31 July 2011

AMENDED:

To finish what I started to say when we 'lost' you again (with technical difficulties at Satsang).  There has been a mini Edji in my head all week.  You mentioned to us last week about the importance of having one teacher, one teaching.  This advice was taken to heart very deeply.  I relistened to last weeks satsang several times to make sure that I understood your directions and I adhered to your advice.  I love the simplicity of single hearted devotion to one teacher and teaching.  There was no confusion, the mind was clear, the practice simple...Love the I Am, meditate on the I Am.  The love is definitely growing, surging through the body with great force at times.  The sense of presence is so much stronger, so obvious.  The sense of a seer that sees even that is also sensed more frequently.

You also told us to be alert and see that states come and go but do not touch us.  This has been experienced this week as well.  Moods, feelings, energies...gross and subtle manifestations coming and going and most of the time there is a sense of 'not being touched' by them. 


This heart is taking great refuge in the teacher and the teaching...the inner one and the outer ones.  The trust and surrender are growing naturally.


Thank you so much for the satsangs that we all enjoy so much with you.  They are priceless, the high light of the week.


Love you so much,

ED:

PERFECT!!!

I want everyone to see how different Robert's and Nisargadatta's teachings are versus all the neo-Advaitins' teaching you don't have to do anything, just realize everything is consciousness: the objects; people; furniture; sky; emotions; and the void itself.

They all deny there is anything beyond consciousness, which is the singular, main point of Nisargadatta's teaching and also Robert's, though he rarely articulated it in public. For them, consciousness is everything. I want to take people beyond consciousness, even though the knowledge of that beyond is in awareness, the I Am.

To me, the neos have only scratched the surface.

Back at me:


I had sort of a 'reality check' experience yesterday.
I was driving over the mountains with my three kids to do some shopping.  All of a sudden there was such presence of beingness, aliveness, bliss, love...  It was like the eyes were the lens on a camera and they opened up really wide, letting in everything; the trees, the cars, the road, the sky and the body.  Everything seemed the same but without a center.  There was no sense of a me driving, but driving was happening; no sense of a me seeing but seeing was happening.  Just pure perceiving.  So blissful!  It was hard to keep from laughing out loud.  The whole experience - at its peak - lasted about 20 minutes.  Toward the end the sense of the 'me' came in and with it thoughts of fear.  But it was all watched.  If I had to pick a concept I'd have to say it reminds me of what Robert speaks of as Sat Chit Ananda.  It is still lingering, but not as strong as earlier.  But just sitting here typing there is such spaciousness.  The center 'me' comes and goes and that coming and going is watched.   

There really is no one behind all of this is there Ed?  No center, no one to whom anything is happening, just happenings and even these are witnessed...
Ed:

Yes, when that state becomes "permanent," you are considered awakened, at least the first stage.

Very, very good.

Ed

30 July 2011


Dear Edji,


I have followed both your website and blog for a couple of years. I also notice that you say love is the gateway to the I am and the I am is the gateway to nothingness, to the mystery of the self. I have the deepest respect for your teachings because you express my own experience so clearly and truly.

Two years ago I met a woman were traveling in France. Her name is René. We only saw each other three times over a period of three days.  But there was something about her that clicked in me instantly--the way she looked at me. She was very gentle, loving, and surrendered, instantaneously from the first moment we saw each other. I was taken aback, and sort of pushed her away, but she let me know with her beingness she loved me intensely despite my resistance. The whole situation was so strange. I thought this was something that happened to 15-year-olds. It was as if she had thrown herself at my feet in surrender, and I was touched deeply.

It turns out she was a follower of John Klein when he was alive, and was deeply aware of Advaita, as was I, who practice self inquiry for many, many years. Like you, my primary experience was always of an inner emptiness, where I was filled with peace, but no affect. Unlike you I was never a teacher, but a botanist. I worked with winegrowers the Northern California for many years, that is why was traveling in France as I do yearly.

So we shared that, a love of the infinite, but for her it was love of God, of presence, not of emptiness. She talked to God, and God talked to her. She told God she was lonely, and later she said God sent her to me to be loved by me.

We were together just a few hours, but a seed was born.

We wrote to each other, we phoned each other, and finally Skyped each other, sometimes for hours a day.

Something happened to us.  Anyway, her love for me opened me up, and like her, we had the most amazing loving experiences 6000 miles apart.

The process was the same for both of us, but she felt it first.

At first she felt it as an energy arising out of her belly and upwards into her heart, where her heart felt a little pain like a pressure as the energy was blocked. The pressure built up as her heart became filled with this energy, until there was like a puncture, and the heart blockage broke, allowing the energy, now felt as love, to course upward through her neck and face and upwards into the world and towards me distantly removed, as love.

Later, this energy began to be recognized as love immediately even before it coursed upwards, and what had been a weak stream of energy and love began to fill out in form, until it felt more like a river of love that filled her body and in which flowed outwards into the world continuously, yet still filling her more and more full, her entire sense of presence, with love. Then she would say she is the lover, who has become love itself, and she would say I was the source. At times too, the love transformed into heavy eroticism with alomost continuous orgasms on her part without any physical touch in any way.

This is actually quite a simplified outline. The process forms, and colors of love experienced by both of us kept changing, and changing, and changing both the quality and intensity. I had no idea love can take so many forms and have so many expressions.

This streaming love began expanding and happening more frequently, and it became more rarefied, and subtle, no longer seeming like a river of energy, but more like a gentle air, I gentle breeze which no longer moved as a current, but which became still and filled her body with ecstasy and swooning. She felt drunk with love, from time to time and went deep into a peaceful samadhi. This is another story altogether, how she gradually began to know about the infinite.

I just watched all this with amazement, and I felt so happy, so very happy that she was feeling this way with me, and because of me. Always, I too felt love of her and for her, which gradually became, as with her, a river of energy flowing from just below the diaphragm through my heart, up into my face and through my fingers and hands outwards the world towards her, and I too began to be filled with love, but only for her. I too had totally surrendered to her, my life, my soul.

Unlike René, I did not identify with love, but identified with me, David, as her lover. My love for her was always personal, and sometimes erotic, but was felt as a river of love running through me, filling me, making me blissfully happy, until I felt strong yearning and longing for her, which took away my happiness, and I felt like a crying little child wanting her love. Later I was to find that that yearning and longing, was preparatory opening to ever deepening levels of love. Love of a depth and quality that I never knew was possible, that I never felt before. And I am 54, and have been in love a lot my life. I am married with two grown children. I am very happy with my wife and our life, but my love for René had nothing to do with this and was entirely beyond this, in a way like an Olympic runner is faster than an 80-year-old with a walker.

Well, René is married and we never met again. But we continue to talk, and her love persists and grows, as does mine, but with inevitable ebbs and flows depending on how the environment is impacting each of us.

Sometimes it seems almost psychotically deep, deep childish fears and fantasies come out, and we both become a little nuts, demanding, childish, frightened or angry, feeling pushed away or abandoned, or otherwise narcissistically injured.


But soon I began to feel what she had felt. A rising energy of love in me that flowed upward into the emptiness that is my body, filling it with love, pausing briefly at the heart and spilling out into the world towards her. There was a progression. At first the flow seemed small, like a creek, but rapidly, over time became like a river, and then like and entire ocean of love flowing through me. Love flowed out of me through my face head, arms and hands, and mostly directly from my heart towards her distant presence.


Gradually just as with her, my love sort of became purified, lighter, more like air as opposed to a fluid, and my body felt filled with such sweetness, the essence of love, which was like a constant ecstasy which grabbed my entire being like a wrestler grabbing a child. I totally identified with the ecstasy of love, and I began to feel God's love for whomever or whatever appeared in front of me. I say God's love, because by now it was so great, so overwhelming, so beyond me, I felt it could not possibly be human.

Alternately we both felt almost drugged by the states of ecstasy that possessed us. Sometimes just saying a few words, like “René I love you,” sent her into multiple orgasms which gradually transmuted into ecstasy. I did not feel the orgasms I as did she, but I did feel the ecstasy, and a deep desire to be with her every moment of the day and night, which at 6000 miles apart was not easy.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, René is married, and we never met again. We never touched each other again as we wanted to, and perhaps we are afraid that if we were to meet everything would dissolve. So our love has become transmuted into God's love. That is the only way to explain it. The whole thing about how it started, how we never met again, and yet the love grows, and how the love permeates both of our beingness to the extent we both feel as one, is just so beyond explanation or beyond anything we ever felt before. Only attaching the word “God” to our experience makes any sense. I feel her presence in me all the time, and she feels me.


As she is very open, she told her husband as to what was happening to her, which has caused immense problems because of his jealousy--which I understand. It also caused her to feel guilt because she did not love her children enough to her mind, and her husband was always demanding that she love him more. He constantly tells her that they are married and she made a commitment to love only him many years ago. Anyway, this is entirely another story, but part of the "environmental" variables that affect day by day the intensity of how we feel towards each other.

Edji, you made a statement once that once, Muktananda wrote a book called, "I Have Come Alive." This is how I felt. Because of her love, I became alive. My own beingness is constantly suffused with this love that I have for her, and the same is true for her. Our sense of presence interpenetrates and are mingled. Sometimes I feel my own love for her, and sometimes I feel her love of me. They are the same. In a sense there is no need to meet, even though I deeply desire it, but I recognize that the yearning and neediness I feel sometimes, is a prelude to a deepening of this love, and it seems that there are no limits to how large it could grow. 


Already I have been astounded each time my love for her grew another step, but each step upwards in intensity, was followed by a plateau, and a diminishment of the intensity, which was again followed, almost as if I fell in love with her again, and the intensity would grow, and grow, and the quality of my love would change, becoming ever more fluid and vacuous, until it filled the emptiness that is me with a constant sweet with ecstasy. I fully understand when you said, "I am. I am. I am."

This was my experience too. The movement of love gave vitality to my sense of presence, my I am, purified it, rarefied it, made it more subtle, and more powerful. It is a constant unfolding.

I really don't know what your experience was Edji, but I feel something like this must have happened to you, and I love you for your ability to express the infinite with your presence and your words. Keep it up. I love you.

David 

28 July 2011

Ed,


One thing I'm finding is that the love that is initially directed to the feeling of "presence" sometimes begins to eminate of itself in a more open and less object directed way. Maybe not love of everything but a general and undiscriminating feeling of love. I am also getting a better sense of what people mean by "heart" and the importance of heart to meditation and spirituality more generally.  ---F


ED:


Yes, there is a progression.


Eventually you will feel love like a flowing river, moving from the lower gut area, upwards through the heart, then upwards into the head, face, arms, fingers and spilling outwards into space.


This will gradually transmute until you feel filled with love, and the flowing outwards stops and you identify with love itself. I am love.


Over time, sometimes just a short time, that still, calm love transmutes into total ecstasy. At first of the body, then your whole sense of presence.


Lots more happens.


It is a good opening, but certainly not the whole journey, but it is an energy source for what lies beyond ecstasy.


Back at me:


Ed,

I don't think I really understood what is meant by 'God is love'. Now I understand what is meant by identifying the I with love. Also noticed being unperturbed by my wife's outburst of irritation. Very interesting.



Ed:


Other things will happen too. You will begin to understand more and more about consciousness and beyond consciousness.

25 July 2011

Last Saturday's Satsang


Please turn up audio volume to maximum.

22 July 2011

Another Advaitin comes in from the cold:


That guy Charlie... I think someone needs a hug.

Funny, I used to state "nothing matters"...  as we discussed, true.  Reality just could not be any other way.  Now I returned after years to, that yes nothing matters and also as I have been encouraged I also embrace the deeply self-evident truth that in radiant aliveness "everything matters".  My body/beingness/vitality feels more alive and responsive again--I no longer just feel cool awareness or samadhi states, or anguish, etc., --now I also feel--LOVE--fulfilling, nourishing, satsifying--much gentler on my once--broken body! My appreciation much more rooted in my body, the world.  This to me mirrors awareness/identity as wisdom and then of love. Simply the ever-present experience of full reality acknowledging thus appreciating thus celebrating, thus thanking the self! A constant cosmic hug!

In part, I always felt that my conviction and awareness were true--jnana.  To state otherwise would be a lie--yet it never felt right or complete--possibly because I do not have the full conviction or awareness being awake--but for me I do now see I also lost connection to another self-evident truth--bhakti, which feels so enriching--always saying thank you, thank you, thank you....  What joy to be rejoined, lost twins, now hand in hand, though sure, bullshit comes and it goes.

Peace Ed,


Ben

21 July 2011

From an admirer:

Ed - 

Your website is largely an embarrassing rat's nest of jibber jabber with scattered coherent content and broken links which is poorly formatted and unprofessionally designed. Why even publish this mess in it's current state? 

If you are redoing site, you may want to get off the Nicole Adams hating band wagon. It is very off-putting as is your negative, derogatory comments about other teachers in your blog. You are doing a service to none.

Regards, 

Charlie


Ed: 

We need Charlie to write derogatory remarks about other teachers for this blog.

I think Charlie knows our new website will be up soon, and it is gorgeous.

20 July 2011

Ed: 

I wanted to write you and let you know how much I appreciate your web-sites and teaching.  You seem to be one of the few Advaita teachers around that understand the value of samadhi’s and meditation in general. I began TM (mantra meditation) when I was 18 years old.  It promised to deliver a silent mind and rested body and well it did on a sporadic basis. The yogic goal was to empty the mind/consciousness and find the transcendental silent source.  This conscious silence (called pure consciousness) when repeated in the transcendental mode was to spill over into everyday life.  This did not happen quickly as promised. The deal then was to increase the amount of time in meditation. Again, after extended months in meditative isolation the practice did extend silent well being for extended periods of time. It was, however, like a drug that wore off. I can say, however, to some extent there was some seeming permanent growth in the direction desired but not the tease of expectation.

During my late twenties I felt I had to get serious about a career and put aside my preoccupation with spirituality as a lifestyle. I continued to meditate twice each day for 20 minutes or so but now my attention was on the relative world. I got my MA and quickly rose in the automotive business world to VP status and enjoyed a challenging but stressful life for twenty years.. After 20 years or so of meditation I felt I needed to expand my notion of spirituality. Transcendent experiences by definition are temporary and cannot fully be the basis of Self realization given the Self must be ever present not just visited.  

I knocked around the spiritual circuit for sometime (e.g. met Bernadette Roberts) until I met Ramesh Balsekar about twenty years ago.  His advice was significant in pointing out the value of witnessing life (as if watching a river go by from the river bank). It seemed to me that was good advice as the subject of experience was conscious yet without objects (i.e. the pure consciousness I found through transcendence/samadhi). I thought now I could at least expand my range of pure consciousness to 180% by being the rear view witness of the world in front of me. It actually worked and was natural and supported later by the Douglas Harding experiments (which I’m sure you are aware of).  I continued my mantra meditation but now I added the practice of abiding as the witness space.  I later read more of Advaita – Shankara, Balsekar, Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Nisargatta.  Nisargatta, particularly got my awareness expanded and bubbling.

About ten years ago, I naturally noticed I had reached the first goal of TM (called cosmic consciousness) and stopped mantra meditation. I reasoned if the mantra was a vehicle then I did not need it upon arrival at my goal. The first goal in TM is to experience “pure consciousness” during all states of consciousness. I simply noticed one day that this was the case. Awareness is always present even during sleep. It feels like all states of consciousness have been reduced to one. After this realization I started to meditate by simply relaxing all tension in the body/mind without the mantra. I would simply drop deep into pure awareness without any content for hours at a time. This is not witnessing but emptiness with the light of consciousness present.

Some months after my first goal was meet I started to wonder what was keeping me from the second TM goal of Unity Consciousness. I’ve been told this was a process of grace and devotion but I did not know what that meant. The only thing I could think to do was continue my meditations and read more Advaita/TM Gita commentary.

I followed the traditional Advaita arguments and certainly understood and began to feel the Unity of Consciousness. Clearly, everything relative is only an expression in my consciousness.  The next thing that happened was not expected and scary. I hit the void head on and it was not comfortable. It was the deepest experience I have ever experienced and the logical end of emptying consciousness via many years of meditation. It was not only void but a seeming black void. It had the feeling of pulling me into total destruction so I resisted it. It became ever more pervasive inside and out. It is still the most pervasive experience in my life ever though I later realized the witness experienced it so it was no the most fundamental element of life. I really do not know what to do with this void experience and have relegated it to a dimension of depth. It is a depth in everything. It is so impersonal that I often think of it as the abode of God – the rock of ages.

The months that followed this experience gave deeper feelings of Unity Consciousness and visual transparency but it was clear to me that consciousness was still relative and a nirguna Brahman consciousness, based on the true absolute witness was necessary.  This is the last goal of TM – Brahman Consciousness. I have been settling into this experience for the last nine years and cannot say much about it.

This Brahman consciousness somehow does not feel complete. Also, I’m not sure I have fully dealt with this void business as it doesn’t feel like I’ve made peace with it either. Long ago I realize that I am not the doer so I’m not into pushing my life around much. I just seem to do a karma yoga type lifestyle that involves doing what’s right, in my mind, and not getting attached to the results. I do spontaneous feel bliss randomly throughout the day but do not make it a goal. There is not a lot of happiness but much contentment. I’ve wondered about expanding the bliss attention but this does not seem natural or a permanent possibility as attention fades.

Reading your articles I’ve been thinking of moving my attention during meditation to the belly and spending some more time deliberately “witnessing the witness”. Maybe I have simply bypassed this “witnessing the witness” work ever though I’ve done a lot of similar stuff (e.g. aware of awareness).  Do you have any advice regarding the void, witnessing the witness, or developing bliss in my case?

It is abundantly clear to me the subject of experience cannot be an object of experience. The mind is one tricky bastard and abiding as the Self/Subject is one subtle process. Nothing would surprise me in this regard. Meditation was great but the “pure consciousness” became an object of experience (i.e. silence). This was reinforced by the body associating with this silence during meditation as well. Unity consciousness was great but it pulled my attention to the subtle relative and the void. The void then became the pseudo subject of experience till the witness consciousness said no.  Samadhi after samadhi has moved me forward but I’m not sure where I’ve ended up.

Just being a good husband seems to be my primary goal at this point in my life.

Ed:


Here is my take. You and I have experienced extraordinary states of consciousness that come and go.

Yet I feel unchanged. I feel the same now in terms of my fundamental state while conscious as I did 40 years ago. States come and go and I remain.

I have witnessed states come and go. I became aware I am not affected at all by the content or the coming and going. I am beyond in some mysterious way from consciousness in its many forms and and content. This beyond is not affected in any way by the variation is states or the aging and deterioration of my body. 

I can watch the witness, but that just turns more and more of the mystery into the void, but I cannot grasp the witness. But what if I become the witness? What happens? What if I become this very fundamental non-state subject?

A twig snaps, my samadhi (or sleep) is broken, and the world appears! I may or may not feel one with it or separate, because that distinction arises through analysis. If I don't analyze and check my states, I just am. Sometimes in oneness, sometimes in samadhi, sometimes as a person, sometimes as the void. All these things are possible.

What then?

I notice I love the world and all sentience in it. With all my heart and soul I want to protect and cherish sentience.  I want to become a good person. I want to protect all from harm and misery. I love all, even sometimes only in a distant way. But if a hungry, homeless cat comes up, I will feed him. I will help an elderly woman carry her bags. 

In so loving, what do I care about adding further spiritual experiences and knowledge?  All of that is temporary and part of consciousness, and I am before all that, but the love I feel drives me to act correctly, compassionately for all sentience within this creation. I cannot help it. Love comes and flows through me, and I own it. That makes my actions personal, grounded.

My spiritual efforts have carried me away from understanding and experiences, to compassion and love, and the personal. Yes, the personal has returned, purified. And I am happy even when shocks and sadness come. There is a sense of peace, of correctness, that everything is right with me and an acceptance of how the world is unfolding.  Yet, I also actively help it unfold in a gentler way.

Yes, being a good husband is a fine way of being.

Ed

Back at me:


  
Your response is in line with my current life theme. It is not a popular notion but I think Karma Yoga is necessary at all levels of spiritual development. One cannot release all impediments to spiritual growth simply by meditating. It seems to me if selfish action is the causal level of spiritual retardation then unselfish action must be its final resolution. A spiritual channel once told me it was harder to be a good person than enlightened. It is a notion that has stuck with me for decades.

I know right action does not necessarily involve comfort. This is its greatest impediment. When I was in undergraduate school in the south during the 1960’s people were fond of pointing guns at me for being a civil rights worker and for being anti-war. It did not make for a great college experience but it all seemed right to me.

Compassion and love (ultimate “right action”) is also not popular or easy but I love your answer.

Namaste


P.S.

I “own” one abandoned cat and a rescue dog that shakes all the time from past abuse. They provide me with great loving Samadhi’s day after day.    

Ed:

Is not such love perfect?


Dearest Edji,

This morning there was a prompt to read "Going Beyond Existence" once again.  I cannot tell you in enough words what that did for me.
 
It was clearly seen that "THAT" which has been hunting all along was the "Self".
 
About the middle of May I had my first awakening. 
 
 Then about  2  weeks after that there was a quietness within all day...At night I put in my I-pod and listened to it while going deep within...I lost all Consciousness of Being in any state (awake, sleep , or deep sleep).  Yet at some point "I" knew that I existed...time didn't exist  ....then I heard this : "Your dead". (Then stillness) .  Then again: "Your body is dead".  There was no ruffle, no fear, just this "OK" the body is dead.  It had no bearing to who I am..(then stillness again, or emptiness or nothingness).  Then I heard the voice again...it said: "Your body is not dead" " Look,"  how can it be dead when it is listening to music?
All of a sudden...hearing happened....and I could hear the I-Pod which had been playing all along....and I could feel the body once again.
 
Since then, so many wonderful Phenoniminal things have happened, some I wrote to you about .
 
But today after reading your Going Beyond existence I can clearly see this...(you wrote)
 
Then the “new” practice becomes looking at the looker, not at some body sensation or false I in imaginal space. You are already aware of the looker, but not that the looker is the true you. You have been caught in the misunderstanding that the looker may find the true self, when in fact, the looker is the true self. The looking "for" is the problem; the looker is already complete and at rest.
Therefore, join the looker.
So there are two steps: locate the looker, as the subject of sensations, and try to play with it to observe all its manifestations, then to rest in the looker, relax and let the looker look, and become the looker only
 
Edji, once again I want to thank you with a tremendous depth of gratitude for having all this information available.  It clears up what is taking place.....yet its so hard to know exactly what is going on until that lightbulb moment of clarity comes from the teacher...
I am so honored to know you
and so very thankful
Love,

C.

19 July 2011

Hi Edji,


I realize that there is clinging on my part to have a certain type of experience that is sustainable. I long for that pure awareness state when there is no K or I and simply the arising and the pure witnessing of the manifest, the utter joy and bliss. But whatever experience I am looking for, it will still be within consciousness and it is not me. In a way once I recognize this the search and longing is over. But it seems I forget and go back and forth. A movement within Consciousness I guess. The doubts creep up on me.


But yes, I agree with you, longing for all kinds of experiences is a trap. They are important experiences to learn about that which witnesses them but eventually human life with its mundane experiences is just as significant. I think this is the coming back that you talk about. This is where freedom and enlightenment is found - within the myriad of all my experiences, when I know that they come and go but do not touch me. Free to fully experience life, to go wherever Consciousness takes me.


It appears that all that movement of Shakti has one and only one purpose - for the Self to know itself. An ever expanding movement toward knowing. At first it is only partial knowing. Knowing different aspects of Consciousness that we humans are aware of. Through the glimpses all beings have when their physical body dies, in the transition from one form to another. People who come back from a near-death experience talk about it. In the moments of intense experiencing, bold creativity, deep longing and love that help us transcend briefly the mind and see beyond. And the highest knowing when a sentient being realizes that all that is known is not me, it is only an appearance in Consciousness and I am the witness. That all that is known is not static but rather pure knowing. Ever arising, ever expanding. But then a knowing arises about that which witnesses it all, pure knowing about the source of all this knowing. The knowing that I cannot be known. The fact that I exist, that I am becomes known only through Consciousness but when knowing Me I become non-existent, non-manifest, timeless, unborn.


What a joke indeed. I, the Self want to know myself but by knowing an aspect of me I am not me anymore. Knowing Self means knowing not, existing not, dying not.


Love,


K.


Edji:


This the pinnacle of Advaita freedom so well expressed.  It is not permanently residing in a beyond experience state, but knowing in your heart and mind that you are beyond all, and that the knowing of consciousness is purely an exquisite game that you, as the absolute, play with consciousness, and you delight in each other. 



17 July 2011

Wisdom tells me I am Nothing; love tells me I am everything. Now my life is lived between these two points.---Nisargadatta. Satsang, July 16, 2011.

15 July 2011

Edji,

You say I have had an awakening experience, but I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel I Have anything to teach or say to anyone.

Janet.


Ed:

The real consequences of the awakening experiences you have had, and I have had, is that you know nothing, and have gained nothing because most of what you believed before has disappeared. You feel you have no concepts to teach, only your experiences, but no concepts that you had, or hear from others, fit your experiences now---or so it seems. You feel all that you can do is share your experiences. But look how extraordinary your experiences have been.

Gradually, just through repeating the experiences and halting expression of those experiences, your own truth is revealed and expressed. You already have had in one form or another, most of the experiences I had.  For almost 12 years I was silent about them as I did not know what they meant. They did not seem to fit what Robert taught or others taught. Then gradually it came togther for me. Ramana sat in silence for 20 years before he did any teaching.

Your truth then is and will be totally your truth based on your experiences, not concepts learned from Ramana, Robert, me or Ramakrishna.

It is then all yours. You need to build your own truth. This is what I am trying to do with you. Have you articulate your experiences and make your own connections, which will differ from mine.

You say you feel no different. But you do feel different. You are much happier now on a consistent basis and you are far better able to articulate your own experiences. You are more confident. Often you just bubble over in happiness and ecstasy, and go into states where consciousness completely disappears and yet you know you are still. How can you say you are not different? Did you feel this a year ago, three years ago?

As to not feeling different, basically we all feel the same at the core. The I Am experience and beyond, Turiya, which always is experienced by everyone as the base state of consciousness that supports all other states; it hardly ever varies. I asked my mom, who is 93. She states that she feels the same as she did when she was 19, except for body pain. The experience of Turiya does not change throughout life, only the body and mind change.

Nisargadatta stated it even more clearly: that base state, the child Krishna state, is always there amidst all your other experiences, sustaining them, giving them life. Awakening does not add to or take away from this state, but does make its awareness more strongly felt. Thus you always feel the same deep inside, whether you are a sage, saint or sinner.
This Turiya gets lost because it is covered by concepts, desires and interests and endless experiences in the world. But you are clearly aware of this state now even in sleep and in dream. These states of consciousness pass by in front of you and you witness them. You also realize you always have been able to do this, at least since college. Yet you have never made anything of this experience until now. Maybe you figured everyone had it. This is rare to experience without training, but it is the common experience of all of us, but for most it is hidden from awareness.

How then can you say you have not changed? You are realizing you have always been awakened, and you are happy. How many can say this?

Janet:

Wow Edji,

Thank you for not having given up on me. I never trust my experiences although they are quite amazing at the time. I love my ecstasy and the depth of love for you.

Janet, 

The intesnity and quality of your love is the greates gift I could have received.
Letter from a Jnani, criticizing the new group of satsang gurus. His name is not important; no one would recognize him.


So here i am again, am now in Darwin where am having a warm winter! Been mostly moving around since the time we last corresponded. I find my churning over the modern day western approach to Advaita usually falls short of the mark; of not completely rejecting the apparent transitory manifestation. I wouldn't be so persistent in the subtle difference between lets say final reality and what i would call relative reality, if i didn't sit at the feet of a real master in the form of Ranjit Maharaj.

Since everything appears once consciousness becomes aware of itself the very awareness is the point of entrapment in all form and formless domains! What's  very interesting and confounding to mind is that everything is reality or the same substance, although lets say the pure substance never ever changes or takes on any modification due to the appearances that are always changing.

Ranjit Maharaj was always pounding away; put a zero on everything because what comes from zero how can it be true. You are prior to zero(space) without any touch of a you......So space is consciousness formless and all that appear in form is coming from this nothing, I find that the modern day satsang gurus are saying that this nothing/awareness is the final destination, i don't agree very few seem to go beyound the nothing to the final resting place where everything dissolves.

Only in this final reality is there a complete freedom from everything because the screen of final reality is not at all in the movie showing on the screen.

ED:

That is, you must go beyond the appearance of nothingness by becoming nothing, resting in the total silence.


The real point though for you, are you happy there?


Is it worth taking the sting out of life that you may also take some of the life out of life? Look at Maharaj, he was filled with life and talked about going back and forth between everything and nothing. He was not just beyond consciousness.


Robert, on the other hand, always was beyond. He had a very weak connection with the world. But you could feel his silence.

14 July 2011


A litter of 16 puppies. A record breaker!


Feral cats sleep like this in large colonies, in one or more huddled groups like this. It is very touching to see.
Sometimes we need a change of pace. The following is for Advaita folk who feel they may be stuck or not making much progress. It is a 180 degrees change of pace from pure self-inquiry of abiding in the I Am style of meditation, to pure Bhakti, by reading "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna."


Ramakrishna fully understood the absolute, experienced it, but ultimately rejected it. He wanted to always feel the richness of his love for Kali and Kali for him.


Below is a book link, and also tabs for an audio file of the book. Try a break from formless meditation for a month or two.


https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Ebooks/Spiritual-Books/Gospel_of_Sri_Ramakrishna.pdf&embedded=true&chrome=true



Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book for MP3 Players and Smart Phones

Audio book Audio book

#NameSizeAdded OnLast Updated OnDownloaded
1Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 1Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 151.01 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102906 times
2Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 2Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 232.98 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102193 times
3Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 3Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 339.29 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102096 times
4Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 4Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 453.38 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102136 times
5Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 5Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 543.58 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102191 times
6Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 6Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 667.94 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102157 times
7Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 7Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 772.31 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102181 times
8Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 8Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 871.93 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102108 times
9Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 9Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 971.77 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102100 times
10Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 10Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 1083.13 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102041 times
11Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 11Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 1156.04 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102013 times
12Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 12Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 1230.99 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102034 times
13Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 13Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Audio book - Chapter 1363.54 MBOct 14, 2010Oct 14, 20102065 times