Dear Edji,

I want to thank you for your guided meditation that I listen to often.

During meditation and also in the normal working day, I repeatingly regard everything
as sensations, the visual world, body feelings and thoughts, everything. Everything steps back and I become empty.

While breathing deeply in my stomac, I am dwelling in emptiness and the world goes on happening. It gives access to the "I am nothing in particular, yet I am".

When I am there, people interact with my body and I observe it wondering "who" they mean with "you", it feels like being a hologram.

So far, it's not a big light that I could fall into and die, but when I am there, a pulling into deepness is felt.

Is it ok ?

Best wishes,
L

RESPONSE:


Don't worry about any light. That usually only happens to a few at the beginning of practice and goes away the more advanced they get.

You are doing well, in fact, perfectly.  Just keep doing as you are doing.

Ed

My mother is 93 years old. She has had Rheumatoid Arthritis since age 35 and has been in almost constant pain because of it for almost 60 years. Her bones are fragile from osteoporosis, and she has diverticulosis that periodically causes intestinal bleeding. Yet she says she does not feel like she is 93, she says she feels like she is still 18.  She has been saying this to me for the last 20 years, "I don't feel like I am 70. I don't feel like I am 83," etc.


Isn't that the same for all of us?  Deep down we don't feel any different than we did 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.  Why is this? Poor memory? Delusion?


No, it is because our base state, the Krishna consciousness, the Absolute, the Self, known by a thousand names according to the different traditions, does not change.  It is that to which the waking and sleep states come and go, and which observes the body and world through space and time. Compared to this state, all the states, things, thoughts and perceptions that come and go appear to be illusions, comprised of and penetrated by emptiness.


That is out goal, to know the Self and abide in it until it becomes our primary identification, instead of identification with our bodies, position in the world, our work, or our role as wife, husband, father, mother or child.  These are accidents so to speak. These elements and roles and identifications change over time, but the basic observer does not.


(This is an aside. You have to realize that all those perceptions, thoughts, emotions, etc., that comes and go, are also you, but they are the impermanent and changeable parts of you.  I want to help you find that unchanging part of you and identify with that as your primary identity as opposed to the changeable.)


So, how do we know this state and accept it as our primary identification? 


There are many ways, but the one Ramana taught was self-inquiry, as did Robert and so do I.  But also, a practice I recommend for some, is to just sit and do nothing. At first you need to sit somewhere and observe, but eventually the sense of observing goes away and you are just sitting, doing nothing.


This is what students do at a Zen monastery or center; they sit doing nothing. At first they observe whatever is in front of them with partially opened eyes so they don't drift into sleep, then whatever is in the mind, then sounds from outside, smells, the birds, etc.


But if the sitting is strong enough, done long enough, that which is the world and mind begin to disappear, including awareness of the body.  Soon, you will pass through a state that appears to be sleep, but you are awake. You are fully conscious but you see, hear and feel nothing. The mind is asleep, suspended, and you are no longer even aware that you are aware.


Then you go into various samadhis, such as oneness with everything, the complete disappearance of limitations and boundaries.  You are in the waking sleep state.


This all happens when you remain still and stop doing things because the mind has stopped.


You need not wait for formal meditation times. Just go to a coffee shop and sit quietly watching people and your surroundings. Do not interact. Just watch. Watch your reactions to events around you and people coming and going.


Do this too at the beach or a park where individuals and families are passing by, each deeply involved in whatever they are doing. Notice the squirrels playing, and the feeling of the breeze on your face. Listen to the waves, but sit very, very still until the stillness of your body pervades your entire perceived world.


Soon, you may feel still and powerful like a mountain, with all of the thoughts, emotions, visual and auditory experiences coming to you, but you sit still as a mountain.  


Then you begin to recognize your true, fundamental and unchanging self-nature.  The illusions fall away along with the false identifications, and gradually you become free. 

I am going to pull a neo-advaitin and post a quote. But the quote is so perfect. Many times people write me that if the world is unreal, why should I do anything to make it better or help anyone. Ramana said:


The jnani (enlightened one) lives in the Heart. When he moves about and deals with men and things, he knows that what he sees is not separate from the one supreme reality, the Brahman which he realized in the Heart as his own Self, the real.

- Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi

Hi Edji-


I've been listening to your emptiness of the body meditation twice a day for a couple of days now and continuing enquiry after it ends and I'm having some rather frightening experiences.  They are familiar to me, but I have not experienced them since leaving the meditation center years ago...


First I become aware of my mind creating the image of my body in awareness in order to connect the sensations there.  The image is recognized and falls away, leaving only the sensations floating in awareness as you described.  Then I move to the perception of my "face" in the awareness, and that too falls away.  After resting there for some time I feel as if I'm being pulled backward through blackness and the blackness gives way to brilliant light engulfing everything.  My heart starts pounding in my chest, I feel as if cold air is being blown into my nostrils and I start sweating profusely.  It's frightened me so much I sit up and forcefully start thinking to end the experience.  It feels like the light is ending my life and what's on the other side is uncertain.  Although it is frightening, I must admit I'm excited.  I haven't experienced much of anything in years with such intensity.  The unity experience with it's accompanying bliss would be preferable but, hey, Ill take what I can get.  Should I let the light take me or what?


Thanks,


S.




Response:


S.,


What an opportunity!!!!! Let it take you!!


I missed that opportunity in 1969, and it took me another 26 years to awaken.


Go for the light!!!!!!!!!!!!


Ed


BACK TO ED:


Edji-

Thank you for you blessings and guidance.  If it comes for me again, I will let it destroy me.

Last time it touched me I perceived the totality of Consciousness for almost three days, without a 'me' or center.  This time I will know to go deeper thanks to you (if there is anything left over).  Even today I feel the world as unreal and am quick to be drawn into laughter.  I feel it waiting for me like electricity behind my back.

I hope to meet you There.

At Your Feet,

S.

On the Perfection of Practice, Devotion and Grace

Edji

Hello Sir,

I just wanted to take the time to thank you for Satsang.  It was wonderful sitting in your presence, and the experience of the whole Satsang pulled me deep within and touched my Heart.  There were many hugs between us, but the first one we had was very touching for me.  I am so happy that I could be there with you, and thanks to the other attendees as well it was a wonderful experience all around.  I cannot thank you enough for offering your home and your presence to all of your students.

When I briefly spoke to you about practice at Satsang, you recommended that I send you an update, so I suppose I will try to describe my state as best I can, and hopefully you can get an idea of where I am at and, what, if anything, I should focus on practice-wise:

I see that all states sleeping, waking, and dream come to me, and are separate from me or whatever my deeper nature is, which is not a personality or individual, but an observer of experiences.  There is nothing inside me, so to speak, there is just the experience of Ryan during waking consciousness, the experience of dreams during dream state, and the experience of Nothing during deep sleep.

This is partially concept based and not yet fully realized and partially 'who I Am', because I still  identify - to an extent - with Ryan in the waking state, however I know that I am not him.  He is just an appearance that comes and goes, yet I am constantly present and watch all states pass.

I am more centered in beingness now, however, and this has completely altered the perception of time and the experience of 'being human'.  Days literally pass like they never happened, and each experience just gives way to the next in the ever present stillness of emptiness in which beingness, sensations, thoughts, and all else floats.  The emptiness prevades all, yet I still identify (although toa much lesser extent) with the experiences, because, as I said, I still have a desire to explore being human before 'I' completely detach from beingness and this world to the 'more real' world of emptiness.  A part of me knows this shift from experience to emptiness is already happening now (and that it never happened at all), but I am still at a place where the world interests me in the same way a toy interests a curious child...  

I have a feeling of complete innocence here.  I feel as if a child wrapped in the arms of his mother (as Rajivji so aptly describes consciousness at times) lacking all control, and having faith and acceptance that everything will be OK in mothers' arms, because how could they not, Sir???  I will be honest, though, at times I question if things will be OK, because I see and experience the suffering in this world and I just don't know... I don't know....  It makes me realize this world and beingness itself isn't all fun and bliss, but has much pain and suffering, which is why I want to help you and make it my life's mission to help other beings.   

My dreams are much more vivid and I remember most of them.  I had one especially vivid dream where I felt like I was in waking state, which made me realize that the world is really just a projection of mind.  I have yet to see many visions in meditation (I know these are as important as any other experience--that is not at all), but I had one of the boy in the article you posted. I became the boy who was murdered by that man... I was the boy laying on the ground with leaves scattered under me, and a shadowy figure was standing above me with trees surrounding us. I felt so afraid.  He hit me twice in the head with a rock, after the first strike it obscured my vision and then he picked it up and threw it at my head again... and it was over.  I didn't feel any pain, but I felt the fear, terror and anxiety of the boy... Tears burst out, I couldn't control myself, it makes me emotional thinking about it even now.  I also told you about how my Heart blew up after which the 'sting' of emotional, and physical experiences of life has slowly dissipated as you've stated.  I understand that they are unreal and transitory, but moreover I accept them for what they are, and in this embrace have become contented beyond any temporary feeling of happiness. 

I love you so much, Edji. You are my Self, not like how other individuals are reflections of the Self, but you are pure consciousness - the Self of all apparent selves... I see this better now, and feel it when I look into your eyes.  You are not human.  You are beyond all this and deep inside I know I am You and You are me, and I know I am beyond all this, but because I have not yet had this experience it remains conceptual knowledge... 

I am no longer in any rush for experiences of oneness, bliss, transcendence, or enlightenment as I once was when I began this path with you.  I am just interested in being honest to who I Am and being as accepting, loving, and caring to all others and myself as I possibly can, because that is being true to who I Am -- open, loving, caring.

... This is a lot of surface stuff. It's all mind.  I have no idea if this gives you an idea of where I am, but I tried.

I suppose I already know the answer to any questions on practice I may have --- shut up and go within!!!! :) 

And it is just that which I shall do!!  In the meantime, I await our true meeting, Master.

Love beyond words,

Ryan

RESPONSE:   Ryan, where you are is the perfection of practice, devotion, and grace meeting.  Just persevere in the moment as you are. 

My greatest love and respect,


Edji

Hello Dear Ed,


A progress report :)
I wrote to you a week ago asking your advice on how to stay centered in the I AM, as it can be "temporarily forgotten". You encouraged to:-


"Be gentle. Don't force it. Just watch the attention going outwards and return to I Am.
After all, the I Am must eventually go."


Well, dear Ed I have been doing as said, gently watching the attention go out and come back to the I Am....Must say, t's more watching it come back really, because it's hard to catch it go out every time. But that also is getting easier with constant practice. The awareness of being present each moment is now increasing, and a peacefulness prevails in daily activities.


There also seems to be a massive connection to the heart now. There was a connection before, but now this has magnified....like a bliss filling space of the body.


It used to be only ocasionally that I would feel like the witness of all things in the daily activities, however, it is almost constant now. It is also seen that no-thing is real now whether in meditation or waking state.


Dear Ed, I do hope that this email correspondence is not an imposition....I know you are very busy, and I would never want to keep you away from the great work you do on behalf of the cats of Los Angeles.


with much love
E.

Look at my friend's blog, Mary Cummins. She rescues and rehabilitates injured wild animals in the Los Angeles area. We have worked closely together on any number of animal issues since January, 2006.  Last year she rescued and rehabilitated several thousand animals, including squirrels, skunks, raccoons, rabbits, dogs, opossum, turtles, etc., and saved 95% of them.


http://animaladvocateswildliferehabilitation.blogspot.com/

For every horror story, somewhere there is a saint. Dr. Conrad shown in Mary's latest post, could be a candidate for chief vet at our low cost, non-profit clinic.

A difficult lesson on the cruelty of consciousness

10-yr-old’s body found in Chembur; evidence points to child sacrifice

Panic and anger in the neighbourhood as special investigation teams struggle for clues

Ashutosh Patil

The mutilated body of a 10-year-old boy was discovered on a hilltop near Chembur-Vashi junction on Sunday afternoon, sparking panic and anger in the neighbourhood. Circumstantial evidence and the condition of the body have given credence to the theory that the boy, Joginder Mali, may have been a victim of child sacrifice which followed sexual abuse. Joginder, who lived in Bharat Nagar with his eight siblings - they are five brothers and four sisters - and parents, went to school on Saturday morning and never returned. Joginder’s father, Hariprasad, who runs a small pan-cigarette shop in the neighbourhood, filed a missing complaint at 9 pm at the RCF police station. The victim’s family hold up a picture of 10-year-old Joginder Mali and (below) the spot in Chembur where his body was found Though both the boy’s neighbours and the police searched for him, they made no headway until Sunday when they stumbled upon his body in some bushes on top of a hill some 200 metres from his house. Joginder was lying in a pool of blood, his head smashed with a heavy stone which was left next to his body. Police also recovered a bunch of red threads commonly used in rituals, ceremonial red and black powder, bottles of essence, incense sticks, a plastic bag with cooked rice and photos of deities worshipped by followers of black magic. The crime had been committed under a banyan tree, and the articles were recovered below another banyan tree 20 ft away. According to an investigating officer who did not wish to be identified, a razor was recovered from the spot which was used to tonsure the boy’s head and later slit his throat. Investigating officers observed that the spot was chosen with a lot of care. It is right behind the Oswal chemical factory, more than 100 feet deep into the bushy patches, and fairly isolated. “There is no way anybody would have heard the boy’s screams,” said an officer on condition of anonymity. While the police have not yet arrived at the murder motive, the post mortem report has revealed that the victim had been sexually assaulted as well. Shirish Shelke, senior inspector of RCF police station said, “We have registered a case of murder under section 302 of IPC and our special teams are looking for the accused.” The Chembur unit of the Crime Branch has also been roped in to carry out the investigations. Although evidence points towards child sacrifice and black magic, senior police officers have refused to confirm it. At the time of going to press, the investigating team had found call receipts from a PCO which may give vital clues about the murder. Apart from this there were no clues left at the crime spot that could lead to the accused.

Please, please, please re-watch the Consciousness is a Harsh Mistress Satsang on this blog.


I want you to completely let go of the notion that Advaita advances a theory that every moment is perfect presentation of peace and love, and you are at every moment embraced by a benevolent consciousness that works every second to bring you to freedom, and that a "real" student or a "real" teacher are lost in pacific bliss every moment.


Spiritual states are important to bringing you to a final experience of who and what you are at the deepest level, but in the end, it is the understanding of who and what you are, a strong conviction based on experience that is unshakable no matter what happens in this appearance of your life and world.


Consciousness tends to be most unkind. The child who disappeared in Mumbai many months ago, for whom Rajiv searched for months, was never found. He may, like many other children, have been deliberately blinded and turned into a beggar by mobsters.


I am leaving it to you to be kind and just. This often requires a lot of effort, sweat and tears on your part as well as disappointment. Do not get lost in trying to maintain a state of temporary peace.  Awakening has nothing to do with peace.


Take a look at Christ's history. Was his life of peace, or harshness and death?  Krishna fought on the side of Arjuna in a great war, telling Krishna it was his duty to kill even his relatives. Moreover, Zen has a history of violence and equanimity even in the midst of battle. 


This is how we all have to be: to have a strong sense of morals and justice in this apparent world, and act to make it better and kinder, even if that means you have to fight to make it so.


With this in mind, we are going to launch on another blog, an expose of VCA-Antech, and how their buying over 500 veterinary clinics and then doubling and tripling practices has had a ripple effect throughout the US and Canada, resulting in far fewer animals getting effective treatment, and at a cost to those who can no longer afford vet care for their pets.


Eventually, this campaign will result in the establishment of low cost, non-profit veterinary clinics that will reverse fee levels and provide care for people who cannot afford current vet prices.

Dear little Dustin died last night of kidney failure after a nearly four year struggle with cancer (small cell lymphoma), irritable bowel syndrome, and stomatitis. He had most of his remaining teeth removed 2 months ago because he was not eating. His oncologist was at VCA West LA and suggested an internist there, Dr. Bruyette, to determine why Dustin was not eating.

Dustin's kidney functions were just about normal with a slight elevation in his BUN, which Bruyette discounted as reflecting kidney disease, because his other and related blood values were normal. So he recommended a third dental examination, cleaning and extraction to better manage his stomatitis, which began about 14 months ago.

Well, it wasn't stomatitis that was bringing him down, but kidney failure, which Alan Chinn, a psychic, had diagnosed two months ago.

While I was away in Pheonix for 15 days, Dustin deteriorated. When I returned I took him into the West LA VCA to Bruyette to find out the source of Dustin's severe weight loss. Dustin had gone from 7 lbs 4 ounces in late November, to 5 lbs., 3 ounces when I returned.

I had noticed Dustin was drinking more water even before I left for Phoenix, but his blood values had been near normal just 3 weeks before.

Dustin was hospitalized for 4 days at West LA and put on an IV. His BUN was 147 on entry (hign normal is 28), and his creatinine was 9.1, with anything over 2.1 an elevation.

This was an enormous and sudden decompensation.

Anyway, the 4 days of hospitalization cost over $2,800, which followed almost $1,000 for an unnecessary dental just 2 months before.

I also want to point out I never saw a doctor at West LA VCA. I could not get an appointment and had to drop him off. I talked to Bruyette for 5 minutes on Friday (Dustin was hospitalized on Thursday afternoon), and I talked to another internist on Sunday for 15 minutes.

Nor did anyone from VCA West LA call to find out how Dustin was doing after he returned home. 

Avoid VCA West LA, they have gone totally over to the Darkside of rapacious and unrepentant Capitalism, as did the human medical model years before. What is worse, VCA now owns Antech Diagnostics, which is one of the leading veterinary labs, and which has drastically raised its fees for tests submitted by independent vets----because they can. They selectively charge higher rates to small practices with low volumes, and much lower fees to large practices or VCA clinics.

In any event, Dustin did not eat after he got home even though his creatinine had dropped to 3.9, and BUN to 71. So we force fed Dustin with a syringe for alomost 2 weeks, up to 130 cc a day of Science Diet AD, as SD KD cannot be syringe fed. He even gained weight. I took him to his usual vet, Adler, now also VCA, and his weight had increased to 6 lbs. 2 ounces. However, blood tests taken 3 days ago there showed creatinine had gone back up higher than even when he went into hospitalization at VCA, West LA. His creatinine was now 10.1, and BUN 156.

Last night (Jan 30) I went to get him for his 6 pm feeding, but he was under the bed and I could not get him. Two hours later Kerima and I got him out, and found he was already in a borderline in a coma despite doing well the previous days except for not eating.

My nickname for Dustin is my tumor, as whenever I lay down, within minutes he'd be on my chest, looking into my eyes or sleeping.

So I put Dustin on my chest. He was ever so quiet and his eyes were open. Then he seemed to revive a little and began looking at me. He laid there for about an hour, and I picked him up and carried him to Kerima in another room, and put Dustin in her lap. He was there for about 20 minutes then began a series of coughs, about 15 or 20, that gradually got weaker, then he died with her holding him.

All of our other cats were very disturbed. They knew something was happening, but not what. Dustin is now lying in an open box for them to see and say goodbye however cats do during this night. Sometime today, Cal Pet will pick up his body and cremate it, just as they have done with 8 other cats over the past 21 years.

Kerima was heart broken, holding tightly onto Dustin and crying profusely. I tried to tell her to let go and be more peaceful for Dustin's sake, as when most of us feel really sick or are dying, we like to be left alone.  But she got lost in her emotions and wanted me to sympathize with her holding on and crying, but I could not. I wanted Dustin to feel peace while passing, not us holding onto to him.

Daisy, Dustin's sister, had died 1.5 years before of kidney failure at home also after 4 days of hospitalization at Adler's Vet Clinic, which at that time belonged to a different corporation. That hospitalization, with the same treatment mostly, for the same diagnosis, cost $720, of 1/4th of Dustin's hospitalization at VCA West LA. She died peacefully at home also. This shows you the moral corruption and greed VCA-Antech has brought to the entire veterinary industry who are following VCA's  pricing practices.

I will tell you more later, but there is a crying need for quality veterinary care, such as we received at Adler VCA in Reseda, even after they had sold themselves to a large corporation, versus the 4 times as expensive VCA West LA just 1.5 years later.

In fact, this will be a mission of our Ashram: to establish a low cost, non profit, veterinary clinic charging less than half VCA rates. This would be a not for profit vet clinic. We are beginning exploration of this concept at this time.

There is no way an 80 year old on social security can afford the usurious rates charged by current vet practices. Something must be done to help pets of rescuers with dozens or hundreds of animals, as well as the animals of the elderly and poor who are now going without care. More about this later.

Anyone who lives in the Los Angeles area, and who is interested in getting together for an informal Satsang followed by dinner at a North Valley Thai restaurant with good yet inexpensive food, please email me.


I was thinking of a Saturday evening, once or twice a month.


Unlike Robert who held Satsang twice a week, I don't have that much to say unless moved by a hiccuping consciousness. But I can just hang out with the best of them. Anyone with private issues will be able to address them to me privately also.


satsang.online@gmail.com

The Final Truth

December 21 Satsang #6 (Better Video to Follow)

Many of you have come to Satsang after intense study of some of the new spiritualities based on Indian and Buddhist traditions. Some of you have  actually studied with a master from an original Indian, Buddhist or Taoist tradition. But, you have to realize that almost all of these traditions are filled with as much nonsense as born-again Christianity.

Basically, all of these traditions are just 2000 and 3000-year-old Indian or Chinese folklore, just as Christianity is based on 2000 and 3000-year-old Judaic folklore. If you believe in the divine birth of Jesus you really don't belong at this Satsang. If you believe in reincarnation, karmic balance, and the spiritual evolution of the soul, you will really have a hard time in this Satsang, because we have no beliefs, or at least you will have no beliefs if you want to go free. Part of going free means going free of all words and concepts.

Even some of the mind states and concepts written about in Rajiv’s and my own book, Autobiography of a Jnani, are not real in the sense of being absolute truth or universal experience. The concepts of a causal body, the subtle body, and Turiya were mentioned in that book, and those concepts and associated experiences helped bring Rajiv to freedom. His background was Kriya yoga. He was familiar with similar concepts and easily experienced the various states to which I gave names and explanations. Doing this he obtained freedom.

I have to tell you, I played no part in this. Consciousness was speaking through me to him. There was no planning or fore-thinking on my part. What I said to him was purely spontaneous, the speaking of consciousness through me to the deepest levels of consciousness within Rajiv.

It is through this teaching and experiences that brought Rajiv to freedom and this now conditions how he teaches. I had both similar and different experiences, which condition how I teach, and how consciousness uses this apparent Ed Muzika.

Most of the time, the problems and dilemmas I see in students are easy to remedy, but sometimes consciousness takes over completely. Almost all of these Satsangs are not me, but consciousness speaking through me. I am aware that I have nothing to do with the words I say. They arise deep in me and make it out through these loose lips. They are consciousness speaking in a way to help you wake up. Therefore, don’t blame me for anything I say; consciousness made me say it!

But I want to make clear: absolutely nothing is true and absolutely nothing is real. All experiences, all concepts, all states are not real, even though at times consciousness makes me speak about states and experiences because It feels that is what needed at the moment.

Take a look all around you now. Look about your room. Look at your hand. Look at your belly and your toes. Look at the computer monitor and all the letters and images on it.

None of this is real. That is, what you think you see is not real. It is a play, a show, a drama created by your mind superimposed on the underlying but chaotic phenomenology. You do not see the “reality” underneath the appearances that the mind creates to allow the false you to function in the world. The "real world" is nothing like what you see now, and itself, it is not real either in the sense of being autonomous and self-existing.  It depends on You for existence.

Even when you gain freedom, you do not see the "real world,” of formless phenomena, but you thoroughly understand that the world you live in is a projection of your mind; it is all consciousness as is the mind itself. The underlying flux of phenomena always has an interpretive layer of mind between you and it.

This interpretive layer creates a very dull and boring world and life. With meditation the interpretive layer can nearly be eliminated, and the world becomes very vivid, colorful, immediate and with no boundaries. But this is not awakening, this is only seeing the world as a child sees it before the "I" is born. Going free is quite different.

When you go free for the first time, what happens is you no longer identify with the body. You see clearly--I should say you understand clearly--that you have nothing to do with your body. It is only an appearance created by mind superimposed on the “reality” you perceive with your eyes, hear with your ears, smell with your nose, taste with your mouth, and touch with your hands.

Your body is still there, as well as all the other objects you have ever seen in the world, but you no longer identify with the body. You identify with the space that permeates the body and all other objects.

Everything, everything becomes like a hologram. Everything becomes an appearance permeated by stillness and emptiness, by the Void which captures and interpenetrates all the worlds of appearance.

Then you laugh the loudest laugh ever.

You see that all the drama you've committed to for the last 20, 30 or 50 years is completely wrong. Your body is just another object in the room--a hollow prop. Your identification is now with the totality of everything that is seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched, but most especially with the void which contains it all, and which does not move. The void is a part of the appearance that does not move. The void is everywhere as a constant. Sometimes there are two or three voids, one representing the emptiness of the ego and concepts, the other the emptiness of all phenomena.

The body is a joke. Given that the body is seen as a joke, not being real, only a hollow appearance, the ego no longer fixes YOU as attached to the body. The whole drama is over for you. You float free. You feel unending happiness.

Now if the body and the world are not true, and they are only appearance, where does that leave science? That is easy. Science is not true either, it is only a commentary on appearances within emptiness, and itself is empty no matter how functional it is within the appearance that is the world. It is a science of the hollow.

Our apparent world is like a dream. Imagine you are dreaming that you are great scientist, and you have made marvelous discoveries about the nature of the world of the dream. You have created the equivalent of Einstein’s field equations about gravity in your dream, merged that with quantum mechanics, cosmology and String Theory. This allows you to predict all sorts of things in your dream, including how to make a nuclear reactor and H-bomb, as well as passenger airliners that can fly 500 people at 600 miles for 11,000 miles.

All of this you do in one night in a dream. Maybe you even win the Nobel Prize for being the most brilliant scientist ever.

But the next morning you wake up, and all that wonderful scientific theory that you created vanishes. You may remember one equation, but that whole world melts away and you laugh, because all your great discoveries were bogus, mere mental creations within the larger mental creation of the dream. Some people may even hold onto that one equation and search all over to find it or something like it in some cosmological theory.

Sometimes manic depression also appears this way. One week you feel brilliant and creative, and perform wonderful works in your own mind. Then, a month later all of that goes you feel nothing or else you feel depressed. Sometimes that manic activity really was brilliant, but a month later it feels empty with no substance to you.

This is how the mind works. Whenever and wherever there is consciousness, the mind creates form and meaning. That is its function. Form and meaning of the mind creating functioning.

Now, the same is true of all the Eastern mysticism that you have studied before you came to Advaita. All that has to go down the tubes. You can't believe any of that understanding, because it is about the waking dream, just as science is about the waking dream. Eastern spirituality and science both disappear once you go free, and you are happy and complete, knowing nothing except that the world is unreal, and you are unreal, and in fact, you are nothing at all.

Since the body is not real, none of the so-called chakras or energy centers in the body are real either. They are just part of the dream, and belief in them and concentration on them just nails you ever more closely to the body. Rather than freeing you from the body, they nail you ever deeper into the body because you believe the centers really exist within the body. If you believe that these spiritual centers in the body exist, you can not accept your ultimate freedom, that the body does not exist at all, and you are not the body, that you are entirely beyond all of that.

Believing in even part of the illusion prevents you from seeing through the entirety of the illusion. So you have to drop all of those spiritual concepts as totally bull. All of them!

All those ideas about spiritual evolution, rebirth, spiritual causality, chakras, heaven and earth, all have to go, because as long as you believe in them, you cannot be free from your earthly coil. The same holds true for all the myriad of samadhis and special states one attains through meditation and self inquiry. You may experience experiences that are similar to Rajiv's with the causal and subtle bodies and Turiya, which means you are close to going free, but you have to go beyond these experiences, totally into the unknown and unknowing. Totally let go of concepts.

But more importantly, you have to recognize that ground state around which all other states revolve. There is a core state one might say, which is really nothing at all, which we give various names like the witness, the ultimate, pure awareness, which is really YOU. This is what you remain after the body drops away. It is this that you must learn to identify with over and over again. It is the center of gravity of the universe.

Existence and nonexistence and all the states, and all the experiences, and all the people, and all bodies, are only appearances that the fundamental YOU experience and know. Your true existence has nothing to do with any of this. Your true existence is sentience, knowledge of the existence of YOU as the center of the universe, the absolute.

You have to realize that every time you ask a question about how to practice self inquiry, you are asking it within the illusion that you are a body mind, and you want an answer that fits that within that illusion.

For example, you ask “How do I sink within the body, how do I sink into the background, how do I sink into the heart or abdomen? How many hearts are there? How do I manage kundalini? How do I quiet the mind?”

All these questions about how to practice are asked from within the illusion that you are a body mind. I try to tell you the fundamental truth, which is that you don't even exist, but deep in your heart you know that you do exist. You take the existence as real, rather than the witness of existence as real, because you don't know the witness of existence as YOU. You identify with the appearance, not the witness.

This is my dilemma. How do I answer your questions which I see from outside of your illusion, but which you accept as reality? How do I reach YOU, within the world-appearance that you have created and accept as real, and help YOU escape, by helping you see through the illusion?

Part of the process is to keep repeating to you that you are not the body, that you do not exist, and that the world is unreal. This teaching is like a medicine for your disease of identification with the appearance of the body. You must understand and accept at some deep level that both you and the world are illusion. This will lead you to questioning all of your concepts and beliefs, so that you can become completely stupiod, like a brick.

Then self inquiry will reveal ever more subtle and empty levels of consciousness and allow the space for you to see that all phenomena, including the most fundamental, which is the coming and going of beingness, all happen to YOU, but none of it is real. The world is like a dream, is created by the imaginative-creative function of mind, which twists the underlying phenomenal chaos into a mechanistic world of cause and effect, time and space.

That is my dilemma. How to show you the way out of the illusion from within the illusion? How do I convince you that the world is not real, that you are not real? How do I convince you to stop thinking as if the world were real, and science is real, and Eastern mysticism is real, and Santa Claus is real? Maybe by now you know that Santa isn't real, but even that might have been a stretch for you to understand at one time.

But what about the world? How to understand that the world is not real? One can only see this when you see that you—as a person, a human, a phenomenal entity--are not real; you do not exist. Then everything becomes hollow and empty, because everything was created by mind, which is insubstantial with no substance. You are seeing the emptiness of your concepts, which is the emptiness of the entire world, including the existence of your body and mind itself.

The only reality lies in that principle which witnesses all this, whether we call it the witness, the absolute, or awareness. And it has no quality that one finds the world. It does not exist in the world. It is entirely beyond the world and any property of the world. It is entirely beyond existence and non-existence.

That can only be understood when your mind drops out of the appearance of your head, deep into your body, and then your appearance of consciousness will spread through and penetrate everything. It is so easy, and yet so hard. Merely drop your attention deep, deep, deep down within the appearance of your body. Consciousness will begin to spread everywhere, and the void will be revealed as a self illumined emptiness which interpenetrates everything.

The easiest way to do this is to look at the I thought and also the sense of I. They are different. Watch where the I-thought arises, and with your tactile emotional being, feel the sense of presence which is associated with the I thought, which Nisargadatta calls the I am. They are not the same, but they are closely associated in the mind.

A harder way, but a more direct way, and a more frightening way, is just to dive inwards and downwards into your inner darkness, which after a time becomes an inner emptiness. Just hour after hour, day after day, look within, look into the emptiness, look into the darkness hour after hour, day after day, week after week until the void nature of phenomena is revealed as well as your nonexistence as a being. This is true self inquiry, not mindlessly repeating the question "who am I?"

None of this understanding comes easily to most. You need to persist and recognize that it is your thoughts and thinking which prevent you from going free. You can deliberately try to silence the mind, but that is putting the cart before the horse. Instead be aware of the I thought, and where the I thought arises out of the inner emptiness. Be aware of the sense of presence, and also that you are witnessing the sense of presence, you are witnessing the I am.

Most people cannot tolerate such an austere practice. They want to utilize their busy mind, make theories, make connections, and gain a complete understanding of the whole process before they commit even 5 minutes to meditation.

The mind has totally subjugated them, and it becomes the "host" of your beingness, instead of the guest of the absolute, which is YOU.

You must have courage, determination, perseverance and trust in the teaching and the method. Most of you have that trust in me or in the method. You need to develop that trust in yourself, and accept that is within your power to discover who and what you are. It is this kind of confidence which is really important to successfully going free.

You can have faith in me, you can have faith in the method, but you must also have faith in yourself. You get faith in yourself by throwing away all concepts, all science, all Eastern mysticism, all rebirth fantasies, all spiritual evolution fantasies, and just look closely within at the nature of your inner world, towards that which witnesses that inner world.

Don't be in a rush. Don't look for immediate results. Don't keep second-guessing yourself asking whether you're doing it right. Just turn your attention completely around, from looking outward into the world, to inward towards your inner darkness and emptiness. That's all that you have to do. Just as a scientist observes phenomena of the world, you must observe phenomena in you and find out that which is really you, and what is not real. What you think you are is not true. You don't exist in the way that you think you exist.

Once you own the "state" which Nisargadatta calls the absolute, or the witness, then you will realize that all the steps that you took to escape the illusion, and which were done within the illusion, were never really taken. You never moved even one inch. You never practiced even one minute. You never practiced self inquiry. All of this happened within the unreality of the waking dream, and is fundamentally unreal. There is no you to have ever practiced or become realized.

Many of you interact with me frequently, and I joke with you and you joke with me. You wonder about what I like to eat what movies I like to see, and what I think about the world, etc. But you see, you are trying to identify with me as a human, rather than with that reality which is beyond existence, which I cannot show you directly. I can only talk about it and the method to get there.

So I may tell you jokes to keep you entertained, in a sense to make the world more real to me also, so I can function in it, but fundamentally I've nothing to do with this world. That which continues to function in this world is a vestige of the past. It is like a spinning top that keeps spinning  even though no longer is anyone making it go faster and faster. Yet I identify with none of this.

I have seen through the illusion. I don't care what happens to my body. I don't read books, not even spiritual books anymore. I don't listen to music, except sacred music once in a while. I don't care what kind of home I own or the car I drive. If I had three or four boiled vegetables a day I'd be very happy. Robert always said don't pay much attention to the body, just take care of it, but don't be too concerned about it. If I had my druthers, I would never move from my couch. I'd be lying on my back experiencing total happiness of being and doing nothing.

But something in me still keeps me in the world. Perhaps it's as a spinning top. Perhaps it's my habit of feeling all too deeply the suffering of all sentient beings, and wanting them to be safe and free. Many of you feel the same way, that's why we are a spiritual family and growing.

So, you need to bear with me. I'll try to wake you from the illusion, even while I continue to act as a human because doing so built a bond between you and me, so that eventually you can see in me the deeper levels of self that exist within you, and vice versa.

In the meantime, as we grow as a family, each of us is finding new ways to exercise compassion and a deeper understanding. Jean Reilly will be moving in with my mom in Phoenix, and will be in close association with Ryan Altman, also in Phoenix, who is taking over the editing function of the LA animal watch.com blog. I am confident that he will become a new powerful voice for animal freedom and no kill animal sheltering. It is almost miraculous in the way we are coming together as a family in compassionate together-action.

Now, let us dive deep within our self, the one and only self. Let us dive deep within the darkness and emptiness that is within the appearance of your body, and seek the origin of your existence. Dive deep within, going downwards and outwards into the ground, to the great darkness and emptiness that is the background of consciousness. As you do this, consciousness becomes bright and self illumined. This illumination is the substrata upon which the mind builds the world. By seeing this illumination, you're seeing the deepest level of the appearances of consciousness, but you are beyond even that. Now let's go down deep.

Short Notice: Satsang this Friday at 5 p.m. Los Angeles time. Contact Jo Ann through the wearesentience.com website for info.

Many of you do not know that I also maintain Southern California’s leading animal blog, http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com, and have done so since March, 2006 after a new General Manager of LA’s Animal Services was appointed. Unfortunately, because of increasing pressures on my time due to Satsang issues and my mother’s health, I have spent little time maintaining this voice for the animals.

Now a solution has been presented. Ryan Altman of our spiritual family, lives in the Phoenix area and is a 24 year old college graduate in philosophy. He wanted to move to LA to be close to me and help LA’s cats. However, at this time Jimmy and Marie are taking care of most of the colonies that were overwhelming me a few years ago, and I immediately thought of Ryan, with his training in critical thinking and writing to take over the editorial function of Animalwatch.

Ryan’s meditation is quite advanced and he will be close to Jean Reilly and my mom in Phoenix, even as he develops as a new voice for the animals.

I will introduce Ryan to all the animal rights people and government decision makers in Los Angeles as he gradually takes on more and more of the functions of becoming a prominent voice for No-Kill and animal rights.

Thus our family is already expanding into a missionary role of saving all sentient beings, much more rapidly than anyone has anticipated. 

Janet was right on with her comment about our spiritual family, Satsang and a possible--soon--ashram.


Some of my happiest (pre-awakening) days were living in various ashrams, such as Muktananda's in Santa Monica, and various Buddhist centers. There is something wonderful about sharing a common practice and vision. I am impressed by how much we are already functioning as a real, and ideal, family.


Perhaps we can create one or more little oases of gentility and compassion while the world seems to go to hell around us.


Each of us seem to be finding our roles within our community. I am impressed.


Very soon our online community, now limited to 25 people, will expand to where we can have 200 online with two-way video, thanks to the untiring dedication of Jo Ann and Alan Chinn.


Rajiv and I will expand Satsang in the sense of having more frequent guided meditations online-perhaps weekly.


Many changes are coming very quickly, and I'll keep you informed as our together-future unfolds. I think Robert would have been very happy with our family.

Thankfully I am back home in Los Angeles  after 15 days in Arizona.

My mother is recovering slowly in a skilled nursing home in Sun City Arizona.  She will be going directly home in 3 or 4 weeks.  I had thought that she would have to go into a group home, or an assisted living facility somewhere in the Phoenix area.  But due to our wonderful spiritual family, she will be able to go directly home and stay with a full-time caregiver. Two people in our Satsang volunteered to drop whatever they were doing and to move in with her to take care of her.  How can I imagine such kindness?

The first person who volunteered is a wonderful young man with very deep meditations and understanding. But my mom was not comfortable with him because he is a man, rather than a woman.  This young man has a great spiritual future.  Already his meditation (self-inquiry) is very deep, as is his compassion and devotion.

Better for my mother, another member or spiritual community, living all the way across country, decided she needed a radical change in her life, and taking care of my mother would be it.  This wonderful person is Jean Reilly, of our own spiritual family.

Everything came together with surprising speed and ease.  Edji I, a Toyota Prius, was piloted by two other wonderful members of our Satsang, Andrea and Cary, who drove me to and from Phoenix.

After viewing several group homes and assisted-living homes in Phoenix, Jean volunteered to caretake my mom. Our spiritual family is coming together. Hopefully Jean will be able to school my mother somewhat in our spiritual tradition.

Our mother of Satsang, Jo Anne, has continued in communication with Web Ex, and the program is improving.  So  many people are coming to Satsang, we may need to change programs to make it only one way video, which would allow one hundred people to attend satsang rather than just 25 as we have now with two-way video.  Previous talks can be found at http://wearesentience.org.

Tentatively we are looking for a place to do a retreat.  I would like to do it in Sedona in the not too distant future.  After a 6-day retreat we would shoot up to Grand Canyon for a day or two of R&R.  This certainly is not set in stone. If some others can suggest a location and specific facility as well as offer reasons why he would be a good place, please communicate.

The best location of the world probably a small Baldy Zen Center, but it is quite expensive to read all of the separate facilities that would be needed. The play should be open, mountainous or by the ocean, with great scenery and quietness.

There is also the possibility that in the near future we could have an ashram in Texas.