Seduced by the Void

The silence of the Void is very seductive.  Once you know it fully, it keeps inviting you to pay attention only to it.

The emptiness, the space of the Void penetrates everything, all experience, from that of the body, the mind and its thoughts, emotions, and also cuts ambition. One wants to just rest in the Void.

The internal spaciousness of the Void is the same as the space we perceive outside: both are visual phenomena.  The skin boundary between subjective and objective experience disappears.

But after a while you notice that you are witnessing both simultaneously.  You, the ultimate are outside of both, not subject to life and death.  But immersion in the Void is a powerful hypnotic attractor, and eventually you can feel qute isolated from both your inner world and your outer world.  You feel no motivation to participate in the world, and all emotions have been dissolved by the Void.

The only way out is to love.  Love something, love someone, and that will pull you back into life.  But it is not easy to love from that position of the Void.  That love usually has to come from without.  But you can aid the coming out by being aware that you have no love left in you and too long for that love. Longing is essential. Hoping, seeking, grasping.

SUNDAY SATSANG OCTOBER 29, 11 AM ARIZONA TIME. COME EARLY, SIT WITH ME.

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My background is psychology, Zen, and Advaita for over 40 years. Because of my psychology background I emphasize feelings and expressing emotions as part of any serious search for self realization. One can find many experiences, many states of mind and consciousness, and many kinds of emotions and emotional blockages when looking and feeling into your sense of self: Emptiness or the Void; the inner light of consciousness; internal energies such as Kundalini, Chi, energy centers or chakras; one's own sense of presence, which feels like and energy field within and around one's body; experiences of the divine arising within; great experiences of surrender and of merger to God or to another; self, as universal consciousness; emotions; finally, the most important thing, being able to love completely, totally, with abandon.
It is about all of these issues and areas that I teach. Come, we will explore these together. This way is not so much about teachings, but learning how to experience your self on all levels, to discover and manifest everything that you are, from the divine, to complete nothingness, consciousness, all of which is embodied in a physical/mental bundle. You are incarnate.

EXCHANGE BETWEEN DAVID SPERO AND ME-eXPANDED

To David from me:

One thing that is so very, very obvious to me now, almost all of my students are unable to articulate their inner processes, whether it is of energy states, emotions, neediness, loneliness, sadness, Chi, etc., and they tend to speak in very abstract ways about their inner negative experiences, and tend to use otherwise very inappropriate words, and are entirely clueless about their inner worlds, an thus about their external world. And intelligence does not seem to make a difference. The smart and knowledgeable are equally afflicted.

From David to me:

You wrote “...almost all of my students are unable to articulate their inner processes, whether it is of energy states, emotions, neediness, loneliness, sadness, Chi, etc., and tend to speak in very abstract ways about their inner negative experiences, and tend to use very inappropriate words, and are entirely clueless about their inner worlds, an thus about their external world. And intelligence does not seem to make a difference.”

I also face this issue with (many) guests at my events. The problem seems to be that few people actually live in their bodies. They are off in their imaginations somewhere, commenting on “self" from some far-away place, as though they live off-planet. Here’s an example: someone begins talking to me about “enlightenment,” about wanting to be “enlightened,” but as the discussion goes deeper (if it does), it becomes obvious that the real topic is sadness, loneliness, frustration and perhaps even depression. But the whole problem is falsely articulated in terms of “not being able to become enlightened."

Learning “assisted introspection,” and/or “learned articulation” could be helpful, since knowing and expressing one’s feelings is the very definition of authenticity, and any good enlightenment teaching will tell you that the "first commandment" in sadhana is: "Thou shalt be sincere.”

This sort of insincerity goes on spontaneously in such people and it’s chronic, i.e., ongoing—like a stream of consciousness fantasy, where one forgets one is fantasizing.

In such instances, I often have to go to great pains to even begin having a real and sincere discussion, having to even dismiss the initial comments. For immediately I can sense the disconnect between feelings and content of discussion. What is this, in a word? Insanity.

Namaste, David

Ed:

These are true wisdom teachings never heard in Advaita or Zen. But this is my experience. Almost all that come to me have no idea of who or what they are because they are not first, simply human, simply feeling and expressing their feelings.

I have a slightly different take on this inability of many of my students able to express their feelings: They were never taught the words. They were not spoken in their homes. So all the feelings these people have, in a sense are not well-formed. This is what a psychotherapist does: he or she guides the client into looking and feeling within, and giving life and form to undifferentiated emotions and energies. They help clients discover and express them as if they were still toddlers who felt feelings but could not express them because they lacked the words.

This is not really using one's brain, so to speak, but teaching the heart-feelings how to speak for themselves, especially feelings like fear, sadness, loneliness, emptiness, love, wants, and sexual desires. The undifferentiated "soup" of inner energies and unformed feelings become well formed and defined, and each is found to be related in its own way towards the personal self and the external world. This allows the person to be comfortable in his or her body and have an accurate map of the world.

SUNDAY SATSANG OCTOBER 8, 11AM CALIFORNIA TIME. COME EARLY, SIT WITH ME.

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There is absolutely no difference between life and death, between form and emptiness, between something that is and nothingness.  After you have spent a lifetime of exploring different dimensions of your inner self, the outer world, of inner energies, kundalini, Chi, states of consciousness, and various openings for self-realization’s and other kinds of realizations besides that of self, all are seen as equal.  They are all experiences or lack thereof.  But still you are there either knowing or not knowing, perceiving or not perceiving.  It does not matter if you as either body or consciousness dies or lives, it is all the same.

There is only one difference for those who have truly grasped or been grasped by the absolute: Love!  And by this, I mean divine levels of love while in the human form, towards the divine in another, in a human or even an animal, or other spiritual being’s form.

Such total love for another, for their very personal selves, for their vulnerabilities, for their kindnesses, for their caring, for their lovingness, for their devotion, and their commitment, all of that leads to a total love so deep, so profound, that you fall at the feet of your divine in worship of her or him as yourself, as more than yourself.  For you have found God in another, and thereby found God in yourself.  And you are complete, God loving God, resting in him or herself, complete, profoundly peaceful, profoundly at rest, nothing more to do, nowhere to go, for you are side-by-side holding hands, touching hearts.

October 8 Satsang Video.  The need to embrace both ends of the spectrum of You, from the very personal, to the divine, to the Absolute, and not just opt for the Absolute beyond the touch of consciousness.  There is great, great spiritual and growth value in personal versus “transcendent love.”  It keeps you grounded, and you need that, because both emptiness and Nothingness are so seductive, leading one to disappear.

Link:

https://youtu.be/as84PDZeb50

SUNDAY SATSANG OCTOBER 8, 11AM CALIFORNIA TIME. COME EARLY, SIT WITH ME.

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Listen here to the truth.

Advaita works!  It works because its teachings are true.  Within your experience you will find the inner light of consciousness and the void or inner emptiness which penetrates everything within you, body, mind and emotions.  But you cannot find the absolute, the witness, because you are that.  That is, the absolute is not within your experience.  It is not experienced as that which is unchanging.

Indeed, personality is a kind of fraud, a feeling of separation, individuation, of being human.  Advaitic says “broaden your outlook,” look at the totality of your consciousness, everything you see hear, taste and touch now, disidentify with the personal and with your body, and reidentify with consciousness.  Then what do you get?

Read Nisargadatta.  Nisargadatta’s teachings are all about leaving the personal.  He says consciousness and your body arise out of the essence of the four or five elements. He says there is nothing personal there, all are the actions of an impersonal world spontaneously unfolding, or of the power that knows the way.  He goes into detail how the sperm and ovum get together and from that the seed of consciousness is born.  There is nothing personal here.  It is all just chemistry, impersonal, material, and we misidentify with the body and personality as us.

Instead we should identify with the totality of consciousness, and thereby transcend our human hood.  We feel immortal, because we identify with the concept of unchanging and eternal, or beyond even mortal and eternal.  But this absolute can never be seen, for we are the subject and therefore logically, we are outside of consciousness, so while consciousness may be fleeting, we as the observer are not.  One can directly have many experiences that verify this as any concept can be verified either in spiritual experiences or belief in religious scriptures.

And what have you gained following this process?  You have gained freedom from being an individual, a human, mortal, vulnerable, weak, suspect to death, disease, loss and loneliness.  Emptiness and the sheer knowledge that you are beyond consciousness in the body frees you from your human hood.  But at what price?

It is actually a solution for old people who fear death, for people with unbearable suffering from loss, depression, rage, anxiety.  Emptiness in the knowingness that you come from nothingness, as a result of chemistry, or physical mechanisms, supposedly frees you from identification with your personality, your needs, with your desperation.

But at what price?

And as Sasaki Roshi told me, and this applies to Advaita also, there is no love in Zen.  There is emptiness and existence, but no love.  What is the cost of losing that?  What is the cost of gaining invulnerability and transcendence, other than losing your vulnerability, your openness to experience loss and death, your total surrender to being just a blink in time, with a beginning and an ending within meaningless existence?

But what is the price of losing human hood?  What is the price of losing devotion?  What is the price of losing anxiety and fear?  The price is that you have lost your humanity, and this world true humanity is so very beautiful and so very, very rare.

I watched Robert up close, teaching.  Always his teachings pointed away from being a human, from suffering, from human problems, from involvement in the world, and instead know the message that you are God, transcendent spirit, beyond and before time and space.  But like Jesus gave a message of peace to calm a violent world, Robert gave a message of transcendence from human suffering, fear of death, depression, and fear itself.

But he himself went out of his way to take care of his wife and children even after his death by turning the teachings over to his wife Nicole.  Since then every Tom, Dick, and Harry imaginable has come along to claim ownership or successorship.  Robert also sought the love of a woman, even buying flowers for one was also his student, bringing her chocolates, and I know, because I was there. 

Why did Robert seek love?  There are many reasons?  When confronted once he said because they needed it, that love coming from a guru was an entirely different context from the love a man or woman normally receives from one another or from parents, siblings, or children.  And as such, it can be so much more powerful, intense, and thus healing and the most profound way.

In another way, feeling love for woman kept Robert human, any font to be human, he was always slipping from him into the inner emptiness he felt all the time, into the interspace it was dissolving his personal sense of self all the time.  He fought to keep the personal, to be with others in the world, not only out of compassion for others and what he can do to help them, but also to keep himself as a human, alive.

This is the truth.  I doubt you will ever hear this from anyone else.  Most teachers either teach of the Absolute and leaving the “mundane,” while the others teach embodiment only, and even if they know it well, in teaching they reject transcendence.  But those who teach both? There is a rare one in Sedona who may teach this way, sometimes.  There is a rare one in Portland, who might also teach this way.  And everywhere, a few rare students, who know this to be true.

I have a problem.  No matter how much I read about losing one’s sense of being an individual, or a person, or of being impersonal, I can’t do it.  I am a person.  I am a human.  I am very, very flawed, and my sense of being vulnerable, in a sense, is my identity.   I am totally needy for love, to give it and to receive it.

Yes, yes, I know emptiness, and was and still am immersed in it for decades.  Yes, it permeates all my emotions and makes my body into an object permeated by nothing.  Still, I easily identify with my body.

Yes, I can obseve the entirety of consciousness and see it, know it as separate from me, but my emotions are real, powerful.  My need for others is as palpable, and actually much more so, than my endless experience of the Void or even the nothingness of sleep, or even my knowingness which precedes experience.

Consciousness is fleeting.  My body is fleeting.  My emotions even more fleeting.  But without devotion or being devoted too, life is nothing, brittle,  dry, worth less than a simple lick by my cat, or a glance from my Beloved. Love draws me back from the abyss of endless dryness, space, nothingness and roots me in my rare, rare existence as a person.

Essentially, all that I have taught is about comfort, distancing one’s self from suffering, from fear, from neediness.  It is used as a crutch by many, soothing words of space and the void, which are nice to know, but so very rare and short is my life. I value it so much, and more than anything else, to touch and be touched by my Beloved.

This is an advisory, to be noted and filed away for the future.

There is a secret teaching shared by true teachers, real teachers, only with a teacher of similar rank and understanding, or a very rare friend, or a very rare student.  It is a teaching so direct, so immediate, that everybody knows it to a degree, but fears it immensely.

There are so few people who are able to love completely anything, someone, something living.  That complete immersion in devotion for another is a magic key to spiritual maturation.  The depths of one’s being is found in the love for another.

All the other teachings will are preparatory.  Meditation, wondrous, concentration on the Scriptures, pondering the scriptures, are all valuable, but as preparation, not fulfillment.  When you are fulfilled through total devotion and surrender to another, God bursts you alive from within, completing you, exploding you, rendering you helpless for a bit, and even allowing a rare one to see they are themselves God.

The guru often serves this function, and he or she knows it, that he holds the hearts of many students in his hands and gives according to their needs, if it is within or her ability to provide given the situation.

This is the secret teaching, the teachings of the completely personal, of personal vulnerability and love.  This is this love that brings you alive and brings you to God, to the realization of the self as completely personal,  and yet the totality of manifest consciousness.  Such is the contradiction contained by this sage.

It is very rare to find another that you can love so deeply, completely, thoroughly, and entirely, that your own divinity is revealed to yourself.

It is so rare to find that deepest of all deep loves, and if you have not found it, just serve others, take care of others, give yourself to others, surrender to others, to a cat, to a dog, to an insect, to a beautiful tree, and thus begins the path of true devotion.

Advaita allows you access to the absolute, Buddhism to emptiness, which can render you fearless, and from this fearlessness to step back into the human hood, into the very, very, personal human you are.  And from that position, to love with all of your being this someone, something, with all your heart, with all your mind and spirit, emptying yourself out.

This secret no guru tells you in public, except a rare one who does not fear the rejection of others, because most of those that come to him, come wanting escape from their own sorrow, lost loves, or to find acceptance for where they are.  They do not want to hear that the final teaching is of utter devotion, reckless love, and passionate abandonment of self to complete the self.

But again, this is so very rare and secret teaching, a Tantric teaching. Most have to walk with bliss, enchantment, the energies, the witness, and everything beyond consciousness for long time until they are thoroughly aware of everything in nothingness and consciousness.  Having gone this far into nothingness, it is the hardest thing to come back, when it is so rare to be called back by someone into the world of hardness, the world of need, a world of love and loss, grief and death.

So very rare are the teachers that can say this, and even more rare are students who can feel this.  The teacher has to be so very gentle, and the students very open, and then one day a few grow greater than the teacher.

My Beloveds have fled Arizona to the four corners of the world, and my heart breaks.

My Beloved

My Beloved has returned to me.

Years of emptiness, of space, and she returns.

We swim in each other’s love, sinking deeper and deeper into it.

And surprise after surprise, we find the depths boundless, endless,  completely abolishing space and time.

Our linking is forever, beyond fickle consciousness’s reach.  I discover this bonding is between us all, all the time, an eternal linkage, available when you choose one, your Beloved; it takes you to a place never known before, entirely beyond spirit.

You feel it, but the words do not come.  How can they?  So limited is their reach and ability to explain.

Yet the divine mystery is within easy reach if only you die to you, to be in your Beloved’s presence, naked, humble, smaller than an atom, it is all revealed, and yet you know you have but scratched the surface of the mystery.  There is much further to go.