From virus to Buddha

Working our way

From virus to Buddha

Through this cosmic kilo of atoms,

We seek the Ptolemaic Deity

(Of whom we are the smallest part),

As he pedals His epicycle

(A humongous monkey-motion machine)

Along Eternity’s wire.

Now that we are this far along,

We may as well worry

About the net,

And what happens when

He reaches the pole

At the far end of the tent.

Berkeley, 1965,The Cracking Tower
by Jim DeKorne
.........

ARCHONS ARE ARCHETYPES, ARE US

In Kabbalistic teaching the transition of Ein-Sof to “manifestation,” or to what might be called “God the Creator,” is connected with the question of the first emanation and its definition. Although there were widely differing views on the nature of the first step from concealment to manifestation, all stressed that no account of this process could be an objective description of a process in Ein-Sof; it was no more than could be conjectured from the perspective of created beings and was expressed through their ideas, which in reality cannot be applied to God at all.

Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah [i]

Solipsism tells us that nothing can exist outside of the observer’s awareness. Pragmatically, this doesn’t work very well for subjective observers, but by definition it has to apply to the only observer capable of objective perception: the Cosmic Mind itself. In the above quotation, Gershom Scholem evokes the philosophical problem of Ein-Sof‘s first emanation. After emanation commences, Consciousness-Without-An-Object suddenly morphs into Consciousness-With-An Object. Since all versions of the Perennial Philosophy assert that Consciousness-Without-An-Object exists separately and eternally above and beyond any manifestation, how do we imagine our way around this seeming contradiction? The Vedic account doesn’t help much, though it does assert that the answer lies within:

Before creation came into existence, Brahman existed as the Unmanifest. From the Unmanifest he created the manifest. From himself he brought forth himself. Hence he is known as the Self-Existent ... He who knows that Brahman dwells within the lotus of the heart becomes one with him and enjoys all blessings.[ii]

Let’s try not to get bogged down in semantics about mysteries – if everything is Mind, then I imagine the Big Bang as Consciousness-Without-An-Object’s choice to imagine a Cosmos. Notice that you cannot even regard this idea without using your imagination – that’s exactly what we’re talking about here, except on a scale beyond human imagining. (By the way, the astrophysicist’s concept of the Big Bang is an equally fantastic depiction of creatio ex nihilo.) Thus we do the best we can with the imagination we possess.[iii]

At any rate, the cosmology of Gnosticism resolves the koan by describing “God the Creator” as the Demiurge, a lesser god who created the spacetime universe. We can imagine this entity as a relatively early fractal of Consciousness-Without-An-Object’s imagination. The gnostic mythos goes on to describe the Demiurge (named Ialdabaoth in some systems) as ignorant of his origins – he doesn’t know any more than we do about the Cosmic Mind which emanated him. Like all monotheistic deities however, his pompous ignorance of Reality is definitive:

Ialdabaoth, becoming arrogant in spirit, boasted himself over all those who were below him, and explained, “I am the father, and God, and above me there is no one…”[iv]

The Demiurge in gnostic thought is usually equated with Jehovah, the God of Judaism and Christianity, and presumably all monotheistic deities proffering detailed instruction manuals for their worship. Objective evaluation of their books reveals that all Supreme Beings with personalities are insane. Out of innumerable proofs, here’s one of my favorites:

If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it.[v]

In other words, Jehovah is that schoolyard bully in hyperspace who trashes our DNA and smears our faces with shit if we don’t provide sufficient “glory unto his name.” Whether it’s via the Bible, the Koran or Windows-98, these dreadful deities damn their Truest Believers to lives of hellish confrontation with any person, place or thing that doesn’t agree with the Holy Writ as promulgated by their prophets. (By the way, if you object to any of this, God has commanded me to kill you, so watch what you say about me on your blog!)

According to any standard of mental health, fear-based religions (always arrayed in military hierarchy) are as insane as their Commanding Deities and hosts of subordinate flunkies. Hosts (armies) derive their power solely from their ability to coerce obedience through fear of death or extreme bodily harm. Fear, as the partisans of terrorism (and the war against it) know well, is a mighty Daimon, indeed.

Gnostic cosmology, presumably based upon a shamanic penetration into hyperspace no different than Lilly’s isolation tank journeys, describes an infinite host of entities dwelling therein. These beings are the Archons[vi] (Greek for “ruler”), and in gnostic thought they exist to enforce the Demiurge’s authority in hyperspace. In most gnostic systems, the Archons are equivalent to Gestapo-like prison guards: their sole function is to keep us trapped in their/our insane belief systems. Indeed, at some level they are the personifications of these belief systems. The Tibetan Book of the Dead clearly recognizes them as creatures of consciousness:

The chief deities themselves are the embodiments of universal divine forces, with which the deceased is inseparably related, for through him, as being the microcosm of the macrocosm, penetrate all impulses and forces, good and bad alike … And the minor deities, heroes, Dakinis (or “fairies”), goddesses, lords of death, Rakshasas, demons, spirits, and all others, correspond to definite human thoughts, passions, and impulses, high and low, human and subhuman and super-human, in karmic form, as they take shape from the seeds of thought forming the percipient's consciousness-content.[vii]

If ultimate reality is Mind itself, then by definition the Big Bang describes a Cosmic schizophrenic explosion. The Kabbalah portrays this unfortunate event as the “shattering of the vessels.” Since their number is virtually infinite, we can assume that the Archons represent the Cosmic Mind’s detonated ideation in all of its endless detail. (All solve and no coagula – as good a definition of “crazy” as can be imagined.) What is most crazy-making is that each of these fragments of the Divine Consciousness is a creative spark capable of imagining its own separately insane version of reality.

All the Gods, all the deities of the Veda are powers and personalities, emanations put forth from the supreme Creator for purposes of manifestation out of his own Being whose nature is Consciousness…[viii]

Analytical (Jungian) psychology uses a special terminology to describe these “powers and personalities” within the human psyche. Jung’s terms are in general agreement with analogous concepts in the Perennial Philosophy, hence are very useful in describing the entities encountered in hyperspace. I assume anyone reading this book is moderately familiar with Jungian theory, so I won’t bog down the narrative in a long recapitulation. Suffice it to say that we are primarily interested in four concepts: ego, Self, archetypes and complexes.

An archetype in Jungian parlance is a concentrated gestalt of psychic energy expressing an idea, theme or point of view. Archetypes appear to shamanic sight as beings or entities in the objective psyche, usually from the mythical pantheon of the observer’s culture. For example: the god, the king, the father; the goddess, the queen, the mother, are all archetypal core-roles played out in myth and in life. Note that I have organized these examples as fractal sequences. That is, the archetype of the father is based on the king archetype, which in turn is based upon the god archetype, and the same for the female half of the sequence. Male and Female (or Positive and Negative), are the core archetypes in this example. Thus we perceive a chain of command, an authoritarian hierarchy. This is to show how archetypal themes can express themselves in fractal extension from their focal point.

In Jungian theory, a complex is defined as a series of individual associations modifying an archetypal nucleus. (If archetypes were nouns, complexes would be like adjectives evoking and expressing all the possible nuances of meaning latent within that noun-archetype.) For example, someone with a “mother complex,” obsessed with her children, their health, their welfare, etc., is an individual who has identified with the mother archetype. She isn’t the archetype itself, but her mother complex draws from that role within the objective psyche and expresses it as only she can: she might be a good mother or an incompetent mother (or any other kind of mother) depending on the structure of the complex she’s channeling. We say that she has a mother complex, though it would be more accurate to say that the mother complex has her. Really powerful complexes are virtually uncontrollable by the ego – ever observe a woman turn into “Mama Bear” if she thinks her child is being threatened? The archetype at the core of the mother complex is one of the most powerful Daimons in Nature, even transcending human awareness since all higher animals express it.

Everyone manifests an indeterminate number of complexes – they are the vehicles through which the archetypes express themselves in spacetime. Humans are infested with complexes and for the most part, they rule our lives. Jung emphasized that the Self is an archetype, and that the ego is a complex constellated around it. We might say that the ego is a fractal of the Self emanated into spacetime, or that the ego is the Self’s object. Notice how the correlations go backward and forward – all the links are probably impossible to untangle at our level of awareness. We are interpenetrating, holographic energy-systems extended in eleven dimensions.

Many writers in talking about the [psyche] treat it as a unity. In the formulation presented here, it is viewed as an extremely complex pattern of energy interactions, differentiated into many separate states that vary greatly in size, content, and relative strength. These entities can be consonant or dissonant with each other, and they are continually changing in their relationships to each other and to the outer world. The [psyche] thus becomes a dynamic system of equilibrium that cannot be treated as one but must be considered as a group of interacting forces. By attention to its different facets, many problems in psychotherapeutic treatment that seem incomprehensible become more readily subject to rational understanding and handling.[ix]

Thus, the archetypal contents of the objective psyche are the forming templates for how we perceive and process reality. If an ego is ultimately just one of a given Self’s many complexes, then each ego-incarnation reveals that Self’s stage of the Work by the way that particular ego handles the complexes it inherits and creates. (The concepts of karma and complex are probably synonymous at some level.) Although Jung acknowledged that the Self is the center of the psyche, his therapy concentrates on how the ego can adapt to that fact in spacetime. Viewed from the Self’s point of view, however, the ego is only its current complex to be integrated within a long continuum of incarnations.

If we accept that the ego is a complex of the Self, and that the Self is an archetype within the objective psyche, the concept of fractal emanation suggests that the totality of the archetypes in the objective psyche could be regarded as “God’s complexes.” (It also suggests that the objective psyche and Cosmic Mind are synonymous.) This fits perfectly with the Kabbalistic concept of “raising the sparks.” Ego works as Self’s representative to organize the disparate contents of its share of the objective psyche from multiplicity to unity – solve et coagula. By making ourselves sane, we make God sane. It’s a long, involved process.

Therefore, dealing with the entity problem is a very important part of the Work. Complexes are like sub-personalities operating within the psyche. At some level, they represent unintegrated conflicts, either from this or former lives. If a complex is strong enough, it can behave like a demon or Archon within us. Multiple Personality Disorder[x] is an example of how one or more complexes can assume lives of their own outside the control of the ego-personality. The energy at the archetypal core of the given complex manages to assert itself and overthrow the ego under certain conditions. Since we are microcosms of the macrocosm, all the devils and angels in creation dwell within us and, in theory, could manifest under the proper circumstances.

Psychologists working with Multiple Personality Disorder corroborate the Tibetan insight that complexes (subpersonalities, thought-beings, whatever), behave exactly like discrete, separate entities living their own lives within the psyche, unconscious to ego-awareness. John O. Beahrs, M.D., a psychiatrist specializing in MPD, formulated the concept of “co-consciousness” to explain this phenomenon. He defines it as follows:

Co-Consciousness: The existence within a single human organism of more than one consciously experiencing psychological entity, each with some sense of its own identity or selfhood relatively separate and discrete from other similar entities, and with separate conscious experiences occurring simultaneously with one another within this human organism ... The theory of co-consciousness assumes that each part of any human individual has some sense of selfhood of its own, discrete from that of other parts and the Self proper ... Co-consciousness assumes that each part of [the unconscious psyche] must have its own ongoing conscious experience. There can then be no such thing as an unconscious, in any absolute sense. “Unconscious” can only be relative to one particular part.[xi]

Swedenborg’s 18^th century descriptions of hyperspace tally with this modern conception. The objective psyche is a multiverse containing personifications of every possible belief and idea imaginable. Whether you call them spirits or archetypes or angels or archons or complexes, they’re all a part of who we are:

I have been informed that the spirits and angels with other men see nothing at all that is in the world, but only perceive the thoughts and affections of those with whom they are. From these facts it must appear that man was so created that while he is living among men on earth he might also at the same time live among angels in heaven, and vice versa; so that heaven and earth might be associated together and act as one, and men might know what is in heaven, and the angels what is in the world. And when men depart, they would thus pass from the Lord’s kingdom on earth into the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens not as into another, but as into the same in which they have been while they were living in the body. But because man has become so corporeal he has closed heaven against himself.[xii]

As we have seen, when a shaman (or any out-of-body traveler) penetrates the objective psyche with full waking consciousness, he immediately encounters these entities. The Perennial Philosophy assigns them many labels: devils, angels, Jinns, Devas, Asuras, spirits, ghosts, archons, fairies, gods, goddesses, heroes, archetypes, whatever. What soon becomes apparent to anyone able to observe these beings clearly enough and often enough (i.e. in full consciousness over time), is that they generally arrange themselves into two contending groups: the good guys and the bad guys:

Two groups of forces have always been involved in this cosmic charade. Early man quickly learned to separate them into the good (prohuman) and evil (antihuman) and gave each new god and demon a name. In the interests of clarity, we shall label the good guys the Alpha Group and the bad guys the Omega Group. The Alpha Group gave man a set of ethics and moral principles, while the Omega Group fostered racism, greed, and violence. As time passed, the two groups began imitating each other’s tactics, and the task of discriminating between them became impossibly difficult.[xiii]

This is the origin of the military template shaping so many world religions. In Christianity it’s the war in heaven between the demons and angels; in Hinduism it’s the endless battles between Devas and Asuras. On Edgar Cayce’s shamanic forays into hyperspace, he distinguished the “Sons of Belial” and the “Sons of the law of One” – contending groups with whom every human being maintains reincarnational allegiances throughout eternity.

Thus, stress-polarity is the central archetypal theme in the objective psyche, emanating continuous conflict into spacetime: World Wars I and II, the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, the battles between Crusaders and Jihadists – whatever current war over whatever current controversy the Archons evoke for our allegiance will suffice. Taking sides is how we nourish them through commitment and belief. For them, our endorsement is a continuous smorgasbord of energy they need to exist.

Note that it doesn’t matter at all what the issues are: any kind of contention: from our former war between Capitalism and Communism to our current war between Judeo-Christianity and Islam will suffice. It isn’t the issue; it’s the polarity that provides the juice which keeps the Play in motion. And if you decide to stop feeding the Archon-rulers with your beliefs, you can anticipate that someone or something will try to smear shit in your face, either literally or figuratively. Jealous Gods and their followers are just like that. This is not a new idea; it has been around since the dawn of history:

In both Sumerian and Mesopotamian cosmogonic texts the view is set forth that mankind was created to serve the gods, by building temples for them and offering sacrifices for their sustenance. With this view of the purpose of man’s being went a corresponding estimate of human destiny. So long as the gods wanted his services, the individual lived, and, if he were zealous and careful in their service, his divine masters would reward him with prosperity. This was his destiny, namely, to participate in the divine ordering of things in the world. Once the gods ceased to need him, his raison d'être ended, and he died.[xiv]

John Keel, a journalist investigating such mysteries as UFO contactees, alien abductions, bizarre belief systems and other anomalous phenomena, arrived at this same conclusion after many years of research.

The human race would supply the pawns. The mode of control was complicated as usual. Human beings were largely free of direct control. Each individual had to consciously commit himself to one of the opposing forces. After that commitment was made voluntarily, the chosen force could possess the individual to some degree ... The main battle was for what was to become known as the human soul. Once an individual had committed himself, he opened a door so that an indefinable something (probably an undetectable mass of intelligent energy) could actually enter his body and exercise some control over his subconscious mind.[xv]

For a contemporary shamanic image of what this eternal warfare looks like out in hyperspace, here is how John Lilly perceived the situation from his isolation tank in the 1970s. Note that he couches his observations in the form of a third-person belief system to assert some degree of scientific objectivity over his empirical observations:

Those beings which were close to the subject in complexity-size-time were dichotomized into the evil ones and the good ones. The evil ones … were busy with purposes so foreign to his own that he had many near misses and almost fatal accidents in encounters with them; they were almost totally unaware of his existence and hence almost wiped him out, apparently without knowing it. The subject says that the good ones thought good thoughts to him, through him, and to one another. They were at least conceivably human and humane. He interpreted them as alien yet friendly. They were not so alien as to be completely removed from human beings in regard to their purposes and activities.

Some of these beings … are programming us in the long term. They nurture us. They experiment on us. They control the probability of our discovering and exploiting new science … Discoveries such as nuclear energy, LSD-25, RNA, DNA, etc., are under probability control by these beings. Further, humans are tested by some of these beings and cared for by others. Some of them have programs which include our survival and progress. Others have programs which include oppositions to these good programs and include our ultimate demise as a species. Thus the subject interpreted the evil ones as willing to sacrifice us in their experiments; hence they are alien and removed from us. The subject reported with this set of beliefs that only limited choices are still available to us as a species. We are an ant colony in their laboratory.[xvi]

So we’re right back where we started, with the multi-dimensional Psyche and a final slant on who the Archons are. These entities have independent existences in the objective psyche. They represent personal, familial, tribal, national and religious allegiances in addition to any other fantasies they can coerce us into adopting. As established beliefs or belief-complexes, they assume separate autonomous authority demanding continuous energy (food) from their hosts.

In short, the Archons (to the extent that we believe in them) are us.

A humoristic spiritual story:The Meaning Of Life

The Meaning of Life
- a short story by Joost Boekhoven-

"Forget it" they said all three. "Long live our Flag and our Country!"
And Death stared them in the face.

It had been a long, long war and nobody knew who had started it, or why. But everyone kept their spirits high and their mind fixed on the Meaning of Life. What was it that gave life Meaning? Why, of course, it was defending the Honor of the Flag and the Honor of the Country!

Now there were three brothers fighting in this war, Jada, Tamak and Sadhak. For many years they did heroic deeds. They fought like lions to defend the Honor of their Flag, they fought like tigers for the Honor of their Country, they suffered and sacrificed for this highest of all causes. But finally there was a day when things went wrong: the enemy captured them.

When they were brought before the enemy's commanding officer, he liked their spirit. He saw their qualities as soldiers and he wanted them to fight on his side. He promised them that together with him they would defend the Honor of his Flag and the Honor of his Country, and after a short time they would surely feel that it was also their Flag and their Country. It was a just a matter of getting into the habit, he explained.

But the three brothers bravely refused. Now this commander was a good man, but he had to follow the rules of his profession. So he barked and bellowed, and threatened that he would have them executed if they kept refusing. But the three brothers didn't flinch. "Forget it." they said all three. "Long live our Flag and our Country!"

The commander had no choice but to call the firing squad. "You can have a last wish," he said, and he promised that they would get the time to enjoy whatever they would wish. He trusted that they would wish for something honorable.

Jada, the youngest of the three brothers, asked for a packet of cigarettes and the firing squad patiently waited with shooting him until he had smoked the whole packet. Jada's last thought was "I wish I could smoke more..." After a short time he reincarnated as the chimney of a chemical factory.

Tamak, the second of the three brothers, said he wanted to drink as much alcohol as he could before they executed him. They brought ten bottles of wine and he drank and drank and drank until he felt dizzy but rather happy. His last thoughts were not very clear, but they had something to do with being full of alcohol. A short time after his execution Tamak reincarnated as a bottle of wine.

Sadhak was the eldest of the three brothers and he had always been a bit different. When it was his turn for the last wish, he said he wanted to get self-realization.

"Self-what?" the commander inquired rather vehemently. "Self-realization. It means that you have a flash of deep insight like you have never had before and the whole world changes in front of your eyes." Sadhak explained enthusiastically. "At that moment you have discovered your real Self, you feel how you are connected with everything else in the world, and you understand everyone and everything. And you feel at peace with whatever will happen in your life."

The commander blinked a few times. Then he said he was very sorry, but could the wish not be about something simple?

Sadhak explained that the matter was actually quite simple. He would do deep meditation for some time, and then the self-realization would come automatically. "Afterwards you can still execute me," he reassured the commander.

So he was allowed to do meditation. He did this for several years, while the war went on and on. The commander thought that the fulfillment of this wish took a little longer than he had expected, but he was a man of his word and let Sadhak continue. Then, after more than five years, something unexpected happened . . .

One fine day, because of all his meditation, Sadhak got self-realization. When his mind returned in this relative world, he looked so happy that the commander ordered the execution to be delayed so that he could ask a few questions.

"I can't describe what happened," Sadhak answered, "but you can have the experience for yourself." And he taught the commander of the enemy how to do meditation. The good man filled all his free hours with meditation and after some time the soldiers of the firing squad came and requested if they also could learn it. Soon more soldiers came and Sadhak became well known, even outside of the army. Many people of the country started volunteering for the army, men and women alike, because they also wanted to learn meditation and get self-realization.

And then, soldiers began to desert from the army. Everyone who had done meditation for some time, got the feeling that it was silly to fight for something limited like the Honor of the Flag and the Honor of the Country. So it happened that after several years all the people of the country were doing meditation and refused to fight in the army anymore. And the war came to an end.

Unhindered the enemy crossed the border. Its soldiers occupied the country, and suppressed the people. At last peace could reign, they declared. Sadhak was brought back to his homeland and welcomed as a hero, and he lived long and happily ever after -well, that was what he was supposed to do. But after all these years of meditation he found the victory of his country completely unimportant. He didn't even feel that he belonged to that particular country -he simply felt part of the one human family on this planet. And he felt sorry for the suppressed people in the occupied country. They were not allowed to keep their own culture, they had to accept that of their suppressers. They were not even allowed to do meditation anymore.

So one day Sadhak secretly disappeared to that country and started to teach the people there again. But this time he taught them that they had to fight.

"But we don't want to fight," they said, shocked, "we want to do meditation and love our enemies."

Sternly he shook his head. "You should not fight for a country -but you have to fight for your freedom and for the right to do meditation. What else gives meaning to your life?!"

He convinced the people. Since they all had done meditation for some time, their minds were strong and their determination unshakable. They organized themselves quickly and freed their country in a short and fierce fight. Then they left their enemy in peace.

Sadhak worked until his death as a yoga teacher in both countries and the only thing in his life he regretted was that he hadn't taught his brothers Jada and Tamak meditation. Even when he died he had this thought in his mind.

Sometime later he got reborn as a highly spiritual person. When he married, he became father of two children and they were unexplainably familiar to him. As soon as he could, he taught them meditation...

Linköping, August 1993

This story was taken from the book "Wishes, wishes" by Joost Boekhoven.

The Cucumber Sage

The record of the life and teachings of Wu-Ming

As told by Master Tung-Wang
Abbott of Han-hsin monastery in the
Thirteenth year of the Earth Dragon period (898)

My dear friend, the most reverend master Tung-Wang,

Old and ill, I lay here knowing that writing this note will be my last act upon this earth and that by the time you read it I will be gone from this life.

Though we have not seen each other in the many years since we studied together under our most venerable Master, I have often thought of you, his most worthy successor. Monks from throughout China say that you are a true lion of the Buddha Dharma; one whose eye is a shooting star, whose hands snatch lightning, and whose voice booms like thunder. It is said that your every action shakes heaven and earth and causes the elephants and dragons of delusion to scatter helplessly. I am told that your monastery is unrivaled in severity, and that under your exacting guidance hundreds of monks pursue their training with utmost zeal and vigor. I've also heard that in the enlightened successor department your luck has not been so good. Which brings me to the point of this letter.

I ask that you now draw your attention to the young man to whom this note is attached. As he stands before you, no doubt smiling stupidly as he stuffs himself with pickled cucumbers, you may be wondering if he is as complete a fool as he appears, and if so, what prompted me to send him to you. In answer to the first question, I assure you that Wu-Ming's foolishness is far more complete than mere appearance would lead you to believe. As for the second question, I can only say that despite so benumbed a condition, or perhaps because of it, still more likely, despite of and because of it, Wu-Ming seems to unwittingly and accidentally serve the function of a great Bodhisattva. Perhaps he can be of service to you.

Allow him sixteen hours of sleep daily and provide him with lots of pickled cucumbers and Wu-Ming will always be happy. Expect nothing of him and you will be happy.

Respectfully, Chin-Mang

After Chin-mang's funeral, the supporters of his temple arranged for Wu-Ming's journey to Han-hsin monastery, where I resided, then, as now, as Abbott. A monk found Wu-ming at the monastery gate and seeing a note bearing my name pinned to his robe, led him to my quarters.

Customarily, when first presenting himself to the Abbott, a newly arrived monk will prostrate himself three times and ask respectfully to be accepted as a student. And so I was taken somewhat by surprise when Wu-ming walked into the room, took a pickled cucumber from the jar under his arm, stuffed it whole into his mouth, and happily munching away, broke into the toothless imbecilic grin that would one day become legendary. Taking a casual glance around the room, he smacked his lips loudly and said, "What's for lunch?"

After reading dear old Chin Mang's note, I called in the head monk and asked that he show my new student to the monk's quarters. When they had gone I reflected on chin-mang's words. Han-hsin was indeed a most severe place of training: winters were bitterly cold and in summer the sun blazed. The monks slept no more than three hours each night and ate one simple meal each day. For the remainder of the day they worked hard around the monastery and practiced hard in the meditation hall. But, alas, Chin-mang had heard correctly, Among all my disciples there was none whom I felt confident to be a worthy vessel to receive the untransmittable transmitted Dharma. I was beginning to despair that I would one day, bereft of even one successor, fail to fulfill my obligation of seeing my teacher's Dharma-linage continued.

The monks could hardly be faulted for complacency or indolence. Their sincere aspiration and disciplined effort were admirable indeed, and many had attained great clarity of wisdom. But they were preoccupied with their capacity for harsh discipline and proud of their insight. They squabbled with one another for positions of prestige and power and vied amongst themselves for recognition. Jealousy, rivalry and ambition seemed to hang like a dark cloud over Han-shin monastery, sucking even the most wise and sincere into its obscuring haze. Holding Chin-mang's note before me, I hoped and prayed that this Wu-ming, this "accidental Bodhisattva" might be the yeast my recipe seemed so much in need of.

To my astonished pleasure, Wu-ming took to life at Han-shin like a duck to water. At my request, he was assigned a job in the kitchen pickling vegetables. This he pursued tirelessly, and with a cheerful earnestness he gathered and mixed ingredients, lifted heavy barrels, drew and carried water, and, of course, freely sampled his workmanship. He was delighted!

When the monks assembled in the meditation hall, they would invariably find Wu-ming seated in utter stillness, apparently in deep and profound samadhi. No one even guessed that the only thing profound about Wu-ming's meditation was the profound unlikelihood that he might find the meditation posture, legs folded into the lotus position, back erect and centered, to be so wonderfully conducive to the long hours of sleep he so enjoyed.

Day after day and month after month, as the monks struggled to meet the physical and spiritual demands of monastery life, Wu-ming, with a grin and a whistle, sailed through it all effortlessly. Even though, if the truth be told, Wu-ming's Zen practice was without the slightest merit, by way of outward appearance he was judged by all to be a monk of great accomplishment and perfect discipline. Of course . I could have dispelled this misconception easily enough, but I sensed that Wu-ming's unique brand of magic was taking effect and I was not about to throw away this most absurdly skillful of means.

By turns the monks were jealous, perplexed, hostile, humbled and inspired by what they presumed to be Wu-ming's great attainment. Of course it never occurred to Wu-ming that his or anyone else's behavior required such judgments, for they are the workings of a far more sophisticated nature than his own mind was capable. Indeed, everything about him was so obvious and simple that others thought him unfathomably subtle.

Wu-ming's inscrutable presence had a tremendously unsettling effect on the lives of the monks, and undercut the web of rationalizations that so often accompanies such upset. His utter obviousness rendered him unintelligible and immune to the social pretensions of others. Attempts of flattery and invectives alike were met with the same uncomprehending grin, a grin the monks felt to be the very cutting edge of the sword of Perfect Wisdom. Finding no relief or diversion in such interchange, they were forced to seek out the source and resolution of their anguish each within his own mind. More importantly, and absurdly, Wu-ming caused to arise in the monks the unconquerable determination to fully penetrate the teaching "The Great Way is without difficulty" which they felt he embodied.

Though in the course of my lifetime I have encountered many of the most venerable progenitors of the Tathagata's teaching, never have I met one so skilled at awakening others to their intrinsic Buddhahood as this wonderful fool Wu-ming. His spiritual non-sequiturs were as sparks, lighting the flame of illuminating wisdom in the minds of many who engaged him in dialogue.

Once a monk approached Wu-ming and asked in all earnestness, "In the whole universe, what is it that is most wonderful?" Without hesitation Wu-ming stuck a cucumber before the monks face and exclaimed, "There is nothing more wonderful than this!" At that the monk crashed through the dualism of subject and object, "The whole universe is pickled cucumber; a pickled cucumber is the whole universe!" Wu-ming simply chuckled and said, "Stop talking nonsense. A cucumber is a cucumber; the whole universe is the whole universe. What could be more obvious?" The monk, penetrating the perfect phenomenal manifestation of Absolute Truth, clapped his hands and laughed, saying, "Throughout infinite space, everything is deliciously sour!"

On another occasion a monk asked Wu-ming, "The Third Patriarch said, "The Great Way is without difficulty, just cease having preferences." How can you then delight in eating cucumbers, yet refuse to even take one bit of a carrot?" Wu-ming said, "I love cucumbers; I hate carrots!" The monk lurched back as though struck by a thunderbolt. Then laughing and sobbing and dancing about he exclaimed, "Liking cucumbers and hating carrots is without difficulty, just cease preferring the Great Way!"

Within three years of his arrival, the stories of the "Great Bodhisattva of Han-hsin monastery" had made their way throughout the provinces of China. Knowing of Wu-ming's fame I was not entirely surprised when a messenger from the Emperor appeared summoning Wu-ming to the Imperial Palace immediately.

From throughout the Empire exponents of the Three Teachings of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism were being called to the Capitol, there the Emperor would proclaim one to be the true religion to be practiced and preached in all lands under his rule. The idea of such competition for Imperial favor is not to my approval and the likelihood that a religious persecution might follow troubled me greatly. But an order from the Emperor is not to be ignored, so Wu-ming and I set out the next day.

Inside the Great Hall were gathered the more than one hundred priests and scholars who were to debate one another. They were surrounded by the most powerful lords in all China, along with innumerable advisors, of the Son of Heaven. All at once trumpets blared, cymbals crashed, and clouds of incense billowed up everywhere. The Emperor, borne on by a retinue of guards, was carried to the throne. After due formalities were observed the Emperor signaled for the debate to begin.

Several hours passed as one after another priests and scholars came forward presenting their doctrines and responding to questions. Through it all Wu-ming sat obliviously content as he stuffed himself with his favorite food. When his supply was finished, he happily crossed his legs, straightened his back and closed his eyes. But the noise and commotion were too great and, unable to sleep, he grew more restless and irritable by the minute. As I clasped him firmly by the back of the neck in an effort to restrain him, the Emperor gestured to Wu-ming to approach the Throne.

When Wu-ming had come before him, the Emperor said, "Throughout the land you are praised as a Bodhisattva whose mind is like the Great Void itself, yet you have not had a word to offer this assembly. Therefore I say to you now, teach me the True Way that all under heaven must follow." Wu-ming said nothing. After a few moments the Emperor, with a note of impatience, spoke again, "Perhaps you do not hear well so I shall repeat myself! Teach me the True Way that all under heaven must follow!" Still Wu-ming said nothing, and silence rippled through the crowd as all strained forward to witness this monk who dared behave so bold a fashion in the Emperor's presence.

Wu-ming heard nothing the Emperor said, nor did he notice the tension that vibrated through the hall. All that concerned him was his wish to find a nice quiet place where he could sleep undisturbed. The Emperor spoke again, his voice shaking with fury, his face flushed with anger: "You have been summoned to this council to speak on behalf of the Buddhist teaching. Your disrespect will not be tolerated much longer. I shall ask one more time, and should you fail to answer, I assure you the consequence shall be most grave. Teach me the True Way that all under heaven must follow!" Without a word Wu-ming turned and, as all looked on in dumbfounded silence, he made his way down the aisle and out the door. There was a hush of stunned disbelief before the crowd erupted into an uproar of confusion. Some were applauding Wu-ming's brilliant demonstration of religious insight, while others rushed about in an indignant rage, hurling threats and abuses at the doorway he had just passed through. Not knowing whether to praise Wu-ming or to have him beheaded, the Emperor turned to his advisors, but they were none the wiser. Finally, looking out at the frantic anarchy to which his grand debate had been reduced, the Emperor must surely have realized that no matter what Wu-ming's intentions might have been, there was now only one way to avoid the debate becoming a most serious embarrassment.

"The great sage of Han-hsin monastery has skillfully demonstrated that the great Tao cannot be confined by doctrines, but is best expounded through harmonious action. Let us profit by the wisdom he has so compassionately shared, and each endeavor to make our every step one that unites heaven and earth in accord with the profound and subtle Tao."

Having thus spoken the Son of Heaven concluded the Great Debate.

I immediately ran out to find Wu-ming, but he had disappeared in the crowded streets of the capitol.

Ten years have since passed, and I have seen nothing of him. However, on occasion a wandering monk will stop at Han-hsin with some bit of news. I am told that Wu-ming has been wandering about the countryside this past decade, trying unsuccessfully to find his way home. Because of his fame he is greeted and cared for in all quarters with generous kindness; however, those wishing to help him on his journey usually find that they have been helped on their own.

One young monk told of an encounter in which Wu-ming asked him, "Can you tell me where my home is?" Confused as to the spirit of the question. The monk replied, "Is the home you speak of to be found in the relative world of time and place, or do you mean the Original Home of all pervading Buddha nature?"

After pausing a moment to consider the question, Wu-ming looked up and, grinning as only he is capable, said, "Yes.

There is only the ONE

Remarks on Enlightenment
José le Roy, Translated from French by Collin Fox

We talk a lot these days about awakening and enlightenment. In the Western world, more and more men and women are curious about their true nature. So it is more important than ever to be clear about what we mean by enlightenment.

Enlightenment or awakening is the movement from total identification with an individual to a life centered in Emptiness. This movement is revealed through the discovery of a totally new way of seeing oneself and the world, a discovery that is called in the Eastern tradition 'the opening of the third eye'.

This awakening is often described as the egoless state. But what does the word 'ego' really mean? Words such as 'individual', 'person', 'ego' are concepts to which everyone gives their own meaning depending on their cultural and religious background. For Christians theses words have a meaning which they would not have for Buddhists. The only possibility of really clarifying the meaning of awakening is to return to the pure and simple description of the experience.

From the individual to the Void

After enlightenment, what is most remarkable is that the subject, the me is no longer visible. My first impression is to have completely disappeared from the world. When enlightenment happened, I was in my bedroom. I opened the window and what I saw threw me into a state of total astonishment. There was, as usual, the wall of the building in front, the roofs, the court, the patio-stones, but bathed in a light that was incomprehensible and sublime. This vision of the world I beheld as if for the first time. Most of all, I had vanished from the scene. No one was looking at the world ! Douglas Harding describes very precisely his own astonishment at this experience:

"It was all, quite literally, breathtaking. I seemed to have stop breathing altogether, absorbed in the Given. Here it was, this superb scene, brightly shining in the clear air, alone and unsupported, mysteriously suspended in the void, and (and this was the real miracle, the wonder and delight) utterly free of "me", unstained by any observer. Its total presence was my total absence, body and soul, lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around."

The 'me', such I had known it before, had quite literally vanished and in its place was suddenly a seeing that came from nowhere, belonged to nobody and gazed upon the Unknown. From that time, a mystery is alive in the heart of our being: the Void. It becomes impossible to perceive the 'me', to see oneself. Enlightenment is the end of a journey, the end of a quest because the searcher no longer exists. It's exactly the same as waking up from a nightmare. Let us imagine that in a nightmare we are being pursued by a ferocious dog. The fear is so strong that we wake up suddenly in a sweat. All of a sudden, the dream is over: the dog, the chase and the dreamer, every thing has vanished without trace. We discover to our great relief that we are comfortably tucked up in the warmth of our bed. Such is enlightenment : the end of an hallucination.

This seeing, this enlightenment cannot possibly be imagined or conceived of. It can only be lived. This awareness is completely different from our everyday awareness. In the everyday awareness the individual takes as his reference point the body-mind. After awakening, this reference point has disappeared. This isappearance is totally extraordinary because, as from then, life is going to be lived on a new level and in an unknown dimension.

In reality, it is the old 'me' which disappears; the old way of living as a separate individual and located in time and space. A new 'me' , the real 'me' is unveiled. Enlightenment doesn't remove the personal sense, the feeling of existing, but this feeling of being, this 'I AM' is pure; it is no longer identified with an individual who is confronting other individuals. The 'I AM' is not relative, it is absolute; it is an unlimited presence and conscious of itself. This feeling of being alive becomes even more intense. When awakening happened, it was as if I had just been born into the world for the first time. Life before awakening is a dream, a deep coma, a death. The newly discovered 'I AM' has divine attributes. This 'I AM' is beyond time, beyond space, without limits, without size, conscious, empty, full, silent, still and bliss. God the most high is within me and I am in HIM.

So, there we have a paradox. On the one side, I see absolutely no 'me', no observer, nothing and, on the other side, I feel myself to be alive as I never felt before. So we have here a mystery. Whilst diving into the pure Void, I remain, nevertheless, myself; by grace of the pure Void, I am finally myself and this 'me' is nobody!

Free from thoughts and desires

So with enlightenment, life does not stop. What disappears is the mistake of taking oneself to be somebody, of taking oneself for ones' appearance in the mirror. My true nature (what I am) is the total opposite of what I appear to be. In this Emptiness, thoughts and desires do not cease to be. My mind continues to function and life goes on.

But I no longer see thoughts arising from a solid thing that we call a head, but arising from the empty space. The wonderful sense of freedom as a result of enlightenment comes from the free Presence that appeared and which makes me independent from thoughts. Before enlightenment, what I took to be my 'me' was the continual stream of thoughts which produces stress and suffering. Now I see that thoughts arrive from the Void. I no longer identify myself with them, I have the possibility of being behind them. They no longer define me. If it happens that I identify with thoughts and consequently suffer, I now know how to extricate myself from them to find again the place of freedom which is without thoughts and silent. In the deepest centre of the 'me', there is complete and total silence. Of this silence, one can say nothing because it is not an experience; it is non-duality. But it is the background, unknown and transcendent which makes possible all the experiences and within which thoughts arrive. When thoughts are completely absent, silence reigns.

However, all this is not about destroying this marvelous tool; thought in the right place is very useful. Pure thought, that is to say without stress, is a reflection of the wisdom of the Source. This is why the mind is often symbolized by the moon and the wisdom of God by the sun. When it is spontaneous, thought is quite simply a correct response to the situation as it presents itself without the harmful intervention of the ego.

But it is important to leave thought in its right place. Thought is limited and the mind cannot comprehend everything. Thought is created and belongs to the world. The truth is beyond; it is the Source and can only be perceived by a direct intuition and not by the mind. The 'philosopher' who searches for truth through the use of reason is like a man who tries to reach the stars by pulling up his trousers to the sky. It is stupid and dangerous. Stupid because the 'philosophers' are lead to write, in general, vain things. And dangerous because they end up denying that it is possible to know the truth or even that truth exists at all.

On the other hand, it is useless to look to control thoughts. We have in fact a lot of difficulties in letting go (and I have my own difficulties); the ego, the little guy in the mirror has the tendency to come back again and block up the Void to take control of the show. But thoughts are spontaneous and arrive from the Void. Their ultimate Source is the supreme intelligence. So it's useless to get upset about it: the world takes care of itself. My life will run much smoother if nobody is thinking. In fact, where do thoughts come from ? From a mind-box? From a head-shaped thing ? Of course not: they come from the absence of mind.

Just as Emptiness welcomes thoughts, it also welcomes desires. These do not entirely disappear with Seeing, but what is removed is the dissatisfaction. Identification with the ego generates suffering and dissatisfaction. To fill up this gap, this lack of being, the ego rushes into an unbridled run to obtain possessions. Desires follow desires, frustrations follow frustrations in an endless chain. When we are aware of our true nature, a huge feeling of fullness fills us up and all kind of needs vanish. There is no more thirst. Enlightenment pacifies us beyond all limits. In the Gospel of John, Jesus met a woman near a well. She came to look for water and Jesus said to her:

"The one who drinks these water will have thirst again, but who will drink the water that I give, never will be thirsty again; the water I give will become in him a fountain of eternal life."

The awakening to our true nature generates an immense relaxation in our being and an openness to the present moment. Thus thirst has disappeared but desires remain. My humanity still exists. This life, however centered on the supernatural, is a natural life. Nevertheless, compared to my life before awakening (I should say my no-life !) what I know today could be called a desireless state. I can stay very long moments without any desire because the 'I AM' is filled with a perfect joy.

As regards the nature of desires that sometimes appear, they are very simple and ordinary and there is nothing specific to say about them. For example, I like to drink a glass of French white wine from the Loire in a small cafe in Montmartre, and I desire to make love to the young and pretty woman I live with. Seen from outside, I look like an ordinary person but lacking in social ambition. But seen from inside, it's different; you have to believe me, it is the Kingdom of Heaven.

A Way Into Non-duality

The enlightenment is like being born again, being born from above as Christ puts It. The entire life is now transformed in an infinite proportion. Before this passage, I had lived myself corruptible and physical; now I am incorruptible and the Light. Of course for this transformation to be achieved, I need not only to have some glimpses of the reality, but I have to settle in it. But anyone who perceives this reality even for one second sees it perfectly for it is always the Absolute that sees itself. Truth does not depend upon time. There is no possible improvement in the Seeing. Each moment is the moment of awakening, and each awakening is the awakening to the Absolute.

This birth is the death of the identification with the body-mind, with the appearance in the mirror. So we could say that it is an egoless life if we call 'ego' the total identification with our human appearance. It is then no longer possible to live as before. Everything has changed. An upsetting has taken place. The spiritual quest has stopped because the seeker has vanished and truth has been revealed.

However with this birth, a new life begins. The new child, the child of light, the heavenly being can keep on growing up. In concrete terms, it means that I still see that egoistic reactions can appear in this space in relation to events. The perfection which is in the Centre, the perfection of my true nature illuminates all the imperfections I had not paid attention to before. The habits have to disappear and I do not forget that for more than 20 years I have been totally identified with a body-mind called José. So there is at the same time consciousness of the Void and consciousness of some egoistic desires and thoughts. But when these egoistic reactions linked with the little José, emerge, they are seen through the light of my true nature and they lose their power and vanish soon. This new light is very important because it transforms the whole of my being and embraces little by little each part of me in its clarity.

So after the illumination, a process of disidentification and of gradual unification is going to take place. But if the identification with the body easily disappears (indeed, it is actually ridiculous to identify with a piece of meat), the belief to be a thinker is more deeply rooted. It will take more time to stop living as a thinker. As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj puts it:

Thanks to this revelation (enlightenment), your identification with what is corporeal is going to know a vast spread and to extend to the dimensions of the manifested universe. Then you will discover that you contain and penetrate the whole cosmos and that you know it simply as your own body. This is named by the words 'pure superior knowledge' , Shud-Vijnan. Nevertheless, even in this state of sublime Shud-Vijnan, the intellect denies to be recognised as non-entity. However, in giving up yourself to the pure consciousness, the evidence of the fallibility and of the lack of consistence of the intellectual process is going gradually to become stronger and you will be able then to put the intellect to its true place, the second one.

Living in the timeless, the past and the future become unreal; thoughts relating to memory, regrets, remorse or anticipation about the future diminish in number and in power. The only thing that matters is the present moment. The mind is no longer the master of the house, it becomes the servant. Thoughts come and go; they belong to the world and are like clouds crossing the sky leaving no trace.

This is why the incessant chatter of the mind becomes quiet. Thoughts and desires continue to arrive in the Vacuity, but a little bit like a fire that one no longer feeds with wood, or like a wheel that the engine no longer turns and yet nevertheless continues to turn. Disidentification with the body-mind, with my appearance in the mirror breaks the mind's own ability to create more and more thoughts and desires in an infernal circle generating stress.

Indeed, there is here a paradox because in fact nothing changes. The seeing of my true nature always remains. There is no progress in this seeing because there is no time. This process of disidentification and unification simply happens in a spontaneous way. Naturally, the awakening brings its fruits and the heart opens itself. As St. Paul said: 'our external man falls into pieces, our interior man is renewed every day.' This way of realisation and accomplishment is a way of total surrender to my true nature which is the all Being. Nothing can be taken or added to this Being. It is what it is and contains everything. The present moment is in itself an absolute perfection, each situation is full in itself and opens on the infinite. My true nature is perfect. It has no problems and no needs. From thereon thoughts and desires are no longer essential to life; they belong to the world and are one of the expressions of Life. The most important thing in life now is to live each moment consciously from the Void. What I have to do is to rest in the wholeness, in the peace of my original state. It doesn't require any effort. I have to be passive and let the uncreated light of Awakening achieve its great work. It is a way towards unity, bliss, peace and the Unknown.

CONCLUSION

The vacuity is independent of phenomena (thoughts, desires, as well as forms, colours, sounds...) that occur in itself. Fortunately, reality is always available. Reality is the only guide in our often peaceful but sometimes troubled journey. But peace at the centre is never affected. The secret lies in asymmetry. All the changing phenomena appear in the foreground of my non-changing nature. The Seeing of the Vacuity is like a sword which cuts off the illusion as soon as it shows its head. At every instant, the Infinite is here and now, and all the limitations due to experience collapse. The personal is plunged into the Impersonal (or suprapersonal). It could be compared to a carafe of water immersed in the sea: then there is no more interior or exterior.

There is only the ONE.

Just another day in India

In the memory of a seeker who died before realization,while traveling in India looking for gurus.
His name was Michael.
--added by danny--

Michael (email 29 Aug 02 titled "Just another day in India"): On a bus to Rishikesh, on my one day off from a yoga course taught by a saintly old swami who was a colonel in the Indian army for 20 years . . . training commandos no less. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes and massage my yoga punished limbs it doesn't surprise me as much as when he first told me. I'm travelling past cows that compete with beggars for food in stinking piles of fly-blown garbage . . . straight-backed women in bright saris carrying impossibly large sacks of flour on their heads, mangey hairless street dogs who fight and rip the shit out of each other, pigs wallowing in swollen gutters full of green black slime . . . and all the while motorscooters swarm like termites on the way back to the nest before a storm. Suddenly the bus starts making a noise like a spanner dropped in a blender, and it comes to a grinding halt. "Shit" says the dude next to me. We're stopped next to a sort of shaded clearing with a water pump. There are 4 girls wearing saris while washing clothes as one pumps the water. Some old cows wander onto the scene and an old man squats Indian style in the background, smoking a biddi, and I think a more typical scene of rural India could hardly be found, so I whip out my camera and take a few shots. The driver has lifted the hood off the engine and is bashing away like a drunken gorilla, and it starts to rain. Really fucking rain. The washer girls barely bat an eyelid and continue their work with a few knowing smiles between them, and the scrawny old bull outside my window just stands there as the rain pelts its bony back, sending muddy streaks down its side. The drver starts a shoving match with one of the passengers who I think wants to leave. Suddenly, another bus pulls up in front of us and everyone starts fighting each other to be first off this bus so that they can be first on the other bus. I decide that this sort of childish behaviour is beneath me so I continue to read my book with a condescending smile as the passengers elbow and press each other. As a consequence I'm one of only 5 people left on the bus. 2 of them are the driver and conductor, one is an old blind lady, and the other is this beaming guy carrying half a truck axle who I don't think is completely with the program. I retain composure as I realise that this bus ain't going nowhere, so I flag down a rickshaw. "Rishikesh?" I ask. The passengers all say no, but the driver of course says "Yes! Yes! Come, come!" So I think what the fuck, at least I'll get to the nearest village where I can maybe hop on another bus. 10 km later the driver decides he isn't going any further and I find myself standing next to a giant rubbish pile and a little boy of maybe 8 with an open sore on his face is tugging at my shirt and touching my feet reverently and asking for one rupee. He ignores my angry "chello!" so I give him a light kick on the bum and he scampers off. After an hour or so I see a bus marked Rishikesh but it's not gonna stop, so I jump right in front of it thinking that this fucker is going to have to run me down if he wants to pass. So the ancient driver, with glasses like magnifying glasses, slows down just enough for me to take a running jump on the bus, and I see why he wouldn't stop . . . the bus is completely packed and my ass is literally flying in the breeze for the first 10 miles or so until some people get off and I can relax a bit. Get to Rishikesh and the rain just gets harder. There are whole streets that are 3 feet under water. Men are pushing scooters through streets that that are now rivers brown with mud, shit and god knows what else. Pigs and dogs compete for ever decreasing space under landings while locals crowd cheerfully under shop awnings. Sadhus squat Indian style, lost in their chillum smoke watching with amusement the few brave souls who dart out into the downpour.

So I hop onto another rickshaw that feels more like a speedboat as it cuts a path through the floodwater. It's only my head banging against the roof when we fall into unseen potholes that reminds me that there's any land at all around. I get to Vedniketan (ashram), my home away from home, feeling like I've just been chewed, swallowed and shitted out the ass of some unspeakably evil creature . . . only to find that no-one I know is there. A swim in the Ganges today is not even a remote possibility so I go for lunch at the posh Green Italian Restaurant. I'm in another world as I sit opposite some French wankers, listening to some pan-flute Kenny-G crap and watch cows, beggars and pilgrims file past in an endless multi-coloured stream. I just read my yoga book, and when my food comes I ask for a change of music and they put on Dark Side of the Moon, and it takes me back to when I first heard the album in Sydney, in the back of a mate's car on the way into the city to meet some girls on a clear, starry Saturday night. I feel like crying, and more French wankers pile into the restaurant, and I leave after eating. Go to do some internetting that fucks up 3 times before I get to read a message from a beautiful blue eyed Belgian babe who tells me she's in Gangotri on a fast for 3 weeks. I agree to meet up with whatever is left of her when she gets back. Walking back to Vedniketan I'm confronted with the usual moronic stares from the locals and cocky laughter. I ignore the thousand outstretched hands and "Hello sir . . . your country?" bullshit and sit talking to a few pommy guys for a while back at Vedniketan. Chill for a while and it's like old times. Go for a coffee and the locals stare and stare and stare as I play-fight with an Israeli girl. We stare back but they seem to like that more and as usual a crowd starts to gather so we leave. I decide to sit by the bridge that crosses the Ganges and watch the monkeys being fed and the constant flow of pilgrims heading up to Gangotri. Suddenly a huge red-faced monkey starts chasing a smaller one across the bridge, they both run over the backs of startled people, and the big one catches the smaller one and starts really tearing into him. The smaller one screams as blood flows from his head and he limps away after a minute or so while the big one sits like a newly crowned king, gently accepting any food offered to him from passers by. I'm filled with disgust and dread for this place and these people so I hop into a shared jeep for the ride home. It takes an hour for the driver to round up enough people to fill up the jeep and it's dark by the time we get going. We travel for about 10 minutes before we get to a long straight stretch of road that has thick forest on both sides. Up ahead there are about 10 cars blocking the road and a man flags us down to stop. He starts talking with the driver and pointing to a huge, eerie silhouette about 50 metres ahead. "Elephant" says the old police inspector sitting next to me. "Mad elephant. See?" All around us are uprooted trees.

The elephant is just standing there in the middle of the road, daring anyone to get close. So we sit for another 10 minutes before one brave rickshaw decides to head off, and we watch, holding our breaths and smiling at each other. The elephant decides not to flatten the rickshaw, and we all go home in one piece.

Just another day in India.

I am eternal bliss and awareness -

"That's what you are. You are eternal bliss and awareness. Consciousness, the pure consciousness. I think this must be... Everyone must learn it by heart and must say it in all the Ashrams. That's a very good way of remembering what you are. May God bless you!"

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, in Gmunden, Austria, 1986.

"Tad Niskala" by Adi Shankaracharya
Om. I am neither the mind,
Intelligence, ego nor chitta.
Neither the ears, the tongue,
Nor the senses of smell and sight.
Neither ether nor air.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

I am neither the prana,
Nor the five vital breaths.
Neither the seven elements of the body,
Nor its five sheaths,
Nor hands, nor feet, nor tongue,
Nor other organ of action.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Neither fear, greed, delusion,
Loathing, nor liking have I.
Nothing of pride, or ego,
Or dharma or liberation.
Neither desire of the mind,
Nor object of its desiring.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Nothing of pleasure or pain,
Or virtue or vice, do I know.
Of manta, of sacred place,
Of Vedas or sacrifice.
Neither I am the eater,
The food or the act of eating.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Fear or death, I have none,
Nor any distincton of caste.
Neither father nor mother,
Not even a birth, have I.
Neither friend, nor comrade.
Neither disciple, nor Guru.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

I have no form or fancy.
The All-pervading am I.
Everywhere I exist,
Yet I am beyond the senses.
Neither salvation am I,
Nor anything to be known.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!

Truth and happiness are present

What it's like to live in overflowing energy.

What it's like to live in overflowing energy.

1. Spiritual Light will begin to take you over. These
higher feelings will increase and grow in intensity. Yes, right
in the middle of your day, down at the office or at home with
the children, higher feelings will start to inspire you.

2. You know that whatever comes up around the next
corner, it is no problem, because through Reality's wisdom
and energy, you can handle anything.

3. Gradually, you will begin to cool down, spiritually
speaking, until you reach the perfect spiritual temperature
of 72 degrees. At a certain point, you will enter Reality.

4. Truth and happiness are present and nothing is needed
on your part to keep it in place. So you relax, you smile, you
laugh and you enjoy your day to the fullest. For now you
are a receiver of something coming from a Higher World.

5. Picture yourself in a spaceship, moving away from
this world to the cosmic world. You look toward the front of
the ship. There is a big window and through it you see
incredible sights, great stars, and you look in awe at what
is happening to you and where you're now going. What you
see is Reality as it lights itself up! This is the intensity of
the spiritual journey that begins to unfold after a certain
point.

6. Here is the good news! As one eagle appears, a
thousand vultures disappear. And, what a welcome the eagles
extend to you! What a feeling comes over you when you
arrive in the higher world.

7. You will feel so good that you never want to leave
your own company. You're always pleasant, always! Your
inner pleasantness reflects itself outwardly, at all times,
wherever you go, whatever you meet.

8. Your life will be one spiritual revelation after
another. Just as a scientist gets rightly excited when he is
about to make a discovery, so will you be rightly excited
as you move from one spiritual insight to the next.

9. As you work with these principles you will experience
a falling away. Wrong reactions to other people will
fall away. All your secret fears and angers will fall away.
You will understand that inwardly, loss is gain.

10. Increasingly spiritual feelings reach you– something
new, something clean, something higher. And you find that
the best two words to describe this feeling are RELEASE
and RELIEF.

11. This new feeling begins to spiritualize words for
you, so that you really begin to live their meaning. Take the
word "love" for example. In previous years the word was
all you had. But this new and increasingly powerful feeling
begins to reveal to you the state behind the word.

12. The day will come when you crack through the
ceiling and the Light from the Spiritual World floods in. As
this happens, it will feel so good that you will want to triple
your efforts to clear away the ceiling so that more Light can
break through.
...........from my friend Vernon Howard
danny

Meditation is a very general word

"Meditation is a very general word. It is not a word that explains
all the three steps one has to take for meditating. But in Sanskrit
language they have very clearly said, how you have to move in your
meditation.

First is called as Dhyana, and second is called as Dhaarna; and the
third is called Samadhi. Luckily Sahaja Yoga is such a thing that you
get everything in a bundle. You avoided everything else and you got
the Samadhi part. That's the beauty of it. The first part of
meditation is the Dhyana. First when you have seeking, you put your
attention towards the object of your worship. That is called as
Dhyana. And the Dhaarana is the one in which you put all your effort.
Concentrate all your effort. But this is all drama for people who are
not realised. For them it's just a sort of an acting that they do.
But for a realised soul it is a reality. So the first, the Dhyana,
you have to do. Some do it of the Form, another of the Formless. But
you are so fortunate that the Formless has become a Form for you. No
problem, you don't have to go from Form to Formless, from Formless to
form; it's all there, in a bundle. So you concentrate, or think of
some Deity, or some point for Nirakar, for the Formless, or of
Nirakar itself."

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi,
January 1984

Thinking Past Your Nose

-note: This is Robert Adams talking about thinking and not thinking from the Advainta point of view of ,,real self,,.
...................................

It's good to be with you again. As long as you believe that you are the body/mind phenomena you're going to have problems. That's that. I don't care what kind of problems you may think you have, it makes no difference how severe. As long as you believe you are the body/mind phenomena you're going to have problems. You may feel justified in having problems. You may feel it's not your fault. You may feel it's karma. You may feel it's all kinds of things, but as long as you believe or you feel the body/mind, you will have problems, because this is the kind of world in which we live, the world that doesn't exist. Seems real to most of us. And if we believe we are the body/mind then we believe the world is real and we believe we have to pray to God for solutions. We do all these things and we still suffer And suffering will only stop, not when God answers your prayers, but when you awaken to the truth of your own Being. Then you are born again, so to speak, in a new reality and all is well. But you say to me, "But Robert, sometimes you appear to have problems too. Your karma evolved as it does all the time, or your physical body doesn't feel to good, or something is going on.” My question to you is this, "Who sees this?" There has to be a seer and an object. You're seeing yourself. When you catch on to your awakening the world does not change. You just see it differently, that's all. You acquire a feeling of immortality, a feeling of divine bliss, so to speak, when things no longer have the power to affect you. In other words, in the state of enlightenment cause and effect does not exist for you. But those who are living in the world are going through their karma, and they're beholding themselves everywhere they look. For the world, remember, is only a projection of your mind. Now what kind of a projection is it? It depends on your state, where you are coming from. We're all looking at the world and we see something different. All we are seeing is ourselves. There are no problems. None exist. None will ever exist. The only problem that exists is what...? Who can tell me? (Student: "Kuwait.”) You're close. What do I always say, why does a problem exist? It has to do with your nose. That's right. You're allowing your thoughts to go past your nose. That is the only reason you have a problem. If you catch yourself quick before it gets past your nose, where is the problem? The problem is in your thought, only in your thought. When your mind slows down, when the thinking process slows down, where is the problem? It doesn't exist. But if you allow the thoughts to go past your nose then there are all kinds of problems which you come up with. You believe this is wrong, and this is not right, and this is hurting me, and you become doubtful, suspicious and apprehensive, and fearful and so forth. Because you're thinking. You may say, “How can you exist without thinking?” Quite well, thank you. The trees do not have to think. The grass does not have to think. The world does not have to think of itself. Everything is taken care of. There is a power that knows how to take care of everything, and will also take care of your body, so called, if you stop thinking. But as long as you think I am the body then you have to take care of your body, and watch it, and feed it aspirin and cold remedy and proper foods and do all kinds of strange things with your body. But your body and your mind are not your friend. They come under a law of their own. Did your body ask you today this morning. When it's time to get up, it got up. Did it ask your permission? It does what it wants. You have nothing to do with the body or the mind. When you become depressed does your mind ask you if it can become depressed? It does what it wants. When you become fearful does your mind ask your permission? It does what it wants. When your body catches a cold does it ask you if it can catch a cold? It does what it wants. But what have you got to do with those things? A lady called me this morning from Santa Cruz. And she asked me, “How long do I have to come to Satsang before I become self-realized?” So I told her, “Before I answer let me ask you, what do you mean by I, and what do you mean by Satsang?” And she hung up. I wonder why she did that. But it's something we can talk about, or I can talk about since I have nothing else to do. How long do "I" have to come to Satsang ? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? Does "I" need to come to Satsang ? What is this elusive “I”? What does it mean? How long does "I" have to come to Satsang ? The reason you would call it I, is because you misinterpreted the I. You identify the I with the body. So you're saying how long do I have to come to Satsang . Then what is Satsang ? Sat means Being, being with the Self. Therefore I and Satsang are the same thing. What this means is Satsang is your everyday experience. It's not a place you go to. It’s how you live your life. "I" makes the separation but there is no separation. There is one whole and you are That. But as long as you are separating I from your Self then you always question. I feel sick. I feel happy. I feel depressed. I feel out of sorts. Who is this I? Where did it come from? How does it originate? What is it's Source? Find out. Dive deep within and find out where the I came from. A good way to do this is before you go to sleep say to yourself, "I'm going to find my I when I get up this morning." Just before you wake up, before you start thinking, the I presents itself as "I AM", as pure Consciousness. Catch it then. That's the best time to catch it. As soon as you awaken in the morning, in that split second before you wake up and start thinking. Before the thoughts come of the world, that is the time to catch the I AM, the Absolute Reality. For at that moment this is exactly what you are, pure Awareness. And then the thought comes, it covers it up. So remember this. If you ask yourself when you go to sleep, you tell yourself, "Tomorrow morning as I open my eyes I am going to identify with my Source I AM,” and you will. Even for a second, it will change your life. As you keep on doing this every morning, every morning, every morning, the time between your awakening and the thought coming to you will become larger. And the space will expand and expand and expand until you are able to stay in the Awareness. Of course at that time there will no longer be a you. There will only be the Awareness. Try it. You have to investigate. You have to intelligently dive deep within yourself and find the Source of your I. Do not accept your feeling. Do not accept your thoughts. Do not watch yourself feeling miserable, and you do nothing about it. Or you can become the witness to it. That will help too. But it's better to ask, "Why am I feeling miserable?” and realize that you said why am "I" feeling miserable. I, I'm identifying with my body as I. Again a mistake. The I in itself is pure harmony, joy, happiness. But when you identify the I with your body/mind, it becomes the personal I which doesn't even exist. But you’re making it exist. You're identifying with it. Why do you want to identify with your personal I? Your personal I never existed. Why have you befriended it? Why do you keep giving it power? Why do you make it grow? Take your power back. Expose yourself, the real YOU, and forget all this nonsense about a mind and a body and thoughts and the world and God and everything else that appears to be real. Compare yourself with no one. Be true to your self. Never mind how much progress somebody else is making. Forget about Saints and Sages and other people. You are the only one that ever existed and there is no one but you. You are all the Saints and the Sages and the Seers. You are everything. Everything is the Self, and you are That. Why not awaken to this? Why do you want to play games with yourself so long? By believing in reincarnation you just come back again and again and again, and hoping to have a better life next time. There is no better life. As long as you are born of the flesh you have to suffer. This is the way of the flesh. Do not try to improve your life. You're making a big mistake. For there is no question about it, if you use positive thinking and use your mind, you may appear to improve your life. But remember this world in which you live is a world of duality. For every up there is a down. For every forward there is a backward. For every good there is a bad. Therefore whatever improvement comes in your life, it will last for a while, then will subside, then you become miserable again. Then you will be happy again when you get what you want, and then that will last, and then you will be miserable again. You'll start sticking up for your rights and fighting for your survival. Then as you get what you want, you'll be happy again. You’re like a yo-yo. You go up and down, up and down. And no matter how much I talk to you about this you're going to keep on doing this. So why am I talking? I don't know. I have no choice. You know, I never asked to do this. Strange how things turn out. (Student: "Too late now.” ) All I know is that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. All I know is that happiness is your true nature. That you are not what you appear to be and things are not what they appear to be. Nothing can ever happen to you. Why do you worry so much? What are you afraid of? Your life? You have no life. What you call your life is nothing. It doesn't exist. It's no thing. You worry about your hair falling out. Worried about needing a new pair of shoes. You're getting fat. What a waste of energy. Like feeding a dead horse. We're all going to wind up in the cemetery so what difference does it make what you do. Last week I was talking to a body builder. He was telling me about his muscles. And what he does for this muscle, and what he does for that muscle, and how well he eats. So I told him that's great, you'll be the healthiest man in the cemetery. And that's about the gist of it. Why not use your energy for constructive purposes? Now this does not have to mean that you ignore your body. Your body will always take care of itself. As a matter of fact the more you practice your sadhana, or realizing your true identity, your body will be able to take better care of itself than you were ever able to take care of it, because it comes under a different law. It knows what to do. It will do whatever it came to this world to do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you. When will you wake up to that fact? Stop thinking about yourself so much, about getting a new job, losing a job, about working or not working. No one is ever happy. Those people who work are miserable because they have to work. Those people who don't work are miserable because they can't find a job. And when they find a job they join the miserable ones who can't stand the job. Where is peace? Peace is your real nature. It's within you. It is you. Look for it and you'll find it. Seek and ye shall find. Whatever you identify with, that's what you become. Therefore stop identifying with worldly things. Identify with yourself. Now how do you do this? It begins in the morning, as I told you before. That's the time when your mind has been free. Because you slept you've had a semblance of peace. Being in deep sleep is an unconscious method of self-realization. You're realized when you are asleep, but you are unconscious so you're not aware of it. You want to be consciously asleep. When you're consciously asleep you're awake. You're awake to your Self, to Reality, to what is, to I AM. When you get up in the morning, immediately before the thoughts come, identify with the Self. Now how do you do this? Simply say to yourself, "I, I.” That's all you got to do, "I, I.” You're doing this before your thoughts come. Maybe in the beginning you can only do this for a couple of seconds, but that's good. Even those couple of seconds will make your day fulfilled, and you'll feel happy during the day. As time passes, as I explained before, the space will widen and you'll be able to remain longer periods in “I, I”, “I, I”. Now when thoughts come simply ask yourself, "To whom do these thoughts come? They come to me." And you hold on to the me. You do not let go. But do not concentrate on the me. Just hold on to the me. You concentrate on the source of me. It's like you're holding on to a rope, and you're going to its source and you let go. Letting go is the Source. Total Awareness, Absolute Reality, I am that I am. Do not try to analyze this. Just allow it to be. As you keep doing this every morning, either watching the I, or asking, “To whom do the thoughts come?” you'll notice a subtle change is taking place in your life. The first change you will see is you develop a semblance of peace that you never had before. You'll just not be disturbed by anything and you'll be surprised at yourself. You'll notice the things that used to make you angry no longer have the power to do that. You'll notice that the things you feared, for instance depression, recession, (laughter) loss of memory, whatever, your wife ran away with the milkman. Maybe that's a good sign, but these things will no longer disturb you. You'll just feel good. You'll feel good all over. And that will turn into pure happiness You're just happy, for no reason. Can you imagine what it feels like just to be happy without interruption, for no reason. It has absolutely nothing to do with the world. It doesn't mean you'll go round laughing hysterically all the time. It means you just feel happy. You hear about the war in Iraq and you're happy. There's no war in Iraq, you're still happy. You work, you're happy. You don't work, you're happy. You have possessions, you're happy. You don't have possessions, you're happy. In other words it makes no difference what the world may seem to bring to you. You are no longer identifying with the world and its objects. You're seeing the world as yourself, or you're beginning to, slowly but surely. Everything begins to take on a projection of yourself. And since you are beginning to discover that you are pure Consciousness, the world starts becoming pure Consciousness also. It's like going to a movie, and the screen is pure Consciousness, the images are the world. Prior to your awakening you've been identifying with the images and you have no idea there's a screen. Oh you know it somewhere in your mind. You have a slight image of the screen, but you don't think of that because the images are very entertaining. You watch a love movie, or a war movie, or this kind of movie, or that kind of movie, and you get all wrapped up in the objects. But of course if you try to go up to the screen to grab any objects you're going to grab the screen. This is what happens when you awaken. You realize that you are the screen, which is Consciousness. And you realize that everything in the world, everything, the whole Universe including God, is superimposed on you. It's not Reality. It's a superimposition. But you identify with the screen, which is Consciousness, and you tolerate the superimposition. Yet you realize it's not you. You have nothing to do with it and you do not identify with it. So in the same instance your body goes through all kinds of experiences, good and bad and in between, but you are always aware that you are not the body and no body exists for you. You know in reality there is no superimposition at all. It does not exist. It appears to exist but it does not. It's like hypnosis. You're hypnotized to believe a white poodle is following you. And sure enough when you wake up out of the hypnosis, you keep looking back, you will actually see a white poodle. Your mind will actually picture the white poodle and you will believe it's real. Nobody else will see it but you will, until the hypnosis wears off. In the same way we see people, places, and things, and they appear so real to us. We identify with them and we suffer accordingly. But as you practice every morning, catching yourself between waking up and thoughts coming, little by little, slowly but surely, you will begin to realize yourself more and more. And the day will come when you awaken. Never mind how long it takes. Do not look at time. Think of how long it takes you to be what you are now. Be yourself. Identify with your reality. Try to be yourself at times. Be aware that the world is egoless. The world has no cause, so where is the effect? If there is no effect there is no cause. How could the world have a cause? Where would it come from? When you dream you can say that your dream has a cause. You are the cause, because you are dreaming. But can you say that while you're dreaming? While you're dreaming and you're in the dream, you believe that the world has a cause, like everyone else does. And you get involved in everyday activities in the dream. You have good experiences and you have bad experiences. And then I come along and I tell you you're dreaming, but you don't believe me. You say, "I'll show you if I'm dreaming, Robert," and you pinch me. And I say, ”owl!” And you say, "See? Is that a dream?" And I try to explain to you it's a dream pinch but you don't believe it. You think it's real. Then you go across the street. And then you're walking down the street and a car hits you, and you're bleeding all over the street. And I run over and I tell you, "You're dreaming, don't be too upset. It's OK.” And you start cursing at me and shaking your fist at me. "How can you say that? Look I'm bleeding all over the place.” Then something funny happens. You wake up. Where does the dream go? Where did the blood go? Where did the car that hit you go? Think of your personal experiences that are upsetting you right now. Think of the problems that you think you have even while I'm talking to you. Some of your minds are thinking of something else, problems, and you believe it's real. You're thinking of who you like or don't like, what you're going to eat for dinner tonight. All these thoughts come to you because you have not trained yourself how to deal with your thoughts. And you've got preconceived ideas. You have got concepts. As an example, you come and you look at me. You don't see me fresh and new like you see yourself. But you compare me with Krishnamurti, or with this guy, or the Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, or Nisargadatta, or the garbage cleaner, or with the janitor or whoever you wish to compare me with. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Your mind becomes filled with preconceived ideas. I am really nobody. I am nothing special. So what you see in me is not real. You're seeing your own projections. You're seeing your self in other words. And if you have not developed yourself and have awakened to pure Consciousness, then you're seeing something worldly. And you make comparisons. You say, “I like, I don't like, it's good, it's bad,” and so forth. You've got to take control of your mind. You've got to realize your mind and your body are not your friend. They feed you the wrong information. They appear right for a while but then it becomes wrong again. Do not listen to your mind. Stop the thoughts before they get to the edge of your nose. That's all I've got to say.

Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

My Beloved

My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude,
And my Beloved is with me always,
For His love I can find no substitute,
And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,
Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate,
He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qiblah"
If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,
Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress,
O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire,
The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul,
O my Joy and my Life abidingly,
You were the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy.
I have separated myself from all created beings,
My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire...

Rabia al Basri 717-801