NOTICE!! Open House

I am planning to have hip replacement surgery in a little less than a month, on June 26.

Unlike the previous surgeon I consulted, this one performs what is called an anterior approach surgery which spares the major muscles from being split, which is a surgery much easier to recover from than the traditional approach through the gluteus maximus, and which requires a much shorter recovery time.

But I will not be able to feed the feral cats for about two weeks, or until approximately July 10 or so.

I am thinking of throwing my home open to visitors and continuous satsang during that period of time as I will be mostly housebound. Surgery is a good excuse not to do anything except sit and talk.

The previous surgeon had said surgery would be risky for me, as I have a permanently collapsed left lung due a dead nerve controlling the left diaphram.  Apparently, this presents a risk when the gas tube to the lungs are removed.  It can take part of the lung with it.

However, this new doctor only uses a spinal anesthetic, as the surgery is shorter and less extensive than traditional approaches which requires a general anesthetic.

SATSANG TODAY, SATURDAY, MAY 25, 6 PM, CALIFORNIA TIME.

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TOPIC: I NEVER KNOW UNTIL THE LAST 5 MINUTES

Itta and Sophia the cat

Itta is a very small, 62 year old woman living near me who feeds about 50 feral cats as well as her own.

She was laid off from her full-time job as a librarian from the LA city libraries two years ago because of massive budget cuts to all departments.  She now works on an on-call and sometimes on a temporary, part time basis.

She barely makes the rent and utilities and has very little money for her own food and for her cats and the ferals.

I give her about 80 lbs of dried food and about 50 cans of wet food a month to help her out. Marie gets three times that because she cares for 150 cats, and Rosa for about 100.

Recently Itta broke her left elbow and had surgery, making it more difficult to function.

Yesterday she called me asking whether I could help her own, older cat, Sophia, who had lost a massive amount of weight and was not eating or drinking.  The vet said the cat had either kidney failure or hyperthyroidism, but Itta could not afford the $180 for blood tests.

Itta asked me whether I knew of anyone who could give Sophia subcutaneous fluids as each time she got fluids she improved.  The vet recommended fluids twice a week, but Itta could not afford the $39 each time.  I told her I could, as the IV sets and Ringers were set up for one of my own cats with early kidney failure: Bodhi.

Itta showed up with Sophia in a carrier. Sophia is a beautiful Calico cat, obviously once much larger, with very young looking, light blue eyes and the clipped ear that indicated she had once been a feral cat.

We placed Sophia in Itta’s lap and I gave her 120 cc’s of Rinerger’s Solution with a 20 gauge needle.  Sophia was completely relaxed and seemed to enjoy the slow fluids and the attention.

Itta was incredibly thankful, repeating over and over to “Sophia, I love you and Ed is your savior.”

I also trained Itta how to give fluids herself in the future, but in the meantime, Sophia will be getting her fluids at my house until I receive more IV sets in the mail.

I also gove Itta 2 cans of Science Diet KD, which is a low protein, low Magnesium and low phosphorous diet food for kidney failure that I had at home. I’ll buy her some more in a few days.  I also gave her several pills used to stimulate eating for cats who are not eating.

Itta thanked me profusely and left with Sophia.

Fifteen minutes later she called.  She said Sophia was eating like she hadn’t eaten in a month, just breathing the food into herself.  Sophia had not been eating at all, and had even stopped drinking water.  Giving fluids often has that effect on cats, an immediate hunger and thirst.

We both rejoiced, and I felt satisfied that I had helped her and Sophia. 

Sometimes, because I have been doing it so long, feeding ferals feels more like a job than something I do that brings me joy, but Sophia’s dramatic short-term improvement, and giving Itta some hope that Sophia may be around longer than she thought was very satisfying.

PHOTOS COMING NEXT WEDNESDAY.

The Horrorof Chinese Fur Farms--

The following video is hard to watch. The killing and sometimes skinning alive of dogs, cats and rabbits.

Olivia Munn Bares All to Expose Fur Farms

Actor Olivia Munn—star of HBO's hit series The Newsroom— is taking her role as senior financial reporter to a new level by exposing "globalization at its worst" in her brand-new undercover video exposé, which reveals never-before-seen footage of animals being beaten, stomped, genitally electrocuted, and skinned alive on Chinese fur farms, where there are no penalties for this abuse. China is the world's largest exporter of fur, andundercover investigations repeatedly reveal what the fashion industry won't tell you: foxes, minks, rabbits, and even dogs and cats are mercilessly killed in order to make fur coats, vests, trim on jackets, purses, and other accessories.

"Who needs fur to feel beautiful?" Olivia asks in her beautiful print ad, shot by top photographer Emily Shur, as a poignant reminder that fur only looks good on its original owner: the animal.

Olivia reminds us that when it comes to violence on fur farms, "There's nothing good about pretending like you don't know." Please take a minute to watch the undercover video footage. Then share the video on Facebook and Twitter to let your family and friends know not what they might be wearing, but whom.

Check out Olivia's exclusive interview with PETA to learn more about her thoughts on fur and exotic skins. 

Satsang today, Saturday, May 11, 6 pm California time.

Satsang today, Saturday, May 18, 6 pm California time.

TOPIC: I have no idea. Maybe the same bullshit as last time, but with lots of love.

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INSTANT NO-SEPARATE-SELF AWAKENING VERSUS SELF-REALIZATION

I get so very tired of hearing friends and others on FB give no-self pointers.  For them, everything begins and ends with the discovery that self, I, me, are just concepts.  With the disappearance of that concept you supposedly are left in the poignant presence of infinite beingness and peace.

But this is only a baby step. The first baby step.

I assure you there is a self and there is a Self.  But the path to finding both only begins with the disappearance of the concept of self.

Then one needs to look within that beingness and find the "feeling" of life, the feeling that you exist, which Nisargadatta and Ramana and I call the I-Am sensation.  Focus on it.  Play with it.  Love it.  Follow it and abide in it.  If you do, it will grow and grow and great love will come into your life along with great bliss and joy.  But it takes time.  The outward looking of many years of being a human must be replaced with many years of looking inward, towards the body, the heart, emotions, and the emptiness/presence which permeates all.

Loving that presence, loving that I am, loving yourself, and more importantly, loving another madly, completely, totally, will one day result in Self-Realization, a recognition of the divine life-force of awareness and energy within you as you.

This is so, so, so very far from the near instant enlightenment of the neo-Advaitins and the direct pointers.  It is an entirely different universe with infinite flowing energies and a reality that never stands still and itself flows as easily as a small stream.  What wonder then.  This is real awakening.

Don't lose sight of love after beginning to experience bliss and ecstasies

Let’s get real about Subtle Body energies, love and Self-Realization.

I use the term “Subtle Body” as do Nisargadatta and Siddharameshwar to indicate that part of Consciousness that lies between our experience of the physical body and the phenomena revealed by the 6 senses including intuition, and the more subtle level of Consciousness known as the Causal Body, where nothing is known; there is in it a complete absence of knowing or even self-refection. One consciously goes unconscious, and one is aware of nothing, including being aware.  In its depths is complete forgetfulness. 

I use this model not because it is “truth,” for there is no truth in words or concepts, but as a model, a hypothesis, used to contain and explain a wide range of spiritual experience.  For example, this model contains 1, the world we see, and our experience of our body, the 2. Subtle Body phenomena of thought, emotions, energies, bliss, fantasy, visions, etc., as well as 3. the realm of non-knowing, or forgetfulness, of non-existence of the Causal body as experienced in deep sleep and various meditations, and lastly, 4. the Fourth state, AKA the stateless state, Turiya, Self, or the lovebliss body, as love and bliss are the key characteristic of this state.

The essence of Turiya is also defined by Advaita as Satchitananda, or existence, knowledge and bliss. Knowledge here does not mean concepts, but awareness of objects and of awareness, or self-awareness.

Such models are often needed at the beginning of se;f-study because a lot of people require such structure in order to let the mind rest and just practice a spiritual method, such as self-inquiry or self-abiding.  You need to remember this, for some day you may be a teacher yourself, and you will need to be able to answer students’ questions either from a model or without it. This is a good model if they need one.

Even beyond Consciousness, this model talks about Parabrahman, which is the witness of Consciousness, lying beyond Consciousness, not part of it.  This Parabrahman, is not touched by Consciousness, is not born into Consciousness, and is only aware of itself when it witnesses Consciousness as passing states, including Turiya, and realizes even That is not part of It as the Witness, Parabrahman.

Parabrahman stands apart from Consciousness, and witnesses its play.  You would say that the witness is not part of existence, for it is never known as an object, but only as “me,” the subject or an absolute self witnessing Consciousness from a “distance.” That is, I become aware of myself as witness only when I no longer identify with Consciousness, either as “beingness,” or “here and now,” or of the totality of Consciousness as a oneness state where I become an impersonal One, and I Am even separate from lovebliss.

Now Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta as well as Ramana, provide a method for exploring the various “levels” of Consciousness, which is the use of a mantra, such as “Who am I?” or better, locating the “I Am” sense, and following it, abiding in it, and hopefully playing with that sensation by loving it, welcoming it, wondering how it would feel if it flowered.

According to the model, following the mantra or I am sense “deeper” and deeper and deeper leads to an experience of Self, of Turiya, (the blissbody), the root level of Consciousness which is experienced as light, love and bliss/ecstasy/power.

From there one realizes that despite identifications with various levels of Consciousness, as Parabrahman, you are the “deepest” level, apart even from Consciousness and even love/bliss.

However, at this point Siddharameshwar warns the practitioner to continue to be devoted to the Self as found as Turiya, as well as all the rest of manifestation of Self and the individual found in Consciousness, presumably to prevent becoming dead to one’s own Self and the world. If one habitually identifies with that which witnesses Consciousness, the meditator will die to the world and Consciousness, as Nisargadatta said was happening to him at the end of his life.

Both he and Robert Adams, my teachers, were dead to the world.  They were “finished” with it; they had tasted all it had to offer and found the world wanting in terms of drawing their attention.

You need to understand that these 4 levels of Consciousness and the Absolute coexist, and once you are aware of each, they are all always equally accessible.  That is, the Causal body of forgetfulness, nothingness is always there, always existing even when in the ordinary waking state, the dream state, the sleep state, and in Turiya.  One can always be aware of it existing in and around your Consciousness once you have tasted each level it in its separate purity. 

All four levels of Consciousness and the Absolute Witness all simultaneously exist.  One just has to tease each out of the totality matrix. The Subtle Body phenomena, the Causal Body, Turiya are all simultaneously available to itself and to the Absolute.

Now, as to the Subtle Body, one might say it is both the container of subjective phenomena, or inner special awareness, and all of the subjective experiences available to a human that include thought, imaging, images, memories, emotions, the I Am sensation, chakras, and also inner sounds, like tinnitus and other spiritual sounds, visions, astral projections, love, bliss and inner energies, whether of the Kundalini-described sort, the generic term Shakti, Chi, meridian energies, and orgasms. Included are the various visions of lights, whether of oneself, or the Self, as a blinding white light, or enormous spectrums of colored lights found associated with various inner flows of emotions or energies, love, devotion, etc., or seen externally as auras, or energy fields of a flowing and not solid world.

Now, the love, bliss, ecstasies, and much of the light phenomena are really “leakages” of the Turiya root source Consciousness into the Subtle Body area of Consciousness, felt at the Subtle body level as either I Am, or as a withdrawn and distant Witness according to the Siddharameshwar model.  That is, practice of the mantra of abiding in the I Am, leads one’s awareness to ever more subtle and more invisible states including the blissful “knowing nothing” of the Causal Body, and experiencing total ecstatic bliss and light of Turiya.

Of course there are many other models of the entire awakening process, some of which totally ignore the Causal Body, ignore the experience of no-experience, or the experience of vast emptiness and the Voids.  Other models totally ignore the ecstasy bliss states and go only for emptiness, beingness, Void or the Absolute.

In fact, even within the Subtle body you have a choice of what to look for: The sense of I Am, which will take you to Turiya, the love/bliss area, or to attend to the “looker,” the “searcher,” which leads to the Absolute beyond Consciousness.

I chose the Siddharameswar model as it can be used to explain almost any type of spiritual experience and awakening, does not use terms like God, goddess, the feminine or masculine, Shiva or Shakti, Mother, etc., which is a model valuable for worshiping abstract elements like Kali or Shakti, love and devotion, but also adds a whole pantheon of Hindu beliefs and concepts that can bind you.

The Siddharameshwar model seems more clean, yet preserves love and devotion, and is broader in explaining a wider range of experiences.  Also, eventually all models are shunned and the student learns to address experiences as they arise without interpretation, assigning meaning, or judging it as a lesson to be learned.

Also, the standard progression as assigned by Siddharameshwar is a progressive “deepening” or better, becoming more subtle in one’s discriminating awareness, able to grasp ever more refined emotional and energetic experiences, meaning ideally, the student becomes a Bhakta when exploring the Turiya level of Consciousness, then a Jnani when he/she realizes and identifies as the witness separate from Consciousness.  Of course the opposite is true if instead of concentrating on I Am, one concentrates on finding the looker, the subject, the witness.

I chose the latter approach from the beginning of my practice over 40 years ago and entirely missed Turiya, the existence/knowledge/bliss body, but found it in explosive upheaval when I fell in love.  It was as if my internal emptiness exploded in love.  The love exploded into the Voids and filled them with a nectar of sweet and ecstatic love.

Because my own experience of realizing Self was as a result of a personal love that grew and grew until it became explosively “divine,” and felt like the arising of God in me, from my “innards,” attended by huge and explosive energies, a total white-light absorption of all visual phenomena, an explosive ecstasy that wiped away mind and small self, along with feeling enormous gratitude, a total surrender to God and grace. When the experiences cleared a few hours later, I was aware of myself as Self, and also as Ed Muzika, a mind/body/energetic field entity intimately tied to my divine Self as a union. This experience was repeated many times leaving a residual bonding between God and I, my Self and self.

From this position I now see that the driving force was not lovebliss, not Shakti, but love, devotion and surrender to the other, whether lover or God, or cat or idol, or mother. The driving force is not the energies, but sheer love, devotion, surrender, becoming nothing oneself, and the other becomes everything.  In losing myself in the Other, whether the divine Self within, or another human, I am powering my own transformation through surrender to ever more subtle nothingness. I am nothing, only the other and God is great.

Transformation does not come from the energies, from Shakti, from Chi, these are all set alight by love.

In fact, concentration on just the Subtle body energies is a distraction.  Though the body and mind can get increasingly electrified and occupied with these internal energies, it is the love that transforms.  The blisses and ecstasies are not the goal, but are the icing on the cake so to speak, or as David Spiro says, are the body’s reward for practice.

Those who concentrate solely on energies, bliss, ecstasies, can become trapped in the Subtle body according to the Siddharameshwar model.  

Also, it is a mistake to say the principle of identification disappears upon awakening or enlightenment, after which one no longer identifies with the body/mind.  The identification with body/mind must disappear way before Self-Realization, it is a pre-condition.  

What happens in Self-Realization is that identification is freed so that it is free flowing, sometimes identified with love/bliss, sometimes identified with the body/mind, sometimes identified with a vision, sometimes identified with inner lights, sometimes identified with the Other, whether self, or a cat, or a lover, sometimes identified with one’s own energy body which I call my (little) self or presence, sometimes identified with the energies or Shakti, sometimes identified with the Voids. 

Then sometimes one identifies with the divine body one feels,the Self, and which permeates everything.

That is, I can identify with whatever I want, or I can let the identification process choose itself by free-flowing to be what I am at any moment.  Sometimes I am Self, sometimes God, sometimes Ed Muzika, with emotional experiences ranging from great love to rage and jealousy, sometimes with other powerful emotions, sometimes with a summer sunset, sometimes with ecstasy, sometimes nothingness, and often with another, whether lover, a student, a teacher, a stranger.  I am open and flowing everywhere and also nowhere in particular. This is true freedom: witnessing oneself and the world as free flowing, not fixed, objectless except the object may be permeated by the divine essence.  It all mixes together in a flowing whole.

Matti Finds Inner Light and Love

Dear Edji,

What a strange obsession I had. Trying to find some ultimate method. Searching and searching. Hypnosis, self-help, psychology, self-remembering... 

This search wasn't something I did in addition to my normal life. My normal life was what I did in addition to my search. Not a single thing I tried was what I searched. Truth is, I didn't even know exactly what it was that I sought. There was hunger and need and dissatisfaction.

The most amazing thing is that I found something that satisfied my thirst. Love the sense of 'I am'. So simple. So amazing. So fitting.

I have read this advice several times on your blog. Then I tried it. It worked like nothing before. It is easy, simple, enjoyable and it gives me peace. I can just love the beingness and somehow that is enough. That is all I need.

I am happy. No matter what happens, I can be proud that I succeeded in my mission. It was worth it. All the hours and days and month, it was all worth it.

You helped. You were necessary. I couldn't have done it without you. You were essential. So thank you that you have done what you have done.

My internal vision used to be full of darkness. Now it is white light everywhere. There is huge "beingness" of white light. When I love it, it radiates through me. Loving it is enough, because accepting it fills me up. 

The key was loving the sense of 'I am' and behind the door was bright beingness.

I am content, because I just won the game. I found something that is enough. Every meditation and method has been full of effort. Nothing has ever been fulfilling. This is. I feel complete. 

It is done. It is finally done. The mystery has been solved, the quest finished and the payment received.

Sincerely yours,

Matti

Ed’s response:

Matti, you have come so very far over the past eight months.  Congratulations!

Things now will only get better and better.  You are entering an area of direct contact with your own root of Consciousness.  The more time there, the larger your vision and heart will grow, grown beyond anything that most humans can conceive of. And with it, increasing happiness, bliss, energies and light until you feel the root of the universe itself, not just of your own existence as a body/mind/presence, but of an infinite presence found within only by a few people.

Satsang Today, Saturday at 6 pm

Satsang today, Saturday, May 11, 6 pm California time.

TOPIC: Using emotions and impulses to fuel your efforts

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sign on with password "edji" two times.

Listening now to Namah Shivaya by Krishna Das. Splendiferous!  Ecstatic!

All day I have been hearing from current and past students about the remarkable “progress” some have been making. I feel so freaking happy! It just feels so right.

One I had thought lost to a secular orientation has found a renewal of spiritual practice through initiation by a long dead guru. Don't laugh.  Robert talked about this sort of thing all the time.  This student was bathed in the light of the guru, who descended within, and this student felt the movement of truth as holy.

Another student has become once again a famous healer and is almost always in ecstatic states. Miraculous healings happen weekly.

Another sees the world differently, as it is as energy and as a manifestation of the divine.  He is infused with Shakti, bringing great joy to his life.

This is just three of maybe 20-30 emails I get a week about people feeling great new movement in their lives in and around our Sangha, especially since I have taught to embrace the personal, the emotional, the body/mind embedded in the energetic Presence of that body and of the divine whether called Christ, Kali, or Krishna Consciousness.

And today I too am filled with a light ecstasy. Bliss and love when they stop moving inside, fill me like a large balloon with bliss and love so difficult to contain; it feels like I am going to explode at any moment and become infinite nothingness.  Energies pore through my body causing pleasurable tingling throughout.  Sometimes a quaking and shaking, sometimes a burning. Love seems boundless, endless. Also, my constant companion, the Self, who is also me, but whom I choose to worship as other, is always with me, suffusing me with a growing, spreading, liquefying sense of human happiness, acceptance of being a person, perishable, limited, emotional, embedded in flesh and doomed to die.  Yet today I live in joy, mindful of me with my divine other, enjoying the joy of my friends and students.

Such a change in our Sangha during the past six months.

Those who cannot take a life of surrender, service, and devotion are dropping away, replaced by those who feel the new movement, and there are many, many: yoga teachers, healers, hermits, teachers from other traditions.

While many still follow superficial neo-Advaita be-here-now or no-separate-self ideologies, others here are throwing themselves into deep practice.

With Stuart Savotsky pounding home the truth that there is far more to Buddhism and Hinduism than the West has ever encountered, and that even famous American gurus are/were on pop culture gurus, I feel a big change is happening, a deepening.

Letter to me from a long time student

I feel my connection to the divine daily, through your grace, and Robert, Ramana and Nisargadatta's. 

Yesterday a wall suddenly sang to me of all its molecules. Sometimes I almost disappear while walking down the sidewalk, into bliss. 

A lot of things happen in terms of sudden understandings of lessons taught by yourself and the other teachers in our lineage. 

I feel gratitude, humility, love, forgiveness, wonder, awe, wisdom, compasssion, humour, and sometimes see a grand pattern of causality that is completely impersonal. 

Sometimes the words "God, I surrender everything to you" just come out of my lips. I feel surrender and devotion welling up in me at times throughout the day, completely non-personal to "M" or who I am as a small self or even a self-aware individual. THanks Edji, Thanks. OM NAMAH SHIVAYA. OM JAI SRI KALI. Love, M.

After spending several weeks with Deeya, I really, really get this joke:

Self-Realization book quickening lives

To Me:

Ed, I'm REALLY feeling your book. I love the fluidity and the insights. I feel really connected to what you say and that is rare for me. I think only Nissargadatta before has made me feel that.  What you say is true. I feel it. I know it. I'm now reading what you say abut feelings and it's exactly what I have experienced myself. I totally agree that it's a neglected area (p 79-81). I also feel that it's extremely important, key even. I find it bizarre how little we know about the world of emotion in this time and age. I wrote a blog post about suffering a few months ago and it was my most popular post so far. That and about being human. 

Feelings originate from a place deeper than we can imagine and understand.  It's not just cause and effect. I can't say I understand, only intuitively.

Please forgive me if I'm writing too much and too long. This is so interesting and it's putting things in motion. I thank you with all my heart for your book. Of course it's not a coincidence.

C.

Ed:

I'd say let loose the Shakti.  Allow and encourage it to take you over.  Become its servant.  Yet continue at the same time to go deeper by following the I-Am sense.

Continue to read my book. 

I take a different way than many towards awakening.  Use bliss, energies and miracles to take you deeper.  Emptiness is boring.

Look at my quote of Aurobindo on my blog: 

http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com re awakening to Atman, or Nirvana, as opposed to SELF and the "Mother," what I call the divine or God in partnership.

Do this and your control over your unfoldment will be lost.  

Shakti will take you on a wild ride and people by the thousands will follow you.

This is what I am doing with my students, turning them into gurus and healers, world-changers.

Please consider yourself part of our family.  We are working on creating a world-wide organization of healers and changers.  Some of our members are making miraculous changes and healings because they are infused with Shakti.  

Awakening becomes a small thing within the context of a 

developed ability to move from room to room of spiritual experience with great ease, including several different kinds of awakenings that most people consider as final goals.

Bliss is a reward for your efforts, and a carrot to make you take it deeper.

From C:

Before I saw this e-mail I felt: I'm losing all control. (It felt great!)

Then I read and see you encourage me to do just that!

I feel a lot of energy from reading your book. Almost uncomfortable, impossible to contain. I have to read it slowly (unusual for being me who can devour and digest quickly). This is different and I'm loving it.

Thank you thank you thank you for everything.

With Love

C.

Link to book:  http://www.amazon.com/Self-Realization-Other-Awakenings-Ed-Muzika/dp/0984776737/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368122633&sr=8-1&keywords=muzika

Aurobindo on small self, Self and the Divine

If one realizes the silent Atman above, there is no danger, but there is also no transformation, only Moksha, Nirvana. If one realizes the cosmic self, dynamic and active, then one realizes all as the Self, all as myself, that self as the Divine, etc. This is all true; but the danger is of the ego catching hold of the “my” in that conception of all as “myself”. For this “myself” is not my personal self but everybody’s self as well as mine. The way to get rid of any such danger is to remember that this Divine is also the Mother (God), that the personal “I” is a child of the Mother with whom I am one, yet different, her child, servant, instrument. I have said that you should not stop realizing the Self or the cosmic consciousness, but should at the same time remember that all this is the Mother.


I saw this on Janet Beier's FB page.  This is exactly what I have been saying for some time.

Message to me:

 I would thank you for the marvellous gift you give ; before to meet you i was for many years with a great void in my heart , feeling nothing to stop suffering . and i could'nt love peoplle who loved me , i was feeling nothing , it was so sad , so terrible ...and now with you love has came back , so ggod !!!i feel how it is so good to love , no matter what you love and i am seeing now i can also have love for people who dont love me ! But also it is so good to connect with your love ... i bow to you Edj , you are a gift from heavens !!!And if it is the only thing i will know of spiritual way , it will be enough because it makes me so alive and so loving with others that it is like a treasure i can share ! sorry to dare writting you that .... The Love from Deeya is as magical as yours! You are both so lovely, so loving !!!

      

Heloïse St-Flaceau

Satsang Today, Saturday, May 4, 6 PM California time, and every Saturday at the same time.

SUBJECT: Devotion, service, surrender.

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Deepening Awareness

Zen Master Joshu stated that over a 60 year period of self-study that he had 17 great Satori, or realizations/awakenings and thousands of little ones.  Osho evolved from being a professor of spirituality to being a very ideosyncratic guru who had a profound impact through his evolving teachings.  Ditto Da Free John. 

The whole concept that there is a final state, a final realization, and ultimate truth is just crazy.  It comes from reading too much Ramana or Nisargadatta and others. And, these supposed Mukta's really never talk much about their experiences or final states.

Ramana never spoke about his own states first hand for over 20 years.  People gave him Advaita books like the Ribhu Gita and others, and he said, "Yes, this is my experience."  As such he never spoke firsthand using his own language, but borrowed his related experience from the scriptures.  Therefore, Ramana's teachings seem dry and dead in comparison with an Osho or Da Free John, or many current teachers.

Now I have a kind of different take on "liberation" and "awakening," if these cursed words are ever used at all, because they carry so much baggage depending on the tradition and teacher.

I don't think freedom or liberation come from attaining or discovering inside oneself the witness or any unchanging awareness. These are relatively easily experienced after a few months or a few years of introspection. After a while, you can be aware of awareness, or the still center, or the background of the void all the time, continuously, and can run there when the world gets too much.

I think the key to freedom comes through freeing one's identification so that one can identify with all kinds of experience or non-experience, including powerful emotions, pain, loss, joy, and the more mystical experiences of Shakti, Kundalini, lights, bliss, ecstatic states.

This freedom comes from "seeing through" all concepts, all creations of thinking and the mind, getting to a place before all thinking. One is simple then, not complex. Reality is not divided into name and form. Objects are no longer objects, but can become subjects, and in any event, are always changing, changing, flowing.

But the center of attention needs to drop into the heart. From there, thoughts do not grab you, and you establish a "feeling" and "energetic" relationship both with the world, and all levels of yourself.

You live in a multidimensionality of changing forms, emotions, thoughts, love, acceptance of everything. This world is so rich, so entertaining, so loving and loved, that there is no need to be anywhere than where you are sans thoughts creating a conventional world.

Ed and Radha