31 December 2010

Loris' Awakening is Unfolding


Dearest Master,

Yesterday morning in sitting meditation, before reading your answer to my last email, I was focusing as usual on the sense of existence in the chest area: suddenly a shift, in the head a deep silence, a Shiva silence, which tends to dissolve every thoughts and feeling; for all the meditation I didn't feel the head, like having no head.


It seems a process that deepens itself:


From that moment there is no separation, no boundaries, it is the Silence which operates, not an I, and there is no conscious choosing where to put attention, because the attention loses itself in this Silence.


The thoughts are there in surface at times, and memories, feeling etc. but all this last for a while and then Silence dissolves them in Itself.


It seems this Silence is now at the centre of personality and gradually changes its structure.
Yesterday evening, in sitting meditation, it seems Silence dissolved many mental-energetic structures in the head, in particular one deep-rooted in its centre.


In this morning sitting, Silence, remaining in the head also, began to come down and operated in the heart area: moments of bliss.


So, now, it is not an 'I' which meditates or focus attention, but all meditation happens by the power of Silence.


In the same way, non duality is not something to reach with a choose or with a focusing of attention (as before), but it is there always in background or foreground (that is, I am not ever conscious of not separation).


It seems a shift (I hope permanent) from a self-centered personality, to a Silence-non duality-centered personality.

But at a deeper level, all this has nothing to do with Me.

It is obvious I am not this Silence, nor this process: I am the One who knows all this, the Silence, the thoughts, the process of dissolution, etc.


In the last night, I was there, but there is a small period of time of no memory and the feeling that I need more experience of dream and sleep. Deeper, I know I remain and that I am not touched from all this: every change has nothing to do with me: I am the One who knows and experiences everything but cannot be known or experienced. Even realization or awakening seems a concepts: the only Reality, the only important thing is I, the Subject.

I pray for Total Surrender to You, the Absolute (which is I!)

Deepest gratitude Master,
is All Your Grace,
Loris


  
Dear Loris,

Your awakening experience is proceeding well.

The process and experiences are a little bit different for everyone.

This is the overall view. Consciousness wants to have hundreds of different stories about its nature. Ramana had one story, Robert Adams had another story, Muzika has another story, Rajiv has another story, and soon you will have your own story.

At this point you are doing exactly what you should be doing, letting the awakening process unfold through you without interference.

I love you a lot Loris, and may you save hundreds and thousands of humans and animals through an unfolding life of love and compassion and knowledge.

Edji

30 December 2010

Another One--On the Cusp of a Great Awakening

Dearest Master Edji,
I focus on the sense of existence, in the heart area, but when the attention goes there in the heart, the existence is everywhere.
In sitting, gradually the attention sinks and there is an heaviness like a conscious sleep, but I remain, then usually a intense sense of joy pervades every part of the body-mind and there is no separation there, and silence , then thoughts or other memories or perceptions in surfaces but joy is deeper (sometime explosive) and it remains (but is not stable in life nor ever present in meditation).

This was usual for me.

Now something began to emerge and settle: I.

I remain, all this experiences comes and goes.
The understandings are there at times and are not new: waking consciousness is a dream, all is awareness,  I am beyond everything.
Now the difference is subtle but important.

I am important, fundamental, beyond change, the experiences are not, the states are not.

I am what really matters and counts.

It begins to emerge: I don't care the experiences, even bliss, they are not me.

So I don't know who I am (to say 'I am beyond' is true, but this also is a concept), but I begin to disidentificate from what is perceived and that is everything: thoughts, body, perceptions, experiences, the sense of existence (personal and universal).
The last night I slept meditating: I remain in dream and sleep.

I am ever the same.
I continue to focus on sense of existence but the more I do this, the clearer is that I am not this sense of existence that is all,

I am totally beyond, unknown to myself, but the knower of everything.
I don't know what it means abiding in Me or if it is possible for me to experience Me,( I am Me!) but I know I am not  the field of perception in waking, dreams or sleep. I am not in existence.

I am beyond concept of existence I am beyond every concept.

I cannot say really I am the knower, nor the knowing, nor awareness, they doesn't sounds really true.

Every formulation seems a concept.

What seems nearer to Me is Unknown.
I don't think I am realized, nothing special.
My deepest gratitude,

bowing,


Loris

28 December 2010

AMENDED, NOW WITH TRANSCRIPT: December 23, 2010 Satsang: One teacher; energies and realization; the method of self-inquiry #2





TRANSCRIPT:



Satsang number five--method-2

Before I discourse on method, and this would be the second Satsang devoted to the method of self inquiry, there are two items that need to be discussed concerning happenings in our own Satsang group.
Rajiv and I noticed that many of you are asking each of us separately the same questions and seeking answers to these questions separately.
This is not a good idea for two reasons.
During a previous Satsang, I mentioned a preconception that many people have, is that all Jnanis are speaking from the same playbook, so to speak. That is, many of you believe that we have identical knowledge, and the answers to any question from two separate Jnanis will not be inconsistent, and fact may be identical.
Generally our answers will not be identical and may even be inconsistent. Rajiv and I have very different spiritual backgrounds and awakening experiences. You are likely to get different answers to the same question about almost anything from us, meaning you'll either be confused, or you'll choose the answer you like and ignore the one you don't like. This is not unlike a child going to each parent separately and asking that parent a question, or asking for permission, and getting a different answer from each parent, and thereby using one parent against the other. That is, if you don't like the answer from Rajiv, you can use my answer, and vice versa.
It is best to pick one source for your spiritual answers, otherwise you can grow quite confused. Even the answers you get from me over period of time will be inconsistent. This is the nature of words and the mind, and time and place. What was true one day, may not be true two months later because the situation is different, you are different, and I am different.
I think it was Emerson who said, "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Yet, spiritual students often try to make every statement of every spiritual teacher throughout history consistent, and get confused if they're not. Context is everything; the specific phrasing is almost irrelevant.
Many people ask me what Robert meant when he said so-and-so. You have to understand that each teacher has a different message from a slightly different viewpoint. Robert’s experiences were different from my own, and although I listened to him for seven or eight years consistently, after 1997 I went my own way and developed my own teaching paradigm and style. When you ask me to explain what Robert meant, I have to leave the paradigm I'm teaching from, and shift however slightly to Robert’s paradigm, however well I may remember it, and explain a phrase from that paradigm in terms of my words here and now. This is not fair to me or to Robert, because my best teaching comes from my own paradigm not Robert’s, and his best teaching came from his own paradigm not mine.
I tend to be far more analytical and emotional than Robert. Therefore I would explain a phrase of his differently than would he, if he were to elaborate on what he meant. It would be far better for you to try to understand Robert’s concepts within the context of the Satsang that phrase occurred in, rather than to ask me 20 years after he said it, what that phrase meant to Robert when he said it in that context. I won't be able to a very good job of explaining Robert compared with the job Robert did of explaining Robert, at that time, in that Satsang, in the context of that Satsang and the Satsangs  immediately before and after.
The same holds true of someone asking Rajiv what Edji meant when he said "so-and-so," or when asking questions about the mind or practice.
We tend to have different teaching styles. Rajiv likes to talk in terms of stages or steps. I don’t. In my teachings there are no steps, no levels, no progressions. Rajiv talks about dissolving in the heart. I don’t. To me the “heart” center does not exist. Rajiv talks more about love while I talk about knowledge. He talks about beingness while I talk about the I and the I-sense which points within. These are quite different approaches.
You also have to understand words are almost useless when it comes to conveying spiritual knowledge. True spiritual knowledge comes from looking within and understanding yourself within your own time, place and context. You have to become the parent, rather than asking a parent what your experience means. You have to find your own meaning. You have to do the exploring, and it is best not to ask anyone else what your experience means, because your experience is your experience, not mine or Rajiv's.
This is important. If you ask us to comment on your experience, you might get the wrong advice for where you are here and now, because neither of us may have had your particular experience, or we have had similar experiences, and when we try to elucidate yours from our perspective, we may make a mistake, and lead you astray.
When it comes to spirituality, words and concepts are best avoided altogether. One should just look within and greet whatever you experience with open arms of love and acceptance, and with that stance, everything will be revealed. Too much external curiosity, too much questioning, means you will continue living in your mind and never escape it at all. The way to escape the mind is to turn it off and just watch your sense of I.
The beginning and end of spirituality for those who practice self inquiry, is to find the sense of I, the feeling that arises when you use the word I. Just say the word I, and the feeling of I should arise momentarily. Find that sense of I, get into it and stay there. Follow that I wherever it goes. This is called abiding in the I. I'll talk about this in a minute.
The second reason not to go back and forth between the two of us, is that is doubles our work and the things we have to do. Already Rajiv business is suffering, because, unlike me, he has not yet learned to say no to requests on his time.
I hope this is clear. Please just choose one of us to ask questions about your own spiritual practice and what to do. It is okay to attend separate Satsangs, but choose one of us as your primary source of questions and answers about you, rather than going back and forth. Already many of you are too distracted by non-spiritual things, and will really suffer by creating further distractions because of different teachings.
Topic number two.
I have posted recently on the blog that too many New Age spiritual people spend altogether too much time worrying about the health of their bodies or minds. The more time you spend worrying about your bodies or your minds, the less time you are exploring yourself, which has nothing to do with your body or your mind. And as long as you are worried about your body and mind, that sense of I will always be rather trivial and secondary. If you are to awaken, you must make that sense of I your primary point of investigation every moment of every day, until the sense of I, the subject, pervades all of your mind, and you are abiding in yourself always.
However, in our own Satsang we have a related problem, and this is an emphasis on energies, healing energies, dark energies, light energies, etc. Focusing on these energies again takes you away from yourself. These energies occur in this world which we are trying to take you beyond.
You are beyond all of these energies just as you are beyond the world, but the more you fool around with these energies, concentrate on these energies, develop these energies, and use these energies, the more you are moving away from your true self and just re-involving yourself in another aspect of this world some of you consider spiritual, but is still of this world.
Really, don't worry about these energies so much. If you want to use them to heal your body, or someone else's body, realize this is a worldly activity, and is going to keep you pinned in this world unless the healing is done from 100% compassion for another’s pain rather than as an exercise of your talent.
Rajiv and I are trying to take you entirely beyond this world, beyond the relative, beyond the mind, to the absolute, and you can't find the absolute if you're hanging onto light and dark energies, healing energies, and other dimensions of energetic projections. Leave this stuff alone unless you're forced to involve yourself in it, or you do it with a total selflessness; then it is o.k. if not done too much. I want to take you entirely beyond both your normal everyday world as well as beyond these energies.
I would say this about any interest of yours, such as your job, your family, or some talent you have. They should no longer be your priority interest. Investigating your own self must take priority if you want to go free. Of course, if you are merely curious, you can do anything you want.
I became very involved with various energies and states during the first three or four years of my sadhana. I could feel the energies everywhere, emanating from trees, from the moon, from electric wires buried in the walls, from the magnetic currents of the earth. I was incredibly sensitive to all these energies, but thank God when I went to mount Baldy and learned correct meditation from Zen master Sasaki, all of these energies disappeared, leaving me in Samadhi. Those energy sensitivities never came back, and no longer diverted my attention from the most important aspect of my sadhana, namely me, as the subject, as the source.
Lastly, I wanted to talk once again about method, namely self inquiry as set forth in the Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, written by Sadhu Om.
The essence of this self inquiry practice, is to raise the sense of I, namely the feeling that accompanies the word I, and cultivate it, and continually rest in it until it pervades your universe.    I-I-I-I.
Staying in that I, and looking for the source of that I feeling, will open up one’s inner world revealing the empty space that contains everything, internal and external. That open empty space gradually is revealed to be oneness. There is no difference between the void emptiness within and the empty space without. Then the I will disappear and you become everything—and nothing. You become everything by becoming nothing.
Many people ask me about their experience and whether they are experiencing the I. It's as if many people cannot find an I to experience. I can only believe this is true because they are looking for something exotic, blissful, or expect that seeing the “I” is an end stage experience not easily available without practice.
But everyone experiences this I. For example, if somebody asks you how you're feeling, you respond “I feel so and so.” Immediately, as soon as you use the word I, there arises that first person sense of being the subject, I.
The I is nothing extraordinary, it is just that feeling of I that arises at the moment that you say I. Don’t look for some mysterious transcendental I. Just look for that feeling that you are, I Am, I. All the mysteries lie in unraveling that very ordinary I-feeling. Don’t be in a hurry to get to the end. Just stay with the I, or alternatively, look for the source where the I arises and disappears, which is emptiness, nothingness, the Void.
There is an apparent difference in self-inquiry as outlined by Nisargadatta, who states you have to find the I, or the I Am experience, and just stay there, and Ramana Maharshi, who advises you to find the I thought, or the sense of personal I, and seek the source of the I-sense and the I thought, which is the Void.
This is partly due to their belief systems and how they use the “I.”
Nisargadatta considers that I sense in the same way that the self psychologsists do, as a sense of presence associated with conscious and unconscious images and memories, as well as the I-thought. For Maharaj, the correct practice is to sink into that sense of presence, or I-ness, and by staying there, learn all about the falseness of this I, which at some point disappears leaving emptiness, and the knowledge or knower of emptiness, as the true self.
Ramana on the other hand, regarded the I sense and I-thought as sort of street signs showing you the way to the deepest levels of the self, the Atman, and eventually, to the absolute, or Brahman, which again is emptiness, but even beyond that, you as the knower or knowledge of emptiness. You are pure knowledge and nothing more.
Therefore, their self-inquiry methods are somewhat different.
Ramana recommended that you ask yourself the question, "Who am I?" Being dumber than the average person, I took that to mean that one mucked around inside of oneself searching for an I, whether looking for some entity in the inner void, looking for where the thought I came out of that void, or generally just searching throughout all of my inner experience for an entity that was me.
This is exactly what one should do. Be dumb, and just look without checking and thinking. Go deep inside. Find the I and find out where it points towards, the I-source, where it arises and disappears.
I will again recommend reading chapters seven and eight of the Path of Sri Ramana, Part One by Sadhu Om. This explains everything you need to know about Ramana’s form of self-inquiry.
In this form of self inquiry, you raise the feeling of I, as the first person, as the subject, as the core center of yourself to which everything happens. This is the ego, the I-thought along with the sense of presence, which is like a cloud of knowingness that interpenetrates everything, and then you look for the source of this all.
You ask yourself, “Who experiences such and such?” Turn you attention around and look for the I, the subject. The phrase “Who am I?" Automatically turns your attention inward, towards an apparent source somewhere inside an inner nothingness. You must become very familiar with that feeling of I, or I am, as well as the act of turning the attention around from outside of the skin, to inside the skin, into the imaginary space where all thoughts and subjective images reside. That imaginary space inside has to become as clear and translucent as the external space that contains all the world, until they are one.
Turning the attention inward, looking for the I, the feeling I am, the sense of presence, and looking for the source of this, gradually opens and expands the inner world until it contains everything, inside and out.
One does not simply repeat, “Who am I?, over and over like a mantra, but ask the question with a deeply inquiring mind once, and then just follow the attention inwards, towards the apparent source of I-ness.

As an adjunct to this practice, when you go to bed, gently probe inside yourself for that sense of I and where it comes from. Just stay there, resting in this emptiness, and watch one's sense of existence, and watch to where it disappears when sleep comes and destroys consciousness. Watch the I slip away.
As often as possible during the day, while sitting or laying down, look for the sense of I, a sense of I am, sense of presence, I just watch it, watch where the I thought arises, and where it passes away. You'll find it arises from emptiness, and passes away into emptiness.
Then in the evening when you're going to sleep, watch the coming and going of the mind and consciousness itself. Watch as the mind and consciousness disappear, and you pass from full consciousness to sleep. Make this a habit. All during the day search for the coming and going of the sense of I, the I thought, consciousness.
All of it slips away out of the brain and down into the body and the mind disappears and the lights go out and you sleep. Gradually will recognize that the only thing that seems stable in all of your experience, both waking and sleeping is a sense of emptiness, the void. Yet even that is not you. You are that which is beyond all which has the knowledge of the void. You are the looker, so to speak, who is watching the coming and going of the I, the I thought, the sense of presence, consciousness, and sleep.
Gradually your identification will change from that of being some sort of subjective entity embedded within your brain and flash, until you identify with the totality of consciousness, which is pervaded by emptiness as a constant, and that consciousness is much larger than your body, and in fact contains all of your experience of the external world, your body, dreams, and sleep.
This is the Ramana Maharishi way.
The way of Nisargadatta is slightly different. With him rather than find the source of the I, which Ramana calls abiding in the real I, emptiness, instead you find the sense of presence, the I, and stay there, abiding in the very primitive sense of the personal I, the very rudimentary sense of I that arises when a person starts using the words I and me and identifies as a separate and discrete entity.
Then, over a long period of time of dwelling in that I sense, it disappears, again revealing the void, sometimes the background sense of presence, sometimes a second void, the void of voids that Bernadette Roberts talks about, the absolute emptiness of the eternal God.
Then again, eventually comes the recognition that you are not the void either, that the knowledge of the void is entirely separate from the void and you are it, pure knowledge, without form or existence, entirely beyond the world and time.
Let us try this now; let us try to find the I.
Relax. Sit back in your chair.
Ask yourself, "who am I?"
Turn your attention around and look inward. Look deep within the darkness of your inner space to see what you can see. Merely asking the question, "Who am I?" causes the attention to look inward towards the source of the I.
What do you see? Just stay there. Experience the emptiness. Here nothing exists, only silence and only emptiness. If thoughts arise, watch from where they arise.  When a thought arises, attend to it for a second, and then drop it, and watch where it passes away. Go deeper, much deeper into yourself.
That is the whole practice, raising the sense of I, the sense of being the subject, the first-person, you, and just abide there, resting there, making this your total state pervading everything else. Just hold on to that state.
From this steady-state experience, you begin to watch the mind come and go, the world come and go, consciousness come and go, just staying in that sense of emptiness, watch everything come and go.
One just learns to abide in that sense of I, feeling that sense of I all the time, and from that sense of first-person, of me, to watch everything come and go, to watch the mind and ego slip away into nothingness, leaving oneself in empty minded consciousness. It is within the passages between the various psychological and spiritual states that the truth of the teachings lie.
One learns of a more fundamental core state of self that remains untouched by the transition between sleep, dream, waking mind, and Samadhis. This is a usually a sudden revelation, but not necessarily. You notice sleep has come and gone, but you were untouched by the change. That is, you did not come and go, the states did.
If the states of beingness and non-beingness come and go, but do not touch you and are not you, that means you are there always, whether you are conscious of that core level of sentience in you or not. You are beyond both beingness and non-existence.
The teachings come to you either suddenly with a specific awakening experience, or gradually, cumulatively, as hundreds or thousands of witnessed transitions without one's sense of self changing at all, until you recognize your immortality and separateness from all of these experienced states. You are beyond space and time and existence altogether.
Let us go there now, deep into your beingness.

First, I will ask, “Who are you?”
Instead of formulating a verbal answer, turn your attention around and look within.
What do you see? Emptiness? A solid darkness? Points of light in the Third Eye area?
Now I’ll ask, “Where are you?”
Turn you attention towards the listener, the hearer.  When you find the direction to look or hear in, just focus toward that target and hold your attention still.
Who are you?
Where are you?
Who hears me?

25 December 2010

Stunning quote by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

“God keeps breaking your heart again and again and again until it stays open."


Is this not true? A dozen deaths and each one breaks your heart, until one day you realize your heart is always open. You do not matter. Others do because their continued presence is so fragile.

I talked to my mother today in the rehab facility she is in in Sun City Arizona. She is scared and depressed about where she is. She fears not coming out alive saying her care is terrible. I go to her tomorrow with two dear friends to see how she is and what changes can happen. Old people (she is 93) without relatives guarding over them, are often mistreated in institutions.

To hear my mom call to me so desperately to come and help her was again a heart opening for me. A chilly fear for her passed through my heart, leaving me feeling like a little frightened kid again.

It is difficult for me to travel because I have become an old and crotchety fart with far too many cats who depend on me. 

Jimmy is now feeding about 35 cats a night. Marie, another colony caretaker, cares for over 90 cats in 17 colonies. I give Jimmy 300 cans of cat food a month and 4-5 bags of hard food, and Marie a similar amount.

Jimmy was out feeding cats all eight days it rained, riding in the constant rain on a bicycle over a 4-5 mile circuit. Jimmy is happy again, taking care of his cats, and Marie appreciates the help she gets from me.

But it is like this all over are city and the world: Old people and children who need help, as well as over a million street cats just in Los Angeles, many abandoned by owners because they move and can't take the cats (or dogs) with them, or cannot afford skyrocketing veterinarian costs. They lack heart, but many don't and feel their suffering deeply.

24 December 2010

22 December 2010



Hi Ed,

I found your web site in reference to Nisargadatta. My name is M. I'm 33 and undergoing a transformation that I couldn't explain (I referred to it as "connecting with the unknown" and such and developed it in artistic practice) until I stumbled upon "I am that" at the local library in a small town where I lived last summer.

In a way I feel like realization is inevitable, because I see this shift happening despite no effort on my part. I've become looser, more agile in my mental process. I can focus longer, interrupt and switch my attention, and therefore I can let go of things and see them dissipate. I find myself waking up from dream thoughts, with only a memory that I was doing and thinking such and such. At the point of waking up, I watch the thought dissipate and I feel "upright" again, or something like that. I've had some experiences, too, in meditation, though I don't have a fixed practice. I stay attentive when I can.

I experienced unification with my visual field - with closed eyes, I watched the constant buzzing in my vision, forming into images one after another, and then it felt like it suddenly expanded infinitely on the depth axis, I couldn't tell where I began and the visual field ended.

Another time I watched my body sense and noticed that it is like a shapeless shimmer, constantly buzzing. My mind constantly seeks to label "arm", "hands crossing", etc., by flashing images, but between these images was just a shimmer. I wondered "where does this shimmer come from?" and became aware of an empty background. I understood it cannot be sensed, since my senses are the shimmer on its surface. I tried to pay attention to it, to shift my focus onto this blank space, but I don't know if I succeeded. I then had a brief moment where I felt like a child again, like my surrounding space was something of my early youth. I felt contented, as if my mother held me, everything felt taken care of.

Last summer I had another experience like that. I was playing guitar, focusing keenly on the subtlest sounds it was making, and suddenly I felt like the whole world was one object. The separation between my body and the surrounding space seemed only superficial, like a technical detail. Then I felt like my body was floating in space, as if my limbs were disconnected and my body was hollow. This "space" was different than what I normally refer to as space. It was inward, it felt like space itself was hanging in this "space." I talked and heard my voice and it sounded distant; I could feel the spit in my mouth and the subtlest bits of pressure in my muscles as I was talking. I had thoughts, but it felt like they were calling out from a periphery, I didn't stick to them so easily. When I started to move freely I couldn't hold on to that feeling.

This whole level of "inward awareness" got unleashed fiercely about a year ago when I started to draw and began to ask "who is drawing? who is responsible for this artifact? what is expression?" (essentially I was being pushed to achieve in life, and began to wonder "what is achieving?" and used drawing as a medium for experimentation) and answers that I threw out there so quickly in the beginning slowly disintegrated into something resembling "I don't know".

Anyway, I can't say that I'm driven by a clear urge or a question, I feel like my day to day sinks into a strange comfort that the world is taking care of itself, I needn't bother with anything in particular. I suppose this is something like faith. I realized that the phenomena I rely upon so fundamentally is outside of my knowledge. I apparently move my finger, though I know nothing of the mechanism making that happen. Am I even moving my finger? I don't even know that.

This is an intensely private side of my life, it is difficult to open conversation on such subjects, and perhaps that's what drives me to make contact with you.

M.

RESPONSE:

Sounds wonderful.

You are playing around the lip of the abyss that you want to fall into. That hollow emptiness that pervades all is it, "it" in the sense of first stage awakening once you are stabilized in it. The hollowness feeling is because the sense of I disappears, destroying the network of thought that sustains the world and you as an apparent entity.

Having regular meditation periods really, really help. Just muck around inside looking for you, and the feeling, I.  That's all I should say for now since you seem to be doing a good job by accident and I don't want to contaminate that natural process happening to you. It helps though to give your inquiry a little gas with regular sitting.

Download Hunting the I from my website and the Nisargadatta Gita from Lulu.com. Keep in touch.

Good luck, Ed

19 December 2010

Jyota Se Jyota
Refrain:

Kindle my heart’s flame with Thy flame;
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.
May Thy Light banish darkness forever;
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

O Lord of yoga, Lord of all wisdom!
O Lord within all, O Lord above all!
Shower Thy grace on Thy children;
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

Lord, we thy children, seek thee at thy gateway
Appear in thy glory before us;
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

‘Tis thee whom we worship, praying for Thy mercy;
Love’s nectar shower upon us
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

For ages within us that power has been slumb’ring
Awaken Chitshakti within us;
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

For long in our hearts that ember has been smold’ring
To the music of So’ham awake us
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.

Immortal Soul, O Robert Adams (2x)
Our lives at thy feet we surrender
Sadaguru, kindle my heart’s flame with Thine.
You need to understand this very clearly: 


You are not your body! Leave it alone! Don't pay too much attention to it!

That is principle number one. 

Principle number two is that you are both everything, and nothing.

You are everything in the sense that you are the totality of YOUR consciousness; you are the totality of everything within your awareness.

And then you are also nothing in the sense that that totality of consciousness itself is merely a projection of mind, which itself has no substantial existence. The essential you is that which is beyond time, space, phenomena and the world, which is yourself, which is nothing at all, No Thing, no existence in this universe of experience.

Practice this as an exercise:

When you first awaken in the morning, totally relaxed, explore your awareness inside and out. Look inside your body. What do you see? Feel your body. What do you feel? Then listen. What do you hear? Do you hear birds outside? Do you hear a clock ticking? Do you hear a fan or central heating system? Do you hear your breathing?

Now feel yourself again. Do you feel the bed? Do you feel alive? Do you feel energies? Do you see your mind?

On the level of existence, all this is you. You are the entirety of the world that you perceive through hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting touch. All this is you. The body may be at the center, but be very aware that your awareness is much larger than your body. In fact, if you are probably more aware of that which is happening around you than your body.


It is almost accidental that the body is in the center of your awareness. Awareness is not in your body, your body is totally encased within your awareness. Your awareness is much larger than your body, and that awareness, the totality thereof, is you. Of course, were it not for the body, there would be no field of awareness, but you are that entire field, the length and breadth of consciousness, not that meatball in the center.

Now, that waking awareness was not present just 15 min. before. Suddenly it appeared to you. Before that, you were aware of dream and the nothingness of the deep sleep. These states come on to you, but have nothing to do with you. You are not touched by them. You are the same whether they come or go.

Believe this. You are the nothingness to which something and everything happens. You are beyond things. You are beyond the world. This is your true nature, nothingness. The body is like a disease that happens to you. It is best when it goes and leaves you alone.
My mother broke her hip 2 weeks ago. She is 94. The surgeon did an arthroscopic repair and she is in a rehab unit, soon to be transferred to a regular convelescent home for another 2 months. She is depressed and wants me to come home.


I have to leave in X-mas, as that is the best day for driving because we expect continuous rain until Monday after Christmas.


I'll be gone a week. The drive is 400 miles and I don't look forward to it. But, alternatively, I have flown from Burbank and then rented, and that is easier.

18 December 2010

Two more Robert Adams websites:









AGAIN--I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THESE WEBSITES!!--Ed
Robert Adams on the free distribution of audio tapes and transcripts.

"Student:  ... someone asked me to copy a few tapes for them.  So I get the tapes, I copy them, I call the person up and I arrange to give the tapes.  Robert Adams:  Good, good, keep it up!"  ~~ June 9, 1991 Satsang

Robert did not want anyone charging for his tapes or talks and we are following his express, recorded instructions in this regard:

"These transcripts by the way are for your own personal use and you can share them with your friends."   ~~ Robert Adams, June 9, 1991 Satsang

"Student:  ... someone asked me to copy a few tapes for them.  So I get the tapes, I copy them, I call the person up and I arrange to give the tapes.  Robert:  Good, good, keep it up!"  ~~ June 9, 1991 Satsang



“Some of you who only come on Thursday nights are not aware that we've got transcripts of some of these lessons. And we have lessons one to five, they are free of charge.”


“The fellow who prints them up, went to a lot of trouble so he was charging for them so I told him not to do that. I think the way we should do it is when we get some of these lessons some of us should make five or ten copies each and hand them out to each other. That would be the best way, so Ed doesn't have to make two-hundred copies by himself.”

“I allow the transcripts for one reason, because you only see me for 3-4 hours a week and the transcripts are an extension of my Self.”

“These transcripts by the way are for your own personal use and you can share them with your friends.”

17 December 2010

Often new age spiritual people confuse spirituality with optimal health and emphasize the body way too much.
You are not your bodies. You are even beyond this entire universe. Your body is only an experienced object.  If you pay too much attention to the health and needs of your body, you WILL MISS ENLIGHTENMENT ALTOGETHER.
This is gthe primary illusion--the identification with the body as ME, or I. Once that goes, awakening is easy. 
But every time you worry about the correct foods to eat, correct energy balances, correct exercises, etc., to make yourself more healthy, you delay awakening a little because you strengthen the identification with that tiny little body instead of the totality of consciousness.
Don't identify with the body. Pay it minimum attention. Forget about all the vitamins you should take and all that unless there is a real medical need.


The body is nothing. It has nothing to do with you--trust me. Leave it alone.

16 December 2010

This is why Rajiv will be a world teacher in the future. He breaks down my instructions into steps. I never would have taught this way. I say the same thing but in different sequences.


Rajiv:



See, I get a lot of mails from many people.  And they ask me about what exactly  is 
self-inquiry? What are the stages involved in that? What do I need to do to know 
what the ‘I’ is? These are a few questions that arise in everybody’s mind. So 
briefly I will just go through what exactly we have to do, as a sadhak, as a seeker. 
There are basically four stages, or four steps, that any seeker or sadhak will 
benefit by knowing about these stages. 


The first is acceptance... Acceptance of your present state of beingness. Many 
people have difficulty in that. Everybody  is reading a lot of things, everybody  is 
reading about Edji’s shower experience, Autobiography of a Jnani, and many 
other beautiful books, which are there. And they  are not finding or coming to 
terms with their own beingness. That is not a correct thing to do. I feel the first 
step any  beginner,  or intermediate, or advanced disciple, whoever it is, must first 
learn to accept his current state of beingness, whatsoever it may seem like.
So it could be the body  awareness,  it could be the I-ness, it could be an energy 
movement within the body, it could be a feeling of emptiness — anything. There 
should not be any  shame in admitting what your present state of beingness is. 
People want to reach to a state,  and that is a difficult problem. The reaching is 
nothing but by  the mind. There is nowhere to reach anywhere. So first step is 
acceptance. Only  when you accept can you truly  love. Can love be there without 
acceptance? Can you truly love without acceptance?


Say  you have a child. You love him, you accept him — howsoever it is, howsoever he seems, or he appears.  So acceptance leads to love, and love is acceptance, that 
is the number one. So you must treat your present state of beingness as if he was 
your own child. And that is where you have to begin your relationship with your 
beingness, by  truly accepting unconditionally  that this is my present state of 
beingness, and I am going to sink inside of it. I am going to love it. That is 
number one.


Number two: acceptance does not mean that we leave it unattended. Acceptance 
means that we watch over it — continuously, be aware. Don’t we do the same 
thing with our child? We love our child, so it does not mean we leave it, 
howsoever he is. We keep a watch! Every movement is watched.  And that is how 
the relationship develops. That is how it develops — flowers. How has it gotten to 
that state? It is by  watching, observing,  daily, deeply,  seeing all its forms. So we 
must continuously watch over our state of beingness. That is the second.


The third stage.  What happens when we are continuously aware, or continuously 
observing our state of beingness? We will know that awareness, that continuous 
watching, that continuous observing,  has resulted in our beingness changing 
form. The beingness has changed its nature. That will happen automatically.  We 
are not changing anything here.  We have simply  observed. We have simply been 
aware. We have kept a watch on it. And that watch itself is in us. That watching, 
that loving,  that acceptance,  will lead us where we will see that, or observe, that 
the beingness is actually changing form — it has become something else. And as 
my beingness changes form, that ‘I’, the one entity, also changes form. The 
observer becomes the observed because it is the nature of the observer to become 
the observed.


So what have we done in these three stages? We have changed nothing, we have 
not even looked at that ‘I’. What we have done is, we have only been aware and 
observed our state of beingness. And as that beingness changes form, 
automatically  the ‘I’ also follows it. It too changes form. That ‘I’ is completely 
dependent on that beingness. Completely.


As your beingness is, so shall be your ‘I’. So one must not worry  what that ‘I’ is. 
One must completely  attend to the state of beingness — lovingly,  affectionately... 
That is the third.


And the last stage. The last stage is as long as we are becoming something; as 
2long as the observer is there,  know that the 'I' still exists for you. That is a very 
important point. Many people stop in between. They  have some experience of 
oneness, they  have some experience of nothingness, emptiness, they  observe 
their nothingness, they  even become nothingness! And then they stop. They  feel 
there's nothing more to do. They conclude I have become nothing,  or I have 
become joy, or I have become something — that is it. But the fact is, as long as 
you are becoming, there is this ‘I’. Because, who tells me that I  have become 
something...  unless and until there is an ‘I’,  who has observed this?  That ‘I’ is still 
there. Isn’t it?  Inquiry therefore has not come to an end.


Inquiry  comes to an end when there is neither the observer,  neither the observed, 
and neither observation. No witnesser, no witnessing, no witnessed! Until that 
time, self-inquiry  is not complete. So we must not give up until the very  end. All 
becoming, everything that we become, is false.  It is still an illusion. Today  I am 
Jo-Ann, or Dennis, or Janet; tomorrow I  have become something else, then I 
become something else. But who is telling you this? There is someone who’s 
telling you this. So he remains. As long as I know that I  have become something, 
it is still not complete self-inquiry.


Self-inquiry completes when I become unknown. That is it. 


These are the four steps. I have tried to explain, through my experience and 
through what I learned from Guru Shri Edji, what he imparted to me, this 
knowledge. And I have tried to put it as simple in words as possible.
_