I Am Either Nothing or Everything

The realist philosopher and the scientist hold the view that when we see a tree, there really is something out there several yards from us composed of atoms, electrons, quarks, or strings, which emit photons when electrons change orbits, which travel to our eyes—which I can feel—which generates chemicals that set off a string of nerve impulses that travel to our brain, which has learned over time to turn that into a subjective reality that allows us to pick fruit from the tree and take shelter from the sun’s rays.

An ant will perceive the tree differently because of differently structured receptors, as will a cat, gorilla, or realist philosopher. We never can really know how that tree—if it really exists separate from us—is perceived by a butterfly or a stork.

According to a realist, the thing in itself can never be known.  We can only know percepts of the tree.  We can never be the tree and know it from the inside, as the tree as subject.

But we can know our own bodies from the inside, as tactile feelings, skin sensations, stomach ache, strained ligaments, sore muscles, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal and satisfaction, which means we perceive our bodies differently than we perceive a tree with the external senses.  We perceive our bodies with different senses, inner senses, and in many ways, seemingly closer to our sense of self than we would consider our experience of a tree as sight, sound, touch, smell, and hearing of it. There is something about our experiences of our bodies that feel more intimate to whatever we call our sense of self than most external experiences.

Yet, in every conceivable way, our experience of our body directly through our inner receptors is no different than perceiving a tree with external receptors: our experience of our body is still an experience, as is our experience of a tree: it is still an experience.

Ramana calls the totality of what we experience ‘Consciousness’, a major component of which is the act of being aware of or knowing, whether of a tree or of our hunger. They are things in Consciousness.

But there are other classes of experiences other than of our body or of the external world, classes of experiences that some have and some do not, but which can be experienced upon practice.

There is the experience of emptiness or the of the Void that many Buddhists and many Advaitins speak of. Robert Adams spoke of emptiness all the time as the ultimate, but many others deny that such an experience can be had because things exist within it; experiences exist within the emptiness, sometimes also called Nothingness.

Unless you have experienced emptiness, you’ll find any description to miss the point of conveying the experience.

The best I can describe it, it is like the experience one has in a planetarium or on a flat plain anywhere in the desert, and when you look up you see an utterly black sky with thousands of stars and galaxies spread across the sky, including the Milky Wa, vast, empty, yet well lit.

The experience can be of a vast awe, or of air being sucked out of your lungs, but this is what the constant experience of emptiness, the Void, Nothingness can be like.  It permeates all of space and all objects and experiences in space such that we “see,” “feel,” “intuit” that experience and space are two sides of phenomenal existence.  Form and emptiness are the same.  Forms arise and disappear within the background and container of emptiness. They are inseparable.

It is in the Void that the advanced meditators can rest in the midst of an apocalypse and not be moved.

Then there is the experience of the light of Consciousness. When your eyes are closed, looking all around and even inside the “space” or emptiness that pervades your body experience, you will find it lighted with a white background of light.  This is the light of Consciousness.

You can also become aware of your energy body or sense of Presence that pervades your personal emptiness and your body, and appears to extend outwards from the body and interacts with the world.

From here we can go on to investigate shamanism, energy healing, astral projection, ghostly energies, and manipulating the world with your mind and intentionality.  This is the level of Siddhis or powers.

Then and lastly, there is the experience of the Manifest Self, the sense of the divine within, what Ramana called immortal or deathless spirit, and which I call sentience or awareness of that divine, as well as the life force itself, called by some Shakti.  This is an experience of God as me, as life itself as me, as the awareness principle itself as me, and this me has tremendous energy, tremendous turning, whirling, changing, and self-love, self fascination, self-preoccupation, happiness, and bliss.  Most of all, from within one feels a silent voice crying out, “I Am; I exist!”

Buried within that sense of I Am is a place I like to call my “Heart of Hearts,” a subjective place of the most exquisite intimacy, vulnerability, kindness, and love, and resting there is resting at the feet of God, a place of utter holiness, grace, and acceptance/surrender.

But you see, in the largest sense, all these experiences share a common element: they are all experiences; they are all aspects of Consciousness, from the I Am to a tree, or the emptiness container and background..

All that there is is Consciousness.  I may dislike that particular tree, but it is still me in the sense that it is part of my Consciousness.  I may dislike some emotions, but they still are me and dwell within my Consciousness.  The same is my experience of my body, my eating food, my urinating, of experiencing another sexually; it is all Consciousness and therefore it is all me whether I identify with that experience or not.

Truly, for me, my primary identification is with my Heart of Hearts, the place of grace, surrender, and love; but all of Consciousness is me in the sense it is my experience, even my experience of you.  You may not exist apart from my experience of you, so in that sense, you are me, my experience, even though you stubbornly fail to recognize your existence is due to me. (joke)

The feeling comes that all things are Consciousness including the Void, the light, energies, Presence, God, etc. There is only me; there is only Consciousness which is the same as Self.

Of course this is only waking consciousness.  There is also sleep and dreaming Consciousness.  But all the magnificence of the world, of God, of the Manifest Self resides in waking consciousness which rapidly slips away as we fall asleep.

There is the mystery of dream, dream interpretation, dream astral projections, the ever-changing imaging, sounds, drama, of the coming and going of the dream state, like colored clouds taking away the external world and our bodies because the unique chemistry of our bodies requires various stages of a complex vegetative state called sleep with its several stages including dream, from which the waking state can arise again and again, in endless flowing succession.

Yet deep sleep and dreams are also Consciousness: experience. For example, I am always aware of sleep as a state being held at arms length just outside my waking world, and in sleep I am aware of the absence of the world and the strong sense of I Am felt in the waking state.  Yet there is still a weak sense of I Am, of identity with a witness, and an awareness of an absence of the world and a different sort of Nothingness than the Void.  The Void is emptiness permeating experience, while deep sleep is awareness of no experience, an absence of experience.

These states come to me in endless succession and part of me is aware of them but not of them. Even the Manifest Self is apart from this part of me; God in the form of waking Consciousness comes to me and gives me my body and the world.  Simultaneously I am aware of me, the world and God in the same instant. Without me, Consciousness itself would have no witness, no purpose, a play without an audience.  I am either Nothing or Everything, yet I know the Self, which is both..

This is the Truth of Ramana, Nisragadatta, Robert Adams, and myself.  We just use different words to describe the mystery variously, promote different methods, different emphasis on self-inquiry and self-abidance, and different emphasis on various aspects of Self.

The power of this understanding is that you are the creator and sole experiencer of the entire world from far flung galaxies to your cat, to your Heart of Hearts.  They all depend on you.  Kings and presidents are merely bit actors within one state of your Consciousness, even if one of them kills your body, they die with you when the waking world disappears.

THE NEED FOR A COMPLETELY RADICAL DEDICATION TO SELF-DISCOVERY

Though I often emphasize the need for acceptance and love while doing self-inquiry as part of a path to Self-Realization, deep down inside my emphasis is on correct understanding, Jnana, which is different from conceptual knowledge.

Self-Realization is all about parsing out the I-Am sensation, penetrating through the concept/thought level of the I-thought and attached matrix of current thought “reality.” Then we penetrate the I-sensation itself and dwell there, resting in your source.

Doing this for a prolonged time reveals both the Manifest Self of sentience, energy, bliss, and the Unmanifest Self, the basic knowing principle. In one sense you are the knower, and in another you are the known, Consciousness. I am Consciousness means that you too are Consciousness alone. All that exists is Consciousness, but the knowing principle is not within Consciousness, but beyond it.

But all spiritual teaching—everything you read or here in guru-talk—occurs on the level of thinking, including instructions on methods such as self-inquiry and various forms of meditation.

There are other methods of conveying or transferring enlightenment, such as awakening one’s Kundalini, Chi energies, or devotion, surrender or listening to sacred chanting and music. Shaktipat can help awakening the Shahti within you, but the teaching about Shakti and reality are still conveyed in words.

My way of teaching is to destroy all the hooks students have that attach them to mind, to gurus, to all spiritual understanding and self-concepts, to immerse in not-knowing anything, and simultaneously immerse in the I-sensation, the feeling that I exist, I Am. This becomes one’s only book, only sutra, only method.

This is a very radical approach. Admit you know nothing, and all spiritual teachers are talking on the level of mind, and you need to get deeper than mind, much deeper into levels of Self that have to be parsed out of the totality of our experience.

Once we can leave the mind behind and immerse in pre-mind experience, whether of emptiness, the void, or the sense of being lost and not-knowing, or in our energy-body layer, or into our somatic sensations of body, we find a far more clean and simple totality of experience.

Any teaching, such as Osho’s or Krishnamurti’s dozen of books, Zen books, Ed’s books, are aimed only to get you to look within with an open, accepting and loving attitude and feel what arises.

All books and teachings about reality, Self, void, presence, energies, etc., are words tthat point to what the speaker found within him or her self, and which you may never find within you, because they may not speak to your path, or what your own path of self-discovery will uncover.

This is a radical path of not knowing, pushing aside all conventional spiritual knowledge, scientific knowledge, political and economic knowledge, and plunging into one’s own Self experience, following the I Am sensation.

How many are willing to do this? How many want nothing more than to know who and what they are leaving behind Yogananda, Krishnamurti, Ramana, Muzika, Bennett, Buddha, and cleave only onto oneself.

I have found very, very few people who are willing to thrown themselves away as they presently know themselves.

Be who you are

Self-Realization is not about attaining or discovering some exalted spiritual state, ecstasy, or Samadhi even though that is what you get when you read Ramana's students.

Self-Realization is finding that breath of life within you that is you, and just abide there. That I am sensation is illusive. You can grab it for a moment, two moments, but staying there is difficult. And lots of unsuccessful practice will dry you out.

But if you are dying or intensely in love, the Self comes alive as it did for Ramana when he felt his body dying. Everything intensified, and intensely attentive, he was a able to grasp the entirety of the "force of his entire personality" as well as the full energy of his life force which gave the body life, which held the body within its awareness.

It is easier to discover that Self that you are, not in the quieter transition states, but when you burst with energy and feel your body brought alive by the force of your own awareness, which you are.

Are You Nuts?

Do you chase after teachers because you have read them, or about them, and you “feel” they have something you don’t have?  What is it you think they may have that you are somehow lacking?  What is your imagination creating regarding their subjective experience?

Are you depressed and seeking an end to your depression?

Are you lonely and feel they have attained a state where they feel no need of companionship and you want that?

Do you feel empty and hope they feel filled or fulfilled, and by clinging to them, their words or presence, will somehow translate to being filled yourself?  This is especially the case with energy gurus who supposedly transfer or awakening energies or Kundalini in you?  Will you find these energies/bliss fulfilling or just another experience out of many?

Do you feel confused, not-knowing, ignorant, and desire to be filled with knowledge and confidence, and listen to their words to fill you up?

Do you feel weak, unsupported, lost, and look to a guru to give you light and direction, as well as self-confidence?

What is I tell you you have all of these completions within yourself and that the fastest way to getting the completions you seek is by finding and dwelling in that sense of lack inside yourself.  That is, rather than run to a guru to end that feeling of lacking, or of depression, or of loneliness, or of being empty, lost in the Void, or of being stupid, instead we run towards those difficult feelings, the emptiness, the feeling stupid or depressed, and wallow in those feelings, sink into them, own them and bring them into your sense of self.

In this way you end the felt need to run somewhere to get respite from these feelings or lacking, by feeling them deeply and taking them into your sense of self.

There are so many different kinds of teachers, some teaching awakening of the Kundalini energies, some seeking Samadhi, many seeking bliss, some seeking to end one’s sense of self by attaining a perpetual state of oneness, some seeking to end obsessive thinking through enforcement of mental and verbal silence.

How many teachers just tell you to be yourself, explore one’s own sense of self, be a lamp onto your self?

You are the only landscape you will ever know first hand.  You are the only canvas you will ever know first hand.  Every point of view is just a map of a different landscape, a different canvas.

Often these other landscapes are based on a very different culture, very different ideals and attitudes.

For example, Zen idealizes autonomy, no-self, emptiness, spontaneity, discipline, and institutionalized religion.  The individual self is not recognized as a value.  It is family, tribe, state, not individual autonomy.

The same holds true of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohamedism. The come out of an ancient culture of tribalism and submergence of the individual to the good of family and tribe.  This is clearly being continuously acted out in the conflicts in the Middle East.  Continuous hatred, fear, killing, brutality of one tribe against another, one state against the other, which reflects the psychological developments of the whole culture of Abraham. Very primitive, simplistically black or white, and brutal.

So, forget all the religions, teachers, gurus, all offering to help you get something. Everything you seek is in you if only you embrace all the negativity within yourself, for by so doing, you gain a complete sense of self.

The Final Truth

My last post was called “My Near Final Truth.”

The Final Truth of course is as expressed by Robert Adams and Nisargadatta, which is the message of the Unborn Self, the impersonal Witness beyond Consciousness, the Absolute, the ultimate Witness, Parabrahman.  This is the message within Consciousness about that which lies ontologically prior to Consciousness, entirely untouched by the three states of Consciousness or waking, dream and deep sleep.

Abiding in Turiya, you know the taste of Turiya, the pure awareness state without objects, and thus become aware of it lying also in your heart of hearts as your ground state.

This is the position of the world-leaver, the world-transcender, who merely watches the antics of Consciousness.

For Nisaragadatta, one dwells in Turiya for a long time, the I Am, until the impermanence of Consciousness, ts objects, and its states is fully revealed to you, and your iidentification is primarily with the subject, the Witness, the Unborn.

This is the birthless and deathless state, which I first encountered in 1995 as a result of being with Robert, and I dwelled there for many years until I was resurrected into incarnational spirituality of divine incarnation in the flesh through something as prosaic as love for another.  That love reawakened in me openness to unmet needs for love that had been covered over by years of failed love affairs, years of seeking among many teachers and discipline, many more years of sitting in emptiness, the Void, etc.

It is so easy to lose hold of Turiya and slip into dwelling in the Void instead, which is the in-Consciousness aspect of the prior to Consciousness Unborn.  This is not a place for humans to long dwell.  The life here of merely witnessing emotions, energies, stillness, the Void, lacks juice, lacks the exploding field of bliss, energies, light of the fully experienced life force and sentience.

My own point of view is that one should experience realization of the Manifest Self, the core of waking Consciousness, one’s own sense of Presence, the energetic body, the experience of immersion in a physical body as an incarnation of God within physical form, before the experience of the transcendent Witness, Parabrahaman, the Unborn state.

One should experience the rewards of life, the sorrows and ecstasies, the ups and downs, the energies and bliss before one decides to forever transcend Consciousness and identify with the Unborn Witness.  For completeness’ sake, one must realize both, the Manifest and the Unmanifest Selves.  Unfortunately, the goal of the Unmanifest Self is most attractive to the vast audience of people who only know life as suffering.  Witness Buddha who held that life was suffering, and the goal of life was to escape suffering and rebirth through following the Eightfold Path by attaining Nirvana—the blowing out of all desires and lusts.

Christianity too focuses on suffering too and finding ultimate relief in heaven in a divine and deathless body dwelling by the side of Christ and God.

Ending suffering seems to be a common end to much of spirituality, but it can be done in two ways: fully embracing the suffering and impermanence of life, which is a way of fire, and the way of escaping the travails of life through transcendence.

My own view is that the way of realizing the Manifest Self—the God in you incarnate—is the most appropriate spirituality for the 21^st Century.  It is not the final truth but it is a message of an explosive, energetic living as a vulnerable human being living fully in the moment.  After you have done this long enough to have experienced the joys and bliss of incarnated Consciousness, when you are ready to let go, the Absolute will be easily and naturally attained.

MY NEAR FINAL TRUTH

I keep getting very angry or very sarcastic emails and blog comments about how arrogant I am, or about my huge ego for daring to criticize Ramana and Nisargadatta.  In other words, who am I to dare criticize Ramana, Nisargadatta, or Robert Adams?  Who do I think I am compared to those great ones?

The problem with these critics is that they are not hearing what I am saying.  They are so wrapped in their worship of these great ones, and their idealized understanding of what they are saying, that any discussion that is now filled with an awe similar to what they feel, is considered blasphemous, from someone who has an inflated sense of self, and who does not feel the idealized awe they feel. I call these idealization-deluded people Ramana or Nisargadatta toe-kissers for their slavish clinging to their own delusional understandings of these great teachers.

But there is a huge difference between clarifying exactly what Ramana, Robert, or Nisargadatta said, versus common misunderstandings of what they said.  For example, Ramana was all about the Atman, the Manifest Self, the God in man, while Nisargadatta said this Self too was illusion, and by that he meant temporary, not permanent.  One common illusion is that all gurus announce exactly the same truth and come from exactly the same state of Consciousness or awareness, and any differences are only apparent, or are the mistaken understandings of the reader.

This is a primary mistake of almost all spiritual seekers: all fully realized gurus attain the same final state and speak identical truth.  Any differences are mistaken understandings, or else the teacher is speaking in different ways based on the relative understanding of the listener, in layers of understanding.  The presumption here is also that if a great master were speaking to peers or long term students, that would speak in absolutely consistent ways; there would be no inconsistencies, there would be no “evolution” of understanding over the period of a teacher’s life.  They always spoke from a position of having realized the final truth.

The person who believes this still believes truth can be conveyed in words.  It cannot be.  Words are only maps, and Ramana’s maps are different from Nisargadatta’s and from Robert’s.

Now for the last “truth” of my arrogance.

All of these teachers taught Self-Realization, not Ramana-Realization or Nisargadatta-Realization which is what you find in their maps, their speaking.  Until you realize your own Self, for yourself, you are not Self-Realized.  Before that you follow or wear different maps: your own map of your self before Ramana; your then added Ramana map; and finally, when you abandon trying to understand Ramana or Nisargadatta, and just dedicate yourself to meditation on your sense of Self, the I Am, which ultimately CAN result in your own realization of your own Self.

But most people spend a lifetime trying to find the experience of their own Self by using their minds trying to find their own Self-experience in Ramana’s map or Nisargadatta’s map.

But to do this you need to step off the cliff so-to-speak, and jump totally into the unknown and ultimately unknowable Self. Ultimately you can only be the Self with the awareness that you are the Self without all the map fragments that prevented ‘feeling’ this truth before.

This is what I am trying to do with all of you; I am killing your Buddha for you by stripping away the illusios and idealizations you have about Ramana and Nisargadatta, their realizations and their truths.

It is your false understandings that prevent you from realizing your own Self.  Constant meditation is needed, meditation on your own Self, not just by looking within, but also by FEELING within, feeling your sense of I Am and following it to its root.  Stay in the I Am, and when it disappears, continue to feel within for emotions, energies, the Void, and whatever else arises as visions or experiences.

Then after you Realize YOUR Self as opposed to the Ramana map, you will clearly understand what he said as a peer, but you will express your own Self differently because it will be your map of Self, and soon you will have a large gallery or critics that call you arrogant, deluded, or egotistical because you dare discuss Ramana’s map versus Nisargadatta’s or your own map.
MY NEAR-FINAL TRUTH

I keep getting very angry or very sarcastic emails and blog comments about how arrogant I am, or about my huge ego for daring to criticize Ramana and Nisargadatta.  In other words, who am I to dare criticize Ramana, Nisargadatta, or Robert Adams?  Who do I think I am compared to those great ones?

The problem with these critics is that they are not hearing what I am saying.  They are so wrapped in their worship of these great ones, and their idealized understanding of what they are saying, that any discussion that is now filled with an awe similar to what they feel, is considered blasphemous, from someone who has an inflated sense of self, and who does not feel the idealized awe they feel. I call these idealization-deluded people Ramana or Nisargadatta toe-kissers for their slavish clinging to their own delusional understandings of these great teachers.

But there is a huge difference between clarifying exactly what Ramana, Robert, or Nisargadatta said, versus common misunderstandings of what they said.  For example, Ramana was all about the Atman, the Manifest Self, the God in man, while Nisargadatta said this Self too was illusion, and by that he meant temporary, not permanent.  One common illusion is that all gurus announce exactly the same truth and come from exactly the same state of Consciousness or awareness, and any differences are only apparent, or are the mistaken understandings of the reader.

This is a primary mistake of almost all spiritual seekers: all fully realized gurus attain the same final state and speak identical truth.  Any differences are mistaken understandings, or else the teacher is speaking in different ways based on the relative understanding of the listener, in layers of understanding.  The presumption here is also that if a great master were speaking to peers or long term students, that would speak in absolutely consistent ways; there would be no inconsistencies, there would be no “evolution” of understanding over the period of a teacher’s life.  They always spoke from a position of having realized the final truth.

The person who believes this still believes truth can be conveyed in words.  It cannot be.  Words are only maps, and Ramana’s maps are different from Nisargadatta’s and from Robert’s.

Now for the last “truth” of my arrogance.

All of these teachers taught Self-Realization, not Ramana-Realization or Nisargadatta-Realization which is what you find in their maps, their speaking.  Until you realize your own Self, for yourself, you are not Self-Realized.  Before that you follow or wear different maps: your own map of your self before Ramana; your then added Ramana map; and finally, when you abandon trying to understand Ramana or Nisargadatta, and just dedicate yourself to meditation on your sense of Self, the I Am, which ultimately CAN result in your own realization of your own Self.

But most people spend a lifetime trying to find the experience of their own Self by using their minds trying to find their own Self-experience in Ramana’s map or Nisargadatta’s map.

But to do this you need to step off the cliff so-to-speak, and jump totally into the unknown and ultimately unknowable Self. Ultimately you can only be the Self with the awareness that you are the Self without all the map fragments that prevented ‘feeling’ this truth before.

This is what I am trying to do with all of you; I am killing your Buddha for you by stripping away the illusios and idealizations you have about Ramana and Nisargadatta, their realizations and their truths.

It is your false understandings that prevent you from realizing your own Self.  Constant meditation is needed, meditation on your own Self, not just by looking within, but also by FEELING within, feeling your sense of I Am and following it to its root.  Stay in the I Am, and when it disappears, continue to feel within for emotions, energies, the Void, and whatever else arises as visions or experiences.

Then after you Realize YOUR Self as opposed to the Ramana map, you will clearly understand what he said as a peer, but you will express your own Self differently because it will be your map of Self, and soon you will have a large gallery or critics that call you arrogant, deluded, or egotistical because you dare discuss Ramana’s map versus Nisargadatta’s or your own map.


The answer to the question "Who do I think I am compared to those great ones?" is I am exactly as they are, and as you are too, but I know this within my heart of hearts, and you do not--yet.


The answer to the question "Who do I think I am compared to those great ones?" is I am exactly as they are, and as you are too, but I know this within my heart of hearts, and you do not--yet.

Look, the path to Self-Realization is simple, but not usually that easy. There are so many misconceptions to overcome, about who you are, and all the books about spiritual truths that bring in complicated states, abstract concepts, koans, sutras, exotic practices, rumors, etc., all of which block Self-Realization because they focus on the level of understanding--the mind. The mind is the wrong instrument for understanding. Nor is it really about the heart, or love, in the traditional way thought, although love can be the final ingredient in awakening.

It is all about turning within, looking and feeling within with the intent of exploring and accepting all that one feels and perceives. Being open to oneself even while the mind is talking to you, trying to direct you according to past learning and what guru So and So said.

Instead, depending on your own self, quietly but steadfastly first look within, and then far more importantly, feel within. Feel your body, your energies, your beating heart, then emotions, depression, anger, hurt, fear, and love, desire, grace, purity, Self.

Thdn in your Heart of Hearts, the inner most chamber of the metaphorical onion that you are, you will find your Self.

Each of us has a sense of Self, at least we unless our childhood ws too horrific to allow an integrated sense of Self to form and grow.

And, in most people, this sense of Self becomes covered by the enforced  matrix of family upbringing and societal learned norms.  We become creatures of our past with a mind that operates out of that past.

This is why many teachers emphasize emptiness or silence so that you can get out of your mind and find depths within until the mind np longer lives you.

What I teach is a little different.  Instead of looking inside, finding different experiences, checking your experiences against those mentioned by various teachers, or asking what those experiences mean, I just say, “Stop!  Feel yourself!  Feel your heart area.  Feel your gut, your legs, your feet, etc.  Feel the shower water hitting your body.  Taste the food, not scarf it up. 

Watch someone you love without using words.  Stare at her.  Feel your love for her. Feel your hunger for her.  Feel your surrender to her.  Vice versa if you are female.

The same holds true for your cat or dog.  Look at them with fresh eyes then feel them with your heart.  Melt your heart towards them.

Listen to sacred music.  Feel your heart melt, and maybe a crazy energy arise from within.

This is the way you gain entrance to deeper worlds within than the mind.  The mind is really superficial.  The world of feelings below is much deeper.  Intuition is deeper.  Faith is deeper.  Grace is deeper.  The sense of presence is deeper. And the Witness is deepest.  This is the ultimate knower and experience.

But just before you get to the Absolute witness which is not of this world, you will find your own sense of self, the human sense of self which one could call ego, and the divine sense of Self called Atman, or the Manifest Self.  This is the Self that Ramana realized as the I Am, his sense of presence, and what he called “the full power of my personality,” which was not the body, but deathless spirit, Consciousness.

Nisargadatta found this I am, the Self through devotion, and later branded that Self, the Atman, beingness, as an illusion, because he moved on from his identification with the Manifest Self, to an identification with the Witness, the Absolute.

My own point of view is that realization of the Manifest Self does not take you beyond the world, but embeds you in it more deeply, with love, compassion, and realization that everyone is just like you.  You and he or she are your divine brothers and sisters closer to each other on a heart level than you could ever have been with your real brothers and sisters in the past before you have known Self.  Once you know Self, every other sentience being from human, to puppy, to worm are all you in spirit, as deathless spirit.

It is this realization that I teach—Self-Realization.  Not Kundalini awakening.  Not energy work or astral projection.  Not transcending the world, ego, the mind and staying in the silence of the Absolute.  Not just loving the other or surrendering to God.  I ask people to open their hearts to their own Self by feeling within, feeling emotions, listen to sacred music, fall in love, love your cat.  Just stop.  Sit in a  chair.  Listen to sacred music, then look and feel within to discover all that you are, and not stopping at the belief you are only a body, mind, energy, etc.

You are so much more than that.  So very much more.

Spirit and Nature, Dancing Together

How is the message “We are all one” true or false?

If you are like me, the oft repeated concept which we are supposed to accept as truth, is that somehow we are all one, has never made much sense. It always seemed like a New Age, feel good concept to help us feel love for another.

Look, I know that I am Consciousness, brought into existence by the life of my body, which uses the body to sense the body, sense the world, and sense itself through Self awareness. And I know you too are Consciousness in the same way that I am.

Also, because of my various experiences on the way to more complete self-awareness, my tendency is to believe this Consciousness, or at least the heart of Consciousness, the Self, is divine in the sense it is greater by far than anything which I thought I was.

Experiencing the Self is one of being drenched in Grace, humbled before the experience of God, his power, his purity, and then the recognition that the grace, power, love, light, energy, intelligence that is the divine I find in me, is me! I am that divine. I am that humility. I am that surrender. I am that joy. I am that power. I am that intelligence. I am that beautific and transcendent other. I am life itself manifest in dozens of trillions of life forms.

Because I know who and what I am, I know who and what all others are, from the smallest insect, to a hundred ton whale, and I love them all just as I love that Other within me.

With this experience, many feel obligated to share the message of how great we are as God, the divine light, who shines within all of us, and within also all non-human sentient beings.

Now, we are not one in the sense there is only one live entity and it is me. We, as sentience, are confined to one body, one location, and when the life force leaves us, we, as individuals are gone forever. It is sentience itself, the Life, the divine, which is not touched by our individual death.

It is as if we were all flashlights, with our essence being the light generated by the mechanisms of electricity, light bulb or LED, focus mirror and switch which is similar to our bodies as the medium from which individual light emerges.

We can choose to identify with the light or with the mechanism of the flashlight. Both of these are impermanent. The flashlight gets old at some point, and light no longer is generated.

What lives forever is the physicality of metals, batteries, electricity, the principle of light: spirit and nature together. The same with Consciousness and its vessel: spirit and nature.

TRUMP AND TRUTH

Political pundits are shocked by Donald Trump, their so-called bombastic and narcissistic clown who is screwing up the Republican candidate process, threatening the establishment kingmakers’ power to fix elections with establishment candidates.  The same holds true with the Democrats.  No one is more establishment than Obama, selected by behind the scenes kingmakers like Edward Kennedy and the Chicago power politicians.

Watching the recent debates I was shocked to find how narrow were the rules of debate.  There was nothing about climate change, taxation, wealth imbalance, etc., but only about Iran, ISIS, NASA and spying, building the military, opposition to Obamacare and gay marriage, all carefully spoken within an even narrower universe of prescribed political correctness.

Even the leftist commentators judged the Republican candidates on how they “presidential” they “appeared,” in terms of apparent “maturity,” “youthfulness,” “speaking ability,” “aggressiveness,”  “balance,” “mental quickness,” etc.  Even the leftist commentators made no comment about the utter nonsense that came out of all of their mouths regarding the policies they backed, such as war with Iran, war as a solution to problems with China, no exceptions to abortion restrictions, denial of climate change, the usual Republican push for a regressive flat tax.

The Chris Matthews and other commentors on the left judged on how the candidate comported themselves within all the hidden rules of debate and policies.  Mathews was utterly blind about how Trump was blindsided by Kelley and the other moderators who confronted him with personal issues and whether he really was a fit for Republican narrowspeak.

On Facebook we find similar rules regarding comportment and also the size and terms of the universe of discourse about anything spiritual.

First, there are all the opinions about how an “enlightened being” would act or speak, and if a speaker does something outside of those limits, they are judged as not enlightened, or having imperfect understanding, or having too much ego.  Lots of the comportment rules as well as the limits of the rules of discourse seem to arise from how Ramana is perceived and understood, or even “How would Christ have acted?”

Here is my take.  Someone truly awake to who they are on all levels would be highly intolerant to the misuse of undefined terms in any universe of discourse.  That is, all terms used must in some ways rely on exterience.  Of course, each person has their own limited universe of experience, and we need to work at understanding the limits of experience of each speaker and whether speakers are talking about the same experience, similar experiences, of completely different experiences.

I watch Facebook speakers talking to each other and can often clearly apperceive which school of thought each comes from, which undefined abstract terms they use without defining their experiences that back their choices of terms, or whether they are merely parroting arguments of others.

One of my favorite bullshit terms many neo-advaitins use as an end-all term supposedly to end all arguments, is, ‘what is’.  This is supposedly the beginning and end of some persons’ discourse.  Start with what is.

But which aspect of what is are they talking about?  The world appearance? The all-pervading emptiness and Void of Zen and Buddhism? The sense of presence felt by people sensitive to energies?  The ‘light of consciousness’ experienced by advanced meditators?  The absolute witness standing behind all appearances, also experienced by meditators?  The Manifest Self of the divine within experienced by some mystics, by some lovers, by some Bhaktis?  One’s experience from within of one’s own body, its muscles, viscera, and movements?  Astral projection, energies, Chi, Kunalini of the Raja Yogis?  Demons, energy entities, animal spirits, alchemy of shamans, some Christians, some New Agers?

‘What is’ consists of many overlapping and interpenetrating worlds of experience, and therefore is really too broad to be meaningful.

For discourse to be meaningful, the terms need to be mutually defined, and well as the limits or purpose of the discourse.  That is, are we speaking so that others can experience what we experience, or so that I can experience what they apparently have which appears different from my own experience?

Isn’t this what spirituality is mostly about? What was Ramana’s inner world like?  What did he experience in terms of Conciousness, of bliss, or what did he mean by silence as the greatest teacher?  Ditto what was Buddha’s awakening experience like?  Who do we believe when they describe Buddha’s awakening?  What did Buddha himself say about his awakening or the nature of Nirvana?

Very rarely do we find discourse from anyone that always points you away  from the experience of past great teachers or even present gurus, what they meant, and what their experience is like, and instead always point you to investigate you, your experiences, your understanding based on your own experiences versus book learning from Tolle, Ramana, Sailor Bob, Masara, Pam Wilson, Papaji, Mooji, etc.

That is, all of your spirituality should be self-concern: who and what are you?  One must be pointedly narcissistic, self-centered, self-obsessed so that you can plumb the depths of everything you are, from mind, ego, body, to deeper areas of self, such as the Void, light of Consciousness, emotions, Subtle Body energies, one’s sense of presence, and finally the level of complete peace and rest where Consciousness does not move but is completely alive and “electric.”

Later, after you have discovered all levels of yourself, and feel the truth we all are the same spirit, the same life energy flowing from the same common clay, and from that realization of love for yourself that you discovered through self-investigation, then permanently flows your same love to every other sentient beings, because they are the same life force and sentience that you are.

How unpopular is the speaker like Trump who challengers people to look beyond comportment and get outside of political correctness and discuss real issues, such as who is in power, who controls the political process, which is not Trump, but it Bernie Sanders. And the political correct people are now also attacking Bernie, the Black Lives Matter people who attack him as a white progressive Supremicist  even after he spent decades in the civil rights movements in the 60s and 70s, but now does not speak their tune.

How unpopular is the spiritual teacher who does not comport him or herself as a quiet, thoughtful, measured, balanced, mature speaker which is the model Francis Bennett uses to measure depth of spirituality, and how unpopular Nityananda and Nisargadatta were when alive when they ripped the hearts of of some students in an effort to make them see through some illusion or another.  Robert Adams did not like Nisargadatta because Maharaj was not gentle and obviously loving, was critical and rude, especially of Balsekar.

A lot of you need a teacher who is gentle and loving because that is the environment you need. But others need a non-gentle truth-sayer who calls you on the imprecise or bullshit, meaningless words and ideas you use and have.

I love Mixed Martial Arts. The champions there are terrific examples of dedication, hard work, extreme focus on the prize of becoming champion, and persistence in hard training, never ending training, study of their body's reactions, and focus on mental clarity, combined with total faith in themselves.

I was this way regarding finding enlightenment for dozens of years with many, many teachers, centers, ashrams, and a monastery. Never give up. Look and feel inside for everything that is there. Leave nothing not made consciousness. be aware of your core and of the witness. Feel for the I am, love the search.

The search is not what brings enlightenment, but it is "like" a purification process. Hard practice builds unshakable faith in one's own self, love for the Self, that finally allows the Self to reveal itself to you, the Witness as your Manifest Self side.

Very, very few seekers have this kind of drive because the prize is not so clear as a world championship and worldly success, because before Self-Realization, the seeker has not a clue what it is, often mistaking pre-enlightenment experiences with Self-Realization. Often seekers after discovering emptiness or the light of Consciousness believe that is Self, but it is not. Or they identify with the Witness watching all levels of Consciousness. They identify with the Absolute entirely apart from everything within Consciousness.

But if they continue by opening up to their humanity, their emotions, to love, instead of just an objective awareness, an empty observation, and become human again, then the Manifest Self of enlightenment, of God, arises in you, as You. Then the prize has become you.

After this realization, the Self and you are together always, and you and the divine that is you grow together, going deeper and deeper into the mystery of Self, and the unity of Self and Witness.