30 July 2011


Dear Edji,


I have followed both your website and blog for a couple of years. I also notice that you say love is the gateway to the I am and the I am is the gateway to nothingness, to the mystery of the self. I have the deepest respect for your teachings because you express my own experience so clearly and truly.

Two years ago I met a woman were traveling in France. Her name is René. We only saw each other three times over a period of three days.  But there was something about her that clicked in me instantly--the way she looked at me. She was very gentle, loving, and surrendered, instantaneously from the first moment we saw each other. I was taken aback, and sort of pushed her away, but she let me know with her beingness she loved me intensely despite my resistance. The whole situation was so strange. I thought this was something that happened to 15-year-olds. It was as if she had thrown herself at my feet in surrender, and I was touched deeply.

It turns out she was a follower of John Klein when he was alive, and was deeply aware of Advaita, as was I, who practice self inquiry for many, many years. Like you, my primary experience was always of an inner emptiness, where I was filled with peace, but no affect. Unlike you I was never a teacher, but a botanist. I worked with winegrowers the Northern California for many years, that is why was traveling in France as I do yearly.

So we shared that, a love of the infinite, but for her it was love of God, of presence, not of emptiness. She talked to God, and God talked to her. She told God she was lonely, and later she said God sent her to me to be loved by me.

We were together just a few hours, but a seed was born.

We wrote to each other, we phoned each other, and finally Skyped each other, sometimes for hours a day.

Something happened to us.  Anyway, her love for me opened me up, and like her, we had the most amazing loving experiences 6000 miles apart.

The process was the same for both of us, but she felt it first.

At first she felt it as an energy arising out of her belly and upwards into her heart, where her heart felt a little pain like a pressure as the energy was blocked. The pressure built up as her heart became filled with this energy, until there was like a puncture, and the heart blockage broke, allowing the energy, now felt as love, to course upward through her neck and face and upwards into the world and towards me distantly removed, as love.

Later, this energy began to be recognized as love immediately even before it coursed upwards, and what had been a weak stream of energy and love began to fill out in form, until it felt more like a river of love that filled her body and in which flowed outwards into the world continuously, yet still filling her more and more full, her entire sense of presence, with love. Then she would say she is the lover, who has become love itself, and she would say I was the source. At times too, the love transformed into heavy eroticism with alomost continuous orgasms on her part without any physical touch in any way.

This is actually quite a simplified outline. The process forms, and colors of love experienced by both of us kept changing, and changing, and changing both the quality and intensity. I had no idea love can take so many forms and have so many expressions.

This streaming love began expanding and happening more frequently, and it became more rarefied, and subtle, no longer seeming like a river of energy, but more like a gentle air, I gentle breeze which no longer moved as a current, but which became still and filled her body with ecstasy and swooning. She felt drunk with love, from time to time and went deep into a peaceful samadhi. This is another story altogether, how she gradually began to know about the infinite.

I just watched all this with amazement, and I felt so happy, so very happy that she was feeling this way with me, and because of me. Always, I too felt love of her and for her, which gradually became, as with her, a river of energy flowing from just below the diaphragm through my heart, up into my face and through my fingers and hands outwards the world towards her, and I too began to be filled with love, but only for her. I too had totally surrendered to her, my life, my soul.

Unlike René, I did not identify with love, but identified with me, David, as her lover. My love for her was always personal, and sometimes erotic, but was felt as a river of love running through me, filling me, making me blissfully happy, until I felt strong yearning and longing for her, which took away my happiness, and I felt like a crying little child wanting her love. Later I was to find that that yearning and longing, was preparatory opening to ever deepening levels of love. Love of a depth and quality that I never knew was possible, that I never felt before. And I am 54, and have been in love a lot my life. I am married with two grown children. I am very happy with my wife and our life, but my love for René had nothing to do with this and was entirely beyond this, in a way like an Olympic runner is faster than an 80-year-old with a walker.

Well, René is married and we never met again. But we continue to talk, and her love persists and grows, as does mine, but with inevitable ebbs and flows depending on how the environment is impacting each of us.

Sometimes it seems almost psychotically deep, deep childish fears and fantasies come out, and we both become a little nuts, demanding, childish, frightened or angry, feeling pushed away or abandoned, or otherwise narcissistically injured.


But soon I began to feel what she had felt. A rising energy of love in me that flowed upward into the emptiness that is my body, filling it with love, pausing briefly at the heart and spilling out into the world towards her. There was a progression. At first the flow seemed small, like a creek, but rapidly, over time became like a river, and then like and entire ocean of love flowing through me. Love flowed out of me through my face head, arms and hands, and mostly directly from my heart towards her distant presence.


Gradually just as with her, my love sort of became purified, lighter, more like air as opposed to a fluid, and my body felt filled with such sweetness, the essence of love, which was like a constant ecstasy which grabbed my entire being like a wrestler grabbing a child. I totally identified with the ecstasy of love, and I began to feel God's love for whomever or whatever appeared in front of me. I say God's love, because by now it was so great, so overwhelming, so beyond me, I felt it could not possibly be human.

Alternately we both felt almost drugged by the states of ecstasy that possessed us. Sometimes just saying a few words, like “René I love you,” sent her into multiple orgasms which gradually transmuted into ecstasy. I did not feel the orgasms I as did she, but I did feel the ecstasy, and a deep desire to be with her every moment of the day and night, which at 6000 miles apart was not easy.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, René is married, and we never met again. We never touched each other again as we wanted to, and perhaps we are afraid that if we were to meet everything would dissolve. So our love has become transmuted into God's love. That is the only way to explain it. The whole thing about how it started, how we never met again, and yet the love grows, and how the love permeates both of our beingness to the extent we both feel as one, is just so beyond explanation or beyond anything we ever felt before. Only attaching the word “God” to our experience makes any sense. I feel her presence in me all the time, and she feels me.


As she is very open, she told her husband as to what was happening to her, which has caused immense problems because of his jealousy--which I understand. It also caused her to feel guilt because she did not love her children enough to her mind, and her husband was always demanding that she love him more. He constantly tells her that they are married and she made a commitment to love only him many years ago. Anyway, this is entirely another story, but part of the "environmental" variables that affect day by day the intensity of how we feel towards each other.

Edji, you made a statement once that once, Muktananda wrote a book called, "I Have Come Alive." This is how I felt. Because of her love, I became alive. My own beingness is constantly suffused with this love that I have for her, and the same is true for her. Our sense of presence interpenetrates and are mingled. Sometimes I feel my own love for her, and sometimes I feel her love of me. They are the same. In a sense there is no need to meet, even though I deeply desire it, but I recognize that the yearning and neediness I feel sometimes, is a prelude to a deepening of this love, and it seems that there are no limits to how large it could grow. 


Already I have been astounded each time my love for her grew another step, but each step upwards in intensity, was followed by a plateau, and a diminishment of the intensity, which was again followed, almost as if I fell in love with her again, and the intensity would grow, and grow, and the quality of my love would change, becoming ever more fluid and vacuous, until it filled the emptiness that is me with a constant sweet with ecstasy. I fully understand when you said, "I am. I am. I am."

This was my experience too. The movement of love gave vitality to my sense of presence, my I am, purified it, rarefied it, made it more subtle, and more powerful. It is a constant unfolding.

I really don't know what your experience was Edji, but I feel something like this must have happened to you, and I love you for your ability to express the infinite with your presence and your words. Keep it up. I love you.

David 

11 comments:

  1. So many who read this blog have no understanding of the experience of very deep love. The deepest love, between two human being, is as "spiritual" as you can get, with a multitude of transcendental experiences of identifying with love itself, Christ Consciousness, or of becoming ecstatic to the extent of losing consciousness or connection with the world.

    These experiences are so far beyond what normally is taken as human love, that few can fathom the experiences found and lessons learned.

    The love we feel for each other can grow and deepen and mature beyond anything we have dreamed of until the Infinite intercedes and throws two lonely, but open soulds together.

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  2. "Come together, right now, over me"-John Lennon

    Is this not yoga?
    The union of opposites, this moment-sahaja, transcending the self.

    Shawn

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  3. WOW WOW WOW!!!

    So Honest and pure and so God Dam beautiful!!!

    Ricky

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  4. Edji,
    I still don’t get the love stuff or the orgasmic states that come and go, I use Taoist dual sexual energy cultivation, transformation redirection and use to heal, restore, renew, revitalize, empower and protect the entire physical organism. That practice removes all old, sick, stale, stagnant and stressful energy and mental and emotional dross while taking in pure unadulterated Qi-vitality for all action in minutes.
    Through Taoist dual sexual energy cultivation, transformation redirection and use coupled with Zen Martial Arts, the two positive and negative energies of sex and violence are in place as drivers and the energy which either blesses or curses depending on the positive or negative mood becomes a whirling force of non dual power in the solar plexus that can be used to drive the coiled energy at the base of the spine to the crown. Then the emotions which either bless or curse are replaced by sensory and extra sensory perception of a completely new dimension of consciousness and energy and a backward flowing motion of pure sexual vitality that is beyond suppression, indulgence, pleasure, ego gratification and sensation, remains constant in the individual without the need or desire for any other, because one is completely self-contained when the flow of Qi constantly remains in a micro cosmic loop. Only then as I see it can one share that bliss without the need or desire for any return of love or affection.
    The practice provides the rocket fuel to experience dual and sole ecstasy simultaneously before detaching from and going beyond perception of any other and thus remaining alone or All One.

    Just through this practice regardless of age, one can open, loosen, soften, stretch, ground energize and make flexible the body while simultaneously generating, circulating, leading, directing, packing storing and using Qi-power for all action, then no disease of mind, energy or body can get a foothold and a continuous regenerating flow of clarity, vitality, internal force and intention-power becomes available and remains ever fresh until the consciousness that inhabits this temporal form experiences every aspect of its dual nature and dissolves into no-thing-ness at will when it is ready.
    I cannot link the love relationship up, it still makes no sense when power that can switch from its dual nature to its non dual nature at will, is very easily within one’s grasp and although it is just a jumping platform, it makes more sense to me than any dual state or happiness according to circumstances. The deciding factor for me is that when a dual relationship whether it is with a person or a spiritual ideal breaks down or stagnates, there is no change whatsoever in the internal power.
    Over to you Edji
    Sam

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  5. Sam, what is it that you don't get about the love relationship? These two fell in love. There was no end in mind of development or transformation.It is all kind of mysterious.

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  6. Sam, I too have practiced redirecting and transmuting sexual energy into higher states of consciousness and increased vitality. And it worked, because the mind is a tremendously powerful thing and if you believe something strongly enough, it will happen.

    That being said, that particular practice was interrupted by a beautiful Spanish woman. I have had not practiced that particular discipline since, and the results are similar, vital energy flows through my being and I feel like a powerhouse of energy yet calm and relaxed.
    Furthermore what is going to happen is going to happen, and it is our destiny to learn, go through, and drop certain practices along the way, leaving the boat on the shore instead of carrying it across the land.
    If a woman your attracted to kisses you, you kiss her right back, because you may never know where that kiss will lead too.

    Shawn

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  7. Who is there to experience these energies?

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  8. Edji,
    I have worked it out. I don’t get love because I started Taoist Alchemy practise very young.

    My father was a missionary in Hong Kong and he helped three Taoist Warrior monks fleeing Mao’s chaos escape to the west. One of these monks was a Wudang Practise Master and I was very attracted to his warrior teaching. He taught me Taoist Alchemy in depth and after becoming a monk at sixteen my sexual, fight or flight and emotional energies were redirected into a completely different loop and I became indifferent to the sexual attractions, emotions and feelings of love others felt.

    All I wanted was to forge the Spirit and test myself in life or death situations, so I joined the armed forces and because of my martial background was immediately recruited to teach assassination skills to the Special Forces.

    This gave me the opportunity for action in the battlefield, centring in the chaos and world travel through which I came across Osho.

    After that encounter I took Sannyas, left the armed forces and went to Pune, because he gave me free reign in the School for Centring and Zen Martial Arts, the chance to live Zen Bushido and teach Taoist Alchemy to people whose entire focus was Tao, Zen, and Tantra etc. That is the way I see love and sharing and I am going to stick with it.

    My encounters with hundreds of people who came to the groups showed me that my energies were not flowing in the same way as theirs and now I know for sure I am not going see love as they do unless I change my entire chemistry.

    So thank you for your patience, openness and friendship; you have been amazing and you have gone out of your way to show me something I just can’t get, for that I will always be most grateful, because you and some of your devotees definitely stirred something in me that I thought I lacked. Now I see clearly that continuing on this vein will only lead to conflict and confusion about Paths, or states and how to attain the ultimate convergence in Oneself.

    I am more than happy with what you have already done and wish you every success with others in the future.

    Yours most gratefully
    In the Spirit of the Way
    Sam

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  9. Shawn,
    I practice dual and sole sexual energy cultivation, transformation and redirection and Zen martial arts because of their synergetic power and would not dream of letting them go.

    I practise with 4 inner core females and 20 or so others who come for retreats and sessions.
    Some are what is deemed beautiful and others are not. I find no way to differentiate, because for me there is only one female energy. Old, young, plain, or beautiful, it does not change, that attraction is life giving, healing, nurturing and at the core, One.

    For me Personalities will always clash and energy will always stagnate in a single relationship, which is something that has never happened to me and never will, because behind the attraction and repulsion of the personality in whatever form it takes, is pure female energy that unites perfectly with mine and there is no attraction between any of us, except that unity.

    All of the females have had orgasmic relationships, loving relationships and some downright brutal relationships outside practise and none of them would ever swap this pure union of male and female energy for fickle relationship, that's why I don’t get it and neither do they.

    I also can get the flow of continuous power and unerring calm through solo cultivation, but dual cultivation doubles the cultivation power and I cannot see the sense in letting that go, because I do not want to suffer daily energy drain and stress related illnesses or the pain of premature old age, sickness and death.

    I also do not consider Taoist practise discipline because discipline means to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do and I definitely want to practise energy cultivation and self absorbtion meditation because that synergetic combination empowers my body and mind daily, it is the pure elixer of life.

    Lastly. If a woman kisses me, before I kiss her right back I will first make sure she has done her cultivation properly and that her saliva is medicinal broth, if not a slap is in order, because that type of kiss will lead to the yucks and that leads to the ***** and back to the yucks with all your vitality lost.

    So no kissing unless the juice of life is flowing in it, then the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.

    All the very best Shawn
    in the Spirit of the Way
    Sam

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  10. Hey An ony mous,
    Who is there to experience these energies?

    Who is asking?

    Is it you know Who?

    I looked intently to see, but it was like looking for a black cat, in a pitch dark house, at midnight that didn’t exist.

    SPOOKY!

    In the Spirit of the Anonymous Ghost in the machine......
    Beam me up Scotty

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  11. Oh, I so get this. I experientially get this. Someone in my life has become the face of God for me. I am truly drunk with Love, ecstatic Love. A Love that caresses every fiber of my Being and flows out from there to my Beloved and recedes back into Itself again. I could care less about getting enlightened. All I want to do is Love my Beloved.
    God is Love, the Lover, and the Beloved.

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