All the published books of Nisargadatta taken together are probably less than 1,200 pages.  Three of them by Jean Dunn, are less than 500 pages.

If you notice, published talks are always less than 5 pages, often less than 3 pages.

This means his published talks are all heavily edited, and what you are reading is the editor's POV regarding the talks selected, and what portions of those talks the editor chose to make a point.

Robert's talks covered three years from 1990 to mid 1993, three years. He talked twice a week for maybe 30-45 minutes. The book of his entire talks is over 2,100 pages long.

Nisargadatta talked six or seven times as much, everyday, twice a day. Most of the talks published after I Am That occurred between 1979 and 1981.  This would mean a book of all his talks would be over 14,000 pages long excluding the earlier I Am That from his 1974 and 1975 talks.  So we are reading less than 10% of what Maharaj spoke of during those three years.

I had a long talk one time with William Powell who himself wrote three books of Maharaj's talks.  He asked me why the talks published in other's books, like those of Jean Dunn were so short.  Powell said Nisargadatta spoke at great length each day, and authors only captured a small part of what he said.

His two newest books, Beyond Freedom and Nothing is Everything are different.  These were random, previously unpublished talks that had not been cherry-picked by previous editors as among his best talks. They have not been carefully edited to reveal the diamonds mixed in with the dross, and you find a very different Nisargadatta here, one that seems terminologically challenged, inconsistent, and very confusing.

The Nisargadatta in Jean's books is polished, powerful, eloquent, in the last two books, almost like someone with not enough sleep and who was very, very careless with examples, stories going nowhere, and highly inconsistent, and, in fact, not much worth a bother.

Be a lamp onto yourself rather thanthe slave to teachings of a dead guru.

Beyond Freedom, by Nisargadatta, Chapter 6, with commentary

Beyond freedom--Nisargadatta

Chapter 6: identify with the body, suffer with the body.

Maharaj: While the knowledge is getting established, you will be in a sleep-like state—even witnessing will not be there.  You will feel as if you are asleep, but it is not sleep.  It is called Udmani, which means “above the level of mind.”  The yogis and sages are in that state above the mind.  It is a state that transcends the mind.  When I talk, I am talking from the Udmani state—from nothingness.  It is a restful and relaxed state.

(Comment: he is probably talking about what Siddharameshwar called the causal body.  Above, Nisargadatta states that in this sleep-like state, even witnessing is not there.  So where is the Witness?  According to Siddharameshwar, we have to pause through this sleep like causal state before we realized Turiya, a deeper level of self, and in fact the origin of the I-Amness according to Siddharameshwar.)

Visitor: is it a state of deep sleep?

Maharaj: Although it feels similar to sleep, it is not sleep, because there is awareness or consciousness deep inside.  You will not have this experience unless you are stabilized in peace and stillness.

Visitor: when I am reading, sometimes there is an identity, and I see myself reading.  Is that differ from the state you compared it with?

Maharaj: while dreaming, you observe the dream do not you?  At that time, the whole dream world is in front of you.  You simultaneously watch what is happening while also taking part in the dream world as one of the characters, one of the actors.  But here, you are purely a Witness.  You are not acting but are merely a Witness, whereas there you are also a participant in the dream.

(Comment: Very strangely he contradicts above, where he says you are in a sleep-like state were even witnessing is not there.)

Some gurus give disciplines which only engage the mental aspect that activity.  They get their disciples involved in the play of the mind by referring to the concepts that appeal to them.  They concretize their preferred concepts in the form of activities for their disciples.  Leave all of that alone—there is no question of effort and no question of elevating yourself to a higher level.  Where will this spark or flame go?  Where will my vital breath or prana go?  There is no question of it going anywhere.  You only have to be aware as the Witness and you will merge with the five elements. 

(Comment: What does the “you” in the above paragraph refer to?  What does it mean that “you” merge with the five elements?  What I believe he could mean, is that you as witness merge into, or disappear into the external world experience.)

If you identify with the body-mind, you will have to undergo all of it suffering and misery, while facing its effects.  If you identify with the body, you will suffer with the body.  A swimmer, when caught in a whirlpool, has to go down deep beneath the whirlpool, then swim beyond its diameter before coming up to the surface.  If the swimmer struggles, he will become exhausted will be finished.  Similarly, with this whirlpool of the body-mind, before you become panicky dive deep down underneath—do not get entangled with the body mind.  Go deep beyond the thoughts and come into the thoughtless state.  I tell you to ask me questions because I want to find out the depth of your understanding.  The questions are of the mind, but you are not the mind.

First there is the desire to “Be.”  From this “I am,” the air came first and the earth last.  Then from the earth came the vegetation and the many forms of life, each having this “I-Amness.”  Because of the five elements you have the body, and in that body is the “I-Amness.”  What you call death is when the vital breath goes back into the air and the body merges into the five elements.  When the vital breath separates from the body, the “I-Amness disappears.

(Comment: again a bit of confusing discourse.  When the body dies, it merges into the five elements.  Later he states that if you just dwell in the I-Amness, the I am sensation, you will merge into the five elements.  In one case he seems to be talking about the five elements as objects: fire, water, earth, air, sky.  However elsewhere, he appears to be talking about the five elements as what we observe as the entirety of objective world.)

If you come to me as a man you may get something for your livelihood, but that will be your only gift.  However, if you come to me understanding that you are God, that knowledge will manifest.  For example, if there is a vacancy in an office offering a salary of 10,000 Rupees a month, only a suitable man will get the job as an unqualified man would not be able to last.  Similarly, only people who consider themselves as Brahman can get that knowledge.  Other people, who identify with the body-consciousness, are not fit for it.

You must have maturity and you must be worthy of the knowledge that you want to gain.  By chanting “I am Brahman” you become subtle and escape the sense of body-mind.  If you go to others so-called gurus, they will tell you something relating to your body-minD sense, and tell you that if you follow certain disciplines they might grant you   something.  But you will not be able to attain Brahma-hood.  You must first accept that you are without a body-mind and that you are subtle.  That sence must be instilled in you.

I look to this Brahma state, my beingness (I-Amness), and observe my body—like an incense stick with a spark on it.  That chemical, or seer, is here in this instance stick and is being burnt by that spark.  You must become initiated into the understanding of what I am expounding to you.  I am telling you about the seed of Brahman.  You have to understand that I am planting the Brahma seed in you.  That Brahma seed is your beingness (I-Amness), which sprouts into manifestation.  That Brahma state does not require anything to eat.  It has no hunger, because Brahma alone embraces everything it all manifestation is Brahma.  I am trying to raise you to that state.  Do not think you can become a realized-soul only by listening to a few lectures here.  You have to forget everything and merge with Brahman.

(Comment: again the apparent contradiction.  Nisargadatta states he is talking about the seed of Brahman.  He states my beingness, my I-Amness, is your Brahma seed.  He says that Brahma state does not require anything to eat.  It has no hunger, because Brahma alone embraces everything; all manifestation is Brahma.  Yet several places earlier in this book, he states that I-Amness, beingness is dependent upon the body and is a manifestation from the food that the body consumes.  Yet he goes on to state that everything is Brahman, everything is you.)

Visitor: what is the difference between worldly knowledge and knowledge about Brahman?

Maharaj: You will not realize it less the difference within you goes.  If you think you are the body you cannot gain this knowledge.  Who wants to know about Brahman?  Find that out first, then change the identity of that I from the body consciousness to “I am one with Brahman.”  Focus on that Brahman instead of on the body-mind.  You must understand yourself correctly.  You think I am a man, and being a man means being conditioned by body and mind.  How can you understand the Brahma state from this standpoint?

Visitor: does that mean that Brahma knowledge merely comes from the fact that “I am?”

Maharaj: Who is it that needs to understand this the most, the knowledge that “I am?”  If you listen carefully and imbibe the principles, you will get rid of this body-minD sense and dwell only in the “I Amness” (beingness).  I am the love of beingness, and beingness is itself love.

Visitor: the “I-Amness” precludes the aspect of “I am not,” does not it?

Maharaj: you want to know the link, the bridge between “I am” and “I am not,” is that it?  First of all only hold onto the “I-Amness,” without any words and just Be.  When somebody hails you, you respond, but before you do there is somebody within you who becomes aware of the call and will need to answer.  That being is the “I am,” and has been there even before that awareness appeared.

(Comment: here Maharaj appears to be identifying the “I-Amness” with the ultimate witness, does he not?  He states that the “I am” has been there even before awareness appeared.)

Visitor: Does the flash of light come from beingness— “I am?”

Maharaj: the moment the “I-Amness” explodes or appears, all of space is lit up.  The entire sky is the expression of your beingness.  Even though this whole world is an expression of your beingness, you believe that you are only the body.  Your love for the body limit your horizons.  But the moment those walls come down, you are one with Brahman as the whole universe.

(Comment: once again, Nisargadatta appears to be saying that everything is consciousness and you are that.  There is no way here he is talking about anything prior to consciousness.  I-Amness is synonymous with the entire sky, and the whole world is an expression of your beingness, but you identify only with the body.  This love for the body or identification with the body limit your horizons.  In actuality you are Brahman, or the totality of consciousness manifest as the whole universe.  Everything is consciousness.)

Beyond Freedom by Nisargadatta, Chapter 5

Read this carefully.  Most of what he says here seems irrelevant.  Look for the key points and key definitions.  What does he mean  by them?

Beyond Freedom – Nisargadatta Maharaj

Chapter 6--Everything is Conceptual

V: what is the meaning of “I am,” the basic illusion?

M: it means pure, even though you have to provide food for it.  A Yogi had been studying the art of reviving objects after death.  One day he saw a bone in the forest and decided to practice his art to see how effective it was.  He chanted the mantra and suddenly a lion appeared.  He did not, however, create any food for the lion and so when the line was hungry he ate the Yogi.  The moral of the story is that before you create anything, you have to first create food.  The “I am” is sustained by the food body.  That is our body, which is the food for the I am.  Every creature depends upon its food and the “I am” depends on our body.  Will you remember this?

When you recite the mantra relating to a particular God, that particular quality and Consciousness is created within you.  Rama, Krishna, Rama, Shiva are only incarnations of your Consciousness.  The same Consciousness that “you are” is also what these gods, which have been created with various names from your Consciousness, “are.”

V: there is a statue of Nityananda in his ashram.  Muktananda says that it cannot is still alive and that he indicates with him.  What you say about that?

M: I also have many photographs of my guru here.  Because my guru “is” I know “I am.”  You presume that your guru Nityananda is a body-mind and that is a mistake.  I do not look upon my guru like that.  He is merged into Consciousness and I see him as that.  So long as the body is there, Consciousness and memory are there.  Once the body is gone, the Consciousness is unaware of anything.  When the oil is there, the flame keeps burning by using the oil, but no oil is used after the flame is gone.  Whatever is burnt is burnt and whatever remains, remains.  When the child is born, growth takes place.  The “I am is there throughout his or her life even if a person lives for 100 years, but the “I am” disappears when the body is gone.  This is called death.

I would like to know your opinion about what I have told you.  Should I tell you all of this or should I keep quiet?  Somebody came this morning who was always quoting his guru, so I sent him back to his guru.  By listening to me seriously, people could lose all hope and ambition.  Because they want to take action in the world, hope should be there for them.  If they feel that they are not gaining anything here, they should go away.  Why should I talk to these people who want to live and achieve something?  Nityananda hardly ever talkED, but his disciple Muktananda goes on talking and he has created an empire.  Chinmayananda has done the same thing although now he says he wants to stop talking and go away to the Himalayas.  All my expounding will only lead people to a state of inaction, so why should I talk?  Anyway, whatever you have heard here can never be erased and will have its effect.

V: I want to develop my determination to be in the “I am.”

M: did you have any Consciousness when you did not have your body?  You may have as much faith as you want, but even that will be gone when the body is no more, as your Consciousness will not be there.  Where are you without your Consciousness?  There is nothing for you to do.  Everything just comes into being and happens.  Why are you concerned with what to do?  You deal with the world only after having Consciousness, when the “I am” is there.  Once it is gone, everything ends.  It is all spontaneous.

Every nation has had different rulers ruling the country at different times, who are now dead and gone.  Do they come back and ask how the country is being ruled now?  Does Christ come back and ask why would you go to India to listen to all of this trash?  Our Hindu deities are supposed to be very powerful, but did they do anything when Muslim and Christian invaders came to rule over India?  We all had parents.  Where are they once they have died?  You just say they have gone home to God, but are they here now?  Do they common interfere in our daily lives?  We go on looking for a guru to guide us.  What did Ramakrishna say to Viv Yogananda?  He just said, “take the right mango and enjoy it.  Do not keep questioning where the mango is come from, etc.”

The worry about death does not affect me at all.  Why are you worried about reincarnation?  Just experience whatever is happening to you now.  I was asked why I previously told some people that many births are needed before realization can happen.  I have to tell such stories the ignorant people.  When a person describes a memory of his last birth, I asked him whether he remembers who his parents were, animals are human beings?  You are only talking about your dream.  At present you can say who your parents are, but do you know who they were during your last birth?  If you cannot remember anything, just say it is all over and finished.  It is just a dream; forget about it.

What others say about how rebirth is determined by the thoughts you have when you are dying is mere hearsay.  What I am telling you about the merging of the “I am” with the source is the real thing.  This world has existed for millions of years.  Male and female, Purusha and Prakriti, have created so many dynasties.  For which background have you come to this present form?  Did you come from your father’s father or your mother’s father?  From the time of the first couple ever created, which birth is this?  Can you go back and find out?  Why carry that tension around with you when you cannot know or remember any of it?  Do not bother about it.

As you progress and get established in beingness, you will understand that you are above the dreaming and waking states, as those only pertain to your “I-Amness.”  We are only able to observe because of this “I-Amness.”  When the “I-Amness” is not there, the tool required to observe is also not there.  

Once there is self-realization, the whole riddle is solved.  What Krishna preaches in the Gita is correct.  What I am saying is of no profit or loss.  Even a blind person to describe a huge well?  How does he know?  It is just a way of expressing his thoughts.

As life flows, go on doing what has to be done.  However much you run around, without God’s will there is nothing.  Whether it is your dreams or your visions, whatever you see is nothing but God’s appearance.  It is the source, or Consciousness, which is appearing in so many forms.  Everything is conceptual.

beyond freedom, Nisargadatta Chapter 1

The following is the first chapter of Nisargadatta’s latest published book Beyond Freedom which are previously unpublished transcripts from 1979 to 1981.

Read this several times.

What is he talking about?  Think carefully before you answer.  Then read it again.

There is nothing here that speaks to Prior to Consciousness.  What he speaks of is that Consciousness is everything, even the I Am, your body, all others, houses, objects, all disappear into Universal Consciousness, the totality of Consciousness without any identification or I, me, the personal, male or female.  All become submerged in the experience of the simultaneous totality of experience without a witness, because a witness requires a witnessed, and that is separation.

Only things, objects, within Consciousness, separated out by concepts and identification, have an “apparent” separate existence. Without thinking and without identification, the is just one, unmoving, unaging, not me, or not, not me, experience.

Beyond Freedom -- Nisargadatta

Chapter 1: What is that which you are searching for? 

Nisargadatta: there is no sense of personality at all when you become the Ishwara principal.  Have no concern about losing your personality by listening to this knowledge, as personality has always been illusory.  In order to even understand me the sense of personality must be absent.  You are the knowledge and you do not have any shape or form whatsoever.  You are impersonal.  You are comprehensive.  You are the Unmanifest, the universal Consciousness.  What would happen if you went in search of that Consciousness?  The seeker would disappear in the search, because the “I Amness” is all there is.

Visitor question: I have a question here.

Nisargadatta: Do not focus on your question.  Focus on what I am saying.  Do not say anything, just listen.

Visitor: You speak very harshly…  It hurts me.

N: Just leave that.  Do not even look in that direction, just focus on what I am telling you.

V: I do not know who I am, that is my reality.

M: As long as you are coming here, your search is not over.  You are here because your search has not ended.  Try to find out why.  What is it that you are searching for?  There is nothing there, only the process of seeking.

You might be anybody in this world, even Brahma or Vishnu, but you do not have the power to do anything.  Your life is your existence.  It is made up of the five elements and it is dependent only on these five elements.

Consciousness is an orphan without parents or source.  It has no need of anyone.  What you understand of the objective world is all duality.  Your objective world is composed of relationships.  You have to depend all the time of someone else, friend, husband, wife, etc.  In the objective world there is only dependence, where is in your true state there is always independence.  Existence without identity, which is your true nature, is independent.

The time is 11:30 at present, it cannot be 12 now.  It will be 12 half an hour later.  We do not have any control over it; the time has to pass.  That means you are always dependent on something.  You cannot live independently of time, space, or the elements.  Everyone is helpless.  Only Consciousness is independent.

The state of bliss or joy is Poornabrahman or Nirvana.  One who does not need anybody for entertainment is niranjan.  The ever-present is nitya.  That state never changes at all.  As long as you are conscious of your body and its needs, you cannot be totally independent.  Consciousness does not need light and it does not need darkness.  It does not need rest.  It is the Truth and there is no change in it.

When I was young, I had the power to squeeze a piece of metal and pull it back into shape.  Now I am old require help from somebody move around.  Where has the power gone?  It is not remain with me at all.

All of these things in the objective world are inseparable from their attributes.  An attribute by its very nature depends upon something.  That knowledge, “I am,” is also an attribute.  Therefore the “I-Amness,” one way or another, also has depend on something.

V: What is the concept of Maya (illusion)?

N: The concept of Maya comes from the “I-Amness.”  The existence of my and the world around you only arises when you are conscious of yourself.  This is a state of darkness and ignorance, which is far from that of knowledge.  Maya does not exist within the state of knowledge.

V: What is Atma?

M: Atma Prem is also due to the “I Amness.”  If you start with Atma Prem, it can distract you and all you will see is Maya, which is a state of ignorance.  If you reach a state of knowledge, then even this Atma Prem will be nonexistent.  The word my I has a different meaning here.  What you are calling love is itself Maya.  Love is playing many roles.  All these houses, etc. have been created out of Maya.  Love or Maya has set up the whole of Bombay.  Love is taking many shapes: mula-maya has created Vishnu and Shankara, but what was there before that?  My is the culprit.  Man has entangled himself in this concept and illusion of love, and because of it, gets trapped in the cycle of life and death.  The feeling of love is a great mistake if one gets entangled in it.  There is love for so many things.  The minute the illusion is created, the entanglement begins.  By imagining male and female, you get entangled in that illusion.

“You are Paramatman.”  This is what my guru told me he was going into Mahasamadhi.  His words had so much force that they were implanted and embedded in me, and I became that.  There was so much power and force behind his utterances that whatever he said came true.

V: Were you constantly doing the sacred mantra, which are guru had given you?

M: I was not doing it.  I was constantly listening to it.  The power of the mantra depends upon the intensity of the faith you have.

V: Is there any cause for this faith?

M: Yes, there is a primary cause, the big cause, which is the knowledge “I am.”  This is the cause behind the faith.  The “awareness of my being” happen automatically.  It just happens.  The sprouting of this knowledge “I am” is prior to the formation of the five elements.  The ultimate Consciousness, the Absolute, is not even aware of itself or of any happening.  Consciousness was one, but two people of different sexes were created in the love between them created this world.  This sound in this awareness are not one, but two.  Consciousness is just a speck, and dissolution has come out of it.

Love is divided into two sexes and the world has grown out of this, but as soon as realization happens the separation disappears.  When you have the realization that “you are, that all is the play of Shiva Shakti, then he will know that this is all an illusion, and you will be free of grief as well as joy.  Self-realization is Shivadatta.  The moment you reach that stage you will not have these feelings of happiness, sorrow and suffering.  When you reach the state of self-knowledge, there will be peace and quiet.  Such knowledge of the self is known as Shivadatta.  If you realize that this is all an illusion, then there is no need for self-realization.

V: Is there no love with self-realization?

M: It is beyond that.  Love is a worldly state.  The very feeling of self-realization will not arrive until you understand what you are.  If you understand the answer then this question about self-realization will not arise.  Ananda, the pleasure of bliss of Consciousness, will arise in you like an atomic explosion, and he will will see how the whole wide world is a manifestation of that.  Chinmayananda means “speck of bliss.”  Swami means the spontaneous awareness of my being.  Through the “I-Amness,” swami Chinmayananda has created a big ashram in as many people visit.  All the gods are coming and going in this Consciousness.  Merely the fact that “you are” is swami, which is pure honey, the proof of the Absolute.  It is always with you and is calm all by itself spontaneously, without asking.  That is swami.

V: And all the other things, what is that all about?

M: Why worry about that?  Let it be there.  Read about the “I-Amness” and forget about the rest.  What the swami’s are doing or what they say is immaterial.  If you have come to the source, why do you want to go back again to the banks of the river?

The Endless Path

One commentor left a snide remark on one of my posts saying Nisargadatta was easy to understand as he taught on the same subject for decades.

WRONG!

Nisargadatta’s teachings changed dramatically over the years and in the last two years of his life, suggested people not read ‘I Am That’ because those were Kindergarten level teachings compared to how he was teaching in 1980.

His first book that I know of, ‘Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization’ speaks of internal energies, surrender, Krishna Consciousness, chanting, and realization of what I call the Manifest Self.

‘I Am That’ of course, is very different, and his last three years of talks were even more different with his de-emphasis on Consciousness, the I Am sensation, to the exclusive emphasis on the Absolute.

His teachings changed throughout his life, from his initial awakening in 1936 to near his death in 1982, just as my teachings have changed over the past 20 years.

The problem with Maharaj’s teachings is context. When is he teaching Advaita Vedanta, when is he using terms and concepts from other schools as his experience reveals new aspects of the Consciousness/Witness transition.

His teacher, Siddharameshwar wrote a very clear 81 page exposition of his Nath school teachings which led to Maharaj’s awakening.  In 1961 Nisargadatta published that exposition along with his notes from 131 of his teacher’s talks, along with his introduction on how it is necessary to trust his guru’s teachings.

Many, many people have told me that Nisargadatta is easy to understand, but that just tells me they have not understood his teachings from their gut, but rather as a mental construct, a philosophy.  If they had understood him from their gut, they already would have been great jnani’s with their own students.

If a teaching comes too easily to you, you probably have not earned it.  You have not experienced their truth from the inside, as experience, whether of the Subtle Body, Causal Body, Turiya, or the Witness state.

Seung Sahn Soen Sah and Papaji all had many, many students that claimed to be “awakened,” or enlightened, but in my witnessing of their talks and behaviors, I did not feel that to be the case.

My own experience is that the number of new spiritual experiences I have had seem to be increasing in number and depth the older I get.

As I have slowed down externally, I have spent more and more time inside my Self, experiencing circulating energies, the Subtle Body, my sense of presence, the I Am sensation which seems to have a life of its own, the disappearance of the identification principle, leading to the discovery of the truth that consciousness is everything, and being the witness and feeling untouched by consciousnness itself at all.

Thus I have experienced that the important thing is persistent inversion of awareness exploring my inner world.

What then helps is reading works by spiritual giants such as Muktananda, Nisargadatta, Ramana, Robert, etc., to see if there is something I have missed.

This is why I found Shankarananda’s book so helpful as it placed the teachings of many ancient Hindu schools together in a way to provide a context for understanding the experiences of spiritual giants over the breadth of history.

Ramana and Nisargadatta constantly throw out Sanskrit terms which have no easy translation into English, and Nisargadatta does so in a very spontaneous and “sloppy” way without providing a context.

Very strangely, the part he is most elusive about is the Witness, the Knower, versus the I Am.  For him there is a duality here between the Knower, the Witness, and the witnessed I Am, which itself, for him, is a secondary witness.

Almost all the time he claims that the Witness is unknowable, and unknowable because it is the knower, the subject, not an object, which, of course, introduces another duality.  When you subjectively “fall backwards” into the witness, you falland fall, until suddenly you “turn around” and are experiencing the world from a position of nothingness, having no head, no body, no I.  You have come to the position of the witness.

Yet Maharaj also speaks of the fundamental ignorance state which Robert calls “the gap,” (of no I-awareness) occurring after awakening and before we become self-aware.  The awareness state without being self-aware, or aware that what is being experienced is later seen to be external to you after the I-sensation is experienced, and another duality created.

Then he also says while speaking to students that he is established in the witness state even while speaking, denying he has anything to do with Consciousness.  To me, this is another duality, denying his own human experience, the I Am sensation, as well as the gap state.

At other times, when asked, he describes the experience of living from the Absolute state as resting underneath the shade of a great tree, where the shade has a bluish color.

So for him, the Absolute is both experiential and non-experiential, and his relationship between the “gap” of fundamental ignorance, the I Am, or Manifest Self, the Witness as knower, and the experience of being totally beyond and separate from consciousness is never made clear.

What is clear though, and the reason Robert Adams and others kept reading spiritual books their entire life, is the need to have the feelowship, the companionship of great beings who constantly talk about their self-experiences of God, Self, and the world both as confirmation of one’s own experience, but also as pointers to experiences and understanding not yet held.

When we read the Avadhut Gita, the Nisargadatta Gita, the Ribhu Gita, Robert’s talks, the New Testament Bible, we are receiving the Darshan of great spiritual companions that confirm our divine nature as well as our human roots.

I sit writing this testimony in utter bliss and joy. From head to toe I am washed by bliss with the light of Consciousness burning brightly. I have just finished Swami Shakarananda’s book Consciousness is Everything available at Amazon.

I have always hated eastern philosophy even from my early, pre-Zen days exploring Buddhist Sutras and major schools and how they critiqued each other. Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita Vedanta were just too complex and boring to me in comparison to finding all that I wanted to read in reading me, my Self, the I Am, the Void, the presence, the light of Consciousness. When I read philosophical texts my mind began to pop up and try to hold together the myriad of concepts and states found within those books, including especially, Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Maharaj’s books are filled with what Shankarananda calls G or Guru statements that shock you, but Nisargadatta’s talks are so chaotic, unstructured, and immediate, it is very difficult to find the underlying structure of his teachings. I persisted because I was watching a brilliant lightning storm of wisdom from this character, but never was able to catch him. Until now.

Swamiji’s book provides the overall structure that includes explaining all the concepts found in Nisargadatta, Ramana, and Robert Adams within a comprehensive overview, that in the largest sense explains all Hindu and Buddhist views within a living expression of otherwise lifeless scholastic philosophy.

There is so much light and love in this book; it is an expression of sheer joy in the exposition of our manifest and transcendent nature.

I would never have suspected such a book coming out of Swamiji. When I knew him from 1979 to whenever he left for Australia, when it came to teachings he was utterly silent. When it came to a description of his own attainment and states, e was utterly silent. Yet I felt the Shakti radiating from him, and in this book see a fruition of a level of alive teaching that is quite extraordinary.

This book may have the ostensible subject matter of Kashmir Shaivism, but it is really about Shankarananda, who really knows who he is. He has lived these teachings and evolved in them. Such a teacher is rare, as rare as this book, one I could never wrote because I hate scholastic detail and myriads of concepts and methods.

I wish to thank my spiritual brother Swami Shankarananda for his presence in this world and his manifestation through this book.

ONCE AGAIN I AM EXPLODING IN BLISS. A CONSTANT STREAM OF ENERGY AND LIGHT FLOWS FROM MY GUT THROUGH MY HEART AND UPWARD AND OUTWARD INTO THE WORLD. IT MOVES AS A SLOW BUT VERY BROAD RIVER OF PURE CONSCIOUSNESS, LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT!

The finding of Kashmir Shaivism opened me to a richer understanding of Nisargadatta, Robert, and Ramana. In KS, the Witness is Shiva, unmoving, still, observing, surrounded by the Manifest, the entirety of the Manifest Self and world, and is called Shakti. They are One, not two, just as I used to say that the Unmanifest and Manifest Selves were one.

After living in Shakti for many years, Nisargadatta decided to just live in Shiva and rejected the rest of Consciousness. Shiva is prior to Consciounsess only in the sense of being the ultimate witness aspect of Consciousness.

Shakti is exploding in me now, flowing, moving, enlivening, filling me with bliss and I am bliss itself.

Kashmir Shaivism puts Nisargadatta's disjointed aphorisms into a complete context that opened something up in me. A month ago I was in complete stillness as the totality of Consciousness, still, complete, self-sufficient, and incredibly peaceful.

Today I am exploding in bliss-energy, shouting in great joy my existence,

As an undergraduate, I majored in western philosophy, and was most interested in ontology (the structures of the existing), and epistemology (How do we know about those structures).  My favorite philosophers were Kant and Hume on the ontological end and Carnap, Quine, and Wittgenstein as to the nature of language, logic, and the mind.

However, sometime during my sophomore or junior year I knew without a shadow of doubt that there was no ultimate truth to be found there and left philosophy to study subjects closer to everyday life—economics.  But after three years of advanced study of macro economics, market theory, and money and banking, I saw again that theory was just a map, not the terrain itself, and most all the maps did more to confuse than make clear.

I found Eastern philosophy just as boring and off the point as Western philosophy, lost in concepts about the nature of reality and God.  Boring, boring, and so far from my direct experience such that I got into Zen, a transmission of Buddha’s enlightenment outside of the scriptures, except maybe for the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, and the Lankanavatara Sutra, none of which meant anything to me then.

Unfortunately, not only did Zen toss out verbal and written teachings, it also got rid of Subtle Body energies, emotions, and the personal.  It is very one-sided and impersonal, even though quite brilliant and clear.

I remember taking Swami Shankarananda to see Seung Sahn Soen Sa some time after 1980, and noting how put off he was by Zen’s formality and lack of warmth.

Later I encountered Nisargadatta through Ramesh Balsekar, and then spent some weeks with Balsekar himself and found Nisargadatta’s Advaita as expounded by Ramesh extremely fascinating.  Indeed, one of my Zen Master’s, Song Ryong Hearn, also attended a few of Ramesh’s talks, turned to me during a break, and said that Ramesh’s exposition was as close as one can come to Zen’s truth in words.

Then I found Robert Adams, the history of which I have written about many, many times over the last 15 years.

Robert’s single teaching was that all that there is, is Consciousness, although at times, saying Consciousness itself was illusory.  You, as a human, do not exist.  The world is illusion, ignore it.  Follow the I-thought to its root, and through these teachings, had basic awakening to unbounded consciousness, the disappearance of all divisions within awareness and rest in the totality of Consciousness.

Since then I have had a very hard time reading, as I always had my own awareness to read by going within, observing my own awareness and the objects within Consciousness, such as my body experienced from inside, my emotions, my desires, thoughts, and imagination.

Nisargadatta’s world view is basically yogic, speaking of the four bodies, and beyond that, the Absolute, which he called Parabrahman.  He is terrible as a teacher of the fundamental Advaita he teaches because he speaks in aphorisms as opposed toa linear description. His expositions always lead to shutting down of the mind in stunned silence creating mindless states in his listeners, much like a Zen master with Koans or direct, physical blows.

Now, Rinzai Zen too has this brazen and somewhat violent approach to teaching, silencing the mind through physical blows or conundrums, but is heavily criticized by the Soto school of Zen, that does accept scripture study and sitting in silence, or just sitting, as proper meditation.  They regard Rinzai teachers and students almost as common thugs or retards, without subtlety or sophistication.  Rinzai masters on the other hand, regard Soto teachers as effete academics entirely lost in their minds or in quietism.

I guess my attitude towards scriptures has long had a Rinzai flavoring, and scriptural study was to be avoided at all costs for fear of getting stuck in words and concepts, drying out and becoming an old fart without juice.

However, to my great joy, now reading Shankarananda’s book, ‘Consciousness is Everything’ gives me a new appreciation for the scriptural approach.

I know that with Swami Chetanananda, I made myself a pest by criticizing his constant consort with academics to build a base or foundation for the future of Kashmir Shaivism in America.

But Shankarananda’s book is different.  It is not written in a boring, academic style, but from a personal point of view, filled with the delight and joy he experiences in the teachings and his own life.

The Kashmir Shaivism presented by Swamiji is very broad and rich, as well as deep, compared to the very linear verticality of Zen and Robert’s and Nisargadatta’s Advaita.

Shnakarananda’s Kashmir Shaivism is broad, rich, and great fun.  I feel a great happiness to experience all that I have experienced in terms of yogic bodies, altered states, unity consciousness within a broad context of teachings that is very rich, very personal, very much alive, and expressed with great joy.

I think Advaita and Kashmir Shavism are experiential antidotes to each other; one provides context, the other focuses entirely on the end state, the final goal.  I guess I will have to read one or two of Chetanananda’s books now to better “feel” the Shaivite approach.

Think on This

If you agree with modern science and medicine, we do not directly know either our bodies or our world. The world of objects is external to our bodies, and we only know of it through our senses.

Hearing, taste, touch, sound, smell, and sight are received data through the sensors of tongue, skin, ears, nose, and eyes, which fire neurons which the brain then turns into recognized patterns, objects, people, music, etc., which we call experience.

In this way, we do not know the world, we know of the world, through our senses and how our brains interpret it. The sense world is not the world.

In this way we can say our world is illusory, but convenient for functioning, and also, all that there is is Consciousness, or experience, because we cannot directly know those things outside of us as they are in themselves. It does not even make much sense to say how the world is in itself, as it can only be known through our Consciousness.

Even our bodies are such, the inner senses too are but representations by way of electrical neural patterns interpreted, of what are bodies are from the inside. We only know of it through our Consciousness.

Thus all that we know, from inside to outside directly, is experience, or Consciousness. The universe we inhabit, and even our bodies, are created by it.

All else depends on our prior existence, for its existence IN OUR WORLD.

At this point we have to make an assumption that the other people we experience in our world, are they "real" and separate, or do they just exist as our creation? In either case, we are speculating.

Even the scientific notion that there is a world external to our bodies is a speculation. It is also an assumption to say, Everything is Consciousness.

On the other hand, I cannot say, "I created the world," for I, Ed Muzika, had nothing to do with its creation. Impersonal processes, chemical and neurological, created Consciousness, and in it our representations of the world and our bodies are created (or found) through a further developmental process. It is those same developmental processes within Consciousness that results in the creation of the I sensation and later, the I-thought. Up until then, everything is just impersonal processing, and out of it finally comes the person, the I Am as a feeling localized in Consciousness, when if followed, accepted, and loved, merges back into Consciousness, until we realize, consciously, that Everything is Consciousness, as a spiritual revelation.

All is philosophy, and philosophies are theoretic knowledge that have emotional consequences: they make us feel one way or another, give us peace or give us doubts. Kashmir Shaivism has one philosophy about all this, Advaita Vedanta entirely different, Christianity and Sufism entirely different. They have entirely different "feels," and far different emphases, amd much has do do with their philosophical underpinnings.

A Zen master would ask you a question, such as, "Is the cup real?," and whatever answer you give, he'd cuff you in the head for thinking, fill the cup with tea, and hand it to you, as he has no time for confusion or useless speculation.

What appears as plain as the nose on my face appears to be as clear as a deeply buried vein of lead to others.

In order to understand what I say, you need to have so deeply experienced the emptiness of the body and world so that the Void is part of your constant experience.

In addition, the Void itself is self-illumined.  It is permeated by Consciousness, beingness, which has its own inner light.

The body is permeated by this lighted consciousness/emptiness, making it like a hologram, like an entity within the starship Enterprises Hollowdeck.

In addition, if instead of just “observing” you mind, body, and emotions, you also FEEL them deeply, you become aware of complex energy streams inside your body, including Kundalini movements, healing energies, muscle tension and vibrations, inner quivering bliss states, and internal organ movements and states.

Next you become aware of your energy body, your sense of presence which extends outwards as a seeming electrical body permeating and extending beyond the body.

Lastly, after a lot of time exploring one’s sense of I, the I Am sensation, as well as all the emotions, images, ideas, and energies that arise from being embedded in this phenomenal soup, the Self arises in you as the “other,” the divine entity within, whether called God, Christ, or Krishna Consciousness, which becomes the center from which you live, living from the heart.

By now your mind is long dead.  It exists, but you pay it no mind. From here on, it is not the mind that speaks, but Consciousness through you. You hate reading spiritual stuff because you know the Self, at least the Manifest Self of the union of you, as human, with God, the divine within, called Atman by the Hindus.

Lastly, dwelling for a long time within and knowing/exploring this total soup, the boundaries disappear, you disappear.  You become nothing.  You no longer exist as a separate entity within this soup, nor do you become one with the soup itself because you no longer identify with any phenomena.

That is, all that exists is Consciousness, and you don’t identify with it. Identification disappears revealing the final truth that you are beyond Consciousness, Turiyatita, which can never be known.  It is the knower so to speak, except that is a simplistic explanation.  Actually, you are beyond all knowing, all phenomena, even the totality of Consciousness.

How many can understand all this? Only someone who has spent a lifetime of looking and feeling within. Nisargadatta clearly states in this last talks that he no longer has anything to do with his body or even Consciousness itself.  It took him 40 years from the time he realized his Manifest Self, Krishna Consciousness, which he talks about extensively in his first book, “Self Knowledge and Self Realization,” to his final books, the Jean Dunn trilogy, where he only teaches about the Absolute, going beyond Consciousness and the human condition.

He only speaks from this viewpoint and readers think they can go from where they are, totally clueless, to his absolute state without realizing Krishna Consciousness, the energy body, the sense of presence, the I Am, emotions, etc., before realizing that only Consciousness exists, and finally, you do not exist, you are entirely beyond existence, even as your human life and its problems continue.

Not one in a 100,000 can realize all this. Maybe not one in a million or even ten million because so few spend their entire lives in self-inquiry, going ever deeper into the soup of one’s phenomenal life.  This is why Robert said you can count the number of enlightened beings on the fingers of two hands.

The rareness of true enlightenment has been entirely destroyed by the neo-Advaitin phenomenon that equates enlightenment with believing you are already an enlightened and divine being.  For them, the message of spiritual practice, going deeper within, attaining awakening after awakening until arriving in the absolute, is destroyed.  

Going deeper into one's inner self, one's subjectivity, the inner light and emptiness, is not personal in any way. But stating the Nisargadatta and Ramana, and all sages, rejected personal wisdom, is just an understanding you have taken from others.

You need to escape verbal truth, words, concepts altogether and find out who you are. Such is not an understanding but a being from a not-understanding place.

Going deeper into one's inner self, one's subjectivity, the inner light and emptiness, is not personal in any way. But stating the Nisargadatta and Ramana, and all sages, rejected personal wisdom, is just an understanding you have taken from others.

You need to escape verbal truth, words, concepts altogether and find out who you are. Such is not an understanding but a being from a not-understanding place.

The real teacher is free of mind. It is there, but holds no sway. he or she acts spontaneously from within and from the core of his Self as a manifestation of God, the life force, Shakti, whatever you want to call it, not from mind.

No mind, no words. no mentation, no beliefs. he acts spontaneously and hates all teachings because he knows how they trap you into a viewpoint, convention, the false, the past, group speak, political correctness, and not directly from a silent heart.

Escape from the mind. Live from your Self.

The real teacher is free of mind. It is there, but holds no sway. he or she acts spontaneously from within and from the core of his Self as a manifestation of God, the life force, Shakti, whatever you want to call it, not from mind.

No mind, no words. no mentation, no beliefs. he acts spontaneously and hates all teachings because he knows how they trap you into a viewpoint, convention, the false, the past, group speak, political correctness, and not directly from a silent heart.

Escape from the mind. Live from your Self.

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON’T GET WHAT I AM TRYING TO TEACH.

Some say what I teach is “All over the place,” and not some simple and progressive method or teaching.

But if you want simplicity and unchanging teachings, you will create and be trapped in a box.

Five years ago I mostly taught from a viewpoint similar to Nisargadatta’s, juxtaposing finding the I Am or manifest Self, and the absolute witness.

Then I began reading from a Zen book called the Tiger’s Cave.  At this time Jo Anne felt upset and anxious, and eventually quit, because Nisargadatta was slowly become clear to her, and the new ground I was covering made absolutely no sense.

The same with Lila.  As long as I just taught opening and realizing the Manifest Self, she was good with it, and even the Zen teachings.  But once I began talking about the Subtle Body, energies, Chi, healing energies, she said she was unwilling to follow, and abandoned this path for a straight Kundalini teacher.

They didn’t want to abandon the spiritual box of secure and safe teachers of a Nisargadatta way, a Zen way, or a Tantric Kundalini way.  They clung to one model that gave the comfort of apparent understanding as opposed to letting go of the all matrices.

Advaita Vedanta is a matrix—a way of understanding yourself and the world, Consciousness.

This matrix is different from a Tantric Kundalini matix where the body and world are real, the Self is real, God is real, and the internal energies arenot only real, but vital for Self-Realization.

Zen too is a way of understanding, basically the impersonal interplay of all forms and the Void, from which they come and to which they return.  The emphasis is entirely away from intellectual knowledge of any philosophy of existence or the Self,to getting rid of thinking altogether, and learning how to respond spontaneously without the intervention of mind.

You see, I shift from world of discourse, to another world very easily because I hold onto none.  All worlds are just rooms in the mansion of the entirety of my inner and outer experience.

This is why I criticize other teachers when students start quoting them, or say, “So and so says X, Y, Z.”  Those students are trapped in that model, those teachings and have not even begun to lose all their concepts and directly intuit life from their core, non-mental experience, versus from their spiritual ideas.

I try to shift around fast enough so that no one gets too involved in one way or gets too comfortable. In a sense this is a very Zen-like way to leave the brain and operate from your heart, by not thinking too much, interpreting, or judging.  All this keeps you imprisoned in alternative sets of ideas, or matrices, a matrix, and you need the Red Pill of unknowing to escape, not just the first matrix, but each as they arise to take the escaped matrix’s place.

You always need to keep moving, keep exploring, go deeper and deeper into your inner Self until inner and outer distinctions disappear, the Manifest Self is experienced, as you yourself having Christ or God living in you, and going even beyond that to Cosmic Consciousness, where everything is Consciousness or Shakti, or God, and you no longer exist.

I weave and destroy worlds, how few want to or can follow.  Osho taught in a similar way; he spoke of many traditions from Zen, to Advaita, to Lao Tzu, to Christ, to Sufi teachings.

THE MYSTERY OF ROBERT ADAMS, NICOLE ADAMS, AND THE INFINITY INSTITUTE.

Robert rarely ever talked about his recent past in the United States. he talked about his travels in India, his time with Ramana, with Yogananda, Muktananda, and his childhood events, and sometimes even mentioned distributing pirated audiotapes in Hawaii, or mentioned abandoning a sangha in Santa Fe years ago when he called himself Empty Mind.

But he rarely talked about meeting Nicole or their life together, the foster children they raised, or where he lived prior to coming to L.A., except that he came to L.A. to be with Nicole and daughters from a remote cabin he had in Oregon.

Nicole wrote a book supposedly about her life with Robert, but there are no dates or places named, and no photos of her or Robert in it.

She, and Infinity threatened to sue anyone who posted Robert’s photos on the Internet, and somehow a mysterious figure named Blake Warner appeared and came to head the Robert Adams Infinity Institute and began copyrighting all of Robert’s works and kept threatening to sue me for anything that I  posted about Robert.

If you see the early editions of Follow Your Heart and other books by Robert, there is an acknowledgement section as well as a list of regular attendees to Satsang.  Neither Nicole or Blake Warner are ever mention.  I posted these books on my earlier website, and was threatened with lawsuits many time by either Nicole or lawyers hired by Infinity.

Nicole even publically denied I ever existed even though I posted an audio tape where she congratulated me for my very accurate portrayal of who and what Robert was at the time (1994).

Our Sangha urged Robert to get on Social Security, but he said he wanted nothing to do with the government and had never registered with the Social Security Administration, yet three years later when we went to a dentist to get dental work done, the application required a SS#, and Robert rattled it off.

Mary Skene and I thought this all added up to Robert and Nicole not wanting to be found due to something that happened in the past involving credit, money, or a lawsuit.

Recently it has come to my attention that Robert Adams and Nicole Adams may have been pseudonyms, and this is being looked into.  Someone has surmised that Blake Warner too is a pseudonym as no address or phone number is ever given for the Infinity Institute, or Blake or Melanie Warner, or for Nicole Adams.

People buy items from the Infinity website and send checks to various P.O. boxes, and the location of Infinity, Blake, Melanie, and Nicole remain hidden. 

According to Nicole, Robert never left her side for their entire marriage, yet Robert said he traveled in India for 17 years, some of those years during the time they supposedly were married.  Also, he said he was living alone in a cabin in Oregon when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and then moved to L.A. to be with family.

None of this touches the legitimacy or power of Robert’s teachings, but it does point to the actions of someone who was very much involved in the world, a wheeler-dealer in a way, that was hiding from his past, and even though he constantly preached that the world was not real, that no one existed, and all that there was, was Consciousness, he very effectively acted and taught in that same world that he said was illusory.

Every effort to get Blake and Nicole to supply and address or phone number has failed.  Their lawyers have not revealed it in their many threatening letters.

SOMETIMES ALL THAT IT TAKES IS A SMALL SHIFT IN UNDERSTANDING WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE OR WHAT THE WORLD IS, THAT LEADS TO A THUNDEROUS EXPLOSION INSIDE, AND INCREDIBLE INTERNAL REORIENTATIONS TOWARDS SELF AND WORLD.

After many years of seeking self one day while taking a shower I saw there was no self-entity inside, and with that I saw there was no outside either. There was only emptiness and form interpenetrating.

15 years later, I fell in love, and the love grew so strong that I became Love itself. Quickly thereafter, God showed Himself to me as the divine within, which also was I, and I identified with this Christ Consciousness.

Five years later the Christ Consciousness became transparent, and reabsorbed into the totality of Consciousness, and I recognized that Consciousness was all that there was, and did not exist as an entity. If anything, I was everything, along with profound peace.

With each realization I became ever more aware that the world you live in is entirely your creation; it depends on your understanding of who and what you are vis-a-vis the world: are you the same or different?

Just the phrase "Everything is Consciousness" when fully realized, can bring the experience of that totality, that self-containment to you along with profound peace and rest. On the other hand, just pondering phrases like "You are love itself," or "God lives within you," can lead you to experience those states which profoundly change your reality.

Just small shifts in your understanding can completely change who and what you feel/see/understand who you are, or small shifts in experience can also change your understanding about you, God, and the world.