Nisargadatta in a nutshell:

You as a body/mind were born.  You lived totally involved with the world and your own instincts and desires, 100% involved, but not aware of yourself as an identity, a human.

Then one day, out of nowhere, sometimes between the age of 1-1/2 and 4, it dawned on you that you were alive and existed.  The I Am was born!  You began then an existence of self-awareness, self-consciousness, aware not only of your wants and needs, but the realities imposed by the world.

Thus was born the beginnings of getting your wants and needs fulfilled through various adaptive strategies, including using your intelligence to create situations or items to fulfill your needs.  You flaunt your intelligence to gain recognition or love.  Later you may flaunt your sexuality, maleness or femaleness to get what you want.

At school you learn reading, writing, social skills, debating and how to be obedient and a good consumer.  You learn all kinds of things that you integrate into your self-image, which is opposed to a non-self image also developing, namely the external world. Now you have contracted from being the world down to living in a mental creation.  Everything, all external data, all internal feelings and energies are mediated by mind.  You no longer live in the real world but a mediated world.

All this is knowledge.

The first knowledge was “I Am.”  Before that, though you existed, I, as an entity was not born.  Before that you existed, functioning perfectly, instinctually, then the I am was born and everything got fucked up.

After that you were just knowledge, and in deep sleep, the knowledge was lost.  Peace.  But still you existed, just as you did before the I was born.

First you have unknowing, not knowing.  Then knowningness came and then it went, back and forth.  But you always exist.  You really are that principle that knows.  You are the one who contains both knowing and not knowing.

This principle is the same in all sentient beings.  Everyone has the knowing potential. There is only one kind of knowing principle and it is embodied in all sentient beings.  We all share that as the base.

When your body mind dies, that sentience dies in you and with it, your I Am. But the sentience, the knowingness principle continues on throughout the universe.

But Maharaj says it is this I Am that causes all the world’s problems and is your master.  How to end it and find total freedom from the needs and drives of the I Am?

He says to find the I Am in us, abide in it, love it, and one day, but endless loving, it will go, it will release you from its clutches once the original you, the principle behind knowingness, recognizes you still exist even when the I Am has disappeared.

The I Amness has two qualities, love and the generator of all activity.  The I Am rules all.  It is the beginning and end of everything that is visible and in experience, but YOU, as the ultimate who holds even the I Am and God and the world in existence, are beyond all that.

The trick I am adding to Nisargadtta’s method, is to add the love you find for another, recognize that it is a love for another that arises in you, focus on it, and become love itself. Once you can identify with love itself, the Self, the universal holder of the I Am, the pure I Am of all, will reveal itself to you as the most awe inspiring entity. The grace of God will flow into you, and you will be completely happy, completely ecstatic.

But you must understand, you, as you take yourself to be, are only an idea.  You are a story, not an entity, not your body.  You don’t exist as any entity. But what you really are is the power of knowing or not knowing.  Still you are not an entity; you are the principle that sustains the universe, and that which understands these words.

The Video and photos below are about the fur trade in China. PETA estimates 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs are skinned alive for their fur.  Cats and dogs are not the only animals so treated.


Personally, I feel outrage.  I feel it also about animals killed for meat in the US.  But there is a world-wide movement to stop the dog and cat fur trade, as well as eating dogs in China, Korea and elsewhere.  Some call this hypocritical because not all animals get so favorable treatment by the American general public.  I call it a beginning of awakening of conscience in the U.S., why denigrate it?




http://www.causes.com/causes/259-peta-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals/actions/1532182

Satsang was a smashing success.  I was not closely watching the statitics, but our first Satsand had 35 attendees at one point, which is more than double the average that attended our old satsangs.


I even heard from one attendee that she tried to come to Satsang a year ago when Jo Ann was running it, but discontinued because she was told that all newcomers were being screened to detect and reject "negative energies."  That is, each person had to go through at least two or three interviews with Jo Ann and Alan before being allow to come to Satsang.  No wonder that attendence dropped to an average of 15 per satsang.  There was so much fear of "negative energies" that the screening was offending a lot of people. I was wondering then why satsang was not growing.

Thirtyfour people made it to our first live L.A. Satsang in 2012. Twelve made it on screen, which is two more than the ten I heard was maximum.  It was a gas!


http://tinychat.com/ss9d/f357a9/cd/ed/wearesentience/07-14-2012

ONLINE SATSANG TODAY!

Saturday at 6 PM Pacific time, 9 PM Eastern Daylight Savings time.

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com,

Enter the password: edji

This will take you to a page with a lot of instructions and a large grey box with a rotating “eye.”  It will again ask you for a password.  Use the word “edji.”

It will then offer four ways to enter the chatroom, click on “guest.”

It will ask you for a user name.  Use any name you want.

You will then come to the chat screen, and in the upper left corner, there is a blue button labeled: Start Broadcasting.  Click it.

Then it will ask what camera and microphone you want to use, or it will start one for you automatically.

DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME AS A BROWSER; THE CHATROOM DOES NOT WORK WITH CHROME.  USE MICROSOFT EXPLORER WHICH I DO KNOW WORKS.

Ten people are allowed on screen at once, and another 90 are allowed to here Satsang but not have their videos us.  You can choose not to have your video up if you want to sneak in as someone else and not be seen.

So far on experimentation there have been hitches, so I am certain there will be screwups Saturday.

Links to the various chants are embedded below the chat screen.

To me (Amended):

Dear Ed:

Thank you so much for your website/blog and all you do...I contacted you in/around XXXX of 2009...you have two postings from that month and mine was the one that started off about Nisargadatta and I Am That being my bible...you commented after the post that i was 99% done and cooked...

Here's my quandry...i have seen through personal identity and feel i'm in much the same place as margot ridler...there's a lot of terror and fear going on and I just feel very, very stuck...there's emptiness, but little love/happiness/etc. 

I continue to live almost like a hermit...not working now (was working with Alzheimer patients) and am now back in ohio near old family and friends and feel so far removed and it's so hard to interact with them...i listen to robert's talks and listen to kirtan...but, the body has no energy at times and i find propping up a phony identity for people so hard to do...please help...any comments you have would be greatly appreciated...i truly have become a good for nothing man and it pisses me off..my mind hardly functions and i make no plans...i just feel pretty emptied out...thanks in advance for your thoughts...be well...

Ed’s Response:

Dear, dear K.

Stop reading Robert immediately.  I have heard this from so many people who listen to his talks and read his transcripts and practice his way of self-inquiry.  Robert is like a salve for those who feel deeply wounded.  His meditations and talks are kind of lifeless, and so many have sunk into emptiness and depression after reading him too much. 

This is why I advise the practice Maharaj suggests as interpreted by Pradeep in his “Nisargadatta Gita” that can be downloaded from wearesentience.com. Look within for the I Am sensation, feel love and care for it, let it expand, and things will begin to happen.

Really, I am from Cleveland.  Ohio is not a healthy environment.  None of those Midwest states are.  The mindset is like 14^th Century Europe.  Relocate to a city near an ocean or mountains.  Come where a lot of like minded people dwell, like LA, San Francisco, Asheville N.C., near masters and ashrams.

Then an external lover will come to you.  A guru, an animal, a lover, and will set your heart on fire.  Then your days of emptiness will be swept away by the fires of devotion, love and surrender.

Love,  Ed 


To Ed:


Dear Ed:

Thank you so much for your beautiful words...they are a healing balm to my flagging spirit...i am more than aware that Ohio is a cesspool, yet a feel that way about much of America quite frankly.  I've travelled extensively and lived off/on in SF for over 3 years, would often go to Ojai for K. functions...every time i exit Ohio, I immediately feel like the coffin lid has been lifted...I shall stop listening to Robert although I love him so and continue to love and care for the I Am sensation as you suggest...i really thought i could return to Ohio and stay in the I Am, but it is truly a dense, concentration camp environment here...i will make plans to leave and trust the energy to make this happen will be there...it's crazy, I'm a guy that biked across America and I can hardly go get toilet paper now...thank you again for the kick in the ass...it's what i knew, but the pull of family and friends makes Columbus have a centripedal effect somehow...i will contact the lady from cleveland, but it looks like the original thread is now gone/deleted...thank you so much for your kindness and love...

much love and gratitude to you...

Online Satsang this Saturday at 6 PM Pacific time, 9 PM Eastern Daylight Savings time.

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com,

Enter the password: edji

This will take you to a page with a lot of instructions and a large grey box with a rotating “eye.”  It will again ask you for a password.  Use the word “edji.”

It will then offer four ways to enter the chatroom, click on “guest.”

It will ask you for a user name.  Use any name you want.

You will then come to the chat screen, and in the upper left corner, there is a blue button labeled: Start Broadcasting.  Click it.

Then it will ask what camera and microphone you want to use, or it will start one for you automatically.

DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME AS A BROWSER; THE CHATROOM DOES NOT WORK WITH CHROME.  USE MICROSOFT EXPLORER WHICH I DO KNOW WORKS.

Ten people are allowed on screen at once, and another 90 are allowed to here Satsang but not have their videos us.  You can choose not to have your video up if you want to sneak in as someone else and not be seen.

So far on experimentation there have been hitches, so I am certain there will be screwups Saturday.

Links to the various chants are embedded below the chat screen.

See you Saturday!

To Ed:

Dear Ed,

I wanted to convey how much I appreciate your posts today and how much what you say resonates. But beyond what you say, it's how you say it, and the presence I feel in my heart. Sometime ago, I think it was on Facebook, someone asked how they could receive your grace if they were not physically present. You said something like, "Love me, I will feel you." Now, I don't even care to get into the mechanics of this. I don't even care if it's literal, i.e. you feel someone loving you and you send grace their way. And yadayadayada. 

The fact is that if I love you I am loving myself, and it immediately resonated as true. So, I did just love you. And do.It made perfect sense to me then and makes even more sense now.

I also relate to your description of being lost in void states. That one really gets me. I have been periodically lost in void states for over 40 years, and have made the exact fucking mistake you describe of confusing these void states for myself. Fact is, to me void, nothingness states are a dime a dozen. I'm so used to them I can pretty much slip off at will, or at least just by putting my attention "there". Sometimes it's utter nothingness, sometimes self-illumined, sometimes a curious mixture of both. The fact is I've had to claw my way back out of these void states.

Which brings me to another reason I love you. Your insistence on honoring this world, even if it's an illusory one. Expressing love even in the illusory state. All of this rings true.

Now, you may read this and say, "Waldo, you're full of shit." If so, so be it. Rest assured I'll listen to you. Or do my best.

The fact is I am passionate about a lot of things. I like being passionate. I like getting pissed off, or loving, or hurting, or being ecstatic as I play music. (For many years composing music was my sure trip to ecstasy.) In some ways, I feel I've worked out a lot. In others I feel like a total moron.With the heart I'm a fucking idiot and know it. It's never easy there. But this is right for me, and I know that beyond a doubt.

I hope to correspond more, perhaps, or Skype. Or talk on the phone. Very much looking forward to the online Satsangs. Now that I'm on the west coast a physical visit isn't out of the question either.

Yours in love,

Waldo

I will be honest with you.  It is almost impossible to awaken.  The way can be so difficult, so filled with distractions, and our minds are designed to fight freedom.

Our identities are mostly complete by the age of seven.  The time between birth and seven creates the structure of our knowledge, our identities, and is made up of all the stories and fairy tales told to us at school and in our families.  Culture  forms our desires.  We live in these stories; they become us and our world.

We feel something is wrong with the world.  It is too ugly, too much pain, too many wars, too much killing, 10 billion animals killed each year just to feed Americans. We see increasingly corrupted politicians and businesses. We see everyone operates from a position of greed and poisonous reactivity.  And, we want out.  We  don’t want to live in this world.

This was Robert Adams struggle.  He did not fit; the world was too awful.

He struggled with this realization for over a year.  Then one day he had a great realization, a precursor to his awakening experience three years later.  He came to the realization that neither his body nor the world was real!  They were stories created by the mind that overlaid deeper layers of consciousness.  I really do not know what Robert did in those three years, whether he explored those layers or not.  But I do know he was a troubled boy.  He was hard to handle.  The conflicts he saw still tore him apart. And then he awakened at age 14.  You have to read his transcripts to find his expression of his awakening.

Most of us are also this way.  We feel something wrong.  Nothing seems right.  We start looking and searching for the truth of reality.  Mostly we read, then we learn about meditation, yoga, pranayama, karma yoga, chanting and gurus, and a few start a spiritual practice, and a very few become obsessed with finding truth. They are both the lucky ones and the cursed.

What is awakening?

You have to see that the definition varies from teacher to teacher based on their own experiences.  There are endless awakenings. Some find union with God by becoming empty, some find union by giving themselves away in love. Some become empty, some become fuill.  Some become humble and accepting, others become filled with driving energy to make the world better.  As the Zen master Joshu said, he had thousands of small awakenings and 17 mind-busting ones.

So what is awakening for me?  It is a gradual process of losing our minds and identities as humans, as small frail, mortal bodies, and becoming aware of deeper identities found in nothingness and love.  So at what point can we consider ourselves awakened?  This is for each to determine for themselves, and maybe as in the Great Tradition, search out masters for confirmation as did Robert over 17 years.  His constant sadhana was to travel from teacher to teacher to see, as he said, “If I had missed anything.” Robert even had an awakening experience at age 68, the year before he died. Notice, Robert did not start guru shopping until after he awakened, not before.

But what does it take to awaken?

First, it takes a burning desire to be free, immense energy, unstoppable energy, an energy that appears to tear the body apart, leaves it burning and sometimes leaves one desperate for relief from the energies.

It takes an immense will to escape from the illusion and to see the truth.

It takes an awakened intelligence so as to not be trapped by false teachings and false gurus, including our own delusions and preconceptions.

It takes a single-minded practice, such as some form of meditation or self-inquiry, or abiding in the I Am and learning to love the I Am, which is my way.

It really, really helps to be with a teacher who has had many awakening experiences, even if not the mythical,”Totally Enlightened” being.  To this I bring in the concept from self-psychology, which states you don’t have to have had perfect parents, or a perfect early environment in order to be a well-functioning human being.  You only have had to have a “Good Enough” mother and father, and a “good enough” environment.

The same with your teacher if you are lucky enough to be open to one. He or she only needs to be “good enough” for your place on your path and your needs.

You know, there are so many people steeped in positive thinking patterns which they accept as the way to truth, that they think everything is unfolding perfectly, and all teachers are equally good for whatever student they are with.  As some say, the entire universe is conspiring to wake each individual up. This is such Pollyanic nonsense. This is the way they wish it to be, because then everything is ok, from mass murders, wars, meat eating, plague and spiritual frauds. It just isn’t so.  You have to be careful in the spiritual marketplace as anywhere else, because frauds and deluded gurus are everywhere.  You have to be intelligent and sensitive to escape these traps.

Michael Langford wrote a book called, The Most Rapid and Direct Way to Eternal Bliss.  It is really a great book for those who are ready to drop everything and begin a life of endless meditation on self. But you have to trust him and his method, otherwise doubts will finally end this path for you.  But so very, very few will follow this path. Most will burn out before reaching the goal, or they will read another book that will change their mind, and they will begin a new practice.

Robert’s final advice to me was, “Persistence is everything.”  By that he means to gain awakening, and to build a sangha.  Persistence is everything.  Do not despair if you have not awakened after 20 years.  Just keep trying.  For those who persist, they tend, as the baseball player who practices eight hours a day, to get luckier and luckier so far as spiritual awakenings are concerned.

You see I am presented with a dilemma.  My students are spread out all over the world. This is not the classical ashram situation where a teacher lives close to his students.  What do I do?  How do I help them awaken?

There are really powerful impediments to awakening, such as lethargy, lack of energy, lack of focus, lack of persistence. What do I have to do to give students energy, motivation, focus, and persistence?

Rajiv was easy.  He awakened in the classical way.  He had 12 years of progressively powerful meditation experience and maturation prior to coming to me. He awakened the classical way, with the touch of a feather.

But what about a female student who lives 2,000 miles away, with two or five kids, an unhappy marriage, who feels unloved?  What has to be done to get them to awaken when they are really searching for love, divine love in their minds? How do you motivate such a one?  How do you shake them out of their ennui and lethargy and anger?

Like I said, most people who come to a guru are just curious.  Intense practice to them means reading books, Advaita, Ramana, Sufi, Buddhist, or Osho.  They are dilatants. There is no concerted effort to use their will and determination to awaken.  They read in order to find concepts that will break their mind.  In the meantime, the mind is strengthened because they have a million ideas about what awakening is and how a teacher should be.  Most of these people, in fact, none of them, will ever awaken.  They are lost in their minds.  They even feel themselves beyond practice and become neo-Advaitins, and a whole class of gurus spring up to serve them.

Education and dependence on mind is a very strong obstacle to overcome.  One must become simple, uneducated, letting go of all concepts, or as I say, become stupid as a rock.  How to convince an intellectual to give up intellect, ideas, reading?  Nearly impossible.  Knowledge is so arrogant.

I only have a few local students.  These I see, and we transmit each other the energies needed to progress without a lot of artificial games.  However, even with Robert, I doubt more than three or four who had even a tip of the tongue awakening during the nine years I knew him.  And being near the guru is one of the most powerful practices.  This is because Robert was sort of low key and low energy.  His body was weakening with Parkinson, and his talks were often just superficial entertainment because so few students really went deep into their true nature while with him.  They kept on the surface by asking questions rather than having the courage to drop everything and go within.

So, I ask myself, what do I do?  How do I create the intensity needed to give someone the energy and motivation to persist?  Tell them to meditate when they insist they do not have the time, or mess with their ideas, concepts, and conventionality?  So many of my students want to remain so conventional and they point to Rajiv who awakened while being a householder.  Yet they did not have years with a master as did Rajiv or a dozen years of experience.

Most want instant awakening while sacrificing nothing.  It does not work that way.

Maya has each of us in a deep trap and it is so very difficult to escape.  Almost always there are great fears and struggles and lots of drama.  I find almost no one ready to make the effort or encounter and overcome the obstacles that will confront them.  Then 40 years of desultory seeking pass and still they have not awakened, and we encounter literally dozens of Facebook frauds who claim they are awakened and no effort was needed, or we encounter dozens more who claim we need to purify ourselves of vasanas in order to awaken.  Neither is true.  But who will trust this message? Very, very few.

So, once again what do I do to awaken someone when awakening is so very, very rare?  Use the classical model of progressive meditation, or to create intense pressure from within and without that prevents anyone from growing complacent?  Most cannot stand the pressure or have inner obstacles too intense to overcome in a short time.  They walk away: Jo Ann, Andrea, Janet, Ryan, Liz, Karyn, Jean, Alan, and many others.  This is always true. After 8 years around Robert, only three of his original students remained.

You see, awakening is at least as difficult as becoming a championship golfer or pianist; that is years of practice and a degree of inner skill are required.  People want to escape from the trap on Maya which is a dozen times more difficult than learning championship tennis without doing anything.  They want the teacher to wrap it up and hand it to them.  Some think they finally find it with some guru or another as the visions and intuitions come fast and furious.  But six months later, all the great experiences pass and they are not awakened. Time for the next teacher.

Janet was a special case.  I loved her, but her obstacles were endless.  She was an intellectual who trusted what she read rather than her own ability to see directly, or trust what I told her.  She would rather trust her friends opinions, or a Sufi teacher who wrote a lot of books on a lot of topics, but she refused to practice meditation because she did not have time and found the states it produced caused functional incapacitation and guilt about being a bad mother, and sexual feelings she had towards me made her feel guilty as a committed wife.  She wanted to be able to function as the perfect wife, perfect mother, and an adequate employee and still get enlightened without much practice, so she just read Sufi materials. I tell you, I give her so much ink because I love her and wish her well.

Now, after leaving me, she starts meditating and becomes simple, humble, surrendering with a new teacher, and she is doing very, very well.  She could not take the pressure I imposed, but is now applying it with a new teacher.  At least I provided her a situation where the energies are flowing and she has overcome her dislike of meditation. I bring this uo because she always brings all the issues between us up publically and it poisons how others see me.

Janet is O.K.  I love her and she is O.K. with her new teacher and is doing well.  I will no longer talk about Janet or her path, it is just that her comments on Facebook and this blog were often to paint me in a poor light, and I don’t understand her motivation to do that.

                                                                                                         

I love her and she is always welcome back in the future after she feels failed by her new guru, as she felt failed by Vaughn-Lee who she tried to flee to.

So, what about you?  Are you ready to join a war with confusion, energies, bliss and ecstasies, but also with the classical introductions to the Void?  Or does it all appear too intense or crazy to you?


I really love you all so much.

You know, I am not a big supporter of Obama.  I find him a serious disappointment across the board.  Always too little too late, including his recent executive order allowing him to take over the Internet during a declared  national emergency.  But to vote for Romney is sheer idiocy for 98% of Americans.

Sent to me:

Ed, I see deeper into you than you think I do, much deeper.

 

The difference between me and Janet, is what I see, I accept and fully love rather than criticize and try to fix.

 

The acceptance I feel toward all that I see deeply within you, is transforming me in a way that I cannot yet understand and may never.

 

I did not expect such a thing to unfold within me.  It's Lila, it's all her fault.  She is fearless.  She is everything that Joan could never be.  More on this later.

 

I feel, deeply feel, that as I love you...all of you...that I am loving me.  This feels true and alive for me.  It is not mere words. 

 

You are my mirror, so I can love me by loving you.  We are One...I know this.

 

All your deepest needs and short comings are mine as well, and I embrace them as mine.  This is why I do not wish to change or fix anything about you.

 

You are totally imperfect...and it is that imperfection that I love, that endears me to you. 

 

I don't need to use words of excessive praise, or overt criticism...my god, I love for you, nothing more, nothing less.

 

This is so hard to explain and my palette of words is not sufficient.  Hopefully you can 'feel' what I am trying to convey. 

 

 

With Love and Acceptance,

Lila

 

From a dear student of two years; name withheld.

Edji, do you think that self enquiry did the trick for me?

I can tell you It was love for you that did it.

I was seldom able to read the long posts on your blog. Followed your directions for 2-3 months and then even that dropped. I would just sit or lay staring for hours. Meditations dropped, closed eyes stopped. Shortly after coming to you, mind became thick as brick, nothing went in. I read the longer posts many a times, I am still like that. Unable to read long winded writings. No need to know more no profound wisdom to unravel... 

Unless it is a direct energetic interaction, I can't get involved. Bhakti has been the essence of my practice with a sprinkling of jnan, self-enquiry etc. You will never hear me say it happened with Advaita and all that bullshit. It happened by surrendering to your presence.

If I take that out of equation, all falls away. Osho's love, then XXXX (the mad man, my consort!), you have dissolved in each. In dissolving away in love is the completion.

I really feel complete...and whatever needs too complete more will come(... I ain't doing a thing!) I am lazy as can be. I gave away my awakening to you...and told you to get on with it! ...and you did! That is how I did it! I cheated all the way. Lazy, easy and extreme fun.

I knew I had done my hard work before bumping into you. After you arrived on the scene, falling away started like mad. In bumping into you I am done, not only done, finished off, completed beautifully. You need to bump into me now ha, ha!

It's time to create your own guru.  During the past year I have heard so many ideas of what I should be like and what behaviors I should have.  Here is the list so far,  Ed, you need to:


Be more telepathic--know when I am in a spiritual crisis without me saying anything;


No swearing;


Never get angry;


Never criticize anyone; that is, be a doormat;


Don't get emotional;


Don't attack those who kill whales, eat dogs and cats, and otherwise kill animals;


Don't say anything negative about any guru or student;


Don't get personal or human--be impersonal;


Get more personal;


Be more emotional and not so aloof.


Pick better chanting music;


Get rid of chanting;


Chant more;


Don't use the word fuck;


Don't unfriend people on Facebook.


Now be honest.  In your comments below; please "fix" me!

From a Facebook thread of Tijen Kino:


To the divine Feminine currently manifesting in many bodies: Tijen, Janet, Joan, Samantha, Ruby, Marcus, Deeya, Matthew:


Tijen, It is not a specific woman I seek, nor to be loved.  It is to find the "divine feminine" and to LOVE HER in all her incarnations.  I tasted deeply of emptiness, the Void from my first experiences in 1968, to the time in various Zen centers and temples, to my inital awakening in 1995.  Then there was almost continuous emptiness after that for another 11 years, until 2006, when I felt a movement in me to speak of my teacher, Robert Adams, and his path.

Later I began teaching online and then live satsangs in LA.

One day a miracle happened.  A student came to me filled with love for me and surrender to me.  She opened my heart to a love that was already there, but of which I was not conscious.  Gradually over a year the love grew for her, and surrender myself, and I felt the grace of God.  Divine winds of truth, love and passion began blowing through me.  My heart was on fire and continues.

My need is not to have the divine feminine love me, but to find those to whom I can give love.  It is 100% opposite of what you imagine.  I am love itself when I find someone open to it, and this openness to love is a feminine thing, I find mostly in women, but sometimes in a few rare men.  However, my homophobia is sometimes lit then.

I love you Tijen, and just want to give love to you, just as I do Joan, Janet, Deeya, and several others.  However, taking in love is usually harder for most than giving it, and it is a rare one who can tolerate all the love that can be had.  It ALWAYS requires that they love strongly and become very attached to me so that they can tolerate what arises in them from receiving love.

Janet could not tolerate too much.  She has run away 50 times. Joan often threatens to do so.  The things that come up:  Regression to being a 2 year old, a four year old, a teen-ager, and in me countertransferences and reactions to their reactions.  In each moment of giving love I feel enlivened, and my emptiness is filled with ecstatic energy that comes and goes, but also which others feel, especially in Satsang.

This dance of love can be quite painful, as much as it enlivens.  Even now Janet is writing a book about our love and our bhaktic awakenings from her point of view, and my every word is saturated with this new path which she opened for me.  You see, I have come to realize the path never ends.  The Zen Master Joshu lived to be 120 years old, and proclaimed that he had had 17 great awakenings (Satori) during a 60 year period, and thousands of small ones.  My own teacher, Robert Adams, had a final awakening experience during his last year of life at age 68.  Ramana too supposedly had a second great experience 30 years after the first.

Now I tread a bhaktic path of grace, surrender and love of the feminine.  I am filled with bliss when I see my students coming alive, feeling great, great pain of outgrowing their conditionings and concepts, and escaping the prison of their own minds, their sometime tyrannical spouses, etc.

SOUTH KOREA TO START WHALING AGAIN

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By Jaeyeon Woo

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Activists in front of the Panama City hotel where the 64th International Whaling Commission meeting is taking place. South Korean officials on Wednesday declared an intention to resume whaling.

South Korea’s plan to resume whaling despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission triggered fierce reactions from anti-whaling countries and environmental activists.

“I’m very disappointed by this announcement by South Korea,” Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. “We are completely opposed to whaling, there’s no excuse for scientific whaling.”

During the 64th annual meeting of the IWC in Panama City on Wednesday, the South Korean government cited the country’s long-standing culinary culture of eating whale meat and a need to conduct more in-depth scientific research on whales.

“In order to meet Korean fishermen’s request and make up for the weak point in a non-lethal sighting survey, the Korean government is currently considering conducting whaling for scientific research in accordance with Article VIII of the Convention,” said Kang Jong-suk, South Korea’s delegate to the international commission. The government will soon submit its research plan to the scientific committee of the IWC, he added.

Critics argue that whales don’t have to be killed to be studied and the real motive behind the “whale research” is to provide meat.

The South Korean government follows the controversial steps of its neighbor Japan, which allows whale hunt for “research,” a crack in the IWC ban that permits whale hunting for research purposes. Japan’s active whale expeditions has long drawn international criticism.

The South Korean government has banned commercial whale hunting since 1986 but allows the sale of meat from whales accidentally caught in a fishing net.

Since the ban, South Korea’s whale meat industry has dwindled. The southeast coastal city of Ulsan, considered the center of the nation’s trade in whale meat, has kept a connection with the past with an annual whale festival and a whale museum.

In April, 680,000 people visited the city’s 18th whale festival to enjoy whale-watching cruises, art and culinary activities and whale-themed entertainment parks.

Corrections & Amplifications:

The Korean government is  considering whaling research in accordance with Article VIII of the whaling convention. An earlier version of this article said it was Article VII.

• International Whaling Commission, 
• South Korea, 
• Ulsan, 
• whaling

To all my readers.  I think we need to form an International Korean

Harpooning Association. We will go to Seoule and harpoon people on

the street.  There are too many of them there already. If we get

enough, there will be fewer to eat whale meat.

Remember, live Satsangs begin again in Los Angeles (Studio City in the Valley), Saturday, July 28 at 5:30 pm.  It will be potluck for a food intermission.


Online Satsangs will begin again on Saturday July 14, also at 5:30.  Keep tuned for details. It is time, so many in our sangha are experiencing energies and bliss and I feel this in me.  It is time to have Satsangs again.

From Margot Ridler:

Dear Ed,

Michael Hall just let me know that you have posted our email conversations on your Blog and that they created quite a commotion.  Since I am not on Facebook, and do not usually read enlightenment stuff on line, had no idea.  I would like to say a few things to everyone if that would be ok with you.  Thank you in advance for being so kind and posting this:  

First of all, the emails were 'private' emails to Ed.  Kind of calls for help and clarification - to assist me in understanding what has been and is still happening with me because I am so far off the map as far as what the typical enlightenment/awakening stuff goes.  That Ed would post them for public viewing, I had no idea.  It is totally fine, of course, as apparently they got quite a lot of people jumping off their seats - which is always a good thing!  

 

Until one fateful day in December 2005, I was very happily living my life, offering wonderful healing work for 15 years, helping people improve their "I".  Then one day, I saw that there was nothing to the I which was a huge blow to my system as I had dedicated years of study and work to improving my own and other people's I.  After that, within 6 months, my entire life had crumbled until there was nothing left, including no more I.  

Now, losing everything in the outer world - including all financial, material and social safety, stability and security - and on top of that, one's sense of I - creates a huge predicament, especially for someone who has never heard about awakening or enlightenment and has no one to guide her and/or ask for clarification and help.  

I did not choose to be ejected from regular life.  I fought it tooth and nail, believe me.  But nothing I did could stop what seemingly wanted to happen - which was, to send this empty shell of Margot Ridler traveling around third world countries, with no money, not knowing a single person anywhere there, no clue as to why I was to go and not speaking a word of the local language. 

Plus, I was completely void of the faculty that previously could choose, want, wish for, decide, envision.  There was nothing operational anymore inside.  In fact, there was no more inside.  There was just This (I called it nothingness back then) doing Its thing - living life as It wanted as It had rubbed out most of the Margot programming that would have stood in the way before with the usual fears, judgments, oppositions and negations.  

This was on the one hand, completely insane - because how does one do life without the ability to choose, decide, wish, hope, want?  And on the other hand, it was an amazing blessing.  Because to live life without ever knowing anything - and with no structures to hold one in place to provide continuity, stability, predictability and safety - to be moved from nothingness, with nothingness, as nothingness - is magical beyond comprehension as anything is possible and can happen at any moment. (This is, of course, true for all people at all times, except the usual life set up does not allow for much wiggle room.) 

Whenever terror and fear would wane throughout a day (and they were constant companions for a good three years) there was this immense aliveness pulsating through the body (not correct, as there was no more sense of a body - sorry - so hard to explain.)  But there was just aliveness, aliveness, aliveness - and still is to this day.  Everything was and is seen as delicious and delightful.  

Even the attempted murder I was present for the other day.  My presence and the presence of another person (so it seemed anyway) assisted the man to eventually stop his attacking.  My body had gone into shock and was trembling quite heavily but there was no sense of this should not have happened or any sense of anger or rage or even fear.  There was complete clarity and a calm doing as I helped the blood soaked victim to tend to his wounds, called for help and then stayed with him until the ambulance boat came.  

There was power and strength and clarity present (all words to describe what can't be described - don't pay attention to the words - try to get a feel of what the words are conveying.)  A moving and doing without any thought but fully alive, fully present, fully there (all just words - don't get hung up on them - see if you can feel into it.)  

Now, you see, I was 2 1/2 years into living this way when I first heard about no self, no I.  I thought, well, this sounds like what is happening to me.  And from then on, I began to piece together, one piece at a time, a seeming puzzle that brought me to the whole awakening and enlightenment thing through the back door.  That is why in the past, have checked plenty of times with others to see what's what.  Had no idea if what was happening to me was actually what spiritual seekers are seeking and spiritual teachers are teaching - because to me there was nothing spiritual about any of it.  To me it was always all about life living life.  

But really, I couldn't care less.  I was not seeking it to begin with.  I was after freedom in my life and with my professional work - and was doing it via digging into our programming.  That the final freedom consisted of life without an I, I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams.  Have therefore, no vested interest in the whole enlightenment gig as spiritual seekers and some teachers have.  Am just an odd-ball within a very structured, well-oiled and well-working enlightenment machinery.  That is why my words shook so many of you up.  Am not fitting the mold and you don't know what to do with what I am saying.  It's coming out of left field.

There seems to be this sense that I am putting other paths down and/or am against meditation.  And that I am prideful of what is/has been happening to me.  This could not be further from the truth.   Am not seeing what happened to me as special in any way.  In fact, see it as incredibly hard and would not wish it upon anyone to be stripped the way I have been.  But - it places me in a singular position because when you live the way I have lived for six years, you will have to face what most people will never come up against.  And that's where my question, what does awake really mean? come from.  It's a very valid question from where I stand.  Why it created so much huff and puff I really do not understand.  It seems to me that everyone would want to know the answer.  I am still checking in to see what's what - that's why I wrote to Ed.  When is one all done?  As far as I am concerned, the day the body dies.  Until then, life will continue to throw us wrenches and hammers and screw drivers to keep taking the programming apart so that life can continue to move through ever more freely.  Ed would you agree with this?  

Most (if not all) spiritual seekers believe, I think, that awakening is the end-all and it is my understanding from the bit I have researched and read that this is also what a lot of teachers are conveying.  

Fully awake, as far as what I have deducted from my process, means awake in all aspects of one's life.  One cannot know how awake one really is when faced with certain life scenarios if they have not come to pass.  Am sure meditation is very helpful for many people and may facilitate awakening.  Am not questioning that at all.  The question I put out is how awake - and in how many areas of one's life? because only life can bring one face to face with certain programming, especially the deep-seated programming of safety, security, survival, family attachment, loyalty, money, etc.  It's easy to say am awake/enlightened while life goes on as usual.  Sure, everyone has their own share of problems in life to deal with.  But one can never know how free one really is from programming until faced with various life scenarios that bring them right up to the surface and smack one in the face.  

To me, program-free living is what it's all about.  An awakening experience may blow out a whole bunch of programming (for some more than for others) - but there is usually plenty left.  One can easily get tripped up at this juncture thinking that one is done.  And for those who have not had an awakening, one can so easily miss the grand opportunity life delivers in so many moments of each day where one can rip one's own face off.  24/7, life offers us the possibility to deconstruct our programming - because really, enlightenment is nothing other than the realization that the nothingness that is sought by spiritual seekers is always right there in each and every moment - yet not experienced because of the endless automatic programming, mind chatter and emotions running rampant.  

Ed said in one of his responses you are not providing a carrot that would lead anyone to follow your advice.  And two days later, a new friend asked me the same thing.  She said, what's the path you are telling people to follow?  Have had no thought about it thus far - but here is what came to me today:  I'd say, don't chase enlightenment.  You have no clue what it is anyway.  You might have all these various ideas in your heads as far as what enlightenment is.  But that's just what they are:  ideas.   Enlightenment is not what you think it is.  Your mind can't imagine what life is like with no I.  It can paint plenty pretty pictures so that you keep running after it - and all the while, you miss out on living life.  The way I look at most seekers is that they are all chasing something they have absolutely no clue about what it actually is.  

To me, that is really sad.  20, 30, 40 years of seeking - that's a lot of time and consumed energy.  I'd say, go after freedom of programming, after aliveness, after living fully in each moment.  That is worth dedicating your precious energy toward and that is actually something you can work toward achieving.  I am sure that meditation is a great tool for this.  If enlightenment is to happen, it will happen.  Guaranteed.  Look at me, it came to me and I did not even know it existed, nor wanted it.  (What a blow that is to the nicely oiled and well-established enlightenment machinery....!)

Plus, enlightenment always comes as a gift.  You can't will it or make it happen.  

...and on a more sobering note - enlightenment means death to your I.  You can't know to what degree enlightenment will create death all around "you" and actually destroys "your" life.  Look at Eckhart Tolle - his life got rebuilt into something completely new and different from what it was before.  But at first, he lost everything!  Look at UG Krishnamurti.  Look at Bernadette Roberts.  Look at the author of the Jed McKenna books.  Look at Roshi Jun Po Denis Kelly and many others.  And me, too.  If you are not willing, in the depths of your being, to die and lose your entire life as it is, there is no chance in heaven or hell that awakening can ever come your way because your very impulse to hold on to what you are and what you've got are the mechanisms that keep what is really ever going on from your view.

You all have heard a thousand times about programming and ego and nothingness - but where does it go when you hear it?  Into your mind.  And what happens then?  All kinds of ideas and concepts are formed as to what enlightenment is, awakening is, the ego is, the I is, etc.  But it's mind that's gotta go.  So hearing and reading just enforces mind structures.  

All my best to all of you!  You are all in good hands with Ed!  Warmest regards!  

From Ed:

This is Margot's story and understanding.  This too was my initial awakening experience, but there is so much more!  So much more, and also less in the sense of letting all beliefs and concepts and conditioning go.  But there comes a time when you are so empty, God comes and fills you with love and bliss.

Why am I posting this? FOR YOU TO TAKE ACTION!  Organize a picket outside the nearest Chinese embassy.  Don't buy anything from China. Repost this photo elsewhere.

A group of Chinese dog lovers leaded by Chinese action artist Pian Shan Kong came to a dog meat market in YULIN CITY IN CHINA ( Festival of Dog Fluff ) of Guangxi campaigning against eating dog. Pian Shan Kong even knelt down in front of the dead dogs in the market, confessing sins and apologizing to the dogs.Chinese action artist knelt down in front of killed dogs, confessing sins and apologizing to the dead dogs.have you noticed the mockery of employees? OUTRAGEOUS !!! Source => http://careforchineseanimals.net/2012/06/26/artist-pian-shan-kong-knelt-down-in-front-of-the-dead-animals/