The Trip Back into Emotions and Humanhood

Advaita teachings from Edward “Edji” Muzika’s blog http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com/

(June 20 – October 30, 2011)

These excerpts from Edji’s teaching blog act as a lively companion to the online satsangs Edji has also been giving for the past year. His message continues to deepen, but his complete honesty and 100% dedication to his students remain firm.

Thank you, Edji and all those students whose voices fill the following pages.

(The cover features a photo of Edji in Sedona, Arizona, where his teacher, Robert Adams, died in 1997.)

Edji’s teaching blog: http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com/

Edji’s teachings website: http://www.wearesentience.com/

Matthew Brown Toronto, October, 2011

20 June 2011

Student:

I can't remember if I asked you already about this. You say you teach self-enquiry in the light of Robert and Ramana. But I wonder what Robert might say to your comment about doing "sesshin" at mount baldy - and only taking a week to attain samadhi? (not sure which samadhi you're refering to) How does that jive with Robert and Ramana exactly? Thanks for your time, Seeker

Edji:

Where is the inconsistency you appear to see?

I teach self-abidance as opposed to self-inquiry.

Zen and Advaita are different paths with different experiences and understandings.

Zen is more into perception and immediacy, while traditional Advaita has a theory associated with it, sometimes emphasizing Consciousness and oneness, sometimes the primacy of Turyatta, the state prior to all states, or the stateless states.

All paths are not equal, and many experiences and understandings are mutually exclusive if you hold onto either a Zen understanding or an Advaita understanding.

I was a Buddhist monk many years before I met Robert, and was at Mt. Baldy 17 years before I met Robert. Did you want me to forget my Zen experiences before I met Robert in order to make my life's understanding and experiences consistent over a period of 40 years? Is that what you prize, consistent knowledge and experiences?

That is all the time it takes to attain many states during an intense Zen retreat, a few days. There is really nothing like the intensity of a retreat as at Mt. Baldy, with people beating you with sticks in near sub zero temperatures in a Zendo if you nod off to sleep.

Actually, you can't compare the states between various disciplines. They are not identical across the conceptual lines created by the differing methods and epistemology.

Do not be captured by your understanding of spirituality, but let go, otherwise you will always see problems.

Student: Just seems like you're diverging from what Ramana and Robert taught here. Firstly, what good is there to speak of various states of samadhi - when they are not the ultimate unchanging Reality? Both obviously spoke on them, but only to explain them conceptually - and to remind that they are not the Goal. And certainly not to claim it can be attained (by a select few? anyone?) doing a few days of meditation? And further to suggest a retreat of that nature? It just seems odd and out of line with your teacher and his - and the non dual tradition as a whole. It could be that I am stuck on a conception of advaita in their lineage/style - but ask yourself this; Would Robert, Ramana, Nisargadatta, or other Masters in this line ever have spoken those words? I seriously doubt it. Edji: You are stuck on your understanding of Robert and Ramana based on books. Robert, in life, was much different from his teachings. I am different from Robert, I do not teach his Satsang teachings because generally they were for beginners interested in theory and basic techniques. You should concern yourself less with your apprehension of apparent contradictions between how you perceive Robert's teachings versus mine, and be more concerned about your own teachings, which means your own sense of I Am and self. You have to understand this. It does not matter what you think Robert or Ramana would or would not have said. That is all thinking on your part. You need to get out of concepts and

perceive the sense of presence, the I Am, then you would not be so concerned with words. There is no truth in words.

08 July 2011

Janet Beier:

Hi Edji, I found a poem that triggered a movement in me this morning. It had a profound effect on me. I think it shows Rumi knew the absolute.

"In love...nothing is eternal, but drinking your wine. There is no reason for bringing my life to you, other than losing it. I said, I just want to know you, and then disappear. She said, knowing me does not mean dying."

~Rumi "In love ... nothing is eternal, but drinking your wine." - only when I love deeply, in the authentic experience of Love, am I identified with the eternal aspect of Love that moves through a changing Consciousness from life to life. In that loving I know I Am, and I Am is eternal. "There is no reason for bringing my life to you, other than losing it" - here I realized that in love all that was cherished and held dear in life is dropped. The identity and life of the lover has disappeared and only the loving remains. "I said, I just want to know you, and then disappear. She said, knowing me does not mean dying." - when listening to this I asked myself who is the "I" and who is the "She," as a spontaneous self-inquiry. I saw both as spoken from the Absolute. "I", the Absolute want to know all my attributes through you (all appearances). And then the response from her being like an echo from the Absolute again reassuring us that this knowing doesn't mean death.

In every moment I am loving you, I am eternal. Through the experience of love we transcend death here in the phenomenal world.

Really really powerful.

In deep gratitude and love,

Janet

Edji: Janet, your depth is amazing. You challenge me. Through love you have come to know the absolute, or at least about the absolute, so intimately. No one knows the absolute directly through consciousness, only by consciousness' disappearance through the purification of devotion. The attributes of the lover disappear, leaving only the transparent I Am, through which the absolute shines. You have brought Jnana and Bhakti together, so beautifully, combining Love, I Am and the witness in Rumi's poem, and as an embodiment of the truth of Nisargadatta's teachings--and mine--of arriving at the absolute through loving your I Amness, which was revealed when you loved me. I am so glad God sent you to me, so that you could know and love your deepest self through me. What a gift for both of us. You are beginning to articulate deep truths that will move many people.

14 July, 2011

Student:

Dear edji It's yoni again :) I hope you're not a busy man if you are tell me and I'll write less. Thank you for answering so quickly though. I have another question. How do you know when you are aware of consciousness with no object ? So you have the conviction that nothing exits outside of consciousness! what does it feel like ? how do you know ?

Edji: The only time you have knowledge about is is when you see consciousness move. You are aware, that you are aware of consciousness, which is moving. It is the movement that allows the awareness. That knowledge happens in consciousness though, and you are never aware who you are. The 'I Am' is the message to the absolute that it exists in the final sense, when the I Am has become most pure. Before that, the 'I Am' is the individual's sense of presence. In the pure state, it is a reflection of the absolute.

15 July 2011

Janet:

Edji,

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

Janet.

Edji:

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

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

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

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

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

As to not feeling different, basically we all feel the same at the core. The I Am experience and beyond, Turiya, which always is experienced by everyone as the base state of consciousness that

supports all other states; it hardly ever varies. I asked my mom, who is 93. She states that she feels the same as she did when she was 19, except for body pain. The experience of Turiya does not change throughout life, only the body and mind change.

Nisargadatta stated it even more clearly: that base state, the child Krishna state, is always there amidst all your other experiences, sustaining them, giving them life. Awakening does not add to or take away from this state, but does make its awareness more strongly felt. Thus you always feel the same deep inside, whether you are a sage, saint or sinner.

This Turiya gets lost because it is covered by concepts, desires and interests and endless experiences in the world. But you are clearly aware of this state now even in sleep and in dream. These states of consciousness pass by in front of you and you witness them. You also realize you always have been able to do this, at least since college. Yet you have never made anything of this experience until now. Maybe you figured everyone had it. This is rare to experience without training, but it is the common experience of all of us, but for most it is hidden from awareness.

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

Janet:

Wow Edji,

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

Edji:

Janet,

The intesnity and quality of your love is the greatest gift I could have received.

Letter from a Jnani, criticizing the new group of satsang gurus. His name is not important; no one would recognize him:

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

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

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

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

Edji:

That is, you must go beyond the appearance of nothingness by becoming nothing, resting in the total silence. The real point though for you, are you happy there? Is it worth taking the sting out of life that you may also take some of the life out of life? Look at Maharaj, he was filled with life and talked about going back and forth between everything and nothing. He was not just beyond consciousness. Robert, on the other hand, always was beyond. He had a very weak connection with the world. But you could feel his silence.

July 16, 2011

Anonymous said...

Ed,

Not trying to start a long coversation here, but when you say are you happy there?

what do you mean? Who is there? I mean what is your point? If it's Non-experiential

state, then who is happy or sad or nothing or everthing there? July 16, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

To anonymous:

When you rest in the witness, all things appear as the witnessed. Though the

witness is beyond consciousness, consciousness, the body, etc. are still available.

To function in the world of appearance, you must be in it as is everyone else

functioning.

It is consciousness that feels happiness, joy, bliss, depression, anger, pain, etc. If

consciousness goes, such as when the body dies, of course there is no happiness.

But you, as the absolute, still experience the I Am, consciousness.

The first question Robert asked when when I relayed my awakening experience

was, "Are you happy." Why is this so hard to understand? Even after a prior

awakening when the Edward-I disappeared, there still was happiness and

unhappiness pervading consciousness--as an experience.

Read Ramana, the spiritual search for him was all about attaining unalloyed

happiness.

It is only with the death of the body and the disappearance of the I Am that all

experience, including happiness, disappears.

This is really a fundamental misconception on your part that the Jnani is beyond

all affect and experience. It is just that the jnani sees the world is appearance

only arising in consciousness, which itself is not real. So, is the jnani supposed to

refuse happiness, bliss, or any affect as it arises in consciousness just because he

recognizes such experience is transitory?

You see, he is free to experience anything without fear: joy, anger, peace, loss

and a full range of love.

I think Nisargadatta said it best: Wisdom tells me I am nothing; love tells me I am

everything. My life flows between these two points.

19 July 2011

Student:

Hi Edji, I realize that there is clinging on my part to have a certain type of experience that is sustainable. I long for that pure awareness state when there is no K or I and simply the arising and the pure witnessing of the manifest, the utter joy and bliss. But whatever experience I am looking for, it will still be within consciousness and it is not me. In a way once I recognize this the search and longing is over. But it seems I forget and go back and forth. A movement within Consciousness I guess. The doubts creep up on me. But yes, I agree with you, longing for all kinds of experiences is a trap. They are important experiences to learn about that which witnesses them but eventually human life with its mundane experiences is just as significant. I think this is the coming back that you talk about. This is where freedom and enlightenment is found - within the myriad of all my experiences, when I know that they come and go but do not touch me. Free to fully experience life, to go wherever Consciousness takes me. It appears that all that movement of Shakti has one and only one purpose - for the Self to know itself. An ever expanding movement toward knowing. At first it is only partial knowing. Knowing different aspects of Consciousness that we humans are aware of. Through the glimpses all beings have when their physical body dies, in the transition from one form to another. People who come back from a near-death experience talk about it. In the moments of intense experiencing, bold creativity, deep longing and love that help us transcend briefly the mind and see beyond. And the highest knowing when a sentient being realizes that all that is known is not me, it is only an appearance in Consciousness and I am the witness. That all that is known is not static but rather pure knowing. Ever arising, ever expanding. But then a knowing arises about that which witnesses it all, pure knowing about the source of all this knowing. The knowing that I cannot be known. The fact that I exist, that I am becomes known only through Consciousness but when knowing Me I become non-existent, non-manifest, timeless, unborn. What a joke indeed. I, the Self want to know myself but by knowing an aspect of me I am not me anymore. Knowing Self means knowing not, existing not, dying not. Love, K.

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

Anonymous said...

But this knowing is cemented and grounded in an experience of the SELF is it not?

Even if all experience is created by the mind, the experience of the absolute is

needed to create this conviction in the heart, correct? What I am seeking is an

experience of the absolute beyond the small self illusion.

Isaac

July 19, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

Please leave all concepts at the door.

How can you experience or have an experience of that that lies before experience?

One gains the knowledge, the certainty, through experience, that one lies before

all experience. The knowledge itself is in the experience, but of you being outside

of experience.

July 19, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

You, as the absolute, are a mystery, absolutely unknowable, because knowing is

experience happening in consciousness. What you are is beyond knowing or not

knowing, beyond everything. This becomes clear to you at some point and then

you are finished. It is all over for you.

July 19, 2011

Anonymous said...

Isaac,

In my experience, I first witness the transition from waking state, to dream state,

to a state where I am pure Awareness, simply vibrating and then I am gone briefly.

No awareness whatsoever but then I come back and there is this sudden knowing -

"I am", "I exist" and that is ecstatic. That first recognition and knowing of my

existence is so profound. That pure awareness of "I am that I am" is so prominent.

Love and Bliss are experienced then. And somehow I realize that I-am was born to

know myself, to experience myself and that is loved intensely. But because I

witness this I am not it. I am prior to this. I am unknown. Then Consciousness is

seen as a mirror, as K. states a movement of ever expanding knowing.

My two cents, anyway.

Love,

Janet

July 19, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

This dialogue is the crux of true Advaita. This few comments are the mystery of

existence clearly expressed.

20 July 2011

Student:

Ed:

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

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

I knocked around the spiritual circuit for sometime (e.g. met Bernadette Roberts) until I met Ramesh Balsekar about twenty years ago. His advice was significant in pointing out the value of witnessing life (as if watching a river go by from the river bank). It seemed to me that was good advice as the subject of experience was conscious yet without objects (i.e. the pure consciousness I found through transcendence/samadhi). I thought now I could at least expand my range of pure consciousness to 180% by being the rear

view witness of the world in front of me. It actually worked and was natural and supported later by the Douglas Harding experiments (which I’m sure you are aware of). I continued my mantra meditation but now I added the practice of abiding as the witness space. I later read more of Advaita – Shankara, Balsekar, Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Nisargatta. Nisargatta, particularly got my awareness expanded and bubbling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edji:

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

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

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

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

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

What then?

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

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

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

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

Ed

Student:

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

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

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

Namaste

P.S.

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

Edji:

Is not such love perfect?

28 July 2011

Student:

Ed, One thing I'm finding is that the love that is initially directed to the feeling of "presence" sometimes begins to eminate of itself in a more open and less object directed way. Maybe not love of everything but a general and undiscriminating feeling of love. I am also getting a better sense of what people mean by "heart" and the importance of heart to meditation and spirituality more generally. ---F Edji: Yes, there is a progression. Eventually you will feel love like a flowing river, moving from the lower gut area, upwards through the heart, then upwards into the head, face, arms, fingers and spilling outwards into space. This will gradually transmute until you feel filled with love, and the flowing outwards stops and you identify with love itself. I am love. Over time, sometimes just a short time, that still, calm love transmutes into total ecstasy. At first of the body, then your whole sense of presence. Lots more happens. It is a good opening, but certainly not the whole journey, but it is an energy source for what lies beyond ecstasy.

Student: Ed, I don't think I really understood what is meant by 'God is love'. Now I understand what is meant by identifying the I with love. Also noticed being unperturbed by my wife's outburst of irritation. Very interesting. Edji: Other things will happen too. You will begin to understand more and more about consciousness and beyond consciousness.

31 July 2011

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

You also told us to be alert and see that states come and go but do not touch us. This has been experienced this week as well. Moods, feelings, energies...gross and subtle manifestations coming and going and most of the time there is a sense of 'not being touched' by them. This heart is taking great refuge in the teacher and the teaching...the inner one and the outer ones. The trust and surrender are growing naturally. Thank you so much for the satsangs that we all enjoy so much with you. They are priceless, the high light of the week. Love you so much,

Edji:

PERFECT!!!

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

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

To me, the neos have only scratched the surface.

Student:

I had sort of a 'reality check' experience yesterday.

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

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

Edji:

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

Very, very good.

Ed

01 August, 2011

Love and the Self: From Robert Adams: Robert's December 13, 1992-12-13 Satsang. He tells how to love yourself by loving the self that appears in the moment. This was in response to a question asked of him: HOW DO I MAKE LOVE TO THE SELF? DO I LOVE THE HIGHER SELF? LOWER SELF? ROBERT: The self I’m speaking about is not the higher or lower self. Think of someone you love unconditionally, ultimately, no strings attached. It may be your dog or cat or a person. You have to have unconditional love for this and feel that love. Realize that love you feel is love for yourself, you are the guru, god, Krishna, your wife. Feel that love. This requires practice. If you practice this you will develop really fast. Most people think they have to love the self that appears or love god or brahman. You can’t love God if you don’t know what he is. You can’t love Brahman if you haven't experienced it. You have to love something you've experienced. And it expands, becomes all-pervading. Edji:

As a friend stated: When one loves intensely, one moves from loving a person to loving existence, to becoming Love itself. The experience of becoming love is the purest experience of knowing the Self. Love is the the totality of what can be known of the Self. Love is the manifest aspect of Self, the aspect we can know.

Zu Li said...

I find the use of the word Love on a search for the absolute a very misleading

concept.

Love is an emotion.

Emotions are the invention of the mind and boredom is the gate because in

boredom we have a lack of any emotion to excite us.

Love is a brilliant concept as a step on the way to those that require it but as a key

specifically attuned to unlocking the I Am consciousness I am very dubious - please

expand on what you mean by love if it has been lost in translation.

Thanks

Mike

August 01, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

This is the crux of the method I teach, which is to find the absolute through the I

Am, exactly as described by Nisargadatta as his own method, of locating the sense

of I Am, of existence and presence, loving it, and then comes release as the

knowledge comes within the I Am that you are beyond it. Your true nature is prior

to consciousness, but that knowledge is within consciousness.

Now, it is true you always are That, or that, and consciousness is the messenger,

or the manifest aspect of the mystery that is you, but the knowledge of who you

are comes either as a vast opening experience, or slowly, and gradually as a

growing conviction, first that you and the world are consciousness only, and then

that consciousness is only the manifest aspect of the Self, and a great deal remains

hidden from consciousness as the unmanifest.

August 01, 2011

Zu Li said...

So the expansive love of consciousness is the absolute ?

Take love, focus upon it where it is unconditional, focus it down to that point then

expand it into everything ... this is the practice in a nutshell - is that right ?

Sorry but I do not get it. To me you are still talking in concepts created by the

mind. At best I reckon that you can only use language that points towards the

centre, because the I Am is unquantifiable and indescribable. Love is a function of

attachment within the psyche, of finding the most advantageous partnerships and

is basically an unconscious driver for sustenance to the very ego that we are trying

to stop in its tracks.

Love is a very powerful and positive emotion. Thus it does not provide a

sustainable current without its equal in the negative. Without alternating poles -

there is no current. That realisation and internal actualization thereof is the very

expansion that you seem to be indicating to me. So at that point love drops as

does hate. They do not go away but are welcomed as part of the flow of the

totality of energy to which we are connected.

Thanks

Mike

August 01, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

There are at least one million concepts about love. Nisagadatta said the foremost

energy, shakti, is the love to be, the I Am. Loving the I Am, knowing it and loving

it is the gate to the absolute, not the absolute itself.

Other call Shakti love, or love, Shakti.

You are trying to understand the concept love from the point of view of the body

and the individual, but in the above, both Robert and my friend were talking about

love as a characteristic of universal consciousness.

That is, consciousness has some universal characteristics, one of which is

speciousness, another is knowingness, and the third is love. you really have to

know all three before you can transcend consciousness.

When you think of love as only an emotion and a way for one body to select

another for mating or parenting, you miss the point.

Zu Li said... I agree that there a million concepts of love. Which is why I find it a terrible word

to use in these explanations. Again to me Shakti is only half of the puzzle, the

feminine principle only. One pole of the current of unified power.

Now for consciousness to have characteristics also confuses me. Surely it only has

chrachteristics to the mind that attempts to analyze and categorize it.

Consciousness is spontaneous and unpredictable because it operates outside of the

ego or heart mind thus I find any attempt to pin it down very hard to understand.

Thanks again

Mike

August 02, 2011

Anonymous said...

First, I am niether charlie nor Ramana and neither a Neo-Advaitan.

I do not what Roberts was taching, so I can't say anythin about Robert. I made this

post at the bottom of the page and I am amking it here, so people can read it. I

hope your are going to post

Ed, this is not the way Nisargadtta taught about I AM. Please! I do not know what

has happend, but you, Ed, you have already made an expalnation about Nisargatda

method in your 2nd or 3rd Satsang last year. That is the way Nisargadta taught the

self-inquiry.

I want to be clear hear. I am talking about your last year Satsang

http://www.wearesentience.com/satsang-003---dec-2.html

Ed, I am not here to crtiisize you. But your teaching style has changed. Nowhere is

the above Satsang you are talking about Love. You know that's why many people

are getting confused because of change in your teaching style, which is fine, but

it's almost opposite to what you were teaching last year.

Now, you are teaching more about Ramakrsihna, not Nisragadtaa. Again,

Nisaragadtta never taught that. I do not care what Jean Duan told you about your

understanding. Jean never wrote any book about Maharaj's method.

Ed, I have nothing againist you, nothing whatsever. This is your blog, your website,

your teaching, your style, but please be more clear. I think many people can get

confused and are getting confused.

And, you talk about Ramakrsina. Ramakrishna was a saint and this is what Ranjit

Maharaj, Nisargadtta's dharma brother said about Ramakrishna is his interview.

"Many saints also don't understand, I dare say now! Ramakrishna Parmahansa was

there and some realised person met him. Ramakrishna told him that he was only

worshipping Kali Kamata. A power, a Godess - her name was Kali. That person told

Ramakrishna, " Take that photo and spit on it, then only can you realise." These

are all worldly affairs."

Here is a link for this whole interview

http://www.inner-quest.org/Ranjit_Interview.htm

So, that'a about it Ed. I amnot here for a long discussion. MY friens, please be

clear. Please, I know you want to help your students, but please be clear.

Thank you!

August 02, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

But he did teach about it this way. It is not so obvious if you read Jean Dunne, but

it hits you in the face when you read the Nisargadatta Gita by Pradeep Apte.

You find the I Am sense, or the sense of presence, the sense of existence, or

energy and you focus on it. Let it grow, love it.

But it really, really helps to have an external world object, as Robert states above,

to focus on and to fill up the I Am with love, initially found outward, and then

found to be the essence of I Am within oneself.

Then the I Am begins to show you all its aspects.

Now, Pradeep seems to hold that the purified IAm is the Absolute. I disagree with

this conceptual scheme and substitute my own lie: the i Am, and love, are the

manifest aspect of the self, while the unmanifest, the hidden is the absolute.

You see, it really does not matter which conceptual scheme, which lie, is more

true. What is your experience?

Even here, you should know what it is that you are looking for. Are you looking for

knowledge, conviction, or an existence beyond consciousness?

August 02, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

One thing you need to know. I wrote a book called "Enlightenment as a Defense

Mechanism." What I meant is that a lot of people seek transcendent states to get

away from depression, confusion, anger and other emotions, especially poor self-

esteem.

They use all kinds of mental techniques to escape these feelings and images,

above and beyond the defense mechanisms Freud and all the others talk about.

Now, there are a whole bunch of spiritual seekers who are very comfortable

talking and feeling love, but they have a heard time with anger, jealousy,

criticism, analysis, and many other "harder" feelings and mental processes.

Facebook is filled with them. And, they never really talk about how they are

feeling and whether they are happy or peaceful, etc.

According to the "standard theory" in spirituality today, set forth by a bunch of

people, these seekers will fail because they are not really going to a goal, but

running away from their own feelings and pasts.

They really need to stop and face themselves and change psychologically and

spiritually before they are comfortable enough to stop seeking, either because

they reach a place of completion, or because they run out of seekers gas and the

will to change and confront themselves.

Then we have a whole bunch of people that are Advaita types, they want truth,

and they don't want much to do with the world anymore for whatever reason. They

see themselves and the world and are fed up with the misery of the world. That is,

they are not filled with neurotic suffering, but are fed up with ordinary human

unhappiness.

These people truly seek nothingness, the void, the unmanifest, but they can only

ever find the manifest aspects of nothingness, that void we see within and around

us, that is not the void, but its reflection in awareness.

Now, these people tend to fail before they get where they are going because they

dry out and lose their juice.

Maharaj tried to increase the juice with worship or guru and chanting. He also

introduced the idea of learning to love the source of us, the I, or the I-sense, the

process of which can be ecstatic and fun, which increases happiness and effort.

Robert, as above, advised the same way.

Now, if you want to state your experience of how Nisargadatta taught, please do.

03 August 2011

Some people have become upset with my change in teaching style. Some say I am misstating what Nisargadatta said. Some say Nisargadatta never taught a method, only listen to his words. Some say I misunderstand Robert, or I misquote him. Some say Robert never taught X or Y, as they feel I do.

Let me be candid with you. Teachers change their style and their teachings over time. The Nisargadatta of “I am that” in 1974 was not the Nisargadatta of 1980. He admitted as much, and stated only his later talks should be listened to because his viewpoint had changed. Roberts teaching style also changed over the years. When he taught spirituality as M. T. Mind during the 1970s when he was in Santa Fe, teachings were much simpler and less complicated than what he came to LA, when he began to tell long stories and parables to his audiences. He became more interesting.

So to my style has changed. I think far too much is made of the term enlightenment, because everybody seems to have their own version and they deny that anybody else but they and their teacher have it, like the Raman who comments on this site. Some state unity consciousness is enlightenment. Some say having convictions of the absolute before consciousness is enlightenment. Some say staying in one’s sense of presence is enlightenment. Some say having an empty mind is enlightenment. Some say totally manifesting love is a sign of enlightenment. Some say being in the immediacy of the present with no mind is enlightenment. But who cares?

It is like the argument about the debt. Liberals have one point of view conservatives and other. Each pushes for certain policy changes according to their ideology. One is a Keynesian, another follows monetarist theories. But when all is said and done, what does the changing debt ceiling have to do with the man in the street and his family? That is, with you and me this day and tomorrow?

The same with all these theories of enlightenment and experiences of awakening? A seeker can stand amidst this spiritual marketplace with his mouth open wondering who is correct, which is true, which is false, and where he should spend his time. He acquires a belief that a certain end state espoused by his teachers some other teacher is the correct one, tries to understand that state, and tries to arrive at that state. Then he runs into

another teacher, who teaches something else, using koans or hitting people with wooden sticks. This confuses the seeker, and he may be driven away to go somewhere else where he will be less confused. Instead, he is more confused. His mind is filled with partial teachings of three teachers, and his own experiences of utter confusion, and he has no happiness or peace.

What if from the beginning, instead of seeking enlightenment, we seek something else, something we know already? No concepts of enlightenment, the absolute, awakening: just one concept, one idea: I want to find out who I am and what I am.

Perhaps someone else says there are too many spiritual paths out there, how can there be peace any truth whatsoever by following any of these paths outside? I'll never be able to find out a true path from all of these, because I don't know where they're going. I hear only their words, and I am afraid of being captivated by the potentiality they teach. That would require trust in a group, and a maybe I am not built to trust anyone, I need to find out for myself.

So, given this state of affairs what to do?

Here is my take. Personally, I am quite secure in the little bit of philosophy I teach about the I AM and the absolute. As strongly as I know that this body that I live in has teeth, I know that I am entirely beyond this world and it has nothing to do with me. I can explain this further and say I identify with the nothingness or the emptiness or the non-manifest side of existence, the other side is consciousness. I do say you are that which you identify with in your experience and you can change that which you call you. You can be a role, such as father, the I Am, the totality of consciousness, or almost anything else you experience. You can be everything or nothing. But how do these identities make you feel? Do you feel happy or complete, at rest or peaceful, or do these experiences still leave you seeking?

I can only speak for myself. I am happy. I am at peace. I love myself and all others that come to me. I am at rest. There is nothing I seek except to keep others safe and help them thrive. There is nowhere for me to go. I can lead you to experience 100 different states from empty mind, the no mind, to love, unity consciousness, all of which would be considered awakening by some. But so what? There is only one mindstate that counts and

that is the one you are presented with at the moment, whether of samadhi or the dream state.

Eventually I only want you to be content within your own skin, feel love for yourself, for others, and to know as a steady truth who you are, and that you will be like a Mount Everest in terms of that understanding.

And the method I use, abiding in the I am, which really means abiding in yourself. The I AM has many names, one’s sense of beingness, one’s sense of existence, the movement of energy within yourself and your core, and eventually I am is consciousness itself. It changes as you watch it and love it, as do you in terms of how you are as a person.

One other method is being around a teacher such as Robert, who says none of this matters at all, just look within yourself and love yourself. Reach a place of rest in yourself where you don’t need to wander anywhere or go anywhere. I know that self abiding, which could be described also as resting in yourself, gradually results in revealing all the truth you ever need, all the understanding you will ever need, and allows you, totally to rest. There's no need to rush, in fact rushing prevents you from seeing who you are. Don't seek all of those various states that people call awakening. Seek only to know yourself and to love yourself, and come to rest in yourself. Is not this the end all want, the cessation of seeking and being happy within oneself? Is not having complete knowledge as to who and what you are, being able to love all things as you love yourself good enough? Isn't this what we all really seek? Ramana said this was the goal of spirituality, complete, unalloyed happiness and peace. This is what Ramana taught, Robert Adams taught and what I teach. I just borrow the concepts of Nisargadatta because they are so effective at removing blocking concepts.

There are many methods, and many ends, some take you further and further from the self, some take you into endless work with energies, balancing them, adjusting them, sending them up or down or sideways. My way really is of rest. Just look within, look within and see the emptiness as well as the fullness, see one’s sense of presence, see the mind, see emotions, everything is there. All the universe is there. Just abide there, rest there, and you be so surprised at what happens to your external world and in your life.

There are certain requirements though to be successful here. You really have to have a sense of patience, you can't be eagerly looking for new experiences, which is really a spiritual greediness and unhappiness with your own experiences here and now.

In other words, you already have to be halfway there. You need to trust yourself and trust your teacher, otherwise you will wander hither and yon and become exhausted. Just in trusting the yourself, will already find much rest.

In loving the self, loving the I Am, you will find peace. And as Robert says in a previous post in this blog, how can you love the self unless you know what it is? You pick something you already know to love, a person, a cat, a child, and you indulge yourself in that love, focus on that love. It will grow and after time will permeate your whole sense of existence, the I Am will be filled with love. And just staying there, all knowledge will be revealed to you. Peace will come down on you, and settle on your shoulders like a very fine spiritual shawl that will protect you and hold you. Then again, you don't have to use love as the gate to the I Am. Just turn within and find your sense of presence, beingness, energetic center, whatever you want to call the I Am. Abide there. But it really helps to try loving all that is revealed. It speeds things up as Robert said.

03 August 2011

For those who believe that Nisargadatta never talked about love or the importance of love, devotion or bliss in one’s sadhana, I post below some excerpts from his book given to me by Jean Dunn, "Self-knowledge and Self-realization." He wrote it in 1963, and according to Jean Dunn, this was his own spiritual autobiography. The quotes below should be read very carefully. One will find a Nisargadatta early in his guru-hood, teaching in a very different style, and of his own journey. It is also clear he talked about stages and purification processes.

Nisargadatta:

Page 4: When we concentrate our attention on the origins of thought, the thought process itself comes to an end; there is a hiatus, which is pleasant, and again the inward process starts. Turning from the external world and enjoying the objectless bliss, the mind feels that the world of objects is not for it. Prior to this experienced the satiating sense enjoyments constantly challenged the mind to satisfy them, but from the inward turn onwards, the in interest in them begins to fade. Once the internal bliss is enjoyed, the external happiness loses its charm. Once tasted the inward bliss is naturally loving and free from envy, contented and happy with others prosperity, friendly and innocent and free from deceit. He is full of the mystery and wonder of the bliss.

Page 5: with heartfelt love and devotion, the devotee propitiates God; and when he is blessed with his vision and grace, he feels ever happy in his presence. The constant presence establishes a virtual identity between the two. While seeking the presence of the supreme soul, the Bhakta renounces all associations in his life, from the meanest to the best, and having purged his being of all associations, he automatically wins and association with the supreme self. One who has attained the position of unstinted emancipation can never be disliked by others, for the people themselves are the very self luminous soul, although ignorant of the fact.

That overflowing reservoir of bliss, the beatific soul, does confer only bliss on the people by his loving light. Even the atmosphere around him hard as the suffering souls. It is like the waters of the lake to give nourishment to the plants and trees around, and the grassy fields nearby. The saint gives joy and sustaining energy to the people around him.

(I should further note, that Nisargadatta is definitely talking about stages in a progression in his own awakening process. I am sure that many of the neo-Advaita is out there will deny that Nisargadatta wrote this, but it is a fact. This book was first published in 1963, and was republished by Jean Dunn in the early 1990s.)

Page 6: in the beginning sadhaka is instructed into the secrets of his own person, and of the indwelling spirit; the meaning and nature of prana, the various plexuses, and the nature and arousal of kundalini, and the nature of the self. Later on he comes to know the origins of the five elements, their activity, radiation and merits and defects. Meanwhile his mind undergoes the process of purification, acquires composure, and this the Sadhaka experiences through the deep-laid subtle center of the indweller. He also knows how and why it is there, and how the God element is kindled. This knowledge transforms them into the pure, eternal and spiritual form of the Sadguru.

Page 7: as the great ukarama said, the aspirant must put in ceaseless effort in the pursuit of spiritual life. Thoughts must be utilized for self-knowledge. He must be alert and watchful in ascertaining the nature of this "I" that is involved in the affairs of pleasure and pain arising out of sense experience. We should not waste our energies on useless pursuits, but should use those energies in the pursuit of the self and achieve identity with God. Spiritual life is so great, so deep, so immense that energy pales into insignificance before it, yet this energy tries to understand it in again.

As regards to the saint, people are always on the lookout for ways to serve him more and more, but as the ever contented soul, steeped in view attitude, desires nothing, they are left to serve in their own way, which they do with enthusiasm, and they never feel the pressure.

Page 12: I am ever free now. I am all bliss. This beatific conscious form of mine now knows no bounds. I belong to all and everyone is mine. The "all" are but my individuation is, and these together go to makeup might be difficult being. Bliss reclines on the bed of bliss. The repose itself is turned into bliss.

The how and why consciousness became self-conscious is obvious now. The experience of the world is no more of the world as such, but is the blossoming forth of the selfsame conscious principle, God, and what is it? It is pure, primal knowledge, conscious form, the primordial "I" consciousness that is capable of assuming any form it desires. The

world is an expression of the divine, it is the pure, simple, natural flow of beautific consciousness. He that meditated on the bliss and peace is himself the ocean of peace and bliss.

Page 14: the Bhakta pours out his devotion, molds his behavior in every respect in accordance with the will of God. In turn he finds that God is pleased with him, and this, his conviction, takes him near to God and his love and friendship with him grow richer and richer. The process of surrendering to the will of God in every respect results and his blessings.

One who is blessed by God is a blissful soul. Being at peace with himself, he looks at the objects of enjoyment with perfect indifference. Is content with whatever he has and is glad to see others happy.

As to the method, and the extreme difficulty of seeing to the center of his beingness, he states on page 15: I him I have seen him who I so earnestly desired to see, I met myself. The meeting required extremely difficult and elaborate preparation.

I pined to see the most beloved one. It was impossible to do without it, I wished to die if I were not to do it. Even with the innermost sincerity of my whole being I was not able it at it, and the situation was unbearable. Yet with love and determination, eagerness and courage, I started on my journey. I had to go through different stages of places in the undertaking. Being quite deft, it would not allow me cognition, at first. But Lo, I saw today, I was sure, but the very next moment I felt perhaps was not it. Whenever I saw that I was intent on observing it, and not knowing its nature with certitude, I could not decide either way. I could not be sure that was my beloved, the center of my being. Being an adept in the art of makeup, it dodged me with a quick change of form before I could arrive at a conclusion.

Page 16: it is extremely difficult to get at the root of the cosmic energy, that perfect adept in assuming an infinite variety of forms. The consciousness to be apprehended in the power of concentration are one and the same.

FOR THOSE WHOWANT TO READ THE WHOLE BOOK FOR THEMSELVES, GO TO OUR NEW WEBSITE:

http://www.wearesentience.com/self-knowledge-and-self-realization.html

Zu Li said...

He only mentions love once in this text and it is (a much more descriptive)

devotional love. Which brings you into the state of bliss. Devotional love is giving

yourself over to something. If you give your-self over to the I am, you are in

unmoving bliss. It is bliss because positive and negative do not exist there.

Concepts do not exist there at all. Mind does not exist there at all.

So this is not love that came from some pet or person and that was focussed upon

and expanded. It was a linguistic function to point towards the devotion that is

required to access and maintain the I Am consciousness.

Thank you for this post. It really gave me the opportunity to elucidate upon what I

was saying !

Mike

August 04, 2011

Ryan said...

Zu Li (Mike)-

Edji is offering love of another person, pet, guru etc. as a gateway to the pure

love of I Am that you described, where one becomes love, and the duality of lover

and beloved is gone.

You say that Nisargadatta only mentions love once in this text, but I disagree. I

believe the entire text is a description of his love affair, and ensuing search for

that thing he loves most - his deepest Self.

August 04, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

You are right Ryan. He is outlining in complete reverence and devotion his own

path. I did not count, but I saw love mentioned at least 4-5 times and devotion

many more than that. Devotion was directed towards the guru as well as inner

objects. If you fall deeply in love with a woman, man or cat, you can say that is

loving your guru. It makes no difference, as it is soon felt as your own love and

then that transmutes to self love.

I just wish my readers could see that self-love, devotion to one's own I Am,

beingness or existence, is a gateway for rapid progress just as Nisargadatta talks

about in the Nisargadatta Gita and in Jean Dunn's books.

The later Nisargatta never abandoned worship of I Am, but for some reason felt his

words themselves, and his dialogues, would melt away all concepts leading to

awakening by themselves. In a sense, he changed his emphasis, maybe because

few were awakening his old way.

Yet, as in Prior to Consciousness, a talk in 1980, when asked whether any of the

many people who came to him became awakened, he said some have attained his

knowledge, but only superficially. I read that at one satsang and you can find it in

Prior to Consciousness.

August 04, 2011

05 August, 2011

A letter from one of Maharaj's students: You new web site is absolutely beautiful, Ed. I particularly like the new photos of Robert and the chants. In one sense, those two things could be the entire teaching. All the other stuff is really nice too. I am glad you getting the help and recognition you deserve for all the wonderful work you have done to help people and animals. You are right about Nisargadatta and love. Love and devotion were really all he ever talked about. Even when he was discussing pure advaita, it was still about love. To most people, love is only an emotional attachment. What love really is is reconciliation with the entire universe. This is the teaching of Nisargadatta and all great teachers.

06 August 2011

Student:

I've had a keen interest in awakening and self-realization for about four or so years ever since an friend online introduced me to the book I Am That. After a couple years of nothing more than intellectual obsession with the idea of it all I read a bit of Autobiography of a Jnani and then got in contact with Rajiv, mostly because I thought there was something to be had in the interaction with an awakened person even if just through email. I guess I can't truthfully say that that isn't the main reason behind this very message to you. While talking with Rajiv through email I told him about a profound dream I had of me walking up a staircase through four floors of a building. After the dream I thought about it the entire day trying to interpret it and it all seemed very clear. My interpretation was that the lobby of the building was symbolic of every day life which is were I was(and still am). The first floor was symbolic of the pursuit of riches and financial wealth as it was about young stock brokers and businessmen. The second was of the pursuit of knowledge and world peace as there were many young students with many great ambitions to change the world. Finally the third floor was a small attic like storage room for the janitor and strangely the janitor who I was going to see that day(in my dream that is) was you. Then you pulled out a crossbow and killed me with it, a frightening part which ended the dream, which I interpreted to be symbolic of the event of self-realization or the death of the ego. That dream has kept me from asking you any questions and so I've been following Rajiv for some time since then, and now just to get it off my chest I decided to just tell you about it. I know it's just a dream and hardly worth further thought. There is something that has been bothering me half my life which I haven't ever told anyone about except you now and someone else very close(and physically distant) to me.

I would say I have delusions of grandeur. When I was just a child my father told me about a prediction that Nostradamus had made about a boy born in the 20th century named (my name) who will achieve great heights of success. Looking back on it I realize he was joking or possibly even being sarcastic(I don't know as I could never actually bring that up with him) but for a considerable time in my youth I really believed it. Now after reading your comments on the powers of Siddhis being of no value and importance of an instructor to help you avoid the mystical powers, I find that I have an alarming difficulty in accepting this. Not as if I don't accept it but that I am just still very bound by the seed that was planted in my head of me becoming "someone" really great. It's quite embarrassing and at the same time even talking about it with you now there is this vague hope that I'm not able to eliminate that you will say something like "yes it is your destiny". I'm just trying to be honest here that's all, I don't talk like this all the time. I'm trying to strip myself naked in front of you so to speak. I haven't asked a question yet, but could you send a reply just to confirm you've read this, or possibly comment on anything that you feel should be said to this. Thank you kindly

Edji:

You came to the right person for an answer.

Yes, you are indeed someone great! Really!

Look within, follow the I Am, learn to love your sense of presence and you will find you are the greatest ever born, for you are the Self, the center, creator, and sustainer of the universe!

You are immortal and beyond time.

So rare is the human that discovers this. Maybe that was the purpose of the seed. Find your magnificense by looking within.

The dream you had was perfect!!!!

Wonderful!

Come to me and find your immortal greatness.

I love you,

Ed

09 August, 2011

Student:

My Beloved, let me ask you something.

When you woke up the Universe this morning,

Tell me, did the sun shrink back in shyness at the glory of your presence?

Did the majestic mountains prostrate themselves at your feet?

Did the birds finally get their chattery act together and sing sweet harmonies in your ear?

Did the butterflies gently kiss your cheeks?

Did the flowers of the field give up their fragrance to anoint you?

Did the trees of the field wave and clap giddily as you passed by?

Did all beings, sentient and insentient stand and salute you?

Did the whole Universe humble itself, realizing it shines by Your borrowed light?

If not, then my Love, we have some serious problems.

What is to become of a world that forgets its only purpose for existence?

Edji:

Wow! Did this poem come from you? If only a few hundred million people understood this, that they are "The World Honored One," the one to whom all creation bows. What a world that would be!

Student:

Yes, the poem did come from me but I think mind keeps me from experiencing or seeing it as deeply as you do. I guess I am saying that I want to experience it from where you are, as a constant, fixed reality, no longer something that requires effort. But effort until it is no longer needed.

Edji:

Look, that love in you is always there as deep and wide as the oceans. You expressed it perfectly; you know it. Your question appears to be, "Is there more?" Yes there is, but the constantcy is not in the state, because it comes and goes and wobbles. It lies in the absolute trust and conviction that you are both the absolute and the I Am at all times. You do not want to get trapped into the belief you need to be perfect love or ecstasy at all times, because the nature of consciousness and the I Am is to always change, sometimes, as you now witness, with violent swings and mood changes. The only constantcy is when you reach the center around which consciousness plays.

10 August 2011

From my friend D. I could not read this in one reading. Halfway through the affect was so great I got dizzy. Later when I tried to finish reading it, I felt immeasurable joy. D is a pure Jnani and one who is complete. Thank for your kind words, J. I'll tell you a little story about my life that relates to how I perceive things. Many years ago, after my mother passed away, I was walking in the Rocky mountains with my father. We were hiking at around 13,000 feet, very near the Continental Divide. After walking for some hours, we finally reached this beautiful, blue lake, surrounded by sheer, rock cliffs on three sides. Water flowed over the top of one of the cliffs into the lake, and the sunlight reflecting in it created a rainbow effect. It was absolutely stunning, and I felt this incredible peace in my heart that I had never experienced before. Just then, the thought occurred to me, "The joy isn't coming from the lake. It's coming from inside of you." This is the way it is. Certain people and experiences may elicit joy from within us, but the joy has always been there. It is our own nature and could never be given to us by anyone or anything outside of ourselves. So the light you saw emanating from my words was really just a reflection of what was already in your own heart. You are the light of all life. You are love itself, dancing in human form, dancing as emptiness. Beneath the thin veneer of ego and mortality, this is what we all are. The Persian poet Rumi summarized this exquisitely when he said, in response to being asked who he was, "I do not know who I am. I am an astounding, lucid confusion. If you label me and define me, you will starve yourself of yourself. If you box me down with labels and definitions, that box will be your coffin. I am your own voice echoing off the walls of God." Ed has shared with me some of the beautiful experiences you have had recently. This is only the beginning. What people loosely call "enlightenment" isn't a destination, but a never ending journey in which one never arrives. It is a pool of fathomless, ever-new joy

that just deepens forever. It is like the poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

And yet ironically, after "awakening," we are still human. There is an old zen saying: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." After enlightenment (which really has no "before" or "after" -- it just is), one may continue to experience periods of bliss, but they will necessarily be juxtaposed by the pain and unpleasantness that the vicissitudes of life invariably bring. What remains throughout all experience, however, and what continues to deepen as time goes by, is the awareness of Truth -- the abiding peace of the Self that transcends all human understanding. Some people are under an illusion that the jnani never feels pain or sorrow. This is not true. When Ramana Maharshi was informed that his beloved devotee, Ganapati Muni (a great saint in his own right) had died, he said, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes, “Where can we find another like him?” Towards the end of his own life, commenting on the sarcoma that was eating away his body, Ramana remarked, "Appa! Who could conceive that a disease such as this could be in this world? When a hiccough comes the whole body splits like flashes of lightning in a cloud! There has not been a spot [on my body] which has not been painful to touch."

Yet as identification with the Self deepens, the pain that often accompanies duality increasingly operates in the background, muted by the changeless, blissful reality that is our real nature. As Sri Ramana once explained, "Everybody feels the pain of a cut or

sting, but a jnani whose mind is sunk in bliss feels it as in a dream." To use another one of his analogies, the jnani's perception of pain is like the experience of two lovers who are tortured together and are aware of it, but do not mind it too much because they are in ecstasy gazing at one another.

So your path now that you have reached the destination of non-arrival is to continue walking as (what Rumi called) a "breath breathing human being" -- fully experiencing all of the ups and downs that are concomitant with that role, yet feeling an ever increasing awareness of your divine nature. You are living the life of a householder, which can be challenging to say the least. In one sense, having reached a high state of awareness can make this job easier because you have been given an exalted, panoramic view of all creation. In another sense, it can also be harder because ordinary life can take on a mundaneness like never before.

Yet, everything sorts itself out and smooths out in time. When my son, who is now ten, was a baby, I started getting bad migraine headaches from lack of sleep and the many demands that were being placed on me physically. Yet during the same time, I had some of the deepest experiences of bliss while rocking him to sleep. The bliss was so intense at times that I thought my heart would explode and I would leave my body. People looking at my life today from the outside would see much chaos and many sources of stress. Yet, I am happier now than I have ever been. I am deeply in love with love itself, and I find such joy in doing nothing in particular.

So I wish you peace, J, as love continues to unfold within your heart. I don't comment on Ed's blog so much anymore, not because I love him any less, but just because when I have free time, I enjoy sitting in silence or chanting kirtan. You and Ed have a very special place in my heart, and you are most welcome to write me anytime you wish.

Love and Blessings,

D.

11 August 2011

It is altogether perfect to talk about awakening, love, and awareness, but there is such brutality in the world, especially towards animals, and one feels helpless to do anything about it. The photos following basically are from the meat and fur markets in China, and the killing fields for dogs in Romania. They are too ugly to post here so I give two links: The first is to penned dogs in a Chinese fur market, the second is to all 498 photos. Look at the photos. Really look at them. There is much to be done to tone down the cruelty of consciousness, and no one here but us to do it. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=239722419385237&set=pu.211735252183954&type=1&theater http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=pu.211735252183954&type=1 When I was in Korea it was the same, but the killings and butchering was not done in public as here. I had been ordained as the first American ever to be named as a World Teacher of Chogye Buddhism in 1999. About a year later I renounced the title in protest after I learned more that had been hidden from me while I was there. I do what I can by just looking around me and seeing I can help homeless cats in Los Angeles. Last night I was feeding near a Spanish market in Encino, when an about 5 month old female kitten walked up to me where I normally feed an older, very feral male cat, looked me right in the eye, and said "MEOW" in the loudest voice from a cat I ever heard. I promptly gave her an extra can and a half of cat food, and plan on capturing her soon and

maybe find her a home as she will almost let me touch her. One woman I help is Marie, who feeds 122 cats every night, and yet only has a take home pay of $1,000 a month and another $800 in Social Security. I plan on following her on her rounds one evening soon, to photograph her feedings dozens of cats at a time in some places. Of course spaying and neutering is always going on. I mention this because inevitably I will get a comment that the cats should be sterilized or else the problem increases. Duhh.

12 August 2011

I offer nothing new regarding practice. Robert taught self inquiry, using the question "Who am I?," And many other methods--anything to get people to stop their worldly activity and look inside to find their source. People would come to him sometimes and say, some people say you don't need a method, that a method implies effort, and effort implies ego. To them Robert would respond, "Then wake up!" This is the method I used for many many years without much success. By the time I met Robert, I had long since dropped it; then my sole practice was just to stay near Robert.

Nisargadatta outlined a different method, which was discovering one's sense of I am, the love to be, to see it in all of its colors, fragrances and intensities, and to love the I am, to love to be. He told his own story in his spiritual autobiography, "Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization." In fact, this is closer to my own method of merely laying down, listening to sacred music, and going into myself in silence.

Yet so many take Advaita to be a philosophy and method of not feeling anything, having no emotions, of knowing everything is an illusion. That's why they adopt Advaita, and that's why they reject the method of loving oneself, stating that the "I am" is a concept. This is what Ramesh Balsekar said. In fact, this is what I said for many years. It is true, often people use spirituality and spiritual methods to escape from negative emotions or self-critical thought structures. I even wrote a book on it, as well as a couple academic papers, especially how Buddhism can and is used sometimes to escape from psychological pain. These writings can be found in the Psychoanalysis section of our website, http://wearesentience.com.

Indeed the "I am" is a concept. In fact all consciousness is an illusion, but until this is your experience--that it is an illusion--the I am is an experience that can lead to becoming fully alive in happiness, bliss, and whole range of human emotions.

However, even the bliss is a part of the knowingness of existence, consciousness. What is more fundamental? What Nisargadatta calls the absolute, Ranjit Maharaj, who shared the same master, called "Reality." This is the mystery that is me and is everyone, and it is not consciousness or the manifest.

Here's what Ranjit stated in response to the question, "When I contemplate my real nature, the "I Am," a feeling of love without cause pervades me. Is this feeling correct or is it still an illusion?"

Ranjit: "It is the bliss of the self. You feel the presence of "I am." You forget everything, the concepts and illusion. It is a non-conditioned state. This bliss appears when you forget the object, but in the bliss there is still a little touch of the self. After all, it is still a concept. "When you are tired of the outside world you want to be alone, to be in yourself. It is the experience of a higher state, but still of the mind. The self has no pleasure or displeasure. It is without the "I" sense. The complete forgetfulness of illusion means that nothing is, nothing exists. It is still there, but for you it has no reality. That is what is called realization, or self-knowledge. It is the realization of self without self.

"All that exists, all that you see, the objects of your perception, all that is, is due to reality. There, ignorance and knowledge do not exist. They are not. So what expression can you give to them? When you give them expression, that means there is something experienced. As soon as you feel the least existence, it is still ignorance, and you are away from yourself. "You may feel love, and that is okay, but after all, it is still a state, and a state is always conditioned. The non-conditioned is stateless. It is the experience of the nonexistence of illusion. This is very subtle, and then both ignorance and knowledge don't remain. It is difficult to understand, but if you really you will get to that stateless state. It is and always has been, but you don't know it, that is the difficulty. There's not a single point where reality is not. You experience existence through objects, but all that is nothing. It is omniscient, but you cannot see it. Why? Because you are the reality itself, so how can you see yourself? To see your face you need a mirror."

You see, this is a more detached attitude then found in Pradeeps’ "Nisargadatta Gita" or Nisargadatta's Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization. However, this is more along the

lines of what Robert taught. A place beyond bliss and ecstasy, completely self-contained, wanting nothing, and as Robert pointed, peace beyond understanding.

Ranjit continues: "If you understand that you are not the body, your consciousness becomes universal. All limitation disappears. If you break the vase, the space contained in the vase becomes as big as the space of the room, and if you break down the walls of the house, it becomes vast cosmic space. It is all together as one. In the same way, if the consciousness of the ego is broken, then you become universal consciousness, the "all." But here you must understand that this consciousness is also illusion, or ignorance. In effect, ignorance is the source of consciousness or knowledge.

"So the source of consciousness itself is the forgetting, or the ignorance of reality. You become the total creation, the consciousness or knowledge of the world, but this is still illusion. The ego that becomes the universal consciousness is the worst of egos. "I am the creator of the world, I am omnipotent, etc." But this creator only creates illusion. So what is the use of it? Knowledge creates more illusion. This understanding will ripen with the help of the master, and this knowledge itself will be absorbed in reality."

Ranjit isn't nearly as poetic as Nisargadatta. But this is what I see. States come to me and they go. I am not touched. All the world come to me, and I am not touched. I know not what I am, only that the drama is not me, even though I can choose to be in and even identify with the drama. My fundamental knowledge which is experienced within the I am, is that I am not this way. I am beyond it entirely, in an entirely different dimension, or the "Unmanifest," unborn, silence. Nisargadatta stated the entirety of I Am in a nutshell: "Before beingness was there, look at that, the that state. That maya is so powerful that it gets you completely wrapped up in it. I am means "I am," "I love to be." It has no identity except love. That knowledge of "I am" is the greatest foe and the greatest friend. Although it might be your greatest enemy, if you propitiate it properly, it will turn around and lead you to the highest state." You see, although I am teaching one to locate and love the I am, including the use of

objects within the I am, within consciousness, to kindle the fires of love, you have to keep in mind that the I am is the gate, not the entirety of the unfolding.

15 August 2011

Over the next few months I plan on explaining the teachings of classical Advaita by providing an exegesis of the primary writings of Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ranjit Maharaj. I find their writings express concepts closer to my experience and understanding that even those of Robert Adams and Ramana Maharshi in that Nisargadatta and Ranjit make very explicit the relationship between consciousness and the absolute, the manifest and the unmanifest, and also the relationship between consciousness as manifest through apparently discrete individuals and the universal consciousness. I have to warn you that all concepts are false, that reality cannot be captured by the mind in any way. So you have to consider what they say as "pointers," or "mental training wheels" that guide and direct both your understanding and experiences, until even they are taken from you. Ranjit, and his teacher Siddharameshwar Maharaj, spend a great deal of time talking about the nature consciousness, and the structures which make up the self. These things you never hear from the Neoadvaitins or other modern teachers. These are the things that were conveyed to Rajiv through me that led to his awakening. Rajivwas able to awaken using these pointers and concepts, although the concepts are not really expressive of anything true. I quote from the introduction by Jean Dunn to Consciousness and the Absolute the entirety of Nisargadatta's method: "He (Nisargadatta) said one must find out what the body is, where it came from, study it with detachment, watch it without judging. One soon sees it's like a robot which has been programmed by others. We are to turn within to that which lets us know that we are, to become one with that (i.e., knowing and the knower). "Abiding in the "I Amness" (or consciousness, which is pure love), that consciousness

itself would give us all the answers. At the present time, consciousness is what we are, not personal consciousness, but impersonal, universal consciousness. In the course of time, the consciousness will show us that we are not even this, but we are eternal absolute, unborn, and undying." Nisargadatta requires us to ponder his words, reflect on their meaning, and to see for ourselves whether what he says is true or not. It requires a remarkable degree of honesty and self truthfulness to take us beyond concepts and especially conventions and protocols in our everyday life. We need to be free from convention in every way in that it takes this kind of radical truth mentality to distinguish between the true and the conventional. On page 1, Nisargatatta is asked, "How does a jnani see the world?" He Responds: "The jnani is aware of the origin and value of consciousness, this beingness, which has spontaneously dawned on him. The same consciousness plays a multitude of roles, some happy, some unhappy; but whatever the roles, the jnani is merely the seer of them. The roles have no effect on the jnani. "All your problems are body mind problems. Even so you cling to that body. Since you identify with the body mind, you follow certain polite modes of expression when you talk. I do not. I might embarrass you; you may not be able to take what I say. I have no sense of propriety or boundaries. "You (on the other hand) are bound by your own concepts and notions. Actually, you love only this sense of "I"; you do everything because of this. You are not working for anybody, nor for the nation, but only for this sense of "I" which you love so much. "All (of your) activities go on, but they are only entertainment. The waking and deep sleep states come and go spontaneously. Through the sense of "I", you spontaneously feel like working. But find out if the sense of "I" is real or unreal, permanent or impermanent.

"The "I" which appears is unreal. How unreal it is I have proven. The moment the "I" is proven unreal, who is it who knows that the "I" is unreal? This knowledge within you that knows the "I" is unreal, that knowledge which knows change, must itself be changeless, permanent." You see, you are the triumvirate of knowledge, knowing, and the knower. Knowledge and knowing occur and are expressed in the I am, but the knower stands behind that as a mystery, itself unknown, as it is not an object, but consciousness unmanifest.

16 August 2011

Mea Culpa Our Sangha now has 90 members. I get an average of 10 or more emails a day from sangha members and another 3-5 from those who read the blog or websites. Sometimes I get many more than that. I understand many feel I do not hear them or respond to them and that is true. I really don't "feel" emails that much unless I know the person well. If you feel I am not seeing you or responding as to what you need, schedule a Skype or phone appointment by sending me an email. Look, I have been a teacher for less than a year. This is all new to me and I am trying as hard as I can within my limitations as a crusty old fart.

17 August, 2011

Something happened this weekend--something wonderful. I had a fight with someone I care for very much regarding my failure to trust her about her assessment of a situation. She walked away in an angry huff. A few days later we talked. Deeply! Something happened. My heart opened up. I had this bizarre experience where it felt like I had invisible feelers emanating directly from my heart reaching out into the world. But my mind created an image of these feelers and made them into tentacles, like something from a the science fiction movie, The Thing. Each seemed to have an independent motivation and each was "feeling" for something in the environment. When I talked to her, it was from an entirely different viewpoint. I was "looking" into the world from my heart, not my eyes. I saw she had been entirely right about something I had missed. Then I realized I had already known the truth about the situation, but discounted it and tried to cover it over to in order to smooth the waters. She felt totally abandoned and incredulous that I had not even expressed as true what she knew to be true. I would never have been consciously aware had this break not occurred. I did know it, but my mind discounted what it knew to be true and discounted why she should feel so strongly about something I saw as so small a thing. But now I see so clearly. I now function from my heart as if it were the primary source of my knowing the world. What a miracle! I can now see truth with unerring accuracy. It feels like wisdom--at least about the human

condition manifesting day to day, which is entirely different from walking into the absolute, or practicing self inquiry. However, it is very related to abiding in and loving the I Am. It is so powerful and so knowing, and if you befriend it, and have angels who point the way with you, it reveals a world of breathtaking clarity and wisdom. This insight has nothing to do with the absolute, but purely about being a human in the world of humanity. I had missed so much, I was blind but now I see. I still feel this opening, like a layer of defenses has been torn away from my imaginary body and I can "see" into the world in a new way, formerly covered by wishful thinking, conventionality and generally not paying attention. I can also see clearly where I need to go, what I need to do. Defenses have been dropped, revealing this is but the beginning of yet another long journey.

Anonymous said...

I also had a powerful experience this weekend. I got outraged at a dear friend.

Intensely. Beyond my capacity to suppress the erupting rage. There was no me

anymore. Just volcanic release. I had to act. I left him, I left the Sangha. I left

'Me'. It really felt liberating. The intensity of Love helps us drop the mind. The

same happens with intense rage. But this process is destructive, relationships

killed, friendships abandoned. I wish the "I" got burned in the process and left for

good but it came back. And with it some insights too.

I’ve always had this inner sense in me. It felt like my body had the capacity to

detect Truth. I called my body my ‘Truth Serum’. It always felt like knowing

what’s real and what’s not. It was like if something was True I’d be very aware of

my body. But if not, I’d lose contact with it and I will feel weak, almost sick to my

bones. I’ve had it since I was a child.

Abandonment is one of my most fundamental fears. I spent the first 6 years of my

life in an orphanage. Afterwards I was raised by my schizophrenic mother. The

entire family blamed me for her being sick. They didn’t really want a black child

so their hostility was expressed in blaming me for her disease. I knew it wasn’t my

fault because I listened to my inner sense , but through the years I started

doubting myself more and more. The sense of what’s true was always there but I

didn’t pay attention. The conditioned mind took over. With that the fear of being

abandoned increased and I developed all kinds of defenses around making sure I

am loved and protected at all times, that I am never blamed for something I didn’t

do.

And then I met my teacher. That sense of knowing what is true was activated to

such a degree that I exploded, it was orgasmic. I knew I was in the presence of

Truth and Reality. I couldn’t quite articulate it then but now it is more clear. It is

like I have that deep knowing. I am that knowing. Everything is knowing. It was

moving so fast, it was so expansive, it carried Love with itself. Love was Truth in

movement. A continuous expansion toward Truth, toward knowing. That

movement was interrupted by moments of silence and stillness. Total rest. And

then another powerful movement of Truth. At that time I thought all this was

happening to my body but I now understand it has never been within my body. I

have always been aware of my sense of being, my pure presence. It

interpenetrates the body and I didn’t know it, I confused it with the body. It

wasn’t my body climaxing but my awareness expanding. It was a cosmic event.

This past week, I was offended by someone's passive aggressive jokes and was

shocked to find out that my friend did nothing. In fact he thought I was imagining a

hostility that wasn't there. After our argument I realized how much I had depended

on my friend. I had wanted him to protect me, to defend me, to be there for me. I

have always done that. I have always wanted those who love me to never betray

me. In fact I had always expected them to fight for me. I would passively watch

and measure their love with their capacity to defend me. I had wanted something

from my friend that I never got from my family.

Maybe it is time for me to embrace that little girl, to stand up for her, to protect

her, to defend her. After all I am the one who knows best what is it that she wants

and deserves. Perhaps next time I won’t be so afraid of being abandoned as I will

be always here with her – loving her, trusting her, protecting her.

Janet B.

August 18, 2011

29 October 2011

Below is an email I sent to a student who had been practicing very strongly over a period of time. He had many conceptions of what spiritual progress and practice were all about, and one after another was shed. But he abruptly disappeared for a time giving lifeless excuses.

Edji: Where the hell have you gone? Be honest. Ed

Student:

OK, Edji. The truth is that you pretty much put the final nails in my coffin -- if you know what I mean — and I haven’t been feeling the need for satsang. To be honest, I’ve been feeling like the crying woman in the Mooji video that you posted. Contrary to you having done something I didn’t like, you gave me just what I needed whether I liked it or not. Short as our correspondence was, your insights and “zingers” pushed my buttons to a degree that you may have been unaware. You pushed me over the edge (no pun intended) and freed me from my dependency on the teacher, which I realized was rooted in a belief, strangely enough, that the Master was somehow going to magically complete my sadhana for me. Of course, the teachings are invaluable, but the “inner” guru is guiding the ship these days.

I’m sorry that I wasn’t more straight about the reason for my absence, but it felt awkward to confide this to you as if I was making some pronouncement about having attained realization or enlightenment or whatever label you want to give it. Let’s just say that now I know what has always been so, and the only thing I can do is basically stay the fuck out of the way. I am forever thankful to you, and I would like to keep in touch.

Edji:

Hey, Explain further please. What is the insight you gained? Ed

Student:

Kind of a tricky question. “I” didn’t really “gain” anything. But, of course, we are stuck with language as the only means to communicate such insight. The realization is that there is no such thing as enlightenment (or whatever you want to call it) because there is no one to be enlightened. I am not. There is no “I”. This thing — the Self -- and this state — Realization -- that I’ve been chasing after, pursuing, searching for all these years simply does not exist.

All that exists is Consciousness, and I am not even that. All the seeking and the questions and the experiences and the insights, though made of Consciousness, were only layers, veils, walls obstructing my experience or understanding or awareness (I don’t really know what to call it since no word really does it justice) of the Truth that is prior to Consciousness and essentially served only to keep the “I” alive. What is weird is how obvious the Truth was all along and yet how egregiously it was missed, overlooked, ignored. Now there is no more “inside” or “outside”, “past” or “future”, “you” or “I”. It is everything and It is no thing. I realize this sounds like a greatest hits list of Advaita cliches. But how else does one put it? It is as it is, which essentially is not. Hope that helps. Love,

Edji:

Yes, you have had the original first awakening into oneness. No 'I'.

The path is now lighted.

But this is only the first step. Do not run away so soon. Why run?

When I had this first awakening, I ran closer to Robert, not away thinking I knew or felt everything. I knew only that I was nothing.

Something in you though chose to feel you had already gotten all that there is to get.

This is just the beginning of your journey. Everything before this was warm up.

If you are true to yourself, there will be another, second major awakening wherein even consciousness itself, oneness is seen to be fleeting, unreal. It is not enough to know it, you have to feel it totally. You say that you know this already.

Then comes the trip back into emotions and humanhood. This is the hardest part of the journey. The trip between second base and home plate. reowning your humanity, feelings, love, anger, jealousy.

This is the trickiest because the belief that there is no self any more can be a complete defense against feeling deeply or believing nothing more is to be done. As Soen Sah said and has warned, “You have seen 180 degrees, the emptiness of all things, but now what? Is this all?” This is only half way.

Robert also warned it is so easy having attained identification with emptiness to lose all love and attachment, and to become a cold fish. Don’t allow this to happen to you.

And of course there is an enlightenment. The “real you” has seen through the identifications of the mind. You can’t find yourself as an object, or an ego. Your spiritual intelligence has been awakened. But really, when you go deeper, you know that you are the subject, and a reality more real than what you had accepted as true before is revealed.

The next step is of the movement of the heart. From now on, all the movement needs to be in your heart.

Anonymous said...

Interesting post Edji,

Knowing I am not my mind, not my thoughts, not my body brought tremendous

relief but it didn't last. Those ecstatic states when I realized all is one, all is Love,

and then experiencing deep peace and detachment from whatever arises were

exhilarating but they left too. I continued to experience suffering. But through

living in the Heart much depths were traversed and a firm conviction arose within

me that knowing I am not my mind was never going to satisfy me. Until I continued

to react, until the beliefs that I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I am not

seen for who I am, etc., and all the hidden and repressed emotions I so defend

against were not fully exposed, lit upon I am not free. It is much work, much dying

and resurrecting but I am convinced until my experience is not a purer reflection

of the Self - deep happiness which never leaves I will seek. Perhaps this is my trap

but so be it.

Janet B.

October 29, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

Janet, this is the mystery of spirituality. Those who seek knowledge choose

Advaita, Zen, or Tibetan or another form of Buddhism. Those who relate by

emotions and tactile sensations often choose Christian mysticism, Sufi or other

Bhakti approaches. ... There are those who say in the end they reach the same

result. This is not true. I believe those who choose the Bhaktic approach are more

heroic than the Advaitins, and usually stop short of full liberation. They become

saints, which the world needs more than sages. .. Advaitins and Zen can reach

what is traditionally considered release more easily, but they are less likely to

make the trip back to the marketplace and humanity. ... Yes,the "transcendental"

states did not stick with you because your way requires you become completely

empty of emotional reactions first. You appear to require being empty of emotion

before you permanently awaken. ... However, I see possibly a higher mission for

you. Your ability to "feel" people in their depths and to touch them there is a

special gift. Unique.

30 October 2011

Here is my own truth

I had my first two awakenings in 1995 wherein I saw the emptiness and illusion of self, and that the world was a creation of mind. I identified with the emptiness, the space that contained all. There was nothing left to do so far as seeking was concerned. I also saw that what I was in the deepest sense was even beyond consciousness, that it was the movement of the "I Am" sense that created the manifest world.

In retrospect I see that there was some movement to return to the marketplace that began in 2003. Before that, I realized I had nothing to say, there was no truth, all knowledge was empty and illusory, including even this knowledge.

Nisargadatta said in I Am That:

You are giving a certain date to your realization. ... What happened?

Maharaj: The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and ceaseless search stopped - I wanted nothing, expected nothing - accepted nothing as my own. There was no `me' left to strive for. Even the bare `I am' faded away. The other thing that I noticed was that I lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that `I do not know' is the only true statement the mind can make.--Nisargadatta

So, what to say about nothingness and not knowing? For ten years I couldn't say anything. Now I have something to say about it. Give up all concepts and dive within the emptiness one finds inside. Stay there, as dumb as a rock, and it becomes illumined by the light of consciousness. It took me 15 years to learn to say this.

But you see, this realization, for most, requires a final return to the marketplace wherein one’s inner mess, one’s inner brokenness is released over and over until our humanness is as empty as the Void we received upon first realization.

Soen Sah Nim called it the path from emptiness back to ordinary mind, from 180 degrees back to 0, or 360 degrees. It is filled with drama and magic he said. In my own experience, it is a movement of love and acceptance, both of my own inner brokenness and mess, and of others. But the problem is finding that driver that will make it happen: Love! Only intense love for another and for one’s own self will automatically cause you to go deep. Once this intense love grabs you, you are helpless. However, at some point most find a way to jump off this path because it is so painful and intense. But a few, with great courage remain on it to the end, where their personal inner emptiness now matches the great Void revealed to them many years before.

The way of the Bhakti is entirely devoted to exploring this level of puking one’s guts out so to speak in order to reach emptiness with many milestones along the way, and in the end, they arrive at the same truth as Advaita, being empty and receptive to everything and everyone, completely humbled. Those who seek the advaita way, or neo advaita really don’t want to hear this, but this path is so much easier after becoming established in the Void first, because you know where you are going then on a human level.

The path of the Bhakti, difficult as it is, also reveals experiences of love, bliss, ecstasy and surrender that make the path itself its own end. All along the way after the first awakening, even in the midst of tremendous upheavals from the unconsciousness, there is a growing sense of rightness and happiness, with increasing love and bliss that makes the journey tolerable.

Life, in the end, becomes service to others in the way he or she feels most compelled to give.

One of the most dramatic accounts of this journey to No-Self is given by Bernadette Roberts in her three books. She talks of moving from being an ordinary person, consumed by love of Christ, to experiences of oneness and ecstasy, then the movement towards complete emptiness, nothingness, or as she called it, the Void of Voids. The first part of her journey was purely Bhakti, the second, Adaita or Zen-like, and as she put it, hell. Her pain came from the loss of the love and bliss she had so loved.

Anonymous said...

Hello, Ed.

You said you are a friend of Bernadette, so I´d like to have your view on her

journey.

Some years ago I read one of her books, and even though her experience seems

quite usual (first, oneness and bliss. After that, the encounter with nothingness),

she refers to it as unique in the history of spirituality, no matter if we talk about

mystical Christianity, Buddhism, Vedanta,etc.

She concedes that Meister Eckhart has probably spoken about the same thing (in

my opinion, there´s no doubt about it) but that´s all.

I find it strange, because her account of her spiritual journey looks identical to any

other mystic´s relate.

What can you say about it?

Thanks, Ed.

October 31, 2011

Anonymous said...

Dearest Ed,

It seems that I am constitutionally wired for the Bhakti/Sufi path. What a shock

this has been for me in many ways.

As you know, one of my concerns with surrendering or diving deep into the play of

emotions, feelings, ie the inner brokenness (like I have a choice) was that the

knowledge (Jnana) aspect would be neglected, plus I was so afraid. The Bhakta

path, while producing lots of energies in other ways can be exhausting. I did not

see how the two could possibly co-exist and deepen simultaneously. You assured

me that one would not suffer at the expense of the other. So far this is holding

true.

If anything, and this is such a mystery to me, being open to feel deeply, accept

and explore my own inner brokenness has also brought about a deepening of

knowledge.

Days may appear to be consumed in intense emotional drama, leaving me in utter

despair at times. I am sure during these periods that clarity will never come

again...and then it does and its even deeper.

Finding the driver (LOVE) to make all of this happen is so crucial. I would say,

impossible without it.

Joan

October 31, 2011

Ed Muzika said...

I do not think there is any generic path with identical experiences, to which she

fits a mold. For example, for me the emptiness, no-self, oneness experiences came

first. Then someone saw the love in me, which I did not feel, and brought it out.

This has been my path ever since, 100% opposite of Bernadette, and more like that

of the zen master returning to the marketplace. Happy, joyous, not like the

Buddhist Arhat ideal or resting in Nirvana.