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.

A Path to Awakening Without the Physical Presence of a Guru

I awakened to who I was in 1995 because I was with Robert.

It was not due to his teachings, which appeared to me as disorganized and filled with Hindu folklore, along with his talk of a pervading consciousness and nothingness that did the trick.

It was due to his presence.

People love to read Robert's teachings or listen to his voice because they find it comforting. His teachings comport with other new age teachings and the Vedas and therefore "resonates" with people who read a lot, and they provide the hope of salavation from suffering and pain.

Personally, I don't like the way Robert taught. Too many people got lost in a depressive preoccupation with emptiness which Robert never clearly distinguished from nothingness. Emptiness--space--itself is an observable, part of the nature of consciousness, as is time, while nothingness lacks even these qualities and is beyond consciousness.

People did not awaken around Robert because of his teachings, but because of his presence, his physical presence. In his presence, you "felt" or intuited his experiental state beyond space and time.  The nothingness of which he spoke had a living presence which you could feel.

HOWEVER, there are actual verbal teachings that can help you awaken, other than the most important advice to focus on your own experience. Why Robert did not teach this way, nor Ramana for that matter, I have no idea.  I think it was because neither had experienced a sadhana, a spiritual path with meditation and spiritual concepts prior to their awakening.

The first step is to realize you are not your body, and the first step here is just to hear that you are not your body. If you are not your body, then what are you?

Take a close look at your life, your experiences, and you will understand that "you," whatever that is, experience and witness "your" body by means of "your"consciousness. Consciousness is your instrument to observe both your body and the world.

If you look and feel closely at your experience of your body and the world, you will find somewhere within that totality a sense, or a truth that you exist, that you are.  Sometimes this appears to be an obvious truth not worth stating, but you would be surprised how few people actually feel a sense of existence and a sense of I or I Am. This I Am sense is what gives you a feeling of individuality and the sense that you are alive.

At some point through the practice of attending to your sense of I Am, and through accepting and loving that I Am, which expands into a sense of presence, at some moment you may explosively experience that I Am as revealing her nature to you in her full glory as the divine Shakti. Shakti arises in you as pure light and spirit, as an explosion of inner energy, bliss, love and a cleansing, purifying grace, and you witness your own essence as Shakti, both divine and human at the same time.

Then for months or years you feel her inside "you" as body, inside "you" as consciousness, as a divine presence, incredibly active and flowing from within and through you into the world. This is realizing yourself as the Manifest Self, as spirit, bliss, consciousness. This was Ramana's awakening and also Robert's.  For some, the experience conveys the truth that there is no me, there is only Shakti.  For others, it is like a partnership between the divine and you as a human, even though those who experience Shakti this way, the partnership is only apparent.  Shakti and you are not two.

This self-realization experience allows you to realize one day that you are not your body, you are consciousness that witnesses your body as one specific and localized "object" within the totality of your awareness, the totality of your manifest consciousness.

You are beginning to enter your freedom from identification with your physical body and move towards identifying with the totality of your consciousness.

But careful observation of that consciousness over the next months or years does something. Evenually even Consciousness no longer appears real. 

Consciousness comes and goes. It alternates between waking, dream, and sleep. Various energies pervade it, alcohol and drugs distort it, and it disappears along with the I Am sensation and your sense of presence in deep sleep.

Consciousness is even less stable and more mortal than your apparent body. It awakens and dies each day at least once. It is fickle, and after a while, even the endless bliss and perceived energies we call Shakti become much like brushing your teeth experiences. Something to be endured even if pleasurable.

And you begin to "see" through consciousness.  It is ever changing, temporal, fickle, and the venue not only for Shakti's play, but also the venue for your experience of discomfort, restlessness, unhappiness, your need to know, and your drive for peace.

All of these things are part of your consciousness, not part of your body, and not part of your mind either, because your mind is experienced and watched in consciousness.  The I Am sensation is in consciousness, mind, suffering, bliss Shakti, your body--all are in and are consciousness, and consciousness is experienced as less and less real.  It begins to appear as a light show, images projected onto a blank space or screen.

But something else is also happening while this is going on.

You have realized you are not your body, and that your body is just experienced in your consciousness, and in all likelihood, consciousness itself has its origin in and through the life of your body. Body creates consciousness, which witnesses and identifies with the body.

You realize that at one time you identified with your body as the entirety of your existence. Then you disidentified with your body, and identified with your consciousness, Shakti, light, energies, bliss and love as your "true" nature. You have had a love affair with the divine, your own consciousness with all of its characteristics and traits.

However, at this time you recognize that you are also the witness of this whole identification/disidentification process. In fact, you are more and more powerfully aware of yourself as the witness standing beyond (or before) both your body and your awareness of self, Shakti, and of the world.

This witness appears to be like a dark void from which the Manifest Consciousness arises each morning. You become aware of yourself as a dark void, a total nothingness that leaps into existence each morning and comes alive. The nothingness which is you comes alive each morning in a new birth when consciousness arises along with the sensation of I Am.

So, you begin to relax into this nothingness, you disappear as body/mind/consciousness into this total nothingness. And, for the first time you recognize that you have come home at last. In this nothingness, no consciousness, no mind, no body, you are in complete peace and happiness being nothing, not thinking, knowing nothing.

At this time you can completely disappear even to yourself in samadhi or into sleep, until once again the world and consciousness emerges from within you as witness for a new birth day. But even when it does emerge, you are aware of the temporality and fickleness of consciousness and realize it is just an appearance, which comes to you who lies entirely and existentially prior to consciousness, untouched by consciousness, and are Unborn.

Body and consciousness--neither are you. You are beyond both. Unborn, not understanding, not knowing, you are entirely beyond existence.

Finally, after long rest in nothingness, you recognize that the reflected consciousness and body are also you, but there is no longer any identification with any of it. Let it do what it wants, what the show wants. While consciousness flickers you still live as a human, nut when it goes, you are untouched.