David “Davidya” Buckland‘s spiritual journey began in the early ’70s with an exploration of brain research and consciousness, leading him to Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 1974. After a transformative 6-month retreat to deepen his practice and understanding, Davidya began witnessing full-time and eventually experienced cosmic perception. Despite these profound experiences, he continued to meditate while focusing on family, career, and being a householder. In the mid-2000s, a shift occurred, and spirituality returned to the forefront, leading to further awakening experiences and reconnecting with others on a similar path. Davidya’s journey is chronicled on his blog and in his book projects, reflecting his deep exploration of Vedic Science and spiritual development. MysticMag finds out more.
David, what inspired you to start your blog in 2007, and how has your perspective evolved since then?
In high school, I developed a narrative that I was a poor writer. Blogging was certainly not something I had considered. However, soon after Self Realization in July 2007, the impulse came to start a blog. Then the writing just poured out. Now, over 16 years later, it includes over 2,300 articles exploring life, unfolding enlightenment, healing, and more. There’s even a chatbot for a conversational search of that content. I’ve published a book, Our Natural Potential, on the stages of enlightenment, and have two other books in the editing stage.
My perspective has evolved as I’ve evolved; both in consciousness and in experience and understanding. This has impacted my writing and framing. It will continue to evolve.
You mention approaching enlightenment and living in post-personal stages of development. Can you elaborate on what these stages entail and how they differ from more familiar stages of personal development?
Psychology has several models that describe unfolding personal development. How we grow from a toddler to a teen, for example. As more and more people have shifted from ego-based life to consciousness-based life, psychologists have begun to model these post-personal stages of development. Sages of old have described 7 stages of enlightenment. These are stages of development of our universal rather than personal nature. They pick up where Maslow’s self-actualization leaves off. In fact, we wake up from identification with our personal sense of self, hence “post-personal.”
Universal consciousness has 3 aspects:
a) the observer or experiencer, who we are behind the body, mind and emotions.
b) the observed or content of experience, the forms of the world.
c) the process of experience or relationship between a and b.
Briefly, the first stage of enlightenment is the shift from being a personal me to being the detached observer of our life as universal consciousness. This is called Self Realization.
In the second stage, we realize our experiences play out on the screen of consciousness, which is the same Self as the observer. Subject and object collapse together into one wholeness. This is called Unity consciousness. We are the world, even coming into the senses.
The third stage happens when consciousness comes to know itself fully, then recognizes its roots in Brahman. Words cannot describe this.
Interspersed with these 3 stages are the stages of refinement and the awakening heart. This is where all the layers between consciousness and the physical world unfold in awareness. We directly experience how the world arises from consciousness. And we come to recognize the hand of the Divine, the Divine in form, and eventually, pure Divinity beyond Brahman aka ParaBrahman.
The blog and book, Our Natural Potential, provide more details.
How do you see the role of direct experience in a spiritual journey, and how should one balance using concepts and maps with their own lived experiences?
Experiences are the content of life. They can inspire and inform. But they don’t help us recognize our essential nature. What is it that’s doing the experiencing? The key to a spiritual journey is the direct recognition of our essence. The Yoga Sutra describes this as samadhi. Regular experience of samadhi, often through an effortless meditation, prepares the ground for the stages of enlightenment to unfold. Then that essential nature can wake up to itself. This is Self Realization.
Concepts and maps can help give context to our unfolding experience. But the map is not the road. The mind’s concepts are not the journey itself. We have to go beyond the mind into our true nature to make genuine progress. Then ideas can help support us.
Could you share a bit about your approach to energy healing and how it relates to allowing emotions to arise and heal?
Emotions are a subjective way we can experience flows of energy in the body. When we have had big experiences in the past that we could not fully process, they leave behind energetic residues that mute our experience of life and can trigger reactivity.
Most of us have lots of baggage from our past. The residues of childhood traumas, ancestral burdens, and past life difficulties can all add to the pile. When we get triggered, we often suppress them again, adding another layer of residue. This can happen habitually and subconsciously.
An effortless meditation brings deep rest that gives the physiology the chance to heal. However, habits of mind and trauma can create deep ruts that need more direct help.
As we culture our inner nature, an abiding presence develops that can observe and not get caught up in what is arising in our experience. By resting in presence and allowing what is arising to be experienced, our backlog of unresolved experiences can gradually be processed and released. That is the essence of the healing process.
Avoid getting into stories about this or that emotion or experience. Allow and feel. Mind can label but not process emotions.
We can also follow sustained body sensations back into their energetic contraction. Allowing that contraction to be experienced can bring a wave of emotion and completion. Variations can be helpful for specific kinds of contractions. I explore more on the blog.
In your view, what are some common misconceptions or misunderstandings people have about the spiritual journey, and how do you address them in your writing and coaching?
There are a lot of myths about the spiritual journey and enlightenment.
One of the big ones is the idea that I am going to get enlightened. It’s not the “me” that wakes up. We wake up FROM the “me.” This shift is often called “waking up” because of the subjective experience of shifting from being a little, separate “me” to ourselves as an infinite, eternal being.
Enlightenment means you become a spiritual teacher? A few do, but most continue to live life as before, yet from a much more expanded, peaceful perspective.
Another myth is that emotions are bad and we should stop experiencing them. While we can go through a very detached phase, this is temporary. When we become established in the peace of being, the heart can open, undefended. The range and depth of emotions can expand dramatically. Universal love and compassion become possible, and to a degree we’d never dreamed of. This brings great richness to life. Emotions are not a burden when we know how to allow them.
Awakening is a peak experience? Awakening is a shift in being, not an experience. It changes where we’re experiencing from, which gives a new context to everything.
All of my problems will be gone is another. The same challenges and the same karma will still be there. Only now, in that new context, we step into the flow of life. We experience being supported and solutions present themselves. We come to trust life.
Getting enlightened is hard and will take many lifetimes? This is not something you do at all. It’s a shift in who you are. That’s the easiest thing ever. But it takes time to prepare the ground so the recognition can happen. Good practices are very valuable for this.
There is one big shift, and then you’re perfect and complete? Has that ever been your experience? We remain human, just living from a much more expanded place.
I discuss these various points in articles on the blog.
I also offer coaching to support those in a spiritual unfolding. Many people are outside of a formal tradition and its support. Or their experience of the process differs from the teaching they’re in. With a bit of context and perspective, they can be confident in their unfolding and know what will support the stage they’re in.
If you would like to find out more about Davidya, please visit https://davidya.ca/
