Part 12 from Reporting from the Great Doubt, by Avikal
Since my late teens, friends and lovers used to give me this feedback: that I was intense – sometimes too intense – and aggressive – at times too aggressive.
It was puzzling, unnerving, and also upsetting to receive this, yet – at the same time – also empowering, as it was often a true and loving reflection. I have struggled with it and appreciated it in myself for decades. Recognizing my addiction to intensity, feeling proud of it, mesmerized by it, compulsive with it, and so on.
I have also been asking myself about the source of it.
A couple of nights ago in a very long meditation, I had many breakthroughs and revelations, and many pieces fell into place.
The main one was recognizing that all my life I have been walking on a razor’s edge between Beauty and Terror.
Since I was a child, Beauty was overwhelming. And having a very sensitive heart, it often felt too much – which would then trigger Terror.
For a very long time I thought that Terror was about dying. So, until I was 27, I kept death at my side continuously, as a reminder, a challenge, a friend, an accomplice and confidant.
I nearly died three times in my life, from the day I was born until May 1977, in Bali. Afterwards, that part of my life’s journey ended and – as I realized – Terror had nothing to do with physical death. From then on I started chasing, with total dedication, the spiritual death.
However, my attention was still in the wrong place, as I imagined that the terror had to do with the dissolution of the personality and the ego identity. I was way off!
In the last couple of decades, I have been learning to consciously get out of the way.
And through my work, in my relationships, in meditation, and in simple day-to-day-life chores and actions I can disappear. And Terror is just the overwhelming presence of Beauty… or as Rumi puts it: “I am a slave of that intensity.”
Related articles
- Follow the whole series: Reporting from the Great Doubt
Featured image: photo by the author
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