DISCUSSION ON DAVID GODMAN'S GASPUMP INTERVIEW

DAVID GODMAN GASPUMP INTERVIEW,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xayU4f5--I.

As you know, I spent 8 years with Robert. In this interview David says there is no Ramana lineage, that basically, all those current gurus who prominently feature a photo of Ramana at their Satsangs are just living off the fame of Ramana. He rejects the idea that these teachers claim to be part of the lineage because Ramana inspired them, or because they felt Ramana visited them astrally, like he visited Robert as a child.

He also stated that after death, Robert and Ramana just disappeared and had nothing more to do with the world. Poof--gone.

David also claimed that gurus did not intentionally interfere in any way in the spiritual development of others. There were no astral meetings in Ramana's awareness.

David also stated his opinion that in all the world there were not more than a handful of humans that were in the same class as Ramana, and that Ramana himself only pointed to dead gurus as having his understanding. David felt no teacher he knew of was really a descendant of Ramana and no one alive was in his class.

We could say no one David knew of was in Ramana’s class, because Robert often stated that the greatest ones are quite private and remain unknown.

Interestingly enough for those deep into epistemology and ontology, David clearly outlined Ramana’s concept of pure idealism, and that was that the individual created the entire world and that world we perceive dies when we die. He does not take the view there is a real world out there that we all participate in, or like Nisargadatta, who held that Consciousness, with its aspects of Shiva and Shakti, are appearances only that arise out of matter—insentient flesh bodies.

AS TO EVERYTHING DAVID SAID TO THIS POINT, I STATE CATEGORICALLY, ROBERT AGREED WITH HIM 100%.

Robert said he never visited anyone astrally, and never interceded in anyone’s spiritual development other than as a friend.

Robert said when asked how many enlightened beings were alive now, he said that they could be counted on one hand.

I know half the people on Facebook now claim to be enlightened, or at least awakened, but Robert would disagree. I am sure they will express their disagreement on this thread, holding that there are more enlightened beings in the world than ever before.

LET ME SAY THIS: THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD CLAIMING TO BE ENLIGHTENED THAN EVER BEFORE, BUT THE BAR OF DEFINED ENLIGHTENMENT IS LOWER THAN EVER BEFORE ALSO. I DO NOT CLAIM TO BE IN THE SAME CLASS AS ROBERT, AND I DO NOT TEACH AS HE TEACHES BECAUSE I DO NOT SEE HIS TEACHINGS AS APPROPRIATE FOR OUR TIMES. OUR TIMES DEMAND A SOFTER AND MORE BHAKTIC, SURRENDER STYLE APPROACH.

REALISTICALLY, IF YOU LOOK AT ROBERT’S AND RAMANA’S TEACHINGS, THEY CONSTANTLY TELL YOU TO LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE, IGNORE IT, IGNORE YOUR EMOTIONS, IGNORE YOUR THOUGHTS, IGNORE YOUR PROBLEMS AND JUST LOOK WITHIN FOR THE SOURCE: YOUR SENSE OF I.

WHY WOULD ANYONE WHO FOR 50 YEARS PREACHED TO OTHERS TO IGNORE THE WORLD, DON’T BELIEVE IN IT, THEN STAY BEHIND AFTER DEATH TO GUIDE A LINEAGE AND TO INTERFERE IN A WORLD OR MANIFEST THROUGH A PERSON AS A CHANNELED ENTITY?

HOWEVER, HERE IS THE ONLY PLACE I DISAGREE WITH DAVID, AND IN A SENSE, ROBERT.

Though Robert stated he never intentionally blessed or changed his student’s lives, yet magical things happened around him all the time. In addition, Robert would constantly talk about the magic he witnessed as a wanderer going from guru to guru in India. Like a guru being in two or three places at once, or a dead teacher coming back to life in a different body right in front of him. There is also the story of how he brought his little dog Dimitri back to life in order to help him transition across.

Then also was his constant vision of he, Ramana, Jesus and Buddha coming together at the moment of his death in the middle of a mountain, then ascending into pure light. Robert did experience this on his death bed and called out to those around him whether they saw Jesus and Ramana, etc.

While Robert denied the magical, it happened around him all the time and people experienced astral visits from him, which he denied.

It is my opinion based on my own experience and being with Robert for 8 years and with Jean Dunn, that there is far more in the world than was dreamt of by Ramana and Robert. I think Robert was open to this world, and talked about it a lot, but at the same time he had Ramana’s idea that there was only Consciousness, no separate Ramana or Robert to do anything.

As such, rather than say there was a Ramana lineage, let us say Consciousness has always acted as if there was such a lineage, sort of manifesting through the living personages of Ramana, Robert, and Nisargadatta, but also through the intangible legacy of their teachings and influences left behind. We can say that the Self of all acts through channels, and whether the individual at the center is aware of destiny acting through them or not, does not mean it is not acting through them and continues acting through them long after they are dust, just as all famous conquerors and religious figures of the past, such as Jesus, Buddha, and Mohamed continue to have tremendous impact 2,000 years later.

I began to feel Robert’s presence within me about 7 years after he died. At first I felt this presence urge me to put up my original website, itisnotreal.com, as a testimony to Robert. All that it did was to present Robert’s teachings. However, because of constant legal harassment from Nicole Adams and her Infinity Institute, I gradually had to remove anything of Robert’s teachings and photos, which led me to develop my own teachings, some of which are quite at odds with Robert’s because I focus more on the manifest world and spiritual processes in it more than did Robert.

As to the master Advaitins opinion that there are so few enlightened beings in the world, this is just their opinion based on their experience, and reflects a kind of one-sided development.

 We can take even a different view.  The Buddhism and discoveries of the various Tibetan schools is very different from the non-magical, non-philosophical Zen schools.  Ramakrishna is very different from Ramana Maharshi, Poonja and Nisargadatta.

Muktananda and the Kundalini gurus have entirely different spectrums of spiritual experiences and understandings.

I think the "spiritual" universe is very large, larger than contained by any one branch or school.

I think various masters and mystics are talking about very different parts of the spiritual universe of experiences, and no one school contains or understands more than a few rooms of hundreds if not thousands of "rooms" or categories of spiritual experience.

And on Facebook, we are actually talking to different people whose natural inclination leads them to one category of experiences, perhaps sequential, perhaps not, and others to whole other categories of experience.

These become acculturated and made into schools, like the five Zen traditions, or the three major Tibetan traditions, or Shankara style Advaita.  Others follow a more Bhaktic tradition with emphasis of surrender, love and service.

It is not that any school is better, holier, or truer than any other tradition.  Each is partial knowledge, partial experience, and none--at the highest level--is to be either discarded or worshiped as the end-all.

For example, I am learning more from my students about the nature of "reality," the world, and myself from my students than I have learned from anyone except Robert, because I get to know them so well and deeply.

My students have taught me about love and its power.  They have taught me about Kundalini and Shakti.  Each is different.  Each sees and feels both themselves and the world differently.

Some see it as does everyone else, some see the world as flowing energy states and being alive, and with their help, I can begin to see myself and the world as they see it and as they see themselves, and I expand and appreciate each more and more.

David Godman's interview with Rick Archer

I watched David Godman’s interview at Buddha at the Gaspump http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xayU4f5--I and have a few opinions about the opinions that David expressed.

Please look at this 2 hour review and we can discuss it later.

Why I talk about my experiences

MY EXPERIENCE NOW

I often speak of my own experience, not to brag or because I am THAT narcissistic, but it is the only experience I can talk about first hand. Others who awaken can have radically different experiences. However, these that I share are similar to those of others I know.  

I think friends and students/teachers tend to “resonate” in terms of both understanding and spiritual experiences. That is why we like hanging around each other.  We share experiences others might call insane.  We share loves that others cannot believe in.  We share an acceptance of each other’s experiences. This too is why I often post the experiences of others who have emailed me.

Rather than diminishing since the retreat of a week ago, the intensity of these experiences has been increasing.

Currently my body and sense of presence feels almost like it is bursting, barely able to contain the inner life force, which, “looking” within appears as a brilliant white light and cold heat.  Whereever my awareness (me) touches my body I feel bliss.  Bliss permeates this body.

And I am singularly aware of myself, as the watcher of the body, the bliss, the Life Force bursting from my chest, and the “feeling” of incredible power.

A few hours ago, the energy was not quite as intense, but I felt an enormous, overwhelming love and surrender to the forces that be and to my Beloved.

But, including these is the overwhelming awareness that I know who and what I am.  It is hard to stae what that is, because it is all of the above experiences, but it is also a totality that cannot be expressed, and a sense of absolute certitude of who I am, and it is not just this aging body so vulnerable to the environment.

Nor does the simple term “beingness” seem to apply.  It is far more than any concept of beingness, nor any experience that I had previous to four years ago.

I have the utter assurance that I am this Consciousness and as such I have no mass or weight, but the body associated with my knowingness here and now is serving as a capacitor storing great power of “my” LifeForce.

If that cold heat were to turn hot, this body would be incinerated.

I can only describe the entire experience as being totally joyful, even when dark emotions float through without really touching “me.”

And with the assuredness of knowing who I am, I recognize that I am not that which I appear to be.  I am only image, affect, body/mind in the world, not an entity at all, AND I am also that which observes all this, knows all this apparent experience or knowledge.

And, I cannot take my attention off that energy within, the LifeForce.  It grabs my attention and I cannot let go.  At the same time it is awakening this body.  I can feel it straightening out the muscles, joints and nerves, changing the patterns of movement and sensation. Every few minutes I feel various kinds of "snappings" in my back that feels like vertebra and muscles snapping into a new alignment.

All in all, it is a wonderful experience to be having.  Another way to describe it is feeling totally alive, 100% alive, and the emotions are outsized too, but “I” can choose to experience them or not and back into the witness, just watching in complete peace.

What if you were only an Idea?

What is the great freedom promised by Robert Adams and other Sages?

The knowledge that you are both Consciousness itself as manifest Self, and the unmanifest witness of the manifest Self, which is apart and untouched by the manifest.

But what is Consciousness and the objects contained therein?

Is Consciousness of things in the world, or of light and energies?

Depending on your level of freedom, it can be either or both at once.

But in a larger sense, the manifest world, Consciousness, is just a knowing, it is knowledge of objects, of sights and sounds, time and space, giving way in the gross world to Subtle Body energies, healing, internal energy flows, the inner emptiness or Void within, giving way to awareness without anything to be aware of, and finally to the deepest level in us of love/bliss, or Satchitananda, the underlying permeating characteristic of knowing you exist in bliss or happiness.

In other words you are knowledge and knowing of that knowledge. That is all you are: information or data, sensual and otherwise, and the cognizer that knows that knowledge and makes sense of it.

In the greatest sense you are not your body or even you mind, nor your emotions, nor emptiness.  All these are merely data.  You as the manifest do not exist except as knowledge of that manifest.  Just data.

This is true of all sentient beings, from human to krill and maggot.

But beyond this you are the knower of the world, of data, of light, bliss, energies, birth and death, and must precede the body because it is the knower of the body.  As such it is beyond the touch of death, for it death is only another concept, another datum.

With this knowing, with this realization, you know that the world is naught but thought forms, stories, and even abiding in the Void is still identifying with aspects of creation that you are entirely beyond.

Knowing this you are filled with bliss, ecstasy, and the exploding energies of life.  For knowledge thus perceived is love and bliss.  A shock of truth shoots through the body bring ecstasy, humility, and complete surrender. Knowledge and Love are at last One. Now you are able to see around the limits we impose on ourselves and the world as constraints on knowledge.

What does this mean practically?

It means we can watch our life unfold and see "truths" about ourselves from a place of pure knowingness which can dissolve previous stories.  Attachments can dissolve because we see our stuckness or obsessions, and realize these are only ideas--which can be changed.

We can see patterns in terms of repetitive mistakes we make in terms of relationships, jobs, work, relationships, or things we fail to perceive that others see readily, and from that position, see the negative consequences of such repetitive choices, and by that seeing alone, resolve to change it, or the change comes automatically.

You see, after Self-Realization, recognizes ourselves as sentience itself rather than as body or mind, we have stepped back to a more powerful level within ourselves that rips the habit from us rather easily compared to life prior to Self-Realization where even the smallest change required great effort.

From another attendee to the Self-Realization Retreat

Hi Edji,

I thought the retreat was a resounding success because of
a) the freshness of your and Deeya's approach... flexible to the moment and varied in delivery (e.g., bhajan, guided visualization, lecture, reading, walking meditation, devotion, joking... even deciding to go to the SRF Lake Shrine.)

b) you and Deeya were very "hands-on," both literally and in respect to your interaction with the participants... not aloof, not hiding behind an inflexible pre-planned schedule or series of "levels" of attainment or desired states.  You gauged where students were at and did both explicit teaching and discussing and advising, and hidden inner healing and loving.

c) Participants were free to engage on whatever level(s) they were at.  There was a considerable amount of both support and freedom.

As to my own inner states and development, of course there was a lot.

I felt greater confidence about myself as a support others, and found myself sending love to everyone in the group often, spontaneously and continuously.  

It's very important to me that I am able to do this in my life, and I found confirmation that this is a role which Consciousness wants me to play, and I can do it.

Fantastic, wonderful!

Also, I love your personal frankness.  "Love" is an understatement.

You always express exactly how you feel and what you think, and this is a great example because your expressions run the gamut from emotions felt about a student's betrayal or avoidance behaviours, to exact delineations between experiential and transcendental states, to caustic jokes, to loving humorous encouragement, and more.  

Nothing is held back.  Nothing is suppressed as "un-guru-like" or "non-spiritual."

You're a living example of your teachings.  Your state shines through every word you speak, breath you take and action you make, as well.

That is your Grace.

Meanwhile the great healer Deeya's energy, lightness, delight, whimsy and love were a great feminine counterbalance and complement to your constant position in the Absolute, insight, directness, compassion and rational linear explanations on the masculine energy side.  It was like treble and bass.

I have never sung bhajans so openly or danced with such spiritual abandon and they both brought me deeper, along with the Self-inquiry you taught me, than I have ever been.  (That was when you commented at lunch that you'd never seen me so quiet!)  I was still aware, but all the thinking had been completely dropped.  This confirmed for me what the enlightened state could be like.

I could see how it would not only be difficult to function, but contemptible to engage in "mundane" conversation.  I agree.

However, I have taken a Bodhisattva vow and returning gradually to a state slightly more "functional" is okay with me.  That's the line on which I've been living my life for some time now--practicing on the inside, supporting and healing others where possible and being completely present in my own consciousness and states and the "I Am," while still engaging in the occasional discussion about the weather, TV or what somebody else does for a living.

The only changes I would recommend are regularly scheduled 15 minute  and hour-long lunch breaks; otherwise the uncertainty and fatigue could be distracting.  On the one side there is the Zen paradigm of incorporating discomfort and transcending it through complete presence and "breathing into" it, but on the other hand the human mechanism for MOST of us requires a breather and
some food on a fairly predictable basis.  

As you know, like Max said there are people in his life who really love and depend on him, and that is part of his practice, and I feel the same way.  I was grateful to come, I was grateful to participate and support, and I was grateful to return.

I love you very much and will always support you and Deeya.
Love,

M.

Ed's Response:

Holy Crap!  What wonderful feedback!  I love it.  Sometime soon I am going to have to post emails from other that have opposite opinions. Thank you so much M.

From a beautiful attendee at our recent Self-Realization retreat

Dearest Edji,

Oh boy, what an intense trip...

Thank you. Thank you Ed for your kindness.

You said you wouldn't bite but that was an understatement - you treated me like family.

Saying this feels a bit like betraying my family here, but before meeting Deeya and you I don't think I've ever felt so loved, understood and accepted before.

Although I also experienced some painful and serious doubts at times, and parts of it scared me shitless, it is like knowing a whole new dimension of love.

I don't know what I did to deserve such grace...

Wow your light attracted a mighty beautiful moth there (who is the light herself)...

I knew before she was great, but when I met Deeya I instantly fell in love with her.

She is pretty high up the list of the very, very few women I really trust and feel comfortable with. I think I will never let her go again...

The whole retreat was just amazing, but also a painful rollercoaster ride at times. Going on a journey deep inside my consciousness alternated with times where I felt empty, scared and in doubt or at worst, often just felt like there was some huge emotion going on but I couldn't feel it, it was like there was a brick wall between me and the emotion. This happened especially when I went up to you both for Darshan.

I think a lot of it was just still too hard to bear for me... I often felt like crying, crying but instead there was just this paralyzing blankness.

I still feel very exhausted both physically and emotionally.

I feel at this point I have to give some credit to my beloved former teacher Ajahn Brahmavamso, as well as all other little and big gurus and lovers I had in my life. Without the things I learned under their guidance, NOTHING of this would have ever been possible.

I was sometimes a bit skeptical about the effect of "being in your presence". But let me tell you sitting next to you feels sooo different from even being at online satsang, which already does have a significant effect.

The culmination of this was the drive to the SRF, which I didn't want to end. Even though Harald and you were yattering away, I effortlessly fell into this state of sublime peace total ease and comfort like I might have never felt before in my life, bathed in swirling colored visions and ever so subtle energies. I still can feel it now a bit.

At other times at the yoga studio I felt like I was sitting in front of the gates to heaven, with God peeking through both of you and shining onto me.     

Deeya and you worked together so so well. I hate to say it as I was pretty satisfied with you already before I knew her, but her energy is really complementary to yours and fills in gaps where I felt lacking before (which I only realized now). I think she is also changing you quite a bit in a way that is very beautiful to see.

I didn't have much interest recently in developing any powers, but I feel Deeya's are immense and I'd like to learn as much as possible of that.

I rarely talk about this to you, but my body is and feels pretty wrecked. It's nothing terribly serious but enough to keep me in constant pain and distress.

So maybe this is truly a call to first help myself and then others.

You know, I think moving to California and living with you would do me good (although I'm scared as hell of some possible forms of cooking that might come then).

However I feel I can't just pack my stuff and leave, because maybe I am to my loved ones what you are to me.

They wouldn't understand and leaving them behind would break their hearts, and would crush mine too eventually.

You know I never believed her when Lila said you were a homophobe and wouldn't let me come because of that. Still had to ask though. It was a brilliant piece of cooking, and I really have to thank both her and you for that. I still hated her self-righteous guts though most of the time at satsang and on facebook. 

I'll try to visit you as often as possible, not just because I feel with all the energy taken away  by the various worldly activities I get myself into my sadhana needs a boost now and then, but also just for the sublime bliss of the experience!

I love you so much Ed, I really do!!!

Thank you for everything you have done. You showed me a beauty of this life like no one else could have.

Anonymous

Is the Guru Superior?

During the mid 1960s I was involved in developing management tools, such as psychologically-oriented groups to facilitate cooperative efforts between participants on various projects. Back then groups were not so common they were to become in the 1970s and 1980s, and the concept of deep sharing and of trust of strangers was unfamiliar.  Many of the participants remained aloof and relatively uncooperative in group activities.  For the life of them, they could not let go of self-protective attitudes of withholding and fear of being taken advantage of.  We named these people “counterdependent,” they feared dependency beyond all reasonable caution.  This attitude is based strictly on fear, fear of being taken advantage of used, controlled or abused.

Even some spiritual teachers held or hold this view of “beware of the guru,” he will use you and throw you away, such as Krishnamurti.  When you have a guru, believe in him or her, follow him or her, you are at the short end of a power struggle and you can only be hurt.  There is no advantage in such a relationship. If you believe in a guru, you must think they have something you do not, that they are superior to you in some way, and you hope by staying close to get what they have that you lack. This is an unbalanced power relationship.

This counterdependent attitude comes with a credo—you are already perfect, complete, and only have to realize that for yourself; no teacher is necessary or desirable.  The teacher, the guru, has nothing you do not have.

THIS IS EXACTLY TRUE: THE GURU HAS NOTHING YOU DO NOT ALREADY HAVE.  BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE:

The “true” guru has spent years, decades studying him or herself, turning their attention inwards, exploring the inner subjective worlds that one becomes aware of only through long meditation practice, self-inquiry, Kundalini practices, love, devotion and surrender to a guru, working with Subtle Body energies, and have had basic awakening experiences revealing who they are as other than the body/mind.

Yes, everyone has their own Self always available, and they act from that position every day, but very few are aware of their primary identity as that Consciousness, that Self, or as the Absolute witness.

Yes, you can find those base states within of Self, of the Absolute, of emptiness, of the incredible energy and bliss of your own sentience, of your Lifeforce, but it is so much easier to spend time with a teacher whose own energy you feel all the time, and which can “take” you to deeper levels within yourself by a kind of “resonance,” as well as by using methods like meditation, yoga or self-inquiry.

Unfortunately, those who hold onto only their own truth, almost always stay on the surface of consciousness, in the “Now,” which is the clear field of body/mind/world awareness of everyday life.  They do not become aware of the coming and going of such nowness, beingness itself, for you have to stand back from “present beingness” in order to watch it come and go.

Once you can stand back from the comings and goings of Consciousness, you see that it is not just clear, brilliant, nowness, and you can make many, many discoveries about your true nature as Consciousness and that which is prior to consciousness, and thereby destroy your fundamental identification with your individuality and your body/mind.

If you search spiritual literature, there are very few “great teachers,” world teachers that were self-realized without the benefit or “dependence” on other spiritual teachers.  

Those who realized without teachers are very rare, like Robert Adams or Ramana Maharshi.  But fear of being used and abused keeps many from going to a teacher (or a psychotherapist).

The “correct” way to look at a teacher is as a source of love and knowledge, love and knowledge which you already are as the Self you, but which you do not yet realize.

You see, if you take the position there is nothing to realize, you are already complete, this is only an intellectual understanding that you have borrowed from other counterdependent teachers who glorify and teach counterdependence and staying in the Now rather than going deeper.  For if you believe that the Now, the beingness, is all that there is, you cannot easily go deeper.

Look, if we want to learn how to play tennis or golf, do we learn best by just going out alone each day and playing by ourself?  Or do we learn by watching videos of golf and tennis teachers, golf-masters so to speak? Then, if we really want to learn, we go to a professional who can teach in a month that which you could not learn on your own in a year.

The same with any other athletic endeavor, we learn from masters, and the best boxers, skiers, pilots, drivers, really submit to a teacher to show them all that they can learn from them, and at that point, they can innovate techniques their teacher did not know and become teachers themselves.

The same is true of psychotherapy.  Do we try to do self-psychotherapy ourselves, or do we actually go to a therapist and submit to that potentially abusive relationship?  Most counterdependent people will not go into therapy and instead read self-help books, and become filled with self-help book knowledge.

Again, the same if you want to learn advanced mathematics, biology, physics, or cosmology: you go to college teachers because they have the knowledge you seek.

Again the same if you are ill: you go to a doctor who has knowledge of your condition and appropriate treatment.  Of course some doctors abuse the doctor/patient relationship as do university professors, but you cannot damn the seeking process because it is potentially abusive.

You see, what you get from a guru is to realize that which you already are by listening to what that teacher says about how to find yourself, which is love, knowledge, and bliss.

We go to energy healers, faith healers to be healed by energies, faith, or love, whether they actually do the healing to us, or open a way for us to heal ourselves.  The role of teacher in this case is to be a trigger of self-healing and self-knowledge.  Do we honor the healer any less because they teach us how to heal ourselves?

Yes, there is nothing the guru or healer has that you do not already have complete in yourself EXCEPT KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR OWN COMPLETENESS, YOUR FUNDAMENTAL IDENTITY AS BLISS, KNOWLEDGE AND EXISTENCE, AS ENERGY, SENIENCE AND THE LIFE-FORCE, and this is very difficult to learn except through someone guiding you through exercises, meditation, self-inquiry, or techniques to raise energies such as to awaken Kundalini or healing energies.

Thus the spiritual guru is there to facilitate you knowing yourself at a deeper level than you will achieve on your own during any reasonable period of time.  Paraphrasing Jan Esmann, yes you can walk from Paris to Berlin on your own, but it would be much easier to take a train or airplane, and you can regard the guru as your travel agent.

AWAKENING LOVE

A friend of mine who believes herself awakened by an “Awakened Kundalini,” often questions my emphasis on loving another person or other entity as a way of awakening.  She says that if it just took love, everyone would be awakened. She says both of her daughters and their husbands are deeply in love, yet none of them ever talk about the Self, and none are “awake.”  Instead she talks about awakened Kundalini as her path, which arrived by grace.  She did nothing to awaken it, she claims.

She claims everyone experiences Kundalini phenomena, such as flushes, body and presence energies, the Kundalini snake, vibrations, visions, bliss, etc., but says in most people, it is not awakened and transporting the individual towards enlightenment as is her awakened Kundalini.  She also declares nothing she ever did, in any way, caused the awakening of her Kundalini—it was pure grace.

She discounts two years of listening to Robert’s Satsangs 10 hours a day, listening to endless chanting, and being with a Jnani/Bhakti guru for a couple of years as instrumental in her awakened Kundalini, even though she was deeply in love with someone for two years during this time and she constantly practiced self-inquiry.

From my viewpoint, what happened to her “feels” like grace because her practices opened her awareness to deeper levels of her own psyche and consciousness, including what I call the Subtle Body level and also Turiya itself where the primal life-energies of sentience reside.

At this deeper level—identifying with this deeper level of Consciousness—makes one feel like an entirely different kind of being than before: an ordinary human occupying what Nisargadatta calls a “food body,” and what Harding calls a “Sentient Meatball.”

This deeper level, in a way, has nothing to do with the more superficial level of mind, thought, image and emotions left behind which function on the gross body/world level.

Her identity shifted to Consciousness itself and she feels that anything she did on her previous gross body identification level could in any way, have caused her life now to focus on Shakti, which she felt was now alive and serving her.

But, you see, from my viewpoint she has merely changed her primary focus and identification to a deeper level of Consciousness, one that leaves her old world and life behind.

In no way is it possible that this spontaneous awakening came just by grace; it came by long effort of gradual surrendering, self-inquiry, ecstatic chanting, and pondering deep issues.  It feels like grace alone because that is what that level of Consciousness feels like when you identify with it: great humility, great gratitude, great love and wisdom, far beyond anything ever encountered when identified only with the body, emotions and thinking.  Grace is that level which has a completely different feel than the conditioned world and mind left behind.

In one way though she is correct.  Everyone experiences Kundalini.  Everyone experiences love.  And a few spontaneously look inwardly, contemplating the levels of inner awareness, what I call their spiritual mansion of many rooms and splendors.

But her insights created some new understanding in me.  I had been advising students just to love as completely and deeply as possible as a method of getting into the deepest part of one’s Self: Turiya, or the love/bliss body, also known by its existential qualities of existence- knowledge- and bliss.  But the love that awakened me to the Existential, Manifest Self was not an ordinary love; it was an extraordinary love that grew day by day to an unimaginable intensity accompanied by huge streams of inner energies, love, the descent of Grace and seeing God in a manifest form within me, powering me.

So, I have to use the term “Awakened Love,” or better “Awakening Love”: Love for another that permanently kindles one’s heart flame revealing ever deeper levels of self-awareness, love, bliss, energies, and an enormous self-confidence of knowing for the first time who and what you are.

But this does not mean that all pre-awakening loves are useless to causing Self-Realization, for that would also be discounting all efforts to cultivate an awakening of the Kundalini as espoused by energy gurus, such as breathing and visualization practices to guide the Kundalini into the spine.

Just so self-inquiry.  One does not fail to practice self-inquiry because when awakening comes, you shift identity from the practitioner to Turiya or Shakti.

In all these cases of awakened love, awakened Kundalini, awakened self-inquiry, the common element is turning within, investigating the body from the inside, and gradually recognizing that the body is not you: You are that which both pervades and transcends the body—Consciousness, and Consciousness has different levels and objects depending on the spiritual path traversed.

For example, Buddhism in general places great emphasis on emptiness, the inner space one experiences after much silent meditation, and how all of the manifest world arises from emptiness and subsides therein.  Besides emptiness, there is also the experience of Nothingess, where nothing manifest is experienced yet you know you existed during those periods of non-experience.  This is called the Causal Body and also happens in deep sleep.

Generally all who awaken experience first either emptiness or the blissful energies.  This is a complicated subject involving the interplay of two aspects of the self: the witness or Absolute, and the manifest world, the activity within the presence.  In the awakened Self both are present.  One becomes both the containing emptiness, and also the alive, blissful sentience that fills emptiness with alive, energetic presence.

So the overall principal is developing an inner awareness through introspection, self-inquiry, becoming aware of the Self through focusing and abiding in the I-Am.  Or, by focusing on the inner energies and how they travel through the body, and then developing awareness of the Self and Kundalini currents.

Or, by falling deeply in love, more deeply than ever before with someone  who is alive to their own depths, or comes alive through mutual introspection and communications of inner experiences.  The love grows and becomes the Self as first perceived.  You have seen the awesome-ness of the Self in another, and that awakens one’s self to the Self within.  Thus though love at first appears to be a focus on someone or something in the outer gross world, in Awakening Love, your Own Self owns the love and arises to display Him or Herself to you in the great awesome-ness.  Such internalized focused love happens when at least one of the lovers is, or can be quickly made aware of the Infinite Self within.

That is why guru worship is so heavily emphasized in Hindu religious lore:  By loving an awakened soul, one becomes entrained to both the emptiness and Shakti in the other to each other’s mutual “enwonderment.”  Devotion to another, for a realized person, is devotion to the Other, which is a manifestation of your own Universal Self.

Such devotion soon generates those feelings of humility, gratitude to serve, bliss/love/surrender, and grace that combined is how the Self at the deepest level is experienced. 

EMAIL TO ME RE HIS ENCOUNTERING SHAKTI AND BLISS

Email to me: 

Thank you my dearest Father for you guiding light.

When feeling the Self and abiding there my mind is quiet and body is quiet but the bliss/pleasure is like a soft-ball on fire slowly rolling from my butt to head stopping at the solar plexus. While at the solar plexus it starts stretching the membrane holding it and gets ready to explode.

The full interior of this body is empty of everything except energy that is vibrating... peaceful and blissful

Is this what you mean by resting there my Guru?

Love Always, S.


Ed’s Response:

YES!!  ABSOLUTELY!!

Done long enough, Shakti takes over and does everything for you.

Love,

Ed


Email to me:

OH, My Dearest Father!  Your right!  I am losing the battle with this fair maiden. Your gal Shakti is winning the game.  She is enthralling, entertaining and very mysterious. She shows up at all times of the day and night, calling me, beckoning and promising to devour this mind and body and doing it with bliss and pleasure. I am slowly turning into her servant and willingly too.  

The World calls too but its voice is losing its power over me. I think maybe next week you and her will band together and pull a Ecstasy of Saint Teresa on me.  This world means nothing, it is turning to ash, I bow to the Peace and Quiet of Shakti. Take me in your arms I am a willing servant.

To Swamiji Sri Edji my home and my life. 

Yours, S.


Ed's Response:

At this point your sadhana becomes effortless. Your only job is to hang on and enjoy.

NO SATSANG TODAY OR NEXT SATURDAY

I am busy preparing for the three day retreat at Follow Your Heart next week.

The venue has no Internet access, therefore there cannot be any online Satsang from there.

Self-Realization Satsang/Retreat

I have seen the venue for our retreat today.  I think there is adequate room for up to 50 people with mixed chairs or sitting on the floor. So there is no concern about enough room.

The studio is located 2 doors West (towards Topanga Blvd) of the restaurant, Follow Your Heart,

There is free parking in the rear of the building and another free parking lot across the alley behind the buildings. 

There are also lots of hard rubber blocks that can be used to sit on for meditation, and perhaps a dozen or so mats for those wanting to sit on the floor or lie on the floor, which is a desired posture for several of our exercises.

For those who want to meet at Robert's park, Warner Park, at Topanga and Marilee (one long block North of Burbank Blvd.), we'll meet at 10:45 AM.  Satsang begins at the studio at 12:30 PM two miles away.

Friday Satsang starts at 10:30 AM and goes to 6:30; Saturday and Sunday, it starts at 12:30 PM and goes to 8:30.

The first 2 days at least will be dedicated to taking you deep into Consciousness with Self focused on Self through chanting, meditation, and talks.  We will also do guided meditation exploring your body awareness and awareness of your energy presence, or Subtle Body. Then you can directly see what you are without the mind's interference. It will be intense--maybe.

I don't know what Deeya has in mind for you yet, but I am sure it will be spectacular, as well as heart and mind melting.  

SATSANG TODAY, SATURDAY OCTOBER 5

6 PM, California time.

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com. 

Sign in with the passord "edji" on two sign on pages.

Go to broadcast if you want to be on screen, and select your camera and microphone.

Please mute your mike to prevent feedback.

Let your center of awareness fall...

Let your center of awareness fall from your eyes and head down into your heart and lower.

There is a whole new world available that is not perceivable when you are thinking or day dreaming.

If you start pinching yourself and massaging your thighs and buttocks muscles while lying in bed in the morning, the center of your awareness will sink even deeper.

At this point, look at your body from within with eyes closed.  Feel it.  Feel the pinching and massage "Look" at it with your mind's eye.

Now look at it wondering, "Am I this body? If I am the body, am I also something else?

If you do this long enough you will come to the understanding first, that you are not your body, but YOU are an awareness of that body.  The body is not you because you identify more with the awareness.  Then you can proclaim you are partially, your awareness of your body.

From here you cannot go further unless you are lucky enough to become aware of the Subtle Body energies that permeate your awareness when you are open to them.

Often it takes some act to awaken awareness of these energies, such as Shaktipat of experiencing deep love, or else the transmission of energies from a teacher who allows you access to them in their presence, which later becomes permanent.

At this point though, you can again wonder, "Am I these energies, this Kundalini, this bliss, or am I merely awareness of them?"

Again you will see that though these energies are specifically related to your body/mind and sense of presence, they are still being witnessed, observed, looked at.

At this point, meditation can deepen and you can go into a state like sleep where you are aware of nothing, not even awareness itself.  This may be called the Causal Body, or given no name at all, but just a term that describes an experience that comes and goes.

Then you can understand "Sometimes I am aware of "the" body; sometimes I am aware of energies and bliss; sometimes I am aware that I am aware, and sometimes I am aware that I Am now not aware, or I was not aware for a period of time."

Nisargadatta calls this awareness "knowledge," and says "What you really are is not the knowledge or the absence of knowledge, but you are the principle that knows both."  In other words, you are the functioning of knowingness and non-knowingness which is beyond the world, beyond phenomenality, and as such, entirely non-human.  You are a principle, a functioning, not the perceived story of body/mind/subtle body/causal body.  This is all a story, an interpretation, which is not real, because it does not have its own intrinsic nature, and is merely perceived and is temporary, while what you are is beyond that temporary phenomenal world.

YET, you also realize at some point that all of that temporary world of the known, the body, subtle body, causal body, bliss, mind, thoughts, emotions, etc., are ALSO YOU, because without YOU as the principle of knowing, none of it would exist for YOU, who is beyond all these phenomena.

I will stop at this point and not go further into a discussion of Turiya and the Absolute becuase the discussion becomes more difficult to follow.  It is here we find an essential difference between the Advaita of Nisargadatta and of Ramana Maharshi regarding the primacy of the I-sense.  For Ramana everything is I; for Nisargadatta, nothing is I and posits your primary nature as that which cannot be known. For Ramana, this would be considered a mistake and nothing exists beyond the I-I feeling, the ultimate knower and source, and the human feeling of I Am. 

Ramana would say that Nisargadatta added the unnecessary concept of an unknowable subject, Witness or Absolute to what is experienced.  For Ramana, if something is unknowable, it does not exist, for all that exists is Satchitananda--existence/knowledge and bliss.

However, if you have made it this deep into self awareness and self-analysis, you have gone entirely beyond the world most people dwell in, and beyond that mind state of chaos, fear, instability, and doubt.

NOTICE--OCTOBER 18-20 SELF-REALIZATION RETREAT

At this point we do not know how many people are coming. So many have said they will come, and many of those then said they cannot.

Since there is no charge, no one has paid anything to secure a place, therefore there are no confirmed reservations.

I am visiting soon to check out the studio.  I have been told it seats 25 people on chairs and up to 45 if all are on the floor.

Anyone who is flying in will have priority.

So far we have received requests for reservations from a bit over 25 people, but I would be surprised if many more than half that number showed up, because there is no monetary forfeiture for not showing up.

You have to regard this more as an open Satsang than a conventional new age retreat.

THEREFORE I SUGGEST PEOPLE BRING A MEDITATION CUSHION OR A YOGA MAT TO LIE ON IN CASE IT GETS CROWDED.

This is a Self-Realization Satsang, not some other enlightenment retreat.  In order to become self-realized you have to escape the prison of your mind and concepts and become aware of the primacy of awareness itself and what can be found in that awareness that the mind never could experience or understand.

To this end considerable time will be spent on unlearning concepts to gain an empty mind.

To this end will be considerable chanting, both to raise the divine energies within, but more importantly, to quiet the mind so that you can directly perceive yourself in all your colors, energies and forms.

There will be considerable time spent learning "proper" self-inquiry, of finding and abiding in the sense of I Am, through loving, accepting introspection and guided energy work.

If necessary we will explain how Self-Realization differs from the Nisargadatta model of becoming the witness, to instead, becoming the love/bliss body level of Consciousness called Turiya, or the Fourth State.

Also, there will be a lot of attention directed at attending to and dealing with emotions, as much of spirituality is aimed at transcending the "chaos" of emotions, rather than embracing them and incorporating them into our Self.

Also, and of course, we will do a lot of energy "work" sharing love and blissful energies.

This will be mostly a silent retreat as conversation outside of the content of the class is discouraged in order to hold onto the "samadhi" power generated by chanting, self-inquiry meditation, and the energy work we will do to awaken the Shakti within each attendee.

Of course talking and conversations will be allowed during the late dinners at 8:30.  Lunch will be silent and very light in order to preserve the energy gained during Satsang.

IT IS SUGGESTED YOU MIGHT WANT TO BRING YOUR OWN FOOD, AS OUR OFFERINGS WILL BE LIGHT, SUCH AS BAGELS, FRUIT AND VEGGIES. ANY HEAVY MEAL WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO CONTINUED FOCUS. IF YOU WANT, WINE CAN BE BROUGHT TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART FOR EVENING DINNER FOR RELAXATION AND UNWINDING.  THERE IS NO CORKAGE FEE.

Saturday and Sunday mornings before the Satsang begins at 12:30 PM, will consist in spending time in Robert's Park a few miles from the Satsang location.