I wish I had the words, the capacity to inspire others to pursue an inner search, an inner way of being, of discovery of all that lies within.  It is a fantastic voyage of profound satisfaction, discovering who and what you are.

The levels of consciousness are endless.  We seek and explore each level.  Waking mind, the subtle energy body, the workings of Shakti, the falling of the mind into the heart, the absorption of consciousness into consciousness, with the peace and freedom it brings.

I wish I could teach an easy and rapid way, but my own way was long, meandering, confused and confusing because I just drifted from teacher to teacher, having lost my own original way of self-inquiry which produced fantastic results in a very short period of time, and got diverted into Zen and then Siddha Yoga for a long period before returning home to the three greats, Robert, Nisargadatta, and Ramana.

But like Odysseus, because my journey was long, I see and feel what each method offers, but that ultimately, you have to find the deepest self within, the witness of all through self-inquiry.

The world is such a mess, and so is the spiritual marketplace.  How to find truth?  Look within for the I-thought, then the I-sense.  Feel for the I-sensation in yor chest, the heart of your being, the heart of your heart, the place to which the Kundalini returns, and with it, the loosening of your attachment to your body, which allows you to become universal, everywhere, everything.

I give you my love.  I give you all my blessing.

WHEN BUDDHA AWAKENED

When Buddha opened his eyes and saw the Morning Star, he uttered the most famous quote in Buddhism. What he reportedly said has a number of variants, but the most literal is, “From the earth below to the sky above, I am the only one.”

Buddha realized that everything from the external world, to his thoughts, feelings, and body were only known through his consciousness. His body and the world were just appearances in his consciousness.

I don’t understand why many readers have not understood this sentence and take it to be a denial of the existence of the external world. It is not. The existence or not of the external world is irrelevant.

It is realizing that the world is only known through YOUR consciousness. For all intents and purposes, it may or may not exist independently of your body, but your consciousness contains all your knowledge, your mind, your experiences, as well as the sense that you exist, the sense that you are. But this sense that you are has generally been identified with the body. The body is the source of consciousness that reveals the external world. But Buddha realized that all that he ever knew was really about himself, and he no longer identified as a localized body, but he identified with the entirety of his experience. He was one with everything, not just the body.

This understanding is twofold. Many people experience in meditation unity consciousness where the body appears to disappear and one feels like one has become the entire visible universe. These experiences open you to the possibility that you are more than just the body.
In this experience ‘you’ are no longer Fred, Ted, Sam, or Linda, ‘you’ experience yourself as everything that you see, hear, smell and touch. There is no longer any separation between you and the world. The totality of you as body mind, has become one with your experience of the external world.

You also realize that the forms of the world, like clouds, are constantly changing and impermanent. Even a mountain changes in appearance as you walk or ride around it, but in a sense, that mountain is always you, for it alone is your mountain, not Fred's, Ed,s, or Ted's. It is an appearance in your awareness; it is in your consciousness as a temporary experience, just as is your body.

With this experience you become free. There is no longer anything to be attained, anywhere to go, because each moment you are complete, at rest as self.

Of course your body continues to function using your mind to attend to day to day affairs, but you know deep down inside that all that you know is your own consciousness, and it contains everything.


Robert Adams said, “I see the world like you do, but I know that you are consciousness. You do not know that you are consciousness; you think you are a very limited body.”
The second most common first sentence the Buddha made was, “From the earth below to the sky above, I am the world honored one.”

This reflects two “facts.” One is that early Buddhism was heavily slanted to worshiping and idolizing the Buddha as someone very beyond you and me, and therefore, it is a mistake. Buddha's consciousness was the same as yours, but the understanding is different.

The second way this phrase may be understood is that with this experience, one obtains a new sense of wonder and a deep sense of gratitude, and peace. It is a different sort of existence than you have now where you imagine yourself to be a limited human. You have stepped beyond the limits of being human to becoming unlimited, and with it, the world becomes totally benevolent. It is not separate from you, as it does not exist without you, and in a sense it serves you, not the limited human you, but you as the manifest totality of your consciousness.

Everyone and everything is a guest in you, and you are the ultimate host, the owner of your consciousness. The knot in your heart that is the ego identity with your body, has opened, and you dwell resting in the totality.

THIS SHOW IS ALL ABOUT YOU

      Everything you see, hear, touch, hear, including the advice of all your teachers, parents, gurus and God, takes place within your consciousness. Even knowing—if you could—what is in another’s consciousness, is a knowing in your consciousness.  All this around you and in you is contained in YOUR consciousness.

      We have created the concept of a shared consciousness, a shared world between multiple sentience entities, but even this concept is within my mind which is watched by my awareness of my sense faculties as well as my inner senses of presence, mind, and the knowledge that I live.

Think about that.  It is all in you, the beginning and end of mankind, the birth and death of our world; all are hearsay evidence in the concepts that make up your empirical knowledge, all of which arises when you awake in the morning, and is forgotten when you sleep in the evening.

Lights on; lights off; lights on; lights off—again and again until the final lights off.

You can hear about atoms, quasars, string theory, God, guru lineages, but all are knowledge in you. 

You are the measure of all things. You are the beginning and end of all you suffering and self-imprisonment.  You are your own freedom too, by ending all the false, learned, second-hand hearsay knowledge that just is about this transcient world, body, and mind.

Knowing this is the first step to freedom: separating your identity from your body to that of identifying with consciousness, and then the totality of consciousness that you experience.

This is what Robert meant when he said, “You created me to awaken you,” and “The world and your body are not real; they are only appearances in consciousness’—your consciousness.

Think on this over and over.

     Your knowing contains everything.  Without knowingness, there is nothing.  Your knowledge that you are, your consciousness, is a container of all visible forms.  Your whole world is in it.

     In deep sleep you are not aware of the body.  Identification with the body appears after waking.  The world takes birth in your consciousness.  All the great teachers of the past, all incarnations, Krishna, Jesus, Ramana, and Robert Adams, all had the same consciousness as you have now.

     In addition, you were never born.  That you were born is strictly hearsay.  You have seen others born, but not yourself.  You were told that you were born, were given a name, and developed over the years until the beginning of your first memory, whatever that was, which is the beginning of your existence as self-conscious consciousness.  Before that memory, you are not self-aware.  You held no concepts and reacted as taught.  Birth takes place when there is awareness of existence, when there is the knowledge I am.  Self-awareness is really the first knowing that you are as an entity, as a form with which you identify, but actually you are formless, knowledge only.

     Distant stars and planets invisible to the eyes, are made visible by a telescope.  Your consciousness is like that telescope because of wage many things become visible.  Consciousness is your instrument by which you become aware of external forms and internal processes such as thought, imaging, emotions, joy and pain.  Without Your Consciousness, Nothing exists!

     Observation is the quality of consciousness but not of the observer.  Witnessing of the consciousness occurs to the observer.  Consciousness contains everything, but witnessing of all that happens to the observer.

     As Nisargadatta said, “Although I am talking to pure consciousness, the birth principal, the listeners identify themselves as men and women.  Hence, misunderstanding and confusion.”  That is, the sense of ‘I-Am’ identifies with the form of the body, and the great confusion of human existence begins for each of us.  Spirituality is a process of deconstruction and dis-identification with objects in the world as well as the body, and re-identification with the totality of the appearance of the world, the visible manifestation of the universe.  Within that identification with the totality of the manifest universe lies recognition of the observer who lies entirely outside of that manifestation, and in this finds total freedom.

THE PRACTICE WHICH EDJI SHARED WITH ME A FEW YEARS AGO... since it came up in Satsang today via the chat window.

Edward Muzika taught me this practice when I visited him a few years ago.

(Spoiler alert: It's nothing different from what he usually teaches in general terms. However, it is the "gift that keeps on giving," and I do it every day.)

a) Sit in meditation posture (straight back, eyes semi-closed, in a chair or semi-lotus or whatever posture you can manage. Actually, I prefer to close my eyes all the way.)

b) Observe the sensations around you--sounds in the room, feelings of your clothes on your skin, smells, breezes, etc.

c) Observe the sensations inside you--heartbeat, breathing, sounds of stomach, etc.

d) Feel your sense of being a person--of being present--the conviction that you exist. ("I am.") Locate it in your body.

e) Move your presence into that feeling. Watch it, be in it.

f) Follow that presence down to where it started... let your awareness sink down

that path. (Same as recommended by Nisargadatta, Ramana and Robert.)

g) Remain present in whatever comes up.

My own notes on this practice:

1. On days when I've had a good sleep and some caffeine, if I do this practice earlier in the day I don't sink down quite as far, and remain aware of mental chatter, images, emotions, ideas, and tracers of all sorts of fleeting images and sounds like a TV or radio scanning through the stations. But the usual sense of "me" is not there. I am just the awareness of these things. (These sessions can go really long... from 45-60 min.) And often I do drop down further after a while of this.

2. On days when I practice at the end of the day and didn't get enough sleep, the practice starts and I pop out when I'm nodding off into sleep (could be as short as 5-10 minutes.)

3. Every time I do this the initial phase of closing eyes, observing sensations and so on lasts maybe 1 minute. Then there is a feeling of pleasure and relief as the consciousness sinks down toward Ramana's "heart center" on the right side of the chest (could be different for different people, I suppose. Edji was recommending sinking to the "hara" or Japanese gut center of Zen, but I didn't get much out of trying it this way.)

4. After sinking down to the heart center which seems to be made of light and love and entering it, there is nothing. No impressions, no sounds, no images, no feelings, no consciousness, no me, no world, no bliss. It follows what Edji describes--seems to be the absolute ground of consciousness. I set a timer of 30 minutes for these sessions, but usually, if I've had a reasonable amount of sleep but had a full day, I'll pop out just before the timer goes off. The feeling of time completely evaporates between entering the heart center and popping out again. As I re-emerge I have no idea who I am, where I am, or what time of day it is. Then as Edji described in waking after sleep, the memories of who I am and where I am, what time of day it is etc. emerge as if I was awaking from a very deep sleep. But I know I haven't been asleep--something somehow has been measuring this whole process, and knows I'm back awake as an individual again.

5. After this I feel calm, relieved, tired, and reassured on a basic level that all the anxieties of the waking world and daily struggle to survive, provide for my loved ones, maintain health, job, art, chores, etc. are relative. It is also obvious that simply existing, being part of God's expression in the field of consciousness, is laudable and worthwhile... it's quite different from my usual feeling that I have to justify my existence by doing something. After a few years of practicing this way, subtle sensitivities develop more and more, but they're hard to describe because they're, well... subtle. However, I could say that I'm more aware of the fleeting nature of consciousness, more aware of what other people are thinking and how they are feeling, what their anxieties and beliefs about the world are, and I trust my own gut more and more. Finally, the gratitude to God that Edji mentioned is there, but I won't talk about it too much. It's best to experience this directly.

THANKS Edji!!!!

I hope that was helpful! Thanks for asking, Angela. Cheers, Max T. Powers, Enrique Umana, Andrew Hargrove, Syndria Mecham, Dinesh, Arvydas, Sergey, Keith, Michael Kujawa and please forgive me if I've left anyone out but I look forward to our continued conversations!

Matthew Brown, Toronto

teacherintherye@hotmail.com

November 20, 2016

      SATSANG AGAIN!

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20, NOON—ARIZONA TIME

THIS IS 2 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME; 7PM UNITED KINGDOM; 8PM GERMANY; 6AM MONDAY, MELBOURNE

After a year and a half off, Satsang started again November and every Sunday 13this at noon, Arizona time.

Topics of course will be about Robert Adams’ and Nisargadatta’s teachings, self-inquiry, what is the self, what is consciousness? Perceiving energy/bliss.

Sign in a few minutes ahead of time, and listen to chanting found at bottom of page, especially Krishna Das chants.

GO TO:  http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com

Password   “edji”  will be required on two different screens.

Then INVENT a guest sign in name

Go to top of video box and mute your microphone until you ask questions.

TRY THIS A DAY AHEAD OF TIME TO PRACTICE GETTING IN AND LISTENING TO CHANTS.

THIS WILL BE A 10 WEEK EXPERIMENT TO SEE IF PEOPLE COME.

I AM RETHINKING HOW AND WHAT TO TEACH

I have to rethink my teaching methods and style. I often forget that my spiritual life began at age 11, some 63 years ago. I was initiated into Kriya Yoga via the Self-Realization Fellowship at 14, and spent a number of years as an academic trying to figure out what to do with my life.

My formal, institutional meditation life began in 1968 studying with Phillip Kapleau in Rochester New York for two years, quickly followed by a winter at Mt. Baldy Zen Center.  I then moved to the International Buddhist Meditation Center where I studied with five different Zen masters: Thich Tien-An; Maezumi Roshi; Kozan Roshi; Seung Sahn Soen Sa; and Song Ryong Hearn. 

After that I was with Muktananda and his monks, including my friend Shankarananda, Dhyanyogi, and finally Robert Adams and Jean Dunne.

I have had tens of thousands of meditation experiences, been in close associations with dozens of masters over six decades, and had many massive and small awakenings over those years.

But I realize now, as a teacher, I have had a wrong attitude.  I have always tried to convey final teachings without taking students through the baby steps necessary to realize the deeper truths.

For example, even before I went to the Rochester Zen Cener, I had already opened my “Third Eye” to the inner light of consciousness, which revealed an inner world of emptiness.  This took less than a year to accomplish, by looking within my head to find an inner light, then gradually expand it downwards into my body and upwards into the space above.

Then I spent a year or two, either before or after this emptiness phase (So long ago I don’t remember which came first.), struggling with the rising of Kundalini energy in my spine, that felt like a six inch long pointed pencil arising through my spine.  It kept getting stuck at the heart chakra level, and gradually, and very painfully penetrated that level, rising to the top of my skull, drilling a hole there, then descending again into my face, throat, and disappearing into my heart and gut. With this phase were all sorts of energy phenomena described in my book, Self Realization and Other Awakenings.

Then, when I went to Mt. Baldy already aware of my inner emptiness, it was very easy to enter states of no minded oneness with the world, where I and the world were one, with no separation. Later, I was to realize this joyous, vivid reality I entered each meditation session, was called the Manifest Oneness of Nisargadatta, the Atman, the Manifest Self.

Later, with Robert, I entered that non-dual consciousness totally, in everyday life, with no centered self experience, and even saw the unreality of consciousness itself.  And a few weeks later, recognizing that ‘I’ was separate from all of consciousness, the manifest world and my body, all parts of consciousness.

Ten years later, after falling deeply in love with a woman, out of that inner emptiness arose a different sense of self altogether, and that was of an inner self of light, energy, love, devotion, and surrender, altogether as an experience of the life force within me manifesting through me.  Shakti, God, the divine, as bliss, light, and energy in me.  This was a new and different manifestation of the Manifest Self, at once totally divine and removed, but at the same time, the most powerfully personal manifestation of the sense of I Am.  I felt the reality of Muktananda’s book, “I Have Come Alive!” as a personal confession.  After that the energies and bliss manifested through me until they left, leaving me in increasing peace, and deeper experiences of consciousness disappearing into consciousness.

The trouble is, how does anyone convey the totality of 60 years of spirituality? 

Everyone is in a different place when they come to me.  Trying to convey everything at once is just overwhelming, confusing, and maybe a bit frightening.  I tend to mix it all together, various disparate experiences combined with differing levels of teachings.

How to convey all of this?  I didn’t know.  I tried always to teach from what spontaneously arose within me to whomever was in front of me.  But this is a mistake.  Using this method, if I spoke to 100 people, perhaps I was reaching only one or three people.  The others had no idea of what I was talking about because maybe they didn’t know the inner light or the utter reality of emptiness, or perhaps they did not know self-inquiry, the life force, bliss, etc.

However, a few caught on immediately, like Rajiv Kapur and a few others.  But most just looked, listened, and then moved on overwhelmed by all the information and experiences thrown at them.

Satsangs that I have led were the same.  I spoke to many but only a few stayed.  I think people were utterly confused or overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of my teachings. The only thing that kept many around was the energetic phenomena that arose in many who attended Satsang. This is what attracts many people to teachers, but this is not the teaching or the end of teaching.

I think I have to teach in stages and not necessarily the stages I passed through.  It depends on what the student wants.  Do they want to know themselves? Do they want bliss?  Do they want to know the inner light and emptiness?  Do they want to know directly the life force within, inner energies, and bliss?  Do they want to learn how to heal using inner energies?  Or do they want self-realization without knowing what that means, and be willing tp listen, learn, and practice based just on trust and faith?

All of this knowledge fits together for me, but certainly will not for a beginner or someone curious about inner work and its potential. So how do I break up my teachings into steps, each with an outcome?  Some steps require previous steps or outcomes and some don’t.

In this approach, much more is required of the student.  They must know what they want and be prepared to persist in their efforts to explore different aspects of their inner life, an endeavor that ultimately has no worldly usefulness, but only, ultimately to deliver self-realization at all levels and peace, complete relaxation.

And, I have to relax and not try to convey the entirety of 60 years experience all at once. I need to give small bites at a time.  Make sense?  But how to do this?

After 60 years I know that the Advaita teachings of Robert Adams, Nisargadatta, and Ramana are the core teachings that should never be ignored, and self-inquiry in its various forms from psychotherapy, so sitting in silence, to diving deep within to understand all level of consciousness and beyond, are all part of an open and wide path that will ultimately lead to self-realization.  But I know only a few, a small percentage of all seekers, are interested in this topic or are destined to finish their course within its arms.

SATSANG BEGINS AGAIN!

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13, NOON—ARIZONA TIME

THIS IS 2 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME; 7PM UNITED KINGDOM; 8PM GERMANY; 6AM MONDAY, MELBOURNE

After a year and a half off, Satsang starts again this coming Sunday at noon, Arizona time.

Topics of course will be about Robert Adams’ and Nisargadatta’s teachings, self-inquiry, what is the self, what is consciousness?

Sign in a few minutes ahead of time, and listen to chanting found at bottom of page, especially Krishna Das chants.

GO TO:  http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com

Password   “edji”  will be required on two different screens.

Then INVENT a guest sign in name

Go to top of video box and mute your microphone until you ask questions.

TRY THIS A DAY AHEAD OF TIME TO PRACTICE GETTING IN AND LISTENING TO CHANTS.

THIS WILL BE A 10 WEEK EXPERIMENT TO SEE IF PEOPLE COME.

DEATH

Death visited me early in my life and frequently thereafter. My father died of a sudden heart attack at age 38, when I was 14. It stunned and broke me.

Afterwards all the rest of my family died in one way or another: brother; aunts; uncles; grandmother and grandfather; and many friends. Only my mother has survived and will have her hundredth birthday next October.

All major religions are creations to explain, and in some way, transcend death and end the fear of death, even Advaita.

For Christians and Muslims, there is heaven and hell. For Hindus and Buddhists there is rebirth, heavens and hells, and Nirvana. All are but Eastern and MidEastern folklore to conquer fears of death.

For Advaita there is the Absolute, and the Witness, Turiyatitta, of Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Robert.

Maharaj speaks of the knower beyond the known, observer of consciousness, and through consciousness, the manifest universe. This Absolute is not an object, for one is the Absolute as subject at all times, and you can only know of the Absolute as an object that is not an object, because it is the subjective knower of objects. You can only be the Absolute by ending all identifications with your human form, and thus from an emptiness perspective, perceive the fullness of the universe.

For Ramana, this Absolute witness perspective is part of Consciousness itself, not apart as for Nisargadatta.

In any event, for Robert, Ramana, and Nisargadatta, death of the body means death of the individual. The human personality, the person, is gone and dead forever, and if there is rebirth, which most Advaitins deny, it is not the individual that has a new birth, whether Ed Muzika, Robert Adams, or Nisargadatta, but another life-form altogether, unconnected with the newly deceased, but just a new leaf on the tree of life. The "leaf" is not "immortal," the "tree" is.

So, the freedom of the Advaitin is to escape from your humanity and attachments now. Detach from your human desires, identities, and attachments, not through somehow ending them but cutting them by renunciation and efforts, but by going inwards into the depths of your own beingness and finding your joy and peace there rather than in the world.

By being away from all worldly attachments and identifications, one becomes the Absolute, just witnessing the processes of the world.

But there is so much danger in this approach of denying the what-is of our human nature at the moment, our lusts, fears, loves, energies, and life, that we might lose grounding in our humanity too soon, cutting it off, leaving one’s desires denied, buried, and thus pent up in unconsciousness, leaving us with in barren emptiness, nothingness, with no life or energy.

This is why I urge people to find the I Am sensation first. Abide there and let it grown into its energetic expression through your humanity, and therein, inside of you, finding the divine. Do this first; otherwise you may miss the supreme joy of unity with God, and then begin the process further of personal dissolution after you have experienced the total joy of brotherhood with the life-force within you: your joining as an individual soul with God.