Thank you Master Edji, I am so happy you answered me, and so fast.

You are right and I will follow, I am already following, your advices.

I dropped the many books I bought, and stopped reading so much, to PRACTICE.

 

I have never seen so much effects after so little practice with your method !!!

Also I couldn't find a method that would grab me and keep me practicing.

Yours is the first one, and is so simple !!

 

I just listen to your "guided meditation" and ... the magic happens !

 

I started your method 3 days ago, I have no formal training in meditation nor any other practice, just a little "Who am I ?" since 2 months.

 

Yesterday at night, before sleep, I listened to your audio file 4 times in a row, while recycling on the floor. I saw the emptyness, and then I looked for the observer, and couldn't find one, and became kind of dissolved in the luminous emptiness :))

It was fantastic, and I wasn't feeling bored after the 4 sessions, like I am after 20 minutes of self-inquiry.

I would have continued if it was not so late at night already ...

 

Then this morning I made another session of listening to your audio file, then get some work done on my laptop, then headed to the restaurant for my breakfast (I live in hotels, I am actually in India, Pondicherry).

The waiter told me that it would take 20 minutes to get my meal. I decided to try your method, loking for the emptyness inside the body, without the audio file.

Within 2 minutes I was freezed, my eyes straight on a point on the wall.

Saying to myself "this is empty, forms are empty, there is no things, I feel my body is empty", I got the best feeling ever.

 

I didn't care people looking at me, what they could think about my fix attitude. For the first time I was confortable in "meditation" in a public place.

I would say that it wasn't kundalini experience or the like, where I would feel like a crazed man with everybody looking at me.

 

It was stable, realistic, DEEP, not fancy, and I stood in the exact same position, not even blinking the eyes, without doing any effort, till the waiter brought the tea, long minutes I think, but I had no feeling of time.

The most impressive experience so far. I was all, no thing existing anymore, no feeling, no need to move, no thoughts ....

Then the waiter brought the tea cup, and I said ok, now come back to "normality". I thought it would be instantly done, but I found that I had to make some effort, and kind of cross several layers of luminous matter before coming back out, in the "normal" world.

 

Then I started again when the waiter was gone, and all around became like milky blurred, cloudy, but I couldn't continue and stopped to start eating.

My body was feeling all shaky, and I had to concentrate strongly to what I was doing to be able to bring the cup to my mouth and drink.

All these movements were like alien to me, like I had to re-learn everything, even how to drink and eat with a fork !!

 

Now I am at the computer shop, and I am writing you this email. I am still shaking, vibrating.

 

I don't want to be too enthousiastic, and tell myself that it will be a long journey and that I must go slowly ...

 

What an amazing result in just 3 days for a beginner !

What can I do to please you and show you my gratefulness ?

 

Being europeen (french) I am not used to call anyone Master or to express my respect with beautiful words as for example Rajiv did, but for sure you made my day !!!

 

Thanks Master Edji !

David.

ED:

 David, I am very happey you got this result.

Usually beginners have extraordinary results.

We'll see what happens next, won't we? Keep me informed.

Ed

Edji:

I feel a burning love for you. I think you know I am not referring to a person.

The Highest Teaching, as Jo-Ann is used to say, the Supreme Teaching is all in these your apparently poor words: “Now I do not experience anything as oneness, voidness, spaceness, individuality, etc. All adjectives have disappeared. There is just a procession of experiences.”

Not too much schools have gotten this Ultimate Trough! And the teaching of the few which have reached it is not so easy to be seen through.

I read from Atma-Darshan by Atmananda (Krishna Menon):

4. DIFFERENT STAGES OF ILLUMINATION:

(I) He whose mind is captivated by the beauty of a figure sculptured in a piece of rock, forgets even the fact of the rock being its background.

(II) When he rises above this captivation and looks at the figure, he sees the background, rock, which supports the figure.

(III) When the rock thus receives attention, rock is seen also in the figure, and later on the figure is seen as nothing other than rock.

(IV) Enlightenment of truth also comes in this manner. Consciousness becomes dimmed chiefly through one’s captivation and abiding interest in external objects.

(V) When one outgrows this interest and looks at the objects it will be found that they rise and abide in Consciousness alone.

(VI) When Consciousness thus begins to receive due attention, it becomes revealed in the objects as well, and they themselves will in due course become transformed into Consciousness.

(VII) It is the realisation of oneself and the entire world as one Consciousness that is known as realisation of Truth.

  

What rock? Which Consciousness? They themselves are objects added to ME!!! I am not rock at all!!!

They have not Turiyattita o Turiyatta! They have stopped in Turiya! They think to be the Universal Consciousness… ;-) What a release, what a sense of freedom, I AM NEVER THAT!!!

You know I come from a nightmare. In the past when I read “It is not real”, I interpreted it as “It is not so hell as it seems.” Now I realize that “It is not real” means NO REALITY  is there! NO EARTH! NO UMANITY! NO BODIES! NO LIFE! NO DEATH! NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I am not saying I am completely free. I feel still some anxiety for life. There is still a sort of sense of I/individual-existence I don’t know what it is still doing there.

Love,

S

Well its done!!!


Marie got a new car, and after 7 straight days of feeding nearly 100 cats a night, I am off the hook for Marie's portion!


Thank you so much to Keith, Andrea and Cary for helping me drive several nights through the various parking lots and alleys of Northridge. Now just back to my eight colonies. We are still trying to find a place for Jimmy to stay. We plan on hiring Jimmy to feed cats throughout the City after we find him a place to stay. Everything we've tried so far has fallen through, or Jimmy doesn't want to go along with it.


And thank all you generous people who have so lavishly donated money to the causes I am working for. Many more animals are or will be getting more vet care because of it. 

SATSANG # 1 Jnana Marga:   Are You Sure You Want to Walk this Way?

From online Satsang with Edji, November 4, 2010

Well, this is our first international satsang. People from all over the world have nothing better to do.  So, while you’re here, let’s talk turkey.  This is something Robert never discussed with people in satsang…  what is this trip all about?  What is Jnana Marga all about?  What can you get out of it?  What do you have to put into it?  And I’d like to take a few minutes of exploring this so that we’re much clearer in the future as to what happens, and what can be accomplished.


Now, Robert called this path (the path that he walked, and that he taught me,) jnana marga, or “the way of wisdom.” The methods he taught were two-fold: meditation in the form of Self-inquiry; and being in proximity of the guru, namely Robert.  Of course, Robert always denied he was a guru. Robert always denied that he had anything to do with anybody’s cooking or anybody’s progress, or anything like that. Yet, everybody considered him as “teacher,” and he always talked about the need for the guru.


For me being around Robert was of extreme benefit, because at some point I stopped doubting him and just opened to his teaching, to his methods, and his being.  Such surrendering is very important.  Before surrendering to Robert, I only had trusted the method, which was Self- inquiry.  I had started practicing that method back in 1968, and I met Robert first in 1989.  However, the Self-inquiry I practiced for those twenty seven or twenty eight years, although it resulted in hundreds and thousands of amazing experiences and understandings, had not led to liberation.  And that was really — although I practiced other techniques — that was the main one I had practiced for many, many years.  This is the one I read about in the books, too.


Now being around the guru, on the other hand, helped me because I saw Robert was not of this world. Robert was always far, far away from the happenings in this mundane world.  One could just see it.  One could feel it.  He spoke from a different world, and a world I wanted to know.


But even after surrendering to Robert, I seemed to make little progress.  It was only after he left Los Angeles and I was thrown back onto myself, that I spontaneously began to practice once again the method of Self-inquiry, and I did achieve some level of success.  I talk about this on the website, where I talk about Robert leaving town and I was sort of bereft and lost. And so I just kept laying on a couch listening to spiritual music and going inside, like I had always done.  Which is of great comfort to me  — it brought me great comfort — and I did this for day after day, week after week, for twelve or eighteen hours a day.  And this kind of Self-inquiry is a variant called “Abiding in the Self.”  (At first you look for the “I” thought, or you look for the “I”… We’ll get into this later, the techniques.) 


But after you’ve found the sense of presence, and you know your inner world pretty well — you know the voids, and you know the presence, and you know the feelings, and you know the images, and you know the energies; all you have to do is stay there and watch. You don’t even have to watch. It’s just being there, in your inner world, immersed in your inner world, and covered by your inner world.


And it’s this method of Self-inquiry that I first read about when I was, I think, eighteen… I read Ramana Maharshi; and of course, later, Robert, and Nisargadatta, and hundreds of other teachers.  Even when I started practicing Zen seriously in 1968, Philip Kapleau in his book, The Three Pillars of Zen, mentions Bassui. And Bassui’s koan, or problem, was “Who am I?” And it describes Bassui’s struggle with the “Who am I?” over a number of years until, I think it took him twenty or thirty years to awaken in one of those smashing satori experiences they talk about. 


(That’s another kind of thing we’re going to discuss in the future, is – what the hell is awakening? What are these satori experiences? And why do these monks act so bizarrely after having a satori experience? And it’s something that has to be discussed, because it always puzzled me. I didn’t know what the hell it was!)


Now, there are a lot of books that really talk quite clearly about the method of Self-inquiry. Michael James wrote two books along with Sadhu Om. One is called The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One (Chapters 7 and 8.) He wrote another book more recently. I think it’s called Happiness and the Art of Being.  You can look up his name, Michael James, on the Internet and find his website, and you can download the books for free there.


And there’s The Nisargadatta Gita, which is now available on Scribd.com. You can download it… or you can buy it, I think it’s for $7.50, plus two or three bucks to have it delivered; I would recommend that. This is basically a meditation manual. You follow step-by-step. You read the phrases that Apte took out of the many books about Nisargadatta, where he talks about the “I.” He put them in sequence, and you follow this book, and it naturally leads you into deeper and deeper meditation.


Then, there’s Langford’s book, which is The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, where he talks about the need to become aware of awareness, or aware of consciousness. There are many, many, many books like this.  Robert’s books are filled with this – he says, “Dive deep within…  Go within… Follow the ‘I’…  Look for the ‘I’… Follow that sense of being deep inside yourself.” 


So, there are all of these Advaita books that talk about going within, going deep within. On the surface now in the last twenty years or so there’s been a movement called “Neo-Advaita,” which says you don’t have to do any effort whatsoever. You just look inside of yourself once, and all your questions are solved and you live in perfect happiness forever. But that’s a bunch of bull. And I’ve been posting about it recently, and a lot of negative feedback I’ve been getting from the Neo-Advaitins that say I don’t know squat. 


In any event, all those years of practicing self-inquiry, they failed in my case. I burned out. I got nowhere. I had hundreds of experiences – samadhis, and little kenshos, etcetera... but I always came back as the same person. After all the special occasions, all the special disappearances, all the samadhis, all the recognitions, all the internalizations, I always came back, at the end, the same person as when I left.  I didn’t feel any more spiritual, I didn’t have any greater understanding. And then I ran into Robert.


In any event, you have to pick one or the other. Either trust the teacher, or the method. And I’m talking about any teacher, and any method. (If he or she has a method.)  In the case of Robert and Jnana Marga, the teacher was Robert; and his teacher was Ramana. And I’m in that same tradition. And the method is Self-inquiry. And Self-inquiry can be quite complicated. There’s several books on the website, my website, “Itisnotreal.com” that talk about Self-inquiry. It’s called Hunting the I (the expanded version). And then there’s Rajiv’s book which he calls Steps to Hunting the I, which is also downloadable there. As well as the hundreds of entries on the blog which talk about Self-inquiry and one’s experiences, and the blockages and all the things that can go wrong.   And right.


So… that’s the overview of Jnana Marga.


________________________________




Let me ask you… why are you here? What are you looking for?  Do you even know?  Can you put what you want into words? 


Let that sink in awhile.


When I first began practicing Self-inquiry earnestly in the late 1960’s, I thought I knew precisely what I was looking for. I had just completed my BA in philosophy, and had read many books on Eastern and Western philosophy. I thought what I wanted to know was the basic quantum of knowledge.  What is the atom of truth? What’s the smallest bit of logic, or reasoning, or information?


In other words, on a spiritual plane, a spiritual explanation is – what is the core truth of reality?  That’s what I was looking for, because the world that I saw just didn’t seem real to me. And by that I meant, it was bizarre! It had people acting in bizarre ways and doing bizarre things that didn’t seem rational to me – it was crazy, and there was killing, and all of this kind of stuff. And it was just — it was a strange world that I didn’t feel was right. I never had felt it was right. 


And I think even more than looking for that atom of truth, I was looking for a reality that the ordinary world seemed to lack, the world that — I was in Cleveland.  Of course, if you’re in Cleveland, nothing is real anyway. It’s like in the 14th century in terms of the mentality there. (That’s another thing…)


However, the core practice I had learned from reading the books on Zen and Advaita was Self-inquiry, by pursuing the question “Who am I?”… I must say, I got diverted into many other practices over the years, such as visualizations; Zen koans; Zen quiet sitting called Shikantaza; and then, just silently watching everything. And even to say “watching everything” is a mistake, because that implies a duality. Instead, you just sit within everything and let everything happen around you, and through you. You’re an observer, yes, but there’s no distinction between the observer and the observed.  This I did a lot. I also attended many satsangs in many traditions with lots of sitting and chanting. But still, I made no progress, that I felt was progress. I always came back as the same old “me.” 


So again I ask you: why are you here? What are you looking for? What would satisfy you, and put your heart at rest?  Are you looking for knowledge? Are you looking for “no mind”? Are you looking for enlightenment? Are you looking for awakening? Are you looking for Self-realization?


The problem is if you say “Yes” to any of these, you probably can't define what they are. And therefore, you're trying to get something you can’t even conceive.  Isn't this a recipe for frustration and failure?  What are you looking for? Not putting it in words, explore within yourself to become clear as possible what you’re looking for. If you come here to this satsang, and don't find what you're looking for, isn't that a waste of time — both yours and mine?


But, I plead… I really didn’t know what I was looking for. I thought I was looking for the quantum of truth – but that’s not it.


Therefore, let me set the stage about this path. Let me tell you what this path offers, and the kind of qualities that one needs to succeed on this path.  First and foremost, this path offers happiness, happiness so strong you can't believe that it could exist. Happiness in all situations, at all times, even in illness and the death or loss of others that you hold dear.


Even now, when I get home after a busy day of having coffee at Starbucks… walking around the block and doing nothing… to unravel, I’ll lay down on my couch and go inside, and just be open to that space inside. And then suddenly, a kind of happiness descends that is so strong, it’s hard to conceive of. You don’t want to do anything — or at least I don’t want to do anything! The experience is so blissful, it is so complete, that there’s no urge to do anything, because already you’re in the perfect place, with the perfect feelings, and there’s no desire to get up and do anything. That’s why editing medical reports is so damn boring.


Secondly, it offers a state of completion, where you no longer desire to chase after anything — whether it’s enlightenment, or whether it’s an extra hundred thousand dollars, or a new house, or a motorcycle – because you are complete, needing nothing, with nowhere to go and nothing further to learn, and nowhere else to travel. You are at rest. You are at home. This brings great peace and happiness.


Thirdly, it offers mastery of the mind, for the method itself requires you to transcend the mind; and in that transcendence, mind becomes a tool rather than your ruler. The same holds true for emotions. It offers mastery of emotions, for the method requires you to transcend emotions so that you can use them, and they do not use you.


Fourthly, it brings you to a psychological position of immobility; where you are beyond moving, to the unborn core of your being, which is beyond time and space, beyond the world, beyond emotions, beyond the mind, beyond the body. You’re gone. Gone away. In the Heart Sutra, it’s “Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi svaha!” (“Gone, gone, gone away, gone totally away.”) And in that total emptiness, there’s immense power, because there’s nothing there. There’s nothing that can touch nothing.  Or there’s no thing that can touch nothing.


Fifthly, and more practically, it reveals your mission in life. Once you as the body-mind have been transcended, when you are no longer burdened with the path in the world that was laid out for your body-mind to travel since your birth, and you're free to become nothing, so to speak, to let God run your life; it reveals to you very clearly what your core values are, and clearly displays your new path, the one that is natural to you, the unconditioned you. In other words, you get rid of everything in the past – graduate school, the twenty years you spent in jail, whatever happened in your past that’s impelling you in a specific direction almost without any freedom whatsoever because you don’t understand the mind, you don’t understand the deeper things that are driving the mind, you don’t understand the cause-and-effect things that are putting you where you are… and so you’ve been projected along this path, which may be good or bad, but generally people in spirituality don’t like the path that they’re on, and they want to change. 


And getting rid of that, getting rid of the whole package of values and of understanding and of concepts and mind, allows a new vision to open up — especially the sense of compassion, and especially a sense of wanting to reach out and protect things in the world that are important. Protect sentient life, all feeling life, whether it’s humans or animals. (It’s easier for me, it always has been with animals, because I’ve always loved them. But for some people, it’s the other way around.)


Sixthly, this path reveals to you the mysteries of the mind and the psyche. Eventually you’ll learn all that there is to know about your subjectivity. You learn about dreams. You learn about memories. You learn about the Void and emptiness. You learn about thoughts. You learn about the non-existence of the ego, and the “I.” You realize that the external world is made up of a thought structure, and the only reality it has is in your mind. There is no objective reality out there. It’s a projection of your mental capacity and your learning, your store of knowledge. And that all disappears. 


Lastly, you develop a keen sense of justice and compassion. You know your limits, and you no longer commit to endless battles for good or evil that are only time-wasters. Knowing your limits, you select that part of your world and environment where you can actually make a difference, and decide that you will make things better in that world. You become a protecting shepherd for those who need protection and help — whether it’s for people or for animals, the homeless, your family, friends… you select it. You’ll find it naturally coming out of you, who or what you are the shepherd of, whose brothers you are the keepers of. 


Right, Lakshmi? [to cat sitting on his lap] She agrees. Oh, oh . . . she said “No.”


This is the path of Jnana Marga. However, to successfully tread this path there are certain things you need, and without them, you will never complete your work on this path; and you would be better served by trying a different path, such as Bhakti Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga or even Hatha Yoga.

Jnana Yoga, or Jnana Marga, certainly is not for everyone.  Ramana said it’s only for a few mature souls. Most people who start this path fall by the side. It can be very long, very boring, and difficult.  There can be long periods of time were it feels like no progress is made, and a lot of you know about that. It requires certain mental qualities that many people do not have; although they can develop these qualities through meditation.


What are some of these indispensable qualities?


First, you need to be able to introspect. That means you can look inside of yourself and find images; lights, spaciousness, the Void, emptiness, a sense of presence, a sense of existence, the sense of “I am.” You can find dreams, you can find memories, thoughts and images, and internal currents of electricity and kundalini, and lots of other things. You need to know how to introspect.


Next, the second most important is humility. Without humility you will go through your inner exploration armed with your own arrogance and knowledge, and will be unable to see the truth, because it will be too subtle for someone who is not humble. However, humility can be learned, and it is often learned because of repeated failures to gain enlightenment using your own mind and knowledge. When you lose confidence in your mind and knowledge it allows you to become humble.  Being with a guru can also help you become humble, either by watching him or her, or having the teacher cook the arrogance out of you.  


As a corollary, you must become exceedingly comfortable knowing nothing. You need to drop knowledge. You need to drop intellectual certainty. You need to drop all teachings you have read. You need to forget the words of all holy books and gurus who've gone before, and whom you’ve read about. This is part of being humble, being empty, not knowing anything — “only don’t know,” as Seung Sahn used to say — “only don’t know;” be utterly stupid, empty of knowledge.


Then you have to trust completely either your teacher, or the method. Without this trust, you will always be second-guessing yourself, always checking your progress, always asking whether your latest experience shows that you are on the correct path or not. You always wander and waffle. You will always be frightened that you are losing your way and not making progress.  


Also, you need to recognize that the path may be long and difficult, and you need to acquire the ability to concentrate and to persist. Robert used to say when it comes to spiritual work persistence is everything. Persistence develops concentration and focus which, in turn, allows you to develop the power and clarity in practicing technique. You have to be prepared to spend the rest of your life before you finally tread the last step of this path. If you're not willing to do this, please choose a different path.  (Maybe become a Neo-Advaitin and get enlightenment the day after tomorrow.  Or maybe yesterday.  That’s humor; that’s a joke.  You can laugh.)


These are the indispensable qualities that you need to successfully tread the path of Jnana Marga, the path of Self-knowledge. The most indispensable quality is the ability to look within and become aware of your inner world with all of its objects, nuances, energies, images, the Void, the sense of presence, etc.


Many people just can’t introspect. They fail at psychotherapy because they can’t look within for one reason or another. Many people can't look within because their ego has constructed defenses to prevent them from looking within due to many painful memories locked inside, because introspection into the spiritual, into the subjective, in many cases leads to unraveling many psychological defenses, resulting in a confrontation with a chaotic emotionality, and sometimes great pain and grief.   


More than one of you out there knows what I mean by this. That is, you can't find the sense of “I am” because part of you doesn't want to see what else lies inside between you who is looking, and your core. When you do look, you only find pain and suffering. And in psychotherapy you find a lot of people that can’t look inside because of the pain inside. And it’s very difficult to do psychotherapy with people that can’t look inside and introspect dreams, and feelings and memories.  And they can’t do it because they don’t want to do it. Their ego won’t allow them, because there’s too much pain locked up in their pasts and in their memory. And the process of self-inquiry begins to unlock that pain, and they feel it, and then they run away. 


Now, introspection can be learned through meditation and psychotherapy, but without developing it, Self-inquiry is useless. Choose another path – such as Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, or even Hatha Yoga, until you learn how to introspect; or never learn how to introspect, and continue on those paths.


The humility requirement is hard to develop. Many students come to me absolutely certain they understand Robert better than I do based on reading his book Silence of the Heart, or his transcripts. And they argue with me about what Robert was really about, and tell me I really don’t understand him. And this happens a lot. 


But they only read the externals; they only read his transcripts, which were general talks to general people.  This is like saying one understands Christ because they read all the public talks in the bible of Christ. But unlike his close disciples, they never did actually spend time with Christ himself. They are not privy to the private conversations between Christ, and Peter and Mark and Matthew, and all the others. Christ spent three years daily talking to his disciples on a personal basis, and only a few hundred words of those private conversations ever made it into the Bible, and yet people say they understand Christ. What they understand is their own idea of Christ. And most people understand an idea of Robert that they’ve constructed based on their past knowledge and what they’ve read in Silence of the Heart, and in the transcripts. And they fight to retain that knowledge that they have. 


This reminds me of the story of the Zen master talking to a disciple, and the disciple asks the teacher to teach him. Instead, the master pours the tea into the disciple’s teacup until it overflows. And the student then calls the master a jerk, or something similar, and the master then explains, “Until you empty yourself of all concepts, you cannot understand what I'm going to tell you.”  To do that, one must be pure, without arrogance, without a know-it-all-attitude, one who has released all previous knowledge and understanding, in order to receive a different and new truth.


In fact, I spent three to four days a week with Robert by going to satsang or going to lunch, or on the phone, and on the phone. He even told me I was his friend, not a disciple, because we shared so many personal experiences with each other. And I was with him for six years in L.A., and another two years, off and on, when he was up in Sedona. Yet, during those six years I was with him, including lunches, satsang, and talking to him, when taking him to satsang and so forth, I was never so arrogant as to think I understood him or his teachings. They were totally beyond me. 


In fact, they were even totally beyond me after my first awakening experiences in 1995, until his death in 1997. It took many years after these awakening experiences before I understood him.  


And that’s because I didn’t depend on his words alone to make sense. I had to feel the teachings, and feel they were mine. And this is not a matter of knowledge. This is a matter of humility. I knew nothing. I taught nothing until understanding gradually grew after five years or so, until 2003, when I launched Robert’s teaching website. And even then I didn’t start teaching — it’s only in the last year or two that I really started teaching.  Because I really didn’t know. I never felt so arrogant that I could speak for Robert, or had his understanding. 


At the same time, you have to develop a confidence in yourself and your own intuition. However, it will be a phony confidence and a phony intuition unless you have first become very humble; an empty cup; a sincere seeker without preconceptions, and without a know-it-all attitude, and have surrendered either to the teacher or the method of Self inquiry. You can't start out having all the self-confidence in the world as to your understanding of the technique or the teacher, or the teachings, and expect to get anywhere, because your mind is not built to see truth; but it is built to construct a conventional reality that allows you to inter-operate with all the other apparent entities in the world, as a supposedly normal person.


What you're trying to do on Jnana Marga, the path of Jnana Marga, is not to survive in the world, but to transcend it, and find the world beyond everything you currently know. Most of you will never do this; you can't let go of your mind or your understanding. Thus, it is better for most to try a different path.


That’s the bad news. However, no spiritual effort goes to waste. Just the act of turning within, instead of the usual turning your attention outwards, is a strong beginning. In fact, Robert used to say this was your only freedom — to turn away from the world, and to turn within.


That’s it. 


The next description of this path, should you choose it, will be yours. And it will probably be several years long. 

After I had been with Robert for four or five years, one day just before lunch as we were walking around Warner Park, he said to me, "I have been wondering why you haven't woken up yet. I think it is because you are too smart."


In other words, I thought too much. My mind was always active, reading Nisargadatta, Ramana, asking about meditation, being involved with many activities, questioning everything, writing articles, working on taking my tests to become a licensed psychologist in California.


Seunng Sahn Soen Sah had said the identical thing to me, "You think too much. You are like a golf ball spinning around the top of the hole, not dropping in."


However, when I was at Mt. Baldy practicing zazen in silence, no books, little talking, with a very structured life, my sitting was extremely powerful. I was in samadhi all the time that I sat in meditation. The body/mind disappeared, and I answered hundreds of koans with great ease, sometimes correctly answering two a day.


But in a sense, my sitting and practice was even stronger before I went to Mt. Baldy when I was practicing only self inquiry in the form of following the I. However, I was also swimming in unwanted Kundalini phenomena too. Sasaki broke me out of the self-inquiry practice (and the Kundalini dysfunction) and provided koan practice, which knocked me out of self-inquiry for years--unfortunately.


Back then there were few books on self-inquiry, Jnana Marga, or even Zen compared to now. But now there are about 20,000,000 self-proclaimed awakened "masters" who studied under Papaji or one of his disciples, and everything has become confused. Now also there are all the fantastic Nisargadatta books. Everyone has their favorite quotes from hundreds of sources that reflect their own understanding.


But few are really awakening. They think they are, but not so much. So few are willing to stop thinking and speculating about states, levels of consciousness, Bernadette's states versus Krishnamurti's states, versus Ramana's state, versus Robert's states, versus my states, and the United States. 


Void, foreground, background, inner space, outer space, illusory world of self and external world, real world of no mind, awareness versus consciousness, bare awareness, existence versus non-existence, the Ashtavakra Gita, what I said versus what Rajiv said.


Don't you see? You are all too fucking smart!


Just drop all this mind stuff and speculation as to the most advanced states, Turiya, Turiyatta, deep sleep wakefulness, the Void and foreground, and mostly, stop basing your understanding on WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCES UP TO NOW! All those experiences have been conditioned by your reading, meditation and life experiences up to now and have captured you in a mental present rather than being free from it all.


How to get beyond that? Drop all speculation. Drop all comparisons of different teachers sayings. Quit positing your favorite quotes and pithy observations on Facebook where everyone congratulates everyone else about how advanced they are.


To go forward you have to leave words, theories, speculations and comparisons behind and just search inside yourself. That is it. Stop learning from books because it only screws you up.  Burn the U.G. and Jiddha Krishnamurti books. Burn Ramana. Burn Rajiv and Edji's books. Stop quoting gurus and asking others what that means. Stop trying to figure out Robert's state, and then worry about how you can duplicate it, or whether it is the same or different from Robertson's. Have you any idea how much this does not help you? Pick one path, one method, one teacher and don't compare paths, methods or teachers.  Become less knowledgeable and more humble. Know nothing.


What many are doing is not unlike speculating how much money Donald Trump has versus some Saudi Prince, and then deciding you want to make so  many billion dollars to enjoy their mindstate or lifestyle. Spirituality then becomes all about acquisition of states, and if anything, spirituality is about de-acquiring, getting rid of things, ideas, mind states.


Just be yourself. Dive deep within. Look at your own experience without judging, reasoning, understanding. Became dumb like a rock, because your mind is keeping you from going anywhere. Just watch everything without engaging your mind.


Even self inquiry should be done without the mind's constant questioning. Instead, just look within and abide there.


I really don't know how to state this more directly than I Am now. Just stop, look and listen! Your searching and comparison outside, in gurus, theories books, and dabbling in techniques shows how much you do not trust yourself and your own experiences, or your ability to penetrate to the root. Many have tried, but they give up because they have failed to penetrate, and rather than persist, they fall back on mind. 


Persistence in self-inquiry is everything.  And humility. Forget all of your acquired knowledge and ability to rationally speculate about the ultimate. The I am is slippery as Nisargadatta said; it keeps changing form. You can't pigeonhole it with concepts, let alone discoure about what lies beyond--the mystery.

Last Thursday's Satsang is now on line.  I like it a lot, especially the special effects before and after that boring blond grey-haired guy talks.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/16634514?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

Last night Keith drove 70 miles from San Bernadino to help me feed nearly 100 cats in about 19 locations. I counted the number today.

Because there were so many locations and cats, we made two separate trips from my house, otherwise delivery would be too complex with too many plates.

I spent about 15 minutes preparing the first batch of food for the first 12 locations, and after Keith arrived everything went rather smoothly, feeding them over the next hour and three quarters. 

Driving through the last alley before returning home, gentle rain had begun to fall and not many of the feeding locations had shelter for the food. To our surprise we found a family of homeless people huddled together between plastic garbage bins. They had constructed a plastic tarp over their heads and were huddled together on in a space no larger than 3 feet by 4 feet. There were 3-4 people.

Since I had not driven this route for Marie in a long time, I was not sure where the cat feeding stations were located, so we drove around the block again so that we could pass by this family again and give them some money. We were able to scratch up $20, and on our second pass, we stopped and Keith got out, deposited a cat food plate near where they were camped, then went over and talked to them and gave them the money. They said it made their day.

Maybe because of the rain, we did not see many of the cats.  Also, daylight savings had just ended, and since the cats' personal clocks did not change, we left at an earlier clock time to do the rounds, hopefully coinciding with their internal clocks,  But the changed activity level of the Valley may have left them feeling it was too early to come out.

All in all we had a good time, and Keith is a genuinely nice guy.  Hope to see him again.

Evgeny Kalashnikov:


Hello Ed,


I have found some guys claiming to be enlightened. They say they've realized there is no self. But as I start questioning things like deep sleep awareness and turiya they say they do not experience that.


They say they have pronounced experience of no self, and the feeling of being "normal" and that's it.


Am I misguided or what's going on?


Is turiya and beyond denote something meaningful?


Does enlightenment concede an unbroken stream of underlying awareness behind all the 3 states or dream, sleep and waking?


Very interested in your answers.






Good! This IS the most critical question of all. They seem to think that looking into the awake consciousness mind and finding no person there proves they are immortal, that awareness permeates everything, is deathless, universal, etc., but they only perceive anything in the waking and dream states.


In all the literature, I could find only a handful of people that claimed to have a continuous awareness in deep sleep.


However, I tend to question that, because I suspect they are saying they have a waking-style awareness when the body is asleep. But that is not what is generally meant by waking sleep as used in traditional advaita.


My experience is, when I am asleep, of entering and existing deep sleep, I feel first a "heavy" sort of darkness descending and taking over my waking mind, but when deep sleep leaves, I don't have an intuition of waking up, but rather an intuition that the layer-state of deep sleep was leaving, and the intuition and experience that "I" was never asleep. That is, sleep came and went, dreams came and went, waking consciousness came and went, but I never was touched by any of these states. I was beyond any of these states.


So, I can assert that I was aware of heavy darkness while in deep sleep, but it is only in transitioning to waking that I can "remember" it or say anything about it, because waking is when the mind arises and can remember or remark about anything.


Now I can consciously follow the comings and goings with total awareness of transitions between waking and dream states where I see no change in the nature of consciousness at all during such transitions.


Concerning those who claim to be awake all the time, I have heard or read of none of them to explain what they have experienced. Robert claimed to have that continuous awareness, but when he was alive, I never thought of questioning him about it.


But you see "awakening" for me, and the one Robert authorized, was not seeing that I was nothing, that there was no I, nor even a sustained I-thought, and continuous emptiness in the psyche, but rather an experience where I saw waking and dream states come and go, totally apart from me as "objects" as experienced states separate from me, and I was untouched by the coming and going.


Also, I was able in meditation to go from full waking awareness to total submergence in the deepest parts of the mind, even deeper into total unconsciousness lasting a few seconds, then coming out the other side into samadhi of total oneness of the world. But there was always a brief interval without a continuous awareness of a few seconds or so.


The traditional advaitins explain this as passing through the causal body of complete ignorance, not knowing, which is vital to go beyond knowledge.


Does this help? 


I think the neo advaitins have confused the method of looking within, self-inquiry, with actual enlightenment, which even for Nisargadatta took three years of doing nothing but abiding in the I. He too, so far as I know, did not state he was continuously aware (as a conscious type awareness) during deep sleep. Even Ramana, though he claimed we do exist during deep sleep and offered rather "tacky" proofs, I don't think ever talked about his sleeping experiences.


Even if some of these teachers did experience continuous awareness, it certainly would not be as a person. Personhood demands the presence of an ego and mind. Both are destroyed by deep sleep. Nisargadatta states this over and over. Therefore too, there is no survival if any individuality after death. That would require the continuity of the mind and ego, and if deep sleep can end the ego, the mind, and according to Nisargadatta, the I Am sense also, death would provide an even more effective terminator of the individual. 


What always survives is universal consciousness. That is, somewhere, there is consciousness manifesting in some sentient being, like leaves on a tree. Some fall off as individual leaves, but do not come back as another leaf, but other leafs and continuously generated unrelated in a specific sense to the one that fell off. Each is unique and an individual expression, never to be repeated.

I am very happy that so many responded to my stated need to feed more cats than I can handle. Fortunately two people in the area offered to drive me around to make the stops. Even more fortunately, Marie's brother was talked into helping her make 11 of her 15 stops and I only had to do 4 more than normal.


I do want to say something about all the generous donations I have received for my working with cats.


I don't want to make this path as expensive for you as if you had been with one of the charlatan neo-advaita people. It is great that your heart has opened to help the cats--really great. But I don't want to be a burden on you, nor do I want you to burn out by giving too much. The same people give over and over, and I don't want them to burn out.


Though this blog gets about 400-500 hits a day on average, I have no idea how many regulars there are. I know how many signed up for Satsang, but my intuition is that we are far too small a group at this point even to have an ashram, let alone support me and my cat habits. There are only 8 people in the whole LA area from Anaheim, to Pomona, to Northridge and Malibu that follow this blog--far to few even to have an LA Satsang let alone an ashram. We need to grow first. So relax, let Consciousness decide what is going to happen.


Some have suggested I hire someone to take care of the cats. To me, this is the most "holy" part of my day. I have not missed a day in the last seven years, even when very ill. This is my offering, and not something I would want an employee to do. Humane and religious service organizations should not have too many employees, because this is a work from the heart and money screws things up. If anything, if I could find someone in the LA area that knows how to write and edit reports that I could sub out, now that would be a help, but such people are rare.

I feel extremely guilty.


A friend of mine, who is very poor and who feeds 15 colonies of cats at night (maybe 80 cats), called me and said her car broke down and she can't feed tonight. She needs a new car and is going with her brother-in-law tonight to look for one for her. Or, she could get a loan to fix her 21 year old car.


She wanted me to take over tonight for as many days as it takes to buy or fix her car.


Six weeks ago, her car broke down and at the last minute she called, and I fed her extra 80 cats at 15 spots for five days before her car was fixed. I also gave her $110 in cat food for October because she ran out of money fixing her car and getting it smogged.


However, now I am feeding four of Jimmy's abandoned colonies as well as four of my own. I work doing medical records editing, and I spent several days preparing for the first international satsang last night, which went well and will be posted later. But maybe because it was number one, the preparation was hard.


I have a full plate maintaining two blogs, an animal blog, this blog, writing lots of responses to seekers, feeding eight colonies, and trying to get 2 full psychological evaluation reports out a day.


I am 68 years old and have severe arthritis in my right hip. It is hard to get into and out of a car with a bad hip 23 times a night, especially when she asked for help at the last minute.


And at this moment I am struggling with guilt about not feeding her 80 cats. Hopefully, in the next few minutes the energy will come. Tomorrow I will offer to pay for a rental car for her, but rental agencies need a credit card and hers is maxed out, leaving mine and I'll be the primary renter.


Then Jimmy called and he needs help also. I finally located a room for him to live in if he does some chores there, but he needs someone to hold his hand at each stage, like a little child, and needs more time than I can spare. I won't talk about it because it is just too much.


I just don't have the energy I had at 40-50 to keep so many balls juggling.


But I feel badly for Marie and the cats who may not eat tonight. I could probably do it tomorrow night if she didn't buy a car if I had a few helpful students in the area that could drive me around. Any takers?

From Rajiv on Neo Advaita and Richard's teachings.

I post Rajiv's take here because it was not accepted as a comment due to length.

Yes Edji is right most of Neo-Advaita is completely shallow and superficial.

I do come across a few of Neo-advaitin teachers’ writings  here and there and I have to admit that they write very nice words. Words that are soothing and beautiful to hear, especially these words “THERE IS NOTHING TO DO.” I mean who wouldn’t love such a person who offers a candy for free. Many fall for it and then realize later this was all a big scam. They will realize that they have paid big time for the time they wasted believing to be “realized” because they were told “You are already that.” 

Every smart person today knows that there is nothing like a free lunch here.  So before you become enlightened you must become smart. Once you become enlightened you will become completely dumb (as Edji puts it) so here is your chance to be smart. 

Neo-Advaita is complete waste of time for a serious sadhaka. It is fine if you love to shop around and are a curiosity seeker who is happy with few glimpses of no-thought or oneness but if you mean  business then be aware that you will be wasting a lot of your priceless time for no serious gains in these kinds of teachings.

Let us just go through what the Richard Young (Neo-Advaitin) here is talking about here:

He says, "when thought stops for a moment where is ego?"

 

The ego is very much intact. It hasnt disappeared.

I want to ask him what happens to the ego when thought is back? Or when there is no sex, landscape or music happening? What happens then?  If I go by what he says then  the identity called Richard Young should return back after his brief encounter with “No-thought” is over. Isnt it? YES ofcourse!!!  The ego had just got suspended temporarily when thought stopped for that moment, but then it is back. 

The temporary glimpse or blankness shouldn’t be taken as complete disappearance of I-ness.  This is transcendence of thought which is just a preparation for things which come ahead. Seeing through thought or remaining aware of the gap between two thoughts does not mean that the individual ego has gone. It remains.  .The ego will keep springing back. This will create a serious doubts in mind and later it will be known that it was all his mere mental imagination that the I-ness had gone in the first place. It had never gone.

Another thing Richard needs to reflect is “To whom does this no-thought or sex or music” happen to? It very much happens to Richard himself while in waking state. Isnt it? After all who is the observer? Who experiences this? Of course Richard !!!

Isnt it his waking state memory which says I had this wonderful experience?

So Richard is his only reality and he is not aware of any other change happening (to his Consciousness) or of any other memory because he hasn’t gone deep enough to inquire and noticed how the I-ness drops and reveals another identity through memory. He remains completely identified with his ego but claims that he is beyond it.

Richard will disappear only when he inquires deeper into the subtle levels of Consciosuness. There he will find that there is no Richard existing. His reality will be of something else. That experience will NOT be to the I-ness because Richard will disappear.

Disappearance of I-ness does not depend on any thoughts, emotions or music, etc., which are properties of waking state. It will drop only when deeper layers of Consciousness are explored  and a new reality will emerge from the depth of his I AMness (which again will be seen as false later).

 Now see what further Richard  says to Dina:

"Yes! Now abide with that for a while and see that all the ego is just another thought arising in what you are and that suffering is only possible when that ego thought is accepted as real. Withdraw belief in the ego concept and all suffering is pulled up by the roots."

 

How can you discard ego as just another thought. Do you expect the the ego to drop just by this simple instruction? The I-ness or the ego drops automatically only when something else beneath the layers of Consciousness apprehends the seeker. Reality (of no I-ness) is not a matter of belief as Richard says here. It is a matter of becoming. You actually become something else other than the individual ego or rather that “something else” takes more prominence over you, captivates you and apprehends you. You simply watch it happening.  

It is true to state that transcendence of thought of waking state does provide relief from thoughts and opens the door towards a feeling of oneness but it is only a baby step towards enlightenment. Much needs to be done before we can see the ego actually drop.

From this conversation between Edji and Richard I can make out that Neo-Advaitins have no idea of what they become while in deep sleep nor of turiya. They will probably discard these as experiences happening to “Awareness” (another concept in their minds) and therefore conclude that it is not worth looking at (that is big mistake). Therefore they have no knowledge of what happens to them beyond waking state.

See what Richard says here :

"When you are in deep sleep and consciousness is silent, then you awaken the next morning, you do not feel as if you ceased to exist while you were no longer conscious."

He feels that he remains aware that he exists in deep sleep and beyond but does not explain how he arrives at that conclusion. He misses everything in between and simply assumes he must be remaining aware. It is just a concept for him but no real realization. A sincere sadhaka knows what becomes of him when he transcends waking and dream states. He doesn’t assume like what Richard is doing here.

This should not be taken as an article of offence towards Neo-Advaitins (for Richard or others) and their ways, but a humble request to them to start exploring more further and deeper within.

 

Rajiv

 

Autobiography of a Jnani now available for free download in both English and French, thanks to Gerald Dean.

Autobiography of a Jnani--English

Autobiography of a Jnani--French Translation