him, one the same. I told him that was the most joyful thing I had heard recently, and thanked him very much.

[I realize that with any teacher I have had, no matter how much I appreciate them and love them, they have still remained just teachers and/or friends, there has always been a sense of distance. In Barry and Karen, I see Source. I see right into Source and back to myself.]

P went off in the experience on his own, knowing it went on and on into a whole new dimension of being. I commented that he should take J out to dinner and to thank here for being his endarkenment master for so long, and what a tough job it was, just like it was for Karen with me.

[I am amazed that Jen has put up with me for so long. I can also see that I have helped her along towards Enlightenment. There has been some huge shifts for her there over the last couple of years. And how she has helped me along towards Endarkenment. There is a beautiful and amazing symmetry there. Perfection.]

I went out in the living room and thanked Karen again and acknowledged her realization of a Master of Endarkenment, realizing how this may very well be the essential new frontier of awakening on this planet.

[It is certainly a new frontier for me, in this lifetime. Although somehow, it seems familiar at a deeper level. And it may well be a part of shifts in the collective as well. I don't know.]

[Notes later in the day: Having been with this for a few more hours, it still seems to be a significant shift - along with many other previous ones. And as the empty light dropping into the body, this one of black fullness dropping into the body seems stable. I also see that this is most likely a taste of what mystics from many traditions talk about. There may not be anything new here, although the way it is expressed and unfolds is always new, it is individual and colored by the times and culture it happens within. I also realize that this process is pretty slow for me compared to how it is for many others. I have heard and read about this for a while, but not even tasted it until now. Which is OK of course. It all runs its own course, in its own way, at its own pace.]

Labels: currently, endarkenment, enlightenment, enlovenment