I am not a Christian, but I know Him and can explain his message in different ways

I am not a Christian in the sense of joining a church or spending much time reading the New Testament, but I now understand Christ in a way I could not before because of my opening to the God within. He breathed life into me, and I am His vessel.

I could not feel Christ because I was steeped in traditions that denied Self in any dualistic way, or which emphasized Emptiness, the Void, the Light of Consciousness, Presence, Kundalini, etc., all more or less impersonal observations from a Witness standpoint.

My concepts kept me from realizing my Self because I did not know where to look for Self.  I had been looking for the 'I Am''s source, and thought it was found in that inner space illumined by the Third Eye, the Light of Consciousness.

But Self isnot found by "looking" within, but by feeling within. Finding the Self requires sensitivity to feelings, both the internal feeling of your body, but of your energy body, emotions, sadness, grief, joy, happiness and bliss.  Everything inside has to be brought into the heart-sense, into the I Am which centers it and makes it stronger.

This Self is none other than Christ within, a growing presence resulting from loving and surrender to all that arises within yourself while exploring feelingly within, and the language used to describe this experience is so very different from Buddhism, Vedanta, Zen, and the Taoist traditions I came from.

As my own sense of Self grew in me, I had no words to express it, for the experience is the most personal possible, that subtle and vulnerable feeling of I.  But with the passage of  time it has become the most powerful sense of Self, of Self-ownership in communion with the God who made me come alive.

I think the story of my re-incarnation into humanity and the flesh required a letting go of the language and concepts of Zen, Buddhism, and Advaita which were locked into a denial of a personal sense of separate self, and a denial of the reality of the experiential world.  For them, only the unchanging Void, or the Unchanging Witness somewhere beyond the Void, were real.

Emotions, even love, desires, activities were to be watched and not identified with, nor were they to be denied.  Only watched. One time Sasaki Roshi, a great Zen Master told me there was no love in Zen.

Now, again it is a matter of language shaping experience. Christ had to talk the way hid did with externalized similes and metaphors because his audience lacked introspective skills.  He talked in parables that you had to interpret correctly to  find the Self or Find God.

The only way they really could understand Jesus was not through his words, but by being with him, knowing him directly, feeling his presence within themselves.  So you find Christ within through feeling his presence within.

His words are mostly distraction and entertainment, keeping the crowds coming with the Law, his parables, his speaking as to his own ability to deliver salvation to those who follow him, while his Presence entered and worked miracles on his Disciples, 12 of whom became Apostles.

I obtained my first awakening through six years with Robert Adams, imbibing his spirit, not his teachings.  He told everyone those were for entertainment only.  He said that over and over.  His truth lay in a silent mind, emptiness, peace, and identity with Consciousness.  he said that was his message, which was different from many other teachers even of Advaita.

But, my awakening to the Life that Jesus speaks of was because of my love for a person which ignited my heart, and exploded my sense of presence, my energy body, and my I Am, which after being attended to for a short while revealed that Self within me which is the Life, the Truth, and the Way.

Since that explosion, everything has turned upside down.  The eastern ways are of transcendence of the flesh and experience.  Chist's way and my way are running towards and embracing our bodies, our vulnerabilities, our mortality, and therein finding the Self.

No Wonder!!!

     It is quite clear to me now why our Sangha has remained small.  I have been trying to sell inner investigation of suffering, grief, and heartbreak, as a way to Self-Realization to neo-Advaitins, Classical Advaitins, and Buddhists, all of whom shun suffering like a plague.

       Indeed Robert said you still experience vestiges of suffering, but the sting is no longer there.  Buddhists seek Nirvana, the burning out of desires and the Self to reach the other shore beyond humanity.  They vow to save all sentient beings from suffering and distress.

          Neo-Advaitins can find no separate Self that could suffer. Francis Lucille cannot find a self to suffer, ditto all the other Facebook teachers.  Masaro shows that the Witness merely watches the world (and the body/mind/heart’s suffering, untouched.

       However, Christians, Sufi, and psychologists understand Self as spirit or an inner sense of me, and they understand that suffering is pervasive.  For the Christians, and especially for the Sufi, suffering can be a way to the Beloved, the Self within, experienced as joining or merging with Christ, the Beloved, or God.

       Just my use of the word “Self” was anathema to the body of people I was talking to, trying to take them back into existence, emotions, human vulnerability and love, while they were still running from Self, suffering, depression, and grief, not knowing that the bounty they seek lay under the surface of suffering and distress, not by ending desires and the Self through meditation and dissociation, but by piercing that layer of suffering that lies over the self, and protects it from casual viewing.

          Passion, energy, persistence, and a divine calling—grace—is needed to find that Pearl of Great Price within, the Kingdom of God, the Self.

The Self is the Kingdom of Heaven Buried Within Your Own Heart

The Self is like the Kingdom of Heaven, a great treasure buried in a field.  He who finds it does everything to not let it out of his sight. He will fixate on it, never wavering, for the vision is glorious beyond measure. Jesus referred to him as a man who sells everything he has to buy the field wherein the treasure lies.

But it really lies within you, and, in a large way requires the Passion of the Christ to find it within the inner Emptiness, sorrow, and grief that protects it from casual view.

When that treasure is found as your own Self, and that Christ is in you, you will cry for joy and the bliss of Self, of knowing God is always in your heart.

The BEST Spirituality is all about Self

If your spiritual search does not focus on Self-discovery, Self-Realization, your search will never end, or will end in a dull culdesac of being only an observer.

Zen and Neo-Advaita, Emptiness and empty mind, can only take you to the Void, to clear and lighted inner and outer spaces, the containers of all inner and outer experiences, which will result in peace and an uncluttered mind, but your life will slowly be snuffed out by lack of love for objects (including others), a dry witnessing of emotions, and a disappearance of your identification with your humanity, with your body, emotions, and love.

Life will lose both its bite, but also its juice.

Ditto Jnana Yoga which will leave in as That which lies beyond Consciousness, witnessing Consciousness. This is even further removed from Life than is Zen's Void and empty mind, which themselves are still observed phenomena, observed by 'That' standing at the source.

If you follow the way of power, Kundalini, Raja Yoga, Kashmir Shaivism, or and many similar paths, you follow energy, bliss, and control which will lead you down a path of no rest, just more and more energies, powers, and bliss.  It is not balanced and the Self is difficult to discover among all the masculine doing and effort.

I am afraid that even though many Kundalini and Shaivite gurus talk about Self, it is quite unclear what they mean by Self, and they may mean either Shiva, the watcher, of Shakti, the Power that knows the way as Robert put it, or the Life Force. Neither are the Self of which I speak, which uniquely belongs to sentience itself as its essence.

My  own teacher, Robert Adams talked of the Self, but by Self he meant remaining as the witness of Consciousness, and sometimes that Witness was taken as being separate from Consciousness, and sometimes he meant it as being part of the totality of Consciousness.

But all of  these Eastern-Oriented paths seem to miss the point of real Self-Realization, looking within with loving acceptance of all that arises through introspection, thereby gaining a clear seeing and feeling of that which I call Self:  the divine source within, Sentience itself, knowingness itself, and the Life divine!

By Life I mean the sense that you know you exist, are a discrete and separate entity that is human, possessing a body, and also an energy body, a sense of presence as an energy being, with a layer of human emotions all who have bodies should feel from joy, happiness, excitement, to depression, grief, loss and fear. And behind this entire wholeness lies the divine--that which is greater, that which is the source and essence of sentience.

How the Self is experienced and how one gets there is the whole story of Self-Realization.  The Self cannot really be described in normal European languages.  The Self can only be hinted at.

My hints are that it has an inner physical light in one's subjective awareness of one's inner space, and that light is associated with an inner awareness of itself.  Self is aware of itself reflexively. Once it is aware of itself, it cannot look aware because it finds itself the greatest fascination.

This Self is initially found in weakness--in emotional vulnerability which is often shunned as weakness, thus I use that term deliberately to get us past that term of degradation by feeling your reaction to that term, because a negative reaction is built into so many of us.

Besides light, weakness, vulnerability, the Self has a form that is ever changing in appearance and outline.  It is like an inner brook of cool energy tumbling over a waterfall of delicious nurturance inside.  It cools the soul, gives peace, and its lights one's heart-sense with Love and Life.  With the finding of Self comes a roaring from within:  I Am Alive!  I Am Self!

Imagine looking within one's own innerness, with the Third eye of introspection serenely looking within.  Deep within, like looking down from just a meter under water, one sees far deeper aa brilliant white light, at first like a ball, which arises within your inner emptiness, grows a thousandfold when it nears your heart, and then explodes with an overwhelming feeling of happiness, joy, and bliss, and the absolutely certain knowing that you are alive and you are this wonderous lighted power-source within yourself.

Usually this experience of the appearance of Self as light, power, presence, and bliss, is accompanied by the feeling of the descent of grace in you, making you clean, pure, a receptive channel for the divine.

After having this experience just once, you begin to know with every fiber of your being who and what you are:  A human being in a physical body, accompanied by an energy body, accompanied by an intelligence that has nothing to do with  words or concepts, but is a direct intuition into the nature of the world, your self, and God.  You and God are one in the sense you are discrete,. but also one within. You are an incarnation of God (or Christ Consciousness) in human flesh, as are all other humans, as are all other animals and sentient beings, from angels to earthworms.

All of Sentience is the same across quintillions of life forms covering trillions of planets.  God is in all of us, experiencing other sentient beings alive and sensing throughout the universe.

And, each week, month, and year that passes after that original Self-experiencing, the Self grows more clear, more powerful, more spontaneous, more vulnerable, and ever more knowing what it is.

But this way of direct realization of Self is not open to all.  It opens only to those who are emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually open to all experiences that arise from within, and all inner experiences that arise from interactions with the external world. For this reason a foundation in psychological introspection is essential.  This is a spirituality that walks hand in hand with person-centered therapy, Self-psychology, and object relations schools of non-analytic introspection to be covered in future writings.

This path requires a radical honesty and openness to everything within you.  It feels like the Self is pulling at your heart before you have even seen it and felt it, relentlessly drawing "you" towards itself.  In a sense you are chosen by Self to seek It and It alone, and not powers, or Emptiness, or Empty Mind, or Kundalini, or Bliss, though all such usually comes during the process of knowing the Self.

And, as I discovered early on, you don't become self-realized without teachers or the presence of Self-Realized persons.  You discover the Self in them which leads you to discover it within yourself.  It is the physical presence of other self-Realized, or nearly realized beings that enables your awakening and flowering.  That is called Satsang.  Online Satsang is great, but being in the actual physical presence is even more powerful a stimulus for Self-Realization.
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Syndria is Truly Getting the Point of the spiritual Search: Self-Realization:

Edji,

Satsang felt so deep tonight, a stillness as you talked.

At least from my experience, the energy was strong and centered in my heart and especially strong in my belly.

The group felt that way too, no chatting, nothing extraneous.

I sank inward into presence rather than up into ecstasy.

Instead of swirling dancing energy moving in fast colorful swaths, it was solid expansive energy radiating outward from my core.

Your teaching feels so fine honed and focused now.

  

I see a few new people coming to Satsang and many new names commenting on your posts.

You may never have lots of students like Chetanananda does,  but you can take a few students very, very deep into Life ... Love ... Wisdom ... Truth ... Self.

You have a particular skill for going deep.    For communicating  to your students how to do that.

Your descriptions of the inner landscape are so uniquely specific and nuanced.

You take me on an inner journey of ever deepening sensitivity and awakening every time you teach about the wealth of depths and perspectives and spaces and energies within us.

I feel like an astronaut of inner space.

I've never loved spiritual practice the way I do now.   I've never thirsted so deeply to find my Self.

And I've never felt so alive, so human, so loving.

During the last few days my sense of I Am has become so pervasive, so rich, so still that love seems to just be me.

I feel like a beacon at times....a lighthouse of love...

Of course, then I also slide into the volcano inside where I burn  and cook and scream and curse.

And I'm starting to love that too.

For some reason, I feel like you have a Sangha waiting in Az.     Satsang with live people instead of all virtual.

I'm starting to feel good about going back there, in a new way.    I'd love to chant and dance with other people, create a group energy that attracts others to it.

Have a group generating love in the desert....  Let's do it.

I just have to have this time of inner working here alone for awhile longer.  I'm too dysfunctional to move right now and too inward looking to pull out of it into packing mode.

But I can start disposing of books and stuff no longer serving my life now.    That might feel good to do as the cold and snow is now appearing.    I feel hibernation coming on ...a good time to pair things down to basics.

There is both rain snow and ice whipping against my  windows tonight, always happens day before Thanksgiving.   Year after year the same ....

Sometimes I wonder if its the spirits of the Native Peoples stirring up rough weather just to make Thanksgiving a bit tougher to take for granted.

Making us white folk work harder for our holiday.

I played Native American singing and drumming tonight just to say I'm thinking of The Great Spirit tonight.

My apartment feels filled up with spirits ... they don't like ice and snow either.     Ha !

Goodnight Edji.   I love you/me.  

Rock   Head

 (Syndria's reference to "Rock Head" refers to my teaching, and that of her previous mentor, Seung Sahn, that you have to become completely stupid in order to find your Self.  Give up all knowledge, all understanding, all concepts, all words, and just look and FEEL within for that spark of sentience that can be called 'I Am', 'I-Exist', "I see/feel and experience myself as light, energy, bliss and knowledge."

You can all come to Online Satsangs at 2 pm California time, every Sunday.  Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  Enter the room with the password   edji   used on two different screens.  Then go to the "Start Broadcasting" button in order to ennable your own microphone and video feed.  ALL ARE WELCOME!

One's Natural State is Being Self-Realized

I am not like other teachers.  For me you don't have to struggle for years with Koans, or do Kundalini-raising exercises with special Pranayama repetitions along with visualizations for a dozen years, or 30 years to attain Sahaja Samadhi.

All that you have to do is be your Self.  But to do that, you have to explore your own subjectivity to find out who you are and what you are.

I am beginning to believe that the natural state of the average sensitive and compassionate human is to be self-realized.  We are not Self-Realized because we have been talked out of it, ruled out of it, thrown out of it from a very early age by wrong and object-related thinking.

We become preoccupied with the world rather than with ourselves.  I don't mean we need a narcisistic fixation on ourselves, but we need to know who and what we are by always keeping at least one eye looking inside, with complete acceptance and love for what we find.

If we were not screwed over by the notion of giving onto Caesar taxes, loyalty, obedience, in order to feel enough security that we could act out leftover impulses such as for sex, love, a home, car, and things, we would have enough time and energy to know ourselves as we truly are, as spirit, Consciousness, the Void, Emptiness, as energetic presence, as light, bliss, joy, happiness, depression, fear, loss... And mostly, as the result of Self-Development that continues way beyond Freudian, Kleinian, and Object Relational theory, we find and become Self because the false drops aside.

In one instant, everything fits together.  We know who and what we are: body, spirit, inner energies, passion, sentience, love, joy, vulnerability, and the Self, who is God.

It happens all at once.  We become aware of Self, God, and the World all at once.  I think this would be our natural development if we did not have so many  voices shouting at us from month one of age telling us what we are, who we are, our names, what we should become, pay taxes, get a job, find a career, make money, save money, etc.

My job as a teacher is to tell you to shut up.  Shut the mind up, it is just all those voices still talking to from childhood and teenager.

Become stupid.  Don't know anything.  And with that, start looking and feeling inside.  Re-own your subjectivity anew, with completely open mind and open heart.  It is really that simple.

But if you need a technique, and you can trust me, go within and try to find your sense of existence, your sense of self.  Most people can't find it. But try to find the sensation of I-ness, of being me.  Not the I-thought, but the I-feeling.

If by the age of five you could become aware of that I-feeling, I could almost guarantee that you would be fully awakened as Self by age 16.

But most have to unlearn what you are; tear down the web of concepts that has kept you imprisoned, and learn how to feel yourself, find the I-sensation, watch it, watch your changing inner sense of energies and inner sensations of body, breath, and thought.

Soon enough you will be reborn as Self.

WE WILL TRY AGAIN!

SATSANG FAILED ON SUNDAY DUE TO CONNECTION PROBLEMS.

WE WILL TRY AGAIN ON WEDNESDAY, 2 PM, NOVEMBER 26.

GO TO: http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  Sign in when asked (2 different screens) with the password   edji.

If you can't get in, try a different browser. Chrome often demonstrates problems, Explorer fewer problems.

We may talk about Nisargadatta, and we may talk about Neo Advaita.

Who knows?

SATSANG TODAY, SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23 AT 2  PM CALIFORNIA TIME.

GO TO: http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  Sign in when asked (2 different screens) with the password   edji.

If you can't get in, try a different browser. Chrome often demonstrates problems.

We may talk about Nisargadatta, and we may talk about Neo Advaita.

Who knows?

I am So Much More Than I had Ever Dreamed

My teacher used to say everything is Consciousness. But day to day, he said his world was like anyone else's except he knew everything was Consciousness. He rarely talked about bliss, mostly about Peace Beyond Understanding, and he said the self and the world were illusions, there was only Consciousness, self-contained.

On the other hand, recently I was talking to a well-known Kundalini teacher and he said everything was Shakti. And he would not explain further, and explained his progressive states of Samadhis and Bliss. But he didn't talk of Self, or of I, just said for him,everything is Shakti, bliss.

Now I have known for a long time that everything was Consciousness, but I was not a thing. Consciousness appeared to me. I was the Witness.

But 'I' also know the Self. I have no idea of what this I is, except I am it. But it feels and perceives itself as alive, existent, and the knowledge of this identity is overwhelming to me.

This Self I could call my beloved. I cannot describe it, but I see it within as light, energy, and sheer knowledge of Self, knowledge so powerful that is has the sheer density and gravity of the flesh, or a sixth sense, and is extremely powerful. Knowing myself.

I can no longer explain in simple 3 word sentences what is or what I am, as that misses to much.

I cannot say all is Consciousness and have it mean anything to me anymore. Ditto, everything is Shakti or bliss. I know what it is like to be Love, to be Bliss, to be Parabrahman, the Absolute Witness. Nor do I identify with the Void that I dwelled in for over 12 years, an all pervading lighted space that permeated everything. Nor am I just the sense of an energetic presence that pervades my body and the world around me as an intelligent energy.

There is no nuance or discrimination in those states. One is only an observer, the Unborn, prior to Consciousness. Or one is only bliss. Everything is bliss. Everything is love. I know those but they have passed. I still have emotions and sometimes desires arise in me, nut they are small things compared to my constant feeling/seeing of the Self within as witnessed by me, and which is also me.

It appears we are two, but I cannot even say that, for we feel like One. The Absolute Self perceives the Manifest Self of divinity and bliss and is enlivened thereby. The Manifest Self gives the Absolute knower a grounding in life. The Absolute, Shiva, without this Life Force is only a seer, a witness to what Consciousness and the Life Force does, and I am also that.

But you see my path was different from most: First a Zen monk who dwelled for years in the Void, in Emptiness even during a Kundalini awakening that lasted some years. I still mostly identified with emptiness, stillness.

Then I saw that I observed Emptiness. Although it contained all experience, it, itself was perceived by me, and I saw all states of Consciousness. all thoughts, all emotions, merely came and went and did not touch me. I was beyond their touch. This was my realization after being with Robert Adams five or six years, and this is whatI taught.

Then love came to me and His love exploded in me, as me. I was love, and my Beloved was love, and that love awakened and alivened ME. I came alive into the flesh. My Subtle Body lighted up and energies were everywhere, and Bliss! Most of all I had knowledge of who I was: not just a witness beyond Consciousness, but a human who was in constant relationship with my aliveness, with the Life Force, with God, and we were identical. human, Life Force, Self, God, and the Absolute.

This is very nuanced, a very differentiated oneness, knowledge and bliss.

But one thing I do know also is that I can give these experiences and knowledge to others. I can see and feel where they are. I can feel their Life Force and their blockages as well as their level of understanding. But none wants to come too near because this path requires you to burn. It is one of passion, emotional openness, great love, and extraordinary commitment to knowing one's Self.

A student goes deeper and deeper with and finds deepening love and happiness

Edji,, wow this is great....feeling just so in Love with the I AM and having it right here, right now, so close I can feel its breath, just a centimeter away and yet all around and engulfing me at the same time. The astounding thing is feeling this I AM and having the pulsating Love for the I AM just flowing through the Heart Center and then an understanding that this goes even deeper....and deeper.

It goes even deeper and that is where I am going...deeper into the I AM , deeper into me, to the Source of all this.

This blog is the principal source of all donations used to support the wearesentience.com website and all of its free downloads, this teaching blog, the free Sunday online Satsangs at 2PM California time, as well as my work maintaining many feral cat colonies, and home placements. If you have found my posts to be of value to you, please support these teachings and animal work with a donation. Thank you!

Those who advise no spiritual effort, no looking within, do so from fear of what they will find.

Nisargadatta has stated never to take his sayings as generic advice for everyone. Each time he spoke it was for a specific person at a specific state of development. Otherwise how can you keep doing what you are doing, following me around FB and attacking what I say without addressing the Nisargadatta qutes and Ramana quotes I post that talk about the need for inner effort, searching, doggedness of inner self-exploration.

I get from you not a conviction that you just need to be, but a deep fear in you of going inside yourself, and exploring, out of fear of what horror you will find in your own inner exploration.

I;ll bet you have never been in psychotherapy either out of fear of what you will find inside. You are afraid to "poke around in your inner darkness" out of fear of finding deep depression, despair, inner weakeness, etc., and instead attack all inner work as worthless.

Then you have a whole bunch of people that support your passivity and just wait for whatever arises thinking this passivity is the highest truth. In fact, it is a passivity born of terror of what you will find inside.

Many, many, people are like this. They have a fear both of psychotherapy, inner reflection, true self-inquiry. You are one of them.

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This blog is the principal support for the wearesentience.com website and its free downloads, this teaching blog, the free Sunday online Satsangs at 2PM California time, as well as Ed's work maintaining many feral cat colonies, and home placements. If you have found these posts to be of value, please support these teachings and animal work with a donation. Thank you!

Eighth Century Advaita with Commentary by Ramana

From the Mandukya Karika--an Eighth Century Advaita Text:

What is changing must always be unreal. This phenomenal world of names and forms is ever changing. Names and forms are subject to decay and death. Hence they are unreal or impermanent. What is constant or permanent must always be Real. The Atman or the Eternal, all-pervading Self ever exists. It pervades all objects like ether. Even if the pot is broken, the ether that is within and without it cannot be destroyed. Similarly, if the bodies and all other objects perish, the Eternal Self that pervades them cannot be destroyed; It is the living Truth and only Reality.

If your assumption is that you are the Self, then thinking is not a problem, it can come and go as it pleases. However, if you think you are the body, then thinking is the only being, the only thing that keeps you away from the brink of the "terrible abyss" of non-being. When the sense of being an individual is transcended, you will know that you are the Self and that your true nature is Being-consciousness-bliss. Being abides in Itself, consciousness knows itself and bliss reposes in itself. The Self alone is.

ABOUT THIS RAMANA MAHARSHI SAID:

Ramana Maharshi teaches that the Self is pure Being, a subjective awareness of "I am" which is completely devoid of the feeling "I am this" or "I am that". There are no subjects nor objects in the Self; there is only an awareness of Being. Because this awareness is conscious it is also known as 'consciousness'. The direct experience of this consciousness is, according to Sri Ramana, a state of unbroken happiness and so the term 'bliss' is used to describe it. These three aspects – being, consciousness and bliss – are experienced as a unitary whole and not as separate attributes of the Self. They are inseparable in the same way that wetness, transparency and liquidity are inseparable properties of water. 
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This blog is the principal support for the wearesentience.com website and its free downloads, this teaching blog, the free Sunday online Satsangs at 2PM California time, as well as Ed's work maintaining many feral cat colonies, and home placements. If you have found these posts to be of value, please support these teachings and animal work with a donation. Thank you!

Steve disspells darkness, Ed gives fair warning.

TO ME:

Edji,  Thank you,  your right on target and this new counselor is working really great.

We did a simple relaxation yesterday and I found that ball of darkness that has been following me since childhood.  Identifying it, giving it a name and moving it out ....then filling in the empty space it left with the  I AM-pure white light which also brought on a vision of my parents telling me as a child, 'don't do that, don't do this' and generally negative responses.

I could see where my parents’ negativity (dad in WWII for 5 years) was actually being mirrored within me. So I always felt that the task at hand was out of my control, was claustrophobic and didn't like entering experiences that I didn't pre-plan for.

This has to digest for a week or two but I feel a light has been turned on inside, any undefined fear has just gone away, I don't care about all the strange sounds anymore and god I just feel deeply  at peace-a rare feeling for me.

It leaves me in very close to a Total Peace Within and now allows me to join and Love the I AM even that much more.

I feel gratitude to my Vietnam experience and all the triggers that brought the whole shitting caboodle right to my plate and much deeper gratitude to you Edji for without your teachings I would have spent this life with that ball of darkness. I thank you my dear fellow.

Love you deeply,  Steve

ED’S RESPONSE:

If you have been followed by a negative ball of energy/emotions for your entire life, it is not likely that it can evaporate in one session.  When it comes back it may initially have a different feel or form, but when it does, this time let it kill you.  In other words, adopt the attitude that it is always there, therefore it is a part of you that you have been rejecting, and admit to yourself you cannot do that anymore.  You need to completely feel and join with that darkness in order to be made whole. 

In other words, you have to be ready in your heart to die from the experience.  Only in that way will you be open enough to really experience that dark ball to see what it is all about, to absorb it, and bring it into you, completing you, and finding the bliss on the other side.

What you have done is applied a band aid to a rupturing aorta; you need surgery that has the “feeling” of the possibility of death by dark ball of negative energy.

STEVE’S RESPONSE:

Sri Edji,   I think the answer to your past questions regarding limited number of devotees is that they don't want to go through Hell. 

Holy shit, when you say Self-Realization you mean it and don't really beat around the bush. This is one damn path that is just like walking point in the jungle...ya just never know where the next bullet/issue is coming from and whether or not it is going to be fatal.

You are very powerful in this way and when devotees get close to you and your teachings they are put in a position where it seems like life and death. They are faced with the Mirror' and what is in the 'Mirror' is usually something they have been avoiding for lifetimes. But instead of seeing the reflection the blame goes totally on you for being such a so-and-so.

I can see where this path can take lifetimes unless the devotion and desire is Total. It certainty is not a plaything or an escape mechanism as it does not work that way.

Anyway I'll keep eating the dark ball but sometimes I just want to Scream and Scream as the darkness never leaves.....I have a difficult time accepting that it is my own shadow.

Thank you for sticking close to me Edji, Love steve

ED’S RESPONSE:

Even with total desire for Self-Realization and dedication to the task it will take lifetimes.  That has to be your attitude: whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.

The bliss and Self-Knowing is entirely worth the effort, and never ceases to deepen.

If you want instant enlightenment you have to go with the neos who only ask you to look within for five minutes, and then finding nothing there, conclude that there is no Self, and that they are perfect the way they are. Full stop.

But this is delusional.  They have not really “felt” into themselves; they have only looked into their hearts and guts, not felt the I Am sense there, and they will never find it by looking, only through loving.  The Self is only found by loving, loving someone or something else totally, or by loving whatever arises during self-inquiry, through introspection.


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Loneliness is Primarily Loneliness for Self, for Knowing and Loving and Being Loved by one’s Own Self.

    Strangely though the Self is difficult to find because we are not used to focusing on our Self. We don’t look within, watch and explore. We don’t sit still to feel our own heart beat. We don’t listen to the sounds in our head that are always there. We don’t look into the inner darkness that shrouds ever-flowing internal energies from being seen.

      We do not feel into our heart area to feel the small electric impulses that mark the beginning of feeling of the I Am sensation.

We don’t look into our gut from the inside, or feel from the inside to find the root cauldron of Hara energies. We do not perceive ourselves as a spiritual presence within and without the body, a sort of ghost within the physical mechanism of the body.

     

     We do not playfully explore our emotions, all of them, with an attitude of excited exploration. Indeed, many run from emotions in fear of anticipated pain. Many run from relationships from fear of being suffocated, or of experience heartbreaking loss and grief. So very, very few really experience the full spectrum of emotion, and as such, have no access to the experience of Subtle Body energies.

     Few have sat still long enough and looked within attentively so that the darkness within melts and gives way to a vast self-illumined Emptiness, the Void, which contains everything, all phenomena.

     So few have gone deeper yet and experienced the bliss of the foundational state known as Turiya, wherein originates the feeling of I Am. Ramana and Nisargadatta both referred to this as realization of the Godhead, the Atman, which deeper experience reveals as identical to God him or herself, and with it the recognition that one’s own Self is complex and deep yet unified: You are God; you are Senience, the ability to sense yourself and the world; you are Knowing of who and what you are; you are bliss; you are Emptiness; you are the energies that flow through your body and also through your Subtle Body, AKA as your sense of Presence.

     All these things you are, far greater than anything you can imagine until you spend years of internal watching with the same intensity as you explore the external world looking for answers to internal questions and for completion and happiness.

     The search for another, a companion, is really usually a search for one’s own self, the illumined soul, in another.

     Some rare beings do find their own soul in another, a lover, a guru, God, a mountain, and gain Self-Realization in that way. We see in the other that which we do not see or feel within ourselves.

     In some we feel they move with the gravity of a planet and are able to plumb the depths of existence by their merest touch. Others are firebrands, whose touch excites the Life Force in us long dormant from boredom with the external world.

     In some we find a deep quiet, an access to the Void and the light of the Void. We “feel” that in their presence and we stay to acquire it. In their presence, it is easier to experience it in ourselves.

    It is because of this understanding I can say that loneliness, or even desperation for companionship, the other, is actually a hidden desperation of finding and knowing our own Self totally, from top to bottom.

     A guru or a lover can certainly help you find your Self, and makes the search so much easier for the beginner unused to inner exploration. But ultimately you need to realize that the want of another is really a want for one’s own complete Self-Experience, Self-Knowing, Self-Realization.          --------------------------------------

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Coming Alive Through the Fullness of Self

I AM CONVINCED THAT MOST MENTAL ILLNESS, MOST POVERTY, MOST WAR, MOST SUFFERING IN THE WORLD IS DUE TO PEOPLE NOT HAVING A COMPLETE GRASP OF SELF IN THEMSELVES OR A FEEL FOR IT IN OTHERS.

Harry Guntrip wrote a world-changing book entitled Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations, and the Self in 1969 which is the key root book of the British Object Relations School of Psychoanalysis.  What a gift it was to me to read this book in 1980 after 12 years of being a Zen Monk and recently joining Siddha Yoga with Muktananda.

You see, a lot of Zen people are strangely schizoid, ambivalent and afraid of relationships, afraid of being lost in them, disappearing into the other, or being destructive to others due to an inner, unexpressed rage.

Guntrip outlined many of my relationship fears, my shyness, fear of women, fear of intense neediness in myself, being withdrawn, internalized, solipsistic.  Yet this innerness allowed me to fully explore Zen’s Void, the inner space, and with an opening of my Third Eye, finding the Light of Consciousness.

In other words, having a schizoid fixation point, no solid sense of self at all, allowed me to explore the space and entities that lay within and hidden by the false self most other “adjusted” and healthy people have.

About that period of time I became aware that entire cultures were marked by having personality disorder characteristics.  This is something currently regarded as politically incorrect to even state, so you will not find much academic backing for it.  But the ancient Arabic culture could be characterized as pre-self, and as borderline with its impulsiveness, rage, passion fixations, fragmentation in so many ways, easy depression, and so many other clues.  The jewish culture on the other hand could be characterized narcissistic, self-absorbed, feeling better than others, the Chosen People, abusive of other peoples, (and other Jews also.)

Then recently, my own experience of Self-Realization in a classical Ramana and Nisargadatta way through love—an awakened Libidinal Self—cured most of the schizoid remnants and narcissistic remnants in me, and for the first time, I had a solid sense of self, as a human, as the Self, and as the divine all wrapped in one, and with it, a strong desire to help others in any way I could.  The focus was no longer on finding the lost parts of me, the incompleteness, the lack of knowledge of who and what I was, but a worshipping of the Self in others, from insects to humans, and a deep desire to save all from suffering in many, many ways.

The experience of a whole Self, solid Self, that was above and beyond the body, but which also included the embodiment experience, made me whole and in constant communion with the divine within, with sentience and the Life Force.  

No longer concerned with Emptiness, the Void, the Light of Consciousness, the interplay of form and emptiness, I turned instead into being an embodiment of God, of passion, Life, Love, and most importantly, of Knowledge of who and what I was and what I had to do.

I had become alive as I Am as Self, the Atman who is one with Brahman, the Godhead.

It is impossible to express the difference this Self-Realization experience has wrought, except that I know that anyone who speaks of no self, no separate self, no temporal/special Self, does not have a clue as to what real Self-Realization means.  They either have a conceptual understanding about the non-existence of the conceptual selves most believe they have, and thus Emptiness reigns and objects become second class citizens, and even experience is denied any reality because it requires a witnessing self or I to make it real, and without an I, it is unreal, illusory.

These people dwell in a schizoid trap, unable to feel their desire for another in relationship, unlit be passions for life and love.  They become cyphers for Emptiness, unable to relate to others except as narcissistic users and manipulators who obtain embodiment through the adulation of adoring students as they talk their nonsense of no-self, and salvation from the illusion of Self.  They find a new false self through receiving the adulation.

This has driven me to point where I am going to reopen the Object-Relations exploration of Self at all levels, with the intention of discovering how the recovery of a lost Self can lead to a curing of most mental illness and societal dysfunction by making people realize not only a solid sense of Self, but how it is infused by the divine energies, Love, passion, and compassion.

The method I still recommend for this Self-Realization is an awakening of the libidinal self, the passionate lover of others and of one’s own Self, that awakening the Kundalini and other energies within, through loving introspection of one’s inner world, with its emptiness, light, emotions, energies, and other inner experiences, exploring them until the divine Self within reveals itself to you.

Then begins a new journey of living as a divine incarnation, each day gaining a little more energy, power, and knowing of who and what you are.

A Deeper Truth is Emerging

I understand Christ as never before.

When he speaks about himself he does so from an identification with Self, the I Am at all levels.

In John 14:6 he says:

Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Jesus understood that the realization of Self was the solution of all the world’s problems. Sinners and the ill, especially the mentally ill, as well as all who suffer from grief, despair, and physical suffering, are saved by realizing their own Self, the divine within, the Atman, the Father.

With the Self, the I Am being realized, a man or woman is made complete.  Joy is constantly there at the center of one’s being, as well as total knowing (the Truth) of the divine within, expressed through themselves in the world of mankind.

As the only one that had realized the I Am in himself, and having fully identified with the Self, he can honestly say no man can realize God except through the I Am, which he was: the Life.

When one realizes the Self within, everything changes.  He is elevated above mundane life to a life of joy and direct knowing of God (the Truth), and with a full acceptance of the suffering in the world, knowledge of its roots, and the antidote for all mankind. 

This antidote is not like a Buddhist escape into no-self or Emptiness, but its opposite: a rush to embrace all life including one’s own battered self by going within, finding the I Am by walking with Jesus (The Way).

What good news!  I don’t have to discover everything myself through renunciation, deep and endless meditation, reading books, privations, etc., but I need only walk with Christ; be with him, love him, listen to what he says, feel the presence of God in him, and thereby in myself: your Self.

This understanding leads immediately to a far deeper understanding of another saying of Christ:

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The light here means so many different things.  When you realize Self, the I Am at total depth, you realize God within, the source of Consciousness, of sentience. This realization is of complete knowingness of your Self and acceptance thereof of where you are at and where you are going in life.  There is a total and certain acceptance of life and what life is providing, along with a resting in the light of God, of the Self.

Secondly, deep within one’s Self experience as awareness, as sentience, is a vast emptiness, a Void, which is filled with light and Presence, which we could call spirit, with which we can identify.  This is the light of life, of sentience, or awareness.

So, your inner world is lighted and you have a sure knowing of your existence in the world, and the unfolding of your life in and through sentience, a partnership with Christ, the I Am, God, which you also are.

Now, anyone who knows this Self, the I Am, and identifies with it as him or herself, is living in God as much as the world, and although he may suffer illness, injury, poverty, etc., the joy within compensates all, for one is more than the meat of the body, but also one’s own spirit, one’s presence, as well as the presence of God within that elevates all.

Each such realized will become a fisher of men, a light of the world, and those who walk with them will themselves always be in light and will realize the light as their own.

Finally, it is the lack of knowing one's self (Self) that is the cause of all man made human suffering, mental illness, war, poverty, much disease, etc., for he who knows himself becomes a servant of mankind as a whole, and a source of compassion, love and good works.