The Need to be Empty--a Long Conversation

The utter first step, but a most essential step, in opening yourself to truth, to God, to Self, is to encounter, absorb, and penetrate the Void, the experience of a continuous emptiness that interpenetrates inner and outer worlds like space. It penetrates all things: thoughts; words; concepts; questions; sound; vision; smell; taste; touch; body; mind; internal energies; one's sense of presence, and ultimately Self.

It evaporates all understanding, mundane, scientific, and spiritual. All theory, all states, all words are empty, and being empty, there are no objects to point to. No me, no you. That is, labels are not us. We are enigma, and an enigma surrounded and interpenetrated by emptiness, the Void.

I have met few people, even spiritual teachers who who have truly and deeply absorbed emptiness, but without it, there is no room in you to experience deeper states of being, because words, beliefs, perceptions, sounds, images, etc., act as a cloud of ignorance and keep you contracted into your body/mind.

There are other paths that do not deal with emptiness, and because of that they are nothing but magic and story, belief systems, and witchcraft, alchemy, and astral projection. Without emptiness, one cannot even love or surrender completely, which is the only other kind of method that leads as deep.

COMMENTS:

Elaine Kelly YES !!

Elaine Kelly I am in this place right now… finding it increasingly harder to find others like this who understand this process .

Doug Sandlin Edward Muzika - "without it, there is no room in you to experience deeper states of being, because words, beliefs, perceptions, sounds, images, etc., act as a cloud of ignorance and keep you contracted into your body/mind."

Yep - and as is often the case, you get to the very essence, simply and clearly. Thank you.

Edward Muzika You are most welcome Doug.

Pierre Thériault heart emoticon keep going....so love what you write now smile emoticon

Magdalena Zajac I feel its pulling, and yet I am afraid of letting myself fall into it...
Thanks for sharing.

Stephen Austin I just read your story on the wanderling........ No I. It's an illusion.

Matthew Brown Yes, it's a kind of suspension of all usual assumptions--a space in which other impressions and realizations can come in and disappear, which would not be normally available to you as a person.

Edward Muzika Fantastic Grasp!!!

Matthew Brown Many thanks, Sir.

Matthew Brown In theatre school when I was 19 profs would yell at me to "Get out of my head." All the art and literature I liked was absurdist and experimental, and came directly from intuition. The country of India and all its paradoxical coexisting extremes reallly attracted me, and being there pounded me into this space. Finally, desperation and despair drove me to make a commitment to learning how to meditate in 1997. However, your teachings have brought all of these beginnings much further. Thank you!

Matthew Brown Including the swearing. And the advice not to quit when other people were driving me crazy.
Matthew Brown You are a great teacher (and friend.)
Geoffrey Levens Of course difficult or impossible to really "know" what you are pointing at when you use the word "void" and vis versa, for you to know what I am pointing at BUT experience of the void, very briefly, when I was 15 1/2 (now 66) I think a key pivot point in my life. The "experience" or encounter lasted maybe a couple seconds and after it faded, I found myself standing there knowing for absolute certainty that single thing I knew, had been taught or learned, everything I thought, everything I believed, my (to then) apparent life path, was just completely and arbitrarily made up. FUCK ME! and my horse. And back then, there was really no one I could even tell about it, too damn scary and far too dangerous; I was pretty certain that if I told parents etc I would quickly find myself under psych care and likely drugged to the gills. I have spent my entire life since switching between trying to hide from what I now "knew" and trying to integrate and develop it. Always sensed it as a big arrow pointing toward a path to freedom but the path was not clear.

Geoffrey Levens Now it seem pretty darn clear, in large part because of things you, Ed, have written and posted. Thank you!!!

Stephen Austin Thank you. I also experienced the absolute. And hid it. How can you tell someone " I know God "? I know that there is only God or the absolute or any one of 100 different terms that will not convey what is truth.

Edward Muzika What was your experience of the absolute like? How did you hide the absolute? You cannot distinguish between God and anything else? What do you mean by your experience of God. Please use experiential terms, not Ramana-speak.

Geoffrey Levens For myself, not "hide the Absolute" but rather attempt to hide from my conscious awareness what I now knew to be the truth. Distract myself from my really obvious path. Mostly though I followed my nose as best I could in our confused and messed up, ignorant world, did 20 years or so of pretty intensive TM practice, then another 20 or so years of confused "inquiry" and maybe just sitting staring into the void. Lots of emotional work, somewhat conventional therapy, hippy type seminars, and finally several years working w/ a very Tibetan Buddhist (American) psychotherapist and I started to get a clue of the difference between thought and feeling. Last 3 or so years practice of Vipassana has gotten that very much clarified and finally, I think I am finding the actual "I am" sensation and just hanging out with that....

Stephen Austin Edward Muzika , I was bathed in Love, light and devine music. I KNEW it was God. I hid the experience because I thought I would be considered nuts. I was 17.
Edward Muzika Geoffrey Levens Exactly right. Hang out in the I sensation. Love it. Accept it. Let it into your heart and it will grow and grow into something marvelous.
Geoffrey Levens Counting on it

Edward Muzika Stephen Austin But a perfect kind of nuttyness.

Stephen Austin I'm 65 now. I goofed up and hit the enter button. Thus the 2 posts. I completely let go at age 23 and again experienced the divine. Every cell in my body was being loved, warmed and cleansed. A complete washing of the divine. So exquisite that it can't really be described. At that very moment the knowledge that this is your heavenly father is being transmitted. Nothing is missing. These experiences took place as a result of letting go. I have let go to the point that there is no I. Only God exists. No duality at all. It's all just a thought. God is , All there is.

Edward Muzika Stephen Austin Very good Stephen, and it will just get deeper and deeper, more subtle and clear.
Stephen Austin Thank you Ed.