Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

AMENDED:

To finish what I started to say when we 'lost' you again (with technical difficulties at Satsang).  There has been a mini Edji in my head all week.  You mentioned to us last week about the importance of having one teacher, one teaching.  This advice was taken to heart very deeply.  I relistened to last weeks satsang several times to make sure that I understood your directions and I adhered to your advice.  I love the simplicity of single hearted devotion to one teacher and teaching.  There was no confusion, the mind was clear, the practice simple...Love the I Am, meditate on the I Am.  The love is definitely growing, surging through the body with great force at times.  The sense of presence is so much stronger, so obvious.  The sense of a seer that sees even that is also sensed more frequently.

You also told us to be alert and see that states come and go but do not touch us.  This has been experienced this week as well.  Moods, feelings, energies...gross and subtle manifestations coming and going and most of the time there is a sense of 'not being touched' by them. 

This heart is taking great refuge in the teacher and the teaching...the inner one and the outer ones.  The trust and surrender are growing naturally.

Thank you so much for the satsangs that we all enjoy so much with you.  They are priceless, the high light of the week.

Love you so much,

ED:

PERFECT!!!

I want everyone to see how different Robert's and Nisargadatta's teachings are versus all the neo-Advaitins' teaching you don't have to do anything, just realize everything is consciousness: the objects; people; furniture; sky; emotions; and the void itself.

They all deny there is anything beyond consciousness, which is the singular, main point of Nisargadatta's teaching and also Robert's, though he rarely articulated it in public. For them, consciousness is everything. I want to take people beyond consciousness, even though the knowledge of that beyond is in awareness, the I Am.

To me, the neos have only scratched the surface.

Back at me:

I had sort of a 'reality check' experience yesterday.

I was driving over the mountains with my three kids to do some shopping.  All of a sudden there was such presence of beingness, aliveness, bliss, love...  It was like the eyes were the lens on a camera and they opened up really wide, letting in everything; the trees, the cars, the road, the sky and the body.  Everything seemed the same but without a center.  There was no sense of a me driving, but driving was happening; no sense of a me seeing but seeing was happening.  Just pure perceiving.  So blissful!  It was hard to keep from laughing out loud.  The whole experience - at its peak - lasted about 20 minutes.  Toward the end the sense of the 'me' came in and with it thoughts of fear.  But it was all watched.  If I had to pick a concept I'd have to say it reminds me of what Robert speaks of as Sat Chit Ananda.  It is still lingering, but not as strong as earlier.  But just sitting here typing there is such spaciousness.  The center 'me' comes and goes and that coming and going is watched.   

There really is no one behind all of this is there Ed?  No center, no one to whom anything is happening, just happenings and even these are witnessed...

Ed:

Yes, when that state becomes "permanent," you are considered awakened, at least the first stage.

Very, very good.

Ed