06 November 2013

DISCUSSION ON DAVID GODMAN'S GASPUMP INTERVIEW

DAVID GODMAN GASPUMP INTERVIEW,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xayU4f5--I.

As you know, I spent 8 years with Robert. In this interview David says there is no Ramana lineage, that basically, all those current gurus who prominently feature a photo of Ramana at their Satsangs are just living off the fame of Ramana. He rejects the idea that these teachers claim to be part of the lineage because Ramana inspired them, or because they felt Ramana visited them astrally, like he visited Robert as a child.

He also stated that after death, Robert and Ramana just disappeared and had nothing more to do with the world. Poof--gone.

David also claimed that gurus did not intentionally interfere in any way in the spiritual development of others. There were no astral meetings in Ramana's awareness.

David also stated his opinion that in all the world there were not more than a handful of humans that were in the same class as Ramana, and that Ramana himself only pointed to dead gurus as having his understanding. David felt no teacher he knew of was really a descendant of Ramana and no one alive was in his class.

We could say no one David knew of was in Ramana’s class, because Robert often stated that the greatest ones are quite private and remain unknown.

Interestingly enough for those deep into epistemology and ontology, David clearly outlined Ramana’s concept of pure idealism, and that was that the individual created the entire world and that world we perceive dies when we die. He does not take the view there is a real world out there that we all participate in, or like Nisargadatta, who held that Consciousness, with its aspects of Shiva and Shakti, are appearances only that arise out of matter—insentient flesh bodies.

AS TO EVERYTHING DAVID SAID TO THIS POINT, I STATE CATEGORICALLY, ROBERT AGREED WITH HIM 100%.

Robert said he never visited anyone astrally, and never interceded in anyone’s spiritual development other than as a friend.

Robert said when asked how many enlightened beings were alive now, he said that they could be counted on one hand.

I know half the people on Facebook now claim to be enlightened, or at least awakened, but Robert would disagree. I am sure they will express their disagreement on this thread, holding that there are more enlightened beings in the world than ever before.

LET ME SAY THIS: THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD CLAIMING TO BE ENLIGHTENED THAN EVER BEFORE, BUT THE BAR OF DEFINED ENLIGHTENMENT IS LOWER THAN EVER BEFORE ALSO. I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE IN THE SAME CLASS AS ROBERT, AND I DO NOT TEACH AS HE TEACHES BECAUSE I DO NOT SEE HIS TEACHINGS AS APPROPRIATE FOR OUR TIMES. OUR TIMES DEMAND A SOFTER AND MORE BHAKTIC, SURRENDER STYLE APPROACH.

REALISTICALLY, IF YOU LOOK AT ROBERT’S AND RAMANA’S TEACHINGS, THEY CONSTANTLY TELL YOU TO LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE, IGNORE IT, IGNORE YOUR EMOTIONS, IGNORE YOUR THOUGHTS, IGNORE YOUR PROBLEMS AND JUST LOOK WITHIN FOR THE SOURCE: YOUR SENSE OF I.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WHO FOR 50 YEARS PREACHED TO OTHERS TO IGNORE THE WORLD, DON’T BELIEVE IN IT, THEN STAY BEHIND AFTER DEATH TO GUIDE A LINEAGE AND TO INTERFERE IN A WORLD OR MANIFEST THROUGH A PERSON AS A CHANNELED ENTITY?

HOWEVER, HERE IS THE ONLY PLACE I DISAGREE WITH DAVID, AND IN A SENSE, ROBERT.

Though Robert stated he never intentionally blessed or changed his student’s lives, yet magical things happened around him all the time. In addition, Robert would constantly talk about the magic he witnessed as a wanderer going from guru to guru in India. Like a guru being in two or three places at once, or a dead teacher coming back to life in a different body right in front of him. There is also the story of how he brought his little dog Dimitri back to life in order to help him transition across.

Then also was his constant vision of he, Ramana, Jesus and Buddha coming together at the moment of his death in the middle of a mountain, then ascending into pure light. Robert did experience this on his death bed and called out to those around him whether they saw Jesus and Ramana, etc.

While Robert denied the magical, it happened around him all the time and people experienced astral visits from him, which he denied.

It is my opinion based on my own experience and being with Robert for 8 years and with Jean Dunn, that there is far more in the world than was dreamt of by Ramana and Robert. I think Robert was open to this world, and talked about it a lot, but at the same time he had Ramana’s idea that there was only Consciousness, no separate Ramana or Robert to do anything.

As such, rather than say there was a Ramana lineage, let us say Consciousness has always acted as if there was such a lineage, sort of manifesting through the living personages of Ramana, Robert, and Nisargadatta, but also through the intangible legacy of their teachings and influences left behind. We can say that the Self of all acts through channels, and whether the individual at the center is aware of destiny acting through them or not, does not mean it is not acting through them and continues acting through them long after they are dust, just as all famous conquerors and religious figures of the past, such as Jesus, Buddha, and Mohamed continue to have tremendous impact 2,000 years later.

I began to feel Robert’s presence within me about 7 years after he died. At first I felt this presence urge me to put up my original website, itisnotreal.com, as a testimony to Robert. All that it did was to present Robert’s teachings. However, because of constant legal harassment from Nicole Adams and her Infinity Institute, I gradually had to remove anything of Robert’s teachings and photos, which led me to develop my own teachings, some of which are quite at odds with Robert’s because I focus more on the manifest world and spiritual processes in it more than did Robert.

As to the master Advaitins opinion that there are so few enlightened beings in the world, this is just their opinion based on their experience, and reflects a kind of one-sided development.

 We can take even a different view.  The Buddhism and discoveries of the various Tibetan schools is very different from the non-magical, non-philosophical Zen schools.  Ramakrishna is very different from Ramana Maharshi, Poonja and Nisargadatta.

Muktananda and the Kundalini gurus have entirely different spectrums of spiritual experiences and understandings.

I think the "spiritual" universe is very large, larger than contained by any one branch or school.

I think various masters and mystics are talking about very different parts of the spiritual universe of experiences, and no one school contains or understands more than a few rooms of hundreds if not thousands of "rooms" or categories of spiritual experience.

And on Facebook, we are actually talking to different people whose natural inclination leads them to one category of experiences, perhaps sequential, perhaps not, and others to whole other categories of experience.

These become acculturated and made into schools, like the five Zen traditions, or the three major Tibetan traditions, or Shankara style Advaita.  Others follow a more Bhaktic tradition with emphasis of surrender, love and service.

It is not that any school is better, holier, or truer than any other tradition.  Each is partial knowledge, partial experience, and none--at the highest level--is to be either discarded or worshiped as the end-all.

For example, I am learning more from my students about the nature of "reality," the world, and myself from my students than I have learned from anyone except Robert, because I get to know them so well and deeply.

My students have taught me about love and its power.  They have taught me about Kundalini and Shakti.  Each is different.  Each sees and feels both themselves and the world differently.


Some see it as does everyone else, some see the world as flowing energy states and being alive, and with their help, I can begin to see myself and the world as they see it and as they see themselves, and I expand and appreciate each more and more.

40 comments:

  1. One aspect that you've commented on here was also commented on by Ramana a few times. One example of this is seen in Sri Ramana Reminiscences by GV Subbaramayya, p21. The author mentions how a child of devotees had been ‘saved’ from disease elsewhere when they prayed to Ramana, and later the person asked Ramana if he had thought then about helping the child. Straightaway came Sri Bhagavan’s reply, ‘Even the thought to save the child is a sankalpa (Will), and one who has any sankalpa is not a jnani. In fact such thinking is unnecessary. The moment the jnani’s eye falls upon such a thing, there starts a divine, automatic action which itself leads to the highest good.’

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  2. "People say that my Form manifests to them and helps them in solving their worldly as well as mental problems, but I do not go anywhere, nor do I know about such miraculous instances."

    It was at this point when Faqir asked himself: "What about the visions that appear to me? Are they a creation of my own mind, and does my guru also not know about his appearances to me?"

    Only then, according to Faqir, did he realize the truth: "All manifestations, visions, and forms that are seen within are mental (illusory) creations."

    After his realization, Faqir began preaching his belief that all saints, from Buddha, Christ, to even his own master Shiv Brat Lal are ignorant about the miracles or inner experiences attributed to them.

    Though Faqir is probably the most outspoken, other great religious leaders, saints and mystics have expounded on this same unknowingness.

    The famed sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi, when asked about Jesus' power to perform miracles, substantiates what Faqir Chand had taught for over forty years: “Was Jesus aware at the time that he was curing men of their diseases. He could not have been conscious of his powers.“

    Hence, according to this perspective, the outward master does not know most of the time.

    http://www.integralworld.net/lane46.html

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  3. "Interestingly enough for those deep into epistemology and ontology, David clearly outlined Ramana’s concept of pure idealism, and that was that the individual created the entire world and that world we perceive dies when we die. ..."

    *

    Dear Edji,

    I have to object. Firstly, what you describe here is not pure idealism but solipsism, and secondly, this is certainly not Ramana's (or the sages') position. I don't think this is how David meant it to be understood.

    Idealism (Berkeley) maintains that there are individual minds who project their worlds, but the projected individual worlds of these individual minds are bound together by a super-mind (God). Hence we live in a coordinated "dream" world.

    But the sages go one step further. They maintain that there are no individual minds. Everything is an unmediated projection by the Self only! This, by the way, is pretty close to Islamic occasionalism: all events are taken to be caused direcly by Allah.

    Robert Wolfe:

    "The core of the non-dual teaching is there is no self. What then occurs is, if there is no self whose mind is this?"

    Quoting Ramana:

    "Intellect (thinking) is only an instrument of the Self. There is only one consciousness or mind."

    "The seeker will find that [thoughts] arise from the Self. Wherefrom do they arise? Their source must be the internal state. The vital force manifests as the mind. Otherwise mind does not exist.

    *** The mind is only a projection from the Self. Mind is only the Self. ****

    The Self continues to exist in the absence of the mind but mind cannot exist apart from the Self."

    "Your mind and intellect (thoughts) ar factors of your wrong identity. Give up this mistaken identity and Self will be seen to be the single non-dual reality."

    "For a realized being the Self alone is the reality, Even if one acts he has no sense of being an agent."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTtuQIQ1H2M

    This is again very close to Islamic teachings (Sufism): "there is nothing in Being but He." - "You did not throw when you threw but Got threw (QUr'an 8:17).

    "You did not throw", so He negated, "when you threw", so He affirmed, "but God threw", So He negated the engendered existence of Muhammed, and affirmed Himself as identical with Muhammed.

    You are not you when you are you but God is you.

    http://books.google.de/books?id=UVt-EvXnEC4C&pg=PA223

    All the best,

    Abe

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  4. In addition to my previous post:

    Ramana:

    "For a realized being the Self alone is the reality. Even if one acts he has no sense of being an agent."

    Ibn Arabi:

    "You are not you when you are you but God is you."

    [The Sufis] reveal the truth that it is God alone who is the agent of all acts, the agent who acts through all the faculties of man.

    http://books.google.de/books?id=UVt-EvXnEC4C&pg=PA223

    So yes "I" project "my" entire world but "Who am I?"

    It is sort of coincidential that the English "Who?" sounds exactly like the Arabic "Hu" (He), which is a name of God in Sufism.

    All the best,

    Abe

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  5. Hi Ed,

    Nice to see you have started a discussion on some of the points I talked about. You said that the following paragraph was the one area in which you disagreed with me, and possibly Robert as well:

    'Though Robert stated he never intentionally blessed or changed his student’s lives, yet magical things happened around him all the time. In addition, Robert would constantly talk about the magic he witnessed as a wanderer going from guru to guru in India. Like a guru being in two or three places at once, or a dead teacher coming back to life in a different body right in front of him.'

    I find nothing to disagree with in this. Miraculous things happened around Ramana, and around other teachers I have been with, but none of them claimed responsibility for them. People would come to see Ramana and tell him of some miracle he had performed on their behalf, sometimes appearing in a recognisable form to do it.

    Ramana would usually say 'Is that so?' He had no knowledge or recollection of having interfered, and no knowledge that this person had appealed to him for help. These things just happen automatically. Ramana even said that if there is a desire to help other people, then that person cannot be a jnani. The following exchange, taken from The Power of the Presence, part one pp. 81-82 covers this topic very well:

    Bhagavan, along with many other Masters, held that jnanis had no sankalpa [personal will or intention]. In that state, the Self makes the body behave in a particular way and makes it say whatever needs to be said, but there is no individual choice involved in any of these words or actions. Narayana Iyer once had a most illuminating exchange with Bhagavan on this topic, an exchange that gave a rare insight into the way that a jnani’s power functions:

    ‘One day when I was sitting by the side of Bhagavan I felt so miserable that I put the following question to him: “Is the sankalpa of the jnani not capable of warding off the destinies of the devotees?”

    ‘Bhagavan smiled and said: “Does the jnani have a sankalpa at all? The jivanmukta [liberated being] can have no sankalpas whatsoever. It is just impossible.”

    ‘I continued: “Then what is the fate of all us who pray to you to have grace on us and save us? Will we not be benefited or saved by sitting in front of you, or by coming to you?…”

    ‘Bhagavan turned graciously to me and said: “…a person’s bad karma will be considerably reduced while he is in the presence of a jnani. A jnani has no sankalpas but his sannidhi [presence] is the most powerful force. He need not have sankalpa, but his presiding presence, the most powerful force, can do wonders: save souls, give peace of mind, even give liberation to ripe souls. Your prayers are not answered by him but absorbed by his presence. His presence saves you, wards off the karma and gives you the boons as the case may be, [but] involuntarily. The jnani does save the devotees, but not by sankalpa, which is non-existent in him, only through his presiding presence, his sannidhi.”’

    Back to me again:

    This is the key to understanding how a jnani functions and aids those around him. By abiding as the Self a powerful energy field is created that helps devotees. If a miracle happens, or if the Guru's form appears miles away from where he actually is physically, it is the sannidhi at work. The Guru just remains as he is, without being aware of anything that the sannidhi might be dong through his power and on his behalf.

    I am not sure what my word allowance is here, so I will start the next story in a new post.

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  6. Here is Papaji's view on the sannidhi of the Guru, couched in an entertaining analogy.

    He told me once, 'I have this secretary called "Miss Peace". Every day when I go to give satsang she is there inspecting the minds of everyone who has turned up. She fulfils their desires if they come with desires; if they come for peace, she sees that is what they want, and she gives them peace. I don't have to do anything except be there. This is because, like most employees, when the boss is not there, she slacks off and doesn't do so much work. However, as soon as I turn up, she springs into action and gets things done.

    'It doesn't matter what I do in satsang. I can talk about enlightenment, sit quietly, read a book, or ask people to sing and dance. So long as I am there, Miss Peace will be energetically taking care of all the needs of the people there.

    'I realised long ago that I didn't really need to tell people they were already enlightened, or tell them to look for the source of the mind. I still do that sometimes because people come to satsang looking for advice on topics such as these. What really matters is that I just be there and allow Miss Peace to get on with her work.'

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  7. Anonymous

    Apropos your comments on idealism and solipsism, I discussed both of these concepts, with reference to Bhagavan's teachings, in a blog post I wrote several years ago. You can find it here:

    http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.in/2010/04/swami-siddheswaranandas-views-on.html

    It covers Bhagavan's teachings on creation and compares them to similar ideas that have been discussed in western philosophy.

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  8. Ed

    Here is another of your paragraphs:

    'As to the master Advaitins opinion that there are so few enlightened beings in the world, this is just their opinion based on their experience, and reflects a kind of one-sided development.'

    I don't agree with this. If you are a jnani, you can see quite clearly who else is in that state. You don't have an opinion, based on one-sided development, you have true knowledge.

    I asked Nisargadatta Maharaj once who had truly understood his teachings, and he said 'One, Maurice Frydman.' He had Frydman's photo on his wall, and every day, after his Guru puja, he would put a blob of kum-kum on Frydman's forehead, along with the foreheads of the teachers of his lineage and other famous Gurus such as Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna. No other student of his got that treatment. Thousands came to see him during the last years of his life, but apart from one other person, I never heard Maharaj declare anyone to be enlightened.

    Papaji taught for decades, met some of the most famous teachers of the twentieth century, and spoke with thousands of people who came to him for advice. Although he often said that enlightenment was easy and available to all, the list of jnanis he said he had met during his life was small enough to be counted on one hand. Not one of his own students ever appeared on that list.

    Ramana Maharshi taught for over fifty years and in that time he only publicly acknowledged the liberation of two of his devotees: his mother and the cow Lakshmi. A few others (Masthan and Muruganar) were acknowledged indirectly, and I am sure that a few others (Papaji, Lakshmana Swamy and Robert) attained that state through Ramana's power and grace. Again, relative to the numbers who came to see him, the number who attained jnana was tiny.

    I don't believe that the short lists of jnanis that these teachers have all produced is a result of their opinion or their one-sided development. It comes from looking at all the people they met with the eye of jnana and declaring, through knowledge and experience, that very few people have attained this state.

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  9. Ed

    You wrote:

    'It is my opinion based on my own experience and being with Robert for 8 years and with Jean Dunn, that there is far more in the world than was dreamt of by Ramana and Robert.'

    If you see a world in front of you, then what you see is a projection of your own mind. In that state you can say that there is no end to the number of exciting things that can be discovered and known in manifestation.

    However, if you don't have a mind that projects a world in front of you, then all you know is Self and Self alone. The world is then an uncaused appearance in consciousness, having consciousness as its supporting reality.

    Someone once asked Ramana if he would be willing to go on a tour of India.

    He replied, 'What's the point. Wherever I go I only see the Self'.

    Robert and Ramana shared the same knowledge that consciousness alone existed, and that occasionally manifestation appeared in that consciousness. If you are that consciousness, you know that the manifestation is also yourself, but you don't see it as separate or different from you.

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  10. Sasak Roshi in an interview about his possbile successor :

    Q: Change of pace. How do you feel about designating a successor?

    A: Very complicated. There are things that I cannot announce. There are things that are joyful to announce but I haven’t yet decided about my successor. If someone would turn up who can totally abandon their ego and that can manifest that zero state that is neither subject nor object and that is a complete unification of plus and minus then I think I would make them a successor. However such a person has not yet appeared, a person that knows that true democracy is a manifestation of true love and that the manifestation of true love is the manifestation of the state that is neither subject not object. If such a person did, then I could finally take a break and be happy about that.

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

    In other words, all the long years with an endless number of people coming to study under him, so far NOONE was worth to be appointed as successor.

    Strange isn't it ?

    Kathy

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  11. Oh David, I agree with that altogether. I am talking about worlds within worlds of the manifestation. Robert saw many of these worlds, astral planes and all that. I saw things and felt things I did not.


    I watched how when he received a letter from a student, he spent a long time “sensing” the envelope. Running his fingers along its edges, smelling it, and then very gently opening it and reading it slowly.


    He did that too with the fabric inside my car as I drove him from place to place.


    But he never talked about these things so I ignored them.

    However, one of my students, actually several, are teaching me to perceive the manifestations differently. There are worlds within worlds and I begin to see them. But these worlds Robert never talked about. Maybe Robert thought them too big a distraction from his message to ignore the world, or perhaps he thought people would think him crazy and he kept it to himself.


    Also I doubt Francis’ comment that you were more academic than practiced. I see the same beyondness in you as I saw in Robert.

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  12. David,

    The comments you make are as excellent as your interview. The clarity with which you describe the jnani's state with its absence of a personal will and hence an egoic desire to be seen as the giver/producer of miracles and bliss is admirable. Thank you.

    Dear Ed, I hope you are doing well. I think of you often with deep gratitude.

    With much love,
    Janet B.

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  13. This is such a cool discussion. Many thanks Edji and David. (I will have a look into the link you provided on Bhagavan’s Teachings on Creation.)

    As to worlds within worlds, astral planes, and various paranormal abilities and manifestations - there are millions of people who have these experiences. There are millions of people who are psychic, had near-death experiences, telepathic communication, spontaneous healings of self and others etc.

    I had many of these experiences myself.

    *** But what do they prove? ***

    There are mediums who can tell the content of a letter by holding the envelope in their hands - sometimes word for word!

    There is a vast literature about it, but total denial in mainstream science.

    Many thanks & all the best,

    Abe

    P.S.

    I just found Robert's talk:

    THE WORLD IS YOUR MOVIE
    September 1st, 1991

    (...)

    In other words, the world that you are seeing, observing, is simply your movie. You show yourself a movie whenever you stare at the world. And all the things that you see, is your flick. It belongs to you, no one else, everything. Nothing just happens. Everything has already happened. And you appear to be going through a movie, where things appear to be happening, but you're really the projectionist, and you are projecting your fairy tale. The idea is to become free, to become liberated.

    (...)

    Everything is a mirage, including your body, your thoughts, your feelings. They're all a lie. And they do not really exist.

    Try to remember that I'm not speaking from a book I read, or what somebody else told me. This has been my direct experience. There is no world. There never was a world. And there never will be a world.

    No matter how many times I tell you, you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not the doer, you always identify with yourself as the body.

    As long as you think about yourself as the body, you have to suffer. You have to go through experiences in life. That's what this world is all about, for the deluded person. Experience after experience after experience.

    You have to experience all kinds of things when you identify with the body-mind phenomenon. Therefore you should do the best you can to transcend that kind of thinking.

    (...)

    As I'm trying to explain this, I'm talking about both worlds, the world of the body and the transcendental world. There is really one world. There is only ultimate oneness. But for the sake of trying to explain these things, I refer to the fact that you appear to have a body, but you are not the body.

    *** You are absolute reality. That is your state right now. ***

    Do not worship your body.

    *** See yourself for what you really are. ***

    (...)

    Abe: the next paragraph is what I don’t understand at all – How can this be understood?

    This again is confusing. It appears that there are two people. It appears as if there is a sage and there's a body that does all kinds of things. But that's why I said it's an appearance. Just as Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi and others appeared to be dying a horrible death and wasting away. I want to inform you that no such thing happened. None of these things are happening. That's why you should never judge
    because you're judging from the viewpoint of the ajnani.

    The appearance is there. It's like when Ramana Maharshi was dying, who was dying? A human being appeared to be dying but he said you're making a mistake. There is nobody here dying.

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  14. Part 1 of 2

    "At the darkest moment I will find what I'm looking for, I will find my self whom been lost, because this journey will be my Spiritual Awakening."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Li96Z8wVgw

    ***

    I just read David's

    *** VERY ILLUMINATING ***

    article on Bhagavan's Teachings on Creation:

    "I approve of all schools."

    It’s so fantastic. This makes my day!

    Many, many thanks,

    Abe

    1.

    The lower teaching is solipsism (drishti- srishti-vada) - the world is projected and created by the person who sees it - taught for the sake of the sadhaka.

    "Bhagavan ... mostly passed on versions of drishti-srishti-vada."

    2.

    The higher teaching is what he experienced himself as the ultimate truth: creation had never really happened (ajata-vada).

    "... his own true experience, is only the doctrine of ajata [non-creation]."

    Bhagavan: “Nothing exists except the one reality. There is no birth or death, no projection [of the world] or drawing in [of it], no sadhaka, no mumukshu [seeker of liberation], no mukta [liberated one], no bondage, no liberation. The one unity alone exists ever.”

    Editor's Note: Although Bhagavan knew that ajata is the supreme truth, he actually taught the doctrine of illusory appearance as an explanation for the world manifestation since he knew that this would provide the maximum practical benefit. When the devotee truly understands that the world is an illusory projection of the mind, his mind no longer moves towards it. When this happens, the mind goes back to its source and disappears, leaving the ajata experience in which one knows directly that the world never existed or was created except in the imagination. The doctrine of simultaneous creation is therefore a working hypothesis that enables seekers to find the ultimate truth.

    Muruganar: The Self, consciousness, is the material and efficient cause for the appearance of the world. When the rope [the material and efficient cause] appears as an illusory snake, this is vivarta siddhanta [the doctrine of illusory appearance]. The meaning is, just like the snake in the rope, the world is an imaginary appearance [kalpita] in reality, consciousness.

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  15. Part 2 of 2

    3.

    Ok. With this distinction in mind, Robert’s talks become very clear!

    ADVAITA VEDANTA

    August 18, 1991

    In other words, there is no external world. There is no thing but mind. And because there is mind, there is a universe. Therefore I am the creator of the universe. Everything exists, because the mind exists. And they believed they were the mind. They came a long way, for they now realized that everything was an emanation of the mind. When they had this revelation, they didn't stop there. They pondered “What is mind? Where did mind come from? If my mind is the cause of creation," they pondered “where did the mind come from?"

    Again they pondered this for days, weeks, months, years, until again something happened. This time they realized that mind is the cause of the relative world, and the relative world is false. So the mind that I think is important must also be false. In other words, there is no mind. If there's no mind then who am I? It took a long time to discover that they were mind, and everything came from the mind. Now they were realizing that they are not mind. They inquired “Then who am I? Who am I?" and they abided in themselves. They became the selves.

    They lost track of the body, the universe, the mind. They were not in a state of samadhi, because they were awake. During their awakened state, they became nothing. There was no mind. There was no universe. There was no God. There was no body. There were no others. There was just absolute nothingness. And they realized this is the Self. Not myself, but the Self. And they were absorbed in the silence.

    From that moment on the world still appeared to them, but they were able to see right through it. All pain disappeared, worry, fear, desire. It all disappeared. It was transmuted. Now these ancient Rishis were unable to share this with devotees or disciples because it's a personal experience. Since it's beyond words, it's beyond mind and beyond thoughts, how can one actually share this? Therefore these ancient Rishis became silence. They never spoke. Yet there was such power emanating from them, that if the right devotees came to them and just sat with them, doing nothing, saying nothing, wanting nothing, desiring nothing, they too achieved the same results. It was amazing. This technique was passed down through the ages. It was commonly called Advaita Vedanta or jnana, and it is still the supreme truth.

    Now let's talk about you. As long as you want to become enlightened you are making a grave mistake, for there is no one to become enlightened.

    JUST BEING
    August 4th, 1991

    We're not trying to say that suffering does not exist that would be idiotic to the person who is experiencing the suffering. We are saying that there are those beings that are called jnani's that have transcended the world, the universe and everything thereof and there is no suffering for those people. Yet others see them suffer. The suffering is apparent to others who are not in that state. Therefore you must not be judgmental. Because when you speak, you're speaking about the state that you're in and you have no idea of the state of the jnani.

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  16. Hello Ed wonderful conversation.
    Reminds me of a different perspective namely J. Krishnamurti's.
    "The observer and observed are one". He did not denie the world.

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  17. Ranjit Maharaj (Nisargadatta Maharaj’s successor):

    The real, or final, understanding, is that there is no one who has anything to gain, no one who is seeking, and no one to understand. This understanding is what the apparent journey of spiritual seeking is heading towards. It should be clear, though, that the mind itself meets its death in this realization (which is why it is called “final” understanding). Unwittingly, the ego-mind brings about its own death. The ideas of the Master, once accepted and absorbed, transform the mind completely, reducing it to its original state of no-mind, or pure consciousness. Realization is the last scene of the last act for the purified mind. The curtain comes down on the false “doer.” There is no repeat performance.

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  18. --- CORRECTION ---

    I (Abe) wrote: The lower teaching is solipsism (drishti- srishti-vada) ...

    * * *

    David: Drishti-srishti-vada is the theory that the world is projected and created by the person who sees it. Bhagavan did teach this, ...

    David: It is a fundamental tenet of advaita that the world is projected by the individual mind that sees it. Some people think that this means that each individual jiva projects its own world, but Bhagavan taught that this is not the correct perspective. He maintained that the jiva which sees the world is the only jiva that exists, and that all the other people whom this jiva sees are merely imagined projections of the first jiva. Since all things and all beings are merely the externalised projection of the jiva who sees them, it follows that when this jiva is absent or destroyed, the other beings and things simply cease to exist.

    David: The solipsistic notion that there is only one individual self, and that all ‘other selves’ are created and imagined within it, has an advaitic parallel in the teaching of ‘eka jiva’, ‘one jiva’.

    Bhagavan: Let the heroic one who possesses a powerful intuition accept that the jiva is only one, and thus become firmly established in the Heart.

    Bhagavan: The world does not say that it was created in the collective mind or that it was created in the individual mind. It only appears in your small mind. If your mind gets destroyed, there will be no world.

    *** THIS IS CLEARLY SOLIPSISM, ***

    but then David contradicts himself by saying:

    "Swami Siddheswarananda made two claims: that Bhagavan did not teach drishti-srishti-vada, and that solipsism is the same as drishti-srishti-vada. I hope I have presented enough evidence here to demonstrate that both assertions are unsustainable."

    I don't understand this!

    HOW IS DRISHTI-SRISHTI-VADA NOT SOLIPSISM?! HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?!

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  19. Bhagavan: When the mind emanates from the Self, the world appears. When the world appears, the Self is not seen, and when the Self appears or shines, the world will not appear.

    * * *

    This is classic Sufism!

    The Divine Essence (Self, One) is concealed by the world (multiplicity), while the world (multiplicity) is concealed by the Divine Essence (Self, One).

    "Jannah, the Arabic word for heaven, or paradise, [ibn Arabi] interprets as deriving from janna, to conceal. Jannah is thus for him the Divine Essence in which all multiplicity is concealed; consequently, the realization of absolute unity."

    http://books.google.de/books?id=2R8gWgQvoNoC&pg=PA62

    David: Bhagavan's teachings and comments are not derived from a study of vedantic texts but from his own experience.

    Bhagavan: Maharshi’s teaching is only an expression of his own experience and realisation. Others find that it tallies with Sri Sankara’s.

    Devotee: Quite so. Can it be put in other ways to express the same realisation?

    Bhagavan: A realised person will use his own language.

    * * *

    Path to Trancendence according to Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Meister Eckhart

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/62323509/Paths-to-Transcendence-According-to-Shankara-Ibn-Arabi-Amp-Meister-Eckhart-Spiritual-Masters

    In my humble opinion, I find they say all the same in more or less their own language. Now let's see if we can get the EXPERIENCE!

    But I think I understand what Edji is driving at. It might be that the jnani's are overemphasizing the experience of extinction within the Divine Essence (Self), heaven, paradise. Accordingly to the Sufis this "voyage from man to God and within God" is certainly NOT the highest accomplishment! The highest accomplishment is to return from extinction within the Essence and fully embrace one's humanity - "voyage from God to man and within man"! The former they call "path of the Saints" and the latter "path of the Prophets".

    David: Someone once asked Ramana if he would be willing to go on a tour of India. He replied, 'What's the point. Wherever I go I only see the Self'.

    Ramana's view seems to be one-sided. In contrast, the Sufic tradition emphasizes balance between Divinity and humanity:

    [T]he One is continually driven to transform itself into Many. The goal of spiritual realization is therefore to penetrate beyond the exterior multiplicity of phenomena to a consciousness of what subsequent writers have termed the 'unity of existence'. This entails the abolition of the ego or 'passing away from self' (fana') in which one becomes aware of absolute unity, followed by 'perpetuation' (baqa') in which

    *** one sees the world as at once One and Many, and one is able to see God in the creature and the creature in God. ***

    http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H022

    Ultimately, this may be NOT a superior BUT more complete realization than Ramana's, Robert's, and Nisargadatta's!!!

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  20. Anonymous said in the last comment:

    I don't understand this!

    HOW IS DRISHTI-SRISHTI-VADA NOT SOLIPSISM?! HOW IS IT DIFFERENT?!

    Solipsism maintains that there is nothing beyond what the mind can think and perceive. Ramana and other advaita masters have pointed out that the mind appears in a substratum, the Self, and that when individuality (the mind) definitively disappears, the residual substratum is experienced as one's own Self.

    In solipsism mind is treated as the only thing that exists. The advaita teachings on drishti-srishti vada (the perceived world is a projection of the mind that sees it) say that when the mind and the world it projects vanish there is something else beyond that personally-created manifestation that remains as the true experience of oneself.

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  21. I really don't find value in trying to reduce or to transmute one tradition into another. You can always find similarities and differences then make some meta statement as to what that means, but because it is a statement about, it becomes even more removed from experience and just a mental symbol and concept manipulation thing I was all too guilty of for many years.

    I think we need to remain as closely as possible to experiences and the validity of the conclusions we draw from direct experiences rather than wend our way into philosophy>

    I have studied and been involved in traditions that have little do do with Advaitin scholarism, beingness, Shakti, light of consciousness, etc., such as Zen, and been much involved in exploring so-called stages of emptiness and Voids which you won't find much talk of in Advaita.

    Then there are the experiences of witches, warlocks, etc., who influence the manifest world such as Carlos Castanedas' wizards and other shamans. These are legitamite spiritual experiences that Advaitins and Zen people might scoff at. I don't. I think the magical and energy traditions offer views into the nature of Consciousness and the mind that other traditions completely ignore.

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    Replies
    1. "I think we need to remain as closely as possible to experiences and the validity of the conclusions we draw from direct experiences rather than wend our way into philosophy"

      Good point Ed, this is all about direct experience
      If the goal is the Self all thoughts are red herrings

      "Then there are the experiences of witches, warlocks, etc., who influence the manifest world such as Carlos Castanedas' wizards and other shamans. These are legitamite spiritual experiences that Advaitins and Zen people might scoff at. I don't. I think the magical and energy traditions offer views into the nature of Consciousness and the mind that other traditions completely ignore."

      Although i feel that true Self-realization (which isn't Advaitin) encompasses all, including all the traditions you mentioned, you have another good point here.

      I'd like to ask both Ed & David what you think about vegetarianism & its importance?

      I once heard Robert Adams say that no person who is eating meat could ever be fully Self-realized, in my own experience i found that early on the path having a sattvic diet helped somewhat, it calmed the mind waves a bit, but now it makes no discernible difference

      Ramana seemed to have somewhat agreed with this saying that the more one progresses the less difference it makes what one eats, yet Robert, in this instance anyway, was adamant that no-one who eats meat, including any of the Tibetan monks who have to eat it for their survival, could be fully Self-realized beings, but maybe this is just what those in Roberts presence needed to hear at the time

      I'm also curious whether either of you have ever tried entheogens like LSD or psilocybin mushrooms in the past? And if so what your experiences were like

      Appreciate your views on this :)

      Thankyou

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  22. Thank you Janet, I also feel gratitude and much love for you.

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  23. Ed

    You wrote:

    'I watched how when he received a letter from a student, he spent a long time “sensing” the envelope. Running his fingers along its edges, smelling it, and then very gently opening it and reading it slowly.'

    That's interesting.Papaji sometimes used to do the same when he was picking up letters that people had written to him. I remember one morning when he was about to leave for Haridwar. There were about twenty unopened letters on his table. He knew he didn't have time to read them all and reply to them, so he picked them up one by one with his finger and thumb, and rubbed each one slightly. On the basis of this inspection he decided which ones needed to be replied to in the limited time he had available.

    I remember another occasion when a German woman wrote a several-page-long letter in satsang explaining some long drama in her life and asking for advice. When she turned up that morning, with her letter in a sealed envelope, she was told that because Papaji was recovering from a cataract operation, letters to him would be limited to one page. She summarised what she had written the night before in one page and handed it in. She told me later that when Papaji read out her letter, he stared at the one-page summary, but 'read out' the letter she had kept in her bag. She bought a tape of the satsang later and found that his rendition of her hidden letter was word-perfect.

    Again, I remember being in his house one day when he suddenly demanded to see a letter that someone had written to him because he wanted to reply to it. It couldn't be found anywhere. The person who had written was asked where she had delivered it to, and she replied that she had only composed it in her head, and that she hadn't actually put it down on paper yet.

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  24. Ed

    'I am talking about worlds within worlds of the manifestation. Robert saw many of these worlds, astral planes and all that. I saw things and felt things I did not....

    'But he never talked about these things so I ignored them.'

    I was once watching a cricket match with Papaji. In the longer form of the game, the fielding players all wear white. One player dived for the ball and skidded across several feet of wet grass. When he stood up, he had a long green stain all the way down his shirt and pants.

    Papaji laughed, but then he went quiet. Then, out of nowhere he said, 'I used to have a green body once. A long, thin, translucent one that you could see through. I had incarnated in this world where people go to when they have vast amounts of good karma to use up. It was a place of enjoyment only. I lived there for hundreds of years, just enjoying myself.'

    I asked him, 'Were people meditating there? Were people getting enlightened there? It sounds like it was a place that was full of good people.'

    'No,' he said, 'we were all too busy enjoying ourselves to think about anything else.'

    Up till this point he was treating his memories as entertainment and laughing at them. Then he got quiet and serious for a while.

    Eventually he said, 'I have visited many worlds in dreams, visions and other lives. I even went to the Hell realm once and had a chat with Dharamaraja [the boss of the Hindu Hell]. I have been to hundreds of worlds, but this is the only one where I have seen people striving for liberation and actually attaining it.You don't know how lucky you are.'

    And then, as he kept quiet, I contemplated my own extraordinary luck. Not only had I been born in this unique world, I had had a desire for jnana that had brought me to India and to great beings who had realised the Self, and I was sitting right next to one who had attained that state and who had the power to reveal to it others.

    Ramana Maharshi liked to play down any miraculous things that happened in his vicinity, and he generally took care to keep private any special knowledge that he had. However, he once let his guard down when a devotee expressed his concern that Bhagavan was going to give up his body.

    Bhagavan replied, 'I exist in many lokas in many different forms. The disappearance of one body in one world won't make much of a difference.'

    This was recorded by Krishna Bhikshu and recorded in his Telugu biography, Sri Ramana Leela, a book that was read and checked by Bhagavan during his lifetime.

    Though Bhagavan and Papaji might, in unguarded moments, talk about these things, neither of them attached any importance to them. For them, all manifestation is just a transient and unreal appearance in the one reality, the underlying Self. Worlds, realms and planes may come and go, but the Self always abides.

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  25. Ed

    I liked your story about Robert's dog:

    'There is also the story of how he brought his little dog Dimitri back to life in order to help him transition across.'

    Papaji once told me that he had inadvetently raised the son of a devotee from the dead. The boy had died on a train to Lucknow. His mother claimed the body from the station, but instead of cremating it, she put it in his bed and invited Papaji for a visit. When Papaji arrived, the boy's mother didn't tell him that her son had died the day before. Papaji thought the boy was just being lazy, so he called out, 'Get out of bed! I've come to visit you.' And the boy got up and came out of the bedroom.

    Papaji said that the power of a jnani can occasionally perform feats such as this. In this particular instance, Papaji said it worked because he had no idea that the boy was dead.

    He told me, 'I would not have said anything like this if I had known that the boy was dead. The power of a jnani can change destiny, even bringing someone back to life, but it only worked in this case because I had no idea he was dead, and had no desire to raise him from the dead.'

    When Lakshmana Swamy was still giving darshan, he regularly used to lecture us on not desiring siddhis, or trying to attain them. And sometimes he said, 'Miracles may happen around jnanis, but they never try to perform them because there is no one left to decide "I must perform this miracle".'

    Imagine my surprise then when he casually remarked one day that jnanis could, in exceptional circumstances, raise people from the dead. I was wondering what might have happened that day to make him say something so uncharacteristic. At that time he was in his seventies and learning to drive. Every day he would drive alone around Arunachala and stop occasionally to sit and look at the hill. I remember hoping that he hadn't accidentally knocked someone down and had to resort to emergency resurrection first aid.

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  26. Ranjit Maharaj (Nisargadatta Maharaj’s successor):

    Nisargadatta Maharaj was given permission by his Guru, Siddharameswar Maharaj, to teach and to initiate people with the mantra of the lineage, but he was not allowed to appoint a successor since the lineage had gone elsewhere. Ranjit Maharaj was also a devotee of Siddharameswar Maharaj. He started teaching after Nisargadatta passed away at the request of the Mumbai devotees who felt that the mantle of teaching should be taken up by someone who had also been with Siddharameswar Maharaj.

    Ranjit would occasionally visit Nisargadatta Maharaj while I was there. Nisargadatta would sometimes introduce him as a jnani and a fellow devotee of his own Guru. He definitely had the qualifications to teach from his own experience, but it is not right to say that he was Nisargadatta Maharaj's successor.

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  27. I used to think this way but I'm becoming a big-tent kind of guy. To heck with "my guru is more enlightened than your guru." When penned poems that show every sign of enlightenment, that came from enlightenment. Maybe he didn't even know that, and it wasn't present all the time, but so what? A four year old can say something enlightened, even if he doesn't have a robe, beard, and a funny hat. I know there are frauds out there, starting with Osho, but I think all this worrying about who is more enlightened has also become bullshit.

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  28. Edji: I think we need to remain as closely as possible to experiences and the validity of the conclusions we draw from direct experiences rather than wend our way into philosophy.

    * * *

    Dear Edji,

    I don't see a conflict between "direct" experiences (how direct can they actually be?) and so called intellectual understanding.

    Intellectual understanding is itself an experience (virtual realization) and a precursor to actual realization and must not be scoffed off as "philosophy".

    Siddharameshwar Maharaj: However, the main difficulty is in experientially realising the Truth about what has been intellectually understood. ... There is an intellectual understanding, but no realisation! The remedy for this is to study with determination, and learn the teaching. Unless there is sustained and repeated study, it will not be fully understood and realised.

    One can travel through all sorts of astral planes for a 1000 incarnations and have all kinds of fantastic "experiences".

    And what then?! --- Then one can write New Age bestseller books!

    I have nothing against experiences. I had many experiences myself including "divine visions", but what do they mean? It could be argued that Robert spend his entire adult life to gain an intellectual understanding of what had happened to him when he was age 14.

    Robert: You don't want to have an experience, that is not the goal. The goal is to become a good for nothing.

    All the best,

    Abe

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  29. David: In solipsism mind is treated as the only thing that exists.

    David: Solipsism maintains that there is nothing beyond what the mind can think and perceive.

    * * *

    Dear David,

    what you call solipsism here is actually idealism.

    Strictly speaking, solipsism means that MY INDIVIDUAL MIND IS THE ONLY MIND (solus ipse) and this is – according to your essay – what Ramana taught!

    David: It is a fundamental tenet of advaita that the world is projected by the individual mind that sees it. Some people think that this means that each individual jiva projects its own world, but Bhagavan taught that this is not the correct perspective. He maintained that the jiva which sees the world is the only jiva that exists, and that all the other people whom this jiva sees are merely imagined projections of the first jiva. Since all things and all beings are merely the externalised projection of the jiva who sees them, it follows that when this jiva is absent or destroyed, the other beings and things simply cease to exist.

    It is beside the point whether a Self remains after the destruction of my individual mind or nothing.

    Unless we accept that there is more than just one individual mind, I don’t see how one can say Ramana’s teaching is not solipsistic.

    I don’t know, but this is either a misrepresentation of Ramana’s teaching, or not to be taken literally (a more or less skilful means for the sake of the sadhaka), or nonsense;

    I have to side here with Swami Siddheswarananda’s point of view:

    The term “mind” in the Vedantic sense means ATMAN – and this is what Ramana’s teaching of “eka jiva” must have meant; and not that my individual mind is the only mind there is!

    All the best,

    Abe

    P.S.

    There is a very elucidating essay by A. Coomaraswamy who might shed some further light on the issue:

    On the One and Only Transmigrant

    http://turiya.vidya.hu/konyvtar/pdf/On%20the%20One%20and%20Only%20Transmigrant.pdf

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  30. David, thank you so much for your many kind replies. They are very inspiring!

    And funny too ;)

    "I remember hoping that he hadn't accidentally knocked someone down and had to resort to emergency resurrection first aid."

    :D

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  31. Anonymous

    Subjective idealism and solipsism both propose that the mind and its activities are the only thing that exists. This means that they cannot accept that something will remain if mind is absent. Ramana taught that everything that is seen and perceived by an individual thinker or perceiver is mind and mind alone, but he was also quite clear that there was a state that could be experienced first-hand if mind did not exist.This alone disqualifies him from being either a solipsist or a subjective idealist.

    Bhagavan did subscribe the the eka-jiva position (there is only one mind, not a multiplicity of them) but he did not equate that mind with Atman as you suggest. He said that the final state was mano-nasa (destroyed mind). Mind does not become one with the Atman, nor is it a synonym for the Atman. When mind is eliminated, Atman alone remains. This conclusion, derived from direct experience, is an experiential invalidation of both the idealism and solipsism positions on the nature of the mind and the world.

    Thanks for the link. I have just read the article again after a long time.

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  32. David makes it clear here that what Ramana pointed to is not idealism or solipsism. Some people are very good with words, that can be a great benefit and in other ways a great distraction. I am grateful for David's ability to articulate clearly.
    These topics are much easier to understand when one doesn't operate from the idea that there are actually individuals with individual minds.

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  33. Ed/Friends,
    I chanced upon this article by Ed and David's excellent response to it.I wish to share a few excerpts from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
    1.MAHIMA: "Can a man live in the world if his mind is once directed to God?"
    See God in the world
    MASTER: "Why not? Where will he go away from the world? I realize that wherever I live
    I am always in the Ayodhya of Rama. This whole world is Rama's Ayodhya. After
    receiving instruction from His teacher, Rama said that He would renounce the world.
    Dasaratha sent the sage Vasishtha to Rama to dissuade Him. Vasishtha found Him filled
    with intense renunciation. He said to Rama: 'First of all, reason with me, Rama; then You
    may leave the world. May I ask You if this world is outside God? If that is so, then You
    may give it up.' Rama found that it is God alone who has become the universe and all its
    living beings. Everything in the world appears real on account of God's reality behind it.
    Thereupon Rama became silent.

    2.First God and then the world. If you know one you know all. If you put fifty
    zeros after a one, you have a large sum; but erase the one and nothing remains. It is the one
    that makes the many. First one, then many. First God, then His creatures and the world.
    God and the world
    "The one thing you need is to realize God. Why do you bother so much about the world,
    creation, 'science', and all that? Your business is to eat mangoes. What need have you to
    know how many hundreds of trees there are in the orchard, how many thousands of
    branches, and how many millions of leaves? You have come to the garden to eat mangoes.
    Go and eat them. Man is born in this world to realize God; it is not good to forget that and
    divert the mind to other things. You have come to eat mangoes. Eat the mangoes and be
    happy."

    What Sri Ramakrishna has said is not different than what Sri Ramana has said -that there is no world apart from the Self.

    Namaskar

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  34. Ed/Friends,
    Appropos of this comment of Ed:
    "REALISTICALLY, IF YOU LOOK AT ROBERT’S AND RAMANA’S TEACHINGS, THEY CONSTANTLY TELL YOU TO LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE, IGNORE IT, IGNORE YOUR EMOTIONS, IGNORE YOUR THOUGHTS, IGNORE YOUR PROBLEMS AND JUST LOOK WITHIN FOR THE SOURCE: YOUR SENSE OF I."

    I do not much about Robert Adams or what he taught.As far as Sri Ramana Maharshi is concerned,I wish to clarify that Bhagavan(Sri Ramana) never ever taught to ignore the emotions or anything that is human-He was one of the best exemplars of human values as anyone who had read his wonderful life lived so transparently all through 24 hours of each day would know.What he advised is to get to the bottom of all this -and this is what he advised through self enquiry.It is futile to understand and deal with the waves without understanding the ocean.The emotions,thoughts , our dealings with others and the world are all so inadequate and so self contradictory as they are all based on our being 'fractional'.The only sane way is to address this 'fractional' by getting to the bottom of all these phenomena and getting hold of the entire thing in a wholistic and comprehensive way.Towards this advocated 'self-enquiry' which is a powerful means to drill into one's core being and discover that there is only one Being without a second that animates all the apparent multiplicity.This ends all the conflict on account of the 'ractional',individualised ,highly compromised living.
    In this unitary understanding there is compassion -not the compassion that is a product of human sense sensibilities but the true one -what is called 'sama dhrishti' or equal vision that deals with people ,animals,insects,reptiles or whatever in a spontaneous way which cannot by any stretch of imagination be called 'indifferent'.

    For those who have a cursory knowledge or understanding of the teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi,it is a good idea to try and get a deeper understanding of 'self-enquiry' -to gain the understanding that it is NOT an 'excusive' 'world shunning' approach that leads to 'aloofness' but a truly integrating approach that unites head,heart and actionable energy-that is truly universal,free from all dubious secretive mysticism,namby pamby emotionalism that is mistaken for Bhakti -and above all practical.
    As for Ed's comment:
    LET ME SAY THIS: THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD CLAIMING TO BE ENLIGHTENED THAN EVER BEFORE, BUT THE BAR OF DEFINED ENLIGHTENMENT IS LOWER THAN EVER BEFORE ALSO. I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE IN THE SAME CLASS AS ROBERT, AND I DO NOT TEACH AS HE TEACHES BECAUSE I DO NOT SEE HIS TEACHINGS AS APPROPRIATE FOR OUR TIMES. OUR TIMES DEMAND A SOFTER AND MORE BHAKTIC, SURRENDER STYLE APPROACH
    True Jnana is the same as Bhakti and it is a mistake to see them as different from each other-the one as Cold and the other as warm.self-enquiry is the same as self surrender.

    Namaskar

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  35. Aaahhh. SO cerebral all of this. If everything is such a dream why did Paapji cheat on his Indian wife and father a child out of wedlock with the fake guru Mira? I guess his penis was not an illusion. David Godman has also slept around, had an 8 year affair with a Ramana devotee from Israel as well as other women who flock to him due to his books. I enjoy reading all of this cerebral crap as the way they live their lives speaks volumes about their character. Total bullshit.

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