What lies within

I came across a couple of Youtube video’s of Mooji whose Guru is Papaji and I felt really inspired by him. 

In May of this year with my inner voice going on its usual rant when I find myself going to see people like this I queued up with hundreds of others to do Satsang which is a spiritual enquiry with Mooji.  I had a question I wanted to ask him about whether a woman would ever be accepted as a spiritual master.  It took me a few hours to get to ask the question, but I did and to my amazement, the video of my question to him was posted on his website.  My good friend Lotus has posted it here for me and for those of you who are still returning to this blog, thanks very much.

What is it that is let go when on a spiritual path?   What is let go is attachment.   To let go of what is, for what is possible but without any expectation which sounds paradoxical.   There is always a letting go before the consciousness shifts and expands to another level.

I have now reached my point of letting go and I am letting go of writing this blog for about one month.   My thoughts and experiences are profound and need time to be processed and the truth of it all is that I am   exhausted.

So to my   loyal readers, I will be back and when I come back my writing will be of greater service and contribution.

While I was meditating this morning I had a realization (comes through as a crystal clear insight)   that it is the dual mind with its characteristics of thoughts that return back to the non-dual to become ONE with everything when we meditate.   It is the mind gently and easily returning to its source which dissolves the boundaries and allows for the huge expansion of consciousness which so many mystics and sages have reported about.

Such people   say that somehow ‘they’ disappear and   become   ONE with everything.   There is no longer any separation betweeen the seer, what is seen and the process of seeing.   The experience is one of intense love,   joy, bliss and peace.   Some mystics and sages have written more extensively and in more detail and depth about this state than others but all contain similar elements.

These reports have held an endless fascination for me since I first began reading about them and I have never doubted their authenticity just wondered   what they are and how   they can be experienced.   During my meditation this morning it came through to me so clearly that it is the dual mind that returns to its source during meditation.   The deeper the meditation the further back into Source the mind has gone.

I come back again to the wave and the ocean.   The wave can be seen as mind and the ocean as Source.   On its way back to the ocean the wave becomes smaller and smaller until it merges with the ocean.   In the same way the mind loses its components which in this case are thoughts on its way back to Source.

When thoughts disappear then   the notion of separation and difference also disappears   and   the experience is   one of total ONE-NESS.     After meditation the mind re-emerges as does the wave from the ocean and with the emerging mind comes the world of duality and opposites and the return of ordinary consciousness into what the Buddhists call the illusory world of Maya.

From my experience and listening to others speaking,   the quality of the experience of meditation is largely determined by how active the mind is in waking consciousness.   Where a mind is largely contemplative in normal everyday life, the contrast and experience will not be as great or intense as a mind which is very busy and active sitting down to meditate.

Calming down a very active mind and allowing it to gently return to its source, whether this is by means of a mantra or some other vehicle is likely to result in the person feeling their meditation is very intense.   This is because of the stark contrast with the outer busy mind and the inner quiet of Source.     If the tendancy of the mind is towards contemplation or mindfulness in everyday consciousness then it is likely that the meditation will not be found to be as profound, as it is only enhancing a mind that already recognises that it is already in Source – it doesn’t have to travel as far is another way to put it.

For some reason I am very moved with this realization and without running the risk of seeming arrogant I feel I touched something profound this morning.

In my post yesterday I quoted Dr Deepak Chopra as saying that any benefits wanted from pursuing the spiritual dimension of life have to be for the benefit of others and not for oneself.     This is because when we want others to be happy and free from suffering we confirm the essential truth of the universe that everything is connected and everything is ONE.

So with that strong intention of promising to use all insights and intuitions to the benefit of all beings one sets off on the spiritual journey which is one of the greatest highs but also of the lowest lows.   Eventually and with faith, persistence and without attachment various experiences happen which verify what saints and mystics have said down through the ages.

Realizing such truths is not an everyday experience, it requires the awakening of the dormant energy that lies at the base of the spine.   This energetic activity shifts the consciousness profoundly so that the familiar is seen in a completely new way.     It is similar to being reborn – reborn into the spiritual – coming home to the spiritual while still in a human form.

At this point it is important to remember the promise that was made not to keep all of this for oneself so like the prisoner who escapes from Plato’s cave the person begins to write and share about this journey and urges people not to take the illusory for the reality.     The assumption is that as the rewards of this path are not available until one wants it for others – that others will be receptive and take it on.

The ultimate irony is that having got it and being committed to giving it away – nobody wants it.     Which leaves me asking the question was it a test to see if I really did want it just for myself and when I truly didn’t, then the reward is to have it for myself.   This is not something I ever wanted but if that is the way that it is to be – then so be it.

I will continue to   enjoy the deep peace, bliss, calm and joy that is like a permanent current running through me.   I also have to take responsibility and to look   for what is missing that while I have all this knowledge and understanding, to many people I occur as someone who doesn’t have anything worth listening to.   That is my responsibility to look at the way I relate to people about this area.

For a long time I have wondered what exactly is consciousness.   It is a word that is thrown around a lot but a clear definition of either what it is or where it is located is not forthcoming from either the spiritual or scientific field.

Walking to work by the sea today I was listening to an audio book of Dr Deepak Chopra called ‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ and he spoke about attention and intention as being the components of consciousness.     This struck me   deeply and I looked at how what he was saying applied to my own life and spiritual journey.

Dr Chopra asserts that intention transforms whatever is attended to.   So where attention and intention occur together the result is the manifestation of that which is attended to.   The power of intention on an object of attention transforms.       For some reason I found myself going back to that evening in west London in 1988 when I first heard about the concept in Mahayana Buddhism of the Bodhisattva.   This is a person who is enlightened but who refuses to leave the world until all other beings are also enlightened.

When I first heard that I was gripped by something which I now recognise was intention and my attention was totally and completely absorbed and immersed in the ideal of the Bodhisattva.     Was it the strength of the intention of wanting nothing more than to be this Bodhisattva for this lifetime that has resulted in the insights and intuitions I receive on a regular basis about the spiritual dimension.     I don’t know, and I don’t have a teacher who could tell me.   There was just something that gripped me when I listened to Dr Chopra say this and looked way out to sea at the waves crashing along the shore.

I feel sure that it is the one pointedness of intention – on an object of attention that causes transformation.   Again I have no proof for this but it’s just something that I feel very strongly.   Dr Chopra says: ‘The quality of intention on the object of attention will orchestrate an infinity of space-time events to bring about the outcome intended, provided one follows the other spiritual laws of success. Intention lays the groundwork for the effortless, spontaneous, frictionless flow of pure potentiality. The only caution is that you use your intent for the benefit of mankind’.

This is the disturbing conclusion I came to after watching a film on Tibetan Buddhism on Saturday night.   What this film portrayed was the complete right brain dominance of the Tibetan people.   Elderly and very elderly people were laying themselves on the ground doing protestations and turning prayer wheels and I found myself asking the question ‘if this is the way to Enlightenment, then why aren’t all of these people enlightened.   There was such faith but without what I could see as any spiritual reasoning or discerning.   It reminded me of the passivity on this path that I wrote about in an earlier blog.   Yet without an unwavering faith the spiritual dimension remains in accessible.   But when does faith shift from being faith and turn into habit.   This was the nagging thought that just wouldn’t leave me watching this film.     Yes devotion and faith are so necessary but also is the ability to reason and discern.   These are left brain qualities which I assert are very much missing in the east.

While in the west the qualities of reason and logic as displayed by the mind have taken over simple faith and Enlightenment is not found solely through these either.   It takes an enquiring mind but also an unwavering faith to penetrate into the portal of NOW to trigger of the process of spiritual awakening culminating in Enlightenment.     If Enlightenment could be achieved solely through the mind and intellect then there would surely be many more Englightened people but the fact of the matter is that there aren’t.

Yes, you can use the new age argument ‘everyone is already Enlightened’ and I absolutely agree with that.   Enlightenment is the essence of who we are but it is covered over by the veil of ego, identity, personality, the constructed self call it what you will. They are all names for the one thing.     From experience I assert that the state of Enlightenment will only emerge when the constructed self has been seen for what it is – empty and meanginless.     This requires the combination of faith and discerning.   One without the other leads to an imbalance and the state of consciousness called Enlightenment will not be experienced.

So how do you get get the balance right between right brain and left brain?   Or between reason and intuition.   The starting point is to have an unwavering faith and commitment to achieving this state of consciousness.     That is most important.   And then from that place begin the enquiry ‘who am I’.     This way, there is a balance between the humility that comes with faith and the insight that comes with reason.

I am not declaring that what I say is true.   It is how it has occurred to me since I had a powerful experience on a meditation retreat which awakened normally dormant areas of my brain.   It is from this experience that the insights that I write about come from.   I trust one hundred percent the insights that I have received…..I don’t ask anyone to do the same…just to read and consider what I write….not to take it on as Truth because there is no Truth, there is just life and experiences as they occur.   How they occur depends on the current state of consciousness.

The moment the consciousness identifies with the mind, identity or ego is formed.   This ususally happens around the time that language is developed.   Before the development of speech the consciousness was free flowing and free.   With language came   meaning and   using language to make the things that happened to us mean something.

This process of making up stories to explain our world through language has resulted in the consciousness losing its flow and becoming identified with the mind.   This is why there is no freedom from suffering until the consciousness breaks free or dis-identifies from the mind.     What is mind?   It is no more than our thoughts and feelings that live within the container called ‘mind’.

Freedom from suffering comes when the consciousness breaks free of the mind to enter the space of no-mind.   Here once again the consciousness is free flowing and   not bound to any thought or feeling form.   But what does it take for the conscious energy to break free of the mind?     It takes long and intense self-enquiry to realize that what we identify as ourselves is not who we really are.

This dis-identifying is happening now more rapidly as the consciousness gears up for the rapid shift that   is going to be experienced globally in 2012.   This is not something to be feared, but is something that is going to require preparation.     The best way to prepare is to be open to the possibility that there is more beyond the thoughts and feelings that we take to be who we are.

The clarity with which I have realized the two distinct parts to human being i.e. the constructed and the non-constructed self can make the spiritual path seem to be like a split and this is how it occurs to me.   Eckhart put it very well when he speaks about the shock to the mind when he had the thought ‘I cannot live with myself any more, am I one or two’.   This shock was enough for his consciousness to dis-identify from the mind so that it could be spiritually free once again.

So today be aware of THAT which WATCHES you have all of the opinons, judgements, views on everything that is going to happen today.   That which watches, THAT is YOU, that which has the opinions, judgements, that is ‘not you’.   It is only a machinery that has no interest in setting the consciousness free.   Begin today to be free by setting your consciousness free.