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