I AM RETHINKING HOW AND WHAT TO TEACH

I have to rethink my teaching methods and style. I often forget that my spiritual life began at age 11, some 63 years ago. I was initiated into Kriya Yoga via the Self-Realization Fellowship at 14, and spent a number of years as an academic trying to figure out what to do with my life.

My formal, institutional meditation life began in 1968 studying with Phillip Kapleau in Rochester New York for two years, quickly followed by a winter at Mt. Baldy Zen Center.  I then moved to the International Buddhist Meditation Center where I studied with five different Zen masters: Thich Tien-An; Maezumi Roshi; Kozan Roshi; Seung Sahn Soen Sa; and Song Ryong Hearn. 

After that I was with Muktananda and his monks, including my friend Shankarananda, Dhyanyogi, and finally Robert Adams and Jean Dunne.

I have had tens of thousands of meditation experiences, been in close associations with dozens of masters over six decades, and had many massive and small awakenings over those years.

But I realize now, as a teacher, I have had a wrong attitude.  I have always tried to convey final teachings without taking students through the baby steps necessary to realize the deeper truths.

For example, even before I went to the Rochester Zen Cener, I had already opened my “Third Eye” to the inner light of consciousness, which revealed an inner world of emptiness.  This took less than a year to accomplish, by looking within my head to find an inner light, then gradually expand it downwards into my body and upwards into the space above.

Then I spent a year or two, either before or after this emptiness phase (So long ago I don’t remember which came first.), struggling with the rising of Kundalini energy in my spine, that felt like a six inch long pointed pencil arising through my spine.  It kept getting stuck at the heart chakra level, and gradually, and very painfully penetrated that level, rising to the top of my skull, drilling a hole there, then descending again into my face, throat, and disappearing into my heart and gut. With this phase were all sorts of energy phenomena described in my book, Self Realization and Other Awakenings.

Then, when I went to Mt. Baldy already aware of my inner emptiness, it was very easy to enter states of no minded oneness with the world, where I and the world were one, with no separation. Later, I was to realize this joyous, vivid reality I entered each meditation session, was called the Manifest Oneness of Nisargadatta, the Atman, the Manifest Self.

Later, with Robert, I entered that non-dual consciousness totally, in everyday life, with no centered self experience, and even saw the unreality of consciousness itself.  And a few weeks later, recognizing that ‘I’ was separate from all of consciousness, the manifest world and my body, all parts of consciousness.

Ten years later, after falling deeply in love with a woman, out of that inner emptiness arose a different sense of self altogether, and that was of an inner self of light, energy, love, devotion, and surrender, altogether as an experience of the life force within me manifesting through me.  Shakti, God, the divine, as bliss, light, and energy in me.  This was a new and different manifestation of the Manifest Self, at once totally divine and removed, but at the same time, the most powerfully personal manifestation of the sense of I Am.  I felt the reality of Muktananda’s book, “I Have Come Alive!” as a personal confession.  After that the energies and bliss manifested through me until they left, leaving me in increasing peace, and deeper experiences of consciousness disappearing into consciousness.

The trouble is, how does anyone convey the totality of 60 years of spirituality? 

Everyone is in a different place when they come to me.  Trying to convey everything at once is just overwhelming, confusing, and maybe a bit frightening.  I tend to mix it all together, various disparate experiences combined with differing levels of teachings.

How to convey all of this?  I didn’t know.  I tried always to teach from what spontaneously arose within me to whomever was in front of me.  But this is a mistake.  Using this method, if I spoke to 100 people, perhaps I was reaching only one or three people.  The others had no idea of what I was talking about because maybe they didn’t know the inner light or the utter reality of emptiness, or perhaps they did not know self-inquiry, the life force, bliss, etc.

However, a few caught on immediately, like Rajiv Kapur and a few others.  But most just looked, listened, and then moved on overwhelmed by all the information and experiences thrown at them.

Satsangs that I have led were the same.  I spoke to many but only a few stayed.  I think people were utterly confused or overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of my teachings. The only thing that kept many around was the energetic phenomena that arose in many who attended Satsang. This is what attracts many people to teachers, but this is not the teaching or the end of teaching.

I think I have to teach in stages and not necessarily the stages I passed through.  It depends on what the student wants.  Do they want to know themselves? Do they want bliss?  Do they want to know the inner light and emptiness?  Do they want to know directly the life force within, inner energies, and bliss?  Do they want to learn how to heal using inner energies?  Or do they want self-realization without knowing what that means, and be willing tp listen, learn, and practice based just on trust and faith?

All of this knowledge fits together for me, but certainly will not for a beginner or someone curious about inner work and its potential. So how do I break up my teachings into steps, each with an outcome?  Some steps require previous steps or outcomes and some don’t.

In this approach, much more is required of the student.  They must know what they want and be prepared to persist in their efforts to explore different aspects of their inner life, an endeavor that ultimately has no worldly usefulness, but only, ultimately to deliver self-realization at all levels and peace, complete relaxation.

And, I have to relax and not try to convey the entirety of 60 years experience all at once. I need to give small bites at a time.  Make sense?  But how to do this?

After 60 years I know that the Advaita teachings of Robert Adams, Nisargadatta, and Ramana are the core teachings that should never be ignore, and self-inquiry in its various forms from psychotherapy, so sitting in silence, to diving deep within to understand all level of consciousness and beyond are an open and wide path that will ultimately lead to self-realization.  But I know only a few, a small percentage of all seekers, are interested in this topic or are destined to finish their course within its arms.

SATSANG BEGINS AGAIN!

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13, NOON—ARIZONA TIME

THIS IS 2 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME; 7PM UNITED KINGDOM; 8PM GERMANY; 6AM MONDAY, MELBOURNE

After a year and a half off, Satsang starts again this coming Sunday at noon, Arizona time.

Topics of course will be about Robert Adams’ and Nisargadatta’s teachings, self-inquiry, what is the self, what is consciousness?

Sign in a few minutes ahead of time, and listen to chanting found at bottom of page, especially Krishna Das chants.

GO TO:  http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com

Password   “edji”  will be required on two different screens.

Then INVENT a guest sign in name

Go to top of video box and mute your microphone until you ask questions.

TRY THIS A DAY AHEAD OF TIME TO PRACTICE GETTING IN AND LISTENING TO CHANTS.

THIS WILL BE A 10 WEEK EXPERIMENT TO SEE IF PEOPLE COME.

THE MYSTERY OF I-AM

The phrase I-Am is the cornerstone of Advaita philosophy. I creates the concept of an invisible subject that cannot perceive itself, and ‘Am” creates the concept of the entirety of one’s own perceived world which also includes the external world, one’s inner world of kinesthesia, emotions, thoughts, desires, pain and pleasure. That Am-ness also contains the experience of I. That is, there is a sensation buried in our experiential filed of ‘I’, apparently pointed inwardly to the invisible subject.

Am-ness, or consciousness, depends on the existence of a body. Without a body, there is no perceptions, no experience. One can follow that I-sensation inwards and “descend’ through various levels of Amness, including one’s experience of their bodies, the experience of the energy body, Kundalini, Chakras, etc., the experience of various Samadhis and bliss states, then the expeirnce of nothingness, the absence of experience and the absence of the I-knowing, of the I-experience.

Lastly, there is the experience of bare consciousness, absent an I, absent an Am, absent a sense of identity or self. This is called the hypnogogic state one experiences after awakening, and before one becomes consciousness of oneself as a person embedded in your life.

This is the pure I without a sense of identity or of even being alive, where the world and and body are observed, but no sense of identity has descended. The is no witness here and no witnessed. Words do not touch this state. This state Nisargadatta calls ‘universal consciousness’ because it is consciousness without personal identity, and is the same in all creatures, whether insect of humans.

Into this not knowing state, the life force begins its movement, starting the mind’s flowing, and the descent of the identity that I, who I know not, exist.

The I, without identity, without form, without substance, without existence, suddenly exists as an identity. This identity disappears when I fall into deep sleep, and also when I die, but it continues to exists in all the countless sentient bodies that sense the world.

But Nisargadatta states that the ‘I’ points to that which is aware of sentience of consciousness, not as an individual, but again, as that which is aware of ‘Amness’ as a principal, but also as nothingness, being entirely without existential characteristics, or qualities, such as form, identity, or extension in time as timelessness, and even beyond the duality of time and timeless, as that which is aware of the difference.

That is, the I, is entirely without the equality of existence, until it becomes aware of existence, of Amness. Thus the I is not born because it is beyond life and death, beyond time and space, neither mortal or immortal. Thus, it is also beyond talking, beyond words, an entire mystery to the mind, but entirely graspable as a spiritual intuition, one’s fundamental essence as the Absolute, the Noumenal, Parabrahman. Ramana refers to this knowledge of experiential/non-experiential, as Consciousness. But, it is a mystery to the mind, to the conventional ways of knowledge, or knowing objects and processes, and this truth is known only after dwelling in that not-knowing hypnogogic state for a long period of time.

SELF-INQUIRY IS NOT 100 YARD DASH. It is a long, long Ironman race. To get out of the stream of thought, the center of your consciousness has to be deeper inside of yourself than thought.

You have to move your center of attention into the empty awareness inside of your body to the heart chakra or below.

Spend time there. Look within. Somewhere near your heart resides for most people the sense of self, first found as a spark of energy. Attend to it. Over period of days, weeks and months, this sensation will grow into a complete sense of presence totally within, through and extending outside of your body, like a total capacitance or electrical field of some sort.

By attending to the totality of that sense of presence, one feels the empty space within, and can move your center of consciousness downwards from the brain and head area closer to the heart or in the region of the gut.

This takes one into a deeper emptiness, and at this center of consciousness, the flow of thoughts don't touch you anymore. It appears to be above you and in space like a constant chattering radio station which does not interest you at all because you are no longer immersed in the field of thought.

You never try to stop the thought, because that is the will, which is located at the level of mine still, in the head, in the brain and will just face an impossible fight with itself. Instead, just ignore the thoughts and concentrate on the IM sensation somewhere inside of your chest or lower, and fixate on it. Fixation and attending to it, and attempting to merge with it, gives it energy and makes it grow into one sense of presence. When that sense of presence is complete, you have a whole new concept of who and what you are, because you recognize you are not the body, nor the mind, but that sense of presence, that ecstatic state of flowing energies within, consciousness itself. This is your first step. Your first major step.

Robert Adams and Nisargadatta--A perspective

I knew Robert very well.  I loved him and was in awe of his silence and ability to talk about nothingess endlessly, mixing that talk with the elements of everyday life.  And, under Robert, I attained first the oneness state of becoming the totality of my manifest consciousness, and then experiencing myself as just awareness, watching the various states of consciousness come to me, cover me, creating in alteration the sleep, dream and waking worlds.  He was a complete manifestation of a Jnani, a sage.

On the other hand, Nisargadatta is an enigma.  He appeared agitated, uncomfortable, was brusk, irritable, and rude.  Yet his words seemed more true than Robert’s because he was so brilliantly clear in his exposition of Advaita in everyday terms, describing the spontaneous arising of consciousness, and our truest identity as the nothingness to which we will return.

Robert spun out a beautiful tale about Brahman, transcendence, and nothingness, but Nisargadatta broke the whole of the manifest and unmanifest into baby steps that led to a progressive realization in baby steps that are very compelling to the mind that he teaches us to go beyond.
If I had to say it, I’d judge Robert as being deeper than Nisargadatta, more thoroughly embedded in emptiness, more at rest.  But Maharaj was more engaging, more forceful in his exposition of the ways of consciousness and its relation to the absolute, the noumenal, nothingness.

That is why I refer to Nisargadatta so often, because his teachings were so clear and methodology also so clearly laid out. Robert on the other hand, taught dozens of meditation methods, mantras, and used many superlatives about consciousness that did not seem to convey anything useful.

But it was not until I had a personal awakening to myself as Atman, as the incarnated God-principle, that the brilliance of Nisargadatta’s teaching became fully realized by me.
Unlike Robert, Nisargadatta spoke of realizing oneself as the totality of manifest consciousness first, staying there for a bit, then going into Nirvana.  Robert said nothing of this step, which was my experience.  He did not distinguish between satchitananda and nothingness. Nisargadatta did.

TO TRANSCEND OR NOT TO TRANSCEND

     Many Advaitin teachers speak of transcending the body, individuality, and the self, and even teaching the transcendence the personality.

     

     But what are they talking about?

     One such teacher I talked to said he no longer had any sense f identity to anything, and that everything was Shakti. I don't known exactly what he means, except that maybe he "sees," "feels," "understands," that nothing is him, and everything perceived and experienced is "other," Shakti. Or maybe he means he too, his sense of existence is also Shakti.

     But has he lost his personality? If he has, what was his experience? Did he feel he no longer was a human, or did he feel he no longer had a "personality," that which has emotions, moods, makes decisions, and has habit patterns of reactions to the world?

     I don't know what he, or other teachers mean when they talk about their alleged transcendence.

     I for one, definitely feel my personality, my emotions, my individuality, my body, and say, "All this is part of me, one aspect of me."

     I also "understand" that all the apparent world and my body are objects within my own consciousness when I am awake. So I am aware that essentially I am consciousness which includes thinking and the mind as well as memories and intuitions. I carefully watch and also feel into the entirety of my consciousness as a living totality of awareness.

     This consciousness is continually changing, variable, and features one experience or one aspects in an unending flow of experiences and objects. One can say there is an experiencer and the flow of conscious experiences which are objects. Or one can say the experiences and the experiencer are one. Sometimes it appears one or the other is a true statement, sometimes that neither is.

     Then sometimes I can self experience as awareness without mind, without a sense of self or world, without the I Am sensation, and just stay there too, knowing and experiencing nothing.

     All these states of consciousness come and go, including the experiences of coming awake out of a dark and moist nothingness, which is totally relaxing and in total peace.

     I am also aware of my awareness of these various states. These states come and go on me, the witness.

     But my resting state is that of being me as awareness, aware of the life force inside and acting through this body/mind, indwelling my own sense of presence that permeates my body and mind and the space around my body and mind, and all permeated by an empty space, itself permeated by the light of consciousness. I feel the energies inside, not really inside the body, but inside of my energetic self, and feel "see" the life force and the intelligence of consciousness within me. I think Robert calls this the Brahman state. Certainly this is what Nisargadatta called Brahman: the totality of my manifest consciousness or self.

     I am certainly aware of nothingness as the dark void from which I as consciousness emerge each day, and to which I return each night, and which I experience from time to time by being totally merged into itself. But it is not my primary identification.

     Regarding personality, it is my position that personality does not reside in the body or mind, but in the totality of my consciousness. My individual expression of consciousness has its own unique fingerprint in terms of emotional reactions, opinions, lack of opinions, ways of expression, behaviors, directions and desires. I think the rush towards transcendence is often a rush to deny one's own humanity and leads to a poverty rather than transcendence.

     Nisargadatta says in his book the Experience of Nothingness, that once he heard the words that he had cancer, he lost all identification with his body and taught from that denial the last two or three years of his life.

     This is clear indication that he ran from body identification once he knew his body was dying. In fact, much of that book and others written around that time, was his obsession with death, and since he didn't identify with either his body or consciousness, he was not worried or bothered, except that he hoped death came quietly without too much pain.

     I have known hundreds of teachers up close.      From my point of view, all had prominent personalities and all were very human, even if a few claimed not to have a self or personality. What is actually going on in them, I don't know, and often, when describing their self-experience they use abstract or Sanskrit terms that hide rather than reveal who they are.

     Robert was the closest person I ever knew to be close to being totally empty and not there. He was uniquely empty. Others tend to be talking heads.

Enlightenment in 30 days--email dialogue with Rob

Dear Edji,

Thank you so much for the guidance and wisdom you have written and shared on your website. For 3 years I have been searching for answers and guidance all over the internet to no avail. I was seeking an explanation for an experience I did not understand. I did not know at the time, but I had accidentally stumbled upon this self inquiry process one night in bed. The experience altered my mind forever, and left me terribly confused. I have found no one but you that could explain what had happened to me and what I needed to do.

A week a ago, I began following your instructions detailed in Hunting the I. Since then, I have been able to understand that my body and the world I had always thought existed are an illusion. I am now focused on resting as the witness of consciousness---that which itself appears to not be consciousness---if that makes any sense. I watch the waking state, sleep state (which was very bizarre the first time), and dreaming. Though in the state of deep sleep I do not seem to be watching or at least I don't remember it.

I am not sure what else to do from here except continue to focus on resting as the witness. My understanding seems to grow constantly, but is still not complete.

I never tried meditation before 3 years ago, and I've never had a teacher. After I started self inquiry last week, I began having intense pain in the center of my head and I'm not sure what it is. I can push this point of pain and pressure around my body or completely out of it, but it quickly returns. I'm not sure what to do to make it stop. Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated.

I am immensely grateful to you, Robert, and Ramana Maharshi for sharing such clear and simple guidance. Before finding you, all I could find were teachings about oneness that I knew were shallow and not the whole truth. I thought of giving up, but something kept driving me to continue my search. I am very glad I kept going.

Gratefully Yours,

Rob

Ed: You are doing very, very well.  Keep it up. No other advice at this time.

Don't pay any attention to the pain, just observe it.

Hello Edji,

Hope you are well. I've been observing like you instructed me to. Yesterday I thought of trying something else, but it dawned on me that anything else I try is useless. Anything I do is just seeking at the level of the mind, so I just gave up and surrendered.

This morning I was rereading your “Hunting the I” and it finally sunk in.

There is no I! No person, no witness...just AMness. Its all just some mental projection. Is this correct? Is there anything I should be doing or practicing now? Is there anything I should avoid that could be problematic at this stage? Thank you for your time.

Rob

Ed:

This itself is a mental conclusion that you have accepted as true.

Find the I am sensation by feeling for it, not looking for it.

Dwell in that I Am sensation.

Read Apte's Nisargadatta Gita and Nisargadatta's the Ultimate Medicine.

Listen to sacred music, Kirtan and Bhajans.

These instructions are generic and fit all people.  Some advance quickly by staying in the I Am sensation.

Some find help or clarity of purpose by reading the Nisargadatta Gita that focuses on the one self-inquiry method that I have found to be the most effective method out of many.

Some feel the hammer blow of Nisargadatta’s clearest work, and that is enough to unfoled their spiritual destiny.

Lastly, for those with a devotional bent, and who already can observe within, I say change your direction and “feel” within, allowing many to experience the explosion of the life force, Shakti, from within

Dear Edji:

Yesterday after reading some passages from the Ultimate Medicine, I started to ponder how I had mentally come to the conclusion there was no I. As I was thinking I realized that I was trying to out-think my own thinking....by thinking. And that even this was still a thought.  Then the mind just froze...all thinking, beliefs, and concepts stopped. I didn't trust any of my perceptions and it was a bit terrifying for a moment. I immediately closed my eyes and tried to dwell in the I Am and find some stability, but it was gone! It had been there seconds before, but now it wasn't.

It seemed diffused throughout consciousness, and when I focused on it then it seemed to move...like trying to catch a cloud. Sometimes it will condense and I'll briefly have the I Am appear to be in the elbow, or nose, or in front of the body.  I also discovered I don't have a body. It's a bunch of sensations that appear random without the idea "body.” If I close my eyes, the body seems flat, almost 2 dimensional.  Sometimes it feels like my shoulder is above my ear, or that one leg is half a long as the other. It’s a lot of fun actually. I feel totally at peace, not the overwhelming bliss that I have been experiencing.

I know absolutely I'm not this body

I know I can't be consciousness because that comes and goes

I have read that I am something beyond this, 

but that's a thought and not something I am aware of having experienced.

Nothing seems real anymore...objects, people, this body, or consciousness itself. I'm typing this inside a dream. I don't know if there is a real ME beyond consciousness or not. If there is a real ME then how do I experience it not simply think it? 

Thank You,

Rob

Rob Again:

I answered my own question from yesterday.

I realized it last night, Edji. While going between, waking, sleep, dream, back to waking...I clearly noticed that which is always there. It’s very difficult to describe, but that "me" was always there I was just too distracted by the appearances of consciousness I guess. Now while awake it feels like consciousness is being "pulled" into this real me and identification with it is becoming more powerful. It feels peaceful almost like being half awake and half asleep.

Rob

Ed:

This is difficult to hold onto.  Expect it to come and go for a while.  But essentially you have got it.  It has to deepen and stabilize.

Also, you say,  you had been in bliss. Tell me how that happened.  Are you directly aware of the life force within as a separate entity, as Shakti?

Where you are now, I was 20 years ago.  But seven years ago I totally awakened to Shakti, the life force that lives and acts through our bodies and our deeper Subtle Body.  Until you have had that love affair with Shakti, if you have not already experienced it, I don’t know how stable your realization will be.  Your direct and continuous awareness of the life force is a mark of the spiritual depth necessary for full realization.