Revised editorial: The bedazzlement of awakening after many years of seeking, by Gary Nixon, PhD. 

I thought rather than writing in an academic way, I would share something of my own path, to illustrate the paradoxical path of awakening which points to the name of this journal Paradoxica. Awakening for this body-mind  was about joining a completely different and unique realm of existence.... an experience  that was very very extraordinary...and intoxicatingly relaxing and ordinary. Leading up to that day, all my years of efforts and seeking for this lifetime, and proceeding ones as well, were bottoming out, as if I was coming to the end of the line. A total out of control exhaustion swept over me and a very hopeless feeling of not being able to do one more thing anymore overtook me. It had all started in the early 80's  with feverishly high hopes as Osho discourses, then called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh talks,  had interrupted me in the middle of law school in my early 20’s. But, after many years of intense seeking, dozens of meditation and self-inquiry techniquess, hundreds of books, Osho, Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, Papaji, Trungpa and Western people like Adi Da, Wilber, Grof, and Almaas. and furthering my path by adding on a Masters and Doctorate in transpersonal psychology, and becming a transpersonal psychologist and professor, the way always pointed back to my first teacher, Osho. He left us with many profound series of discourses and books, especially on Zen and the Buddha with books and discourses on The Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, Take it Easy, The Grass Grows By Itself, Zen: The Path of Paradox, The Sun Rises in the Evening, and a very beautiful book pivotal to me This Body The Very Buddha.

It was the last book This Body The Very Buddha that summed up my seeker’s predicament, even mine after a couple of decasdes. As Osho asks in the first chapter, maybe your whole strategy has been wrong right from the beginning for this lifetime and many lifetimes. You have been striving for enlightenment and happiness, and always instead got misery and unhappiness. Seeing this, maybe you just need to give it all up and stop and simply enjoy unhappiness. Maybe it is striving that is the problem, and as I read this over this seemed to sum up my entire predicament. I needed to give up.

It seemed like I was in this totally hopeless place because literally there was nothing left for the self to do, not another technique to do or book to read so I just accepted this invitation, and gave up, and relaxedly dropped into utter effortless. It seemed like floating like a log down a river. No effort, no pain. So, I watched myself go down quietly, without splashing around and just be drowned totally into existence.  I had been haunted by exhausted efforts of during this life, but now things seemed over for me, and I sat calmly in this place of no effort. I relished in the painless joy of no effort. In the moment, very strangely I saw a big black Titanic ship of effort falling into the horizon of the ocean, and slipping into the ocean forever, gone. As Karl Renz would say, "little Gary" was executed. And what was left was just this vast translucent stillness. And as I looked around it was like I had been introduced into another realm of existence, or the suchness of existence completely....total eternal intense interconnect light, “Clear, brilliant, stillness” it had been called. Now I could see why the Buddha had laughed when he became enlightened because he realized the whole of existence is enlightened, and the funny thing as well it had been enlightened all of the time. It was only my effort and seeking that had gotten in the way. It was so simple, “this is it.” It was so beautiful, and so ordinary.

The paradox of awakening is that it is always availaible all the way along, "this is it" but sometimes we need an experience, a moment in time, that pushes us into the timeless eternrty where seeing and understanding happen beyond cognition. It is truly acausal, no formula or method can be followed to predict when one day existence shows up in the life of a seeker. It seems though perhaps there are processes that can help ripen the process. For example, a seeker coming to the end of seeking and becoming totally exhausted with "doing" seems to be important as well as working through unfinished business or trauma stuck points. For futher discussions on these and other topics, please review our assortment of peer reviewed articles for issue 2, all in some way dealing with the tranformation and awakening process.  (Comments on this editorial can be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

This article reviews how the nondual seeker comes to the point in the journey in which he or she realizes that the end of seeking is called for but instead begins to seek the end of seeking. As the experience of desperately coming to the end of the line intensifies with no resolution, the experiences of the rot, absolute hopelessness, and embracing total failurehoood, can set the stage for a spontaneous giving up and letting go. In this surrender, the death of the separate self occurs, and the person can come to a place of seeing that “this is it,” it is all available right here, right now, and has been all along. A nondual psychotherapy case study illustrates the point that an invitation can be made by the nondual therapist to the client to simply rest in this state of nothing to do and nowhere to go. The temptation to run from this state, which we have been avoiding our whole lives, can be monumental. Resting in this desperate state of nothing to do can be a vital opportunity to see through the illusion of the separate self, and to know that reality has always been available, right here, right now.

Gary Nixon, Ph.D. is a transpersonal psychologist, Associate Professor, and Addictions Counselling Program Director at the University of Lethbridge. An existential crisis at the end of law school in the early 1980’s propelled Gary toward a quest for wholeness and embracement of transpersonal psychology in his Masters and PhD. Gary was particularly drawn to the nondual awakening process as outlined by Eastern spiritual teachers such as Osho, Krishnamurti, Trungpa, and Papaji, and the works of western transpersonal writers such as Wilber, and Almaas. Gary has been facilitating nondual groups over the last ten years as well as maintaining a transpersonal psychology private practice.

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This paper is a chapter adapted from a completed, yet-to-be-published book with a working title: Awakening To Sanity: Being Sane In An Insane World—A Traveler’s Guide. The paradoxical truths of surrender and awakening are explored through seven key themes that each point to specific aspects of one’s being that are unfolded through consciously letting go of who we cannot be, to reveal who we already are. The seven themes are: 1) Ego-mind falling away reveals Awareness itself 2) Nature of the One 3) Darkness acknowledged/released opens up sacred depths 4) Seeing false identities naturally unveils True Nature 5) The crossroads of learned craziness and original sanity 6) I AM—Divine qualities have no opposite, only absence, and 7) Walking the razor’s edge of being in and not of this world. The seven themes are not presented as a literature review but rather to illuminate a shift in perception or outlook and weave a tapestry of deconstructing and surrendering the illusory separate self’s control. This release leaves only a blossoming realization of the already existing suchness of the timeless eternal moment, all that is real and true, authentic liberated Self or True Nature, and the opportunity for its embodiment.

Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D., is a journeyman psychologist in private practice, licensed since 1987 and in the field of Psychology since 1977, doing what works in standing in awareness, honoring intuitive wisdom, and moving with the flow of Spirit. He practices Presence-centered therapy drawing upon nondual presence, witnessing, inquiry approaches (e.g., belief-role-story-pattern-false identity deconstruction), EMDR, building sustainable strong internal resources/emotional capacities, taking in the good, and sensory experiencing. This one knows nothing, welcomes, surrenders and celebrates everything, purely engaging in being and doing what is loved. I am not here, only This, Being and now are here.

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This article explores the possibility of transforming trauma into sudden awakening. Within human consciousness exists an undisturbed stateless state of unconditional awareness. This unconditioned state can provide a profound transformation of traumatic pain. A descriptive account of the author’s own transformative experience is given followed by a discussion of the limitations and benefits of conventional forms of trauma therapy. The offerings of nondual psychology are then explored including their limitations related to trauma resolution. Nondual psychology views human suffering as existing in the belief in separation from what arises in consciousness. From this perspective, the possibility of transforming trauma into an awakening experience can be seen when a person is encouraged to embrace the essence of fear, the wisdom of no escape, and merging with the empty space of non-being. A client case vignette is used to illustrate this.

Brian Theriault MEd. CCC is a transpersonal therapist with a primary focus on trauma resolution and Stage II and III addiction recovery work. He facilitates individual and group counseling sessions in both private and government related treatment settings.

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Collaborations between depth psychology and the nondual traditions found primarily in spiritual traditions such as Yoga, Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, have been largely relegated to cautious speculation. This paper contends that these apparently disparate traditions are in fact complementary and symbiotic and that both disciplines might benefit through this union. Utilizing the common denominators of doubt and skepticism that depth psychology and the nondual traditions have extended to the concept of autonomous selfhood, this discourse provides a narrative of ego development and mental health told from the perspective of the Absolute, or Mind. It views the self-construct as an activity and conditioned belief, presenting an entirely new perspective for depth psychological principles that have remained relegated to the metaphysical hegemony of the sovereign subject.

Dr. Trent Leighton has spent his professional career dedicated to the development of a mental health model based upon the nondual realizations of the World’s enlightened and awakened masters. The evolution of this process has taken him through a wide breadth of spiritual and psychological teachings that have been “lived” in the lab of daily life and translated into effective counseling practices. After years of creating a successful private practice in New York City, Trent’s current focus finds him working with indigenous villages in rural Alaska applying the realizations of nonduality to those struggling with active addiction.

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There are varying approaches to, and levels of, understanding. The (Western) scientific approach is the most objective. It tends towards the concrete and is concerned, in the main, with the material world, e.g. as in physical medicine. At a more abstract level we have the rather more subjective understandings underpinned by psychological theory as exemplified by the various schools of psychotherapy. Finally, at the most abstract level, we have the traditional spiritual insights associated with relatively ineffable religious experiences linked to trans-symbolic practices such as meditation. This paper explores some of these relationships in the context of traditional Eastern and contemporary Western approaches to well-being – with specific focus on the awareness fostered in depth psychotherapy and mindfulness meditation.

Dr. Michael DelMonte is Principal Clinical Psychologist in St. Patrick's University Hospital, Dublin, founded by Dean Jonathan Swift in 1745. This hospital has very close ties with Trinity College, Dublin. Dr. DelMonte has a particular interest in integrated psychotherapy, drawing on his training in Constructivist (Existentialist), Psychodynamic, Systemic and Oriental (e.g. mindfulness) approaches to mental health, in his work with individuals, couples, families and groups. In 1990 he was co-founder of the "Transnational Network for the Study of Physical, Psychological, and Spiritual Well-Being" in Tokyo, Japan. He has published about 80 articles in professional journals and books on a variety of topics dealing with psychotherapy, mindfulness and meditation.

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This article is about the process of having a numinous experience. Based on the author’s dissertation, complex issues as to the role of sensuousness; the role of gender; and why Eastern-oriented compared to Western-oriented experiences are so different are discussed. While Eastern experiencers report an oneness experience, Westerners report a sense of twoness and the phenomena of inner dialogue. Focusing on the under-reported Westerners’ experience the study introduces us to Celtic consciousness by describing William Sharp’s experience and his relationship with his inner teacher, Fiona Macleod, which is a compelling example of the strong Western tradition of nondual consciousness in which Western men report female inner teachers. When compared to the more disciplined Eastern approach just the opposite occurs—no inner teacher, no dialogue and no self! An experiencer of the numinous encounter herself, the author agrees with theorists Michael Washburn and Lionel Corbett that the numinous is best viewed as a healthy and evolutionary growth experience. The article also invites further research on three major concerns: 1) Do all experiencers go to the same place? 2) Is our physic structure one of a dialectic triggering us to automatically seek what is missing and 3) What role do our senses and our gender play in this nondual/numinous encounter?

Shirley Klippel, Ph.D. began her journey in 1983 following a spontaneous nondual awakening that reconnected her to her Celtic heritage. She co-founded Brookridge Institute, offering conferences in Consciousness and Addictions, obtained a Ph.D. in psychological and mythological studies, and is now involved in dual careers producing documentary films and facilitating the Game of Transformation. Shirley’s research indicates that the ancient Celts were experiencers of nondual consciousness and her goal is to communicate this discovery. British born, she has lived in San Francisco Bay Area for many years where she maintains her “day” job as Director of Human Resources for a TV station.

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