It Is Not Real

2012-02-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

A tough two days.

Lakshmi is starving herself to death because of pain in her mouth and is even vomiting up pain medications and her Ciproheptidine which makes her feel hungry. I was supposed to take her in yesterday for the surgery, but my "mother-in-law" suffered from an apparent stroke yesterday morning and was in a Kaiser ER for 10 hours before she was admitted.

It turns out it was not a stroke, but pneumonia, and she is feeling better. She is on two antibiotics. In the meantime, Lakshmi is getting worse, and the vet cannot do the surgery today or tomorrow so I have to take her to another for similar treatment.

Worse, I had "words" with someone for whom I care very much, leading to the worst blow to my heart. Sometimes being open is very difficult, and the vulnerability cuts deep, as much as it fills you with joy a few days before or later.

2012-01-31T17:14:00.000-08:00

Bad news. Lakshmi's stomatitis symptoms are progressing even while her cancer is fully under control. Despite taking Alpha Interferon, an antibiotic, and a steroid combo, her gums are increasingly inflamed and bleeding. She is also taking Leukeran for her cancer. She is not eating despite trying baby food and various meat and fish combos using a food processor. She is receiving fluids every other day which make her feel better, as well as a morphine derivative for intense pain, and ciproheptidine to increase her appetite.

Her oncologist, John Chretine, now recommends surgically installing a feeding tube through her abdomenal wall, so that nothing has to pass through her mouth: food, medications, water, giving her mouth a chance to rest.

Then we can try all kinds of medications that she can not now tolerate through her mouth.

Given her state of health and of near starvation, and a mild heart murmur, there is some added risk.

This is Lakshmi's only hope. Without the surgery, she'll die in a few weeks of starvation.

Dustin, who had an identical cancer and also stomatitis, also had a feeding tube installed 5 years ago. In six months he went from 5.5 pounds to 11 pounds, and Chretin said he was getting too fat. Dustin loved the tube. Four times a day I'd bring the feeding syringe to the huge cage he was in, and give him breakfast, lunch or supper. He would see me coming and turn his left side to me, for easy access to the tube, and he'd purr and purr. No more pain for him. He lived almost three years on his own after the tube was removed.

If you are inclined to help, the surgery and immediate subsequent medications will cost a bit over $1,000. You can donate towards covering her surgery and care by using the Paypal donation button on the right, or go to wearesentience.com, and use the buttons there. Thank you.

2012-01-26T11:17:00.000-08:00

Dear Sangha,

On January 1, 2012, Jo Ann and Alan Chinn left our Sangha with no warning, sending one or more emails to all Sangha members they were leaving due to personal reasons which were unstated.

I have heard this has had a ripple effect throughout our Sangha, as people wondered what has happened and have only heard from Jo Ann for her reasons if she is asked.

So, I want to set the record straight.

Jo Ann and Alan joined our Sangha during the middle of 2010, and rapidly took over the task of building an online Satsang from Janet Beier and Chris (Harrison).

Both felt pushed aside because Jo Ann had the time and energy and technological experience to make it happen immediately, and I let her do it. Also, Matthew Brown, who was working on other projects, found she had taken those over too. Again, Jo Ann’s dedication, energy, and full-time focus allowed her to accomplish miracles in a short time.

However, I then learned that Jo Ann was spending many hours every week “working” with our Sangha members as a quasi therapist using Byron Katies’ “The Work,” as well as Levinson’s “The Release Technique,” to help people overcome whatever problems they had, while Alan was doing “energy” work with those who had illness or pain.

I did not know this. Apparently many people in our Sangha thought these were my teachings as Jo Ann was at the center of everything done on the Internet. In fact, our Sangha was as much hers as mine, since she built it and maintained complete control over every aspect.

Then during approximately early January of 2011, I confronted her on her teaching The Work and the Release Technique to our membership as these methods are completely alien to the teachings of Robert Adams and Jean Dunn (Nisargadatta), my two teachers.

Ultimately there was a rupture, which involved another Sangha member, and they left.

I am not organized and I am lazy. I let people run the show who get things done, which alienates the people closest to me, who really come for the teachings. This is my personality defect. I like to let things unfold rather than take charge, therefore it appears others are in charge, and those others are always take-charge personalities who have their own separate agendas from that of spreading Robert’s and Nisargadatta’s teachings.

On December 31, 2011, I heard that Jo Ann was widely touting a book by Peter Dziubian called Consciousness is Everything, telling me and others than in reading it she had made more progress than in many months with me.

In fact, during this time, both Alan and Jo Ann were warning some of my students not to get too close to me for unstated reasons. I heard about this, and thought it was because they did not want others to get close to me who were not also close to them. In fact, Alan stated directly to me that I was too much favoring certain students and he felt left out.

As Joan Burtner said:

“This also explains why Alan turned more and more against me as I got closer to you. He began to make nasty comments to me in front of others. As this was happening I began to feel a sense of coldness from Jo-Ann as well. I wasn't their 'project', couldn't be controlled so it all began to turn nasty.

“Which also explains the often subtle warnings they would give to me about 'not getting too close' to you. This happened often. If they couldn't control whoever got close to you, they found a reason to turn them away or chase them away.

“So, when you began to give them less and less attention and they found out how much time you were spending with me they almost immediately turned me away. But their turning me away didn't make me leave and this was threatening to their need for 'control'. OMG, this is exactly what happened. ”

Joan was not the only person they chased away. They chased away Chris, calling him insane and exuding “dark energies,” Janet, who they deemed as a dangerous manipulator, and even they tried with Mathew Brown, who refused to budge. They also attacked Ruby as having “dark energies,” as well as others. When both Rajiv and I said no one should be excluded from Satsang because of “dark energies,” the Chinns gave in.

I also found out that for months prior to her leaving, Jo Ann had been spending a lot of time with John Grenafege on skype, as well as with many other people in our Sangha discussing Peter’s book. Jo Ann represented John as a “deeply enlightened dear friend,” who had been in hibernation after an awakening he had 3 years ago, and now wanted to come out into the world and teach. Jo Ann never told me why she thought John was deeply enlightened, except that he appeared to favor this book by Dziubian. This I heard from another three other Sangha members just before January 1, and since.

This book they were recommending by Dziubian is pure neo-Advaita, exactly the kind of teaching and philosophy that I had been talking against for over two years, as it presents a totally conceptual view about consciousness, just words and concepts and definitions, such that after people read it, they feel as if they really understand the nature of Consciousness and their own true nature, but they really lack an experience of awakening.

Categorically, you cannot “get” awakening from a book. You get concepts that convince your mind that you know that which cannot be known. As Hui Neng said, “The only truth is that there is no truth; beware even of this truth.” In other words, concepts can never provide an awakening. U.G. Krishnamurti said all concepts have to be shrugged off, and Robert said much the same to me. For Robert, one goes in surrender to the guru to receive teachings, not with a book of concepts about consciousness.

Despite my constant warnings against such teachings, Jo Ann was pushing this book and these teachings within our Sahgha.

I sent an email to Jo Ann on January 1, 2012 stating these kinds of teachings were dangerous because they put concepts before experience, and can delay one’s awakening for a long time. I stated that because of her high visibility in the Sangha, people assume that much of what she is saying is authorized by me, or that she has an elevated understanding because she is at the center of everything in our Sangha.

To which she replied she was not going to stop reading the book, nor stop talking to whomever she wants, when she wants about anything she wants.

Jo Ann writes:

You are reading from the Tiger's Cave, which makes absolutely no sense to me, and telling me how good it is.

But when I find a book that does make a great deal sense to me and is having a profound impact, you quickly discount it as neo-advaitan???

I'll not bother you any more about this book, but I sure as hell am going to keep reading it!

Jo Ann’s inability to understand the teachings in the Tiger’s Cave indicates she had not yet gone deep. Those teachings require a subtle and nuanced understanding, living from the heart and not the head.

In other words, Jo Ann had found teachings she could understand and with which she felt “progress,” as opposed to the teachings I was presenting, which took concepts away, making one more open, vulnerable, and in one’s heart. Jo Ann did not want vulnerability, she wanted something her mind could grasp and which she could teach.

The next day I, and several others, received an email from her saying she was leaving, calling me a liar several times, as well as a manipulator.

After that, a whole bunch of people left without even a note, and I assume either because Jo Ann spread negativity gossip about me, or just because they suffered shock from the sudden break up.

Subsequent to their leaving, I have had people from all over the world tell me Jo Ann had been promoting these teachings, and her “Dear enlightened friend, John Grenafege” in intense Skype sessions lasting many hours, and had been doing so for months. I knew nothing of this.

I have recently heard from three different sources, one in Australia, another on the East Coast of the US, and another in Great Brtiain that the Chinns plan on starting a new satsang with John Grenafege. My speculation, if this is true, is that John will be easier to control. He has no nearby family or loved ones as opposed to many dedicated students who have opposed the Chinns grip on Satsang.

I had let the Chinns become the center of our Sangha rather than the teachings or my own contribution. They interacted with everyone on an intense basis, with far more contact than I had with you. They had their own Satsang within our larger Sangha, and they were even warning people not to get too close to me.

This is my failure in every way. I failed to take more direct control of day to day operations. I failed to spend as much time with my students as the Chinns did. I failed to present the teachings better, and I failed to warn people more about the dangers of reading too many books, especially neo advaita books.

Online Satsangs will return soon if the demand is there for them. Few have contacted me directly that they are wanted or needed. Usually fewer than 15 or 20 people ever showed up for online Satsangs.

I am continuing to work with Rajiv and some other students to establish an ashram. An ashram setting provides for the kind of constant contact an ashram affords, that the synergistic energy for breakthroughs develops.

If anyone is interested in starting something in Los Angeles, please contact me.

Please contact me directly at satsang.online@gmail.com.

With Great Love,

Edji

Below is a review of Dziubian’s book by Joan Burtner. This is included as a warning. This book can convince you that you are awakened and slow real progress of opening your heart; so read it at your own risk. I am taking this step as it appears that the Chinns have told many people in our Sangha about it, and this cannot go unopposed.

Joan:

About a year ago I read a book by Peter Francis Dziuban, titled Consciousness Is All. The purpose of this writing is not to make a critique of this particular book in any detailed way, but to simply point out the overall conceptual nature of the book; conceptual, meaning that it is heavily laden with definitions and meanings of words and meanings about those words ad Infinitum. It is a theoretical, conceptual masterpiece to be sure.

The purpose of the book, at least from my perspective, is not to invite the reader to ‘look within’ to discover their own nature, experientially, but rather to inform or rather precondition the reader’s mind as to what he or she would find if and when they did look. Even when the reader is directed to notice his or her own experience, the author goes on to postulate the outcome of that investigation. Thus the investigation is already polluted by the mind. And mind, through the power of words has the potential to create certain experiences.

In Silence of the Heart, Robert Adams said this about Consciousness. “Everything is Consciousness – everything. When you ask, ‘What is Consciousness?’ there is no valid answer. When someone asks me to write a book or give a lecture, then I have to explainConsciousness in about fifty different words, and each word has another fifty words to explain that, then those words have another fifty words. So your volume of the book is written. What does it say? “Everything is Consciousness.” I could have written one page. And in the middle of that page I would say, “Everything is Consciousness,’ and the rest would be blank. This is the reason I do not write books, because there is nothing to say. See how confusing it is? You read so many books during the week. Usually you do not remember what you read, and if you do, it’s intellectual. You are using somebody else’s words and not having your own experience.”

And yet, Peter manages to write a 327 page book about what Consciousness is. It’s mental madness, but this is just my opinion. Here is but one tiny example of this mental madness. “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Hint: “Answer not a fool according to his folly.” The real issue is not whether or not such an event occurs. The issue isentirely a matter of identification. The issue is whether the one to whom the question is asked, identifies as Present Consciousness, Infinite Being’s pure Isness – or with finite senses and time, is-not-ness. In Truth, there is no choice; the Absolute Present One being All, leaves no finite time-sense to identify with or as. Who is the only One present, existent, aware, alive? Changelessly Present Consciousness. It completely precludes such a finite time-event of a tree falling, and any questions being asked about it in Reality. To attempt to answer the question on its terms would imply there is time. There isn’t. That’s the answer.”

For a few months after reading this book, there was a sort of intellectual bliss as my mind reveled in its ability to give an explanation about what someone else said about the nature of Consciousness, at least what I could mentally grasp. I took great delight in being able to hold my own amongst my peers as we mentally masturbated as a group. But the intellectual bliss wore off and the deep longing that had been numbed by it resurfaced. There were no life changing experiences to speak of.

I often hear New Agers and Neo-Advaitans speak of how it is easier to awaken now than it ever has been. I cannot say. Maybe it’s easier than ever to ‘imagine’ that one is awakened due to the abundance of material in the spiritual market place that makes such hype out of initial experiences. These initial awakening experiences seem to be redefining freedom as a whole. Robert Adams said, that there was probably never more than a handful of truly liberated beings on the earth at any one time.

2012-01-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

I posted the following in a group on Facebook called Enlightenment Now, which tends to have some very "stressed" people. I did it as a joke:

My post:

Are you burning up from love for your guru? Try Preparation H, thinly spread over the affected areas, every 12 hours.

A lot of people laughed, including AysheGul, but look at the thread it started:

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur i am burning, burning, burning up with this love of my beloved beloved guruji, my sheikh, my all-in-all, whom i love so very much, for whom i can give my life without hesitation...this great love... i won't change this.

Himanshu JM i think we need to call the fire brigade for youAysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur :)

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur no no don't call any one... i love burning in this love...

Ed Muzika AysheGul, you are a lucky, lucky woman. God sent you a sheikh! Or vice versa.

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur i burst into the flames of love... i become drunk with the mystery of love...dervish lover circling the great guruji banquet of love in the paradise of love...

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur the light of essence shining from the great guruji merges me with the Sultan of Love ♥

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur lost in the gurujiiiiii beyond external form my body is consumed in the radiance of love... ♥

Ed Muzika Yes, I know of what you speak. The sense of utter surrender, of becoming dust at His feet, of becoming nothing, but filled with His grace and love, a love that feels like a dynamo, that fills your beingness and spills out into the world. Yes, and ecstasies that start with a roar, gradually becoming lighter, yet deeper, and have a sweet fragrance and leaving a sweetness in your mouth. In Him you feel the breath of God breathed into you! Yes, I know this well, and you are not lucky, but graced by God.

AysheGul Ashki Kaan An-Nur yes beloved yes yes forever yes ♥ one-in-love timelessly

Me: you see, such a one aflame, will go far and create ripples for a long time. This appears to be 100% opposite a direction from a Zen monk or Advaita Chela, but in fact both are lost in the ultimate pursuit both of the Infinite and themselves. One is lost in the search for truth, the other in an absorption in the other. Both become empty, useless to all but God.

2012-01-24T18:43:00.000-08:00

2012-01-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

Things gurus don’t tell you

Robert used to embrace uselessness. He used to embrace leaving your job and dropping out. He would say don’t worry about bills, payments, medical insurance, obligations, etc., just leave the world behind. Don’t worry about the pragmatics of day to day life.

The John Wheelers and Parsons of the world really don’t talk about life during the awakening process or afterwards as all of your cherished beliefs and concepts are blown away. One day you are ignorant of yourself, the next day you are awakened, self-aware and all problems have disappeared and are resolved.

This is bull. The process of awakening, losing beliefs, attachments, concepts, and even the belief you are the body causes tremendous changes in your day to day life. This is a sign you are really changing and awakening.

Relationships fall apart, you no longer love your husband or wife, the idea of being pinned to a 30 year mortgage creates nausea. The struggle to maintain payments on your BMW, $700,000 house, and student loans becomes too much. The belief in the benevolence of friends and the government go out the window. You know the wealthy are trying to take more and more from you. The health care system is rigged to extract the most money from you.

Fox News and MSMBC are both mouthpieces for a partial perspective. No one speaks to you honestly, they lie a little each word they say so as not to drive you away. Sometimes they smile and you can feel their hatred.

Strange energies awakening in you and you can’t sleep or you sleep too long. You don’t talk to the kids anymore because you are immersed in indecision about everything. You just want to be alone, or you just want to be with someone else or be somewhere else.

All your self-told lies disappear and you are exposed to your own truth more and more, and that which is not part of your truth falls away.

Things no longer unfold as they did before, but unfold in a new and frightening way as your entire past is seen as a lie and yet you still do not see your own truth clearly.

In other words, your daily life goes from a boring certainty, to an insecure emptiness, yet an incredible and frightening aliveness,

Intense practice, or intense involvement with a free teacher creates situations with a lot of out of control emotions, matched at times with an inner deadness, followed by periods of intense self-doubt and self-inquiry.

Do these gurus tell you of this? Do they warn you of this?

You see, Robert did and incorporated this inevitable collapse of your belief systems and lifestyle, and made it a part of leaving the world behind. When your whole lifestyle and thought structures are deconstructed due to self-inquiry, self-abidance, or watching one’s thoughts in emptiness, radical changes to one’s outside life are inevitable, as well as to one’s emotional composition and self-boundaries.

In other words, the walls come tumbling down, and chaos reigns for a long, long time. If there is not a bit of chaos, then there is no real change happening on a deeper level. This must be obvious is it not? One cannot continue in the old lifestyle with the beliefs you had before when everything is being radically questioned and whole new worlds of perception and cognition are opened.

I warn my students of this. Robert incorporated this falling apart into his teachings and made it a goal, the goal of becoming good for nothing, meaning really not good for anyone or anything in your previous lifestyle. And, you will be good for nothing until you live your own truth, rather than society’s, your spouse’s, your children’s, or your employer’s “truths.”

Intense practice or intense involvement in the movement towards freedom has to produce such external chaos. Is it not obvious? Freedom means freedom from your past conditioning and the known.

What Krishnamurti missed however, are all those states and understandings beyond mere recognition that there is no separate ‘I’ or separate doer. He did not talk of the ecstasies, the awesome Void, the feeling of the sacred, the feeling of surrender to the divine, to one’s own Beloved. Nor did he speak of rivers of love that move through one’s body and one’s sense of presence. Nor did he talk of a love so deep that you disappear into the other, or of a void so vast that you fall to your knees in awe and sometimes fear. He did not talk of the awesome power you feel sometimes when you feel aligned with your own destiny and feel its inevitability. There is so much that teachers do not tell you, both of the richness and the sadness and desolation you will encounter.

It is like the Matrix Trilogy. When you take the Red pill, everything changes, enlivens, collapses, becomes chaos, reorders, and you become alive. But sometimes you crave the Blue pill, to let you return to your old life and its security. Once you really take the Red pill, you have a tiger by the tail and you cannot let go because he will eat you.

2012-01-21T23:46:00.000-08:00

There is a terrible illness of dispassion and greed in China. Zen Master Seung Sahn said it was no longer a case of bringing Zen to the West, but of returning Zen to its roots in China. There is a spiritual illness there.

The Voice of Stray Dogs

Photo of the day on The Voice of Stray Dogs: 1137 dogs rescued from ONE truck destined for slaughter for the Chinese New Year in Chongqing.

— withJo-Andra de Cuba.

2012-01-21T23:40:00.000-08:00

Message to me:

Hi Ed,

Water flowing through water, as said Mooji, consciousness flowing through consciousness.

In place of my body there is emptiness, and when someone comes close, or something, I become it.

If I walk along the river, in Bangkok, while on the solid ground, my all inside is moving like if I was on a boat on that agitated river. My stomach wants to throw up, my body looses balance, my heart feels ecstatic.

When I walk on a bridge my all body is sucked down like if I was falling.

If a person comes close to me I start to talk with the same accent as that person, and I feel as if her presence/field takes over the empty space of my body.

When I sit to meditate on the beach, my head becomes filled with the water, I feel I am sitting at the bottom of the sea. So beautiful, so dreamlike.

Ed, what a wonder world you brought me in !

Several days before the big realization, exactly 1 year after I started to follow you, you worked on me so much, I would see your face leaving my head several times a day, especially on waking up from nap/sleep.
Without you nothing would have been possible !

And without your teaching of loving every expression of consciousness I would be still lost in the emptiness, not willing to interact anymore with this stupid world.

How lucky I met you, the most complete freedom Teatcher !
And no need to go and catch a parasite in India ! What a saving in flight tickets :)

BUT please, don't stop with me now, I feel I have so much way to go ahead, and it might take the next 20 years or so !

I'd add that a way to love you is to support your help to your helpless kittens, and I think that generosity is a door to open in our heart, through where consciousness can flow in.

What else to say, why even taking time to right this message ?

May be for your love, for your grace Edward.

The show must go on !

Muzika ! Muzika ! Bhajans ! Bhajans ! Freeeedom !!

2012-01-21T11:04:00.000-08:00

Recently people have complained that some weeks I sound like student A, then student B, and wonder where Ed’s central thread went. They ask, “Where is the Jnana, or what happened to the lover?”

I can only say I am much moved and influenced by conversations of those who I am close to and who are burning. Their burning catches me on fire and I write from my heart whatever comes up. Each of my “lovers” is in a different place. One is shedding concepts and conditioning, another is learning to love herself, another has gone entirely beyond the world into the Absolute, and yet another is lost in unending bliss, a rapture from which her body is forgotten. Another begins to burn brightly in the Rocky Mountains, another is half a world away who always feels my presence.

When they talk to me, I am blown away.

I used to see this with Muktananda. When someone came to him and spoke with clarity and passion, it was as if he blew in the wind, he bent and surrendered to their shakti, and this juice then became his truth of the moment. Teacher and student were equal, and he was like clay bent and wriggled into a new form for a moment. Then moments later someone new came, and if they came with passion, energy, he was transformed again.

Such happens to me. People come to me and when they burn I see their truth. I feel their truth. One is becoming a new Krishnamurti, another is becoming Kali, another becomes Krishna, and there is room in me for each for that moment.

Then I write, and when I write, I express their truth as it unfolds and it appears my central thread is lost. There process and truth inspire me. There expressed truth will be of some help to someone, somewhere.

But the truth is, I have no central thread. I have no truth. I am there for them, not for me. I feel like I take on the clothes of whomever I talk to at the moment. Those I talk to most, those are the clothes I wear at the time.

Of course in the center is the untouched, the origin of the manifest world. All the rest is mind including all the writing that spill from these fingers. And a few are always with me, inside me, sharing my emptiness, sharing our mutual purpose in the world. Above all is Robert and Nisargadatta smiling downwards.

2012-01-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

Email to me:

It's a noble fight, to try to bring advaita and love together.

I don't know how much you seen of what's out there, but

there's a robotic, forced vibe from many, many teachers.

Even well known ones like adyashanti, for example. it's

someone who jammed themselves into an advaita model.

took a very human, juicy soul and stuffed it into

a theory on how to be spiritual.

Where's the naturalness? the ease?

Why don't even the most famous teachers look like

they are comfortable in their own skin?

It's as if one looking to mix advaita with love, with

feeling is leveling with people, saying "c'mon, you're still

a person, whatever level of 'attainment' you've

Achieved." why arent' more teachers talking about jealousy, anger, sex?

Christ edji, you're on your own. That's why i say it's a noble

fight. it's far too easy to be a statue of perfect advaita

purity, whatever the hell that is.

It's phony, it's forced. And people like me starve to death

around teachers like that.

2012-01-18T18:39:00.000-08:00

A note relevant to the previous post about going naked before God.

Some think there is a geat distance between Bhakta and Jnana. Only in the outward form. Though Robert is called a Jnani even in the Ramana Ashram, remember his famous story of meeting Ramana. I don't know whether it occurred when he first met him, or later when walking around Arunachala.

Robert said this story with great passion. I was there at this Satsang. He was electric. He sat on the edge of his chair perched somewhat forward and looked upwards and into the distance, as if he were again seeing Ramana.

He said Ramana and a group of people walked towards him and suddenly he felt complete surrender and devotion. He felt utter humility and wanted nothing more than to touch the guru's feet and surrender.

He said he took off all of his clothes and dropped at Ramana's feet, totally surrendered. Totally loving and devoted.

At this point Robert said, "This is how you have to be," as if the story was self-explanatory as to the need for surrender.

Ramana supposedly either grabbed him or told him to arise, I don't remember the story exactly and said, "I have been waiting for you." I'll bet Ramana did not specifically mean Robert, but he had been waiting for any of the devotees that showed such devotion and surrender, because these people, these devotees already were close to God and felt the ecstasies of being with the infinite.

2012-01-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

Can you go naked before God?

Some have asked, “Where is Robert Adams in your current teachings?” Others have been more sarcastic, and have remarked (of me) “Some have ears but do not hear; some have eyes but do not see,” intimating I was around Robert for years but never understood him as deeply as my critic obviously thought he or she understood him.

I will say something here that they will not hear.

Robert taught freedom, not about the absolute, God, Brahman or even Consciousness. His last words at his last Satsang, was only one word, repeated over and over: Freedom; Freedom; Freedom! But he used concepts and situations to affect the direction a student was heading in, and at Sunday Satsangs, he was pure Ramana.

On Thursday evenings he sometimes went much deeper. Sometimes someone would ask a question and Robert would go on a roll. The words that poured out were pure truth, insofar as truth can be expressed in words. A few of us close to him and maybe a few visitors would be stunned. Our minds would become weak and then wash away.

For a few minutes he stopped talking about karma, love, the guru teacher relationship, or anything else we could remember. It was more or less about the Infinite, going altogether beyond knowing and unknowing, going beyond Brahman even. We were transfixed. There was a transmission of some sort, an energy, a grace descended. These were Robert’s true teachings, golden words about that which is beyond concepts, the world, and ANY experience, no matter how transformative or transcendental.

Then he would return to earth and be Robert again. But we were changed.

The concepts Robert taught about karma, God, oneness or Consciousness itself, would be untaught during a Satsang a week or two later. He knew all concepts, especially spiritual concepts, were illusory, empty. Once in a while he would give an entire Satsang talking about the Four Principals, Three understandings, or something like that, and at the end of Satsang he’d become silent for a moment, then announce that all he had just said, all the knowledge and concepts were bullshit. He didn’t use that term of course, that is mine. He’d say, “I gave you a story and concepts because that is what you like to hear.” Robert considered Satsangs, especially Sundays’, to be pure crowd entertainment.

Besides some of those hot Thursday night Satsangs, a few of us met with him weekly or even more frequently on a personal basis, for lunch or a movie. Here quietly Robert would work on us to help us win our own freedom, either by setting up a situation within the Sangha to make us let go of certain ideas, conditions, desires or ambitions, or by offering concepts opposed to those we held on to.

Robert taught many different methods of meditation, and each in the audience was free to select whichever method they liked most. But the method he taught most was self-inquiry in its myriad of forms, and self-abidance. He taught us to go inwards, into our inner emptiness where dwelled the mind, images, emotions and everything we called subjective. There we were to just watch. Watch for the I-thought and find its origin. Watch the other thoughts come and go. Look for the subject.

This place is as close as we can come to our true nature in consciousness, but from time to time, he’d say we were beyond even that. AND SO WE ARE!

You know, so many students say they want that, complete freedom, enlightenment, but in fact they don’t. They hang onto concepts and exploration of concepts and new experiences. Many, many came for a year or two and thoroughly understood what Robert was saying, took those concepts into the world and the experiences they had with Robert, and became teachers. Some just left and looked to a new teaching thinking Robert’s teachings lacked something. Eventually the fire of seeking dies out, and maybe after 10 or 30 years they come to peace and stop seeking. But in most, even after 30 years there is a hunger to find the real, a final resting place of truth, which is so hard to find because they use the mind and “teacher of the day” to find ultimate rest, which is really discovery of their own true nature which is always with them.

The problem is they have accumulated so many spiritual systems which remain as contaminates of their pure nature, that it is impossible to ever find their Self unless there is some life crisis that shakes them and their belief systems to the core.

To use an analogy, through the years, people accumulate a wide variety of spiritual clothes which gives them some warmth and safety in a cold and harsh world. But to see the Self, become the Self you are, you need to shed all those clothes. You have to undress and shed all of those hard bought spiritual clothes, the koans, prayers, beliefs in karma, the I Am, the Beloved, concepts of family, guru/disciple, spiritual progress, compassion, and even concepts of transcending.

This is what I am trying to do with you as Robert did with me: Undress you until you become naked, exposed for you and all to see clearly. Nothing is hidden, no private treasure is kept in the closet not to be touched by self-inquiry. Everything is thrown away.

But this often brings terror. “I have no clothes, no security, no stability, what am I to do? I am frightened and terrified. I need someone, something to hang on to. I need the warmth of soft teachings and maybe a father or mother figure as a teacher. I need to feel safe.” This is the dilemma of the sincere student. He comes looking for the Absolute and finds only that the teacher wants him to become naked before God and his own Self.

The teacher says, “I am here. I can take you, but can you receive? Can you stay by me and walk into Nothingness without all your clothes, books and concepts? Are you courageous enough to drop the mind and tolerate the cold harshness of the world in order to discover who you are?”

So few are. Robert knew this and dished out Advaita concepts on Sundays and maybe deeper concepts of no concepts on some Thursdays. He sold a lot of spiritual clothes, because for some, that is all they could take.

Even I failed with Robert. I failed to move to Sedona to be with him through his last days. I was terrified and even got deathly ill when I got close to Sedona. My mind and my entire beingness rebelled and failed me, the Self. I could not take Robert’s cooking anymore, his “games,” his created situations, and the lack of security I felt going there.

Robert, on the other hand was fearless. Before he left he told me he would be betrayed by all the people who were trying to seduce him to leave Los Angeles with promises of financial support, and support of Satsang.

One by one these people came to me and told me how they were going to help Robert and also me to get settled and find a job. I reported what they said to Robert, and he frankly told me that they would never keep their word. He told me that every one of them would betray him, yet he went to them knowing this.

This turned out to be truth. They did not support him as they promised and finances were always desperate. Robert often called me or I him just to talk, and he continually wanted me to come, but I could not. I was afraid because there was nothing there for me. The people there made it clear I was not wanted. They wanted Robert all to themselves alone. All the former promises disappeared once Robert was their captive. Yet he went into the unknown, knowing this, and out of fear, I did not follow.

So I ask, do you trust me to take you to an unknown goal of freedom? I won’t even take you to the safety of the “Absolute,” or “Brahman,” or “God,” for these are just words to give comfort. Are you willing to shed all your concepts, beliefs and security to enter the unknown? Or like most, are you more interested in the excitement of buying new clothes, and shopping at the niche shops of Advaita, Sufism, mystical Christianity, Taoism, Jainism, or being with an energy guru?

2012-01-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

Sufism and the Jnana traditions

Susie: I just spent time with L. Vaughan-Lee who holds to 'nothing' (eg. knows all is made up, that Absolute Truth destroys everything you ever thought or had any meaning) and yet at the same time he works with the 'concepts' that bring 'life', 'light', the 'sacred' and 'meaning' consciously into being. The 'Beloved' is such a concept. He rightly says that without 'nurturing' a 'sacred' 'substance' of 'creation' life is exactly as Shakespeare describes: "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more, a tale full of sound and fury told by an idiot, signifying nothing". just dispensing with concepts and passivity does not necessarily bring life alive or alight.

Ed: Susie, what is the “Beloved?”

A feeling of a want (?) like a desire, intuition (?) is what has drawn me, from a sense of fatigue of worldly experiences, to those Teachers and even to your sphere on fb Ed. My experience of 'the Beloved'? how to do this justice in a few words on a fb thread. nothing is really it. a weary feeling of so little in this world having any real interest, knowing somewhere how it is to feel when something is real, alive,and truly flowing, and looking to see this everywhere and in everyone, some days feeling close and seeing a little of this brightness, aliveness, beauty and connection, but often feeling sorrow, limitation,suffering, disappointment as I look outwards, and feeling more connection and peace when I am quiet and turned inwards and disappear somewhere else so to speak or when going to sleep in bed. A feeling of wanting to give myself to this something and little else.

Ed:

I see Susie, you were speaking to Vaughan's concept of Beloved. Then relating your experience of wanting something like the Beloved inside yourself. Thank you for sharing that, Still, the "Beloved" itself is not defined or shared as experience except the search for the Beloved. It is still a concept, and you have learned Vaughan's and Tweedie's concepts of spirituality, which you shared. But the only experience shared was of dissatisfaction and wanting a resting place, or "home" or the return of love from something inside yourself, so you are compelled to turn within. .... This is exactly the same instruction provided by Ramana, Robert Adams, Nisargadatta and I. Look within. Look for the I. Immerse in the I-sense, the I-Am when found, and love that I Am and it loves you back a hundfred fold. Beloved = I Am. But do either speak of going beyond the Beloved, beyond experience and beyond consciousness itself? Do either speak of finding God, grace, or the Beloved in another human, in the personal? Or is it all impersonal?

Susie: you mean Tweedie and LVL? Will reflect if either of them speak of going beyond consciousness? certainly they relish nothing more than absorption in emptiness where nothing remains, Tweedie calls it a state beyond the mind. You are the knowledge, the understanding and you are one.

Ed: No, not emptiness. Emptiness is still an experience. One abides in emptiness, it interpenetrates one's own existence and sense of presence. I am talking of that which lies beyond Consciousness altogether. Beyond form and emptiness, emptiness and form. This is of what Nisargadatta speaks, and Robert at times. For Consciousness is temporary, impermanent, not the final rest state of the unborn.

Susie: LVL speaks of Absolute Truth as completely other, terrifying, no words, concepts, destroying everything, all meaning, all concepts, unimaginable, where nothing you believe exists. He speaks from experience.

Ed: The Jnana Tradition:

Susie, now that he has given you that concept, is that something you want? If so, you have borrowed someone else's experience, which he put in concepts for you to grasp and make your own, and you want to go after his experience.

But what if you never have his experience? What if it is unique to him? What if your path, your body/mind situation inherently has different and perhaps even more profound experiences laid out for you, if but you would take them? ..

Each human is unique. Look at those of whose experiences we read, U.G. Krishnamurti, Bernadette Roberts, Segal, Robert Adams, Mother Teresa.

Each has had such profoundly different experiences from each other even at the end of their lives. Yet our minds want security and we look for uniformity in their experiences and uniformity of understanding. For if there is no uniformity, what is the point of following someone as an authority to reach your own ultimate end and truth?

What I ask is why do you want to walk down someone else's path to go to where you may not have a ticket.

Because you distrust your own ability to fill that sense of lacking and wanting, you will follow someone else's ideas, concepts, exercises, etc., which may take you even further from your own destiny.

But this may be your destiny, to follow him and to succeed or fail at his mission or to find your own down that path. I understand that.

But there is another way, which is to take that wanting and sense of lacking, go within and find out where that takes you. This requires more courage because there are no signposts of concepts and instructions to guide you unless you go to the kind of teacher who keeps taking your concepts away rather than give you more as a GPS through other concepts.

I wish you well Susie. I feel you have a bright future. But I think it could be brighter once you let go of the idea you need to add more concepts in order to get to less. This is a more frightening path because there is nothing to hang onto except faith in yourself or in a guide that can take everything away from you. If you can get Vaughan to guide you in this way, on a personal basis rather than just learning his presenting concepts, I think your path will more quickly unfold.

2012-01-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

I just got home from VAC West LA where Lakshmi's oncologist thoroughly examined her and she had an ultrasound of her GI track.

No sign of the cancer returning! She has been on chemo now for three years and three months.

Her problem is stomatitis, which is a painful inflammation of the mouth and gums of unknown origin and with no known cure. There are many ways to try to control it, and you have to keep trying until you happen on a method that works.

Steroids are no longer working to control it, so she has been losing weight. She is now 5-1/2 pounds instead of 7, which she was nine months ago.

Now we are giving her SQ fluids, which means 100cc of lactated ringer's solution injected under the skin, a new course of an antibiotic in case there is a new primary bacterial infection of her mouth, alpha interferon which had to be procured from Europe as it does not have FDA approval, and depending on blood tests, in a few days we will be trying a new experimental anti-inflammatory medication.

In the meantime she is receiving a narcotic pain killer so it does not hurt so much when she eats.

Already, she has improved a bit, preening herself and eating. It was a long trip for she and I, but very much worth it.

2012-01-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

2012-01-14T13:57:00.000-08:00

Every day in the morning, Zen master Ruiyan would slap himself in the face and say, "Don't be fooled by anything today!" To which he responded, "No I won't."

What does this mean?

It means he was entering the last phase of self-mastery. He was not accepting any concept. In fact, ANY concept that arose, he would cut it down.

After one has attained a sense of completeness, you realize that contentment comes from not accepting anyone's "truth" except your own. And, you yourself have no truth at all, no concepts, no understanding, and as soon as anyone throws a concept at you, you knock it away, leaving you just walking forward, straight ahead, not fooled by any "truth."

This was said even more cogently by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, who said, "The only truth is that there is no truth; beware even of this truth."

So many cannot imagine living in freedom where the only "book" they read is their own intuition in the moment, an intuition derived from throwing all books, teachings and teachers away.

2012-01-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

Oneness, duality and living from the heart

The “path” is quite complicated, is it not? Looking and searching both without, in teachers, books, and teachings, as well as inwards in meditation, psychotherapy, and even drugs for something…. But what is it? New “spiritual” experiences, finding love, either in receiving or giving it, finding a “nondual” state, either for a moment or permanently, or a sense of completion and coming home? Confusion reigns.

But this is all in the mind, this sense of lacking, needing something more. Even with a lover or guru, it is fixation on the other as an image in the mind attached to a feeling near the heart that we interpret as longing, needing, jealousy.

But, when we are in no mind, when the mind drops and we are in the heart itself rather than watching the heart-sense, life is effortless. Perfect, accepting.

But is it possible really to love another unless we allow dualism? Without dualism the other is me or us, and from this position, we can only see ourselves and all emotions that arise are from our own limited me sense. The One is no more than “me” enlarged to include everything, including our beloved. Our beloved, whatever or whomever, is me.

To truly love another, we must be able to see them as the “other,” with their separateness not dependent on “me,” with their own wants and emotional needs, their own life trajectory. We have to be able to see them as they are and even better, to see them as they see themselves. We need to feel this space between us even if only to see the “stuff” we each project into the other.

If we live only in the non-dual awareness, we really don’t accept the other as separate, but only part of us or me, and the danger is that my beloved’s actions may take part of me away from me. I might lose my love of myself were she to go. Thus the struggle to maintain self in relationship becomes a desperate clinging to I and all that is me.

It is a continuous learning process, this living in various identifications, whether it be unitary nondual consciousness with it continuing clarity and beauty, or a life of dualism, where only there can you have true relationships, or living from the heart where both come together.

2012-01-11T00:14:00.000-08:00

Make Love Not War on the Mind

Hello Ed, my name is A. I am seeking from guidance from you because i have not yet had an encounter with my own spiritual teacher in my everyday life. Since I was about 16 years old, I realized with progressing intensity that awakening from the dream of my ego is the only thing worth ever doing in my life, and the only way to truly attain lasting happiness, peace, and the end of suffering.

Now, years later I sit here, with still many questions. Many insights have been imparted to me over the past few years, though never lasting peace, never a moment of truly seeing through my dense false self has occurred. I have realized many profound things especially recently that make me feel closer than ever to awakening but I feel as if something is missing in guiding me to true seeing; and I think what is missing is a teacher that can guide and help lead me to clarity. I would like your opinion on this- how necessary is it for an individual to have a spiritual teacher in this path in order to truly awaken?

With passing years, I realize with more clarity that the external world is completely unsatisfactory and that ultimately it is suffering-- even my pleasures are suffering. The sense of running out of time is growing along with the sense that my time is of precious concern and that it is urgent to do all that I can to awaken because awakening is the beginning of actually living. I know I have spent my entire life living in the delusions of the mind, and the desire is finally becoming strong enough to break free from these bonds. However, I feel that alone, without a sangha or a teacher, this intensity of desire for truth wanes out. I feel like I go in and out of being lost in the trance of mind and clinging to worldly pleasures, sufferings, and the mind eventually pulls me into its vortex and trances me into the belief that I have other more important things to do than discover the truth of my own being.

I find I am seeing things much more clearly with the practice of self inquiry, yet I find self inquiry hard to keep up consistently throughout the day as it exhausts me and the mind finds way to sabotage my efforts. I know definitely that I have all of the potential in the world to awaken to my true nature in this lifetime and I feel that clarity is not far away as I see (intellectually) that I am not actually a me or a person very clearly; yet I am still identified with A. due to the magnetic pull and trance of the ego. How do you suggest I can intensify my progress in my life? I feel that this burning desire to awaken will not be constant unless I nourish it in certain ways.

Thank you,
A.

Ed:

There are two paths to where you are going. The path of Jnana and the path of Bhakti.

You seem inclined to the former.

I think you would benefit from guidance from what you say. Many flee from it, not wanting to give up any autonomy.

Attached are three documents. One I wrote on self-inquiry, called Hunting the I. The second is the Nisargdatta Gita, which is a great meditation manual taken from Nisargadatta. The third is the path of Sri Ramana, Part I.

Print out the Gita and read no more than 2 pages at a time. Ponder the meaning. Then look into yourself for the I-Am sense. Do this morning and evening for half an hour.

Read chapters 7-8 of the path of sri ramana, and my hunting the I for further directions on self inquiry.

We will start at the beginning with basics--the method, rather than with theory.

Tell me about your meditation experiences and self-inquiry. Try writing in paragraphs to make it easier for me to read.

I am very ready for your guidance. The sense that I can no longer do this alone is becoming stronger.

I will do exactly as you have told me to do with the three documents, thank you for them.

My experiences with meditation and my own spiritual practice are as follows:

I feel I have more patterns of pain and fear that arise with thoughts and emotions than others, perhaps due to karma, or whatever it may be.

Because of this, I have never found success or much interest in breathing meditations, counting meditations, one pointed meditations, etc. because of the strong energetic pull of these thoughts and emotions that are simply too deeply ingrained and distracting.

I tried for some time, methods of meditation to quiet my mind such as breathing, until I realized that the attempt of quieting the mind was simply a means of controlling the mind and its thoughts temporarily. There came a point that I finally wished to ultimately see through these thoughts altogether, and extinguish my suffering, rather than manage them.

I eventually stumbled upon self inquiry, and a light went on. I knew this was most likely for me, the most rapid and effective method for to awaken. It deeply resonated with me, simply because the deeper I got into it, the more the curiosity for the truth was fueled.

So I began reading with diligence Robert Adams, Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Adyashanti. Each one of their teachings solidified the knowing that if I simply look deeply into myself and inquire into what the thing called "me" is that is actually having all of these experiences, that eventually all of the false constructs of my mind would crumble as the false self called "me" that holds it all together is finally seen through.

So I had this realization, and since then, as I mentioned, my spiritual practice and intensity has waned in and out, as it had not clearly hit me until recently that the external world could never ever satisfy my yearning for peace and happiness.

So over this past weekend I spent my time in hours of silent sitting at a Zen Buddhist Monastery and this realization that I had no other options left became more palpable. I know now that even though the mind may deceive me temporary, the only path to happiness, fulfillment, and true peace and rest is to awaken.

So my method of spiritual practice and meditation is mainly this: either I practice self inquiry asking questions such as: who am i? where am I located? who feels this? who is the sufferer? to whom do these thoughts come? etc.

Or I simply sit in silence and observe the workings of my mind with the attempt to not get involved in them, simply sitting as awareness, looking objectively at my thoughts and feelings as they arise.

I've noticed that I have a lot of fear inside of me, which affects me deeply on a daily basis.

This path really began at a young age with the deep nagging fear that arose with the questioning of any meaning at all in this life.

Anxiety pervaded my being at the age of 16 when I truly realized that every single thing I had taken to be true about myself, life, God, everything and anything might not be true, because I saw that thoughts are not to be trusted, and I saw that the entire world was run by people's thoughts and I was supposed to believe all of them. I was supposed to believe my own thoughts and everyone else's and live of off blind faith that this was all there was.

So this intense fear, doubt, and anxiety led me to the search for real truth in this life, and I think that is the fuel of my path. I agree that you are right, the path of Bhakti is something that does not resonate with me and it is simply the yearning to know the final truth of this life, so that I can finally be at rest, which is what continually drives me.

That and the fact that my thoughts and feelings and this separate sense of self have caused me much suffering in this life and I no longer want to suffer.

Even the worldly pleasures that I have always taken solace in for my whole life in order to escape from suffering are being realized to also be suffering due to their inherent unsatisfactory nature.

Thank you Edji,

Edji:

One hint: Don't go to war with your mind. Make love to it.

Instead of looking for pleasure in things external, love all that presents itself within.

Don't watch it as an enemy to be rejected and mastered, watch it as you would a lover, interested, fascinated, open, accepting. Don’t just watch it with indifference; watch it like you would watch a playful kitten. Delight in its antics and this way you will know it much better.

Then is easily reveals all of its secrets. When you really, really know the mind, have cared for it, cultivated it, it drops away in importance. It is after if you already had two pieces of cake, and you really don’t care about a third.

If you watch with indifference, it can take a long, long time for it to drop in importance without it coming back and grabbing you. Indifference is a lot like repression, and the repressed always comes back when least expected.

When you love the mind or the I Am, you regress with it, become little with it as it is in a pure state. Then you grow up with it inside all over again, just as you did from ages 5-12 or so. This time the relationship is different. Better. More complete and healed.

The same with self-inquiry. Seek the sense of I, of I-Am A, the sense of existence, of presence.

Then love it while you watch it. This way there is no dryness. This way you follow your beloved, yourself. That is, add a little Bhakta to your self-inquiry.

Download some of the Krishna Das and Muktananda chants from wearesentience.com

Put them in an iPod or MP3 player. Listen to them an hour a day. Your life will grow sweeter, and the dryness will disappear. Then motivation will not fail. You will run to meditation then.

(THIS IS A RARE STUDENT. LOOK AT THE QUALITY AND CLARITY OF THE WRITING, AS WELL AS THE FOCUS AND CLARITY OF PURPOSE.)

2012-01-09T19:47:00.001-08:00

2012-01-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

John:

Jesus, i just read dennis' comment to your post of the last satsang. it seems like everyone has jumped on you. i guess he thought you were irreverent to krishnamurti.

I don't know. you take a lot of shit.

People suggested you have an online website---'ok'

Do it like this---'ok'

not those old yogananda songs edji, krishna das---'ok'

Mute your mic edji, we don't want to hear you---'ok'

I'm not too cool with you absorbing all the shit, including my own.

I'm not a happy camper edji. i've got a lot of anger.

I also feel, in regards to you, like an ungrateful, spoiled child. Do whatever you do.

People will never appreciate anything, ever.

Ed:

John, it is all bliss. The movement itself is all bliss.

Drop into your heart, and watch from emptiness.

The first day that the commotion started, many things were happening, not just the leaving. Many, many little crises with financial accounts, contacts, and an attempted hacking of my website, etc.

I felt attacked, like "negative energies" were coming my way. I even felt fear for the first time in years. The next day all was normal again.

Then something miraculous happened.

I began to feel an intense love for this breaking process, and for a person I know. This accelerated until last Monday, a week ago, when I felt an intense love growing within me, and with it an internal light, a column of brilliant white light extending from the bottom of my spine through the top of my head.

It was like a powerful dynamo of love. I felt like God was loving the world through this body/mind and felt expanded a dozen-fold.

Gradually the intensity of the love grew immensely stronger and I felt a continuous ecstasy, radiating love into the world. There was a reshuffling in the Sangha and I delighted in it, welcomed it, and felt bliss in it.

Finally, some movement in the Sangha. It had grown static.

For four days I burned in this ecstasy, and things came and went. I met two students for dinner Friday evening and they felt burned and ecstatic by my energy.

Finally, yesterday for the first time I returned to normal then went the other way, towards a feeling of desolation and despair for half a day.

This is all part of my process of reentering the world teaching different teachings.

It is a continuously wondrous experience.

Nothing is static. Everything comes and goes, but I remain, really untouched even by the ecstasies and the desolations.

2012-01-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

Straight Ahead with an

Empty Mind and Full Heart.

[Recording starts midway through Edji’s sentence]

… and through that bliss to recognise yourself, too. Find yourself.

Robert loved chanting. I love chanting; and so you are all subjected to it, whether you like it or not. Even those people that complained about my chanting while the chanting is going on!

So, when this chant comes on, if you can, chant with it.

Participate.

Do not just listen.

[Chanting – Jaya Jagatambe]

Are we going to have Gopala now, or do you think maybe the short version of Sita Ram? Which do you prefer? Okay.

[Chanting—Gopala]

Greetings from San Fernando Valley, porno capital of the United States.

Pretty soon we are going to suffer another new year, same as the last fucking year. It will be exactly the same—maybe worse—but we will be happy, because we do not care.

Jo-Ann will get rid of all of her programs. We will never see her again. She will be blissfully happy. [Laughs] She is insane now, but she will be blissfully happy, then.

XXXX will have killed her husband, drowned the kids; and we will have an ashram at her house, all 5000 square feet of it, in Tinkerville, Virginia—population 15. Just outside of that huge town—what is it? Fredericksburg, or Wickenburg, or some burg with a huge population of 10,000 people—right outside of Washington DC, power centre of the world.

Then we will make our move. Sarin in the subways, just like the Japanese. We will show them what a real cult can do! Get the Kool-Aid ready.

Happy New Year.

Almost.

I got a comment left on the blog today from Randy.

Randy said, “You shouldn’t talk about your experience, because people will listen to your experience and compare their experience to your experience.” And he says that is why he does not have a teacher—because he does not want to compare his experience, I guess, to a teacher’s experience, and be bothered by all that.

But you know, there is no way you cannot have a teacher.

If you read books by Ramakrishna, by Krishnamurti, by Nisargadatta, by Ramana, you have a teacher. There are none of the great teachers that have not had a teacher.

Except Ramana; Robert. They had teachers after they had an awakening, but not before. But almost everybody else has had a teacher.

Nisargadatta had a teacher.

U.G. Krishnamurti had several teachers, all of whom he rejected, but he still had teachers. He hung around J. Krishnamurti for many years. He went to see Ramana Maharshi. He had a meeting with Ramana; and he asked Ramana, “Can you give me what you have?” He had no idea what Ramana Maharshi’s experience was like. And Ramana replied, in a smartass way, “I can give it to you, but can you take it?”

What the fuck does that mean?

You know, I think I am one of the few teachers around that does talk about his experience. Everybody else talks in terms of concepts—about the Absolute, about the relative, about the ‘I Am’, about the ‘I’ word, about the sense of presence—but there is no real experience. They do not talk about much their experiences with their guru. Nisargadatta talks about how he trusted his guru, how he visited him; but nothing really about their relationship.

Randy said, “All the greatest teachers taught in silence.” Well, you mean like Krishna, who talked to Arjuna on the battlefield constantly—as related in the Bhagavad Gita? You mean like Ramana, who spent 60 years talking about his enlightenment experience? You mean Robert, who left 3700 pages of texts of his talks?

Who are these great ones that taught in silence? Who are the greatest ones that taught in silence? They all used words, concepts; and a rare few talked about their experiences.

Nisargadatta talked about his experiences in that little booklet, Self Knowledge and Self Realization [originally published in India in the 1960s, edited and left to Edji by Jean Dunn in the early 1990s, published to the Internet by Edji in 2005] about his path up to his awakening, through devotion, etc.

But Randy is wrong: you cannot help but compare your experiences with other peoples’; and if you read books of the teachers—Papaji or whoever—you are always wondering what his experience was, because he is not really talking about it.

And J. Krishnamurti talks in questions—What is it like to live without a bounded mind? To live without a thought structure? To live in the immediacy and the passion of the present? Well, I do not know. Tell me, what was your experience, Krishnamurti?

So I speak of my experiences rather than concepts. I try to keep the concepts to a minimum, music to a maximum, and my experience—I throw a lot of that in there just because, where else can I speak from?

[Pause]

There is one other thing. I have never really liked the terms “master,” or “guru,” or all of that kind of shit. I guess that is because of my relationship with Robert.

Ramana Maharshi did not have a teacher. Robert had an awakening before he had a teacher and then he traveled for many years to find all the nuances of his understanding of what his enlightenment experiences meant. And also, Robert had one final awakening according to Mary [Skene, one of Robert’s close devotees] during the last year of his life, and I do not know what that was. She never told it to me.

But over and over again, Robert would tell me—as a matter of fact, he told me this at the beginning—Ed, I have lots of devotees, but I need a friend. Somebody I can talk to, about day-to-day things. He did not have a friend. And so he made me his friend, and that is our relationship. I was not a devotee. He treated me like an equal. He treated me to lunch.

We were equals, like Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield—Krishna driving the cart, Arjuna with the spear and the sword. Arjuna is filled with doubt and Krishna says, “You can either have me as a friend, or you can have my armies do battle for you.” And he chose to have Krishna as his friend and mentor.

That is how I relate to you—not as a teacher so much, or a guru; but a friend, an equal. And that confuses a lot of people, because the dichotomy of master-teacher is not here. I regard all of you as equals.

All of us are equally crazy.

This does not mean that all of our relationships are out of control because no-one is in charge—because those relationships where somebody is in charge tend to be very closed relationships. What I am talking about here is a very open relationship, on both sides. A relationship from the heart; from silence; from emptiness.

Meeting in emptiness.

Neither of us know where we are going.

Neither of us really care where we are going, as long as we are together. Do you understand this? The difference?

There is no security here. I do not know where the fuck I am going. I do not care. But I know I am happy.

Every day is happier, and I feel the raining down of bliss every day. And even more of sanctifying grace, that sweeps me away. And when there is no me, in terms of an “Ed,” how can I know where I am going?

It is all God’s grace that determines where I am going, where you are going, where we are going.

The safety and security is not in our relationship, but the trust in Consciousness; in God. If it were up to me, nothing at all would happen.

I direct nothing.

I really do not care where we are going.

But what a ride. What a ride.

Jo-Ann, did you expect to be here a year ago? Joan? Either John? John-John. Tina is still asleep, so that is one constant… oh, no she says she is not. [Chuckles]

So, it is not that you go with me at your own peril, because we are being watched and taken care of. But there will be a lot of shit happening in your life as you leave the old patterns and go to no patterns, or go to patterns that come from silence—from your emptiness, from the stillness of the heart, the silence of the heart, where the mind is no longer controlling and imposing patterns and “should” and “oughts” and conditions. There will just be verbs. No nouns. No adjectives. No constraints.

Just action-verbs.

Of course, such actions may be sleep, lying on a couch, listening to chanting; but they certainly will not be done because you “should” do something. The “shoulds” will arise from your own heart—I should take care of that cat. I should take care of that child. I should take care of that Republican representative. It will arise instantaneously, spontaneously, from our hearts. There will be no boundaries in terms of the mind.

Much is made of learning to see the world as a child sees—innocently, simply; compared with all the burdens we carry of concepts, etc. But just see how innocent a two year old or a four year old really is, as they bash each other for their favourite toy, or hang onto you and say [in a childish voice] “I want a cookie! I want a cookie! No I don’t want that cookie. I want another cookie!”

It is all impulse. It is all rage. It is all love. None of it is tamed. Is that what you want to return to? The “innocence of childhood?”

The ideal is to develop fully as an adult. To feel those impulses, and to control them. To have learned to control and what fulfilling every impulse would mean, in terms of the destruction of your life.

And after you have fully become and matured as an adult, to be able to then say Hey, I’ve done all this shit. I’ve done this in the world. I’ve done that in the world. I feel fully grown up, fully confident. I’m happy. Now I’m released. Now I can get away from all those “shoulds,” and live innocently—not with the mind, but with the heart.

The feeling is, we go inside, into the emptiness inside, and we take up a position. Right from the heart, from the chest. And we watch all the shit happen.

Every moment is fresh.

An emotion comes up, and you can see it for what it is. Same with a thought. Living from the heart—the silence of the heart.

That is topic one.

Moving on to topic two. You know, probably every one of you has read both Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta. Everybody considers them the two greatest contemporary advaita masters, and I can assure you that everybody is confused by the difference between them. Everybody assumes that they are the same, but there is an incongruity in their different teachings that just bugs the hell out of people. They cannot put their finger on it.

They have very different teachings, and, I assume, very different experiences. Unexplainable differences. And neither of them really talk about their experience—just their conclusions. So, we have no way of judging which is higher or lower; more complete, less complete. We just choose one, or we choose the other, or we choose both, or we choose neither.

For example, Nisargadatta is very clear: the body is real. It is made out of atoms, and it is a product of food we eat. Sentience creates a body, the body-mind, that grows up, develops a sense of ‘I’ at the age of two or three—the ‘I’-sense—which is the nucleus between universal consciousness and our individual consciousness.

We grow up, and we mature, and then we decide to seek spirituality and find out who we really are. So he tells us to pay attention to the ‘I’-sense. And we pay attention to the ‘I’ sense, and one day, by loving it, by attending to it, it disappears and we become the Absolute—with no affect; no love. Just pure knowingness, and the recognition that we are beyond this world. The ‘I’ concept… the ‘I Am’ is a concept, and Consciousness itself is a concept.

It is very simple. It is very Western, in the sense of realism—where you believe the mind and consciousness are an epiphenomena, or generated by the body, by the brain. Very similar in many ways. Not completely, because Western philosophy does not have the concept of being a witness to the whole process of consciousness. I am oversimplifying it, but it is just to make a point.

Ramana, on the other hand, talks about the ‘I-I,’ and that our practice is almost identical to that of Nisargadatta, but the conclusions are very different. For Ramana, you as ‘I’ are to look within and follow the ‘I’-thought to where it goes, where it disappears. Just keep following the ‘I’-thought, or asking yourself “Who am I?” and wait for an answer to rise up from the emptiness within. You just follow the ‘I’-sense down, down, down, down… through various levels of consciousness, until you reach the “fourth state,” Turiya [the state beyond waking, dream and deep sleep, which also contains and permeates them.]

The body is not real. The body does not generate consciousness. Consciousness contains the body. The body sprouted out of consciousness. Everything is consciousness. The camera you are looking at is consciousness. Your own body is consciousness. It is just something that you are witnessing.

Everything you eat is consciousness. All of your thoughts are in your consciousness. The void is watched by you, the ultimate ‘I.’ It too is consciousness—an object within consciousness. Consciousness is everything. Consciousness is awareness. Consciousness is you, and it is not you. It is nondual.

And yet, there is a core that feels like ‘I.’ For Ramana, it is real. It is not a thought. It is not just a concept. For Ramana, it is real. It is the pathway to Turiya. It is the path—following downwards that sense of ‘I.’ That sense of ‘I’ is real. That is the core of the universe.

You might say it is almost equivalent to Nisargadatta’s concept of the Absolute. But actually, Ramana has a concept of going beyond Turiya, the fourth state, to Turiyatita —I do not remember how you pronounce it—which is the absolute You; beyond awareness, beyond consciousness. And in that sense, although he still considers it consciousness, it is similar to the Absolute of Nisargadatta.

But it is a different model altogether, because nothing is real but consciousness, for Ramana, including your body. It appears to come out of the seed, to come out of the egg and the fertilization process, and is given birth; but that is outward appearance. What has actually happened is impersonal processes in Consciousness producing a baby, and impersonal processes in the baby producing an ego.

When the person grows up, they as ‘I’—the sense of control—can begin the process of turning inward and investigating the inward processes; including that ‘I’ sense, as well as everything else inside—the chakras, the sense of ‘I’ arising in the heart, or near the heart—most of us feel when we have a sense of ‘I’ that it is in the heart, some feel it in the third eye—but for Ramana the ‘I’ sense is real.

It is the path to enlightenment, is to follow that ‘I’ down, down, down, down, down.

Now if we go to Nisargadatta’s teacher, Siddharameshwar Maharaj, it is a similar story there. You follow the ‘I’ through various levels—the subtle body, the causal body—to the Absolute. There is one other body. I forget what the name of it is.

Many different conceptual structures.

The practice, though, is universal: staying in the ‘I,’ abiding in the ‘I;’ or pursuing the ‘I.’

But there are different epistemologies and different ontologies involved. For Nisargadatta, consciousness is not real. For Ramana, it is everything.

For Nisargadatta, the ‘I’ sense is not real. It is ultimately an illusion that dissolves into the Absolute. For Ramana, the ‘I’ sense is that there are two ‘I’s—the small ‘I’ of the ego, and the ‘I’ of the Absolute, or Turiyatita; and you are to follow that downwards to liberation. Neither of them explains their experiences.

Neither of them explains their experiences.

We have nothing to judge. We trust the method. That is the only thing—is to trust the method. And it is such a natural method: find out who you are. Spend thirty years, or listen to the neoadvaitins that say Well, take a look inside for five or ten seconds, and you will see there is no ‘I.’ You are free!

So many concepts. So many teachers.

So many assholes.

Now, we agree on a method: looking for the ‘I.’ The method should be king. Trust the method—so many have advised it.

I tell you on my website what happens to me doing it—and it was not doing that that got me awakened. It was lying on a couch, listening to sacred music and just looking within; resting within and just looking around inside, into the emptiness. It is sort of like Self-inquiry, I guess.

And the secondary consideration was that there was a crisis in my life. Robert had left. My teacher had left, I was alone. Often awakening happens when there is a crisis.

But listening to the sacred music, lying on a couch and introspecting was definitely a part of it, as well as the twenty years of Self-inquiry before that—even though, when the awakening happens, it does not feel as if any effort you made in Consciousness was at all relevant to the awakening.

That is topic two.

How about He Bhagavan?

[Chanting—He Bhagavan]

Most of you who have been coming to this satsang for a year or so—six months—really feel pretty happy. You know that you do not know where you are going, but there is a sense of grace. That we are being taken by benevolent forces -

[Edji removes Lakshmi the cat from his chest because she is scratching him] Oops, that hurts a little. Ow! That hurts.

… and sometimes not-benevolent benevolent forces.

We feel carried. Protected. Safe. We will be taken care of. It feels that way.

Dropping the “shoulds,” the “oughts.”

Dropping the race for prestige and getting ahead in the world, or getting behind. We are protected by God’s grace; the grace of Consciousness. Robert used to call it “the power that knows the way.”

The world is unfolding as it should. Often that means, though, that you are very actively engaged in the world. Rescuing animals. Being a revolutionary. Still, there is the feeling that you are in your right place, doing the right thing for you, for the world. Even if the world is an illusion, you still have a role.

So the security comes within you, as a gift. God shows you his way. Consciousness shows you its ways, and you trust. That is when you operate from the heart—when the mind and its “shoulds” is dropped, with all of its vows and affirmations and positive thinking; self-analysis. When all of that is dropped and you just live from the silence of the heart, everything is secure.

It is like magic. Things show up, like magic. It happened for Robert Adams all the time. He would need money for something or other, and it would just mysteriously appear. It happens with us too; more and more.

[Pause]

So, topic three—The Tiger’s Cave. I think this is the appropriate part ... wait a second. This is a long reading. I really wish I had somebody to read this, but we have to wait for people to get copies of this, so they can read it.

This is page 60, the Heart Sutra. It is the Tiger’s Cave by Trevor Leggett, and it is the musings of a Zen Abbot about the Heart Sutra. And he personalises it, talking about what it means to him, and his experiences.

The Heart Sutra itself is about the heart of the Buddhist doctrine. And for the Zen people, the heart—the chest—is where the ‘I’ is; the sense of self. The separate sense of self.

So, it is the Heart Sutra in more than one way. It is about the heart. And living in the heart, or from the heart. With or without the ‘I,’ because they are both the same according to Zen. The ‘I’ comes from emptiness and returns to emptiness, but it is still there.

No need to destroy it. Just by recognising that its very nature is emptiness, nullifies it. Nullifies the greed, the hostility.

Anyway, page 60.

The world of emptiness -

I talk about emptiness a lot because I was in Zen for twenty years, so emptiness is a constant experience for me, awake or asleep; eyes open, eyes closed. I always feel it—a kind of spaciousness that is inside of me and around me everywhere—that permeates all forms; and forms are permeated by it. Forms come out of emptiness, and they go back into emptiness; or into the “unknowing” as Rajiv Kapur puts it.

The world of emptiness is not some world without crying and without laughing. Emptiness in the tears themselves, emptiness in the smiles themselves—this is real emptiness. Then the phrase is turned around. In the sutra it says “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Feeling, thoughts and consciousness are also like this.”

In other words, feeling, thoughts and consciousness are permeated by emptiness. They come from emptiness. They disappear into emptiness. But the spouting out of the emptiness is what gives them form, its meaning, its life.

Then the phrase is turned around. “Emptiness is not different from form.” When with all my mind I plunge what I call my self into the heart of Kannon -

… a bodhisattva. Kannon is also known in Sanskrit as Avalokiteshvara, and in the Japanese it is Kannon Bodhisattva. Kannon is one of the first and most important of the bodhisattvas.

Buddhism has many streams but the two most famous are the Hinayana, or small vehicle, and the Mahayana, or the larger vehicle. The Hinayanists really do not like hearing of their vehicle called the “smaller” vehicle, but the thing is, for the bodhisattvas you do not just save yourself, as with the Hinayanists. You save all sentient beings.

The concept is that the bodhisattva is a saint who will risk his or her own salvation [enlightenment] to give it to others before he takes it himself, or she takes it herself. She is more concerned about the benefit and the realisation and the taking care of the other, than of herself—the bodhisattva. And there are two: there is Guanyin, who is the goddess of compassion; and Kannon, Avalokiteshvara—who is the first of the great bodhisattvas.

Then the phrase is turned around. “Emptiness is not different from form.” When with all my mind I plunge what is called my “self” into the heart of Kannon Bodhisattva, and in that heart become completely noughted -

- negated,

then the laughter and the weeping called “form” can for the first time have a meaning. Only as emptiness have the forms their great meaning. When the form emerges from the emptiness it is recognised.

Now just for today, let me try—and then the time when I wanted to burst forth like a thunder storm, when I wanted to rage with the anger erupting in me—just for today— and somehow I realise that blazing up for what it is: something which is blazing up. And then there was the taste of the state of liberation.

He stopped, and he saw the form of rage arising within him, from the emptiness in his chest. And he saw it for what it was—this rage was a form arising from emptiness.

Then I was unable to speak for that moment, with the ill feeling vanished, and from my heart there was no power of mind. It was the power of Kannon. Through Kannon’s grace there came a breath from the absolute. “Emptiness is no different from form.”

The emptiness ate the rage. He saw it emerging from the emptiness, and from the emptiness he observed the emergence of the rage. And it was just the seeing of it. He felt the peace of the emptiness.

Through Kannon’s grace -

- through the grace of emptiness, of the Absolute,

there was a breath from the absolute, and it negated the anger.

This is taken out of context. It talks about what his experience was, but it would be way too long to read the whole thing.

Form and emptiness cannot be separated however much one tries, and the life in which they are reconciled—the life of Kannon—is expressed in the two phrases “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” Form here stands for all five skandha-aggregates.

I do not want to get into it, but the skandhas are the elements of which the manifest world is made.

The power which simply negates them is form, is emptiness. It is not only illusory clinging which is negated. The real emptiness is negation of what is called Buddha, also.

This is going to be hard to grasp. You are not going to get it the first time.

[Pause]

What he is talking about is, you have to negate not only the negative elements but the positive elements, like the Buddha. Rage, on the negative side, and Buddha, on the positive side.

The power of negation begins with the five aggregates, but goes on to negate all.

Including the positive, including Buddha.

Only thus in the world of supreme wisdom and light hinted at, it breaks the illusory clinging to the self and goes on to negate even the Buddha form.

“Kill the Buddha.” [Paraphrased from a Zen adage – If you see the Buddha walking on the street, kill him.] You are free then. You are free from the negativity of your own emotions, and you are free from any path.

You are your own path.

If it stops short at the full Buddha form, it is not emptiness. “Form is emptiness” points to the state of ultimate negation. Only when there is that absolute negation will the next phrase be manifest: “Emptiness is form,” the affirmation of all conditions.

“Emptiness is form” is the affirmation of all conditions, including all that shit that is happening around you. When you see it is nothing—when you recognise its nothingness—automatically there is the acceptance of it.

Because there is emptiness, there can be form. Therein is manifested the compassion of Kannon.

It is to be noted carefully that in this sutra the phrase “form is emptiness” comes first, and “emptiness is form” comes afterwards. In the Diamond Sutra similarly the world of negation comes first and only then the world of affirmation. It is after the absolute negation that the so-called world of unconditional affirmation appears.

The first phrase, “form is emptiness” means “this will not do” and “that will not do,” and never gives its assent. Then comes “this will do” and “that will do.” This is the world of “emptiness is form,” the affirmation of everything just as it is. First the power to condemn, then the power to let be, but these powers to condemn and to condone are never separate from each other.

Then he goes on to tell all about his experience.

Now, you may have grasped this or not, but get the book and mull over this for a while. It will be part, you know… continuing. This is a different point of view than Nisargadatta. I was frightened we were getting a little too nailed down into the Nisargadatta mould, and I want to break out of that… and totally fuck you up and confuse you with an entirely different point of view. Which is really the same!

I remember how I felt when I was 44 years old and my old Zen teacher died. When I was young I used to be scolded by both my parents and my teacher, but now my parents had come to praise me up and never scolded me anymore. It was only the teacher who still had a harsh word for me, and when he died an inexpressible loneliness overcame me.

Four years previously I had gone back to my hometown and I used to act as his assistant. At that time, I was fairly full of myself. “Quite a name in Buddhist scholarship,” they said. And then I had been a professor here and a headmaster there. Oh, I was pretty well satisfied with myself when I came home. I was one of those men of elevated views.

I came home with the conviction that my wisdom was very far reaching. But this teacher still saw me as the same runny nosed youngster as before. Every day I used to scrub the floor and the teacher would come up behind and he would say “Look at that! What sort of cleaning is that supposed to be? All black and white patches, like a picture or something! The number-one boy ought to be able to make a better job of the cleaning than that!”

Another time when I supposedly made a reply in the wrong tone, he said “If you still don’t know how to answer properly, your spiritual training doesn’t amount to much, does it?” I was scolded over everything.

I remember one day an old lady came to the temple and told us she had brought a girl along with her. On asking how old the latter might be, she said “Oh, she’s sixty.” Certainly to an old lady of eighty, the daughter of sixty is still a girl, in spite of the wrinkles. A girl is a girl. Whatever the age may be, a girl is still a girl.

In the same way, to the teacher I was still a little boy. However distinguished a countenance I had put on, however many professorships I may have held—that was nothing to the teacher. I might feel myself a man of elevated views but the teacher’s comment was, “If you still don’t know how to answer properly, your spiritual training doesn’t amount to much. Do some self-examination.”

Sometimes I used to feel “Why doesn’t the old man let up a little bit? Yeah, a little bit. Just a bit, damn it!” But when he died, I had this unutterable loneliness. Now there are so many to praise, but the teacher who was really kind to me—who used to hide his tears of love under his scoldings—is dead, and I am alone.

Holy Kannon is one of those who looks on all of his children and shows compassion for all, whoever they may be, whatever they may do. We have to face the fact of our illusions. We must realise our clinging attachment to the skandha-aggregates for what it is.

In other words, his clinging to his fame and his accomplishments.

In this, his compassion for seeing things as they really are, he negates and negates but when we come to realise we are nothing at all, then we have the experience of the sublime world of Kannon, which embraces all in an infinite forgiveness.

Infinite grace.

In the bodhisattva the world of emptiness and the world of form are not two. “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” And in these words the Buddha speaks of the state of the bodhisattva Kannon.

In the Genjo-koan book of the Shobogenzo it is written, “In the feeling of inadequacy of body and mind the dharma is fulfilled. Know also that in the feeling that the dharma has been fulfilled by body and mind, there is yet something lacking.” When we come to know Buddhism, to feel that it is well, that ‘all is peace,’ to set ourselves down in a state of so-called satori [enlightenment,] means that there is yet no real understanding of Buddhism.

If we are really receptive to Buddhism, there is always the feeling of “not enough, not enough.” Limitless endeavour and striving continue, age after age. That must be the spirit of Mahayana. There is no feeling of completion. “Not enough and still not enough.” Gradually self is negated and the world of liberation reveals itself.

This is very different than Nisargadatta, yet they are expressing the same thing.

Any questions, comments, complaints?

Raise your hand if you have a complaint.

[Laughs]

Okay.

John wants to. Grenafege? However you pronounce his last name. Granola. Granola. I like granola. I can remember that. It is a mnemonic device—for remembering.

John: I take a lot of offence at your pronunciation.

Edji: [Laughing] Good! How else can we pronounce it? Grenovich. Granola.

John: Well, originally it was Irish and Russian, so it was Grenovich, and it got misspelled at Ellis Island.

Yeah, very nice. What comes out when you do this, is just fantastic. When you were talking about “Emptiness is form, and form is emptiness” it really hit home, because at first the impulse, from here, was to kind of go into the emptiness, and there is an old Zen expression—I don’t know a lot about Zen, but I know this one expression—one student went to the teacher and said “My friend is always in the emptiness. What should I tell him to do?” And he [the master] said, “Give up the emptiness!”

And so for me right now, what I was saying to you last week about… push. Is that okay, it’s an illusion. It is not my illusion, and it is really not an illusion from the point of view of the Absolute. The Absolute is fine with it, but this is also it. It’s like you were saying about the hole in the paper [referring to an explanation that Edji used at the previous satsang in which one side of the paper represents the manifest world of body, mind and objects, while the other side is the undifferentiated Absolute, and a hole through the paper represents the aperture through which the finger of “I” is thrust.] Once that’s seen, then what do you do?

And there is always the sense of doing—I don’t care what anyone says. And there is always the sense of ego—not in the sense of a personal thing, but just…

Edji: There is always a sense of “mine.” There is “me” somewhere, either as an absolute witness seeing the illusory nature of consciousness itself, or ‘I’ as a person. That is what Ramana is talking about—you follow the ‘I.’ The ‘I’ is always there, and at one point becomes everything. “I am everything.” And then other times, “I am nothing.”

John: There is no centre anymore.

Edji: Yes, no centre. Right.

John: But there is even the sense that what he calls the ‘I’ of ‘I’—that’s even not it, because even beyond that… that’s part of the manifestation, and even that thins out after some point.

Edji: Yes.

John: I mean it’s all philosophy, as you say, and it’s true. But there’s some sense that’s even beyond that… that is really not known. It’s impossible to put it in words.

Edji: Yes.

John: [Laughs] Even though the apparent world has its demands, and I guess a lot of what I’ve been going through in the last year and half… just those demands, and my wanting to just stay put. It is kind of getting used to being out, and it becomes a whirlwind in a sense. Like, I can’t plan a damned thing. I can’t plan anything.

Edji: Right.

John: When I sit down to plan something, it hurts.

Edji: I know. I know.

John: And everyone around me that, well, that’s still left [laughs] —they look at it like I’m being spaced out.

Edji: Yes.

John: It’s not being spaced out anymore. For a while it was. I couldn’t form a thought.

Edji: Yes.

John: Now I can kind of do that, but I would much rather be just… be. But there is a push, and I don’t know what the hell to do.

Edji: I really have a hard time when somebody says “Can I Skype you tomorrow at 2?” [John laughs] I have no idea what mind-state I am going to be in at 2, or where I’ll be at 2, because even though I have a really conventional life of Starbucks in the morning and usually leaving around 10:30, I have no idea what’s going to happen at 2 or whether I’ll really be up to any conversation.

I may not be in the mood for it or something like that. I know exactly what you’re talking about, and we’re all going through that.

Right, Joan? How much have you accomplished today?

Yes, John, you got it perfectly. You fully, fully, fully comprehend that text. You get a gold star today.

John: Oh, thank you so much.

Edji: I’ll send it to you in the mail.

John: It was nice hearing it from you.

Edji: Yes, thank you.

[John laughs]

Joan, what have you done today?

Joan: Actually, you’ll be really shocked.

Edji: Uh-oh, you did something.

Joan: I did [laughing]. I did. I couldn’t help it. I had to. I’ve been lazy for so many days, everything was falling apart. And all the company finally left, so I became Hitler and ordered everybody around and had to get some things done. Sorry. I’m a failure!

Edji: You’re a failure.

Joan: [Laughing] What can I say?

Edji: [Chuckling] Such a disappointment. But look at Tina. I’m sure Tina compensated by doing absolutely nothing today. And it’s not a matter of doing nothing. It’s a matter of… you’re doing whatever comes up. And if you’re not moved. And if you are moved, you are moved.

Joan: Exactly.

Edji: And Joan hasn’t been moved to do much recently, and now she’s moved.

Joan: Just for one day. [Laughing] And I’m done.

Edji: And a lot of us are that way, you know. We’re less and less in the world, but then something comes up and we can fully function in the world, for the three or four days or however long it takes to get the task done, and then go back into this blessed silence.

Except people that have a lot of kids. It’s not so easy, two kids…

Joan: No. Less than silence here.

Edji: Yes, or have a full time job. Or have all of that—it’s very difficult.

Anybody else? Anything else? Any bitching and complaining?

John H., you’re usually filled with things I should do. What are the suggestions today?

John H.: Oh, I have no suggestions, Edji. I’m going to shut up.

Edji: [Laughs] I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!

John H.: I’m going to shut the fuck up.

Edji: That’s not going to last long. [Laughing]

John H.: It will last a couple of days.

Edji: Well it’s a good attempt. It’s good! You get a silver star for attempting to shut up.

John H.: Okay.

Edji: I guess I should send a silver star to Tina too, because she just doesn’t say anything, ever.

Tina: You’d be surprised.

Edji: Yes. Not in satsang, you don’t.

Tina: [Laughing] Oh no. I really don’t say a whole lot, most days. I like the quiet.

Edji: Yes, I know what you mean.

Tina: But I want to thank you, for the year.

Edji: You’re welcome.

Tina: And all you’ve given us. I love you, and each and every one in the sangha. Thank you so much.

Edji: You’re welcome. You’ve given me so much, too. All of you have. Now I want all the rest of you.

I want everything. Take it all away! Throw it all away!

[Tina laughs]

Michael, how are you?

Michael: I’m alright.

Edji: Tell me what’s going on with you.

Michael: Not much.

Edji: This is your opportunity to bitch, moan, complain, compliment. Ask a question…

Michael: I’m good.

Edji: Okay. Anybody out there in computer land that I can’t see have a question?

Mark: Hi, how are you?

Edji: Good. How are you feeling today? Are you okay? How was satsang for you?

Mark: Nice, yeah! I’ve done the Heart Sutra in a study course once, when I was involved in Tibetan Buddhism. It’s a really good text.

Edji: Yes it is. Because it’s very personal.

Mark: Very profound. Very deep. [Chuckles]

Edji: Yes it is. The notion that negation, emptiness, actually accentuates the form and also neutralises it at the same time. Just the observing of the arising of the forms nullifies it, and yet makes it real at the same time.

Mark: My mate had a peak experience when he was about 15 years old. He kept repeating over and over, “I understand everything—it’s like it is, and it isn’t.” This was his thing—that it was and it wasn’t at the same time.

I couldn’t get a handle on it, and I didn’t know what he meant. Then, years later we both got into Tibetan Buddhism and we got into studying this Madhyamika Prasangika view of emptiness which I was reading on someone’s website, where they were doing a nondual technique and then they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t one, it wasn’t the other; but it was both—that was the answer.

But according to the Prasangika view, it’s not that this is then asserting some new position. It’s not one, it’s not the other, it isn’t both and it also isn’t neither. That would be the full Prasangika view of that, so I was quite surprised that this guy had come to that conclusion, sort of asserted the position of it being both, yeah? Rather than one or the other. That’s kind of not the whole equation, the way I came to understand it intellectually.

Edji: You know, there is a—I’ve mentioned this at satsang before—a famous koan, called “Gutei’s finger.” Have you heard of it before?

Mark: No.

Edji: Gutei, whenever people would ask him a question about the dharma, he’d raise one finger. No matter what they’d ask him. What is the Buddha? One finger. What is Nirvana? One finger. What is emptiness? One finger.

And he had a student. The name of the koan is, “What is Gutei’s one-fingered Zen?”

The student had been with him many years, and everybody recognised that he was a senior student of Gutei.

So people started asking him questions. What is Buddha? And he’d hold up one finger. What is enlightenment? He held up one finger. What is the way? He held up one finger—just like his teacher. He didn’t know what the fuck it meant, but he knew the observables, the behaviours.

Gutei, seeing this, snuck up behind him one day when he was answering people in the crowd and he grabbed his hand after somebody had asked him “What is Buddha?” and he put up one finger—Gutei grabbed the student’s hand and with a knife, cut the finger off.

Now, you’re supposed to answer the koan: What is Gutei’s one-fingered Zen? What does it mean?

I struggled with that koan a long, long time. I even gave Maezumi the answer one time, when I was getting frustrated [Edji holds up middle finger.] But that finger didn’t mean that much back then [chuckles.] He just hit me with the stick.

But the proper answer is—sometimes this [holding up right index finger,] sometimes this [holding up left index finger,] sometimes this [holding up both index fingers,] sometimes this [fist hiding right index finger,] sometimes this [fist hiding left index finger,] sometimes this [both fists but no fingers showing,] and sometimes this [no fists or fingers showing.]

That’s for you, Mark. You got that, right?

Mark: Yeah.

Edji: Okay. And for the rest of you … my one finger. [Holds up middle finger] Ed’s one-fingered Zen!

Let’s do… yeah, we can do that one. I want to do one of the Yogananda ones—Only You. I love that one.

I Will Be Thine Always—yes.

[Chanting—I Will Be Thine Always]

I wanted to ask the people that have been coming for six months or so, or more—do you notice, in the last month or so, a different feeling? A feeling of what I talked about—grace? That there’s something happening?

I don’t know, I can’t put my fingers on it, but it feels that there’s a sacredness, or a hallowedness about our satsang now that’s different. Do you have any feedback? Joan?

Joan: Well, I guess that it’s kind of hard to put your finger on, but I have felt it. Last week I think you had mentioned —well you’d mentioned it a few weeks back, but last week was the first time I physically felt it—just that descent. Yes, something’s different.

Edji: Yes. Worse.

Joan: No.

[Both laugh]

Edji: How about Jo-Ann?

[Long pause where sound cuts out]

Edji: Yeah. It must be John’s presence. He’s been here for three weeks now, so it’s got to’ve been him. We’ve got to find a cause.

[Voice off, indiscernible]

Oh, okay.

Well, something’s going on—I can feel it.

I can feel it.

http://www.wearesentience.com

2012-01-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

Freedom!

So much has changed recently. So many people are leaving our Sangha and so many new people are coming in. Flux! Change! Freedom! Each leaves with a story, and each joiner has a story why they come. Dozens of stories, almost none of them true, even on the surface, let alone deeper.

Some make up a story and give politically correct excuses. One even wrote that I write so much, there is so much work for him, while Rajiv writes so little, so he will go with Rajiv, who has not changed and writes less, and therefore he has thus less to do.

Others are not even aware of powerful feelings ruling them just out of reach of their consciousness, but which are so apparent to others. If you bring these hidden emotions to their faces, they leave because their ego defenses will not allow them to see these feelings, whether of anger or jealousy, or neediness.

Many leave because they feel I don’t pay them enough attention, given how much they feel they do for me. I owe them more, and they feel others get more of me, while not helping like they do.

They do not see this is God's work, the flowing of consciousness in me and in them, and everything is exactly happening the way it should.

I have changed through teaching and interpersonal relations with the Sangha. I am no longer simply an Advaita teacher; it was too confining, too narrow a path, and not “wet” enough.

Nor am I strictly a Bhakti teacher, nor a Zen teacher, nor a Sufi teacher. All of these can become traps rather than a way to freedom. Really, like J. Krishnamurti and Osho, I teach freedom, and that starts with freedom from the known.

The real truth is to free yourself from your mind in order to live from your heart. This can also be expressed as living from your emptiness. In order to do this you need to be liberated from conceptualization, from the dominance of the mind’s preoccupation with knowing and controlling.

To be too deeply buried in Ramana or Nisargadatta can become a new limitation. We need the freedom to explore many, many rooms in the mansion of spiritual experiences. This is different from Robert’s way of teaching, as least as it appears on the surface if you just read his talks. But in real life he was constantly cooking us by creating chaos in the sangha, creating situations where jealousy and anger arose, as much as love and acceptance. I learned well his lessons of burning and teach them explicitly, making it publicly part of the process. Not that I deliberately create chaos, but it seems to follow wherever I go. IT IS NOT ME!!!

But no matter what I do, how I change or not, someone, somewhere will not like it and will leave. They will give a reason, because the mind does that rather than feel deeper emotions not felt, or an inner pushing away.

Some leave because they liked Advaita and I was now talking differently. Some thought I was too intoxicated with the personal, considering this to be my own vasana to be worked through before returning to the Truth of Advaita.

Some felt they did not understand the new book from which I was quoting, or my teachings in general; they then found a simpler teaching about consciousness where they felt their minds expand, and confused that with awakening.

Others left because they had a no-I experience, and the path they had been walking was no longer needed or wanted.

Others left because the emotions were too great, and what they “really” wanted in the now was peace from the feelings, escape.

So many stories. But if you step back, you can watch these events come and go as waves. The waves comes in then recede at the pace of the ocean, not your pace. Seeing this is freedom.

And as Robert said, he watches to see who will stay until the end, no matter what he does or does not do. It is not so much a matter then of awakening, but of loving and being loved by the other. Who can do it?

I really, really love you all so much, but know I teach freedom from the known, even from Zen, from Advaita, from Sufism, from Taoism, from Christianity. I teach no truth, and in that you can find awakening, love and peace. Or you can find energies, excitement, and understanding.

There is something here for everyone, and also for no one at all.

2012-01-04T18:08:00.001-08:00

2012-01-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

2012-01-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

As some may know, Jo Ann, Mamaji, and Alan have left our Sangha. They will be sorely missed. As you may know, Jo Ann ran our online Satsang.

I am sure there will be many stories told as to why they left, and the only true story is that the reasons are unknown and unknowable. Consciousness has decided they are to move on. It really was not their decision, or my actions, although it is all too easy to create stories and "isolate" (speculate) reasons.

Really, when you live from emptiness, from the heart, you just see shit happens, and then happens again in a different direction a few minutes, hours, or months later. It never stops. Just when you think you have it all figured out, the situation and rules change.

People think awakening means a rest from this cycle, but really, it only means you find rest by letting it pass by or to involve yourself as you choose. As Robert said, awakening only takes the sting out of the process, as well as provides a light on the rest of your path.

Satsang on Saturday evenings will continue, but I think I’ll take a 2 week break so that I can visit my mom in Arizona and maybe spend a few days in Sedona.

Good luck you two!

2012-01-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

Let us forget the Ramana Maharshi ideal of loving everyone and everything. If we love everyone, doesn't that mean we really don't love any ONE? If we love everything, doesn't that mean we really do not love any one THING? When love becomes generic, it loses its value because it is as common as dirt, and all objects and people are the same.

But in real life, is it not the passionate, exclusive, and singular love for the beloved, that allows us to see God in human flesh? Is it not singular, exclusive love that allows the personal self to burn away, to become empty and totally receptive to the other? If love were everywhere, to whom or what can we surrender?

Was not the love of Rumi for God and for his guru, Shams? It was not for all the trees in the forest, or all the people on Facebook. It was for his one beloved, God in Shams.

It is in this duality with the beloved that we find God on earth in human or animal form, and the beloved finds God in us. God worships himself through me and you in duality.

Only then, only when love has completed its work does the self, the I Am, drop away and we find rest in stillness, emptiness and receptivity—the silence of the heart.

2012-01-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

A revelation! Ramana's Bhaktic side. Following is a quote sent to me by Janet Beier. Muruganar is considered one of Ramana's chief disciples. It is so wonderful to find this quote which absolutely validates the way our sangha is moving.

The experience of not forgetting consciousness ['I am'] alone is the state of bhakti, which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines in the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Only if one knows the truth of love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only love, which is seeing only love, hearing only love, feeling only love, tasting only love and smelling only love, which is bliss.(54)

From Guru Vachaka Kovai, vv. 974, 652, 655, by Sri Muruganar

2011-12-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

The Descent of Grace

December 24, 2011 – Online Satsang

[Chanting—Gopala]

Now that you are deep within yourself, look… look around. Look around inside of you.

What do you see?

Do you see darkness?

The emptiness?

Do you see thoughts?

With your eyes closed, does your body exist? What do you feel where your legs are supposed to be? Anything?

If you turn your vision around, looking inward, what do you see?

You do not see the inside of your brain. You may see darkness. You may see lights. You may see light at the third eye.

You may see emptiness everywhere, permeating everything.

And if you see the emptiness, is it lighted, or is it still dark? What is the quality of that emptiness? Is it visual, or is it tactile?

Does your body feel tension? Do you feel tense muscles anywhere?

Do you feel your sense of presence, the ‘I Am’—that thing that is Michael, that is John, that is Mamaji, and Joan? Do you feel that essence of humanity; where consciousness goes from being personal to impersonal—the nodal point, the ‘I Am?’ Do you feel that, the ‘I Am?’

Can you locate the ‘I,’ the sense of ‘I?’

If you feel ‘I Am,’ can you find that?

Look within yourself. Do you feel that sense of self, of ‘I’-ness?

Me, me, me.

Supposedly, it is there from about the age of two and a half on. Sometimes two. Some people never have it. It never develops, coalesces; at least in the proper way.

Can you locate that ‘I Am’ sense?

When you find it, just stay there. Stay with it.

Love it. Worship it. Bow down on your knees to it. Worship it.

[Pause]

I first started practicing “Who am I?” in 1967 or ‘68. I practiced by myself—went into the desert and lived in a tent—the Sonoran desert—until June. It was 114 degrees Fahrenheit [app. 45 degrees Celsius] every day. I said, “To hell with that!”

I went to Rochester, New York to visit Kapleau Roshi.

He kicked me out. I was too much of a problem.

Then I went to see Sasaki Roshi. They kicked me out, because I was too much of a problem. They were too much for me, too. It was a mutual thing.

Then I went through a gauntlet of Zen teachers: Thich Tien-An, the Abbot at the International Buddhist Meditation Centre, Maezumi Roshi, Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim, and half a dozen others I cannot remember… Kozan Roshi. A whole bunch of them.

Then it all died. Zen was cold for me. Nothing was happening. “Who am I?” became very dry. I got distracted. Too many koans; too many masters; too many teachings; too much trying to figure it out.

It died.

Then Muktananda came along, and breathed a little life into a lifeless practice—gave me beautiful chanting, like we have tonight.

Such a difference.

I got kicked out of Siddha Yoga, too. I had been telling people not to visit India. They would not like it—There is too much poverty there, too much illness. All you will pick up there is some parasite. You will not get any enlightenment there, so stay away. They thought that was sacrilege, so I got canned from Siddha Yoga, too.

I am very consistent! [Laughs]

I am trying to get you all canned from your jobs, whatever they are, too. Get you tossed out, so that you are useless. People throw you out in the street—employers, husbands, wives—Get out of here!

And then I was graced. I attended a little satsang. I had not gone to any satsang in two or three years. And I met Robert Adams, and I knew instantaneously he was my teacher.

I stayed with him for seven or eight years, before he moved away… well, before he died, actually. He moved away six years after I met him.

I think our satsang is more and more being moved by grace, rather than by method, or by teachings. There is more a sense of grace now in our satsang. I began feeling it strongly about three weeks ago, four weeks ago.

In Soto Zen, classically, they talk about two different energies, or forces, within oneself. One is called joriki. Joriki is the power one develops from sitting in meditation. It is the Self-power. It is the power of samadhi, of dhyana [Sanskrit for “sitting,” as in meditation.] And the other is koriki, which is the power of the other—of grace.

It descends on you, and you feel so thankful to be alive, and to be in the presence of that grace.

It is quiet. It is deep.

And you just want to fall to your knees, touch the ground and feel the descent of grace, for it washes everything away. It washes all the emotions away that hurt; all the depression; all the sense of desolation; all the physical pains. They all disappear for a moment, once grace descends.

Koriki. It is like the story I told of the baseball player who was always such a great baseball player that everybody asked him what he did, and he says, I was lucky. I was lucky. The ball bounced the right way. I hit it the right way… accidentally. That triple play—I was lucky.

And then somebody asked him, But you practice eight hours a day! How can you discount that?

And he says, I have found the more I practice, the luckier I get.

That is what I am trying to get you to do, is to get you “lucky.” Have you practiced the ‘I Am?’ Have you become aware of the traps in your life every day, day-to-day, moment to moment? To really look at the brutality of the world, and decide to do something about it—either by going within and escaping, or doing something without to change it. But do not just stay stuck.

Movement, movement, movement.

Then staying still, while that movement takes place, so you can watch it—watch the movement play through you.

I do not know if you feel the grace settling onto you, but I do. It is like an energy that comes from above, and just washes away everything that is “Ed.” I feel it going out to all of you. I do not know whether you feel it or not.

It is kind of here to protect us all; take us all away.

[Pause]

But I trust it.

[Pause]

I just posted two posts on Facebook, and on our blog. There is a teacher, Andreas, in France who calls what is happening in spirituality “the advaita illness;” and my friend Shankarananda calls it “California advaita.”

The concept is that once you recognise, by introspection, that there is no ‘I,’ either, and they are bit confused here—either no ‘I’-thought or no ‘I’-object—then you realise there is no separate sense of self, and there is just unity consciousness, and you are awakened. There is no more to do. You are finished. No more effort.

So they challenge you: Look inside. See if you can find an ‘I.’ And you try for thirty seconds—and Tino says three to five seconds—find that there is no ‘I,’ and you are free. Wasn’t that easy?

None of this Buddha shit, starving yourself for 7 years. Going from teacher to teacher to teacher. Practicing meditation 24 hours a day. Different pranayama. Different kinds of austerities. Do you weigh 90 pounds, and you’re 6 foot 8? Sitting in the cold with the snow falling on you, warming yourself with different kinds of breathing techniques.

Going to teacher after teacher after teacher. Listening to lecture after lecture. Reading book after book—all the Vedas; the Mahabharata; the Bhagavad Gita; all the Upanishads. You read Krishnamurti. Go to one Zen master after another. Go to shaktipat gurus, and receive shaktipat.

Hell no, these people don’t go! They look inside themselves for three to five seconds. Or thirty seconds, or two minutes. And My God, I look inside of myself and I don’t find an ‘I!’ That means there is no separate ‘I,’ which means that there is only one consciousness. Which means… and then they read books that tell them what it means.

Then they start posting on Facebook exactly what they learned about what “no separate self” means; “no separate I” means. And they talk, and talk, and talk, and talk. They all talk the same.

They read the same books.

And you try to say, Well, aren’t you missing something? or What is your experience? and they say, Isn’t it obvious? My experience is of no separate self.

And you ask them, Well, what does that mean?

- Ha ha! You idiot! I just told you. No separate self!

- But is that it? Wasn’t there an explosion of consciousness? Have you changed in any way?

- No, you asshole! There is no separate self. How can anybody do that? I don’t understand. What is the matter with you? Can’t you listen, you asshole?

They get so vociferous about how deeply enlightened they are [chuckles,] and how they cannot possibly communicate any experience about their deep enlightenment, because there is nobody there. And since there is nobody there, there is no world there, too. So somehow they are able to live day to day, and not have a self, and not have a world! It is utter confusion.

Then there are a few that are completely mad on Facebook, like Faisal; who argues with everybody. Or Ricky, who sometimes argues with everybody. Or Joan, who argues very articulately with a lot of people.

But you know, there is a lot more—there is a lot more—to Self-realisation, than finding out there is no ‘I.’

A lot of times, people identify the ‘I’ with the ego; and they say, “When the ‘I’ disappears, the ego disappears.”

Do not believe that for a second. What is the ego? Is it just the ‘I’ thought? Is that all there is to it?

If that is all there is to the ego, the last 125 years of Psychology has entirely missed the boat, because they have found dozens and dozens of structures and processes that comprise the ego.

The ego, according to Freud, was the “reality principle.” It mediated between the primitive us, who always wants things, wants things, wants things—the id—and the reality of the world, where only some of those wants could be met. For some people, none of them are met. Just complete frustration. And the ego is to serve the id. It is to give that person as much impulse gratification as it can, and stay out of jail.

Then the “superego” develops, and that is morality. That is where you start learning principles. You know—Don’t harm animals. Go to Sunday school. Learn all about Jesus, and how much he loves you. Take your marriage vows, where you are doomed to live together forever.

All kinds of conventions about jobs… Work hard! Progress! Get ahead! All these fantasies.

The great American dream—the house—which as we see, has nearly sunk our economy, and the whole world, too. Everybody wanted the American dream; with the house, and everybody got a house and nobody can afford the house anymore. So we are going back to pre-Communist Russia, pretty soon.

All these fantasies we live in. And the ego tries to make a path through the fantasies and external conventions and give the id what it wants, and the superego imposes a moral structure. In the East it is a very severe moral structure with lots of stratified societies, like in Japan; and in India, with the caste system. In the Unites States it is more conventional. It is religion, it is the State, it is the laws. These are incorporated, and become morality.

Freud made a further distinction between that which is unconscious, that which is conscious, and that which is preconscious. Preconscious is something like when somebody asks you something and you say Oh, yeah, I remember that. I remember that. You try to remember it and you cannot remember it, and then a day later you remember it. That is preconscious. It is accessible to the conscious mind.

The unconscious is that which is carefully hidden away by the ego. The ego has a bunch of things called “defence mechanisms,” so that certain things are not brought into consciousness; including pain—psychological pain. It is repressed, or denied.

And there are other mechanisms by which the ego either tries to tell the id, I cannot give you that right now. You will have to wait. Or, I cannot give you that, ever.

Or there are certain conflicting impulses that would just tear you apart in the real world if you tried to satisfy both, so the ego has to reconcile these impulses somehow. You know how hard it is sometimes to make decisions. Should I do this, or should I do that?

The ego is always working that way—trying to decide what comes into your consciousness. Sometimes maybe five things want to come into your consciousness, but you can only handle one or two at a time. It does the work for you. It does it on an unconscious level. And this unconscious is not accessible to the conscious mind. The unconscious sort of has to leak its contents into the conscious mind; through dreams, or through Freudian slips; through imagination, through free association.

And the ego functions in the area of consciousness, unconsciousness, and the preconscious. It floats in all those areas, while the id is totally unconscious, repressed.

Now. How does that fit into the Eastern model? In the Eastern model, is there an unconscious? Not like in the West. The most common model—or a common model—is that found in advaita, and in the advaita of Nisargadatta, where they talk about the “four bodies,” or “five bodies” sometimes: the physical body; the subtle body, which is the mind and imagination; the causal body, which is the transition into the deeper levels of unconscious, for them, which is not-knowing, which is ignorance, which is going non-experiential, just pure awareness. And the fourth level—I forget what they call it—a different body, but it is basically Turiya, the Turiya state, the fourth state, from which the others are viewed. The natural state.

These models, in lots of ways, are irreconcilable. There is nothing like dream analysis in advaita. But there is with the Sufis, and there is in Psychoanalysis. You see, we have many different models of the mind and ego. Some are bewilderingly complex.

Freud started it, but afterwards there has been 100 years of psychoanalysis, getting ever more sophisticated and subtle. Doing studies of children, how they grow up and how they develop; what processes develop. When do they learn how to say ‘I?’ When do they feel separate from the environment? When do they develop mathematical skills? When do they learn how to read? When did they start learning how to get along with other people? When did they develop a sense of morality?

All of these are parts of the ego—Our ability to function in the world. Our ability to talk and to communicate, and to love another person effectively. Our ability to maintain ourselves eight hours a day at work. Our ability to do basic math, or to do reading.

We change these skills from moment to moment, during a day. One time we are talking to somebody on Skype. A couple of hours later, we have to do the books, which means balancing a month’s worth of receipts. Then maybe you have to do more complicated math… do some algebra for some odd reason… maybe that is part of your job.

And how do you do math? Do you go to a math nucleus inside of yourself, like a ‘math I’? Is there a cell which you go into to be a “math person,” like you are supposed to go into the ‘I’ to become “I?”

You know, it is like… I do medical reports. I edit them, and I do rebuttals of psychiatrists that we disagree with; which means I tear their reports about our patient apart, saying they do not know what they are talking about, we have testing that proves our point of view, etc., etc.

It requires a lot of thinking, a lot of decision making, a lot of probing, a lot of looking at the details they may have missed; for some little clue which I can use against them. Or maybe they have got us, and I just have to lie my way out of it.

And it is not easy to do this. You have to be in a certain mind state. You cannot go from listening to Krishna Das to doing something like that. You have to have a transition where you begin functioning in the world, using your mind. Often, for weeks at a time, I cannot get into that mood, to be able to do these fucking reports.

It is the same with math. You cannot just… a lot of people cannot do math, unless they work their way into it. It is like we go into that place. We say, Okay, let’s settle down. Let’s take a look at this problem, here. Then we focus—we exclude the other stuff—and we become math. Or we become a rebutter, or a report writer.

Other people, when they come into a room and they want to greet people in the room, they get into a certain mode where they can feel the presence of people in that room. They talk to them, they can feel them. They can feel where they are coming from.

One-on-one, they can look into their hearts and feel where they are, and try to greet them at the deepest level that they are capable of. And it is not easy. I mean, it is a talent, being an empath like that. Everybody has it to a certain degree. Some are very, very, very gifted at it.

And so, we all have so many different abilities. The ability to find our way to work and back; find our way to Starbucks and back. The ability to learn a new program. The ability to put up with all the shit at work, or in our life. To be able to tolerate it, too.

We are infinitely variable. We juggle many, many balls; and each one requires us to be, sort of, a different person. But there is a unifying sense, in all of us, of being ‘I;’

of always being Jo-Ann, or John, or Michael, or Ricky, or Tina, or Ryan, or Alan; Joan; Edji. I mean, we always feel from moment to moment, day to day, that we are the same person, it is just that we put on different faces.

And one tiny face, in all of that, is the sense of ‘I.’

I think it is only spirituality that gives that concept of ‘I’ such a big space, and makes such a big deal out of it. Such that when the ‘I’ goes—when you see through the ‘I,’ that it is only a thought and there is no I to which it refers—suddenly your universe is transformed, and you are enlightened.

God, no! It is a little step. It is a little step.

Too much for Alan, I guess I blew his head off. Alan, I was saying it was too much for you—I blew your head off.

But do not believe for a moment that just because you see that there is no self to which the ‘I’ refers, you have made it. Really, seeing that there is no ‘I,’ or looking for the ‘I,’ is only to reveal to you, as the looker, the vastness of your internal world.

It reveals your inner void—the emptiness. It reveals to you your sense of presence inside, that fills that emptiness. Gradually it reveals the energies that permeate your sense of presence and your body. You become aware of them. You become conscious.

All this inner work just reveals more and more, that you never knew existed. The void. Your sense of presence. An inner light—consciousness has its own light. Your own consciousness has its own light.

And all kinds of spiritual experience—unitary experience; where there is only one experience, and no experiencer. Or other experiences, like the ‘I’ disappearing. And still other experiences, where you see that consciousness itself is not real. And the sweetest experiences of great love for another; for God; for an animal.

And even greater than that is the sense of grace.

God loves me. I feel it. Consciousness loves me. I feel it. Its energy and magnificence is beyond measure. I feel so small, and yet so held by this grace that descends, and fills me.

[Pause]

Then, there is the sense of living without a mind—you live from the heart. It is as if you do not function from your brain anymore. You function from your heart. It really feels like that. It feels like, you are walking around… you are seeing through your eyes, you are hearing through your ears; but you are no longer functioning from the head.

You are functioning from the heart, and the mind is playing a minor role. It is there, at that point, along for the ride. Mamaji [Jo-Ann Chinn] will know this state someday, once she gets out of her programs and technology.

But the head does not function. It is quiet. Only the heart functions.

[Pause]

What a state this is.

To have no mind, and not even feel a heart, in the sense that we feel like we love, or something like that. It is just that we are living in our emptiness, and the emptiness kind of feels like our heart.

There is no conflict here. Not even a great sense of love, but you are manifesting love. You are manifesting grace, and every moment is magnificent. Every moment is quiet, yet filled with presence. Emptiness is manifesting perfectly. It is manifesting perfectly your individuality—you as John; or Michael; or Ricky. Or Joan.

The emptiness fills your life—holds it. It holds you. Holds you still, and allows everything to pass through you, leaving no trace.

This is not the bullshit the Facebook people talk about. This is grace. God’s grace raining down on you, with great peace. Robert talked about peace that passeth understanding. It cannot be comprehended. It is a different dimension, it is so deep.

[Pause]

What is a good chant, Mamaji? A nice, long one. And a strong one.

[Pause while chant is being set up]

By the way, there is a secret with chanting—if you do not know the words, slur your voice when you go over them, and just pretend. Like in that last one I did not know… “Gopala” I understood, but the rest I did not. I just faked it. [Chuckles]

You could hear me faking it? I was caught, huh? [Laughs] I thought they were saying “day-fuck-ananda,” but I knew they were not saying that, so I just slurred over that part.

[Chanting—Jaya Jagatambe]

When the music receded, when it got quieter and quieter… when the music got quieter and quieter and receded, where were you?

Did you leave with the music, or were you always present?

How did you feel, when the music died? Did a sadness come up in you because you wanted more? Did nothing move in you? Did a feeling of thankfulness for the music arise in you, for the beauty of the chanting?

I want to read again from The Tiger’s Cave. This is by Trevor Leggett. It is a series of essays by a Zen abbot, and it has been out of print since 1977. This is page 23, and the abbot is talking about the Nirvana Sutra. Actually he is talking also about the Heart Sutra, but he is quoting the Nirvana Sutra. And he says:

In the Nirvana Sutra is the illustration of three animals crossing a river, and they represent three ways of living. The animals are the elephant, horse and hare, and they illustrate shallow and profound views of life. The hare slips along on the flotsam on the surface, and such is one who sees only the surface of life and thus only the physical form. The horse crosses by swimming half immersed in the water. Such goes a little deeper into life. The elephant forges steadily across with great strides along the bottom. This sort of living is going right into life and penetrating to the real basis, and it is complete living.

I wish you could have this, Mamaji, to be able to read it. I would love to hear you read this… these kinds of parts.

In the Nirvana Sutra, the elephant crossing the river stride by stride is an illustration of completeness in living. Now the hare is the symbol of taking life as the body. Such thinking is always escapist. It is the psychology of the shirker. The shallowest view of life is to consider something which can be evaded. To think that one can escape by moving from here to here. This superficial attitude of hoping to get out of one’s responsibilities.

I have my role in life, which may be as a coolie or a cleaner. My allotted part is that of a priest. Each has his own. To be religious is also a role, and I sometimes wonder whether the role of a religious man is not rather an unworthy one. Among religious people I am of no account, but even so I always seem to be getting pushed into things by flattery. All the time one is being flattered. ‘No-one but your reverence. Please may we have a few words from you.’ One gets caught, and there is nothing for it but to comply. One cannot help but feeling a bit pushed into things.

Oh, to find some way to give it up and retire, buried snugly in a temple in the country. Such thoughts may come. And yet those who refuse to follow the flatterings—they are awkward fellows too. The fact is that everyone does act at the instigation of others. Even such great men as Saigo was flattered by others into doing things and to follow the flattery and try to do what they want is all right but in any case, however flattered, we don’t escape our role in life. To switch from role A to role B, from role B to role C, and from C to D in the hope of peace and happiness is an attitude of evading responsibility.

It is like running from one Zen teacher to another, one teacher to another. Somewhere we can find happiness. Somewhere we will find the perfect teacher that will make everything all right. Or the right religion. Or the right book. Or the right self-help group.

Not liking the life of a priest, let me have a go at business, and if I don’t like that I can try a government job. So I try to get out of my obligations. The one thing I don’t want to do is my allotted role. Evasion of responsibility is the most shallow attitude of life.

The second attitude is typified by the horse. Here the idea is to reduce life to a void.

To a void—to emptiness.

Whereas the first attitude was to run from life, from the responsibilities and the inconveniences of family and so on, this second attitude goes somewhat deeper.

This is very important. They are talking about really, advaita, as it is normally practiced.

They think that if the unsatisfactory human life can be reduced to emptiness, it can be done away with and got rid of altogether.

Sound familiar?

In Buddhism this is called the way of the second vehicle, or the Hinayana. Those who practice the Hinayana, the small vehicle called the second, are termed shravakas and pratyekabuddhas. To their way of thinking this life of birth and death is altogether emptiness, and Nirvana is the state of literal annihilation. Not to be born again. Not to come back into the world. To annihilate the individual completely. A literal annihilation of body-mind is their state of nirvana.

The second attitude to life is that the sorrows and joys of life are all to become nothing.

This is typical advaita.

The third view is the bodhisattva view. Evasion and escapism are the attitudes of ordinary man who always wants to get out of his allotted role in the world. He thinks that if he can just get out of his present condition there will be satisfaction just over there. But the third view of life is to find the meaning in this life, which however much we try to escape we can never escape. And it means to realise the true Nirvana state.

Escapism is the first attitude. The second is to think that emptiness means neither to weep nor smile nor do anything at all. But life is not like that. We set ourselves not to weep, but life brings us towards tears. We set ourselves not to be angry, yet anger arises—it cannot be escaped. The third attitude—the profound attitude—is the spiritual practice to discover a power in the very midst of the sufferings of life. Profundity means technically, to penetrate right into life.

And I will skip a few pages, because there is a lot of unnecessary stuff. He begins to talk about this.

To look through the real form is to penetrate to one’s reality, free from self-deception. This is true renunciation. Not trying to throw away, and yet throwing away all the same. When we can gaze steadily at our ignoble self and understand, this is itself the principle of renunciation.

In other words not to run away, shirk responsibilities, not to seek emptiness; but to look at ourselves as we really are, in our imperfection. In our flawed nature.

In our brokenness. Just to look at it. Not to do anything about it. Not to throw it away. Not to try to change it—just to look at it, honestly.

When you really come to a deadlock, it is renunciation. To change our condition from this to that it is not renunciation, which never implies switching from A to B. When there is a complete realisation of the true character of oneself, there is a feeling of throwing the self away, and that is the principle of renunciation. When we have penetrated to the bottom of this illusory self, not without negating, and yet not negating, there is the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness and the self is thrown aside.

Through the power of ultimate emptiness of renunciation, there can be a change to a state which leaves no track. When the self has been thrown away, when the discipline matures, there is a crossing into Nirvana. This is the method of the practice of the bodhisattva canon.

And it is from this that the Heart Sutra [the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra] is generated, from the bodhisattva:

When Avalokiteshvara was practising the profound Prajnaparamita, he perceived that all five aggregates are empty and pass beyond all suffering and distress.
O Sariputra, form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form.
Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
And so also are sensation, thinking, impulse and consciousness.
All things, Sariputra, have the character of emptiness.
Neither born nor dying, neither defiled nor pure.
Neither increased nor lessened.
So in emptiness, there is neither form nor sensation, thinking, impulse, nor consciousness,
No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind,
No form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch nor object of mind,
No element of I nor any of the other elements, including that of mind consciousness,
No ignorance and no extinction of ignorance,
Nor any of the rest, including age and death and extinction of age and death.
No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no wisdom and no attainment.
The bodhisattva, since he is not gaining anything by the Prajnaparamita, has his heart set free from all hindrances,
And with no hindrances in the heart there is no fear.
Far from all perverted dream thoughts he has reached the ultimate Nirvana.
By the Prajnaparamita all buddhas of the three worlds have utmost right and perfect enlightenment.
Know then that the Prajnaparamitra is the great spiritual mantra,
The great radiant mantra, the supreme mantra, the peerless mantra which removes all suffering.
The true, the unfailing, the mantra of the Prajnaparamita is taught, and it is taught thus -
Gone, gone, gone beyond, altogether beyond,
Bodhi, svaha!

Now—I chanted that in one Buddhist centre or monastery or another for God knows how many years, and I never understood it then. And it is chanted all over the world by millions and millions of Buddhists every morning, in one tongue or another… Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, English.

And it is always a mystery for a beginner. What are they talking about? What state is he talking about?

I will leave that with you.

Get a copy of it. We must have it on our website somewhere, the Heart Sutra. Do we, Jo-Ann? We have the Heart Sutra?

2011-12-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

2011-12-28T14:33:00.000-08:00

Michael Hall talks about Ed Muzika's teachings: