ARIZONA LIFE

Here I am at Starbucks in Peoria Arizona about 1.5 miles from our new home on the golf course. Yesterday was unpacking the van and the truck. Night before last, Mike, Max, and I all slept on the floor. The carpet provided wonderful support for my back. Max brought his own bed from Austria. Seven kitties shared one tile-floored room. All three of us spent a lot of time in the patio looking out over the green fairiways, watching the quail and rabbits. But my body had not even started to relax.

Last night I went over to my moms house 6 miles away and spent the night with Kerima and my mom. Had 2 stiff brandies and I began to relax. The day before I had driven 7 cats in two large cages and a carrier 406 miles in6.5 hours and I was very stressed. Hardly stopped at all except to pee and get gas. I wanted the kitties to be on the road as short a time as possible.

I tried showing some of the kitties the patio but most were too scared at the change. Most still huddled in the corner of the room that will be my office.

Today the tension is leaving my body. Kerima finally got back to work today after a 7 day bout of some illness likely due to the stress of a new job and the move. She is director of activities at a retirement home with 600 residents.

It makes me feel validated somewhat that despite my years of meditation, practice, etc., that I was still able to feel so overwhelmed and stressed. I remember when I drove Robert Adams, Nicole, and his dog Dimitri to my mom's house in Peoria how stressed he got.

For the first time since I knew him, he was impatient and a little bit short-tempered. He insisted that we get Dimitri 3 cans of Mighty Dog dog food, otherwise he would refuse to leave for Phoenix. He paced around his condo and looked stressed.

I had rented a large car that allowed Robert to rest in a semi-reclined position to accomodate his Parkinson's stiffened body. After about an hour he seemed to relax. Somewhere around Pomdale or after he said, "This is where the earthquake will occur." Robert had been predicting a large earthquake for some time, probably as an incentive to get students to move to Sedona to be with him.

Maybe now that I am out of Los Angeles, it really will happen.

In any event, I am now in Arizona 19 years after I should have moved with Robert in 1995.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow, New Years Eve with an 80% chance of rain, and with possible snow on New Years Day.

WE HAVE ARRIVED IN ARIZONA, SAFE IF NOT SOUND OF MIND.

REGARDING "CORRECT" SELF-INQUIRY

If you just look within for the I-thought or its source, you will find only nothingness, emptiness, the Void and be convinced no Self or personal self exists, or that they are just learned concepts with no reality.

But if you feel within with loving acceptance, you will find the I Am sensation. Staying with it will lead to your sense of presence, your energy body, the unknowingness of the Causal Body, then bliss and the seeing, feeling, and becoming of your Self. This is the way of the Bhakta: feeling.

VARIATIONS OF THE EXPERIENCES OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PERSONS ON THE PATH TOWARDS SELF-REALIZATION

Many  who write to me about their process tell me of vast swings between periods of complete happiness, bliss, inner light, and feelings of being completely whole and intensely alive followed by equally intense periods of dysfunctional depression, deep  depths of darkness and despair, sometimes with suicidal ideation.

All that I tell them is to be steady on their course, continue to focus on the I Am feeling, and what they are going through now is probably something they have gone through in the past, but over their lifespan, they learned to cover this over or in other ways learned how to modulate these cycles.

I tell them they are going through now what had not been successfully integrated before. I comfort them saying the down periods are inevitably followed by periods of ecstasies, integration, happiness, and increasing awareness of their selves, which becomes awareness of Self over time.

They are now going through hell or heaven but not to take the experiences too seriously.  These highs and lows will follow each other for a good period of time so just relax knowing both highs and lows will smooth out over time, but with each episode leaving them more and more open to who they are as well as facing all their guilt over what they have done in the past, as well as hatred directed towards others.  All these states and emotions have to be experienced as part of the realizing of Self process which involves deeply feeling everything, especially the intensity of the fully lived life in present, and our buried past.

By experiencing the lows, the depression, the grief over lost love, lost parents or children, death, we are plunged deeply into deeply into our hidden psyche, which, if we relax, accept and love these feelings, absorb them, then they become integrated into our self as a person, allowing us eventually to experience our Self as much more than that, as the Life Force, Shakti, Sentience, the source of all experience, knowing and not knowing; God.

Other people explain they have no movement at all.  They feel no bliss, no energies, no deep depression, rage, or despair.  Yet they keep practicing, hoping to experience something.

These persons generally have only marginal access to either their personal self or to their emotions, and sometimes even experience of their own bodies. Over the years they have become alienated from themselves, both personal and God.

Their path is actually much harder in terms of Self-Realization which requires complete openness to emotions, self-honesty, and an ability to confront their fears about being feeling deep emotions or even their own bodies.

These persons often take a path of non-emotion, just observing, witnessing, the self-dissolution into unity consciousness which takes many, many forms from Advaita, to neo-Advaita, to Zen, to other forms of Buddhism which emphasize the Void, the Arhat tradition of Nirvana, or going entirely beyond life and death, thereby disidentifying with consciousness as did Nisargadatta during his final years.

There path towards coming alive may often require an external trigger, like falling in love, or some terrible life trauma that briefly plunges them into despair, forcing them to feel emotions deeply for the first time in years.

Others write to me about their addictions and failed attempts to break free.  To them I say addictions have nothing to do with Self-Realization.  They are not an impediment.  The impediment is ALWAYS the inability to feel the emotions and trauma underlying the addictions.  Addictions, from alcoholism to heavy drug use, will only retard Self-Realization if one is chronically in a drugged state. If between use of drugs, one can access the feeling of I Am, listen to sacred Hindu chants, love and serve others as well as love that I Am sense and all else that arises as a result of spiritual practice, then Self-Realization is a clear possibility.

I just say do not worry about the variations of mind states, emotions, mood swings, depression-elation, self-doubt, doubting the teachings, whatever.  Just find and abide in the feeling of I Am; accept everything that arises as a result of practice, love the feelings, love the I Am, and allow everything to pass through your heart or gut centers.  Bring your center of awareness downwards from your head into your heart or gut. You will feel a much greater sense of expansiveness and completion after leaving the vision-oriented head and descending into feeling your physical body, your energetic body, and your emotions. This is a process or owning lost or rejected elements of self.  Eventually you will discover your Self as the Life Force, Sentience itself, Shakti, Emptiness, and God.

FROM SYNDRIA:

My sense of presence was totally radiant for 2 hours  this morning.   Almost no thinking, just filled with a living light of Self.    I've never felt this kind of sentience before except in moments.

If this is even close to how you feel all the time,  wow.

Now I'm aware of life within me...raw life. I feel a kind of birth happening in me this Christmas.

May the light of Christ  birth within my heart.

The radiance this morning was overwhelming and just natural, at once.

Something has shifted a bit...there is more trust in my own process.

I feel too non thinking right now to say more or say anything well.

Just know that I love you and thank you for helping me  return to life.    What's happening is so TRUE, whether painful or ecstatic or plain ....

I'm amazed at how simple it is.

You've been telling me that and only now do I actually FEEL it

I feel so encouraged tonight.    I'm not going to worry and analyse it to death, just feel my Self.

Big  DON'T KNOW !!!  

Goodnight, Edji

Advaita and neo-Advaita are a fad.

To deny that the body exists, that the world exists, or that both a personal and a Higher Self exist is just plain denial of what is obviously real to all the rest of us.

To deny that experience happens and that I experience these things is done either as the result of the experience of a special state of unicity which probably will not persist, or identifying with the state of emptiness, which is always there, or is purely a theoretic conclusion based on the premise that there is no separate self in reality, thus no experience, and thus no experience.

To live in that state of no self, or of the Void, is one thing, and a very high experience. But it is not the end because the personal almost always returns to the position of being a human being, limited, alone, vulnerable.

However, if they don’t, what does this experience or understanding give them?  For Jan Esmann, he says he lives in constant bliss. Robert Adams said he lived in or experience peace beyond understanding.  Nisargadatta maintained the world, Self, God were all illusion, and that he was beyond Consciousness and not touched by being.

Really, is that what we want?  Only this, to be beyond the world, aloof, merely observing suffering and joy for many, or being in Jan’s undifferentiated bliss where only Shakti exists?

However, no matter what they said that they have achieved in terms of experience or understanding, most act as if they were an ordinary person.

They all act in ways not to injure their bodies. They all eat, drink, etc. Many of the great teachers retain a full spectrum of emotions. That is they laugh, cry, feel anger, fear, jealousy, and are judgmental to a degree even if they do not admit it. So what is their advantage?

For me, the great advantage of realizing one’s own Self, the divine ground within, experiencing the awe of it, grace, bliss, joy, and an ability to be completely open to everything that arises within and is presented as reality or activity from without, is the greatest of purifying experiences, and the essence of which is that you know you exist, are in possession of  physical and energetic bodies, and you know all that you are.  YOU KNOW WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE AND YOUR DIVINE ROOTS, AND YET ARE COMPLETELY HUMAN AT THE SAME TIME.

Also, the Self-Realized person is capable of being brutally honest with themselves, for they have the Self, and other things do not matter enough to hide for fear of losing something except perhaps your physical life or of someone you love. They still you may lie.  But generally you are quite honest, definitely open to expression of all that goes on within one’s self, and are quite focused on obtaining some sense of justice in the world.

Many of the one note teachers of No Self, Emptiness, silence, or just Shakti are really closed down, are not open, and do not share well with others.  Their silence hides their vices and apparent “non-teacher-like” behaviors and desires.

Like I once said, the most powerful presence I ever encountered was Carl Rogers, who had a sense of gravity, or mass, of sheer openness that had a profound impact on me. He was truth in action.

There were only a few Zen masters that I have known that came anywhere near that openness, Seung Sahn and Maezumi Roshi, and to a lesser extent, Kozan Roshi.  The rest had massive facades.  Ditto most teachers I have met in other traditions.

I just want to introduce more reality, openness, and honesty in spirituality, as opposed to staying in special states, holding onto concepts of emptiness, present, no-self, etc.  Yes, like John  Troy said, I could just witness my own Self, the divine within, feel the expansive, lighted, and joyous divine presence and just stay there in silence.  But such joy wants me to shout the good news to all: There is a Self within you that is divine, and whose discovery changes everything for you. Yes, I gave my experience life by labeling the experience as of the divine because that is how it came to me: something entirely beyond me, entered me, and gave me a new life. I really mean to say that  there cam a new awareness of what dwelt in me. It was always there as a potential knowing, but the ground of meditation, introspection, and long pondering had to be laid first before grace visited.

WHY I AM COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING: FOUR OPINIONS

FOUR OPINIONS OF WHY I AM COMPLETELY WRONG TALKING ABOUT REALIZATION OF A MANIFEST SELF AND AN INCARNATION OF SPIRIT


Hi  Ed,

Truth is not an experience nor any state of consciousness and defies the mechanisms of remembrance.

Truth is meaningless and choiceless. The answer is in the silent substratum. The sanctuary of Not Knowing or believing need not be prejudiced with a need to know or an experience. Tacit native innocence is the residuum of radical acceptance and places a capital "M" on the Mystery, so to speak. All the fancy spiritual nomenclature, theologies and states of consciousness are learned ignorance that become belief. Self inquiry inspects all of these bifurcated beliefs along with the believer, the biggest belief of them all.

Peace,

John Troy

Hi Ed,

My own confession is that all experiences come and go. They are all insentient and transient. Our Self, as host of hosts (what Ramana referenced as I-I) remains unscathed and doesn't appear, change or disappear. All states of consciousness are bifurcations of subject/object, dreamer and dream and are inseparable. You are correct . You cannot avoid experiences. The dreamer cannot escape the dream. However,  dreamer is not the Host or primacy of existence. They both arise and collapse together. This "I-I" Host is not an experience that can be objectified, remembered, believed and experienced. 

I cannot find what is already evident as tacit intuition. It would require not acknowledging present existence and then looking for it which is silly. Existence, undifferentiated is host and primacy of existence. The searcher is part and parcel to the bifurcated state of consciousness and is incapable of love. The more it looks, the more the manifestations, until the futility is seen and the search for experience, itself, has exhausted itself. The searcher is not the primacy of existence. The primacy of existence is unspeakable and unknowable by a bifurcated mortal brain. Ramana might say it would be like trying to step on the shadow of your head. The Mystery need not be figured out. The Heart of existence, itself, is this center-less seamless sentience that knows no "other" and accepts every action and state of consciousness as perfect without modification. Heart is Synonymous with this indivisible "now".

The belief that we are somehow special with special spiritual knowledge and have some meaningful role in the world is utterly false. The ordinary is as beautific as any other play or state of consciousness. That includes this cosmic banter :)

Peace,

John

ED'S RESPONSE:

Dear John,

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate your taking time to express where you are coming from.

But I come from an entirely different place with an entirely different attitude.  I am not seeking anything; whatever comes to me comes without me seeking.  I am just completely open an accepting of whatever comes from bliss and ecstasies, to depression and grief.  But always there is an experience of Self for me felt inside which is me and not-me at the same time.

I, Ed, feel this Self within my own extended sense of energetic presence, as embodied sentience, the same sentience as possessed by all sentient beings, as the Life Force, often experienced as bliss, light, and always as an all-pervading sense of emptiness or space.  This space is alive with presence and within it lies my physical being as well as all the energies I feel within and around me.

You may call this made up through using labels, a belief system, but whatever, it is a feeling of the utter rawness of being a live human entity, vulnerable, physically limited, yet in a constant partnership of the divine, that Life Force, that Sentience that I am.
From Alexander:
One might well be satisfied with experience for a time; but one must ultimately be led to enquire into one's nature as the experiencer of phenomena. The result of fruitful enquiry into one's nature is the dissolution of the mode of "experiencer-experienced-experiencing" and the revelation of the Reality. With the extinction of division comes the extinction of the possibility of the rebirth of division; this, then, is "Mastery".

One's own Self is beyond human and beyond divine.

Reality is not experience. Experience is reality, but reality is not experience. Experience is of the nature of reality, but reality is beyond the nature of experience. Do you see the distinction?

Let us put it another way: reality is; experience seems. Semblance cannot appear without being, and must partake of being in order to seem; but being is, with or without semblance. This is what is meant by the term "Absolute": that which is of its own accord, without which nothing else could be. We are that*. This is beyond experience or the lack thereof, but underlies both experience and the lack thereof.

Fruitful enquiry will reveal this as the truth.

Alexander Storrsson

From M.F.

Localized in the body seems like the reality..however, Einstein says that 99.99% pf everything is empty space...which makes the body an illusion ..awareness seems to live as the witness to the illusion...

All current new age theorists are saying that the human person is fictitious created thru conditioning...a conglomeration of thoughts make up the identity of each so called individual..The only thing that exists is awareness or consciousness that lives us all and sees thru every personna's eyes.

The humanhood of the person as you said is not currently popular with theorists...but how do u get around einstein and MC squared stating that everything is amply empty space.

M.F.

From Jan Esmann:

Prior to getting Self-realized I believed, like everybody does, that I was the body/mind or consciousness going on in the mind and heart. I believed I was master of my fate and that karma was nonsense. When I got realized I literally burst out: "But this is not me!" and pointed to my chest. Also meaning I am not Jan. Nor am I any of the past lives I witnessed in that instance when Self-realization came to me. I am nothing, have always been nothing and will never be anything but nothing. It is simply not possible otherwise. Assuming you are something is a joke. You can't be Self-realized and believe yourself to be something at the same time. It does not make sense; it is a contradiction of terms. However, after some years living in the void - it took me 20 - you may begin to see the Self in everything and everything as the Self. I see it as Shakti, but Shiva and Shakti are one.However, you can still not say you are something, rather what before was something (tables, chairs, consciousness) is also realized to be void, but now the void is bliss and Shakti.

Jan Esmann

Of the four, only Jan's viewpoint seems supported by actual experience.  The others are theorists talking very abstractly.

Beware of spiritual paths with ultimate teachings or ultimate realities: they stifle growth

One needs to be careful when choosing words describing spiritual experiences and the nature of reality.  Talking about emptiness, as Robert Adams often pointed out, is not the same thing as experiencing or living in it.  Many wrong conclusions can be drawn from the use of or belief in a term that has no actual referent to your own experience. Some people even believe that the world does not exist because atoms are 99.9999999 emptiness, therefore what see and feel of the world is an illusion.

For them the concept of emptiness or the Void takes away the reality of the world they see and the experience of their own bodies.  This is the kind of blindness that words like Void or Emptiness can bring--doubting one's own experience of solidity.

Moreover, Emptiness is not Self or No Self.  Emptiness is just one aspect of phenomenality, of the inner and outer worlds.  It is one aspect of Consciousness, and as such, a common element of everyone's experience (at least for those who have meditated for some time).  But so is the experience of the external world, or of having a body, or of the sleep and dream states.  All are common elements of experience of everyone.

As I have said many times, Consciousness is like a mansion with a 1,000 rooms, each having their own characteristic.

Many paths lead you to an ultimate room, whether it be the Emptiness of  Zen, which is still a phenomenon, to the Unity Consciousness of no-boundary states, where all objects and emptiness appear exactly, like objects permeated by emptiness, and both are seen to be Consciousness.

Others lead you to there being only Shakti and Sahaj Samadhi, or to No-Self, while others begin and end in experiencing magic, energies, bliss, and mastery of energy states, astral projection and other psychic powers.

And still others talk of the Absolute beyond Consciousness as did Robert Adams, Nisargadatta, and his teacher, Siddharameshwar, where you could not know the Absolute, but only be it.

Others, like myself, speak mostly of the need to experience and manifest love, to love and serve others, to practice an I-Am oriented introspection done with openness, total acceptance and love for all that arises, and that somehow opens the way for the Self to show itself to you as Christ Consciousness, as Krishna Consciousness, as an inner explosion of light, love, bliss, grace and power that allows little, ordinary you, to experience yourself as both a completely embodied human being with problems, desires, needs, vulnerability, emotions, etc., and yet at the same time sharing a oneness with God.

You might say this is a balanced position of experiencing the ultimate, God, Self, as living within you, pervading you, comforting you as a human.

This is a new style of Western Spiritual thinking that is Christian in many ways, especially of experiencing God or Christ Consciousness within you all the time, with a feeling of rest, joy, and often of bliss, yet also feeling the all-pervading Emptiness, and also the vulnerability of being human, with all the fears, desires, sadness, etc., associated, deeply, and fully, being completely alive and exposed to the rawness of being embodied spirit.

For me spirituality has many paths and many ends and mostly the paths do not compare with each other.  The master of one path may know nothing about another path and will not have comparable experiences.  But I would be wary of teachers who direct you to one ultimate truth as an ultimate or Absolute, final truth.  They have shut down and think they have everything, and usually, these teachers have an inner arrogance of having attained something others have not yet experienced or reached their arcane knowledge status.  This is plain arrogance and so many energy-oriented, and so many no-self style teachers are stuck here defending their positions and attacking others whose view varies from theirs.

I welcome the openness of spirit directed towards ever expanding horizons of knowing and feeling, but especially the experience of Realizing one's own Self as human and divine, and using this as a launching point for continuous loving involvement in the world and being of service to others as your brother's keeper, and the good shepherd of all sentient beings.

Really, it is impossible to speak of the exhalation, bliss, joy, grace, and humility one feels in the presence of God (Christ/Krishna) within.  One is overcome by the grandeur of God and Self, witnessed by the personal self, and then they all become one.

Even now it arises in me during Satsang, the power of the divine courses through me, and I am Emptiness, a holographic body, bright light, and sheer happiness in vibrating bliss, and it is all the result of abiding in the I-sense, listening to sacred music, and accepting and loving all that arises doing the former, especially the difficult task of accepting, absorbing, and loving all negative emotions, for they are the lost and rejected parts of one's self that need to be seen, felt, and accepted as part of you, not hidden away and rejected.

SATSANG TODAY, SUNDAY DECEMBER 21, 2PM CALIFORNIA TIME

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  Sign in when asked (2X) with the password    edji.

Then press the "start broadcasting button" to get online.

Subject matter to be determined, but chanting is always part of it.  It can awaken the heart and Subtle Body energies.

Coming "Ashram" in Phoenix

View from Patio

Patio and cool down room

Kitchen and Patio, edge of Great Room

Perfect Zendo

Meeting Room

Going from the Void to Feeling and Incarnation

Mr. Muzika,

First I would like to apologize. You surely don't remember, but we had a brief email conversation a couple of months ago. Back then I did not fully understand what you were saying and also had some personal emotional problems which I obviously had to solve. I hope you don't feel angry because I went away just like that.

Anyway, I have a question which I cannot resolve by myself. In last half a year I went through a process of observing "whatever is going on". No philosophy, no method, no reading books, nothing. I just observed and somehow tried to separate truth from not truth. Tried to find out what is real and what is not.

What I discovered is that everything, and I really mean EVERYTHING, is not-truth. I see all experience, being mental or physical, has no actual meaning. It means nothing beside being what it is. Beside it's temporal appearance nothing actually exists. The problem that I have is that now I'm completely lost. I simply know that all my thoughts, everything I'm thinking and believing, everything I "know", is simply not true. I don't know anything. And even this knowing (that I don't know anything) is false in essence. It's just temporal belief, which fades when I forget it.

Plain and simple, I'm totally lost, not certain of anything. I live my days in a constant cycle of observing how different thoughts try to make their way through and then dropping off in realization that they don't mean antyhing real. And then I think something like: "I must put an end to this mess". And then this thought drops off. I simply cannot get a hold of anything. And it's all accompanied by cyclic feelings of tension and then release. It's like everytime I grab something I feel like I got it and then it dissolves and I experience a confussion again. And then again. 

I JUST DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA ON EARTH WHAT TO DO!

And even this not knowing what to do is already dissolving.

Do you maybe have any word for me at all? I know it won't do anything for me, that's it nothing really, but... Anything??

Thank you,

  

A,

Ed's Response;

That is perfect!  You know nothing.  All truth has no reality, and even that truth is unreal.  Words, concepts are an entirely different dimension from what is.  Words talk about what is, but words really do not capture experience.  In other words, you have now gone deeper than the mind and you are lost in phenomena.  This is perfect.  Now you can learn to function using senses deeper than mind, such as operating from the heart.

You have attained the realization of emptiness.

Now, next step, look for the sense of I Am, the sense that you exist.  That is both the I that is the subject, but also the I sense that is the phenomenal sense of Self.  Some teachers call the realization of emptiness, the Void, as realization of the Unborn Self, pure awareness that permeates all objects.

But you have to change how you search now.  Instead of observing the I Am, discover it by feeling it.  Go from observing to feeling inside your heart.  At first feel the physical, like the movement of the diaphram when breathing.  Then feel your heart.  Then feel emotions.  Then feel the Self.  You do it by feeling whatever arises, then loving whatever arises.  This gradually adds to your complete sense of Self.

Listen to sacred music feel the music inside of you generating bliss.

The key is to stop observing and start feeling inside.  Soon you will be filled with a sense of presence, like and energy body that fills all the emptiness and your physical body.  Within that Energy body (Subtle Body) you will find your Self, existence, knowledge, bliss.

Ed

The Dismal Truth of America--Robert Kutter

In principle, Saturday's vote to keep the government open should be the perfect curtain-raiser for the political debates between now and the 2016 election. As their price for averting a government shutdown, Republicans demanded and got a gutting of one of the most important provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, preventing banks from speculating with government insured money.

Agencies hated by Republicans such as the Environmental Protection Agency took big cuts, and a rider was inserted permitting "mountaintop removal" coal mining once again. Another extraneous provision demanded by conservatives permits massive increase in individual campaign contributions.

The IRS enforcement budget lost $345.6 million. This will only increase public deficits, since most IRS enforcement is directed at upper-bracket tax cheats. The IRS collects about seven dollars for every dollar it spends on audits.

The bill also cuts Pell grants for lower income college students, diverting money to the for-profit companies that function as collection agencies for student loans. And it allows companies to cut pensions for current retirees, even those that are contractually guaranteed.

This deal was cut by the outgoing Congress, in which Democrats still controlled the Senate. Far worse will be directed at ordinary working families when the new Congress meets in January.

So a terrific debate is set in motion for the next two years, smoking out which side the Republicans are really on. Right?

Well, no.

If only. For in the great budget sellout of December 2014, fully 57 House Democrats voted with the Republicans to narrowly pass this deal. Key Senate Democrats close to Wall Street, such as Chuck Schumer of New York, were its enablers.

In the end game, President Obama, continuing his signature fighting style, blinked first. He evidently feared that another government shutdown would be blamed more on him than on the Republicans; or that even worse would be in store after January. The Republicans, once again, played chicken and prevailed.

So we were treated to a spectacle of the Democrats being split several ways, both on ideology and on tactics. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, a progressive, after sending mixed signals earlier in the week, decided that the bill had to be opposed. But President Obama, his chief of staff Denis McDonough, along with Pelosi's more conservative second-in-command, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, actively lobbied Democrats to back the deal. So in the end the 57 House Democrats, about one-third of the Caucus, joined 162 Republicans to narrowly pass the budget.

Meanwhile, over on the Senate side, the Democrats split as well. Only six Democratic progressives led by Elizabeth Warren voted against cloture. Then, once the bill was assured of passing, several Wall Street-friendly Democrats from relatively liberal states cast a crocodile-tears record vote against, such as Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

So, while the Democratic Party should be carrying the banner of working families, making it clear that the rules are rigged against regular people and that Republicans are the riggers-in-chief, the reality is far more blurred. The Democrats not only lost this vote on issues they allegedly care about; they lost their role as a credible opposition.

As George Orwell wrote in the famous ending of Animal Farm,"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

Well, there is this comfort: At least the Democrats' likely nominee in 2016 stands four square with ordinary Americans against Wall Street... Uh, whoops. The greater likelihood, of course, is that the Clinton-Obama-Rubin dynasty will continue with another Clinton, and the blur will continue.

Meanwhile, the drumbeat urging Elizabeth Warren to run for president only grows louder.

I am often asked if I'd support a third party. I always respond that I'd be thrilled with a second party.

Elizabeth Warren Probably is the Last Great Chance to Save America from Total Corporate/government Rule. Listen to her rail at Citigroup and the big banks that caused the 2008 ecpnomic collapse followed by Obama's embrace of Wall Street which has solidified Wall Street's power:

Obama had the once in a Century opportunity to cut off Wall Street at their knees, but decided to enhance his own post-presidency power-broker status and settled for healthcare reform, laudible yes, but saving democracy was far more important. Instead he got in bed with Wall Street and the banks. Wall Street is doing everything possible to destroy good healthcare by making it all about money as opposed to patient-centered care.

From a student

Hi, Edji

Thank you for taking time on Sat and Sun. to help me.  I go back and reread each of your emails daily and read them several times very slowly.    There is fog that comes over my mind when I read them.

You're hitting very close to some deep fear in me, so I  have trouble remembering even simple things you say.

But, some things are clear to me.     Let go of all thinking....good, bad, frightening, hating, ecstatic. ... let it come and go or ignore it totally, cut off if necessary.    With so little outward life, I need very little functional thinking anyway.

And I'm back doing silent sitting several times a day.

Feels really good to sit up strong and straight.

I'm very aware of the empty container of the trunk of my body.    From my pelvis up through the hara through the heart to my throat is lighted emptiness that feels full of existence.     Within that space I sense my heart center and my hara as having density of presence.

My heart and belly feel closely connected and yet  separate centers, too.    My sense of Self feels located in both.     Your term 'center of gravity' feels right in my hara.    And the hara feels like a splaying out point  within  the emptiness of my abdomen.

My heart visually looks connected to my hara by two lines of energy circling like a figure eight between the the two centers.     This has been my experience for 6 weeks or so, as Shakti seemed to open those energy centers during Satsang in early Nov. during energy circulation.    

I feel the connection all the time, except when the dissociation or depression come on.

Right now, my sense of Self is as presence within my whole core.    Not really located so much as pervasive.

I feel my attention actively being drawn down into my core, so that my head feels kind of hollow.   Hahaha Not a bad feeling at all.

Though I don't like the fogginess surrounding my attempts to grasp what you're saying to me.

It's so unbelievable how different today is from last  Friday when I was sunk in misery thinking and  lethargy.

I don't think I'm going to  fall into believing that obsessive thinking loop the same way again.

I may feel pulled into again, but I now know I don't have to believe in it or keep it going in order to survive.

The 'I'  that needs to suffer to live isn't me.    I'm not that hurting little girl who obsessively talked to herself. Though I still have the feelings, I can accept them and love them the next time they appear.

Thank you again for giving me your time and attention and teaching even while your so busy moving. I don't take it for granted.

I send energy your way everyday, and see you and

Kerima finding a beautiful place to live.

I love you with all my heart,
Remedial Rock Head

RESPONSE:

You are doing very well now.  The point will be to stabilize where you are over a long period of time, consolidate it, then go deeper,  Your Subtle Body is now accessible and transparent, and you can see the inner energy patterns.  It is from your Hara that the Self can come now that you are both visually aware and feelingly aware within.  This doubles the impact of inner events and visions.

SILENCE VERSUS SLEEP

When Robert talks about the entirety of the teachings is found within Silence, he does not mean external silence or even internal calmness. As he says many times he means you go deep within, so deep you lose awareness of anything, sometimes even of awareness itself. It is like being asleep yet the body is fully awake; only the mind sleeps leaving no-self and no-world. This is Samadhi. The Nath tradition connotes this experience as being submerged in the Causal Body.

Even though it is quite "silent," in fact it takes a lot of "energy" to get there. The more perfectly you sit, the easier it is to enter this silent state. For example, in a Zen monastery you sit cross-legged in Lotus, and almost naturally your "center of gravity" of awareness descends into your heart and Hara, revealing the Void.

The feeling is quite different from merely falling asleep, because when you fall asleep, you can feel the body also going asleep. But when you go consciously into sleep, the body remains perfectly awake, so for a few minutes before going silent, you feel the body as very powerfully awake, solid, rooted into the ground, then it fades away from your awareness.

Then you are only aware, but only aware of awareness. Then total nothingness but afterwards a memory of being nothingness.

SILENCE VERSUS SLEEP

When Robert talks about the entirety of the teachings is found within Silence, he does not mean external silence or even internal calmness.  As he says many times he means you go deep within, so deep you lose awareness of anything, sometimes even of awareness itself.  It is like being asleep yet the body is fully awake; only the mind sleeps leaving no-self and no-world.  This is Samadhi.  The Nath tradition connotes this experience as being submerged in the Causal Body.

Even though it is quite "silent," in fact it takes a lot of "energy" to get there.  The more perfectly you sit, the easier it is to enter this silent state.

The feeling is quite different from merely falling asleep, because when you fall asleep, you can feel the body also going asleep.  But when you go to consciousnessly into sleep, the body remains perfectly awake, so for a few mites before going silent, you feel the body as very powerfully awake, solid, rooted into the ground, then it fades away from your awareness.

SATSANG SUNDAY DECEMBER 7, 2014

Online, live Satsang Sunday at 2 PM California time.

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

Sign in on two different screens with the password:    edji  

Then go to the Start Broadcasting button to come online with video and microphone, but please mute mike.

My Friend Swami Chetanananda: Everything is Love

It is all about love.


Sw. Chetanananda says all religions and paths are models to explain human existence, and goes on to say everything is love, yoga is about love... Kundalini is the love that is alive in you.

Robert Adams says everything is Consciousness, or Everything is Self.

Some say everything is Shakti or Shiva.

I say everything is Self: light; bliss; knowledge; and I exist!

Notice Swamiji's rosy outlook for the future:  "It looks bad now, but the sun has only begun to set."

Christmas Season Donations

I am embarking on a new adventure of moving to Arizona to start over, to have live Satsang there, and perhaps an ashram after a while.

In the meantime, I am asking you to continue to help support my work with our Sangha with weekly online Satsangs, the teaching blog, email personal support, live Skype sessions, etc., as well as my animal rescue work.

Donations have dropped off so much that I am no longer able to help other feral colony managers with financial support, food, and medications.  The donations are just not coming in. 

If they drop off any more I will finally realize that the totally free approach of free  Satsangs/website/blog/email/free downloads just does not work and will concentrate totally on developing a local Sangha in Arizona.

But I have found someone to continue taking care of the cat colonies I have been feeding and caring for after moving to Arizona and this will require money.

I have no idea why donations have dropped as much as they have during the last two years, but perhaps it is because my message is wrong for this place and time.  Who knows.

If this work is to continue, I need to know there are people I can count on to support the Sangha. Without this, there will be no ashram and no future continuance of Live Satsangs on Sunday.

I had hoped to begin writing new books to help you find your own Self realizations, but this requires time and a publisher, even if self-published.  What I really need is a media person for promoting such.

In the meantime, please donate what you can to support the Sangha.

If you want, you can mail a donation if you don't want to use Paypal below.  Send me an email to that effect.  I need your help to continue to help you....   Thanks you so much.  email: satsang(dot)online(at)gmail.com.

GIVE ONTO NICOLE, WHAT IS NICOLE'S, GIVE ONTO YOURSELF, YOUR SELF.

STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT ROBERT ADAMS, HIS TEACHINGS, AND INFINITY INSTITUTE

Those who know me know that I have been no friend of the Infinity Institute's ham-fisted hounding of any and all (especially me) and legal harassment of anyone who posted anything about Robert Adams, from old transcripts, to original photos.

Infinity is the Adams family private business.  It has no spiritual authority at all and inflates its copyright claims.

The only true copyright they have is for the book Silence of the Heart.  It is only long after I began posting transcripts online, and several sources contributed over 260 transcripts, that the complete works of Robert Adams were available online at various sites.  

Many, many coeditors turned the audio tapes into transcripts. When Robert was still alive, the number was about 140 were separately available.

Beginning in 2006 a number of transcribers worked with me and expanded the number available to about 260.  INFINITY HAD ABSOLUTELY NO INVOLVEMENT IN ANY OF THESE TRANSCRIPTIONS FROM THE ORIGINAL CASSETTE RECORDINGS that I, AND OTHERS, HAD OF ROBERT’S TALKS.

I and others put together the Collected Works of Robert Adams, and the collection expanded as new cassette tapes were found and transcribed.  By 2010 the collection was complete and were published online by various current followers of Robert.  I had no hand in maintaining those sites or supplying the materials to them.  They were freely accessible from many sources for years, such as from robert-adams.info and many others until they were repressed by legal threats.

It is during this period of time that Infinity downloaded the Collected Works of Robert Adams apparently from the robert-adams.info website, and then submitted a copyright claim to the Library of Congress of works they had nothing to do with creating.

I should mention that Kerima and I transcribed the first 20 of Robert’s talks, and I copyrighted those talks under the name of a publishing company that Robert and I were thinking of forming to be his written expression.  I gave Robert $7,000 at that time for permission to do this, and to help him and Nicole out financially. He later changed his mind and wanted to leave the transcripts to Nicole's keeping.

This link to a recording of a phone message left by Nicole Adams in 1995 expresses her gratitude to me for being able to capture the essence of Robert Adams in a short article I wrote about him entitled Guru’s Grace, about my experiences with Robert: http://www.wearesentience.com/nicole-adams-message-of-thanks.html.

Beginning in 2005 or 2006 Infinity and Nicole Adams began stalking me with lawyer threats of lawsuit should I have anything by Robert, including his photos, on any of my websites or blogs.

I had no money to fight any lawsuit, so I just complied as have so many also pursued by Infinity, including many of his close followers, many of whom claimed awakening at Robert’s side.

In 1990 I asked Robert whether Nicole comprehended Robert’s teachings, to which he replied, “She doesn’t have a clue.”

Ditto the staff of the Infinity Institute.  None of these people are mentioned in the acknowledgement sections of the original Silence of the Heart, or other smaller publications as having been present at Satsangs during the early 1990s, nor mentioned as having transcribed talks, or written introductions for these books, as I did, and as was mentioned in those acknowledgement sections.  I have all of them if anyone needs proof as well as my copyright of many of the original transcripts.

If they were truly 30 year students as claimed, you would think they would have come to Robert's Satsangs in Los Angeles or Sedona.  They did not.  They are not thirty year students.  Robert's teachings are now a family business, nothing more or less.

HOWEVER, THE TIME HAS COME TO STOP FIGHTING INFINITY.
IT WAS ROBERT’S WISH THAT NICOLE CONTROL HIS TEACHING MATERIAL AFTER HIS DEATH.  IT WAS HIS WISH TO GIVE NICOLE AND HIS DAUGHTERS A SOURCE OF INCOME FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.

Robert kept copies of all the transcripts (maybe 140 by the time he died), copies of the books I edited or wrote introductions for, and told Nicole this was the legacy he was leaving to his family.

Of course, the stuff Infinity turns out has absolutely no resemblance to what Robert Adams was in life and spirit in any way.  It is a Christianized bastardization that adds prayers and new age music to small parts of his actual talks.  One can never find Robert or gain his experience through Infinities materials.

Robert absolutely knew this would happen and that Nicole and others associated with his works through Nicole, would have not the slightest grasp of what he was teaching.  BUT THIS IS WHAT HE WANTED.  IT IS AS IF HE WANTED HIS WRITTEN AND ORAL TEACHINGS TO DEAD END AS THEY HAVE IN THE INFINITY FAMILY BUSINESS.  SO BE IT!

You see, you can never gain Robert’s state through his words.  He thought little of his own words.  Many times he said they were just entertainment to keep people coming.

One gained awakening with Robert, not through his teachings, but through his presence.  One felt his purifying presence permeate them during Satsang, the cool energy, the warm energy, his silence, his famous thousand yard stare, and piercing look into your heart that you felt when he really looked deep into your eyes.

One also found oneself more easily because he would point out to students how they had a wrong opinion of what he or Ramana was teaching.  You can read the transcripts and see how he frequently corrected people as to their incorrect understanding.

You see, he answered questions where people were at, and may answer the same question differently asked by different students even a week apart.  Thus Robert's teaching seen from the outside all at once are inconsistent; they are only consistent within the context of that questioner and the mind set of the entire body of the Sangha that day.  Thus if you try to grasp Robert through his dead words, you will fail to grasp his heart.

Finally, some of the student he let get close to him, he added a bit of cooking: he placed them is life situations that brought up emotions that made them look at themselves and what they were doing.

No dead words could convey Robert's real teachings of his presence, his correcting misunderstandings on the spot, and his cooking of your ego.

Let go of seeking more of Robert’s teachings.  They will become harder and harder to find as Infinity cracks down with its new lawyer. What is available through Infinity is lifeless and drab, and totally misses the point of his teachings. Instead, imbibe in his method and Ramana’s method of abiding in the ‘I’, follow it to its source, and find the true I, which s God, and which is you.|

If you missed Robert in life, you missed him.  You have to find your own way now.  To hold onto even his teachings in accurate transcripts let alone Infinity's is just to hold onto your mind's new teachings, and the Self cannot be reached through the mind.  It is far, far deeper.

Robert taught many methods, but it was because he found students needed many approaches, and that the abiding in the ‘I’ or the ‘I Am’ was just out of the reach of many people.  His lifeless asking "Who am I?" followed by waiting in emptiness for a response, was meant only for a small group of people not emotionally open at all, and who needed to defensively stay in their minds and in emptiness until circumstances opened them up.

Robert lives on both as a spiritual presence that can be called upon, but also in the still living presence of many of his students. Reading Robert’s teachings without his living presence has led many people to a false and almost Messianic devotions to promoting a misunderstanding of him based on other books they have read, turning Robert into a neo-Advaitin, a Christian, or many other path of teachers.

There was only one Robert. As he said he had his own message that was different from many other Ramana-student-teachers, such as Lakshman, and Poonja.  Robert’s written writing really miss his essence.  His message is being killed by Infinity, but Robert knew that would happen, but it was his will that his teachings be used to support his family.

Real students, those who only want to find and live in their own experience of Self need to find living teachers of Self, because practicing alone, and just reading texts of dead gurus will never lead you to your own Self, but to their’s, which is their experience of Self as put into dead words, that become more dead over time.  Only a living teacher can correct your errors in concepts and methods, which are impossible to correct on your own because your mind filters all teachings that come to you externally.

I guarantee you will never awaken until you give up all teachings, become dumb as a rock, and look within for your sense of I, and dwell there with loving acceptance of all that arises through resting in the Self, including all the traumas of your past, fears, depressions, etc., before you find the joy of Self-Realization.  AND, you need to commit to a teacher or a friend, or a lover, or a cat, love that entity, surrender your life to it, and thereby find your soul, the Self, which is God, the Atman within you.

My understanding of Robert that Nicole agreed with according to her phone message above: 

http://www.wearesentience.com/uploads/7/2/9/3/7293936/yoga_journal_article_robert.pdf

My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

    How is this for stress?

     Kerima lost her job due to downsizing in mid-September.  She applied to 30 places in the LA area for a similar position with no luck. In late September, early November, our cat Charley died after a terrible 4 month illness, and we went to Arizona, the Land Of Retirement Communities.  On the first day of active looking, she was offered a job as Director of .....

     Beginning 2-1/2 weeks ago we began packing 11-1/2 years worth of material accumulation and planning for move. Last week Kerima moved to my mother’s house in Arizona to find a house near where she will work.  I continued packing, taking care of our many cats, especially Loki who had terminal end-stage kidney failure, required medication and SQ fluids 4 X week, and feeding 26 ferals, as well as getting moving quotes with movers coming to do estimates.

     My car broke down on Saturday, and I got a rental. Four hours after getting the rental, a woman drove into my stopped car in a parking lot.

On Sunday, after Satsang, I found Loki dead in her cage.  We had to put her in a cage (large dog 28” X 26 “ X 48”) because she kept disappearing into the rafters of our garage.  She just wanted to be left alone.  By putting her in a cage by a heater, we were able to give her meds, pain meds, and fluids and keep her more comfortable.

    Likely she died during Satsang of just before.

    Kerima still has not found a house, and the movers want to know a moving date.

    Enterprise has just double to rental fee on a van we planned on using to move the cats separate from the household.

    DESPITE ALL THIS, I FEEL THE SELF IN AND AROUND ME; LIGHT AND SENTIENCE, WITH THE EPICENTER WITHIN BOTH MY ENERGY BODY AND MY PHYSICAL BODY. IT IS LOCATED EVEN DEEPER BUT PERMEATES MY OTHER BODIES.  HARD TO EXPLAIN.  

   It is almost like a deep lake of cool bluish-white light, energy, awareness, and love of Self all rolled into one are within me and is me.  

    One could use no other words than the divine, God.

    I am Life!  I am awareness of my Self within and around.  I have an associated physical body and a personality.  I am permeated by both Emptiness and light.  Right now the bliss is tempered by my physical exhaustion dealing with all these worldly matters, but it still feels like tamped down bliss in that I am blocked from feeling my own bliss by physical tiredness and the tension effect of stress on my body.  I know the bliss is there, but it does not matter because I still have the light, the Self, and I am still alive to enjoy it and pass it on to you.  God is in me and I am in God. 

     But I can understand Christ in great physical pain and exhaustion that for a time he could only identify with his body, and he cried out, “My father, why hast thou forsaken me?”  It is like feeling the pleasure of an orgasm, but your hand is held over a roaring fire.  Soon the pain in the hand becomes everything and the orgasm disappears.  (I use the term "orgasm" because that is how often the bliss is perceived initially, similar to an orgasm.)

I think just the sheer brutality of his crucifixion blocked his previous experience of unity with his God. 

   At least for me, my current exhaustion and stress surely competes for my attention with my constant focus on Self.  

Michael arrived a few hours ago, and said, "Relax, I am here now!"

How very timely.