The 'Hermit Phase' Of Awakening (The Void)
During a spiritual awakening, most of us will find that our outer life will come to a screeching halt for awhile.
We’re not interested in doing anything, our relationships are crumbling and disappearing left and right, we may even lose or quit our job and remain unemployed for a long period of time. Essentially, our outer life completely falls apart.
Our older self is dying, and who we are becoming isn’t very clear yet. We remain in limbo, in the void, sitting in utter nothingness. The phase of spiritual awakening that I’m describing is referred to as the ‘Hermit Phase.’
When we are in the depths of the ‘Hermit Phase’ we can begin feeling like we are falling into oblivion, never to come out. Of course, these are just the delusions of a confused and scared mind, but nevertheless, these delusions feel like such real possibilities when we are in the abyss of awakening.
When we examine the ‘Hermit Phase’ from a big picture perspective, we find that the void, the nothingness, oblivion and abyss are all just ways of pointing to the Space that Life is bringing into our existence.
If you’re anything like me, initially you might try to fill this space with ego and ego desires. The frustrations, irritations and loneliness that all of this space brings up within us can manifest in all sorts of desperate impulses and addictions as a way to escape how we are feeling. We may reach for sex, drugs, the wrong relationships, a job that we know isn’t right for us (usually a job similar to the one we just left) only for these cravings to leave us feeling more empty and low than before.
A beautiful and key discovery about the ‘Hermit Phase’ is that, while our outer life may be at a standstill, our inner processing becomes hyper accelerated. Life is providing us a golden opportunity to work through the countless layers of false beliefs, traumas and conditioning that we have accumulated through lifetimes of unconsciousness.
To initiate this type of accelerated healing journey during the ‘Hermit Phase’ is is crucial that we surrender into the space that Life is bringing us. This means letting go of the aspects of us that are attached and make an identity out of doing.
In simpler terms: we must surrender the doer within us.
Surrendering the doer within is another way of saying that we need to let go of our personal will. If we allow our identity of a doer to dissolve and let go of our personal will then Life itself can flow through us and guide our movements.
When we are able to surrender the identity attached to doing and have let go of our personal will we begin falling in love with the Space that Life is bringing us. We begin to fall in love with being and beingness. And because we are, at our essence, beings, this means we start to fall in love with our Self. We no longer want anything. And when we don’t want anything anymore, Life will suddenly begin filling all of the space with Divine gifts, created uniquely for you.
Falling in love with being and no longer wanting anything allows for you to come into total alignment with your fast moving life-stream. This fast moving energy sweeps you away and everything just flows effortlessly.
This is UNTIL your ego or personal will gets a hold of the fast moving, flow state energy and asks what it can ‘get’ or how can it enhance itself with this powerful energy. And when this happens, naturally the flow slows down and Life brings you more Space to let go into so that the ego can be submerged in beingness.
If we find ourselves fighting with Life for bringing us more Space because we ‘want’ the fast moving energy again, we can expect even more Space until Life has broken our personal will into a deeper surrender.
