The absolute Need for Stillness

As you probably have noticed, I used the word stillness and not the word silence in the title. Silence to me is just the absence of sounds, while stillness can be experienced despite sounds.

I have experienced stillness in peaceful summer meadows and in noisy clubs. My circumstances had nothing to do with the profound inner experience of stillness. I can experience stillness when I meditate or when I drive the car.

This stillness is a profound stillness that originates way beyond the surface activities of my mind. In fact, it does not get touched or even caused by the mind. It is its own state.

When there is balance in my being, then this state of stillness can emerge. Only then can I notice it. As long as I run after any state, be it a state of activity or a state of silence, this state of stillness will not come forth.

In a way, it is the gap between too much of one thing and too little of another thing. It is the window into my soul, into my deepest essence of being. My experience in this space is one of only peace and contentment.

Attachments

To live in freedom you must reject all attachments. But that is not completely possible when you live with other people. Actually, to live in complete non-attachment is not possible as long as you are alive.

There will always be something that entices your interest and your involvement. The laughter of a child is enticing. The beauty of a sunset is enticing. The taste of cheese is enticing. The smell of a rose is enticing. The sound of a piano is enticing.

In other words, all sense organs can bring about an enticing experience. Is it necessary to turn away from these sense experiences in order to find peace in non-attachment? Yes and no. Yes, it is important to turn away from too much of these experiences. More of these experiences is not the solution here. But “no” is also a correct answer, because you cannot turn away from them completely as long as you breathe in and out (in other words, as long as you are still alive).

The best way to deal with the sense experiences of life is to enjoy what comes unsought, thereby limiting your involvement with them. Do not go out seeking them and do not go in hiding avoiding them. Whatever comes – unsought – needs to be welcome without hesitation, without resistance.

Do not prolong pleasant experiences and do not cut short unpleasant ones. Keep your intent on one thing only: the bliss of the moment, nothing else. This bliss overrides all pleasant and unpleasant experiences and makes you find a true home within your conscious Self, away from the changing layers of your thinking and feeling mind.

Bliss is the true center of your being, your true core. Sat-Chit-Ananda: Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. These three words are used in the Veda to describe what the Self is.

Beliefs and Assumptions

Karma acceleration has a lot to do with giving up long held assumptions and beliefs. It also has to do with the clear seeing of one’s strengths and weaknesses.

The question of “who am I?” really underlies all of humanity’s struggles. It is always the search for an identity that leads us from where we are now to some other place. The grass looks greener at the other side of the fence not because it is greener, but because we feel there will be more of us when it comes into our possession.

Whatever belongs to us becomes a part of us. It becomes us (me, or you). Once we have it, we no longer pay much attention to it. Now we set our sights on other things that are still outside of our reach. Some people want to conquer the entire world and become an emperor. Some people want to conquer a particular field in science and want to become the experts in their fields.

The search for more and more of who we belief ourselves to be drives us from flower to flower, from one green field to another. From one pursuit to another.

Often times we get exhausted in this search for an identity since there always seems to be more that we could be. Another horizon to go beyond. Another mountain to climb. Another challenge to conquer.

After we get tired of this search in external things we may look for satisfaction in the spiritual world, in the religious world, in metaphysical pursuits. Here we find comfort, partly because things do not change very much in this area. The scriptures we find here are mostly ancient with well established wisdoms and beliefs.

We get excited and experience relief, because we have stumbled upon eternal truths and wisdoms. Now our minds finally find rest and peace. We proclaim that “this book or that teaching is the absolute truth” that cannot be tampered with. In a sense, we have come to a place where we have found an identity that now has its roots in the eternal.

Yes, it is true that the ancient religious teachings were inspired by people of deep wisdom and insights, but it is also true that those teachings were put to followers of another time and another place. Many of the prescriptions for these followers cannot be taken literally in today’s world. We need to find the spirit in them, the essence of the teachings. We need to understand the deeper meaning of these teachings. In effect, we should try to put ourselves in the place of the teachers and project what they would teach in today’s world.

Doing this, we would quickly learn to discard some of the old beliefs, assumptions and prescriptions, because they just don’t apply to today’s modern situation. We can’t go back to “the good old days” when everything seems to be in perfect order and harmony.

When the original religions formed, there was much confusion until a particular teaching crystallized and became the norm for some people. In retrospective all this looks very preordained and predetermined by god, but in reality it was, like everything else in life, a game of chance, a game of the circumstances of the moment.

About Questions and Answers

I highly recommend finding questions that either you or someone else may have or may have had about any spiritual matter or subject, and do your very best answering those without resorting to the canned answers that may pop up from memory. Really allow for the questions to marinate within you until an original answer emerges. Then pull this original answer slowly out of the morass of uncertainty into the light of day and put it into words.

Often times we feel we know an answer, but when we attempt to formulate it and put it down on paper, we struggle to express our thoughts. But, this is a good struggle. It puts us in the same boat with all the other people interested in spiritual matters, whether on the path (seekers) or beyond it (masters) who want to codify the truth as they have experienced it, or as they are experiencing it at the moment.

But, as Wayne Liquorman of http://advaita.org so wonderfully states, we are all liars when it comes to expressing the Beyond. The truth is the truth only in the moment when we feel it. As soon as this truth is expressed in concrete forms it becomes a lie, because the new truth of the new moment will supplant it immediately.

However, don’t let this fact distract you from the task of distilling the truth out of the morass of this existence. The truth must be found, and when you find it you will not want to throw it away again. This is similar to finding a diamond in the mud. Once you clean it and see its magnificent beauty, you will want to keep it and treasure it. The truth can be an addictive power, although it renews itself from moment to moment. An old truth is no longer as truthful as a new truth. Therefore it is important to find the new truth in old truths, such as traditional religions and ancient religious writings from any tradition that you feel an attraction to.

Always Upwards

Always upwards, toward the personal best.

Survival skills can be stretched and developed until success is gained; not merely survival, but success with your given abilities/gifts.
The question always is: "What is behind?"
"What is behind what I see, hear, smell, feel, touch, and taste?" There is always another "behind" - another "beyond" - to discover.
The surface, the materially experienceable, is just a front for your inner experience of love and compassion.
So, when these feelings are evoked, of what use is the Outer anymore?
There is no more use for it. But, as long as you do not find Love and Compassion consistently inside of you, the outer Shell is needed to be their cause.
The lessons of life are Compassion and Love. Once these lessons are universally understood, all strive comes to an end.
However, each generation of humans needs to learn these lessons for themselves. There are no shortcuts.
What I have learned is/can only be a pointer for you. My knowledge is no substitute for your own knowledge.
Therefore, strive toward your own knowledge, your own truth, your own understanding of the world.
But, you must arrive at the place of Love and Compassion for all, eventually. That is the goal to which all enlightened beings are pointing.

A great meditation

19. Just when you feel the need to act, stop! Meditate on the sensation of expectation; meditate on the sensation of intense waiting.

This Meditation is excellent in helping you overcome your sense of individual doer-ship.

One of the forces that hold you imprisoned in this world is the notion that you, personally, are the doer. This is, of course, incorrect. You are only using the talents that nature gave you for survival, in a framework that nature also provides.

When the notion arises in your mind that “I have to do such and such,” then train yourself to immediately stop and do nothing at all. Realize that your need to act really only comes from the need of your Ego for survival. When you stop acting, the Ego is out of a job. And you can begin to live in freedom. In this freedom, there is the notion of waiting—of waiting without waiting for something in particular. You find yourself in an emotional wasteland where there is nothing for you to hold on to anymore.

In this state of waiting, there is the experience of the bliss of the conscious Self. Here you have a direct sense of the praiseworthiness of life, of the sacredness of life. Meditate on this sense of holiness, and meditate with a sense of holiness.

PS: this is Meditation 19 from my Kindle eBook "Journey of the Soul - The Path of Meditation"

The Power of God

Some people say that God is Love. That is not so. The love that you experience is your own love. God is Power.

Imagine you are floating in apparently empty space. When you look around there is nothing. All of a sudden the spectacular explosion of the Big Bang happens right in front of you. Huge amounts of energy blast into space. Eventually this energy consolidates into the Billions and Billions of Galaxies containing Billions and Billions of Stars that rival or exceed the magnificent power of our own radiant Sun. This is the awesome power of God. This is the power that creates everything.

A small amount of this power resides in all of us. After all, we were created during the Big Bang along with everything else. That is why we have a common connection with everything in existence. If that connection is a positive, attractive and supportive one, then we feel love. If the connection is negative, unattractive and repelling, we experience hate.

There are only two forces in existence: attraction and repulsion. We either go towards that which attracts us or we go away from that which repulses us. Towards pleasure and away from pain. Towards freedom and away from limitations. Towards happiness and away from misery.

To Be and Not to Be

So, why am I doing all this? Why am I setting up this blog and why am I posting my ideas? For the same reason people are engaged in other activities. I want to be productive. I want to contribute to the state of this world. I want to make my voice heard. I want to eternalize my fleeting thoughts. I want to exist eternally.

But that is what my sense of self wants. That is not what gets me beyond the confines of karma. What gets me beyond the karma is the appearance of a mirror that pops up and clearly shows me my attachments. This can only happen when I project my attachments onto something external.

As long as I rummage around the thoughts and feelings inside my head/being, there is practically no way out for me. I am continually running in circles, realizing new truths, while still living in the confines of the spider web created by my own machinations. I must project my wants and desires into the world to see clearly what the brutally honest feedback from life will be.

Is there a need and a want for my services? If yes, then I will feel vindicated and elated. If not, then I’ll feel dejected and thrown back to the starting point. I’ll never give up trying to improve this existence. I am just trying to find my place in existence.

So, this is my conundrum. To be liberated and also to maintain a slight connection with life, just enough of a connection to be of help to others with their spiritual quest. There is little desire in me to get involved in this life for any other reason. To be and not to be.

Not This and Not That

In a way, the search for an identity is at the root of all our problems. We want to know why we are here on this planet. We want to know who we are. We want to know what our place in life is. We want to know why this or that is happening to us, etc.

Once we have established a sense of self, events are certain to occur that contradict our sense of self. This will cause us pain and suffering. We attempt to return to our previous comfortable state of self in order to ease our pain and suffering. This is not always possible and we are forced to accept a new sense of self. An extreme example would be a soldier losing a limb in battle who is returning home, trying to get back to a normal life.

There are many other, less extreme examples of people being forced to alter their sense of self because of their life’s situations. Healthy or unhealthy ways of dealing with such changes then come into play so that we can continue with our lives. The emphasis is always away from pain toward a better state.

Whatever our motivation in life is, we are caught in the spider web of involved actions, called karma. We must get free. We must find a way out of this deep involvement with the world. The more we struggle, the stronger our sense of self becomes. Ultimately, we will crash our ego into the mirror of pure awareness. This produces an incredible painful experience in us. We will be challenged to give up all attachments to This or That. There comes a moment to make a choice: “What is more important to me, my attachments or my freedom?”

If we choose freedom, we will live in the freedom of awareness. It is here where the state of liberation lies, the state beyond karma, the state beyond attached involvement. This is the state of “Neti Neti”, the pure state of "Not This and Not That".

Karma Acceleration

What is karma acceleration and how is it done?

Karma acceleration has at its underlying principle the belief that all people can attain spiritual liberation or spiritual enlightenment in their lifetimes. You do not have to wait for a time after your death to experience the bliss of the kingdom of heaven. You can experience it while you are still in your body.

All embodied souls eventually attain spiritual liberation. It’s just a matter of time. The accumulated karma will slowly be overcome and liberation will occur. That is the natural process of spiritual evolution. It cannot be stopped. But, you can add karma instead of burning it up. Or, you can get stuck in a cycle of karma for an extended period of time.

The moment you are making a commitment to accelerating your karma you will notice a definite speed-up in your experiences in life.

Karma gets accumulated in your search for an identity. “Who am I?” That is the question we all have to find an answer to at some point in life. This quest for an identity underlies all of our activities, although we may not be aware of it.

When we get this shiny new car, we identify with it and so create an attachment to it. That is karma. When we see a tempting donut and just have to have it, we are creating an attachment to it and that creates karma. Over time we have created so many attachments that it is difficult for us to image a life without them. We have become stuck in the outer things of this world. The image we have of “us” is someone who cannot exist without these things. Who would we be if we were to lose these identifications? Who would you be if you had to give back the shiny new car? Who would you be if you never again ate another donut? Who would you be if your relationship with your spouse would come to an end?

All day long we are stuck in this spider web of attachments and cannot see beyond our confinement. We must get free from these wrong identifications and find our freedom in spiritual liberation. That is where karma acceleration comes in. We must make a commitment to get free. We must make this commitment to a point that is outside of us. We must clearly state: “I want to be free.”