Hungry Ghost Realm
“If only I could have the one thing I miss - I would be happy”
Imagine a time where you felt a deep craving for something. This can be something mondaine, like an icecream, a car, a winterspot trip. Or a craving for the big things in life:
“If only I could find a perfect partner.”
“If only I could buy an organic farm in france.”
“If only I could study with that amazing spiritual teacher.”
Now allow yourself to feel how deeply you long for it. What is the felt sense of that desire? And how would it feel when you won’t get it? Would you feel open and playful? Or is there a sense of contraction around it? Is there a sense that you have to get what you think you need otherwise things will really go wrong?
You know you are caught in contracted desire when you feel a sense of tightness around it. Even desperation.
In tantric psychology we identify this contracted desire as the realm of the Hungry Ghosts. That part of the human psyche that never has enough.
THE CLASSICAL IMAGE
The image that is used in classical buddhist and tantric cosmology* is that of creatures with huge bellies and thin little necks so they can never satisfy their hunger and thirst. With fragile little limbs they crawl towards the water for a refreshing drink but as soon as they manage to get something in, the water turns to dust or fire. Leaving them even more thirsty.
That’s the tragedy of the Hungry Ghost: always craving, never able to feel fulfilled.
*a ‘Cosmology’ is a view of a way in which the universe is organized.
The biggest talent of the Hungry Ghost: to devour EVERYTHING
You can have the perfect job, enough money, a beautiful house, a nice car, great friends, an an advanced spiritual practice, you can even find ‘the one’ - and the hungry ghost will eat it and say ‘what else do you got’?
This is a big one because it means that trying to satisfy the hunger will NEVER WORK. You will spend your days (and life) running around trying to accumulate cars, and money, and power and sex in a desperate strive for satisfaction, only to feel the sense of hunger grow, and grow and grow. It is an endless route that will in the end wear you out completely.
STEP 1: Becoming aware of the ways we do Hungry Ghost realm
The first step with working with Hungry Ghost is to become aware of how they affect our lives.
It’s a great Hungry Ghost signal when you catch yourself in ‘if only’ mind
Time: “If only I would have a little more time to work / exercise / read / practice.”
Friends: “If only I would have friends that where a little more sensitive / humorous / adventurous”
Sex: “If only I could sleep with that guy / girl”
€€ / status: “If only I would get that salary raise / new freelance gig”
Living: “If only I could move out of town and live in the country side”
And Hungry Ghosts love spiritual practice too:
Spiritual binging: “If only I could also go on this retreat”
Teacher: “If only I could study with that great teacher”
Practice: “If only I could learn that special kundalini breathwork practice”
Skills: “If only I could read sanskrit”
Initiation: “If only I could get this special initiation”
“The problem is not that you have these desires. The problem is that you believe that satisfying these desires will actually bring you more fulfillment.”
Why are our Hungry Ghosts so hungry?
Now let’s look deeper: why are the Hungry Ghosts actually so hungry?
At the root of all the hunger lies a misaligned view that feeling an inner void is something terrible. When you are doing hungry ghost realm (and we all are, to some extent) you feel that deep down, there is something missing. There is a sense of emptiness, of meaninglessness.
The feeling of discomfort with this inner void brings about the idea that we should find substitutes that will fill this void. We buffer the discomfort with experiences, money, status, power, pleasure etc.
The core of the Hungry Ghost suffering that we believe that accumulating more experiences will actually satisfy us.
The result: we are never in the present moment
The painful result of this accumulation is that we are never really present for what is here already. We are so afraid that we won’t get enough, that we skip over the opportunity to find satisfaction in the moment. As Martin Lowenthal and Lar Short explain in their great book on the 6 Realms ‘Opening the Heart of Compassion’:
“Even when we fill ourselves with something we want, we tend to rush through the process in our desire to overcome the pain of wanting, and so we miss the experience, like chugging a bottle of fine wine. The frustration of missing the taste propels us to consume even more. Finally, uncomfortably bloated from overdoing it, we regret having senselessly skipped the pleasure.” (Lowenthal and Short p.82)
THREE STEPS to Get out of Hungry Ghost Realm
Now let’s have a look into how we can get out of Hungry Ghost realm so we won’t spend our days ‘Starving amidst the plenty’.
Note: There are multiple ways to work with the hungry ghost realm, here I give a practice that you can do by yourself. It is actually quite an advanced practice but I like to share it because it works directly with the core of the teaching: the misaligned idea that the inner void we feel is something bad. We also work with more elaborate practices in which we dive into underlying needs that lie beneath the contraction.
STEP 1: BECOMING AWARE OF CONTRACTED DESIRES
The first step is always to become aware of your contraction in your desires. Can you familiarize yourself with that tightening feeling of how badly you want to fulfill your desire?
Reflect for a moment: in what area of your life is the Hungry Ghost most active?
With what activities, or in what context do you feel a sense of desperation?
Think of any situation in which you felt this most clearly.
Play the movie in your head. What did you crave for? Imagine it in full HD, be precise, include all the details.
Now intensify the sensations of this visualisation. How would it feel when you get precisely what you need?
Feel the sensations, how does this feel in your body?
The shift:
Then make the shift: how would it feel when you don’t get what you need? Feel precisely the sense of missing something vital in your life. How does that feel? Can you feel a sense of emptiness? Of meaninglessness?
STEP 2: FEEL THE INNER VOID
The second step is to feel precisely into this sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. It can often be felt as a black hole in the heart area. It literally functions as a black hole: it devours everything.
Sit with this feeling of emptiness. Intensify, if possible, the sensation of a gaping black hole in the heart area. Dive into it and feel your fear of the magnificent emptiness.
STEP 3: BECOME THE VOID
The next step is a subtle one and it might not land when you never had direct transmission of a teacher in a live workshop. But still, it’s worth trying:
Feel the all devouring black void resulting from your contracted desire. See if you move towards that void in your imagination. Go within. Experience for yourself if getting devoured by that black hole is really the worst thing that could ever happen - or the best.
What you by and by will realize, is that the void isn’t empty and meaningless. It is radiant and full of scintillating potential.
A share from my own experience
“I started to feel a release from the grip from Hungry Ghost realm when I started to feel the inner void not as meaningless emptiness, but as radiant spaciousness - full of potential and meaning. This experience opened up the meaning of a core teaching in Non Dual Shaiva Tantra: ‘all is primordially complete’ --> The idea that each and every moment carries the potential for complete fulfillment in itself. Completely independent from external particalirities. The direct experience of this released a lot of the pressure of accumulating worldly things in an effort to fill the void.
WANT TO EXPLORE HUNGRY GHOST REALM FOR YOURSELF?