Dear ones,
The Author's Note at the other end of this document may serve as a more proper introduction, if you like.
These notes are to remind and encourage me, but you can use them too. I do like feedback, so be encouraged to talk to me!
My own favorite way to re-read these, because I do like that, is one at a time, like this:
A tiny bit of Sanskrit vocabulary was hard to expunge so here.
There you go.
And here you are.
The notes below are most of my darshan notes, written during that time after meditation, just after an experience of bowing down before the Teacher's picture. The context in each case was one of the regular Friday evening programs of my yoga meditation tradition (one which doesn't advertise). These programs normally include something like a half hour of chanting and a half hour of meditation.
Pratyabhijna Hrdayam verse 19 says (my translation)समाधिसन्स्कारवति व्युत्तअने भुयो भुयस् चिदइक्यमर्सन्नित्योदित समाधि लाभहRepeatedly examining the oneness of consciousness while filled with the after-effects of samadhi, liberation is attained.
That is, after meditation is the time to really learn something, to make positive progress towards the understanding that constitutes enlightenment.
May these notes serve you in your own progression.
Allow the mind two choices: silence or love.
The mind cannot capture infinity of love, only devotion and inner humility encompasses all. By grace, perhaps from a divine teacher, we are lifted above limitations (story, attribute, identity, time) and merge into the Conscious All, the essence.
What comes up, what comes out,
these are all expressions of love.
These are all your heart's creations.
Love them.
Love them because your nature is love and bliss and freedom.
Dharma, sky and earth in their place, harmony.
Your sincere, benevolent project's themes are valid.
With compassion for yourself do them.
The inner love is the key.
The mind gets just enough gas from the infinite inner power that it
can think it's in charge.
Always know otherwise.
Later: Head popping up swimming in an unfamiliar ocean, still, starlit.
Powerfully sucked away to oblivion,
I remember only that I thought I had been thinking a thought,
but not able to remember what it was.
Dharma and time: somehow within time, timelessness occurs.
Give meditation and practice time.
All this is my creation, in and of love, love it.
Confused mind? Be more humble.
Follow the teachings.
[A drawing of a heart flying out of a cone]
Methods:
Discriminate between the eternal and non-eternal.
Be in the now.
Stop the storytelling.
Stop the trying to storytell, the bound wonderment, confusedly asking, What of this am I? This sort of fits, does this fit? Looking in the mirror, oh, is this my most photogenic side? is that me? No, trust the wise mantra, not the ignorant hapless helpless traumatized questing. Poor thing, you can calm down now.
Recognize transitive I AM: I am X - So you can reject it. Just, I am.
Recognize suffering.
Chant.
Engage the heart in the heart's action: love and wisdom infinitely.
Make sacred space and enter it. Meditate on the divine teacher's grace.
Eagerly seek that pain of abandoning your ego, until ego is gone. Learn how.
Cultivate the desire for liberation.
Don't let society be an excuse for egotistic fantasies, for false identifications. Be together with immediacy of presence, with inner surrender, humility, gratitude, forgiveness, clarity of perception, removal of stultifying distorting false concepts.
Clarify your perception to see what is. Be present.
Darshan Recollection
The smells and texture in the carpet under my face, real and
surprising but not shocking
Recognizing that if any experience is divine, then this moment
of darshan, forehead on the carpet, is
divine. Therefore...
Opening to my world of sensation and experience,
willing openness even to shocks.
Suddenly, devotional love arose.
Darshan:
The quick, flexible, snake-like cognizing
intellect,
thinking it is something, has not
become soft with surrendered love, yet.
Now give and give, even give the quivering and quick *
inner self-knowing.
[*: even fearful and reactive thus not stilling that
ego-grasping]
After that you will recognize and know you are That.
ओम् भगवान्!
न इद
न पिन्गल
सुशुम्न हि होत हए
na ida
na pingala
sushumna hi hota hae
breathe
"Food is God. Everyone is entitled to their share of food."
Your pure intellect does exist; its purpose is not just (to know) every kind of crap. So clear the crap out of the way. The intellect without an object is pure. The All Encompassing Heart is pure. Connect (not with ego story telling but emotionally) to each atomic experience, thus purifying both each experience and each emotional moment.
Darshan: One connection is through your innate desire and to the grace of the Divine Teacher. That connection opens and flows and supports you fully.
Be without story, predicative I/me/mine, time, or emotional regulation. You are freedom.
Before we begin, we'll take a few moments to close our eyes and to get quiet inside and to get ready to experience this deeply. Close eyes. Feet on floor. Silence. Feel the earth. Relax, enjoy. Just have a moment.
Take it inside, deeper.
Why I am here? To experience the Self. To become established in that. To receive the spiritual awakening that will lead me to the final goal.
Let's acknowledge that you, dear reader, you too have an ancient and lifelong spiritual path.
To connect with the awakening energy of a divine teacher in the form of uplifting practices, the awakened thought or mantra, a regular time to meditate.
Mind is friend or enemy. In the time of contemplation after meditation, we can learn from what we experienced, some lesson that can uplift us, an expression that reaches our mind or understanding, and let our mind think about it later and be our uplifting friend.
Be at the boundary. Learn something! Here, where you have a chance! Don't dismiss your power of higher insight, want to get up and go, and lose it. Footnote: discover a higher truth Now.
The Teacher is You.
The Teacher is Stillness.
Majesty from humility. Infinite, conscious, present.
Give yourself fully to begin to see.
Practice humility to keep learning.
(Inner emotional conscious) Truth is one. Contexts are many.
Oneness in action is service.
Oneness in mind is meditation.
Oneness in feeling is liberation.
Oneness in relationship is love.
Oneness in blaming is forgiveness.
Oneness in positive circumstances is unattributed gratitude.
Oneness in ritual is spiritual practice.
Oneness in contemplation of distressing circumstances is equanimity.
Oneness in intellect is self recognition.
Oneness in sensation is flow.
Oneness in status consciousness is humility.
Oneness in virtue is non-judgement.
Oneness in breathing is conscious non-agency.
Oneness in time is now.
Oneness means oneness of emotional interpretation.
You could memorize a list for all the contexts you are in, or just focus on oneness, wherever you are.
Non-operation of your inner judge.
Innocence. Openness. Delight. Inner surrender.
Make a blessing awakening.
Recall it abed.
Blessings for me are what I give. (I find it difficult to receive them.)
His words* are a great blessing, and the state they lead me to.Remember/Start, Continue, Return, Continue.
Humility and Peace (have) come, when I realize they are already there.
Islam [="submission"]: even with activated ego, action in submission, peace.
Benefits: Mental peace, maybe later social fearlessness.Progress: Who can say, am I different from what I was? Struggling with ego has been a lifelong task, but every attempt is progress.
Progress in emotional understanding and wisdom comes in free meditation having focussed the heart on the goal.
Efforts and trust thereof: stronger discipline? I'm just a rat in a corner, if my discipline increases it's the only thing I can do. My character lets me see the walls surrounding me. My heart becomes more knowable.
What is effort? The usual meanings, of course. But also...
Discipline: I hope to learn to reside in the absolute.
On the importance of being human, and how to become a true human being: Inner divinity is not change. Become who you are, aware of your own inner divinity. Tom, Come out of your shyness and passivity.
To nurture the experience of the heart, allow disciplines of sadhana* to protect you, leading to a consciousness of unearthly joy. To focus on your sadhana diligently, listen to their teaching, put template on deep meaning, meditate on them, translate into daily action. Breath everywhere, acknowledge it throughout and the experience of the heart you had. Nurture it.
*: "sadhana" is a Sanskrit word referring to a lifetime of spiritual practices.
Sometime between 2007 and 2012
Insight. Patience, courage,
persistence, discipline. Lose what's bringing you down. Cultivate
what develops your sadhana and sense of spiritual unfolding.
Nityaananda Aatma
Muktaananda Guru Chid-
vilaasaananda Paala
Om Namah Shivaaya
Om Namah Shivaaya
Om Namah Shivaaya
Shiva Shiva Shiva Shiva
Om Namah Shivaaya
[A drawing of a heart with a star or firework inside, with an arrow to a number 1.]
A bird, a boar, other animals trying to enter, can't. It's too rough sharp difficult in each's way obstacle. Moral interest increasing?
The Teacher spoke.Relate deeply. Discover God's deepest desire and vision by listening to the real one in another, one after another, and asking after it and showing it so you both see it. Thus be with that more deeply.
The Teacher spoke.
I learned: Be real, honest, curious. It is God who is manifesting as this person, form, and as you yourself.
(A drawing, three intersecting ovals in line, the imprints of feet on the overlapping one in the middle.)
See others' interest in God.
Arati [a hindu ritual of blessing and worship]. Bring a personal valuable to be blessed. Why? Intention? Yours is Purity.
When you treat things with love, they become divine. Greater love, for all including ourselves. On time or not; preferentially odd numbered; traumatized or not.
Matrika [language (or at least phonetics) considered as energy]: localized vibrations within an infinite field, out of stillness, into stillness.
The Teacher spoke. I understood:Tom, polish, empty, clean, uncover, silence that inner judge!
The root of any stuckness is in an operation of the inner judge. Full freedom and emotional flow with depth is the actual reality. It is to be expected; the true default state. So root out the judge's operations.
What is your desire?
Experience the mantra rising within.
Noble compassionate. Teach the experience of the inner self.
Remember by imbibing the qualities as your own.
"4 levels of speech / mantra": Starting at Paraa (supreme, beyond), becomes more concrete but retains the Paraa quality: That is mantra.
"You fool!" will get you mad. The mantra, expressing intention of the highest, why shouldn't it get you too?
Don't get caught in the concrete aspects, go always to Paraa, the beyond from which it and all arises.
Tukaram the great mantra yogi: "With the mantra what can't you attain? I always say with the mantra on your tongue, liberation will be on your palm."
Om: refers to that pervading stillness of Paraa (the Beyond).
Namah (I bow) both experiences, and releases you from, it all: Na: the quick, the changing the new. Mah: the same, the continuing, the relished.
Shivaaya: Sh[i]: Silence! with Self awareness arising; Vaa: heart opening, acceptance, release; Ya: celebration, grace.
Get yourself a redeeming mantra from your own wise teacher. These are some notes about mine, Om Namah Shivaaya.
Om: refers to that supreme pervading stillness.
Namah (I bow): releases you from all this. Na: the quick, the changing, the new. Mah: the same, the unchanging, the relished.
Shivaaya (to Shiva); to the Self. Sh[i]: Silence!, with self-awareness arising; [V|W]aa: heart opening, acceptance, release; Ya!: celebration concomitant with understanding, grace
Baba ne aesaa kahaa hae: | Baba said: |
Mantra ek | The mantra is one. |
Mantri ek | The one who repeats the mantra is one. |
Mantreshwar ek | The lord of the mantra is one. |
From stillness* that quality which arises is spontaneous, authentic. Therefore use the mantra to orient toward stillness, move toward stillness, attain inner stillness, and after that allow spontaneity to flow. See if your heart's desire is not attained when you surrender inwardly.
(*: Silence, stillness sometimes seem strictly unattainable; they are nice, but meaningless, words; then this came to me.)
Appreciate the service of others which brings a social support structure. Offer service from a full and steady heart, bringing goodness, joy, and celebration. Thank your substitute. Dress modestly. Brighter is better, celebration! As beautiful and radiant as possible, doing japa and breathing for attitude. If a problem, submit it to the higher-ups while continuing to offer worship and service.
To give a share: Breathe throughout. Use your own experience. Share knowledge that reveals the heart. Speak simply. Refined, edited teachings are powerful. Quote with due credit. Aim for an attitude or experience. Prepare well. No or few notes when speaking.
(2) (sitting on a red wedge asana). Tadasana shoulders (rolled over
down and back, held down, strong, foundational). **Metaphor**:
layers of tenderness. Om: tender from within. Om namah shivaaya:
metaphors elaborate meanings. Shivo'ham curiously, appreciatively.
So'ham: many to many is the map of meaning. Follow, don't lead,
appreciate surrenderingly the meaning of So, Aham, Namah, Shivam.
Can I review my worlds gently? Think and return gently reviewing,
appreciating with metaphor, surrenderingly, yet focus back on
Nityanandahi.
Khechari (Sanskrit for the sky of consciousness; refers to
the mystical yogic experience of an inner sky, and often
connected to the tongue curling up and back in the throat, which in
my tradition is recognized as a canonical yet spontaneous event that
follows some time after an energy-awakening, life-changing
initiation) makes a toy of life's mental games. Khechari!! Om. Like 2 elephants: Bowing down: surrender. Responsible dominant intellect (1): a metaphor for the power and
greatness of the Self (2). I experienced 40 minutes of
tandra (a conscious but sleep-like state without body- or time-awareness),
forehead to floor, with an urgent intention to stay in
the khechari state Touch, untouch, touch, study the grip of the mind, the seriousness of
suffering Ownership, touch, what is this mystery? Footnote: Must I be so serious, so committed to owning these
attributes? Does it benefit me? Isn't it really optional?
Standing up: obedience: surrender.
Khechari: willful, pre- or sub-gag-reflex, unignoreable, emotionally overwhelming, pure gentleness. So'ham! across khechari!
What is most important to me?
(Observations and impressions from a film of First Teacher:)
Three gestures upward: Lift! Open! Transcend!
Three gestures down: [Brush away, throw away] worldliness!
[Release] attachment! [Abandon] suffering!
My self, First Teacher, has these qualities:
Innocence. Courage of innocence and childlikeness in speech.
Support in transcendence the way you already are now.
Childlike delight in chanting.
I understand from him, It is always there and I am completely protected.
Perfection.
The power.
Profound stillness.
Where are these tears coming from?
In the spring of 1981, I first entered the main chanting hall of one of Second Teacher's ashrams, a place I lived for four months later on that year. On the wall were large photos of several more or less naked mendicant saints from modern India, and portraits of a few clothed women saints and goddesses. Above Second Teacher's seat, in the place of highest honor, was a photo of a man, head slightly back, forehead slightly wrinkled, mouth expressionless, eyes intent with something that I recognized.
I recognized myself there, and immediately, somehow, knew that this was a picture of me. Strangely enough he didn't look much like me, but I knew without question, I was that man, he was me.
I knew because I was just a year or two out of that period of my youth which I had spent in nearly constant and intense concentration on my youthful tasks of school, sports, and other activities, overcoming my own inner insecurities by climbing my available dominance hierarchies with the greatest personal focus and effort, in order to try my hardest, do my very very best, be my best, achieve the most. (From the intensity of insecurity came the intensity of effort.) In sports or math where maximum effort is called for, and mentally concentrated intensity achieves and finds its maximum effect at the limit of one's best effort, trying even harder at such a moment, such moments reliably bring the awareness of one's own effort and concentration, bring the awareness of the instrument of effort itself, the agentive mental apparatus itself, the part of you that tries most intensely to understand and to do. In such a long-lasting cauldron of great effort and discipline one comes to recognize, and learn as familiar, the feeling of intense, self aware concentration.
I saw in his eyes the self awareness that I knew as my own experience of myself, which I had by then for years simply referred to in my own mind as: Me. Equally intense and certain, equally self-aware. I hadn't seen it recognizeably in anyone else, but I knew it as my own essential nature, because that's what I experienced when I was trying my hardest for a long time. When you are really trying your hardest, you get to know what you are.
From that earliest date, seeing First Teacher on the wall, I always had complete faith in my tradition. Everyone has their own tradition, and I wish them faith in it. I know I am blessed to have such great faith in mine.
A shame that I wasn't listening before but if you dwell on it (the past) you miss everything.
[A drawing of "G" inside a heart. a line drawing of about to go off the edge of a waterfall between hills, the horizon of water.]
Listening to what First Teacher had to share.
Not in words.
Still listening.
A Square Brown Linoleum Tile An essay on selfless service.
If you should experience unexpected or strange inner movements such as uncontrolled shaking, spontaneous postures, or emotional surges, get thee to a shaktipat guru who can help you to understand and use/support/align these movements for inner growth.
[Self-Counsel:] Tom, get reasonable with your thought life. The Siddhasana chair, the literacy project, the humor and inner surrender work, the other inventions already are plenty, can you even achieve them? Instead of invention proliferation, focus on a charm offensive and completion energy to achieve these in the world as your outer mission in life. It's not endless more puzzling for self-affirmation through more ideas and systems, each of which will take a lifetime to carry out. Become ENFJ again, occasionally resynchronizing with strategy that yours is good. Develop NF, and J (the Myers Briggs temperament qualities). Set milestones that work and do achieve the goal, and push to achieve them with your own efforts, but also draw others in developing your diplomatic skills and arrange for shared achievements.
Such is your outer mission.Your inner mission is to heal and tenderly care for yourself. You are his.
You may bow and give yourself to him (First Teacher), but you are his, already his, fully his.
If you're not sure, check that your thoughts are to the good, for the highest good of yourself and others. Check with your inner guidance: Choose love or silence for your mind, either. Maybe you do have to surrender more. But maybe you also have to enjoy the moment, go with the flow, experience the love and peace, the acceptance.
After "I bow" has burned your ownership and given surrender of it all to the Divine Teacher and nothing is left of the "mine" game, then "I bow" can be followed by "I am". Shivo'ham, so'ham, Om'ham, Om. Sh... Waa.. the still resonance of silence, of serenity. Ya! .. the experience of non-down-regulated emotion, liberated.
I am so empty.
All this is so meaningless.
My ambitions seem playtime games, made up.
My inner judge, so harsh, critical, uncompassionate.
Instead, give some love to sister, to mother. Send Hi to an old advocate and thanks for his teachings.
Hey at least let serenity and passion flow when they do, live fully, don't down-regulate, you mental obstacle. Shut your story-telling moral-deriving down-regulating mouth. Be fucking crazy it's not your job to be someone else's or even your own "normal". Be a lunatic poet, make no sense, laugh at pain, cry at nothing, flow all in what ever.
"Please comment about post meditation contemplation, specifically."
(7/7/20: You can measure the hell-generating part of your experience during the post meditation reawakening, by noticing if you can keep that feeling, "energy", emotional perspective, as you watch it drain out, as you come back to body awareness and mentally come back into the context of your ongoing story. The continuous re-creation of that context is the continuous binding of your emotions, the loss of emotional freedom, the creation of hellishness itself.)
Most thinking and discussion of sadhana, whether negative (e.g., calling one's profound meditation experience a "coma") or positive (about how to try to go deeper, how to let go of the mind, its negative impressions, to go deeper from here) is representative of the striving, frazzled, actually suffering, mind, it arises from your own greater ignorance instead of your own greater knowledge, which is likeliest to be experienced toward the end of an period, say an evening program, of chanting and meditation. Therefore, instead,
Sit to contemplate, after.
Pratyabhijna Hrdayam saysRepeatedly examining the oneness of consciousness while filled with the after-effects of samadhi, samadhi is attained. (Verse 19)
(Must I repeat? It says to repeatedly contemplate the oneness of consciousness during the period after meditation. Is this difficult to understand, somehow? It's the time after that matters. Pay attention during the time after. This is why darshan occurs after meditation, because you spent all this time chanting and meditating to bring your consciousness to the point that it might possibly be open to a spiritual insight, so make your relationship with the divine teacher at THAT time, go up and have darshan at THAT time, and go sit down and contemplate what all this means THEN, when you have a chance of having a higher viewpoint. Now, finally, is the time the apple is most ripe on the tree; pluck it Now! Don't think, okay the program's over, let's get back to normal consciousness and pack up and go, nothing else to do here folks. No! It doesn't take a long time to capture an insight; you have spent your evening to grow this amazing fruit, now it needs to be picked.)
So I say, upon coming out, come slowly, to keep the energy, or perhaps the inner belief system, ongoingly. Usually we get these instructions: wiggle your toes, open your eyes, come out of meditation now. You've had your fun, now it's time to pack up and go home. Actually, No. I don't want to come out; I am trying to find a greater truth through this meditation and these spiritual practices, the truth that is something permanent, always present, something subtle that I don't always see in my anxious and frazzled day to day life. Rather than "coming out" of meditation my serious purpose is to raise my understanding to be more profound in and through and after meditation.
(So especially then,) Attend to That.
Learn something, discover something. Go up to bow down to the Teacher's presence, symbolic or otherwise, and get yourself the knowledge that you came here for. Then you, then I, can carry home some permanent relief, a ratchet of progress in my inner development.
Raise the flag of gurubhava on every breath.
[Gurubhava: becoming the Guru; identifying with what the true wise teacher identifies with.]
We chant to open our hearts and prepare us for a deep and heartfelt meditation. Let's chant.
Upanishad: That God is you, oh Svetaketu.
Joy contemplation:
I was gone. Sweet.
In darshan, some pain but great great love, and tears. My goal: see my awake experience as of oneness, as samadhi.
(How? Sadhana, mumukshutva; grace.)
My intention this 6 weeks has been to awaken the inner music of So'Ham ("I am That", in Sanskrit, said to be heard as music, independently played, with the breath, at a subtle level). I asked it of Third Teacher, she gave her blessing.
For 2 weeks I have been feeling it in the navel region. With inward focus the emotion of a situation resolves into its cause, the inner place of stillness and awareness and emotional presence. Mystical qualities are perceived there.
Last week, I saw that the center of breath initiation and the center of emotional response activation are the same center.
Two days ago: Attending to situation again, energy rises into heart and becomes actively emotional tied to the situation. Noticing this path of pain I re-orient to the point of arising, again in the navel area.
My sleep has been practice in so'ham all this time. Awaken in anxiety, do so'ham, about 1x or 2x, then next thing I know I'm awakening from a 2nd dream several hours later.
Chanting a holy text is a great yoga. A powerful concentration exercise. It teaches grace in all experiences. Devotional song is even more attainable since slower, a bit.
I can enumerate and classify all the elements of experience during and by means of such a practice: All are conscious emanations like sparks from the same core of being, a core experienced as stillness. All: even those I had, have, or might see confusedly, as to be identified with. The sensation of pressed brows, I once identified with Self, since that had co-occurred so much for me in my teens, is just a spark like the rest. The inner thought of myself, my enthused and bright intellect, also is a spark of the same invisible steady flame. All, I have enumerated them all, and all are from, products of, the core, none are true Identity (if grabbed and held as Me or Mine, and from there confusedly wondering what to do next or how to react to the dramas, gripping that false Identity, in my ignorance and even panicked grip on it, I imagine it might soothe me but I am hardly soothed).
No task but the awareness of I am That. The formal inner encounter with the Teacher is egoless, simple, you could say utterly surrendered, past surrendered, yet miracles continue to arise. A vision of the column of energy, like a flash, miracles and blessings, canonical [mystical] realization coming unrequested, by grace. Thank you.
Tom 9/10/16
See others' words as the energy that brings samadhi
[stillness in meditation].
Don't just ask questions to learn, ask
questions to appreciate.
Friday program's chant: (Devanagari script tutorial here
seeking the music of | सोहम् |
My Ego rides fearful and controlling on the reins of breath. Doesn't even know how to let go.
Letting go of sensory or other concepts whether conceptual,
egoic, or even emotional/postural: experience breathing in, inner eyes
wide open. Refine your perception to the subtle. Deliciousness of
breathing in. Anti ego. As release. Reiterative. Return. Remember. Darshan: O talking mind, where is your value?
[The four goals of life according to Hindu philosophy, are] Dharma [duty] Artha [wealth] Kaama [love] Moksha [liberation] : In all of these is the spirit of giving. Generous charity makes one a giver, opens the heart, stops the stone-like ego from owning us, calculating its gain. In the flow of take-with-give and give-with-take is the possibility of inner surrender.
What learned and how applied? Economic and spiritual life are not non-intersecting. Renew my practice. Benefax.
By means of That, from mind, the Divine Self.
My Darshan - Tonight's experience: happiness for my prosperity in giving. Gratitude. Wondering for what, out of all that is going on. Obviously for all of it. A lesson to contemplate for me.
[To clarify, I haven't normally felt a lot of gratitude for my anxiety filled miserable life. So this was a great gift, and worthy of contemplation, for me.]
Darshan: May I experience and choose egolessness and light.
All day:
#1. Tears, pain, and miserableness, 1/4 kneeling, tandra, snoring, but head on floor at the end: let each note be of love.
#2. Fed, easier: 1/2 tears, tandra sitting up. ONS restarting.
It is hard for me to see that universal love. But after
food, meditation, mantra restarting, came some gasps on a walk
with my partner: acceptance, love, and joy in all things.
#3. ONS breath tears
Intention of seeing love in each note.
Tears at Liz, love of her.
Kitchen noise, co-worker mini-drama. Unclarity.
Pain less painful
still moving adjusting elbow cast, legs...
calmer.
Bad posture. Kundalini hiding.
#4 But love overflows from within
rather than is seen without.
With repeated effort comes familiarity
and self-awareness The witness is present.
Strengthen the spine with: | Back arch and curl bent 90 hips isometrics 50 each / day |
#5 Stillness resides now in ONS.
Darshan: Repeating it urgently. Contemplating often: in the right eye view a white space, a black orb in it, coming to me.
As humility becomes perfect, even the sense of self is given without ownership or attachment to the Beloved, to the Teacher!
Then when that sense of inner self-awareness of "I am" arises, it returns as a divine gift, its limits are erased, floodgates open. The sun enters.
My inner self is the greatest power of determination, of hope, of undefeatability, the intensity of concentration, that which never leaves in the best or worst circumstances, the power of attention, of focus.
Tom, practice humility!
Darshan: overwhelming infinite love.
Connect the outgoing self with the Supreme Self...
Mom's note: Always bring pain pills.
In darshan I understood:
Go ahead and have a nice fat ego. It is food for God. Offer it. Give it. Be sure you don't get wrapped up in it. But let its feeling of I am flourish. Give it to God. Then discover it, see it, receive it, and have it as God's gift back to you. If you give it, you get it. And merge it into everything.
Bless you bless you and so much love to you!
After 35 years avoiding offices in my meditation center I agreed to the least of offices, to be "in charge" of Welcoming. May I serve with purest humility.
Grace is inherent in effort. and effort itself brings grace. To attain achieve anything, effort.
Gurubhava [the being of the teacher], my focus, identification with the Divine Teacher, comes from surrender.
Grace after years of practicing more and more surrender.
How then may I exert effort, and what shall I achieve?
Gurubhava and Gurubhava.
Stillness achieved, within, effortlessly, as her.
This summer vacation, memorize Guru Gita .
जय जय विटाल
जय हरि विटाल
|
All day:
(p1)
What?:
A) CO2 is the cycle. Global warming will be a life cycle, much death and much life.
B) Giving generously.
Why?:
A) Moral curiosity.
B) Paul and the Loan. Both appreciaters.
From bounty, not from neediness.
Budgeted within my vision of balances.
Then seeing myself as having plenty,
I can give generously and feel full about it.
What: Offer mental activities? But my whole life is already an offering; all my thoughts are in service to the greater good.
Why?: So that's a relief. So they dissolve. Of course they dissolve. Apparently other, they are not so.
Full giving, that is the path.
A) What did I learn? Fullness of engagement.
B) How will I apply it? Everywhere.
(p2)
Budget in advance
See proper boundaries
Know your limits,
What is reasonable for you,
Then engage and give and connect using your whole heart.
Safe because you have clarified what is okay for you,
and heart opening bcause you are giving fully.
Darshan: Having Given All,
What is not the Teacher's?
What, experienced, that is, received, is not her gift?
What is not Her?
You are. I am. All is. Let yourself calm down.
(p3)
A Novel Vocal/Musical Instrument.
Mechanically map a vocal tract to fingers and arm controls. Done by sensors in software, might be easier to make it work or modify/refine. Terminology: Fingertip: 0. first joint 1. 2nd joint 2. 3rd joint 3. Bagpipe-like, a lung analog. opening to a tension- and spread-adjustable reed. A side branch with a hole at its base for thumb to cover "nasal" opening. Above that a vocal tract analog on top of a glove. Curl the fingers to the thumb under the mouth analog: The thumb at a "lip" control. Vowel height controlled by wrist raising/lowering. ATR advanced tongue root control by position of joint 2 and angle of joint 3. Apical (tongue-tip) control with 2nd hand position 0,<2 middle finger.
(Daydream of a phonetician.
With this held in hands and arm and manipulated by fingers, speech-and song-like voice can be produced.)
Mom said:
Prana = fire.
a benevolent companion
Move laugh smile even alone
pure intellect.
Keep inner mind clean
8pm. (A meditative daydream invention) a drawing of a robot roof cleaner, with ropes over a building with softeners at roofline and anchors on the far side, and a rope wheel clinched or spider-legged robot, with wheel ± X, wheel ± Y that learns by watching a trainer/controller, and is able to eye the job, blow, scrape, brush, pick, pinch. Drone delivered perhaps also installed.
+ Last darshan:
"So" | = | |
ajna | &left; | sahasrara |
In a dream First Teacher appeared standing
I saw him and went to full pranaam, he hit me on the back with a stick:
What a lucky, auspicious, blessed dream!
Footnote: it occurs to me that this can only be interpreted in the context of unconditional love for a completely trusted saint whose every action is understood as the highest love. No, I wouldn't probably like it if anyone else hit me with a stick, on an average day somewhat due to the stick and somewhat due to an inference of hostile intention. But a beloved saint might be a different situation. Just something to consider.
To me this was a healing of my anxiety, a statement like, Get out, vile self-oppression! And it worked, and brought me joy.
Footnote: Bliss in non-ego-calculating, in ignorance, means it is in animals, in babies, even in sleep; it is a default, and even death returns to it. Only sleep's awakening brings you back.
These are all notes of experience as God given pain, to bring us perfection, do it!! Love that teaching experience and then they all are bliss!
(A)(C) This is its own yoga. Namah shivaaya. Worthy of surrender to it. If I'm open to my own worth, that is the goal and the path.
Out for a while in meditation. Then noisy mind for a while. Then breath, large in view, everything else quiet, and quiet.
Then noticing something like a playful fountain
but without place of origin or direction
my visual field arose from it
my thoughts arose from it
I saw/knew this is the heart space
Just because it was emotionally fully present
but it was neither high above head nor low below neck
true seeing,
of the fountain of experience coming out with a sense of play in everything.
I worried, will I lose this? Probably.
But it is at the root, for sure.
The insight of the least effort,
from or toward the "place" at the center of every actual place.
Wow. Later I wondered, how can it be described, or taught, and saw many have tried.
It has the feeling of fascinating revelation.
Reality is amazingly emitting from this,
seeable if attention is within, at the
most profound, the earliest part of any experience.
To see it is to see where the thoughts arise from.
Darshan: same.
Is my time of tears done?
Shall I now just laugh and delight?
No, still some tears. But hope.
Perhaps I may dare to hope.
Program notes: Pratimilana. Again close the eyes.
Merging in the self, 3x.
Enthusiastic announcer's labors continuing.
(drawing of broken egg -> cracked egg -> whole egg.)
Om, Om.
Couldn't draw a cognitive lesson but I went away so much, and tried to, and found later myself coming up out, that I must have done.
May I be able to again.
The inner foundation, and the Self, are close by each other. Egoless flow, and the witnessing center and merging with that fountain into it, reaccessibly accessing it always.
Second Teacher said: Mantra is true, God is true, Worship of God is true.
You will know it when the inner energy appears as God, as Teacher, as you, and you will be persuaded they are all totally identical and one.
Perfect.
During pranaam, of course all is pure (divine) consciousness including sparks, integrated spark surfaces, impression reactions, spatial and all self awareness but it is then, in the action of bowing down, the act of surrender, sincerely and fully, that it is seen, and the non-egoistic nature of all experience can be detected, and God, Teacher, divine Consciousness, and her play, and you all in aspects equally your own Self and witnessing self-awareness, all are that ultimate field of energy, melted, merged, vibrating, emotionally liberated beyond tears or attachment or historical pain. Real, here, now, all.
Thank you. Perfect.
Thank you.
Perfect
A Testimonial: From childhood my dreams were all in a theme of inescapable out-of-control situations: anxiety. Just after the recent intensive, while waking up one morning, that knowledge came to me, Ah I know, and instantly that lifelong anxiety disappeared. Poof! Complete relief. Then, gratitude. A month later, still no anxiety in dreams that I can remember. So yes, an intensive is worth it.
(Note 9/29/2019: anxiety in dreams is identifiable but usually not inescapable since this note was written. Now the suffering when it appears is a layer deeper; the dream situations are more constructive and less dramatically and obviously anxiety-ridden; I seem to recognize myself suffering, recognize it is not my dream story making me suffer, wake up enough to drink some water and have an aspirin, and vow again to eat no simple sugars the next day, which strongly predict my insomnia, night-time headaches and anxiety, and nightmares. So yes, there was a real and significant emotional step forward documented here.)
What is brahma (the absolute). What is the essential nature of the Great Self to hear of, contemplate, meditate on, perceive?
The breath arises, perceptibly in hard crying at the center of the diaphragm. There, emotion arises. There freedom and spontaneity exist fully. It is spacious.
Our story is fascinating, O teller, player, and audience. Go deeper, where are: you, and final bliss in every color, door, and face. Light. The story is (itself) a play of your own consciousness. Love. Bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss. Again all dried up emotionally? Ask: Who am I?
(In chemistry a solution is a solvent dissolving a solute, up to a limiting concentration above which the solute can dissolve no more into the solvent and it precipitates out of the solution as a solid. This is called ab-solute, out of the solute, which is what happens when the solution has reached its utter limit and can carry no more.)
As the cup runneth over, thus the solute fills full and the absolute is attained that thou art. Such a time demands respect as stillness and openness, intellectual surrender. Om.
Aspire. Surrender. Both: do aspire, do surrender. Take your own experience seriously.
The eyes are beautiful even in a corpse.
I never saw her that way before, but Mom's eyes are so beautiful, even though she is dead.
Bowing down: a sense of inner freedom. No agenda.
I learned: The Self, the undying flame in the heart. The initiator of breath. The unknown, not as something to know, but the category of facing unknown-ness.
I learned: Observe breath initiation within violent crying. There: Life, activation level, emotions, freedom, and open space.
Head down on the floor is not just an action, but an intention.
Initiation Day:
| |||
So'ham | |||
aham, 'ham:["I"] | Sah, So' ["that"] | ||
in | out | ||
deep | long | ||
prayer to God to reveal my true nature. | prayer being answered | ||
In: God | Out: the fullness of my heart, into the world | ||
ham as it is [əh] | So as it is [shə] | ||
Tranquil. (Effortless?) God's power and presence in fullness and perfection of the heart. In healing, out: healing the world. |
A saint's laughter: new, new, new.
Jnaneshwar said: bhagavaan prabhaav nayastit (the lord's influence is constant newness)
Tukaraam: I went to see God, I became God.
| ||||
sat | chit | ananda | ||
truth | consciousness | bliss | ||
That which is the same in all | light as well as recognition | to be experienced in meditation |
Your effort has self-aware you in it. That you can dissolve into infinity if you see it also as infinity because it is itself part of "sat".
Guru: shreyaSta (versed in scriptures), brahmaniSta (established in the Absolute).10/22/2018
Tom: Even as I learn and delve and learn and the chakras even develop I feel my ignorance, my true ignorance remains complete. I remain a toy of my imagination, pulled about by greed, excitement, and fear.
Here is the form of my ignorance: Experience in the now is only distractedly noticed; mainly, it is only allowed to be a excuse for continuation of past views by the basically frightened, confused, (spiritually) ignorant (me), used for assessment/confirmation, story-telling or -incorporating. Enjoyment of sense immediately provides ignorant emotional volition an opportunity to jump headward and put it together with mysteried situation.
Instead:
आत्म विस्वास् |
self confidence |
Third Teacher says: Determination walks in front of you.
Bliss everywhere. Have faith it is, can be, known. This determination.
Cf taittiriya and ketopanisad.
Yoga: turn within.
Confidence, it is there. It can be known, see.
Use discrimination and detachment. Cf Yajur Veda: Hamsa (the swan) separates and drinks the nectar.
ham | Sa |
I am the Self | Let go distractions |
Choose the good over the gratifying | |
(e.g., bed early vs pleasures late) | |
Serve sat-chit-ananda, the highest path. |
सो:हम् नाद जगाये:
so'ham naada jagaayeh
Did it lead to this answer?
(7)
Experience detachment.
How do I see the Self?
attain liberation?
Experience the bliss Second Teacher talks about?
God's power and presence in fullness and perfection of the heart oh!
in: healing. out: healing the world.
(8)
All is bliss if you're not telling a story over it.
Dance: bliss flying in a circle uplifted.
Bliss via inwardness
Chant, try
surrender, practice, meditate,
Thank you Thank you. Love as much as you can. Be loving be generous.
Takeaways for my life:
The proper activity of the mind is to bow down: namo namo namah [I bow, I bow, I bow].
Clarification: Given the emotional function of the mind whereby it binds the emotions, its proper activity in so binding them is what it does when it bows down. "Proper" as in: healthy, not just soothing but also soothing, wise, loving, actualizing.
1/1/2019
Disciple's intention is a strong element.
In sitting machinery, find that posture sequence between lotus and sitting, as lotusy as possible all the way.
My intention: continued discipleship. Burn more karma. AMAP.
On awakening:
Dear One who has sought me out by reading these words, who seeks to know who and what I am, my being and presence with you in fullness and truth:
Dear One, I seek by these words to bless you with a complete and satisfying blessing. Your Self that you experience is my Self that I experience. What I am is what you are. I am the same cloth that you are. I am you. When you are in your own self awareness, know you are with me. My beloved, as long as you experience your own inner being, alive, with great emotional capacity, know that I am alive, with great emotion, as you.
(This note from a Hakomi session with Dennis in Mt Vernon.)
(Hold my) baby child (self) (in the form of a) pillow to chest, or, stroke and hold my right shoulder with my left hand. (This) gives more reality to the self/infant as needing time, not just food enough, but time, loved and held, just to be.
Imagine my inner infant, hurried during nursing for a
Mom who didn't have time.
Did I learn to hurry, to feel that my
feelings didn't matter, to be sad.
The pace of being... is the pace
to be at.
The flame (dopamine) is fascinating, but the log (serotonin) is essential.
To have a dream, a dream for one's life: Comes from a creative egoless space, and seeking the dream in life is at root seeking reconnection with that egoless and creative flow state.
Love only. Let yourself serve love, let your state, your focus, your expressions, your energy flow like oil on the table, spreading slowly at its own pace, with its being. Everything of course has its own pace, fireworks, thoughts, snappy comebacks, but what is the way you want to be with yourself and others? Pour the oil of love over the sacrificial fire of every task and relationship. (Allow its pace to be the pace, see its flame.) Love, oh lover!
Darshan today: Too short! Then my tears of yearning for that flame of love created their own fulfillment.
A task inspiration relating to Bliss Theory: write a commentary on I am That. Seek to surpass theory application and
Achieve emotional significance in each word.
Gratitude for my Life.
Uncertainty is a path to lightness of grip on self-attribution.
Upon completion of all duties arises happiness, perhaps it is relief. It is a time for the great mantra to play, for the flow of things to be appreciated, for recognition that That occurs Now.
Footnote after 9 months: If your grip on your so called identity is heavy handed, perhaps because you learned lack of self-soothing and lack of self-care as a child, then you might not allow yourself relief, not just until every last duty is complete, but also some other unreasonably heavy weight of pain, suffering, or self-torturing discipline has increased to finally surpass your own personal threshold of when you'll let go a little. I'm saying, if you are like me, maybe lighten the heck up. Do your duty, sure, postpone some gratification for later better outcomes, sure, but excessive self-torture isn't necessary to allow yourself some mental relief. Then these wise benefits can come.
"Worship your Self": Consider that target of worship, that self, intellectually, as an object of devotion, volitionally experience devotion towards it, and love it: One and every thing that your self may be:
Every self: set it up as an object of devotion and worship. Every bit of yourself is a doorway to the infinite. I don't mean the continued intellectual elaboration of your thinking about it, but rather the hopefully intense, encompassing and engrossing, ultimately melting attentiveness you can give it or through which comes that melting or the merger into the featureless light, the white tandra, the samadhi.
And upon the return therefrom to normal body consciousness, (since based on our inner limiting beliefs, the mere awareness of the body can be enough to destroy the inner higher knowledge, if you are falsely identified with it, and therefore take it as an opportunity to reconstruct your limited self-image) the easy method to again and again transform this world into universal love, wisdom, and the vibration and energy of bliss. As an example a tired body laying down to darshan is a formation of self, another opportunity to follow the Teacher's word and worship the self, yes also in that form. Yes and this form too.
(There are some basic archetypal or evolutionarily-installed concepts
in the human, which have a certain structure of dependencies)
(A drawing of dependencies (drawn by arrows):)
Story depends on Language, Time, Place, Person.
Time depends on Sequence which depends on Event and on Change.
Person depends on Thing.
Both Place and Thing depend on vision and cognition.
Action, Travel, Interact depend on Person.
Darshan: I recognized and cultivated my desire for the experience of being
out, for samadhi to pervade my normal consciousness. Back and
forth, out, to the edge of out, and back to normal awareness and
re-orienting with "mumukshutva" [the desire
for liberation], forth again, and back and forth. In darshan: the desire to be out during this awareness of this, yes
with forehead on the floor and the long stick asana I found the love
and power and shaktipat experience of First Teacher coming
toward me and pervading me and my experience exactly as and as
powerfully and as intently and directionally as I with my desire
oriented in devotion towards him, the saint, the True Guru. Did his
presence enter me and suffuse my awareness from his photograph? Or
from my devotional intention as part of my innate capacity for
pervasive love, evoked in the context of satsang, chant, meditation,
darshan. More than meeting in the middle, desire meeting
love, the forces pass through and empower and strengthen each other.
Om Namo Bhagavate ... Om Namo ... Om Why would I ever
stop expressing this! Om .. [I'll clarify the point here: after 35 years of going Out and
having the benefit of that soothing pure restfulness when frazzled
and burnt by my ego-engaged worldly periods of a day a week a
quarter, after consistently finding
that tandra state through my tradition's
books, programs, and practices and my sincere and faithful
engagement with them, finally after so long I noticed that maybe I
might make use of my own desire for this oneness to be part of my
normal awareness. Remembering my own desire, after coming back from
tandra, I returned to tandra. Remembering it, my normal
consciousness became suffused with something different. The key,
this desire, is the pole star, providing an orientation for
consciousness, intention, and re-focussing, after tandra erases all
thought and emotional echoes of past actions. Since confusion
arises in the disciple doing their sadhana,
seeking liberation vaguely or in some long term but without
immediacy, then with no direction, no where to go to achieve the
goal, having erased even desire, I sit resting only until interest
arises and then I return to wander aimlessly through normal worldly
life again. But with mumukshutva, with the
desire for liberation, the direction is clear, and the return to
consciousness is not so much as in the past an opportunity to wander
again, but now an opportunity to rest my forehead again at the feet
of the true Guru and experience the love and
merger in an intent focus in him, that he knows and experiences.
Without that desire is 35 years of aimlessness even in the sadhana
of a devotee. With that desire is direct immediate experience as
deep and pure and encompassing as can be. Therefore cultivate the
desire for liberation.]
I was Out (i.e., in a tandra state) during the
talking part of today's program, barely-to-intermittently out later during
meditation,
In the singing group, two lessons. (1) Emphasize the strong well-timed start. (2) Emotional regulation is (for) group harmony. It includes mutual regulation up and down.
Devotion makes the finite infinite.
Focussed passionate continued action imbued with the spirits of service, devotion, humility, love, builds a reservoir of energy in the heart. It allows us to see more deeply and for longer moments the infinite tenderness, expansion, freedom, the real love there.
Learned from seeing Second and Third Teacher: Focus always, as the door. Any focus, but focus with devotion and full attention, connects to That.
From seeing First Teacher: paraa paraa paraa (beyond beyond beyond), don't try to hold it in your mind, it is beyond. He is the far beyond, the unimaginable pure. Awe beyond reason or concept is a description that suggests it slightly. Wipe everything in a snap, that far, he is there. Om Guru Om Guru Om Guru!
Note to readers: One who can't immediately understand this may benefit from the following words. Some emotionally significant experiences can be shared with others who are in something like the same emotional space. But the same words don't fully communicate it to a person who isn't emotionally prepared for it, for example by sharing a seeker's sense of commitment, long search, and relief upon finding the Wise Beloved, or perhaps by a getting-ready period of calming oneself down, quieting the mind a bit, preparing one's breath and posture to more deeply receive truths that a superficial and cosmopolitan mind might be unable to appreciate at the intended and proper depth of understanding. The fact that someone's enthusiastic, direct, and emotional words seem strange might be a fact of one's own limitations rather than the speaker's wierdness, irrationality, or lack of anything to more concretely say. Take this hint, therefore, and prepare with fastidious inner cleanliness your independently operating, calmer, loving and deep aspects of yourself, to hear what is being shared in an authentic seeker's joyous discovery. Then not only will the words heard make greater sense and have their rightful and intended positive impact on you, but your own process of emotional self-respectfulness and deepening wisdom will have their own significant and positive impact. Try it before you criticize it, or else no, actually, you really didn't get it. So try it again. If you like.
Here is: an unobtrusive space of devotional practice. Matriarchal for decades, a space supporting silence, inner unfolding and inner freedom, by voluntary disciplines and periodic opportunities for reconnection. Experience coached and humbly contemplated programs of universalised Hindu-derived philosophy, culture, and practice, the living best of rich, ancient traditions. Sincere seekers, welcomed, will find peers here.
After darshan:
I know, but tears come up, thank you and thank you and tears,and after tears after moments
arises self-consciousness again,
that ever-new, the arising-again, steady power, the spark:
that.
I know, but to know again,
to practice
sincere humility
opens again the emotional depth,
To bow down and offer my soul to the power of grace,
merges with the ocean of grace.
I am you. Is it just me?
An echoing sound is an obvious metaphor for emotional self-projection, but we as listener fail to detect our obvious echoes as our own, and detaching and taking responsibility is even harder. A wise teacher friend modelling helps; a break, a good sadhana, helps. A Friday night program helps.
1/20/2020
"Silence" is witnessing without ownership and reactivity.
Experience is like stars in a firmament.
1/27/2020
Tom: What is the intersection of stillness, freedom, emotional power, and love?
Liz: Being. Being is stillness, freedom, emotional power, and love. Being is different from existing.
2/28/2020
Darshan: Letting loose the actions of ego, the concepts of me and mine, is like slipping into a relaxing bath, warm and gentle. After a time when challenges arise, it also asks for determination and strength.
Liz: Being. Being is stillness, freedom, emotional power, and love. Being is different from existing.
7/7/2020
Some advice for you, Tom: Pick up your pencil, and think about your process. Think about what do you want to achieve; think about how you're going to get there. Build your process; debug your process continuously; reconsider your process!
12/28/2020
A structured meditation, which has been effective for me, follows:
The first eight are an elaborated ritual to bring seriousness of purpose and to orient attention. The middle four came separately as refinements or gifts at the culmination of each different day's meditation, one day at a time, when the previous was not enough and more was wanting. The last three are an optional sequence chosen based on how verbal is my mind (aiming for less verbal) and whether each word's referent is accessible or not, continued until the next is accessible, or stillness takes over.
By the way, don't trust my Sanskrit, despite my pedigree, these are a mere devotee's partial, no doubt ungrammatical gleanings. Yet I do still find the sanskrit more to the point.
Victory to the great, true, teacher. | Sat guru naath mahaaraaj ki jaya |
I bow to the lord of obstacles. | Om namo gaNeshaaya namaha |
I bow to the goddess of wisdom and learning. | Om namo sarasvatyaaya namaha |
I bow to the great Self. | Om namah shivaaya namaha. |
I bow to the seven directions including up, down, and inward. |
Om namo dakshine namaha, Om namo uttare namaha, Om namo purve namaha, Om namo pashchime namaha, Om namo uchchaaye namaha, Om namo niichaye namaha, Om namo antare namaha. |
I bow to the five senses. | Om namo indriyaaya namaha |
I bow to the mind. | Om namo manave namaha |
I bow to the intellect. | Om namo buddhyaaya namaha |
I bow to the pure intellect. | Om namo shuddha buddhyaaya namaha |
I bow to the pervading purity. | Om namo vyaapti shuddhyaaya namaha |
I bow to the pervading love. | Om namo vyaapti premaaya namaha |
I bow to my inner self (as needed). | Om namah shivaaya om |
I am That | Ham sah |
Om as the word-form, vyaapti prema as its meaning. | Om |
1/7/2021
Here, two comments on these Notes from an unidentified source (but I am guessing my dear and unique Sharad CS of YouTube fame):
Only one NOTE would be enough, STOP TO EXIST AS YOU, and live your life enjoy what ever comes in the way. Accept it without any feeling of refusal. WITNESS YOUR LIFE PROCESS. Nothing else is required. NO GOALS TO BE SET.
And later...
Stop to exist as independent entity. Nothing else is required
Sharad-Ji Maharaj! you are a great soul and a great teacher. My inner understanding and emotional state changed instantly upon reading your words. I experience a feeling of liberation. Reading again, I am brought to tears. Thank you!
1/31/2021
Tom, up from meditation, says, I've been watching the breath from the other side.
A friend says, You should write about that.
Here, then:
Breath is voluntary but also involuntary. So train your volition to be compatible with the involuntary. Do by allowing. Then explore, be with, the unfolding flow, calmly watch the center acting, pulsing, expanding. I can't do it on purpose but when it happens I can try to stay with it. It's a skill that many days of meditating on it slowly brings to possibility. Breath-synchronized mantra helps, is an initial aid on the path and a reminder after falling into oblivion and wandering, but the effective inner drive comes from mumukshutva, the desire for liberation. Waking up with it, dreaming watching it. Volition becomes surrender and being occurs. Especially, in the flow of the initiation of breath. Such a rich and mysteried place. So simple, so central. People spend lifetimes running around, slaves of their id learnings from childhood. This is the place that deep learning suddenly and powerfully occurs, that can calm and still an echoing life, where authenticity pervades. It's all talk until you do it. Do you want it? Sit comfortably and breathe.
Date unknown, found 3/8/2021
I feel so unworthy.
Really, you have no idea.
It's my feelings that are actually unworthy.
But, so I sat and had a moment with that.
Then I came back to my intention, to love all the notes and sparks that add up to make everything.
And I got a blessing, concurrence, support: You do that, Tom, and I will help make it possible.
Thank you, Teachers.
5/8/2021
This is a bit more of an intellectual essay than a darshan insight, but I hope it is relevant and valuable enough to include here. Everyone knows their own inner state.
Five levels of suffering.
1: Those who suffer and don't know how to (down-)regulate it (whether directly by emotional regulation or internal dialog or self-soothing or indirectly by first carrying out, and second observing, your own situationally-adequate behavior such that it regulates the situation and thereby regulates the emotion). Tantruming children, decompensating adults, panicking fearful ones. This is called not having your shit together.
2: The "normal" people, that is to say, the well adjusted. What they do is they downregulate every experience to a tolerable level of emotion, and they do not permit themselves to encounter anything that does, or even could, pull them out of that "safe" zone. Freud's goal for therapy is here: a civilized discontent. It's tolerable, and isn't crazy-making, but it lacks aspiration and transcendence.
3: Those who aspire to transactional transcendence. After enough suffering or labor or achievement (self-measured), they will allow themselves to experience another quantum of undownregulated flow. These folks may never reach their own typically receding goalposts, may continue to punish and limit and emotionally imprison themselves (and others where possible) (since they burden their approach with a positive moral valence, which makes it even harder to release). People with a meaningful quest in their lives are here. Recall Michael Jordan falling on the floor in tears after winning the world championship, trophy in arms: he had reached his internal goalpost, and so allowed himself to experience some unregulated emotion. This is what meaningful achievement aspires to.
4: Those who recognize that release is actually unconditionally available but don't know how to do it in every circumstance. Even sincere spiritual seekers may never understand this, though many do. This level fosters increasing humility and openness. I'd say I normally reside here: still ignorant and bound, but my aspiration, at least, is towards unconditional transcendence.
5: Those who just do it. Unconditionally (i.e. always, everywhere). Look, there is no reason actually not to do it, so just do it. It's not even a doing but rather a non-doing, so it's not exactly difficult, and all the saints, sages, mystical traditions are suggesting to, and trying to explain how to. So even the morally accepted authorities are on the side of this. Here the immanent and transcendent goal is reached, made permanent, experienced as natural. So, unconditionally, yes, do. Tom! Do!
10/25/2021
The still dark heart.
Visible poorly from outside.
Felt from inside.
It beats.
12/1/2021
Na: the quick, signifying novelty, as in an alert.
Ma: the sustaining, signifying sameness, as in a target being tracked.
Since bondage comes in the form of alerts and targets, i.e., self-connected knowledge, to aid the seeker, Namah means "I bow", bringing the right attitude, it liberates one from the ego-connectedness of alert-response and target-tracking.
Om namah shivaaya
I bow, I bow.
I bow.
12/1/2021.
Kriya. Movements, sounds, feelings, typically experienced in the Guru's presence, or inward presence. Surprising, often strange-seeming, to witnesses; hard to contextualize. Kriya comes spontaneously, without your doing it on purpose, but through the intensity of your engagement, with your inner surrender, and powered and guided by the more-than-matching, the abundant, even overflowing energy of grace that comes somehow, which the experience of the true Guru, which is the inner power, more than offers and supports, but brings. It creates within your own sensibility, but beyond ego-connected agency, an experience of energy, action, movement, knowledge, ultimately inner healing, growth. It offers practice in surrender to the divine. Wisdom? Surrender fully!
9/24/2022.
Today a beatific vision. Days sick abed. House empty. Entering the sunny bathroom for a shower: Who loves me?!, I forlornly imagined. We do, we do!, shouted the lit walls, the sink, towels, and cabinet. We do! We love you, beamed brightly the curtains, the window, the floor. What?! Jolted and deeply persuaded. Everything loves me, loves me back.
May I still see this beatific vision tomorrow and tomorrow.
Thank you thank you for giving it to me in this lifetime. Thank you.
Then outside, surya namaskar in the bright sun on the grass. Bright sun! Oh thank you!
11/28/2022.
Putting your attention on the transition between the breaths is placing yourself in the doorway, in the posture, of liberation.
Shiva is a complete mantra by itself. Hear the sound of the breath, whether inward or outward, as "sh", meaning "sh" (quiet!). Allow the meaning, "sh", be quiet, inside, and let yourself be a little more quiet. Hear the kumbhaka as "waa". The kumbhaka is the pause between the breaths. Pay attention to the transition between inward and outward breaths, whether it is an extended stoppage or just a momentary reversal of direction. The inner experience of that is the "waa"; it's more about the meaning of "waa" and the feeling you may observe within the kumbhaka, those two being the same quality. "waa" is a non-linguistic utterance like "um" or "uhuh", meaning Wow, or OMG, or here is the letting go moment or the letting go experience. Don't you associate saying "waa" with having that experience? You could do the full drama of it, say waa, waaaa, aaahhhh, and let your eyes roll up in your head, tilt your head back, extend it into a slowing breath and into silence, like the moment when you've finally experienced perfection. That's the idea, but it's not about having an idea in your mind but rather an experience in your emotions that you feel. And one feels it naturally while watching that transition between the in and the out or the out and the in breaths. The central part of the experience is that letting go part within your emotional awareness. Just put your attention there, and watch it, it's not something that you do but something that you allow yourself to become aware of that's going on by itself.
For a month or so my meditation has been focussing just on the "sh" for every breath, in sh, out sh, in sh, out sh. Then trying also to be aware of "waa", first to discover that release experience, then to learn from it, because it is a universal release experience, no matter your identification, "waa" lets go of it, and that's a long sadhana of all the things you think you are or might be, you can let go of them all, when you're holding one and "waa" occurs and now you can let go of that one too, which you didn't even realize you were holding on to.
The upwelling delight is right there.
1/6/2023.
The higher identity.
So'ham.
Detect every identification.
I am this.
I am this other.
Now I am this.
The unending cycle.
Calmly focus on your devotional service.
Learn to recognize the flavor of limited identification, combining the inner verbal or non-verbal idea that something is you, mixed with the emotion also of being that limited thing. Detect this pattern, see it, drop it. Obtain the bliss of freeedom which is diagnostic of success.
Insert the oyster knife of recognizing that I have identified with something limited; separate yourself from that; shuck it off, the pearl is within.
Allow the awareness above (in the head) to arise.
Allow the enmeshed identities to subside.
Become aware of the pure I awareness within, still, witnessing calmly, wise pure knowing, focussing above. Perhaps the straight posture clicks into place, revealing stillness, an encompassing consciousness, unbound, non-reactive.
Identify with That. Let your will to identify, identify with that. So'ham, so'ham. It is the self arising which you saw in darshan of the shiva lingam in Janakpur, the permanent one, Shiva.
2/12/2023.
O forlorn Child, you sit sadly. You have discovered that desire does not lead to satisfaction. Like a lifetime of obsessive Tiktok sweep-to-next repetitions, following desire has milked the desire out of you.
O blessed Child, you sit at the threshold of realization, holding your false belief in outward desire, that which is inconstant and does not serve you. See inwardly to surrender at the feet of the internal highest. Find that Self which is constant.
5/6/2023
I awoke from a dream, in which Baba was camping with us, I had woken up to find him sleeping alone (ignored?) in a ditch, partly covered with dirt, broken dark glass chunks scattered around. He woke up, calm, undistressed, as I came near; I offered to get him water; he nodded. As I brought him a cup, he said, said tishTh hae, which turns out to be Sanskrit plus Hindi, which I had to google for the translation; it means "It's a (long) wait."
I felt a personal message of support struck home, because I am presently renouncing the need for the emotional support of and rescue by others, taking more responsibility for my own feelings, and hoping that will eventually lead me to less misery. That's true: I think it will. But "it's a wait." Thanks, Baba of my dreams; I shall cultivate patience and persistency, remaining focussed on my path.
5/7/2023.
8/14/2023 On that That that That is, and that This is not.
"This" vs "that" is a distinction meaning "near" vs "far" (from the speaker perspective).
Let us assume without having to say it that the speaker is a seeker, better yet one who has attained wisdom, who speaks toward that which is most meaningful and most important. You, for example, focussing on your higher purpose and goal.
Needing a pronoun to refer to that higher purpose and goal, which would you use, "this", or "that"?
"This", the thing that is near as opposed to far, is more related to self by its very nearness to the speaker. Cognitively, merely because it is nearby to self, it is associated with self; it characterizes self.
For example: see "this" in my hand? It is near to me, I am its holder, its relative center, speaking to you as the central character in the drama of the holding of "this". This very trivial drama is my limitation, I play not only the role of center relative to this which is nearby to me, but I am bound to an emotional constraint as its neighbor, holder, owner, doer, and the proper focus of my and others' social attention, being as I am near this focus of attention, this "this". All of which implicitly says, me, me, me. Here I am, me with "this".
No it's not exactly painful, especially if "this" is something praiseworthy, and your nearness characterizes you by a vicarious praiseworthiness, some kind of goodness by association. But it's bound.
And the point is to go beyond being bound. To be unbound. To flow. To expand. To become the infinite. To recognize the non-limitation of self. Something that when you grasp it with your hand, or when you have the thought of grasping it with your hand, evaporates. Because you there, your grasping, your hand, your mere adjacency to the thing, those are all character and characteristic of self, as soon as they cross your identifying mind, as soon as you recognize you are in the role of doer, holder, center, and characterizee. Instantly: bondage.
Emotionally, "this" supports the egoic perspective. Everything that constitutes a This constitutes a support for ego. Yet wisdom is abandonment of ego.
Therefore: That.
9/7/2023: In praise of humility.
How do you understand humility?
Is it an acceptance of low social status? Or is it the not even considering social standing? Or is it an unending mystery, an ever-unraveling thread?
Bliss Theory says, humility is a doorway to bliss.
Practice humility.
Is perfection in the practice of humility possible?
What would it be like to encounter, understand, be around, someone who had achieved perfection in humility?
They could hardly talk about it; would that be humble? Me, I'm hardly humble; so I can talk about it.
I highly praise humility. It is not just a virtue, but an attainment.
I do imagine that perfection in this practice is possible for regular humans in this world.
Some cultures admire humility more than others. It seems a Chinese cultural practice, for example. Some people seem to get it, others not.
Humility is attractive, beautiful, appealing, nice to be around. It decorates innocence and wisdom alike. It creates a safe space for others.
Humility enables presence: you are not thinking about your standing, high or low. It lets you see what's actually going on now around you, and not just as evidence for the progress of your personal drama or the recognition and accumulation of your achievements, but for what's really there.
When it's not about you, you are also free to be yourself, and respond authentically.
The humble person is actually greater: feels more deeply, feels more, sees more deeply, adapts more responsively, is more able to fully experience things, than the self-status-carrying bound person, who keeps everything at a distance while remaining primarily aware of the development of their personal drama, status, and story.
Why be egotistical? It's unnecessary.
Humility is a path to the flow state. The great ones are actually humble.
The non-humble are not the kind of person one wants to be; if one were the kind of person that wants to be like that, then the sincerest authentic lover seeking the beloved will never find it in you. They want your authentic presence; don't run away by only thinking about your story; be present by abandoning status-consciousness and being open to what is here.
Admire humility, respect humility, try practicing humility. See if it doesn't make things more wonderful.
What shall we call a person who is perfect in humility? Is that person not a teacher of wisdom and joy to others by their mere presence? A discipleship-friendly culture might call that person, Guru.
If one isn't humble enough to even value humility, how can one understand high achievement in this high virtue, or even recognize it? A mind of greed and fear, of aggrandizement and suspicion, will tend to see others in its own image.
Please, for my purpose here, let's skip the offensive connotations, take responsibility for ourselves, and just consider this universal high virtue of humility, its deeper meaning, its disciplined practice, and the possibility of its effortless perfection.
Humility is a gentle doorway home. Open it, and find yourself already there.
Another obstacle in the path to becoming established in the state of freedom is this. When in that state one is focussed on Nothingness, in a way, one is not caught up in the dramas and logistics of daily life or relationships. But then, my dutiful soul asks, How then will I manage, how will I do my duties, if my mind is vibrating merged in a sky of golden light, my duties cannot be forgotten!
At some point this year I was delighted to discover that the spontaneous action of my surrendered will is to do the right thing. In fact I have so much more courage and I am willing to take such a high, ideal, unselfish perspective then. My thinking, when may I say somehow it is directed by that, when my effort is to focus on what is higher in consciousness, its thoughts and actions are immediate and direct and correct. Duty is the naturally emerging behavior there, so I have found. It is easier for the surrendered soul to do the right thing than for a bound beast struggling with passions and fear.
So this observation has consoled me given my attachment to doing the right thing. And it allows me, and may I soon see it encouraging me, to remain focused on what is higher and through the sahasrar to see perhaps dimly those realities which my duties demand I attend to, in another incarnation, in the drama as viewed detachedly yet all-powerfully from the space of surrender to the highest.
Author's Note
This collection of aphorisms, short notes, reaching toward inner surrender are offered to you with great respect and love, by someone who is also a brother, an uncle, a friend, and ...
Everyone has their own experience, and not everyone can easily or perhaps ever slip into mine without some translation. It might not make any sense. And it might seem hopeless to try, if differences are so great.
Still, there is a need. Here we are in the latest crazed age, and there is hardly a soothing wise voice to be heard. A few pieces of music might help, maybe there is some poetry to be found I don't know where. I find myself browsing for relief and never finding it. My intention?: Try this!
Have you observed reading scriptures or certain spiritual documents, written from a certain kind of a voice, that you actually can open to a random page, and it speaks to your particular situation? I believe we all suffer from the same broken, or at least intrinsically immiserating, emotional regulation system, and the same solution, however expressed, in whatever situation or language, answers the suffering and brings a kind of relief.
The voice that soothes with perfect, perhaps irrational wisdom is the voice of the sincere seeker who has discovered a path to inner surrender. The voice that doesn't have a relationship of identification with, a posture of attachment to, a moral, judged position in a moral judged world, that is a voice that is internally free. To be actually capable of universal love and wisdom, which could heal us all, requires letting go of whatever you think you are. Good or bad, you are not that; you are the all encompassing light of consciousness, the unspeakable divine flame, the un limited.
My own path in this direction has been through forests of anxiety and sensitivity to negative emotion -- now I think perhaps partly due to dietary carbs, partly to nighttime hypoxia from apnea. Perhap it's my own unique metabolic physiology but symptoms include night-time nightmares and headaches within 24 or 36 hours of even a tablespoon of sugar. Meaning: always. From childhood until recently. Because I always was a sugar freak.
So you take a basically healthy person, twist up their emotional life with constant low-grade anxiety, and have him explore deeply and forever to try to figure out how to resolve it by cognitive and spiritual self-management, for 30 or 40 years, say: that's exactly me.
So my simple-carb metabolism has supported, nay, driven, a lifetime of seeking and finding inner peace. If such a person can do anything constructive with this, then hopefully, if you also suffer or have any kind of emotional or spiritual hunger or need, you can extract something useful from what I have learned and brought back for you. The positive lessons from my experience may be applicable beyond the dietary.
I have found regular, but always temporary, success by putting out sincere effort under a truly wise teacher following a valid, effective path, and it seems to me that the history of these small victories may aid others, perhaps also you.
Perhaps the story begins in college. My intent and focus was to discover the highest good, extracting what the West offers by way of wisdom (summary: Nietszche says, make up your own; William James says, if it works for you, it's true enough.) This is a call for introspection, at best, so then I went to the East, to India, found a Guru, Second Teacher, learned a bit about grace and humility and stillness, lived in his ashrams for a year or two.
I asked, he answered, told me, Study what interests you. My own highest good, my dharma, is a life of intellectual exploration in service to the world. And that's been my life since, modulo practical demands. Yes I feel licensed to develop inspired, even outrageous, opinions and ideas in seemingly every domain (why, don't you feel the same way?) from math to physics to molecular biology to vowels to humor to play. Yes an unlimited scope of interest, yet wherever the spotlight lands, intensely interesting. Perhaps not coincidentally, interest is itself anesthetic (releasing dopamine). But generally my hunger, what I want to do is, to figure out what's really going on, what's the truth. Proving it to other people is not always my forte', but I really want to know what the real truth is, in whatever I'm thinking about. I will noodle and re-think and fuss over a subject many times trying to get deeper and farther into it, to the dismay of loved ones who have heard each story so many times before. Perhaps I have a bit of Asperger's in me, but so, it is said, does any engineer or scientist. It's all good.
To me the most interesting thing for a suffering human being like we all are is actually the difficult-to-impossible task of emotional self-management. How to run the show in here, and maybe not suffer any more or quite as much, or better yet find meaning and happiness, or even better yet, find bliss and serenity. Given my own simple-carbohydrate-driven metabolic anxiety, that is to say, an unresolveable, eternal, medium-intense burden of constant misery and suffering, I might have some findings to share. That's what I'm trying to do here.
After India, I spent a couple decades slowly developing, you might say, baking, on my own spiritual path, by nibbling at Second Teacher's writings, a few sentences before bedtime every night, and here: It gave me anxiety and nightmare free sleep for decades. There is something about the right voice, which brings relief.
Have you noticed this? People have a voice. Most of the things I have to say and write come from a curious but somewhat urgent, pure intellectual voice of advocacy. Trying to figure stuff out, and hopefully bring people along with what I'm figuring out. Not soothing. No relief. Somehow my intellectual posture could never capture that mystical, right voice. Really, I could spend a lifetime and never be able to speak with the simple, saintly wisdom which would soothe myself, let alone others. Believe me I've tried it, the results are not pretty.
It seems this mystery of the miraculously wise voice is associated with (cessation of) self-attribution within the cognitive/emotional regulatory system. And self-attribution is a process which can seem hard to stop, if you're used to it.
Yet it is possible, I believe, and I think I can share how; anyhow these notes show, and share with you, some records of my own process, in hopes they may be a relief to you as well.
So the habit of my last 15 years or so has been: to spend a work week accumulating greater and greater desire for liberation; to go, burning with misery and desire, to a Friday night program in my meditation tradition; to chant for 20-45 minutes, to meditate for 20-45 minutes; thus prepared, to go up to the Teacher's place at the front of the room for the personal moment we call "Darshan"; to bow down shamelessly in the long stick salutation and mentally greet my teachers who I imagine to be, who I inwardly relate to as if, present there, in the form of their photographs, maybe a candle, maybe their shoes, and at that moment, to seek with all my capability to learn something that the Teacher can teach me now.
For many years the inner exchange has been me offering something to them. Cash in the box, to make it realistic, of course; would it pass the sniff test if you don't think your teachers are giving you something that is worth something? But offering something interiorly, something greater and greater, each time: whatever I could now imagine as being more and greater than the last time. My spiritual knowledge and growth, I have thought, could perhaps be measured by the nature of my inner offering. After mentally making this offering, I remained open inwardly, and without exception something would come to me, that was some deeper insight, some knowledge, some change in perspective, something apparently I had bought with my gift.
For example, I offered the embarrassment I felt on doing this full-body, on-the-floor, face-in-the-carpet, arms straight, hands together, gross violation of personal dignity and over-the-top signal of excessive subservience. Noone else does it, or even comments on it, clearly I get no points with anyone from it, but Who am I, trying-to-be-humble Tom, to be so vulgar and ostentatious in such a display? Anyway I thought Oh Guru, what shall I do, I offer you, I give you this feeling of embarrassment. And I got an answer right away: Don't worry, it is scripturally prescribed.(Guru Gita verse 28). That was easy. Rest in your duty.
I always get an answer right away. It's like, in that state, emotionally prepared by a good, long, devotional chant, intellectually prepared by a good long meditation, now before the Teacher's place, forehead on the carpet, my sincerity, preparation, intention, and openness somehow meets their wisdom and some alchemy occurs to bring me a deep and satisfying, wiser insight, something I could never invent in my usual mind.
Gradually I offered more and more. Some emotional stuckness. My relationship with a difficult person. My suffering of the week. That my intentions not be greedy. That my choices be selfless. Then, things with which I felt a sense of identification. For example, the wrinkled inner forehead of intense concentration, is a sensation a person can sense while concentrating hard on some task, and it is something I have felt as a sensory feedback indicator of the presence of my own most focussed, determined, striving concentration; I identified with that sensation of the wrinkled inner forehead. I offered that. And answer came, you are That (inclusive). To put it in words, Yes I am that, for sure, but that doesn't limit what you are, you are All.
Every time, some higher deeper truth and insight would come to me. I think sincerity and intensity of purpose found its appropriate context. I would go back to my seat, and sit and ponder what I learned and received and sometimes I would write it down. It seemed to me over time there was a theme of increasingly thorough and complete inner surrender, though that may not be apparent to a reader today. From a thick stack of those notes accumulated over those 15 years, during a health scare (resolved by a stent), realizing the significance, to me, of sharing this before I die, I typed them in here.
"Notes from (a forehead) on the ground" is an edited subset, aphorisms which could perhaps stand alone, or be understandable by others, mostly outside of the jargon of a certain Hindu-derived, Sanskritic tradition, which by the way I do not officially represent nor here advertise: find your own way. "Darshan Notes" is how I thought of them, and the unfiltered superset keeps that name. The new title, a riff on Dostoevsky, brings a wider resonance, while communicating the same profundity that I've felt, so it's for the wider audience.
You may wonder, What is your intention, Tom, with all this religiosity and God talk? Intellectually, I am actually an atheist. My Dad's Dad would say, I'm from Missouri, I'll believe it when I can see it. I'm with Grampa (Mom too, see #4, here). In the normal understanding of entities and relationships and existence and reality, there is actually and with certainty no god, let me just say it. No, it's not a matter of unknowability like the agnostics say, it's not possible-but-unknown whether there might be some kind of supernatural entity floating out there, invisible because maybe it's hiding behind a planet or some star, whether shaped like an old man with a beard or otherwise, listening to, much less delivering on, children's on-bent-knee and adults' however-expressed prayers, verbal emissions of grocery lists, like Santa in his workshop, somehow somewhere. No, there isn't any doubt. That's NOT true. Obviously.
Why do discussions of religious life and experience have to always walk tippy-toe around this question of the existence of God? Of course not. We all know what "exists" means, rocks exist, trees exist, and, obviously, God does not exist. I say let's get over being unable to say that.
Still, there's something else actually going on in this domain, and it's a different matter entirely from entities that might or might not exist and whether they do or don't. I think that what it is is the apparently unrelated but universal problem of emotional self-management, and that religious or spiritual practices, teachings, stories, experiences all have the primary and essential purpose of helping us with our own emotional self-management. So although upon entry to this subject, for scientific clarity, I do have to declare the baseline facts, it doesn't mean there isn't a baby in that bathwater to be pulled out.
And Second Teacher said, you have to be an idiot to be an atheist, and I won't argue with that, being happy to be rather on the dumb side in many ways, what can I do? Nothing in these Notes is authoritative or intended as other than personal, subjective, and observational, and actually as data for scientists (current theory here). I hope you are your own kind of scientist, seeking truth and Truth in your own way, coming from where you come from, with the abilities and limitations that you have, just as I come from some place with some abilities and some limitations. Seeking truth that is true enough, and with it relief, an end to the inner suffering.
So I offer these notes to you, so maybe you don't have to mentally suffer quite as much or as long as someone like me, and maybe you can find and hold onto some of the happiness I have also touched in these years, decades, of seeking, and with my forehead on the ground, of finding.
Bless you; may you suffer as little as possible, may you find great, true happiness, irrational bliss and serenity, effortlessly, may you know and rest in your own Self.