Why feeling crap is a natural state

Essence-nature, the Source of all you experience, flows equally in all three states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, none of which are other than It. [In all these states,] the Perceiver never departs from Its own essential nature. || 3 ~ Spanda-karikas (Christopher Wallis)

N.B. The referral to God below is as taught in the non-dual Tantrik tradition which is none other than us as a creative expression of the Divine.

Over the past week I’ve been pondering over what to write. I feel like my head has been full of many different ideas but I haven’t been able to separate and articulate them. As the days have gone by there’s been a quickening sense of heaviness for not having produced anything and a subsequent retreat deeper into the cavern of myself. However, what’s just dawned on me is this: that cavern is the starting point from which to share from, and it’s perfectly in line with what I’m teaching this month. 

Throughout February we are exploring the concept of spanda. This is one of the most important principles developed by philosophers in the Kashmir Shaivite tradition of Tantra, the earliest mention of which occurs in Shaivite literature in the 2nd century BC. Spanda is a word that is challenging to accurately translate into English. Whilst its common translation of vibration is somewhat accurate, spanda is not exactly the same as the idea of vibration that is taught by physicists. Scientists teach vibration as moving outwardly into space through sound, light, heat etc., whereas spanda is actually the movement of pure Consciousness pulsating both inwardly and outwardly at the same time and yet not physically moving at all. Is your mind boggling yet?! Let’s continue…

When we identify with the Self, our Essence Nature, the Truth of who we are, it is a reflection of the inward movement of spanda, whilst the outward movement is defined by identification with the non self, or objects. As mentioned above, spanda doesn’t actually physically move within space but the essence of it permeates and regulates all of matter and it’s movement. In any given moment spanda is at work within us, whether we are aware of it or not. 

So how does this relate in terms of those days when we’re feeling a little ‘meh?’. Well, if spanda is always active within us, then even in our moments of feeling crap it is still there at work, we’re just oblivious to it. At this time we are identifying with the outward motion of spanda, through becoming focused on objects or the non self, and yet paradoxically we find ourselves in a state of contraction. This state of contraction, or concealment, is one of, what the tradition calls, the Five Acts of God. 

To keep this brief, because I think what I’ve already written is enough to get our heads around for now, the Five Acts - creation, stasis, dissolution, concealment, and revelation - are constantly and simultaneously being performed by God. It’s in the moments of concealment that we forget our true nature, we contract back within the self (the lowercase ‘s’ denoting the ego), and we can find our mood mirroring the contracted state.

The good news here is that feeling crap is simply a natural state of being. There’s nothing that we need to do to try and force our way out of it because spanda will eventually move into a more expanded state and our mood will naturally lift as a result. Of course, within this non-dual tradition there is really no such thing as anything being inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but simply any of the Five Acts of God in manifestation at any one time. To feel crap or to feel elated are both equally as valid as one another for both are ways in which our Essence Nature is expressing Itself through us.

The most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves when those meh days occur is to hold the space for ourselves to feel whatever is arising with loving kindness, and to be bold enough to lean into the discomfort with an air of curiosity as to what it may have to teach us. And if we learn how to listen in a deeply embodied way, we can tune into the subtle shift of spanda back into one of expansion and Self-awareness.