IMAGINAL SPACE, THE ENERGETIC BODY, AND SELF-REALIZATION--EXPANDED

IMAGINAL SPACE, THE ENERGETIC BODY, AND SELF-REALIZATION

     First, a disclaimer: Anything said in words is false; words cannot convey another’s or your own experience in a way that you can be sure the other person knows exactly what you are talking about.  Indeed, you can read Nisargadatta, Robert Adams, Ramana Maharshi, or Ed Muzika for years and never be sure that you really understand the experience they are trying to convey, nor can you be certain they understand what you are saying. 

     The same holds true about trying to communicate any unusual experience or understanding about anything phenomenal or abstract with anyone. 

     If it is an everyday experience we try to communicate, there is always an illusion of understanding due to the verbal-descriptive matrix of experiences and descriptions we are all embedded in.  Of course this is just a convention and little reality is shared.

     Given this, let me talk some about one’s inner space, the space that Robert, Ed, and Nisargadatta ask you to look into to find the “I,” the “I Am,” and inner energies and emotions.

     When a beginning meditator first looks within, he or she may see nothing, or may just see darkness.  A few will see some colored lights minutely flashing somewhere. Or, like me, immediately find darkness everywhere I “looked” within except for a blue light centered in the Third Eye area above and between my eyes, and about one inch inside my skull.

     By watching that light it gradually expanded upwards and downwards and outwards. After a while the color blue gave way to a clear light that illuminated what had been just darkness, and by “pushing” that light downwards by putting a light mental pressure on the bottom edge of the expanded light, it gradually expanded downwards over a period of six months until the lighted Void or emptiness actually left the body and entered the ground below and also penetrated outwards illuminating the inner darkness of the imagined space that surrounded my body.

     With this inner illumination I used to see reflections of the blood vessels network in my retinas, as well as floating thoughts that looked like semi transparent cloud “objects” a few centimeters across floating all around “me” in that imaginal space.  I used the term “imaginal space” to differentiate it from the space or emptiness I saw with eyes open.

     After a while it is impossible to tell one from the other; the light one sees inside with closed eyes, appears the same as light one perceives with open eyes, and the space also appears the same. The difference is that the imaginal space is idiosyncratic to me, and rarely can anyone share that inner space, while the outer space, by constant communication and societal norms make most of that outer space common for all, at least as a shared illusion.

     Now the inner space has light and is mostly undifferentiated, with random lights, thought clouds, and other entities floating in it.  When one is sleepy, and tending towards sleep, the imaginal space becomes the venue for dreams which live out their entire enfolding within that inner space.

     I want to share also that the meditator, once having experienced the identity of internal light, objects, and space with external light, objects and space, becomes aware of other states of Consciousness coexisting side by side the usual waking world we experience. Sleep, dream, the Energetic Body, as well as the not-knowing state of the Causal Body are all seen to exist side by side, but one state seems to predominate at a time.

     Even now, I always "perceive" the sleep state at the edge of my waking awareness, ready to move in and become the primary Conscious state with which I identify. I also "feel" within me, the state of absolutely knowing nothing, no-object, no awareness, that I can go to at any time, sometimes easily, sometimes not at all.

     I want to point out that that inner space is an inner equivalent to eyesight.  It is observed by an observer from the point of view of the head and eyesight, and as such, it is limited to observing only emptiness or subjective inner objects, such as images, lights, energy flow paterns and the like.

     If one hears a sound either within or without, it cannot be isolated by the inner vision to a location.  The same thing with the body senses.

     The body cannot be accurately seen from within and associated with what the body feels as touch, pressure or pain.  One cannot see the integrity of ones arms, legs, trunk, and head with one’s inner vision, nor can emotions be located in that inner space even after it has become filled with light that permeates everywhere within imaginal space.

     Here is a major problem: If a meditator continues to look for something, one is engaging only the visualization sense; this can become so powerful of an orientation that the meditator can no longer feel anything inside.

     One almost becomes oblivious to one’s body, because the kinesthetic impact of body sensations cannot compete with an over-developed inner visual sense.

     However, thinking, reasoning, and logic can proceed rather well side by side with inner seeing, or the mind can be “seen” as only cloud entities slowing moving around one’s inner space. One cannot see emotions, body sensations, tactile sensations, taste, or sound in the same way.  It is as if mind itself is a kind of visual phenomena, not unlike space.

     (It should be noted that these thoughts are usually universal thoughts that everyone has, for thoughts give the external world forms and perseverance.  Thoughts give the world structure and solidity.)

     Therefore, by mastering the inner visual sense, the ability to feel emotions, or enjoy or even just experience tactile sensations, or enjoy music, etc., can be much diminished because one’s mental focus is on the inner space that quickly fades into dream, sleep, or fantasy.

     Eventually the meditator needs to leave constant focus on the inner space and its phenomena, to a focus on emotions, body sensations, touch, body orientation, and to the new world of Subtle Body energies that begins to emerge when we start focusing on feelings and kinesthetic sensations as opposed to the imaginal space.

     This is how love can transform your whole psyche; it can awaken you very quickly to sexual feelings and energies, as well as sensitizing you to other body sensations and orientations. The body comes alive so to speak when before one’s sole existence was as witness to the inner world, and by remaining in that observer role while awake in the external world.  One becomes a witness all the time.

     But love, especially romantic love, brings powerful impacting energies, deep emotions both positive and negative, and with it, an entryway to feeling and observing the energies of love, surrender, humility, grace, and rivers of colored emotions running through us within.

     We all always have this Subtle Body, or Energy Body, but most people, unless that are deeply aware of their bodies and emotions, never feel these inner energies, and love can convert the most intellectually removed person, or the most “non-emotional and non-tactile” person into a deeply engrossing and intimate involvement with one’s own energy body in a very short time.

     Of course there are Kundalini teachers who teach access to Subtle Body energies and the Kundalini through mantra, chanting, breathing exercises, and visualizations.  However, I feel a practice of love and devotion can be far more powerful and far quicker than these exercises to open awareness and change within the Subtle Body.

     For the advanced meditator who has mastered witnessing the inner world of lighted space, the unfolding process of love brings new dimensions of experience as well as a steadying of understanding.

     Feeling one’s body totally, owning it as you; feeling emotions totally, also as you; feeling the Energetic body, totally as you, all bring together a recognition of you, to you, as a multidimensional body consisting of your imaginal space of light, images and dream, the sensations of your physical body as an observed entity, your emotions as tools to “feel” rather than see the world, love which binds it all together, with absolute certainty of who and what you are.  You see yourself as a totality, but with just one remaining element to be added: awareness of your self-awareness.

     This is the magic moment where it all comes together and unfolds differently for different people.  For me, it was from a unbelievably powerful sense of Self arising from my gut, flowing upwards into my heart, then flowing upwards and outwards through my head and arms. It felt as if the power of God entered my from below and grace flowed downwards from above in the form of a golden light that lifted all my sins or impurities away, leaving me totally surrendered, totally grateful, and with the final realization that God and I are one.

     I now know who I am:  I am all that I see, feel, hear, taste, and touch. I am also the witness.  I am also totally love.  I am my body.  I am my Energetic Body.  I am my inner lighted emptiness.  I am also the single observer of everything, totally beyond Consciousness.  And I am Shakti, the energetic aspect of God that is acting through me as me. And, I ultimately am the knowledge of who and what I am.

     This is why I emphasize a path of love, not just of a purified, rarified “impersonal, unconditional love,” but of all forms of love, from friendship, to mother love, sibling love, hot passionate romantic love, love of an animal or thing, love of God or Christ.

     I believe love is the most powerful and quickest way, but also an extremely difficult way with powerful emotions to be dealt with, huge restructurings internally of how we see the world and ourselves within it, shifting moralities, often terrifying physical pains associated with emerging emotions.

QUESTION BY ANTONIO CINQUE:



That's quite a wild ride, Edji. Very interesting. Thank you.

So many are looking for these kinds of spiritual experiences, as a means of validating their spiritual progress, and in hopes of finding a final solution to their suffering.  What do you think about seeking 'spiritual experiences', and what part do they play in awakening?

You probably know of the many who get caught up, perpetually, in one supernatural, impressive spiritual experience after another, never seeming to find the way out of these experiences. Some even indulge them as a means of building credibility and gathering a following. Some mistaking Oneness for Enlightenment, etc.

I think it was Nisargadatta said to 'expect nothing from experience'. It was him saying this that seemed to bring relief from the enormous sense of burden from thinking I also have to go out and find a way to have the incredible experiences.
... I wonder what you think about this?

I have now, instead, settled for simple being, and just only living with whatever comes, and whatever spontaneously happens, without seeking any particular experience, or even any particular outcome. 


ED'S RESPONSE:


Well, regarding experiences, I think they are fascinating. Each time we have an "experience" we are talking about something different, something quite out of the ordinary, and can be quite captivated by them..

I know the beginning meditator, if sincere and makes great effort, will have literally hundreds of new experiences.

And with each new experience, they either leave a residual of new understanding or they don't. Other experiences are so powerful or wonderful we want to repeat them, and some never are repeated.

My own experience is that there is a continual unfolding of experiences mixed with understanding. Experiences change our understanding as to what is, and what we are, as well as our goals.

I have had three what I call Satori, and each of these is a teaching point for me: The experience where the inner and outer world boundary disappears and one enters a period of Oneness without separation into inner and outer, I and thou. There is only one space, no I or me. This is what most FB teachers talk about.

Then there was the experience and with it the understanding that I was apart from Consciousness. Consciousness and its states came and went, but did not touch me. I became the Absolute, the witness, and everything in the manifest world was only an object that did not touch me including the Void.

Lastly there was the Self-Realization of myself as a multidimensional being, physical, emotional, mental, Voidlike, filled with Shakti, and held by God, the divine. This is the realization that has continued to expand and unfold.

SATSANG TODAY, SUNDAY, MAY 25, 2 PM

SATSANG IS STILL AT 2 PM TODAY.  NEXT WEEK WE GO TO 1 PM.

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

Sign in with the password   edji    on two different screens.

Push the Broadcast button top left of screen to become visible.

Try to feel the internal energies circulating throughout the Sangha.

Below in a 1992 talk, Robert makes the distinction between the loss of of the concept of I, the illusory I that you think you are before self-investigation, and the real I, which is a feeling combined with knowingness of your existence as a sentient being fully engaged in life and which includes everything that is manifest.

However here Robert also seems to equate the false I with the term "ego," which you (The real I?) is trying to destroy.

But the real I never tries to destroy anything. It just knows itself and can't take its attention off of itself. The false I of ideas is replaced by intense knowingness of the Self, a constant realization of the Self.

This clearly demonstrates that words are an ineffective way of conveying spiritual knowledge, and Robert knew that, but was trapped in a role of being a teacher using words until his Parkinson's made that impossible.
------------

"When you're practicing Self-Inquiry forget about the real 'I'. 

"What you're doing is you're going backwards, you're trying to destroy the 'I' ego. And by destroying the 'I' ego what you call the real I will be self evident.

"The real 'I' is what you really are, that is your real nature. So you don't have to feel that some place there is a real 'I'. For what you're doing is you're making it sound as if there is you and the real 'I'. There can never be you and the real 'I'. There is only the real 'I', but because you don't really understand this fully the practice the Self-Inquiry has been given to you to get rid of the false 'I'."

~ Robert Adams
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What Robert could have said was that your real nature is so vast, so powerful so full and blissful, and it is always there shining forth, but we are so full of words, concepts, shoulds, should nots, ideas of purification, perfection, as well as a lot of turbulent memories and emotions, that we lack the space to clearly see ourselves through the clutter.

Many years of self-inquiry meditation, or sitting in silence, can create an emptiness inside through which the True I can begin to be seen, somewhat like the sky clears of clouds after a storm and the blue sky can be seen.

Then one day, if you are lucky, the Self reveals itself to You, the Self who now truly sees one's inner world as more real than the clutter, and sees emptiness even within the clutter. And from that emptiness the Self shows itself to your Self rather than to the imaginary I you thought you were.

Then everything is transformed and turned upside down.

You directly apprehend yourself as the Center of the Known Universe, as well as the power or Life Force that courses through your body and also which makes the apparent world go round.

Robert then goes further and says:

"The answer you are looking for is within yourself. Everything you are looking for is within yourself. When I say within yourself I don't mean your physical self. I mean within the Self. The Self is not within you. You are in the Self. So when I say everything you're looking for is in the Self it includes your physical body and everything else. Everything is the Self."

---------------

You see, the acknowledges that we are everything, and as such, responsible for everything.  Looking outside at the world is still the Self looking at the Self, feeling the Self, acting within the Self.

Self-Realization as I know it.

     People who ought to know better, and who have read my book, continue to misrepresent what I am teaching.

     Some of them state that I profess to teach about final or ultimate awakening, then spend too much time talking about emotions, the body, energies, etc., which they conclude have nothing to do with any ultimate awakening.

     In point of fact, in my opinion there are multiple paths and multiple awakenings, and depending on how you define "self-realization," there are multiple self-realizations.

     Nor do I believe there is anyone who has completely understood, mastered, revealed, or opened every aspect of him or her self.  I think self-discovery is unending, or can be unending, except that certain paths, such as Nisargadatta's Advaita are self-limiting, because for him, all of the manifest universe, the body, mind, emotions, energies, external world are unreal because they are transcient, and only the unchanging Witness, the subject of all, is real.

     With such an attitude there is no energy behind self-exploration, because anything that can be seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled, thought of, imaged, is transcient and thus not real, thus not worth paying attention to or understanding.

     This is my own teacher's POV, and one I profoundly disagree with.  This sort of dead end or final enlightenment, for most, is a complete dead end, resulting in a multidimensional being believing that all he or she is, is the Witness, Parabrahman, and all else is illusion.

     I see multiple paths to multiple goals and multiple "realizations."  To me, everything is me and is real, and is personal in the sense that I am the "owner" of the manifest world, its shepherd and protector.

     I profoundly disagree with any teacher who self-proclaims him or herself as being more enlightened, awakened or advanced than all other teachers.

     Having spent over thirty years in the field of psychology, I am well aware of how most "spiritual" people have used spiritual theories and practices to "disappear" emotional and developmental problems.  I see a very large percentage largely unable to articulate what is going on inside of them emotionally because emotions have been downplayed in favor of realizing emptiness, or the Void, or the clear, self-lighted, Consciousness, or bliss, or experiences of inner energies, light, etc., coupled with ideas of how special they are spiritually as a result of their endless inner explorations which have sedulously avoided emotional exploration.

     Even those who have spent years in psychotherapy often trade openness to feelings for insights about themselves and their pasts, or current attainment of functionality as a result of therapy.  They really lack an ability to be open to their emotions and instead talk about them.

     Then there are many, many people that use techniques to "process" emotions, like fear, depression, anger, etc., by letting them "pass through" their self of Self.  They become "possessed" by a continuous process of processing emotions, physical problems, etc., that essentially, again, they have become active witnesses in complete control of their emotions, rather than have them flow freely.

     If they feel lonely, they process this feeling until it is gone. If they feel needy of another, they process this feeling until it is gone.  If they feel angry towards another, rather than express it to the "other," they process the feeling until it goes away and no real contact has been made with the other.

     They want to feel only love, and love of a special kind--love that is universal, impersonal, unattached, and unconditional, rather than the rather "messy" love with many facets that most feel towards others, which is "flavored" by romantic love, sexuality, possessiveness, attraction, projections, protective feelings, or sibling sibling or parental love.

     Emotions are not everything, but they extremely important for those who talk of an ultimate awakening or enlightenment which will make them self-contained and independent of need of any other human or animal. They are important in the sense that powerful emotions motivate their search for transcendence of emotions.

     If you try to feel such people with your heart, you reach but do not touch them.  They are not emotionally solid and tend to be detached, aloof, and self-contained. 

     So, I teach openness to everything within oneself, starting with repressed emotions, progressing to internal energies, increasing acquaintance with "Shakti," and the energetic and emotional linkages to the world, until the Manifest Self, the Atman, reveals Itself to Itself, which, to this point, only believed he or she was human, and had no access to or knowledge of the divine within oneself.

     This is the kind of awakening and Self-Realization that is best for today's individuals as well as for society itself in the sense that psychotherapy has made us more aware of the impact of repression and denial on our health and flexibility, and has allowed us to construct models of the Self that augment and challenge the eastern models. Openness to emotions and subtle body energies gives us more tools to be aware of ourselves and the world.

     Modern Vedantins and Buddhists would have us believe that modern psychology, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, etc., have nothing to add to thousands of year old healing traditions.  This is because their proponents know little of modern psychology.

LIVE SATSANG ONLINE, SUNDAY, MAY 18, 2014, 2PM CALIFORNIA TIME.

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com. Sign in with the password edji (It is asked for two different times).  Choose your sign in name.

Then go to top of video box and sign in to start broadcasting if you want to be seen.

The future of our sangha.

NO SATSANG TODAY SUNDAY MAY 11.

I have a strong cold with lot's of coughing.  In addition, I had bought two new microphones a couple of months ago because my old microphones were not working well with this computer and the Weebly program.

However, just before and during the retreat I lent out both sets; one is with Deeya, and the other is with Max in Austria.

During the next satsang I'll tell you all about my current medical problem, which is not enough lung capacity, and the long road home from such a problem.

COMPLETE, UNALLOYED, HAPPINESS.

     I am in a pickle now as are my students.

     For the last year of two I have been so happy, so serene on the inside no matter how “Drama-prone” our Sangha appeared to many, that it has been difficult for me to do anything.

     Sitting in my easy chair, or at Coffee Bean, after answering emails and doing chores, I would just lie back and rest in my bliss.

     It is so very difficult to describe this bliss.  For me it is like dropping into absolute zero degree level of activity, and in this complete rest, my “beingness” rests in a state of zero vibration or reactivity to the world.

     This rest is so complete and so deep that the bliss felt touches every molecule of my sensed body.  Even the energy body is quiet.  I am resting in a pool of liquid joy, happiness supreme, of lighted, self-aware Consciousness that is undifferentiated. 

     I can sit there for two or three hours without moving a muscle except to breathe. This is perfect happiness, perfect peace.

     Two problems: How do I “give” this to someone else when they are more interested in conversation than liberation?  And, my body falls apart because any moving exercises or expressions of truth cannot match the supreme bliss of being and doing nothing?

     Our last retreat made me realize that most students are searching for something undefined to them, through the use of mind and understanding.  Most everyone there was just talking, exchanging ideas, jokes, etc., rather than find the Self within.  The retreat was used to gain understanding or knowledge for some future potential awakening rather than to find the Self here and now, which is always freely available to be experienced, once one focuses one’s attention on one’s inside, one’s subjectivity, one’s knowingness and sentience.

     If only I can get them to shut up, look and feel within, and while doing so, to feel our common Self within.  Please feel my energy.

     The other growing problem is that with many students around always wanting to do something for me, I am growing fat and lazy.  The bliss of stillness grows and grows, and my body deteriorates.  What will be our (Sangha's) new balance?

NO SATSANG MAY 4, SUNDAY AT 2 PM

Just completed an exhausting 4 and a half day retreat, and my voice has entirely gone away.

See you on the 11th at the usual time of 2pm, California.

DEFENDING SASAKI ROSHI

The Guru/Student Relationship is not the Western Psychotherapy Model

This essay is about the guru/disciple relationship that is much, much different from the psychotherapy model that Westerners now view as the correct ethics for the spiritual relationship.  It is not.

      Westerners want clean relationships with boundaries and money exchanges to seal the deal.  Fixed 50 minute sessions, fixed venues for therapy, payment of money, and proscriptions on behavior, also called “medical ethics.”

      On the other hand the Eastern concept of guru/student, or the relations between people outside of the medical context are far more messy, have far fewer boundaries, and therefore tend to be potentially much more powerful in transformative ability that psychotherapy.

       My discussion here relates to the teaching methods of Sasaki Roshi who realized that different people require different approaches to awakening, enlightenment, or even functional health.

I was with Sasaki briefly at Mt. Baldy during 1970. It was an awesome experience and he an awesome teacher. For 50 years this alleged \"abuse\" was going on and no one did much? Has anyone done other than accuse, blame, and execute Roshi as some sort of sexual pervert? Has anyone examined the place of sex between students and teachers in the various traditions?

I have never had a teacher who was celibate, especially those who were supposedly celibate monks: Not Maezumi Roshi, not Thich Thien-An, not Seung Sahn, not Kozan Roshi, not Robert Adams, not Muktananda, not those in Baba’s tradition from Da Free John, Rudi, Muktananda’s successors, and so an ad infinitum.

Why? Is it that all Eastern spiritual teachers are sexual predators? Or is it that there is something in romantic love, sexual or non-sexual, that is helpful for both in terms of becoming human, and realizing one’s own self as a human/divine coupling?

Or is it that sex between teacher is viewed from a very limited point of view: no sex between teacher and student, never. The behavioral boundaries of Western Psychotherapy and Western medical ethics are applied to spiritual/human relationships such as with teacher/student. I think this is misguided. I think there is a lot to learn by investigating the actual relationships, actual occurrences between the teacher and student, what emotions were brought out, and if the student benefitted in any way from the experience.

All that I see with regard to Roshi’s 50 years of teaching men and women, is almost universal condemnation with not one minute spent on investigating the short and long term effects of “romantic,” sexual, or just plain over-the-top devotional love that two people can have with each other that can and will lead to Self-Realization. Not the philosophical nonsence of No-Self, or Emptiness/Void, but of realizing oneself as both human and divine.

The universal allegation here is made of pain caused to students. But Zen is pain! Staying at Mt. Baldy during a winter training session was pure pain. Freezing cold, getting up at 3 am to shovel snow, the Kyosaku blasts by Ryoshu, and no expression of love anywhere. It was the coldest place in the world.

Yet, when I saw Sasaki in Sanzen, never was there a warmer character. I can imagine the sheer warmth and acceptance a woman might feel if she felt loved in such a cold place, enough to awaken devotion in both she and Roshi. This supposed abuse went on for 50 years and it continued.

Everyone and I mean everyone, knew of Roshi’s lap Sanzens.  Women students knew even before they went into their first Sanzen session with him.

Could it be that everyone was learning from their human and koan interactions with Roshi, becoming more human than the concentration camp externals would allow? Instead of attacking Sasaki, ask him why he did what he did.

Was there a conscious intent to reate a spiritual or psychological opening in each case? I know Sasaki encouraged me to throw myself into the world first, as one woman was told, and to get dirty, before finding enlightenment, and I completely concur with this teaching for “some.” I would assume he would have a different way of behavior towards a former prostitute. You see, Westerners want all relationships to be “tidy” and well defined by money and contracts, professional ethics, and predictability. But Zen wants messy, confusing, spontaneous and open relationships with each other and with the world.

Unfortunately, Sasaki comes from a culture of secrecy and silence, and everything but a pleasant face is hidden. This is on him. I think this should be a time to learn about the place of romantic love, sex, “groping” as crudely stated in awakening. My own teacher was confronted by a woman during Satsang who asked aloud in front of the entire group of 40 attendees, “Robert, why did you stick your tongue down my throat.” After a long time he answered, “Because I thought it was what you needed.”

I fully understand that answer, do any of you, or are you caught up in a feminist morality scrubbing? Let us learn what was going on, hear the results.

All that I have read about Roshi in the last two years is a long list of accusations and allegations of student’s pain.

Shit, my life in Zen was constant pain, physical, emotional, random frightening Kundalini experiences, and not having a clue as to what the Heart Sutra meant even after studying it for 20 years. Read the Tiger’s Cave about a Zen Abbott and his relationship and failings with parishioners. Learn what Sasaki was able to accomplish in 50 years of doing the same thing over and over.

For Muktananda and other energy teachers, there is the obvious notion of Shaktipat of the most intimate sort. Tantric traditions focus on using sexual desire to arouse the Shakti. The more you learn while practicing spirituality, deeply, and honestly, the less judgmental you tend to get, because you understand more deeply and you understand that human relationships are messy, and that Western professional codes are attempts to limit and control the depth of a relationship. I am saying there is a lot to be learned here.

      See my video where I go into it deeper:

http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com/2014/04/april-27-satsang-video-emotions.html

Love,

Ed Muzika

http://wearesentience.com

http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com

APRIL 27 SATSANG VIDEO

Emotions, Psychopathology, "Cooking," Self-Realization and the Teacher/Student relationship; How they all fir together.

Today's Satsang covered the importance of emotional recovery and expression in the Self-Realization process; the dangers and strengths of this path, the notion of being cooked by the teacher (and the students cooking the teacher), the twofold path or becoming re-incarnated as a vulnerable and feeling human, even while realizing the Self or Atman. it is a twofold perfection of embodiment and transcendence.

Satsang Today, Sunday April 27, 2014

2 P.M. California Time.

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

Sign in with the password, whenever asked for, as "edji"

Please mute your microphone.

A Comment on my method of Devitional Advaita:

Newton Nitro: I thank Edji for guiding me out of the dryness of the no-self, void states, the peaceful deadness of the void. It is pleasant, but, in my experience, it worked as a drug, a void-drug detaching me from life itself. It was a surprise to find the heart as a new dimension of expansion, full of mystery and color and chaos.

Instead of the "neti, neti", not this, not this, the "and this, and this" filled my life again. I am grateful for finding this way to balance my path, after many years lost in void states, it is like experiencing life all over again, with all its joys and horrors.

The void, the no-self, the absolute, whatever is always there, to balance the amazing and scary and chaotic energies of life itself, but any time I experience love, warts and all, in any form, it makes this experience called life worth a million times more than the deepest void states.

How Robert Adams and I Differ in Teaching and Method:

ROBERT ADAMS:

All that there is, is Consciousness, but even Consciousness is an illusion. You as a person do not exist, nor does the world exist, the only “entity” that exists is Consciousness and that keeps changing, meaning it too is not real. The existence of things depends on our minds’ abilities to see, name and experience forms.

Practice is to watch every aspect of oneself: emotions, thoughts, reactions, and to not get involved or attached to anything or any experience because they are temporary and will pass; only you as the totality of consciousness is real.

The more specific practice is a narrow form of self-inquiry, whereby we ask ourselves, “Who am I?” just once, and wait for a response. When a verbal or thought response arises, ask “Where is this answer coming from?” The intent is to see if there is a center or nucleus of self-awareness, a Self.

CONCLUSION:

There is no ego, mind or central self as it cannot be found by searching. Conclusion is I don’d exist as an entity, there is nly an unending string of perceptions, experiences, events, unfolding in a pattern fixed by karma and the Power That knows the Way.

ED MUZIKA

Robert’s truth only holds if you define “real” as unchanging.

There is no such “thing” as one’s true nature. Everything is you, is the Self, including thoughts, emotions, reactions, our bodies, our energetic bodies, Kundalini and Shakti, the underlying Fourth State of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss, and all that appears in Consciousness (and beyond), including the witness of all, what Nisargadatta called Parabrahman.

The aim is not the peace and bliss of Robert’s silent immersion in unmoving Consciousness, but to identify with everything we are, including raw emotions, our bodies, and to come to terms with death of the physical/mental/emotional entities we are by being completely open to our ephemeral and very vulnerable humanity and relationships. Accepting death as opposed to denying death by denying we also exist as temporary human entities.

The method is complex: look within to find the I-Am sensation, focus on it, love it, play with it, entice it into your heart. Loving the I Am will take one deeper into Consciousness than the immediate sensual “Nowness” or “Beingness” of the neo-Advaitins, into one’s energy body, human emotions, Turiya, bliss, and then the absolute Witness, Parabrahman

ROBERT ADAMS: PITFALLS

One often gets lost in the beauty and tranquility of the cool silence of non-moving witness, watching everything unfold, and eventually one can die to one’s humanhood, to our emotional self, to humanity. The LifeForce seems attenuated because there is no emotional power in one’s life.

Robert never speaks about the energetic body either, subtle energies, Kundalini, and/or “Shakti” that fills one with a sense of aliveness and an identification more with the subtle and physical body level.

Many or Robert’s students got lost in depression and suicide because they did not find the bliss he promised, but found deadness instead.

Otherwise one tends to get lost in dysfunctionality as nothing in this world is so attractive as that which lies within.


MUZIKA METHOD-CONTINUED

Listen to sacred chanting as often as possible, especially the old Muktananda style chants, Krishna Das, Yogananda chants, Amma chants.

This will cause you to experience amazing flows of internal energy within, spontaneous happiness, sadness, crying and helps the arising of long dead emotions and memories.

Most importantly, use all occasions of human love of all sorts to learn about what love is, see that it is located within you and your physical/subtle bodies and deeper, that you created it and the “other” is merely a trigger.

IdentiFy with that love, see that it is part o your true nature, then turn that love around to love your sense of I Am.

This allows a channel for the depths of the I Am sensation to arise into your awareness, and for the first time, Self becomes Self-Aware and self-identified as love and as the power of the Life-Force. The divine and I are one.

Read the Nisargadatta Gita, especially the parts about abiding and loving the I Am.

Absolute Self-Knowledge is attained, both as the manifest Self of Atman, the incarnation of the divine, but also the human self. You are both human and an incarnation of God.


MUZIKA PITFALLS:

Dysfunctionality. One can be carried away by emotional storms that emerge as the Shakti releases long denied or suppressed memories and emotions, depression, intense anger, rage, hurt. Just the sheer volume of positive and negative emotions, and the fear of their intensity can result in dysfunctionality.

Later, the constant intensity of unbelievably powerful waves of love, bliss, and ecstasy can result in long periods of feeling unable to do anything. One feels that one’s slightest movement will result in the disappearance of the joyous happiness. One becomes “God Intoxicated.”

One’s long repressed psychotic core of paranoid delusions, fear, rage, may manifest, rarely resulting in hospitalization. THIS IS RARE, AND THE PERSON USUALLY JUST REJECTS THE PATH OR THE TEACHER RATHER THAN SINK INTO THE PSYCHOTIC CORE. Then this person often runs into extreme criticism of the person and method that got them so close to their core dysfunctionality, and will fixate there until a new sinking into the core begins.

You see, the divine love is released and it does not fit within the rigidity of day to day conventional life, and for a while you may be torn between conventional life and the Life Divine of unfoldment by Shakti.

I Am Soooooo Tired of the word Non-Dual and talk of Emptiness, Nowness, Beingness

I first met Joshu Sasaki in the winter of 1970/71. Every day during Sesshin he would give a talk called Taisho. He was a little man, if you would see a photo of him now he's about middle chest high.  He can't be 4'10" now.

But Roshi was a showman, understood perspective and the mind.

When we entered the Taiso Hall, also the Chanting Hall, he was already sitting in a beautifully decorated and elevated chair, maybe chest high, so his head was about 7 feet.  It seemed he was about 3 ft. thick under his under and over robes.  That is, he had a lot of padding which made him look bigger.

It was maybe the tenth Taisho when I heard him say, "Enlightenment can become boring."

Intuitively I knew that could be true.  Already I was spending hours everyday without a body or mind, merged with the wind and sounds of birds, and the dancing trees.

Within five minutes of sitting I no longer had a body or mind; I was the universe.  I became the jet flying overhead, or the sound of the wind and snow against the paper windows in the Zendo.

Which is real I thought?  The state of ordinary mind, or this oneness I experienced every day for hours at a time. Is one state more real than the other, more permanent?  Does either tell us more about who we truly are?  Am I "really" this blissful state of inner emptiness that invited the world into "me," even though there was no me when it came in?

I didn't know.  It was a question I would ponder for many years.

You see for some "enlightenment" is just the "realization of the emptiness of the subject and object distinction."  There was no I, no world, just a living presence which was me more and more.

But for some, it was realization that all objects, including self or ego, arose out of emptiness in the morning and sank into emptiness in the evening, and all day long they paid attention to the inner space that the objects came out of and went into.

And watching this emptiness can be fascinating for a number of years.  Itself it has properties of coolness, beauty, lucidity, and silence that was total peace.

This is the Nowness, Beingness, or even Self that many Advaitins and neo Advaitins talk about.  This is Shiv. Pure space, spotless, self-illuminated, utterly peaceful.

For some, "enlightenment" was just understanding the doctrine that form and emptiness were interpenetrating and One, and that there was nothing to be done, just rest in the gaps that revealed nowness between thoughts. Their "realization" was an understanding, a grasping of non-dual perspective.

But Zen would never tolerate just an intellectual answer. You had to experience emptiness, nowness, and the loss of personal self and the body in order to enter the brilliantly shining clarity of merger into the world.

Now, I will tell you, this is the beginning and end of most teacher's understanding and experience. This is the beginning and end of Douglas Harding's teachings of having no head, and most current Facebook teachers.

But let me tell you, even the most refined state of merger into emptiness, oneness or the brilliant shining Now, can, like Sasaki said, BECOME VERY BORING!

This is why I teach the way of love.  No two days are the same. No two hours are the same.  There are ups and downs. One feels all human emotions such as unconditional love, romantic love, sexuality, joy, bliss, brilliant displays of internal energies, colors and internal flows of colored subtle substances.

Then there are times of dryness, mild depressions, major black moods, anger, jealousy, rage, feeling embarrassed,
helpless, etc., and all are recognized and accepted as me.

But most importantly comes the experience of Self, which is our usual looking self that sees Itself as "Self" after that hidden Self of grace and God are revealed to self.  Then that small self becomes Self by identification and incorporation.

After that, everything is both the same and different.

Once again you are fully human newly emerging after years of regaining your emotionality, painfully and sometime slowly.  You can be depressed, you can be angry, you can be blissful or feel the grace of God: it never stops.  Every second is new.  It is not just the unchanging brilliance of Nowness, Beingness, or emptiness, it is being God and human at the same time.

Inside you are different.  Complete, total, utter, self-confidence, because not only are you the Self-of-All, the Atman, Turiya, the Fourth State of existence, knowledge of Self and who you are, but always have access to bliss in one form or another.

Even the rawness of new painful movements of Shakti inside your body and Subtle Body becomes more ecstatic than even the blissful states because you are becoming 100% totally accessed by the world through the tenderest vulnerability of the human Self to fear, anger, joy, and a piano concerto.  All becomes so intense there is no space for boredom.  You are 100% alive.

This comes about because of the transformative power of love. You have total access to silence, Nowness, and emptiness, but also the wild passion of a van Gough along with his eye for beauty.

Every moment the Self in you is giving birth to everything.

The Retreat Venue has changed: It will now be at my house in the San Fernando Valley

Deeya feels like she cannot participate and is recovering from fatigue and medical issues.

So the retreat will not be in Santa Monica. Many are staying at the nearby Extended Stay Hotel, about 1/2 mile from my house.  Each suite has a full kitchen and is in a safe area.

We can go to Robert's Park and to Follow your Heart for dinner.

April 30 to May 3.

It is this sort of really human experience that I call Self-Realization

It is eerie, in a 'not knowing anything' sort of way, to be encountering my Self as myself. Know what I mean? 

Self has been "out there..." Somewhere in imagination. I never really felt like I can realize my Self. Oh, I said it, thought it, professed it....but in my heart, other people did it. Not me. 

Now I have direct experience of Self living in me right now. I am realizing Self as all there is...0° of separation. Really, really really eerie to me....I keep just stopping, and listening, attending inside, what is this?...don't know...no idea comes...but wonderment is everywhere...vibrancy....a huge space opening up...in me?...is me?....what me...? No one cares....just LIFE.
Thank you, Edji, from every quark that flows together as Syndria, thank you !

-----------------------

Ed:  This is similar to my own last Self-Realization experience, of being totally a vulnerable human but directly connected to and run by the divine Life Force, which I am, but which also is every other sentience being.

As Syndria's experience deepens, she will leave the Zen not-knowing state to the state of knowing absolutely everything with utter self-confidence.  But knowing everything, I mean the surety of knowing you are sentience and the Life Force, Shakti unleashed.  You taste Absolute Knowledge of self-reflexive knowing that you are the knower and knowledge; you are both the unmanifest noumena and its expression in the manifest world.

Mostly though you feel Self as you, arising in and manifesting through your physical body, energetic body, mind and emotions.  You are totally human and also totally God.

This is a rare teaching. Mostly you hear from teachers who talk in abstractions about two-fold emptiness, Nowness, beingness, tranquil silence, or aphorisms about ultimate reality.

You instinctively know these teachers are philosophers teaching their learnt teachings learned at the feet of other philosophers.

But some teachers are able to talk about the Self in every day situations and activities, not in abstract discourses about how the mind creates an imaginary world within and without, but how you can constantly feel the Self in the midst of intense external activities, mental activities and even emotional storms.  All of these circumstances mean little to someone who is always dwelling in the Self energies and self-identification.

This Self is not the emptiness or Void, it is not just the Absolute Witness, it is not just Nowness, it does not exclude thoughts or thinking, it is not just the physical or energetic body; it is all of these things!  That is, I can freely identify simply as the Void, or as sensations arising in the Now, or as the energetic body, or with the world as a whole, or with the essence of my sentience: as knowledge of my Self which includes all these elements between which I can flow freely in identification.

Syndria Update:

I just saw your post of my comments from the blog. Wow! You are fast! I have been pretty much speechless. In my ever increasing rock headedness, I don't know how to say what I want to express to you. And it's hard to see the keyboard through my tears.  I know that I've barely stuck my toe into Self. So, I'm not speechless and joyfully crying because I've attained  anything.  It's because you see me, and hear me, and support me so unconditionally. I just showed up on your FB doorstep one day, like a depressed, disillusioned, depersonalized stray kitty, and you have accepted me, taught me, and retaught me, been patient and cooked me...several times....all as a part of loving me. You share more of yourself, your direct, intimate experiences of ALL of life with us, your students, than any teacher I have ever met. I feel undeserving of you sometimes. So humbled by the immensity of your heart, of Your brilliance, your ability to convey the most subtle of teachings, your utter and complete generosity... I am beyond fortunate to finally meet you. I had lost hope. Maybe that's the key, I don't know. I actually do feel resurrected, from a dead heart.... There is more that I need to say to you....but, for now ....my words are just not enough......I need to stop, sit quietly and sink into You......where I find Our Self  L O V E Syndria Ed's Response: Syndria, notice that Jackson Peterson does not understand any of what has happened between you and I, nor my other students and I. He considers it "embarrassingly unstable" because we talk like regular humans, not in abstractions like the doctrine of twofold emptiness, and coming into the pure clarity of Nowness or Beingness. We talk in terms of energies, the Life Force, Self, tears, cooking, pain, despair.  We talk about the razor's edge of spiritual existence including bonding, death and resurrection. That alone should tell you your 30 year search in Zen and other disciplines is baring fruit in being simply human, and in that openness, feeling the breath of God so to speak, breathing through you.

EASTER SATSANG 2014--DARK ENERGIES, DEATH AND RESUURECTION

This video will be available a little after midnight.

Dark Energies, apparent external disturbing influences, are discussed as well as examples of releasing them. Death and fear of loss are behind much of dark energy experiences. 

We practice a meditation (Ramana's) on death, and talk about fear of loss preventing many people from loving and bonding. We mention Becker's concept of the Denial of Death as a universal phenomena, and that resurrection comes from unburdening oneself from lying, hiding, secrecy, and denial/repression of emotions and memories, which readies one for the radical opening of Self-Realization.

Amazing Email: the Self is Beginning to Burst Forth as the Unknown Expression

Tonight was an important sat sang for many of us it seems. I had a long talk with N*****afterward, she was there, but couldn't hear anything, yet felt touched deeply by your energy. I was too. I dropped into an eerie calmness during the death meditation and remain there now. I'm not even sure why I'm characterizing it as eerie..

Unusual? This kind state has been happening ever since I first met you. There is a non controlled quality, where I say things and do things without thinking about it . sometimes, even calmly wondering why I'm doing this or saying that.

Tonight I wrote about the death of my mother and my cat on your post. I don't know why I did it. It came out, and I trusted in that urge to come out. Still is eerie though. Since I' ve never talked to anyone about it. To just up and write it on a public FB post. Yet it doesn't really concern me. I used to keep all these small moments secret, as if revealing them would be extracting my very soul.

I remember that after the first message I sent you, you replied, "keep talking, its good for you.". And I have kept talking, revealing....often innocuous things.

Yet, things I usually never say or do publically. And none of it has really mattered, when revealed. It just rolls out of me, and I go on. Eerie. Even with Gurudatta the other night. I felt possessed by Kali Ma, she was just using my brain and mouth to speak. Yet she is just an aspect of my own Self as Shakti. Like energy at play in consciousness.

I had no idea what I was going into say until I felt an emotional response and words took form.

The whole thing only appeared because of G. attacking you. I couldn't let that happen without reply. I felt Intensely, fiercely protective of you. And righteously indignant at this childishly bad behavior. And words poured forth....and it all felt very good... Eerie. You appear to be having quite an effect on me.

Stuff is just rolling out of me and is, poof, gone. I feel transformed in some ways that I can't describe, but I am living them.

Eerie. Yes, eerie and OK. more silent inside. Just not knowing anything really. Eerie...did I already say that.?

Strange...

S.

------------------------------

Ed: FANTASTIC!  The hidden is brought to light effortlessly. It feelsd eerie, having the Unknown speak through you, act through you.  Most amazing sense of freedom from the hidden, from the darkness of secrets, repressed memories, repressed hurts.  This is exactly how it feels, the coming to light of Your awareness, of the Self.

So Many Truths; so many delusions

So many different paths; so many different Truths; this is the essential Truth of the Heart Sutra of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism.

See how the Zen tradition ignores Shakti and the energetic experiences, and yet still is okay:

"Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, "Form is emptiness." That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, "Emptiness is form." One should not think that these are two separate things."

From Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Special Easter Satsang, Sunday, April 19, 2014. 2 PM California Time.

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

Sign in with password "edji" on two different screens.

Mute your microphone.

Some time will be spent on warding off dark energies, but we will also talk about Grace, Robert Adams, and the Self.

I will mention Gurudatta--maybe.

As you know, Infinity has posted many of Robert's transcripts on the Internet, the one's I helped put together four years ago, along with many photos.

Infinity posts nearly complete collection of Robert Adams Transcripts, 3,500 pages!

AMAZING!  INFINITY POSTS 3,500 PAGES OF ROBERT'S TRANSCRIPTS!  DOWNLOAD IMMEDIATELY!

This was put together with me as a general editor several years ago, transcribed and compiled by one student who unified the collection.

The introduction was written by me, the final photo is of Robert and I in Darshan.  Also, the Internet link refers to this collected work as E.M.RobertsAdamsCollecredWorks.

However, repeated threats from Infinity made me take it down as well as all Robert's photographs, audios, etc.

Wonderful news!  Now we don't have to hide the transcripts any more. Download it immediately in case they change their minds.

http://www.robertadamsinfinityinstitute.org/E.M.RobertsAdamsCollecredWorksOct02-2010.pdf

Well, the shit is hitting the fan.  There is a good chance Deeya will have to leave Los Angeles before our retreat. Any number of factors are at issue, including a medical condition, home sickness and fear of a loose cannon guru that has sent out death threats, possibly involving her.

This leaves the problem, should she go home, of finding a new venue in Santa Monica or in Northridge with sleeping arrangements.

There is much, much more to this story I can only release to attendees.

I have never seen so many “men” hell bent on rescuing any woman. U.K. special ops, spirit drummers, me, Charlie, her employer, other gurus, and many others.

Things will be getting interesting in LA.

Robert's Audio Talks; Note to Google and Blogger that claimed copyrights by Warner Blake and Infinity are false

Infinity claims everything about Robert Adams is copyrighted.

But Google/Blogger, that is a lie.

The only entity legally copyrighted is Robert's book, Silence of the Heart.

Infinity then copyrighted some of Robert transcriots when I posted them for free downloads to my website, http://itisnotreal.com.

Infinity/ Blake Warner downloaded the transcripts in the blocks I had posted, then sent them off to be copyrighted after I had followed Robert's instructions and posted them, many transcribed by me, for free on the Internet.

Now the audios are up again on the Internet.

These were never copyrighted at all.  Infinity/Blake Warner just claim they are.

Ask for any copyright documents and they cannot give you anything.

They do not sell individual satsang sessions, but compilations, thus there is no possible financial loss to Infinity.

They also claim all photos of Robert are copyrighted without supplying any proof.

Here is a link to Robert Adams videos:

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=b0370e04239d3e8f&id=B0370E04239D3E8F%21106&parid=B0370E04239D3E8F%21380&ithint=folder%2C&authkey=%21AD960bUJ1iKbxd0

 SATSANG TODAY, SUNDAY, APRIL 13, AT 2 PM CALIFORNIA TIME

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com. Use the passord "edji" on two different entry screens.

This may be a big message. May be.

From someone who saw our Batgap interview:

Oh Hi Ed..... I don't even remember what I wrote  but just wanted to say something about how  your interview with Deeya on Batgap. The surprise to find out you were there as Security for Baba during the Santa Monica Intensive where I got massive shaktipat.

I followed Baba to India and never did make a "connection" with Gurumayi or Nityananda.  Left SYDA in 1999 with another unexpected and equally huge shift in my life (jnani path or "descent" after the mystical bhakti thing closed up entirely AND then DEEYA and you opened an entirely NEW unfolding...especially Deeya into the dimension of the Divine Mother aspect (just words I know, but what the hell.  

Deeya's website blew some door open to a whole different inner landscape that is unfolding since "connection" to the feminine aspect of God holds me in a stunning embrace that is neither Bhakti or Jnani.... No words for this unique knowing and the opening to divine beings inner and outer as a Reality expresses in infinite LOVE ...I'll be a monkey's uncle its so human and so divine at the same time NO BIG DEAL an a VERY BIG DEAL.   Thanks for letting me jabber ....just a lot of energy spouting off.  

Love to you both human and divine MY GOD  same/same

hamsa

Message to me via email:

OK edji, let me be perfectly clear. the following is just the truth. You're teaching today was perfect, it could not be better. I'm not stroking your ego or blowing smoke up your ass.

To emphasize Love and ask people if they want to waste the next 20 years in some void or emptiness is profound, revolutionary, amazing.

And the joking, calling yourself 'borntoargue' or 'iamtoast', etc. is so funny, so fantastic.

Great work. Don't feel bad if only 35 come. Nisargadatta never had more than 15 at one time, so you're doing good!!! 

Tap directly into Chetanananda's juice and bring it back to us!

Jesus Christ dude, you fucking rocked today.


J.H.

SATSANG TODAY, SUNDAY APRIL 6, 2 PM CALIFORNIA TIME

Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

Sign in with password "edji" whenever asked.

Mute your microphone.

TOPIC NO SELF, SELF AND MAGIC.