Satsang today, November 30, 2013, one hour earlier than usual at 5PM California time

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

Sign in the password "edji" on two different screens. Mute your microphone. 

Satsang from Phoenix Arizona by menas of Starbucks WIFI.

September 7 Satsang available now

Edji Online Satsang September 7, 2013 from Edji Sangha on Vimeo.

Matti Discovers Self as the Energy Bodies

Dear Edji,

I feel am not this body, but a creature of energy. I take a deep breath and feel my relaxed dominion over things around me. There are many humans below me, few by me and none above me. I am creature that hunts and devours. There is no true love, only shades of position. Golden energy shines inside me. My being is strong and sparkling. I exist and roar. I have charisma and meaning as my tools.

This is shining personal beingness that has been always inside me and I have felt it sometimes, but now I can access it on will. There is nothing else quite like it. This is as intoxicating as the most extreme feelings of love I have experienced. However I wonder if this all is somehow wrong and evil?

Matti

ED’s REPLY:

You are on the right track, for there are two aspects of Self:

The witness

The love/energy/bliss body, Turiya.

Many think it is just the impersonal witness that is self-realization. Even Nisargadatta adopted this concept near the end of his life, but up until the time of his first book, written many years after his awakening to Krishna Consciousness, he emphasized love and the various energies, whether of the Subtle Body, or deeper in Turiya, the basic sentience and bliss thereof.

Most definitely , the Self is not just Parabrahman, the Witnessn.  It is ND the manifest Self, Turiya, as well as the balance of existence.  But the energies and love fill the manifest emptiness with light, power and sentience.

This is your best so far.

Ed

Bhakta, Bhakta, Burning Bright, in Kali Yuga's Dark Night

Email from Steve who attended our October Retreat:

My Dearest,  I AM IN LOVE.  I am truly in Love. 

With what I do not know but it is coursing through me this very minute. Every atom of my being is deeply in Love. This is so overwhelming and deep and meaningful-never have I felt this much encompassed and surrounded in such an elixir of Divine Grace.

This is not a personal love it is impersonal and a thousand times deeper than the deepest waterfall. 

My dear Love Edji, you and Deeya placed a piece of coal in my soul and it is turning into a untouchable Diamond that lies so deep within this soul, its brilliance is drawing me directly to it, its radiance is pulling me to it (I AM coming Home). Finally I am on that footpath of Light.

Just your compassionate thought produced a whole new reality.

How can I ever thank you, its impossible to repay the Divine but only by your example can others know of the true brilliance that exists before them.

I bow my head to the Lord.

God took me today.

Everyday you breathe through me

The Kindness of you Heart

I bow to You both.

Oh! what a wonderful thing to be so DEEPLY in LOVE

It burns....and a fire has started.

OH! I LOVE YOU.  steve

MY  REPLY:

Fantastic Steve!

But I need to caution you.  Such fantastic love usually is accompanied by a flip-side of negative emotions often called the Shadow Side.

The Shadow manifests when the Beloved fails the expectations of the Lover for one reason or another.  The Lover feels rejected, despised, ignored, jealous or hurt, whereupon the darkside needs to be worked through in what is often called "shadow-work."

This is when most relationships break up, and the former Lover becomes a hater and a hurter.  There is a 180 degree turn from projecting positive elements onto the Beloved, to projecting negative elements.

At this point, the former Lover must understand this is where the deepest spiritual work occurs--working through the shadow.

Usually it is not all positive then all negative, but a cycling between the two.  It is very, very important not to run away at this time.

This has happened to other students, though not so dramatically as is the case with Lila.

Think back into your own life.  Remember when you were overwhelmingly in love with someone then something happened, an affair, a breakup of some sort, and then how much you hated that person for a long time and perhaps broke off the relationship yourself.

Or perhaps someone loved you totally, madly, but you also felt love for someone else, or maybe you left the first relationship for love of someone else, and the first Lover went nuts and became your primary hater.

It is very, very important not to leave the relationship if the other leaves it open despite hate going one or both ways.  You owe it to yourself to work through the shadow, the negativity.

SATSANG TODAY, SATURDAY NOVEMBER 23, EARLIER TODAY BY ONE HOUR

SATSANG TODAY AT 5 PM CALIFORNIA TIME. 

THAT IS ONE HOUR EARLIER THAN USUAL.

I AM NOT SURE IT WILL WORK.  I AM IN ARIZONA AND WILL TRY THE WIFI AT A STARBUCKS AT 6 PM ARIZONA TIME, WHICH IS EQUAL TO 5 PM, LOS ANGELES TIME.

I AM NOT SURE HOW THE STARBUCKS VENUE WILL WORK OUT.  I MIGHT HAVE TO SWEAR LESS.

GO TO http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

sign in on two different screens with the password: edji.

Phoenix

I have been in Phoenix since Saturday. The 377 mile trip took a little over 6 hours.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my 96 year old mother in better health and mood than when I last saw her, 2-1/2 years ago.  She looked younger and healthier, probably because of the excellent care received from her healthcare worker, Lorretta.

Her previous caretaker of many, many years really did not provide the same level of care as now.  Lorretta prepares one to two hot meals a day as opposed to merely microwaving TV dinners.

I have a pesky cold that has hung on for 22 days, but I have been on antibiotics for 5 days, and I feel better.

Take care and I love you all!

August 10 and 24th Satsangs Now Available

Edji Online Satsang August 24, 2013 from Edji Sangha on Vimeo.

On the WAS website:
http://www.wearesentience.com/satsang-videos.html

On the WAS Vimeo page:
http://vimeo.com/79294995

Edji Online Satsang August 10, 2013 from Edji Sangha on Vimeo.

FROM A STUDENT AT OUR LAST LOS ANGELES RETREAT:

Oh My Loving Edji, These burning arrows of Love from you and Deeya are killing me ever so slowly. They penetrate my body and as they rip through, the SEARING pain is overshadowed by the TREMENDOUS BLISS. I feel like a ghostly yo-yo, entering the world and then leaving it. Even the slightest daily events get my heart center rotating and tears start to flow. 

I am desperate without your presence even though I can feel you all the time, almost physically at times - it is just not enough. I am never going to leave you Father and Mother. Forgive all my begging as it it my HEART screaming for completion. Oh what a Glorious day when we become one. 

I can feel many angels and saints and lights surrounding my meditations, along with your so loving presence. 

p.s. please send Grace to my wife also! She is watching this happen and secretly wants to join in also.

FROM A NEW VISITOR TO OUR ONLINE SATSANG ON SATURDAYS:

Satsang was pretty amazing. I couldn't figure out how to use the camera on weebly.com, but you should have seen my dog. He was totally blissed out. 

There were big heart and crown energies for me. A little challenging to ground, but manageable. I was really surprised how strong the energy was just via internet. 

I'm really happy that you sent me a message, and then I was home alone (with the dog and cat), so it was just perfect. Thank you.

THE DISCREDITING OF EXPERIENCE IN SOME SPIRITUAL CIRCLES

There are many spiritual teachers who tell us to ignore experiences because they are temporary and come and go.  They say the only “reality” is in the unchanging source, variously referred to as “beingness,” “emptiness,”the “source,” etc.

They say resting in this beingness reveals the manifest world as a flowing stream of manifestation, delightful to watch, and yet not touched.  These people talk of wanting nothing, seeking nothing, being nothing, and the profound peace they feel.

However, no matter how much they try to escape this fact, they are still talking about an experience: the experience of watching an unending flow of experiences and yet still unattached, unaffected, feeling happiness and great peace.

One of the characteristics of many of these people is the feeling they convey of having direct access to a higher truth than you have, and extolling their experience of an indifferent witnessing of the experiential flow.

Please tell me how the experience of being a witness apart from the flow of other experiences is in any way, superior?

Having dwelled in their delusions of superiority for a long time, having felt arrogantly supra-knowledgeable, I know what a trap this is.  These people often talk of others as living within the confines of learned stories, repetitive patterns of childhood-fostered beliefs and societal-accepted patterns.  But they don’t realize they are living out their own story of having attained non-attaining, escape from the common experiences of others they regard as trapped in stories.  But they are still trapped in their ideas of having found a truth worth conveying to others of a kind of impersonal, non-seeking, ordinariness, which to them, is extraordinary.

Ironically, many of these people refer to their state as “true self” as opposed to the false self of multiple stories of the mind, but there is no feeling of self, no sense of me, and they take this as transcendence.

However, this impersonal witnessing is hardly a state to be admired because it lacks “juice.”  “Juice” is the capacity to fully immerse in that stream of experience and take it into the “me,” the sense of I Am, and living from there entirely energized and enlivened by the Life Force.  There is such unbelievable joy flowing with, swimming with the flow of experiences, temporarily identified with those experiences as they unfold, as opposed to being separate and witnessing them.

From this place we reclaim the I Am, follow it to its base in our consciousness revealing that base qualities of objectless awareness of love, energy, knowledge and bliss.  This I am IS JUST AS PERMANENT AS THEIR UNCHANGING WITNESS, because without an experience of the I Am, there is no experience of the witness.  It is only the flow of experiences being witnessed that reveals the witnesser to the witness.  When the movie of Consciousness stops, the witnessing is ended, and the witness has nothing to perceive and all self-awareness disappears.  Without the stream of experiences, the witness does not exist  in the sense of being known or knowable. Only the presence of the I-Am sense, the sense of me allows a self-reflexive knowing of self.

It is my firm belief that all these teachers who talk about witnessing the flow from an impersonal stance, either have lost that sense of I Am, of personal self, or have never experienced it.  Many, many, people to not experience a solid sense of self, of aliveness, or joy and sorrow-filled juiciness.

SATSANG TODAY-SATURDAY NOV 9, 6PM CALIFORNIA TIME

GO TO http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

SIGN IN WITH THE PASSWORD 'edji' on two different screens. Then mute your mike.

LET US CLEANSE SPIRITUAL DISCOURSE OF MEANINGLESS TERMS AND SEEK ONLY SELF-REALIZATION

Let us be clear about several things.  The terms “enlighteNment” and “awakening” are useless.  They convey too many different ideas to too many different people.

Let us settle on the term “Self-Realization” as perhaps the only one that MAY HAVE an operational/experiential definition, and we can define it in several ways.

But I want to make it absolutely clear that Self-Realization” does not mean one has improved one’s mind or soul in any way.  One has not progressed and necessarily become more purified than before, although that may be the route some take.

One does not become something superior or better than one was before.  There is no progress towards a higher state.

The mind is not eliminated, but it does become a tool of the Self.

What happens is that FOR WHATEVER REASON: grace, meditation, sadhana, God or guru, you, as an individual, suddenly know who you are as Consciousness or awareness or Witness, and realize you are not just the body, but that your body is in you.

You are sentience itself, you are life and the Life Force (Shakti) itself.  Your essential nature is bliss, energy, and love, not the body, mind, or emotions.

You always were this Self, but because of misconceptions, confusions, focus on body, mind and emotions, you never saw your own Self clearly.

You are that Life Force.  You are the knowing of that Life Force.  You are the principle of sentience, of being aware of both body and Consciousness.  You are the energetic spark which explodes into your awareness like an H-bomb revealing that your little body/mind unit is nothing but the infinite energy and knowingness of the infinite flowing through you.  You and God are one.  That is the feeling of that experience.  God and I are one.  He sits in and around me, and I willingly serve as his servant.

DISCUSSION ON DAVID GODMAN'S GASPUMP INTERVIEW

DAVID GODMAN GASPUMP INTERVIEW,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Godman's interview with Rick Archer

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

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

Why I talk about my experiences

MY EXPERIENCE NOW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What if you were only an Idea?

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

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

But what is Consciousness and the objects contained therein?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does this mean practically?

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

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

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

From another attendee to the Self-Realization Retreat

Hi Edji,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fantastic, wonderful!

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

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

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

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

That is your Grace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M.

Ed's Response:

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

From a beautiful attendee at our recent Self-Realization retreat

Dearest Edji,

Oh boy, what an intense trip...

Thank you. Thank you Ed for your kindness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still feel very exhausted both physically and emotionally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous

Is the Guru Superior?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AWAKENING LOVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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