Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

WHY  I SHOUT ABOUT MYSELF

I GET THIS A LOT: Ed, why do you talk so much about your awakening experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had a spiritual experience?  It appears so narcissistic and self-involved.

The reason is that I searched for the truth of my existence all my life, or at least from the age of 12.  I am 72 now and I found what I was looking for five years ago.  For 55 years I looked and could not see.

Mostly I looked in books from science, physics, relativity, to economics, to science fiction, then to all the religions of the East, but most prominently Zen, then Ramana Maharshi, then Nisargadatta, then Robert Adams.  I looked within for at least 40 of those years. Imagine, searching for something for over 50 years, then finding it in a hugely explosive experience as a result of loving someone other than myself, totally, completely.  Would that not be worth shouting about? 

Would not changing the direction for finding that truth, that divinity is within oneself, away from pranayama exercises or meditations on emptiness, to love, and a loving introspection to offer a new path through the wasteland of Zen and neo-Advaita, be worth a shout?

Imagine, a path of loving others, serving others, caring for others as a path to one’s own Self?  Imagine that!  I found my own divine, energetic, loving Self by loving another!  After 40 years or so of constant meditation, self-reflection, self-inquiry, many Zen masters and other teachers, finding only emptiness for 40 years, then finding the magic of presence, of Self within that filled all that emptiness with life, with bliss, with love through loving another.  Is that not worth a shout?

I found that by looking within, one finds only the  Void, emptiness.  But feeling within leads to finding the Self of all, the Atman, Satchitananda. Who dares to talk about finding love for ones own Self through feeling great love for another?  One makes love one’s own self, and as Nisargadatta writes, the I Am reveals all of life’s secrets.

AND, that experience stays with me all the time.  The Self burns within as a flowing, glowing energy, effulgent, light explosive happiness that flows from within the deepest level of my own being; it flows outwards into the world with joy and caring for others, wanting others to experience the joy of their own beingness for we all share that  same Self.  Is that not worth a shout?

This is the only thing I have to share: the knowledge of Self; the joy of Self; the power of Self. I cannot take my attention off my Self.  It burns brightly, and I, the Brahman, the Absolute, the Witness, constantly adoringly looks at the Self, the Manifest side of my own existence, in utter bliss and awe.  Is that not worth a shout?

AND, this Self within is a tiger, a dragon of awesome power and beauty that I cannot look away from even for a moment.  Is not that knowledge of the Self within worth a shout?

The emptiness of Zen and Buddhism has an antidote and it is the experience of the manifest Self within. Is that not worth a shout?

You see, this Self is the antidote to all the emptiness, hate, hurt, depression, and death in the world.  Yes, this is worth a shout.

The Self shouts out, I have come alive! I Am!   I Am! It revels at its own beingness, its own existence, its own light, its own bliss and joy.