30 July 2012

Los Angeles Satsang was beautiful!

Hosted by Samantha and Markus in a beautiful setting in Studio City.  The energy and chanting were perfect. and we all had a marvelous time.






29 July 2012

27 July 2012

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

During the first six hours after I posted my request for donations, We Are Sentience received $1,600! Over the next 48 hours, we received another $1,800!  This is enough for two months of operations, including No Pet Left Behind, and the spiritual aspects of our work.


Thank you so very much!


A few people remarked that I should be more donor supportive with gift cards, thank you notes, and the like.  You are right.  The problem I have is I am only one person here in Los Angeles, and am always trying to balance how to spend my time.  If any donor wishes to contact me, they are surely welcome to do so by email and we can talk on Skype.  However, mostly donations come in anonymously, with me knowing nothing about the donors except an impersonal email address  on a Paypal invoice.


Feel free to write at any time and I'll get back to you next week after our live Satsang in Los Angeles.

24 July 2012

One day many years ago, Robert Adams called the Sangha all together in his apartment.  He was 63 at the time and had Parkinson’s disease and could not work.  The Los Angeles Sangha was two years old then.


He told us the following:


“Here is the way things are.  There is never a charge for the two times a week Satsang.  People are free to come and go.  There is no charge for transcripts, but if you find them of value, please leave a donation.  There is no charge for the all day meetings with celebrations held every two months. 


There was no charge to any of the many, many people who wrote him, or phoned him, for advice or his teachings from all over the world. There was no charge to those who went to lunch or dinner with him.  However, people were free to give donations.”


But few donations were coming in.  He was broke.


He said, “This is the deal you strike up by being with a guru or teacher:  The teacher takes care of your spiritual needs and progress.  He gives you the directions and lessons he thinks you need.


“In return, the agreement is that the student has to take care of the teacher’s worldly needs.”  Robert requested that people think in terms of giving regular monthly support donations.


Similarly, I am 70 years old and until two months ago was making money editing medical reports and psychiatric rebuttals.  I am in a lot of pain and need bilateral hip replacement surgery.  It is difficult for me to get around anymore, especially feeding feral cats at night.


But for the last two months I have dedicated 100% to taking care of the spiritual needs of students in terms of constantly producing new teachings on the www.itisnotreal.blogspot.com blog, beginning live online Satsangs again, as well as L.A. live Satsangs.  I spend a lot of time with students on Skype sessions or phone or email, providing support and advice as I can give.  All at no charge.


Our website, www.wearesentience.com offers hundreds of free resources, including chanting, taped Satsangs, downloadable books, etc.  All at no charge.


In addition, each night I go out and feed homeless cats and take care of their medical needs when I can, and often find homes for the adoptable ones.  In addition, I help other colony managers feed and take care of over 300 street cats. During the first year of operation, this effort alone cost nearly $10,000.

However, during the past month, donations have fallen to an all time low, and the past three months have fallen beneath the maintenance I need to feed the feral cats, and keep all the websites going, and provide financial support to allow me not to work, which allows face-to-face Skype and phone meetings, as well as answering many emails.


I may be the only teacher left of the old way who charges for nothing.


Please, if you find value in what I am providing, and what Satsang and our Sangha are providing, there has to be a significant improvement in donations for me to continue, and not go back to doing medical reports for income for the work of our We Are Sentience nonprofit.


The cats need you, several hundred of them, and I need you.


Thank you, I love you.

Ed


21 July 2012

Listen to these chants:


20 July 2012

All is Love; All is Self

Aided, I think, by all the Bhaktas in our Sangha, for three days I have been experiencing constant waves of bliss and "rivers of love" flowing upwards through my body.  The love is so sweet, so subtle and yet so vast, filling the Voids of the subtle body, carrying me far away beyond the mundane world.


Today I awoke very ill.  The energies that had been with me for two days seemed too much for this body, so I laid down in silence, not talking to anyone.


Something then happened.  My body melted into those blissful energies, and the Void itself seemed to flow.  Then a love so sweet descended downwards throughout my entire body, and then into my sense of presence.  Sweet energies perceived for days now permeated my presence as a divine breath of love.  I was ecstatic, unable and unwilling to move.


Then my Beloved, my Self arose once again from within, and nothing else mattered.  I, the source of the universe, showed forth, and I, as the witness, the cognizer even of love and the Self felt touched by her sweetness and her power. All were I.  All were love.  All were in completion.  I love you all.
Satsang Saturday, July 20, 2012; 6:00 PM, Pacific daylight savings time.


Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  See the instruction left on this blog for last Saturday.  


Please I urge you.  Stop running to teachers and books.  Look within, into the Void.  Buried there because it is so subtle is the I Am.  Feel the I Am, love the I Am, listen to sacred chanting, love someone deeply.


Then the self will reveal itself to you in a way of blowing "you" away in ecstasy, carried entirely beyond this mundane world.  You will fall to your knees in complete worship of yourself, your divine power as the creator of all.  Your jaw will drop in awe and your heart will be filled with bliss and the sweetest, sweeping love conceivable.  The entire world will love you back.

NOTICE
LIVE SATSANG LOS ANGELES JULY 28

Those who want to attend live Satsang in Los Angeles, Saturday, July 28, 5:30 PM, please RSVP to live satsang for all details.

17 July 2012


Beloved Eddie said,
The amazing thing you will also learn, is this feels like you are returning to be an ordinary you, Ed Muzika, Waldo, Victoria, Lila, Janet, except for the realization that all this too is you. Everything is you and not you at the same time. You become ordinary, watching or participating in life; it becomes your “choice.”


I have been feeling this very thing since the world, all lives, my life, and Adi Da, etc, were swirling all around the still center of MySelf the other day. It was all seen, all felt, all understood to be arising in ME/ as ME. No fanfare, no hoop-la. All that fancy "stuff" already happened! When we skyped the other night and I said I had realized that Da is me/ I am Da...IT IS TRUE. And it has absolutely nothing to do with mind or thoughts. It has nothing to with whether anything appears or not. IT IS ALL MySelf... everything and no one. I am the Light burning holes through the night sky...like an old movie projector, when the film would stall on the reel. 

Today as well, I was mindlessly writing about it to Lila, even as you were writing the blog. I am sitting here writing to you, and I am also that sun, farting in a Galaxy 50,000 light years away. I am the clock ticking on the wall. I am skinning a cat in China. I am the cat being skinned. I am the one signing the petition to end it. It is all pouring out of Me, the heart of all Worlds and beings. And yet I do not move. I have no Form, even as I hold it ALL in my arms.

My Beloved Da, and Santosha, My Beloved Ed...all the same, my own face. I can look a fool, an asshole, just myself, no shame, and no glory either.

I will get up in the morning, go into the bathroom, pee, and brush my teeth...and smile a little smile...


                                   ***************

Just now--before seeing your post for today--I was reading The Final Truth.  And laughing. It was as clear and obvious as reading the Cleveland Heights phone book...[more on that in a moment.] 

Earlier I wrote to Waldo...told him Da showed it all to me...every single piece of it...in the first three weeks I knew ofhim in 1975. I just couldn't hold it then...but even 3 weeks felt pretty damn good!

All that happened just from hearing his voice on two cassette tapes and mediating on his photo. He gave it ALL to me, Ed. I lived it/as it those 20 days...felt like the "pied piper" at times... strangers on the street...at school, etc...were following me around like happy puppies...happy and laughing and having no idea why. People would stand next to me on the bus and go into bliss. Most days I wouldn't even remember to get off at my stop.


Believe it or not, I was living in Cleveland Heights, just off Coventry Rd, the Haight-Ashbury of Ohio, yes? Pretty hilarious. Went by Case on my way to classes everyday...pre-med...yep, I gave up a full-ride scholarship to move to California to be with my Crazy Da. So many things...all clicking into place like a giant jig-saw puzzle...click...click...click...

I knew coming to you would be the end of "me"...click

I love "YOU" with all my heart...and always have...click...click

Your Victoria

Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta’s teacher had a somewhat different ontology and a somewhat different method.

He said essentially there were two Is: the I of the mind and identification, and which was resident in the subtle body as a concept, and the much deeper feeling of “I Amness,” which was the Fourth Body, or Turiya.  This is exactly the same view as had Ramana Maharshi.

Nisargadatta, at the end of his life, had the opinion you only had to listen to his words, ponder their meaning, and abide in the I Am, in order to become liberated.  Siddharameshwar said the path was all about meditative introspection, hunting through the layers of consciousness to find the I Am.

For Siddharameshwar there were four bodies to be conceived of and found through progressive, guided meditation with the teacher, always hunting for the I.  There was the physical body and the world, the world of the mind (Subtle Body) with its thinking, feeling, discrimination, concepts, and the inner experience of space or the Void.  Then there was the body of forgetfulness (Causal Body), which takes away the knowledge of the body and the mind, leaving one empty and sensitive to more subtle layers.

Next is what he called the Supracausal body, which Ramana and he both also called Turiya, or the fourth state.  This is the I Am, the deepest level of embodied consciousness.

All three, Ramana, Siddharameshwar, and Nisargadatta said this part of one’s self is found in meditative introspection on the sense of I, or I Amness, or of just Amness.  Through meditation the successive bodies or layers are revealed as one get progressively more discriminatively subtle.  Ramana and Siddharameshwar placed far more emphasis on introspection and abiding in the I, or the I Am sensation, while Maharaj placed more emphasis later in his life on the presence of the guru, and listening to his words.  Earlier, he was far more devotional.

Now, Siddharameshwar said that with the guidance of the guru, the student finally penetrates through to the I Am level and needs to abide there.  The I Am level is all about love.  The I Am level, Turiya, in a sense is love itself.

This too is my discovery.  You can best find the I Am level inside yourself through love, first by loving that sense of I Am you find through introspection, and then also by borrowing the love you feel for another within oneself, and realizing you are love itself, for the Self, which is Turiya, is perfect love and devotion, and surrender.  Way before Self-realization, you will increasingly have experiences of bliss, awe, love, energies and ecstasies that both race through your sense of presence, and also fill it with ecstatic states.  Your body will seem torn asunder by unimaginable love flowing, bliss and even more.  It really cannot be described very well.

Then one day, after you have loved long enough and hard enough, the Self rises from within and exposes itself to you, and you, the small self, will fall to your knees in absolute awe and devotion.  You will feel the grace of God even if you do not believe in God.  You will feel the divine rising within you, just as Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna and you will fall to your knees in complete love, surrender and devotion. 

All three agree on the next step.  At some point during your devotion to the Self, to the I Am, while abiding in Turiya, Samadhi, the I Am, that sense of blissful, ecstatic presence, will abruptly leave and you will recognize yourself as that which has supported all, the principle that knows and supports the universe, and also supports the I Am.  The amazing thing you will also learn, is this feels like you are returning to be an ordinary you, Ed Muzika, Waldo, Victoria, Lila, Janet, except for the realization that all this too is you. Everything is you and not you at the same time.  You become ordinary, watching or participating in life; it becomes your “choice.”

Siddharameshwar here is both Jnani and Bhakti as is Ramana. Nisargdatta is no longer a Bhakta at the end of his life.  He says that even after the I Am falls away, even after you have penetrated through Turiya and have rested in what you are, you must continue to find and worship the I Am, the Self within, the Self of All.  This continued worship is what adds sweetness and wetness to non-phenomenal existence, because otherwise, so many Jnanis burn out and dry up, as happened to me, until someone blew life into me again.

16 July 2012


Nisargadatta in a nutshell:

You as a body/mind were born.  You lived totally involved with the world and your own instincts and desires, 100% involved, but not aware of yourself as an identity, a human.

Then one day, out of nowhere, sometimes between the age of 1-1/2 and 4, it dawned on you that you were alive and existed.  The I Am was born!  You began then an existence of self-awareness, self-consciousness, aware not only of your wants and needs, but the realities imposed by the world.

Thus was born the beginnings of getting your wants and needs fulfilled through various adaptive strategies, including using your intelligence to create situations or items to fulfill your needs.  You flaunt your intelligence to gain recognition or love.  Later you may flaunt your sexuality, maleness or femaleness to get what you want.

At school you learn reading, writing, social skills, debating and how to be obedient and a good consumer.  You learn all kinds of things that you integrate into your self-image, which is opposed to a non-self image also developing, namely the external world. Now you have contracted from being the world down to living in a mental creation.  Everything, all external data, all internal feelings and energies are mediated by mind.  You no longer live in the real world but a mediated world.

All this is knowledge.

The first knowledge was “I Am.”  Before that, though you existed, I, as an entity was not born.  Before that you existed, functioning perfectly, instinctually, then the I am was born and everything got fucked up.

After that you were just knowledge, and in deep sleep, the knowledge was lost.  Peace.  But still you existed, just as you did before the I was born.

First you have unknowing, not knowing.  Then knowningness came and then it went, back and forth.  But you always exist.  You really are that principle that knows.  You are the one who contains both knowing and not knowing.

This principle is the same in all sentient beings.  Everyone has the knowing potential. There is only one kind of knowing principle and it is embodied in all sentient beings.  We all share that as the base.

When your body mind dies, that sentience dies in you and with it, your I Am. But the sentience, the knowingness principle continues on throughout the universe.

But Maharaj says it is this I Am that causes all the world’s problems and is your master.  How to end it and find total freedom from the needs and drives of the I Am?

He says to find the I Am in us, abide in it, love it, and one day, but endless loving, it will go, it will release you from its clutches once the original you, the principle behind knowingness, recognizes you still exist even when the I Am has disappeared.

The I Amness has two qualities, love and the generator of all activity.  The I Am rules all.  It is the beginning and end of everything that is visible and in experience, but YOU, as the ultimate who holds even the I Am and God and the world in existence, are beyond all that.

The trick I am adding to Nisargadtta’s method, is to add the love you find for another, recognize that it is a love for another that arises in you, focus on it, and become love itself. Once you can identify with love itself, the Self, the universal holder of the I Am, the pure I Am of all, will reveal itself to you as the most awe inspiring entity. The grace of God will flow into you, and you will be completely happy, completely ecstatic.

But you must understand, you, as you take yourself to be, are only an idea.  You are a story, not an entity, not your body.  You don’t exist as any entity. But what you really are is the power of knowing or not knowing.  Still you are not an entity; you are the principle that sustains the universe, and that which understands these words.

The Video and photos below are about the fur trade in China. PETA estimates 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs are skinned alive for their fur.  Cats and dogs are not the only animals so treated.


Personally, I feel outrage.  I feel it also about animals killed for meat in the US.  But there is a world-wide movement to stop the dog and cat fur trade, as well as eating dogs in China, Korea and elsewhere.  Some call this hypocritical because not all animals get so favorable treatment by the American general public.  I call it a beginning of awakening of conscience in the U.S., why denigrate it?




http://www.causes.com/causes/259-peta-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals/actions/1532182

15 July 2012

Satsang was a smashing success.  I was not closely watching the statitics, but our first Satsand had 35 attendees at one point, which is more than double the average that attended our old satsangs.


I even heard from one attendee that she tried to come to Satsang a year ago when Jo Ann was running it, but discontinued because she was told that all newcomers were being screened to detect and reject "negative energies."  That is, each person had to go through at least two or three interviews with Jo Ann and Alan before being allow to come to Satsang.  No wonder that attendence dropped to an average of 15 per satsang.  There was so much fear of "negative energies" that the screening was offending a lot of people. I was wondering then why satsang was not growing.



14 July 2012

Thirtyfour people made it to our first live L.A. Satsang in 2012. Twelve made it on screen, which is two more than the ten I heard was maximum.  It was a gas!


http://tinychat.com/ss9d/f357a9/cd/ed/wearesentience/07-14-2012

ONLINE SATSANG TODAY!

Saturday at 6 PM Pacific time, 9 PM Eastern Daylight Savings time.


Enter the password: edji

This will take you to a page with a lot of instructions and a large grey box with a rotating “eye.”  It will again ask you for a password.  Use the word “edji.”

It will then offer four ways to enter the chatroom, click on “guest.”
It will ask you for a user name.  Use any name you want.

You will then come to the chat screen, and in the upper left corner, there is a blue button labeled: Start Broadcasting.  Click it.

Then it will ask what camera and microphone you want to use, or it will start one for you automatically.

DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME AS A BROWSER; THE CHATROOM DOES NOT WORK WITH CHROME.  USE MICROSOFT EXPLORER WHICH I DO KNOW WORKS.

Ten people are allowed on screen at once, and another 90 are allowed to here Satsang but not have their videos us.  You can choose not to have your video up if you want to sneak in as someone else and not be seen.

So far on experimentation there have been hitches, so I am certain there will be screwups Saturday.

Links to the various chants are embedded below the chat screen.

13 July 2012

To me (Amended):



Dear Ed:

Thank you so much for your website/blog and all you do...I contacted you in/around XXXX of 2009...you have two postings from that month and mine was the one that started off about Nisargadatta and I Am That being my bible...you commented after the post that i was 99% done and cooked...


Here's my quandry...i have seen through personal identity and feel i'm in much the same place as margot ridler...there's a lot of terror and fear going on and I just feel very, very stuck...there's emptiness, but little love/happiness/etc. 


I continue to live almost like a hermit...not working now (was working with Alzheimer patients) and am now back in ohio near old family and friends and feel so far removed and it's so hard to interact with them...i listen to robert's talks and listen to kirtan...but, the body has no energy at times and i find propping up a phony identity for people so hard to do...please help...any comments you have would be greatly appreciated...i truly have become a good for nothing man and it pisses me off..my mind hardly functions and i make no plans...i just feel pretty emptied out...thanks in advance for your thoughts...be well...

Ed’s Response:

Dear, dear K.

Stop reading Robert immediately.  I have heard this from so many people who listen to his talks and read his transcripts and practice his way of self-inquiry.  Robert is like a salve for those who feel deeply wounded.  His meditations and talks are kind of lifeless, and so many have sunk into emptiness and depression after reading him too much. 

This is why I advise the practice Maharaj suggests as interpreted by Pradeep in his “Nisargadatta Gita” that can be downloaded from wearesentience.com. Look within for the I Am sensation, feel love and care for it, let it expand, and things will begin to happen.

Really, I am from Cleveland.  Ohio is not a healthy environment.  None of those Midwest states are.  The mindset is like 14th Century Europe.  Relocate to a city near an ocean or mountains.  Come where a lot of like minded people dwell, like LA, San Francisco, Asheville N.C., near masters and ashrams.

Then an external lover will come to you.  A guru, an animal, a lover, and will set your heart on fire.  Then your days of emptiness will be swept away by the fires of devotion, love and surrender.

Love,  Ed 


To Ed:


Dear Ed:

Thank you so much for your beautiful words...they are a healing balm to my flagging spirit...i am more than aware that Ohio is a cesspool, yet a feel that way about much of America quite frankly.  I've travelled extensively and lived off/on in SF for over 3 years, would often go to Ojai for K. functions...every time i exit Ohio, I immediately feel like the coffin lid has been lifted...I shall stop listening to Robert although I love him so and continue to love and care for the I Am sensation as you suggest...i really thought i could return to Ohio and stay in the I Am, but it is truly a dense, concentration camp environment here...i will make plans to leave and trust the energy to make this happen will be there...it's crazy, I'm a guy that biked across America and I can hardly go get toilet paper now...thank you again for the kick in the ass...it's what i knew, but the pull of family and friends makes Columbus have a centripedal effect somehow...i will contact the lady from cleveland, but it looks like the original thread is now gone/deleted...thank you so much for your kindness and love...

much love and gratitude to you...

12 July 2012


Online Satsang this Saturday at 6 PM Pacific time, 9 PM Eastern Daylight Savings time.


Enter the password: edji

This will take you to a page with a lot of instructions and a large grey box with a rotating “eye.”  It will again ask you for a password.  Use the word “edji.”

It will then offer four ways to enter the chatroom, click on “guest.”
It will ask you for a user name.  Use any name you want.

You will then come to the chat screen, and in the upper left corner, there is a blue button labeled: Start Broadcasting.  Click it.

Then it will ask what camera and microphone you want to use, or it will start one for you automatically.

DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME AS A BROWSER; THE CHATROOM DOES NOT WORK WITH CHROME.  USE MICROSOFT EXPLORER WHICH I DO KNOW WORKS.

Ten people are allowed on screen at once, and another 90 are allowed to here Satsang but not have their videos us.  You can choose not to have your video up if you want to sneak in as someone else and not be seen.

So far on experimentation there have been hitches, so I am certain there will be screwups Saturday.

Links to the various chants are embedded below the chat screen.
See you Saturday!
To Ed:

Dear Ed,

I wanted to convey how much I appreciate your posts today and how much what you say resonates. But beyond what you say, it's how you say it, and the presence I feel in my heart. Sometime ago, I think it was on Facebook, someone asked how they could receive your grace if they were not physically present. You said something like, "Love me, I will feel you." Now, I don't even care to get into the mechanics of this. I don't even care if it's literal, i.e. you feel someone loving you and you send grace their way. And yadayadayada. 

The fact is that if I love you I am loving myself, and it immediately resonated as true. So, I did just love you. And do.It made perfect sense to me then and makes even more sense now.

I also relate to your description of being lost in void states. That one really gets me. I have been periodically lost in void states for over 40 years, and have made the exact fucking mistake you describe of confusing these void states for myself. Fact is, to me void, nothingness states are a dime a dozen. I'm so used to them I can pretty much slip off at will, or at least just by putting my attention "there". Sometimes it's utter nothingness, sometimes self-illumined, sometimes a curious mixture of both. The fact is I've had to claw my way back out of these void states.

Which brings me to another reason I love you. Your insistence on honoring this world, even if it's an illusory one. Expressing love even in the illusory state. All of this rings true.

Now, you may read this and say, "Waldo, you're full of shit." If so, so be it. Rest assured I'll listen to you. Or do my best.

The fact is I am passionate about a lot of things. I like being passionate. I like getting pissed off, or loving, or hurting, or being ecstatic as I play music. (For many years composing music was my sure trip to ecstasy.) In some ways, I feel I've worked out a lot. In others I feel like a total moron.With the heart I'm a fucking idiot and know it. It's never easy there. But this is right for me, and I know that beyond a doubt.

I hope to correspond more, perhaps, or Skype. Or talk on the phone. Very much looking forward to the online Satsangs. Now that I'm on the west coast a physical visit isn't out of the question either.

Yours in love,

Waldo


I will be honest with you.  It is almost impossible to awaken.  The way can be so difficult, so filled with distractions, and our minds are designed to fight freedom.

Our identities are mostly complete by the age of seven.  The time between birth and seven creates the structure of our knowledge, our identities, and is made up of all the stories and fairy tales told to us at school and in our families.  Culture  forms our desires.  We live in these stories; they become us and our world.

We feel something is wrong with the world.  It is too ugly, too much pain, too many wars, too much killing, 10 billion animals killed each year just to feed Americans. We see increasingly corrupted politicians and businesses. We see everyone operates from a position of greed and poisonous reactivity.  And, we want out.  We  don’t want to live in this world.

This was Robert Adams struggle.  He did not fit; the world was too awful.

He struggled with this realization for over a year.  Then one day he had a great realization, a precursor to his awakening experience three years later.  He came to the realization that neither his body nor the world was real!  They were stories created by the mind that overlaid deeper layers of consciousness.  I really do not know what Robert did in those three years, whether he explored those layers or not.  But I do know he was a troubled boy.  He was hard to handle.  The conflicts he saw still tore him apart. And then he awakened at age 14.  You have to read his transcripts to find his expression of his awakening.

Most of us are also this way.  We feel something wrong.  Nothing seems right.  We start looking and searching for the truth of reality.  Mostly we read, then we learn about meditation, yoga, pranayama, karma yoga, chanting and gurus, and a few start a spiritual practice, and a very few become obsessed with finding truth. They are both the lucky ones and the cursed.

What is awakening?

You have to see that the definition varies from teacher to teacher based on their own experiences.  There are endless awakenings. Some find union with God by becoming empty, some find union by giving themselves away in love. Some become empty, some become fuill.  Some become humble and accepting, others become filled with driving energy to make the world better.  As the Zen master Joshu said, he had thousands of small awakenings and 17 mind-busting ones.

So what is awakening for me?  It is a gradual process of losing our minds and identities as humans, as small frail, mortal bodies, and becoming aware of deeper identities found in nothingness and love.  So at what point can we consider ourselves awakened?  This is for each to determine for themselves, and maybe as in the Great Tradition, search out masters for confirmation as did Robert over 17 years.  His constant sadhana was to travel from teacher to teacher to see, as he said, “If I had missed anything.” Robert even had an awakening experience at age 68, the year before he died. Notice, Robert did not start guru shopping until after he awakened, not before.

But what does it take to awaken?

First, it takes a burning desire to be free, immense energy, unstoppable energy, an energy that appears to tear the body apart, leaves it burning and sometimes leaves one desperate for relief from the energies.

It takes an immense will to escape from the illusion and to see the truth.

It takes an awakened intelligence so as to not be trapped by false teachings and false gurus, including our own delusions and preconceptions.

It takes a single-minded practice, such as some form of meditation or self-inquiry, or abiding in the I Am and learning to love the I Am, which is my way.

It really, really helps to be with a teacher who has had many awakening experiences, even if not the mythical,”Totally Enlightened” being.  To this I bring in the concept from self-psychology, which states you don’t have to have had perfect parents, or a perfect early environment in order to be a well-functioning human being.  You only have had to have a “Good Enough” mother and father, and a “good enough” environment.

The same with your teacher if you are lucky enough to be open to one. He or she only needs to be “good enough” for your place on your path and your needs.

You know, there are so many people steeped in positive thinking patterns which they accept as the way to truth, that they think everything is unfolding perfectly, and all teachers are equally good for whatever student they are with.  As some say, the entire universe is conspiring to wake each individual up. This is such Pollyanic nonsense. This is the way they wish it to be, because then everything is ok, from mass murders, wars, meat eating, plague and spiritual frauds. It just isn’t so.  You have to be careful in the spiritual marketplace as anywhere else, because frauds and deluded gurus are everywhere.  You have to be intelligent and sensitive to escape these traps.

Michael Langford wrote a book called, The Most Rapid and Direct Way to Eternal Bliss.  It is really a great book for those who are ready to drop everything and begin a life of endless meditation on self. But you have to trust him and his method, otherwise doubts will finally end this path for you.  But so very, very few will follow this path. Most will burn out before reaching the goal, or they will read another book that will change their mind, and they will begin a new practice.

Robert’s final advice to me was, “Persistence is everything.”  By that he means to gain awakening, and to build a sangha.  Persistence is everything.  Do not despair if you have not awakened after 20 years.  Just keep trying.  For those who persist, they tend, as the baseball player who practices eight hours a day, to get luckier and luckier so far as spiritual awakenings are concerned.
You see I am presented with a dilemma.  My students are spread out all over the world. This is not the classical ashram situation where a teacher lives close to his students.  What do I do?  How do I help them awaken?

There are really powerful impediments to awakening, such as lethargy, lack of energy, lack of focus, lack of persistence. What do I have to do to give students energy, motivation, focus, and persistence?

Rajiv was easy.  He awakened in the classical way.  He had 12 years of progressively powerful meditation experience and maturation prior to coming to me. He awakened the classical way, with the touch of a feather.

But what about a female student who lives 2,000 miles away, with two or five kids, an unhappy marriage, who feels unloved?  What has to be done to get them to awaken when they are really searching for love, divine love in their minds? How do you motivate such a one?  How do you shake them out of their ennui and lethargy and anger?

Like I said, most people who come to a guru are just curious.  Intense practice to them means reading books, Advaita, Ramana, Sufi, Buddhist, or Osho.  They are dilatants. There is no concerted effort to use their will and determination to awaken.  They read in order to find concepts that will break their mind.  In the meantime, the mind is strengthened because they have a million ideas about what awakening is and how a teacher should be.  Most of these people, in fact, none of them, will ever awaken.  They are lost in their minds.  They even feel themselves beyond practice and become neo-Advaitins, and a whole class of gurus spring up to serve them.

Education and dependence on mind is a very strong obstacle to overcome.  One must become simple, uneducated, letting go of all concepts, or as I say, become stupid as a rock.  How to convince an intellectual to give up intellect, ideas, reading?  Nearly impossible.  Knowledge is so arrogant.

I only have a few local students.  These I see, and we transmit each other the energies needed to progress without a lot of artificial games.  However, even with Robert, I doubt more than three or four who had even a tip of the tongue awakening during the nine years I knew him.  And being near the guru is one of the most powerful practices.  This is because Robert was sort of low key and low energy.  His body was weakening with Parkinson, and his talks were often just superficial entertainment because so few students really went deep into their true nature while with him.  They kept on the surface by asking questions rather than having the courage to drop everything and go within.

So, I ask myself, what do I do?  How do I create the intensity needed to give someone the energy and motivation to persist?  Tell them to meditate when they insist they do not have the time, or mess with their ideas, concepts, and conventionality?  So many of my students want to remain so conventional and they point to Rajiv who awakened while being a householder.  Yet they did not have years with a master as did Rajiv or a dozen years of experience.

Most want instant awakening while sacrificing nothing.  It does not work that way.

Maya has each of us in a deep trap and it is so very difficult to escape.  Almost always there are great fears and struggles and lots of drama.  I find almost no one ready to make the effort or encounter and overcome the obstacles that will confront them.  Then 40 years of desultory seeking pass and still they have not awakened, and we encounter literally dozens of Facebook frauds who claim they are awakened and no effort was needed, or we encounter dozens more who claim we need to purify ourselves of vasanas in order to awaken.  Neither is true.  But who will trust this message? Very, very few.

So, once again what do I do to awaken someone when awakening is so very, very rare?  Use the classical model of progressive meditation, or to create intense pressure from within and without that prevents anyone from growing complacent?  Most cannot stand the pressure or have inner obstacles too intense to overcome in a short time.  They walk away: Jo Ann, Andrea, Janet, Ryan, Liz, Karyn, Jean, Alan, and many others.  This is always true. After 8 years around Robert, only three of his original students remained.

You see, awakening is at least as difficult as becoming a championship golfer or pianist; that is years of practice and a degree of inner skill are required.  People want to escape from the trap on Maya which is a dozen times more difficult than learning championship tennis without doing anything.  They want the teacher to wrap it up and hand it to them.  Some think they finally find it with some guru or another as the visions and intuitions come fast and furious.  But six months later, all the great experiences pass and they are not awakened. Time for the next teacher.

Janet was a special case.  I loved her, but her obstacles were endless.  She was an intellectual who trusted what she read rather than her own ability to see directly, or trust what I told her.  She would rather trust her friends opinions, or a Sufi teacher who wrote a lot of books on a lot of topics, but she refused to practice meditation because she did not have time and found the states it produced caused functional incapacitation and guilt about being a bad mother, and sexual feelings she had towards me made her feel guilty as a committed wife.  She wanted to be able to function as the perfect wife, perfect mother, and an adequate employee and still get enlightened without much practice, so she just read Sufi materials. I tell you, I give her so much ink because I love her and wish her well.

Now, after leaving me, she starts meditating and becomes simple, humble, surrendering with a new teacher, and she is doing very, very well.  She could not take the pressure I imposed, but is now applying it with a new teacher.  At least I provided her a situation where the energies are flowing and she has overcome her dislike of meditation. I bring this uo because she always brings all the issues between us up publically and it poisons how others see me.

Janet is O.K.  I love her and she is O.K. with her new teacher and is doing well.  I will no longer talk about Janet or her path, it is just that her comments on Facebook and this blog were often to paint me in a poor light, and I don’t understand her motivation to do that.
                                                                                                         
I love her and she is always welcome back in the future after she feels failed by her new guru, as she felt failed by Vaughn-Lee who she tried to flee to.

So, what about you?  Are you ready to join a war with confusion, energies, bliss and ecstasies, but also with the classical introductions to the Void?  Or does it all appear too intense or crazy to you?


I really love you all so much.

11 July 2012

You know, I am not a big supporter of Obama.  I find him a serious disappointment across the board.  Always too little too late, including his recent executive order allowing him to take over the Internet during a declared  national emergency.  But to vote for Romney is sheer idiocy for 98% of Americans.




Sent to me:


Ed, I see deeper into you than you think I do, much deeper.
 
The difference between me and Janet, is what I see, I accept and fully love rather than criticize and try to fix.
 
The acceptance I feel toward all that I see deeply within you, is transforming me in a way that I cannot yet understand and may never.
 
I did not expect such a thing to unfold within me.  It's Lila, it's all her fault.  She is fearless.  She is everything that Joan could never be.  More on this later.
 
I feel, deeply feel, that as I love you...all of you...that I am loving me.  This feels true and alive for me.  It is not mere words. 
 
You are my mirror, so I can love me by loving you.  We are One...I know this.
 
All your deepest needs and short comings are mine as well, and I embrace them as mine.  This is why I do not wish to change or fix anything about you.
 
You are totally imperfect...and it is that imperfection that I love, that endears me to you. 
 
I don't need to use words of excessive praise, or overt criticism...my god, I love for you, nothing more, nothing less.
 
This is so hard to explain and my palette of words is not sufficient.  Hopefully you can 'feel' what I am trying to convey. 
 
 
With Love and Acceptance,

Lila
 



From a dear student of two years; name withheld.

Edji, do you think that self enquiry did the trick for me?

I can tell you It was love for you that did it.

I was seldom able to read the long posts on your blog. Followed your directions for 2-3 months and then even that dropped. I would just sit or lay staring for hours. Meditations dropped, closed eyes stopped. Shortly after coming to you, mind became thick as brick, nothing went in. I read the longer posts many a times, I am still like that. Unable to read long winded writings. No need to know more no profound wisdom to unravel... 


Unless it is a direct energetic interaction, I can't get involved. Bhakti has been the essence of my practice with a sprinkling of jnan, self-enquiry etc. You will never hear me say it happened with Advaita and all that bullshit. It happened by surrendering to your presence.


If I take that out of equation, all falls away. Osho's love, then XXXX (the mad man, my consort!), you have dissolved in each. In dissolving away in love is the completion.

I really feel complete...and whatever needs too complete more will come(... I ain't doing a thing!) I am lazy as can be. I gave away my awakening to you...and told you to get on with it! ...and you did! That is how I did it! I cheated all the way. Lazy, easy and extreme fun.

I knew I had done my hard work before bumping into you. After you arrived on the scene, falling away started like mad. In bumping into you I am done, not only done, finished off, completed beautifully. You need to bump into me now ha, ha!

09 July 2012

It's time to create your own guru.  During the past year I have heard so many ideas of what I should be like and what behaviors I should have.  Here is the list so far,  Ed, you need to:


Be more telepathic--know when I am in a spiritual crisis without me saying anything;


No swearing;


Never get angry;


Never criticize anyone; that is, be a doormat;


Don't get emotional;


Don't attack those who kill whales, eat dogs and cats, and otherwise kill animals;


Don't say anything negative about any guru or student;


Don't get personal or human--be impersonal;


Get more personal;


Be more emotional and not so aloof.


Pick better chanting music;


Get rid of chanting;


Chant more;


Don't use the word fuck;


Don't unfriend people on Facebook.


Now be honest.  In your comments below; please "fix" me!


08 July 2012

From a Facebook thread of Tijen Kino:


To the divine Feminine currently manifesting in many bodies: Tijen, Janet, Joan, Samantha, Ruby, Marcus, Deeya, Matthew:


Tijen, It is not a specific woman I seek, nor to be loved.  It is to find the "divine feminine" and to LOVE HER in all her incarnations.  I tasted deeply of emptiness, the Void from my first experiences in 1968, to the time in various Zen centers and temples, to my inital awakening in 1995.  Then there was almost continuous emptiness after that for another 11 years, until 2006, when I felt a movement in me to speak of my teacher, Robert Adams, and his path.

Later I began teaching online and then live satsangs in LA.

One day a miracle happened.  A student came to me filled with love for me and surrender to me.  She opened my heart to a love that was already there, but of which I was not conscious.  Gradually over a year the love grew for her, and surrender myself, and I felt the grace of God.  Divine winds of truth, love and passion began blowing through me.  My heart was on fire and continues.

My need is not to have the divine feminine love me, but to find those to whom I can give love.  It is 100% opposite of what you imagine.  I am love itself when I find someone open to it, and this openness to love is a feminine thing, I find mostly in women, but sometimes in a few rare men.  However, my homophobia is sometimes lit then.

I love you Tijen, and just want to give love to you, just as I do Joan, Janet, Deeya, and several others.  However, taking in love is usually harder for most than giving it, and it is a rare one who can tolerate all the love that can be had.  It ALWAYS requires that they love strongly and become very attached to me so that they can tolerate what arises in them from receiving love.

Janet could not tolerate too much.  She has run away 50 times. Joan often threatens to do so.  The things that come up:  Regression to being a 2 year old, a four year old, a teen-ager, and in me countertransferences and reactions to their reactions.  In each moment of giving love I feel enlivened, and my emptiness is filled with ecstatic energy that comes and goes, but also which others feel, especially in Satsang.

This dance of love can be quite painful, as much as it enlivens.  Even now Janet is writing a book about our love and our bhaktic awakenings from her point of view, and my every word is saturated with this new path which she opened for me.  You see, I have come to realize the path never ends.  The Zen Master Joshu lived to be 120 years old, and proclaimed that he had had 17 great awakenings (Satori) during a 60 year period, and thousands of small ones.  My own teacher, Robert Adams, had a final awakening experience during his last year of life at age 68.  Ramana too supposedly had a second great experience 30 years after the first.

Now I tread a bhaktic path of grace, surrender and love of the feminine.  I am filled with bliss when I see my students coming alive, feeling great, great pain of outgrowing their conditionings and concepts, and escaping the prison of their own minds, their sometime tyrannical spouses, etc.

07 July 2012

SOUTH KOREA TO START WHALING AGAIN

Article
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Activists in front of the Panama City hotel where the 64th International Whaling Commission meeting is taking place. South Korean officials on Wednesday declared an intention to resume whaling.
South Korea’s plan to resume whaling despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission triggered fierce reactions from anti-whaling countries and environmental activists.
“I’m very disappointed by this announcement by South Korea,” Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. “We are completely opposed to whaling, there’s no excuse for scientific whaling.”
During the 64th annual meeting of the IWC in Panama City on Wednesday, the South Korean government cited the country’s long-standing culinary culture of eating whale meat and a need to conduct more in-depth scientific research on whales.
“In order to meet Korean fishermen’s request and make up for the weak point in a non-lethal sighting survey, the Korean government is currently considering conducting whaling for scientific research in accordance with Article VIII of the Convention,” said Kang Jong-suk, South Korea’s delegate to the international commission. The government will soon submit its research plan to the scientific committee of the IWC, he added.
Critics argue that whales don’t have to be killed to be studied and the real motive behind the “whale research” is to provide meat.
The South Korean government follows the controversial steps of its neighbor Japan, which allows whale hunt for “research,” a crack in the IWC ban that permits whale hunting for research purposes. Japan’s active whale expeditions has long drawn international criticism.
The South Korean government has banned commercial whale hunting since 1986 but allows the sale of meat from whales accidentally caught in a fishing net.
Since the ban, South Korea’s whale meat industry has dwindled. The southeast coastal city of Ulsan, considered the center of the nation’s trade in whale meat, has kept a connection with the past with an annual whale festival and a whale museum.
In April, 680,000 people visited the city’s 18th whale festival to enjoy whale-watching cruises, art and culinary activities and whale-themed entertainment parks.
Corrections & Amplifications:
The Korean government is  considering whaling research in accordance with Article VIII of the whaling convention. An earlier version of this article said it was Article VII.


To all my readers.  I think we need to form an International Korean

Harpooning Association. We will go to Seoule and harpoon people on

the street.  There are too many of them there already. If we get

enough, there will be fewer to eat whale meat.