Let me respectfully remind you
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Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by.
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and opportunity is lost.
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Each of us should strive to awaken.
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Awaken.
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Take heed.
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Do not squander your life.
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Humanity has descended deep into the material realm
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putting its roots into the mental and physical layers of our being.
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As Carl Jung said, "To touch heaven one's roots must reach into hell."
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Out of the furnace of Babylon comes transformation, transfiguration and new human potential.
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The Eastern traditions say that the lotus of awakening grows out of the mud of samsara;
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out of suffering.
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Christianity describes "the fall" in the Garden of Eden.
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In esoteric terms this is the creation of a sense of individual self or personal will
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that is separate from God's will. Along with this separate self is the coming into being
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of an external world of thought; the world of form that seems separate from this limited self.
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The character or the ego is made of patterns of pursuing or wanting things
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in that external thought-projected world. The external things that we crave are the fruits
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of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or the tree of duality.
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You could say that original sin is the desires of egoic or dualistic consciousness.
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This is maya, the situation that humanity now finds itself in.
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Going after the external fruit means to miss the mark, to miss the now.
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Historically there have been occasional rare awakenings rare flowerings of human consciousness;
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the saints, the yogis, sages, and wisdom keepers. But humanity now has a unique opportunity to
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make this journey as a collective, en mass; to envision and co-create shared new realities
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as we rediscover the higher worlds and wake up from the collective dream of the limited self.
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Most humans are currently living almost entirely identified with the gross physical and mental
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layers of their being, not even aware that the higher levels exist. Most people do not know or
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suspect that there are spiritual capacities latent within the self-structure waiting to be activated.
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By realizing these capacities we connect to subtler and subtler levels of existence,
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while at the same time making the self-structure permeable
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to our true nature; disidentifying from all levels of mind or maya.
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If we examine the spiritual traditions that have existed throughout history,
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we find that the great sages, mystics and seers describe a continuum of existence.
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The ancient Vedic teachings described five koshas or sheaths of the soul, extending from
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the gross physical and mental realm, which is the conditioned world in which most people live today,
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to the subtle realms which include the energetic astral and higher mind realms the archetypal
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templates of existence. And finally to the causal realm where there's no thought or
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sensation. The realization of primordial awareness, the awakening of god-consciousness within the soul
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dispels the illusion of all of these realms- all layers of maya.
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The ancient traditions contain numerous conceptual and language
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frameworks that point to this continuum from gross to subtle to causal.
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Whether it is the chakra system or kosha system of the Vedic traditions or the dantiens of Taoism,
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all levels within the field of change are maya; the spiral that obscures our true nature
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yet is the very expression of life itself.
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It is through the spiral of life that we experience human life. When all levels of
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maya are realized to be empty of self what is possible is an unfathomable non-duality
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or mystical union beyond all language, which includes yet transcends all of the other levels.
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Henry David Thoreau famously said that most people lead lives of quiet desperation.
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They go to their graves with their song still inside of them.
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Their desperation comes from an endless searching outside of themselves.
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The pursuit of 'things'; money, power, relationships, approval from others.
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The root of suffering lies in one's mental attachment to things, not in the things themselves.
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It doesn't matter what you have, what matters is your attachment to what you have.
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We form attachments at the sensory level through neuroplasticity.
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Wherever attention is placed, neurons fire and wire together creating a program in the mind; a
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tendency towards pattern which is what the mind itself is. When we have any unconscious tendency
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or life pattern, we are not actually addicted to the things themselves. We are not addicted to drugs,
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alcohol, sex, food or media but to the sensations that they produce within us. We become free by
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observing the somatic field directly; the field of changing phenomena at the root level of awareness.
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We remain equanimous without reacting or judging any sensation as good or bad.
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To become free we learn how these attachments are formed
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by bringing consciousness to the subtle inner world.
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We start to observe mental and sensory phenomena as a field of change, rather than getting attached
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to the thoughts and sensations which bring about identification and the very creation of the world
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of form. This field of change is also called "prana" or "inner energy"; the feeling of inner aliveness.
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The shift to a new Earth is a shift out of materialism. What we are witnessing is a
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release of the old paradigms, and the pathological egoic agenda to endlessly acquire more. What you
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are seeing around you right now may seem like darkness. It may seem like madness. Actually this
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is what awakening looks like on planet Earth. You are witnessing the dismantling of the old patterns.
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Many people are disillusioned with the current political, social, economic and religious systems.
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They no longer trust the egoic agendas of the media industries and so-called spiritual systems.
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They don't trust the medical establishment or the government.
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People are disillusioned. This dispelling of illusion is a necessary part of seeing the truth;
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a coming face to face with the spiritual sickness that is inherent in this time we are living in,
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and for coming out of egoic consciousness.
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By egoic consciousness I mean the patterns of craving and aversion that operate unconsciously;
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the collective samskaras or conditioned patterns which create the conditions of maya-
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the identification with our characters, or with social groups, or anything we define ourselves by.
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With the various personas and archetypes we are playing out in this lifetime.
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The self-structure is an interface with the world- we don't want to get rid of that interface
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or destroy it. The path is about disidentifying from it so that our sense of "I" or the sense of
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existence is not tied to a limited form. So that we don't suffer when the world of form changes.
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The human path is a journey from pre-egoic existence, which is the merged oneness that
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we experienced when we were a baby, with our mother, to the creation of a person.
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We grow, we create a character. This is a necessary part of our evolution. In order
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to bring about self-consciousness; to bring about a sense of self or "I".
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We are actually in an adolescent stage of our development. We're in an ego identified stage.
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But the next step beyond self-consciousness is to realize transpersonal levels of self.
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To realize shared levels of consciousness; various levels of Logos or higher mind.
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You could say levels of soul if you prefer that language.
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Our sphere of compassion expands. This is an expansion through love.
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From the perspective of the old pattern the egoic consciousness, this dismantling is
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something fearful. There's going to be confusion and pain if you're clinging to the old patterns.
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Those awakening will actually be perceived as a threat.
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Awakening will be seen as a crisis because it is the dismantling of what is known.
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Right now we are like caterpillars in the cocoon as it undergoes metamorphosis.
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There's a point in the transformation where the caterpillar is neither a
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caterpillar nor a butterfly. At this point to the one undergoing the metamorphosis,
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the old self, it may seem that all is lost. But it's merely part of the process.
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Faith is a surrender to the evolutionary impulse; a deep knowing that we are moving towards source.
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The collective delusion, what the ancient spiritual teachers called maya,
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is tied to our collective attachment to old patterns.
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It's tied to human hubris; the belief that we know where we're going, what we're doing, and who we are.
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The French painter Paul Gauguin is famous for a painting which he entitled "Where do we come from,
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what are we, and where are we going?" These three questions require a humility.
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To find out what we are, to find out the truth, we first have to acknowledge that
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we don't have the truth- we don't have the answer if we want to find the answer.
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There must be a genuine willingness to explore and to look at ourselves. Like Dante's pilgrim
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in the "Divine Comedy" one begins the journey to know oneself in a darkened wood, astray,
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recognizing that we are lost.
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In the ancient Vedic traditions the dimensions of being
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and becoming were represented by Shiva and Shakti.
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The archetypal feminine the downward current or current of manifestation is represented by Shakti,
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by the downward pointing triangle which points toward involution of spirit into the world of form.
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Shiva represents the upward current; the current of liberation;
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the upward pointing triangle pointing toward pure awareness without any qualities;
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evolution beyond the world of form or the transcendent.
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So long as we are operating within the dualistic world, identified with the limited mind, these two
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currents comprise the pathless path. We are working within the current of manifestation
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and the current of liberation, doing and non-doing, inhabiting both the time bound and the timeless.
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When these two dimensions are married in divine union, realized as one, it is Samadhi. When in union
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they represent the balance and coexistence of these two dimensions, like the star of David or
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the anahata symbol which is the ancient symbol representing the spiritual heart, the unstruck
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sound, the transcendent source of the primordial aum that is dancing the universe into being.
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It is said that in samadhi you will hear the celestial music of existence,
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"musica universalis", or the flute of Krishna or what Pythagoras called the "music of the spheres."
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Of course these are all metaphors for something that awakens within
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the depths of your being, something beyond the limited mind and senses.
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There are spiritual systems that focus on the subtle body using practices such as observing
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the breath, sensations, working with chi or prana. Working with techniques, practices and processes that can
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be learned with the conditioned mind. Everything that directly employs and engages the limited mind
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in order to realize Samadhi is part of the "via positiva." This is what we call the Shakti path.
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And there are spiritual systems which are about transcending the manifested world,
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which we call the Shiva path or the "via negativa".
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We come to realize that which we are beyond name and form by letting go of all that we are not.
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The way to Samadhi has been given many names such as meditation, self-inquiry or prayer.
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Most people who practice these things today are practicing some technique, but the ancient form
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of meditation that leads to Samadhi is actually not an activity. It is not something that you do
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or practice, but it is actually the cessation of the meditator, the seeker or the doer.
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True meditation is union with what IS, and it only begins to happen when the ego
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fails in its attempt to meditate, and realizes its own limitations.
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The ego, the YOU that you think you are, must necessarily fail in all attempts to meditate
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for true meditation to come about. The closer we come to the truth, the closer we come to Samadhi,
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the less doing there is, the less technique there is. The techniques are all part of the past. We drop
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the doing and the doer. We drop the seeking and the seeker, to come to the unconditioned present.
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Some teachers over emphasize techniques, while some undervalue them. It's important to understand that
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the technique is a stepping stone. We don't want to abandon the technique, but we don't cling to it.
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The time-tested way to realize Samadhi is through long periods of spiritual practice. Whether you
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call that practice meditation, self-inquiry or prayer, there is a truth that one has to awaken to.
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The yogi and sage Patanjali who compiled the yoga sutras 2500 years ago, taught that the
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entire endeavor of yoga is aimed at the cessation of the whirlpool of the mind. You could say it is
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the cessation of karma; the cessation of deep unconscious patterns that govern one's life.
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These conditioned patterns were called the vritti's in Sanskrit. Likewise
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the Zen master Dogen said that meditation is the dropping off of mind and body.
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In Buddhism it is Nirvana or Nirodha; it's the cessation of the fluctuations of the
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limited egoic mind which bring about the identification with a limited sense of self.
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In Christianity we find the same perennial teaching but expressed through a very
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different metaphor, using the language that was common at that time in history.
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To realize Samadhi in Christian terms
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is to attain the Kingdom of God through the forgiveness of sins, by realizing Christ.
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The word sin in Hebrew means literally to "miss the mark"; it means to miss the present moment;
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to pursue happiness in the objects of the external world
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rather than realizing the source of true fulfillment.
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To come into the now, to the present moment is to learn to surrender the preferences of the
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conditioned mind. To burn up opposing states by remaining non-reactive to anything that
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is appearing within the field of change. To meditate is to burn up the conditioned self,
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or you could say to free energy from the conditioned self. This truth is found in the Gospel of Thomas
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which says "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you
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do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
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A mountain may be accessible by many paths.
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One can go straight towards the summit, or sometimes it may be better to take a spiral route.
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But at the summit the view is always the same, no matter which path you take.
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Humans have created thousands of meditation techniques throughout the millennia,
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not to mention countless yoga postures, asanas, specialized breathing or pranayama,
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and every conceivable variety of ritual or practice. If meditation is simply a cessation or
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a stopping, if it's simply coming to stillness, then why do we need so many techniques to achieve it?
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Why can't we just sit and wait for our mud to settle, as they teach in Zen?
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The truth is we can just stop. We can surrender the activities of our character,
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however as Einstein said "although reality is merely an illusion, it is a persistent one."
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It is this persistence of the illusion that makes it necessary for most people to penetrate into
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the unconscious mind. To stay awake we have to purify the avatar of its samskaras, of its
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karma or its programming, so that the unconscious aspects of self are no longer driving the show.
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When I say "purify" I don't mean that the avatar is somehow bad or negative. I simply mean that it
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is possible to disidentify a sense of self from it, and the disidentification process is what we
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call "purification" or "cleaning". I'm cleaning my Self of myself. Our sadhana is to unite all aspects of our
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self so that we are not divided. We penetrate into the unconscious by creating conditions of
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no escape for the ego. Whether this is through long periods of meditation or self-inquiry,
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through intensive yoga, qi kung, prayer or breath work, or fasting or chanting,
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or by taking entheogens which open us to the unconscious depths of the mind, we will naturally
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be drawn to different practices, techniques and tools at different times on our path.
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Whatever the practice or technique is, the purification will happen as long
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as we are cultivating presence and equanimity. Being here in the now as well as surrendered
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to what is. Then we continue to unbind the karmic knots that create identification with our avatar.
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We let go of judging any sensation or thought as good or bad, always going deeper into the sensory
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field. Always perceiving subtler and subtler phenomena, becoming so conscious of what is arising
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that there is a merging with the meditation object. We become the breath.
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We become the yoga posture.
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We become the chant.
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We become the avatar. In each case merging with the pranic field in what is called Savikalpa Samadhi,
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or Samprajnada Samadhi, which is "Samadhi with a seed"; a seed of pattern,
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a seed of form, a seed of conditioned mind activity,
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of karmic activity. So long as there is a seed of attachment, of unconscious mind activity, of
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separation between the inner and outer worlds, then the final goal will not be reached.
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Savikalpa Samadhi is a preliminary Samadhi, also called "jhana" (Pali) or "dhyana" (Sanskrit). It is a burning up of
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karma within the self-structure; an energetic preparation of the vessel for the awakening
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of one's true nature, which is realized through non-doing; through a cessation of mind activity.
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Your mind is like a pond, and your thoughts are like waves or ripples upon that pond.
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To make a pond become still, what can you do?
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Anything you do will stir up more waves. You can't smooth it out or make it be still.
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The pond only comes to stillness when you have let go of all effort, all striving,
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all movement. Realizing the natural state is not something that you do.
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It is a recognition of what you are beyond the movement of the mind and senses.
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Who is moving the mind? Recognize "who" is choosing.
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It is only the mind itself that chooses. It is only the mind itself that moves.
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It is only the mind itself that wants to try to still the mind.
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Upon hearing these words the limited mind will likely be disoriented,
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wondering, "What do I do?" Just allow that disorientation.
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Become aware of the True Self. Become aware of awareness, conscious of consciousness.
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Stay with "it" until it alone becomes your reality.
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At the beginning when you try to observe awareness
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you will see only the false self, only the movements of the mind.
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When I say "Be aware of the true self", it is not a turning, it is not a movement.
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It is not like pointing a camera at a new object, but rather it is a giving up
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or a cessation of the interest or attachment to the movements of the mind.
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There are two main knots that bind us into identification with the false self:
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The body wants comfort, and the mind wants to know.
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The body is attached to sensations of pleasure and avoidance of pain.
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All sadhana or spiritual practice that leads to Samadhi fundamentally involves two things:
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First, letting go of the duality of comfort and discomfort, and second, entering into a "don't know
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mind." Deep inner surrender, energetic surrender, and being thoughtlessly present, choicelessly aware.
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Socrates was considered the wisest person of his time.
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He's famous for the maxim, "I only know that I don't know." This is the Socratic paradox.
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Adopting a "don't know mind", a not knowing mind, is the gateway to Samadhi.
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Wait. Be still without hope, without thought, because hope would be based on
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some idea, and would be keeping energy flowing into the conditioned mind.
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T.S. Eliot wrote, "I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be
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hope for the wrong thing. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought."
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The moment you have a hope, a motive or a thought,
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is the moment that you are again caught in the conditioned mind.
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In the Divine Comedy, Dante wrote of an inscription
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at the entrance to hell: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
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It is actually a very practical instruction.
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It would make a great reminder if it were posted on the doorway of every meditation center, ashram,
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church or temple. Whatever your hope is, it is based on past conditioning. Hope is a kind of knowing
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that keeps the ego structure searching, seeking and doing. When we engage in our sadhana, our spiritual
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practice that leads to Samadhi, then we must abandon all hope, all projections into the future,
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accepting that we don't even know what to hope for. This is a humbling for the ego.
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When we abandon hope we also abandon fear. Hope and fear are the mind's projection into the future;
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the inner wiring that binds us to identification. Hope is craving, fear is aversion.
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If we remain in the now experiencing this moment as it is, then where is hope or fear?
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Our spiritual work is to excavate and unbind the knots that tie us to identification
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with our character. We move beyond comfort and discomfort, entering into the cloud of unknowing.
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We can do this both through formal practices and in day-to-day life.
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To meditate, to know yourself, is to burn in the now.
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To burn up your patterns, your preferences,
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and it is not something separate from your life. To be able to drop your patterns, your reactions
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and your judgments while you're in the midst of them, to drop the fight, is the deepest practice.
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This is the only fight that you win by giving up, by surrendering, by dying on the battlefield.
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Willingly climbing onto the cross.
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Some people are ready for the highest teachings on meditation and self-inquiry; the simple and
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clear truth. They will hear the dharma and will understand immediately. These people are like wood
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that has been well seasoned, and they are ready to burn themselves up. They just need the spark.
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Other people seem to require more preparation.
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They're like wet wood and they need some time to dry out before they ignite. They need techniques,
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practices to loosen the bonds of the self-structure to become free of samskaras.
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Or at least they believe that this is the case, and the belief makes it so.
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Practices and techniques are like stepping stones;
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like using a thorn to remove a thorn, or a pattern to remove a pattern.
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Spiritual practices such as reciting words, practicing a discipline or anything learned,
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is simply imitation. It's something repetitive and conditioned. Because all techniques are
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conditioned patterns within the mind, the practice itself will never lead beyond the mind, to Samadhi.
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You will remain in the pattern in a robotic, repetitive state.
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One must hold on to the technique loosely, allowing inner energy to flow freely.
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When you become absorbed in inner energy, then the conditioned doing is dropped.
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The conditioned doing, the unconscious programming was formed due to incomplete experiences.
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Whenever we have an incomplete experience, it creates an impression in the mind. It creates a
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little program in the unconscious. This programming or conditioning can come from traumas, or simply
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experiences that we have turned away from, because they were too painful. Our self-structure
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is made up of a legion of little programs which come into being because of incomplete experiences.
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These memory imprints are not only stored in the brain, but within the energetic systems of the body;
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throughout the nervous system, the fascia, and many networks of nadis or meridians.
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These programs take energy to run. If energy is trapped in the unconscious, then it's like leaving
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apps open on your phone draining your battery. Our sadhana is like learning to close the apps on our
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phone. To become free we bring consciousness to the subtle sensations; to the field of
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changing phenomena or energy within us without reacting to any thought or feeling that arises.
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By dropping the preferences of the ego structure moving beyond comfort and discomfort.
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Everything in the external world is pointing us in the wrong direction.
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Society tells us to numb our pain, to seek comfort.
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The way in is the way out, the way out is the way in. We need to turn toward our pain.
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We become free of samskaras by having a complete experience.
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By feeling it without reacting. By burning in it. We have a complete experience of the feeling
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without the emotion. Emotions are reactions. They are feelings that are intertwined with thoughts.
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We drop the thinking component and stay with the raw feeling, the raw sensation.
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It has been said that the path to liberation is not about feeling
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better, but about getting better at feeling. The ultimate examples of this are Jesus on
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the cross or the Buddha's meditation that led to his enlightenment. It is facing one's greatest pain,
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one's greatest fears, dropping the concepts, the knowing, and the judgments of good or bad. Awakening
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is merely the beginning step in an accelerated process of inner development; of growing the inner
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lotus; of becoming a living bridge; of purifying the human vessel to house divine consciousness.
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Energy is like the Rosetta stone for spiritual practices.
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If you understand how energy works you understand the usefulness of the practice. Every technique or
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practice is interrupting the pattern of YOU. You are using a conditioned pattern to interrupt
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conditioned patterns. You must be willing to let go of the technique once it has served its
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purpose, otherwise you will just create an identity around it, and a new spiritualized self-structure.
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To reach the deeper stages of meditation
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we must let go of everything we think we know about meditation.
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The ancient terms for meditation, "jhana", "dhyana", "zen" or "chan", refer to a sort of inner dissolving; a
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kind of meditative absorption; a transformation or inner purification of egoic conditioning.
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The ancient meaning of the word "jhana" is related to the pali word "jhapeti"
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which means "to burn up". It is a burning up of defilements, of sin or samskaras. It's a burning
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up of identification with the false self, a burning up of delusion, a burning up of all
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preferences out of which the ego construct is made, and a release and coming forth of inner energy.
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One becomes equanimous with what is, surrendered to what is, attentive to what is.
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Awakening to our true nature can happen gradually through these stages of jhana,
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as the identification with various processes of conditioned mind is dropped.
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Or awakening can happen instantly. This is called "satori" in Zen.
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The most pure teaching is transmitted in silence, but with the world such as
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it is today, very few will understand or be drawn into the source of that silence.
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There's a famous teaching by Gautama Buddha called "the flower sermon". The sermon is the origin
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of Buddhist meditation. You could say it's the origin of Zen. Zen is about direct
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transmission of the truth. In the flower sermon the Buddha simply held up a white flower. He was
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in unmediated presence with the flower, abiding in his true nature. That was the whole teaching.
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Rather than giving a long satsang or teaching with words, he just let the students sit with
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the flower for the entire time. Only one student received the transmission.
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Only one student got it. To receive such a subtle transmission requires a subtle mind.
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The greatest truth is transmitted in silence. How can we receive this transmission of Buddha mind?
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How can we receive what we already have, what we already are?
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Primordial awareness is everywhere, when we have eyes to see, and nowhere in particular.
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Upon awakening the truth is so simple to see that you don't need the mind. The mind is searching and
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seeking. When that movement is given up, when that movement is burned up, the truth remains.
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You already are that which you're looking for, but you're identified with the false self.
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Notice the flower and notice who or what is observing the flower.
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What is separating the observer and the observed? Meditation or jhana is to be present
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here and now without the mediation of images in the mind, ideas and concepts.
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If awareness is absolutely present so that there's no more knowing, even in the unconscious,
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then there's no more observer and observed. There's no more relationship between you and any "thing".
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There's no more flower and separate observer. It is only the limited mind that sees
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things. The activity of the limited mind is the creation of things; the creation of the
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experience of time and space; the creation of duality, of experience and experiencer.
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It is possible to wake up here and now to a profound dimension of stillness beyond the mind,
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not pushing away the mind, but letting it be
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exactly as it is. Yet not getting caught in the mind.
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Don't try to analyze these words. These are not concepts. If presence
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has realized itself upon hearing these pointers, don't let the mind get involved.
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As soon as you receive the transmission turn off this video, and abide in awareness as awareness.
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Silence is the greatest teaching, the purest teaching. The next best teaching
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is pointing directly at the unfathomable. This next teaching has had many names throughout history.
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It is pointing toward the transcendent self or pure consciousness.
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In Buddhism it is called "Prajna Paramita" which means the ultimate knowledge or perfect wisdom,
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which is distinguished from ordinary knowledge or conditioned knowledge.
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It is what is realized through the eighth limb of yoga described by Patanjali.
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In Shaivism this awakening could be described as oneness with Ishvara
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or Shiva, which are names for absolute consciousness.
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In Western mystical traditions the terms henosis or apophaticism have been used to refer to
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union with the One. Plotinus said that the one transcends all beings, but is imminent within them.
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In Tibetan Dzogchen it is described as the natural, primordial state of being. They use
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the word Rigpa to refer to the ground of existence. In Sufism it is the "secret of secrets"
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realized through "fana", which is annihilation or learning to die before you die.
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In Mahamudra it is the great seal, or the great imprint, the realization of the
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natural state; primordial awareness, emptiness, absolute, clear and transparent, without root.
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Do not listen to these words with the mind
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but recognize within the depths of consciousness that to which they point.
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The truth of who or what you are, the truth that transcends the limited mind
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cannot be seen by means of the limited mind.
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The still point cannot be reached by means of movement.
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If you want to realize the still point beyond thinking let go of all interest in thoughts and
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sensations, all preferences, all phenomena generated by the mind and senses, and rest in naked awareness.
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Thoughts and sensations are a field of constantly changing phenomena.
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What is unchanging is the awareness of that field of change.
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We are usually so caught up in the field of change fixated on its objects, that we ignore awareness.
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To realize Samadhi we stop chasing anything in the field of change; any thought
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and we rest as awareness. Stop reacting to thoughts and sensations.
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All suffering is due to our believing our thoughts.
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Notice the mind's habit of judging or labeling any thought or sensation is good or bad.
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We allow every thought and sensation to be as it is.
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We don't push away anything, and yet we don't get ensnared in thoughts, or hooked by their content.
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In this way we approach the absolute by the negative path,
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the via negativa. Whatever is arising we realize "not this, not that, not this, not that".
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Through the via negativa, one realizes everything that is arising
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is not you. Tou realize that you are nothing; the wisdom of no self.
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Through the via positiva one realizes everything that is arising IS you.
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This is love; an energetic connection or merging.
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Both truths exist simultaneously.
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Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness is exactly form.
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There's a saying in Zen: at the beginning of the path, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
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After some realization, mountains are no longer mountains, and rivers are no longer rivers,
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but when the final truth is revealed, mountains and rivers ARE.
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What has changed on this journey?
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The mountain and the river remain as they always have been. What has dropped away is
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your idea of the mountain and the river. What has dropped away is the whirlpool of the mind
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that mediates, that creates the illusion of separation between you and the world.
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To realize Samadhi is not to achieve some extraordinary state.
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Nor is it about staying in the ordinary state of mind.
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Only the limited mind or egoic mind discriminates ordinary and extraordinary.
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Turiya the stateless state, sometimes called the fourth state, is non-dual reality. It
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is transcendent and imminent within. It is the ground of existence, the fountain of all truth.
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Your effort to achieve some state is a movement of the
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mind. To realize the ground of existence is not to transcend the physical and abide in
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the subtle realm or the causal realm. All of these dimensions of yourself exist simultaneously. Gross,
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subtle and causal exist here and now. It is only the limited mind itself that creates the division.
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To realize Samadhi is not to try to achieve something. It is a giving
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up of all interest in thoughts while remaining fully alert, fully conscious,
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fully awake, without reacting, without doing; without moving the mind, without suppressing the mind.
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To be aware, to be fully attentive to what is happening,
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without the mediation of egoic conditioning, without concepts, without controlling, manipulating,
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or distortion, without the filtering of the limited mind, it is to be present without choosing.
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Present without choosing, and therefore without a chooser. You could call this a mirror mind;
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a beginner's mind without memory or past. An open or transparent mind. You make every moment new.
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Every time that the mind moves unconsciously, even the tiniest movement, it is due to the filtering
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through the conditioning of the limited self-structure.
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Whenever the mind moves unconsciously it is due to some unsatisfactoriness, which is called dukkha
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in the ancient traditions. How do I let go of dukkha? How do I let go of all unsatisfactoriness?
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Listen closely. To the limited mind there's a paradox. The limited egoic mind
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hears the question and wants to know how to do it, but that limited mind
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can't do it. The limited mind will always fail in any attempts to realize Samadhi.
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It must fail. The limited mind does not awaken.
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Primordial awareness wakes up from its identification with the limited mind.
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The limited mind will always fail in any attempt to realize stillness, because the mind is movement.
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The mind itself IS movement, and this movement creates the experience of time and space,
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creates separation. It is an endless process of doing.
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On the Pathless Path we awaken from identifying with the character that is doing,
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to recognizing the dimension of Being.
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In Samadhi the separation between
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doing and being drops away. The separation is simply another mind process.
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When there's no thinking within the conditioned egoic structure then there's no problem.
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The you that you think you are is a process; a constant movement of egoic thought;
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a collection of patterns and preferences. That YOU has to die.
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The pathological pattern of YOU has to end for Samadhi to be realized. Let that sink in.
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Asatoma Sat Gamaya (Sanskrit) "Lead me from the untruth to the Truth."
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Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya "Lead me from darkness to light."
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To awaken is to see the nature of human suffering,
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of the human condition. It's the recognition of WHO or WHAT suffers.
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There's no technique for realizing primordial awareness.
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No process that can be learned. No formula that can be practiced.
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What I'm getting at can be received in an instant,
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in a flash. It is precisely the dropping of all formulas, all knowing, and all doing,
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all egoic agendas that creates the optimal conditions for primordial consciousness to awaken.
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If I try to tell you how to be aware then you'll be paying attention to my words or
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doing something that I told you, rather than being aware of what's actually happening in the now.
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You have to become so conscious of what is, so intimate with existence that there's no preference,
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no self or "I" in it. You inhabit or merge consciousness into what's happening. When
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egoic activity is dropped, you become that which is arising. Actually that's not true. More correctly
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it's the illusion of separation that falls away. The truth is we were never actually separate.
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Spiritual teachers have given the instruction to reach Samadhi, "Be still and know."
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Be still and know the true Self, primordial awareness beyond name and form.
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Be still and know that you are God, the true Self, Buddha nature.
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What exactly do they mean? What is it that becomes still?
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Obviously no one's physical body can become absolutely still
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existing within time and space, because timespace itself is movement.
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Timespace is mind. The universe is big mind or logos.
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The first hermetic principle is that "The all is mind, the universe is mental."
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If the universe is mind and mind is movement, how can I be still and know? How can you be still on
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a globe spinning a thousand miles per hour around its axis, spinning 67 000 miles per hour around
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the sun, moving 500 000 miles per hour around the galaxy, and millions more through the universe?
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Your heart is beating, cells are moving inside, food digesting, the brain producing brain waves.
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Your blood is pumping, energy is moving. How can we be still? When the spiritual masters say
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"be still and know" they must be talking about something else, something beyond time and space,
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something beyond the physical and mental.
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What is meant by stillness is something that we have no word for in our modern language system.
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The Sanskrit language, the language of the yogis, has more precise terms which point to the non-dual.
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The term "shunyata" is often translated as voidness, stillness or emptiness.
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Stillness is maybe the closest English word,
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but it is inadequate to describe something that is not of this dualistic world. What is actually
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realized is the primordial consciousness which is beyond stillness and movement. Beyond time.
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It is eternal, the ground of your being, the essential nature of reality that does not change.
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Actually it is beyond change and the changeless. When our true nature
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is realized it becomes obvious that silence and noise are a duality created by the mind.
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Stillness and movement are a duality created by the mind.
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Everything is already inherent within that primordial stillness.
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The movement of the world is identical to stillness. Be still and know, be in motion and know.
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It is all emptiness dancing. This is not something philosophical but an entirely
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different way of interfacing with the world. Actually it's about dropping the interface.
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Dropping the reducing valve which is the self-structure,
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and experiencing your true nature unmediated by the limited mind. The so-called outer world
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is transcended by realizing stillness, which when realized includes that which it transcends.
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If you think you understand Samadhi after watching this film then you've missed what's being said.
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It would be like mistaking the menu for the meal. To taste the truth takes a true willingness
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to see the patterns of the self-structure that you refer to as you. It requires a deep excavation,
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deep surgery on the mind and freeing of samskaras. A deep dismantling, a deep humbling
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of the self-structure. To realize Samadhi one surrenders to the soul's longing for union.
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You must want to realize the One Source more than anything in the matrix of the mind-
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more than anything in the external world. External pursuits will seem hollow and meaningless.
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True meditation true self-inquiry is coming into the now where everything is experienced. Everything
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is revealed. Everything arises and passes away within a field of equanimity and love.
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Until the eternal is realized one must work patiently and persistently,
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wholeheartedly, with humility burning up your patterns, your preferences,
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your conditioning. One can't make awakening happen using the conditioned mind.
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It happens seemingly by accident, but by practicing presence it makes us accident prone.
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The final words of Socrates before he was executed were a warning to the world.
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He said we owe a great debt to Asclepius. Pay it and don't forget. Asclepius was the god of healing
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and you may be familiar with the Asclepius staff which is a rod entwined with a serpent.
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It represents healing energy; inner energy that is alive, free from conditioning, free to move
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of its own intelligence, as opposed to the energy of the dualistic mind. In the early centuries BCE
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the Asclepius symbol was emblazoned on some of the first money coins mass-produced in ancient Greece
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and Rome, and it has morphed into what we call the dollar sign today. It is an ancient reminder,
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hidden in plain view. A reminder that an exchange of money is an exchange of energy.
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Christ consciousness or buddha nature is supported by the feminine principle, by Great Mother, by the
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Nagas, the Serpent Wisdom. This wisdom teaches us to purify the inner temple, to purify ourselves of ego.
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The feminine principle has had countless names throughout history:
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Gaia, Shakti Sophia, Logos, Mahalakshmi, Parvati, Durga, Isis, Mary, the spiral of life.
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This living energy of the higher mind is the innate intelligence of the universe. This nature
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wisdom has been systematically suppressed, demonized, exploited, and controlled throughout
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the last millennia. In order to free energy from the unconscious definitions that we hold,
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we must unbind the knots that create identification with the ego structure.
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Letting go of grasping at comfort , letting go of knowing.
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Right now at this time in history, at this time within yourself, the debt
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that Socrates is speaking of, is coming due both individually and collectively.
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There is only one currency with which you can pay this debt. You must pay with yourself.
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When we free our inner energy, our inner aliveness from its prison in pathological thought structures
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it becomes free to connect us with higher levels of mind.
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Energy is what connects us all. Another name for this energy is love.
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All true spiritual masters say that love is the true religion. Love is the religion of the future.
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It cannot be institutionalized, systematized, or conditioned. Love is inseparable from
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the realization of the one primordial consciousness. To love is to be ONE WITH.
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