Surfing the Heart of Darkness: Suffering as a Doorway to Liberation by Amoda Maa Jeevan
Amoda Maa Jeevan brings to light the process of opening ourselves to the darkness of suffering in order to awaken from the dream of separation.
In this talk, Amoda Maa invites you to consider that the darkness we encounter in our personal lives and in the world is an volutionary driver for awakening out of the dream of separation. Very often, awakening or enlightenment is imagined to be a spontaneous transcendent state that leads to eternal bliss and peace. But what is often missed is, that if awakening is to be more than a temporary state, we are called to meet every vestige of inner darkness and that this is an ongoing journey that can happen either before or after awakening. It’s an invitation to open to all previously unmet contractive energies based on an erroneous perception of separation.
Inner darkness is where we hold on to inner division; it’s a blind spot with incredible power: the power to create suffering in ourselves and in the world. Amoda invites you to meet this suffering consciously, and then to choose to open wider than this suffering. Conscious suffering is the decision to walk with resolute presence and unadulterated openness through every inner and outer landscape through Heaven and Hell and to recognize what is true beneath and beyond all appearances. In conscious suffering, every step is a crucifixion and a resurrection. It’s a death of the archaic mechanism of ego and a rebirth into the light of who you truly are. When this light is seen in and as the heart of everything, a real transformation of consciousness takes place. As the Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba, said: “I love suffering, it brings me closer to God.”
