Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

Recently I got a lot of blowback by people who think will I was too highly critical of Robert Adams and his teachings.  They did not understand what I was saying.  He was my teacher.  I loved him.  I followed him and I believe him, and I came to his kind of enlightenment in 1995, which he acknowledged.

First of all, there is no such thing as truth.  All religious ideas, all spiritual ideas, and even all spiritual methods flow out of a belief system, that itself, at one point, flowed out of the experiences of a specific spiritual figure, such as Ramana or Robert Adams.  Then they had to explain what their current experience was, what it meant, and how to get there. 

Ramana’s Advaita Vedanta belief system had one specific and, which was to bring peace to the believer, both through the words about what states of consciousness can be attained by practicing certain methods, such as becoming increasingly silent or through self inquiry, but also by providing a belief system that says you should only focus on yourself, that the world is not exist, your body is not real, it is an idea, or it is an illusion.  Robert stated not to pay much attention to the world, or to your situational problems, or to your emotional state, and especially pay no attention to your mind, and absolutely try to quiet the mind, or to find the gap between thoughts, which he called silence, which he called what you really are.

Robert and Ramana’s whole belief system and methodology were to bring peace to suffering people, people who thought they wanted to go beyond the world, thought they were done with the world, who were suffering because of their situation in the world, or because of their own mental states an overly busy mind.

Advaita’s whole approaches to bring peace.  But is it worth totally accepting their belief system, that the world is an illusion, you are an illusion, that the self you think you are, is only an idea, that your real nature is silence or bare consciousness?  This is what this belief system gives you, silence and peace.  But that certainly is not all of spirituality, there are different systems that seekers and practitioners two different kinds of experiences, different kinds of awakenings, such as finding God within oneself, finding the Lifeforce within oneself, or finding Shakti as oneself, energies as oneself.

This is what my teachings are aimed at and I minimize the need for a belief system or an explanation of the nature of reality, believing all of those ideas are really not helpful for understanding what you are, because they all provide very narrow definitions of what you are, in order to get you away from fear of death, and from your own internal suffering.

For example, they may tell you, you are not a body or mind or human being, you are consciousness itself.  Or you are awareness yourself.  But what does this belief give you except an idea that you try to make your own through various spiritual practices or just by, as Nisargadatta said, accepting the truth, believing the truth, which will set you free.

Nisargadatta said the sense of being alive, of being a mortal, of being I am, is an illusion.  Why is it illusion?  For him it is an illusion because it is temporary, transient, a small happening in infinite time, and not sustained by its own existence, but requires consciousness to have this experience.  This is a denial of the reality or the worth of being a human being, the idea being that this is a very narrow state itself being a human, and requires the mind to believe that.  What Nisargadatta requires you to believe that first year the totality of consciousness, and then you are the nothingness that witnesses consciousness.  This is a different kind of narrowing, because nothingness cannot be perceived you can only be it, therefore you are already enlightened if you accept the idea that you are nothingness which cannot be experienced.

Do not you see, this is another escape to peace?

But like Jesus, I say I have not come to bring you peace, but to bring you a sword!  I come to show you God within yourself, the life force, the power within yourself, the light within yourself, your sense of presence which is an energetic body within and without that is more real than your physical body, and it does not require a belief system, it just requires a simple practice of a special kind of self-inquiry by feeling within yourself for the Lifeforce felt first sometimes as an electric spark somewhere in the area of the chest or in the gut, and sometimes between the eyes as the third eye.  Once you find it, abide there, stay with it, focus on it and bring it into your heart.

Or you can listen to sacred music, Kirtans or Bhajans, or what other music moves you, moves your heart, opens your heart.

Lastly, you can have this self-realization of yourself as the divine by falling in love with somebody or something to this degree that you totally worship that someone or something, surrendered to that something, drop to your knees and worship that someone or something.  Love that someone or something with all your might, all your will, with your entire mind, and your entire heart.  Do this for a period of time and you will discover that you are love itself, that the feelings of worship and surrender, will bring the Lifeforce to you as an experience within yourself, and you will find you are this life force, this energy behind all of existence that runs the world and the universe.

This approach, this belief system is relational, and it does not require you to have any beliefs other than that your body and the other person are real, and not to be ignored.  You do not even have to believe that love will bring you to self-realization, it is the truth, and will happen to you if you love strongly enough.

Cannot you see how this kind of spirituality is better not only for the person, because it allows them to be productive and satisfied in the world, but is better for the world as a whole because it is relational, not solipsistic, or totally self-involved.

The experience of this kind of self realization is unlike any other.  It is an explosion of love, bliss, white light, and a sense of enormous power within that is your constant companion, first experienced as an “other,” and that is realized also to be the self.  After this for a long, long time to move with the constant companion of God within, feeling lists, power, and divine knowledge guiding you.