The Sensual Approach to Self-Enquiry

Kang, our most active commentator, makes a number of worthy points in response to my last post.

He makes much of various traditional distinctions between maya and Brahman, and points out, fairly enough, that I am still stuck in maya. Yes, indeed. Of course, that should be fairly obvious to anyone. If I weren't stuck in maya, I doubt I'd be blogging. Is there a more perfect description of maya than blogging? A solitary voice in an electronic virtual world trying to understand what's going on? I can't think of one. Anyway, let's not pretend I'm up to something profound here. I'm just asking myself some questions, and seeing what comes of it. Brahman will let me know if I'm onto Him, I'm sure.

He brings up a more interesting point here:

“I don't know about this "turning attention upon itself." I'm inclined to say that phrase has no actual meaning. If attention becomes the object of attention, what has occurred? Can attention be its own object? What does attention look like?”

This gets to the crux of what self-enquiry is about. I'm not much interested in the philosophical debates over these matters anymore. Been there, done that, got as much from it as I think I care to, and now I'm interested in talking about these matters in the first person. When I talk about attention, I'm not talking about an abstraction, I'm talking about the very real and obvious phenomena of noticing that we are aware of one another, of ourselves, of these bodies, of these hands and eyes and feet, of the whole gamut of sensual experience, including the sensuality of thought, of emotion, of observing ourselves in this moment from head to foot, and everything in between. What are we observing that is not attention? That's just as good a question.

So then, what does it mean to “turn attention upon itself”? Well, I think it's kind of obvious. Instead of simply noticing objects and studying those objects, notice the process of attention itself, of how the mind creates a psychic reality of objects, of thoughts, that has a genuine sensual reality to it. Notice the phenomena of attention. Be aware of awareness. This isn't too hard to do. It may seem like something of a contradiction in linguistic terms, but in down home sensual experience, it's about the most obvious thing we experience.

The first thing we experience is this sensual feeling of being aware, of being a field of awareness that contains and contemplates objects of various kinds. Now, instead of focusing on objects, why not just feel and be aware of ourselves as this awareness? Is that really so hard to do? I don't think so. And this is what self-enquiry is about to me. In essence, it's nothing more complicated than this simple decision to turn attention back upon itself, to notice oneself in the midst of things, to be self-aware, in other words. I don't mean self-conscious in the nerdy sense of things, but in the most basic sensual sense of things. Awareness is primordial sensuality. It is a feeling capacity, whose very nature is sensual feeling. What if that feeling capacity doesn't go outward through the senses? Does it lose its sensuality? Not in my experience. It gains a purity in its sensuality, an ease and a pleasurableness that is not defined by any objects of the senses. It is sensuality turned upon itself. It is thought turned upon itself as well. It is intelligence itself, not the insights or meanings that we acquire through intelligence. It is the conscious principle seen as itself, rather than in constant subordination to objects. Let consciousness be itself, rather than constantly turned towards an object, and it naturally knows itself. We are naturally aware of ourselves as attention, as awareness. This gets lost when we become obsessed with objects, but it is restored when we begin to let objects fall away, and allow attention to rest in self-awareness.

Now, one of the things I'd like to do with this blog over time is take a look at the literature on this subject. There's a lot in Ramana and many traditional sources that touch on this approach. There's a great many good instructions I've come across, and that undoubtedly others can help point out, which can help clarify this whole business. But I'm not primarily interested in the literature itself, or gaining more intellectual understanding of these things. I simply want to use such literature to help clarify this simple and direct inspection of awareness itself, by turning attention back upon its source.

Yes, what happens then? Can attention be its own object? I don't think that's the result. When attention is turned back on itself, it has no object. It is only awareness itself, without an object. Yet, can such awareness be unaware of itself? Hardly? Awareness knowing itself is jnana, knowledge of the Self. It isn't at the end of some program, it's in the beginning of this process of being aware of our own awareness in the most direct and sensual way. We need to be aware of the full spectrum of awareness, the sensual, feeling, all-encompassing sphere of attention itself as it actually functions in mind and body and world, without trying to make it into anything other than itself, but letting it pervade the room, the body, the mind, as freedom, free attention, free feeling, the very Self.

At least, that's what I'm trying to explore. We'll see if it produces anything worthwhile.

Shout Out To Ma Peeps

I just got sitemeter up and running for the first time in a year, and lo and behold, there's actually people out there reading this blog. Yesterday totaled 71 unique visitors and 109 page views, which totally surprised me. Seems like a lot, though I have no idea what a lot is. I thought I'd be lucky to get a half dozen frazzled surfers wandering in from the cold looking for tips on how to recover from hatha yoga injuries.

Anyway, thanks dudes for stopping in. I checked out the locations y'all are from, and it seems to be from all over, as this sampling shows:

Surrey, British Columbia
Calgary, Alberta
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Boulder, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Oakland, California
Los Angeles, California
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Kelseyville, California
Durham, North Carolina
Great Falls, Virginia
Latham, New York
San Diego, California
Horseshoe Bay, Texas
Waltham, Massachusetts
Phoenix, Arizona
Kinston, North Carolina
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Albany, New York
Van Nuys, California
London, United Kingdom
Boston, Massachusetts
Irvine, California
Alblasserdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Atlantic Beach, Florida
Auburn, New York
Bradenton, Florida
Osseo, Wisconsin
Fairfield, Iowa
Santa Cruz De Tenerife, Canarias, Spain
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Kamloops, British Columbia
Paris, Ile-de-France
Clockville, New York
Diamond Bar, California
Fremont, California
Montreal, Quebec
Spokane, Washington
Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Denver, Colorado
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Saint Louis, Missouri
New Zealand Auckland

I see only few patterns. There's a few Dasters in Kelseyville and Holland, a few Wilberites in Colorado, and then - there's everyone else. Apparently, a whole new world out there.

Anyway, feeling your love, bros and sistas.

Ruminations on Self-Enquiry and Pranayama

I don't want to get too bogged down in theory here. It's kind of my weakness, by which I mean something I indulge in too easily. But there's a couple of comments from the last post that bring to mind a few simple matters.

One comment asks about the “afterglow” of this practice, and whether it continues. My experience in dabbling with self-enquiry over the last couple of years or so is that it does continue. In other words, there is something that “matures” in the process over time, and which leaves me in a deeper and more relaxed state. There's certainly fluctuations in my state, but in general, a clear trend towards a happier, more relaxed, and deeper sense of freedom.

For example, in relation to the breath, we could even talk about this going back many, many years. I first became directly aware of breath as “prana”, as an energy that circulates through the body via the breath, when I was just nineteen. I remember the very first time I ever felt it. I was working as a delivery driver in San Francisco, living in a Daist household, and someone mentioned to me before work that morning that there was a prediction of an earthquake for later that day. I kept thinking about that during my high speed travels around the Bay Area. I felt very intensely attuned to the possibility of death – particularly as I drove through the underside of the 880 freeway in Oakland, which did in fact collapse and kill dozens of people during the 1989 earthquake. I could imagine dying there, and the thought of death made me feel a deep sensitivity to this human condition of mortality. The deeper I felt into this, the more attuned my breath become to a certain kind of energy in the body, until it was clear that I was breathing more than just air, but “prana”, the life force which undergirds the physical, biological life of the body. It helped attune me to the reality that there is more to this life than the physical body, that there is a whole dimension of energy, particularly associated with the breath.

Over the years I began to feel the prana of the breath more and more often. Particularly when my feelings ran deep, I could feel this prana, and notice how it related to emotions and mind. I noticed how my negative emotions tended to obstruct this feeling, and even how constrictions and contraction of the body could render me unable to feel it. But over time, I felt it more and more often, to the point where now I feel it virtually all the time, whatever I'm doing. Of course, I still notice that sometimes I feel it more strongly and deeply than at other times. When I refer to self-enquiry strengthening the breath, I mean that it helps me feel this natural pranic energy of the breath more deeply and consistently. That seems to me to be one of the most obvious side-effects of practicing self-enquiry of late. My ability to feel the prana of the breath is way stronger than it has ever been, and as a consequence, my general state of mind and body and overall feeling is way stronger than it's ever been. As I say, it's not as if there are no fluctuations, but the general trend is all positive. It gives me a greater sense of positive emotion, love, general freedom and happiness that I've ever experienced. It's not that things are just honky dorry or anything, just more deeply human, more feelingly sensitive, and so forth.

This is of course something Ramana talked about frequently. He often mentioned that pranayama was one of the primary supports for the practice of self-enquiry. However, it's not as if I have ever intentionally practiced any formal pranayama in my life. There's a whole yogic literature about such things, and I've never really done any of it. I just breath and feel and relax, that's about it. It seems to work just find doing it this way. And self-enquiry seems to help also. They seem mutually supportive of one another. The more simple pranayama I do, the more it enables self-enquiry to be effective, and the more self-enquiry I do, the more effective is pranayama. We aren't talking about anything earth-shaking here, just very down home feeling and breathing. But it still makes for a very satisfying physical and emotional experience. And it does feel right and good and it grows over time, as I practice.

So what I mean when I say using this mantra of Papaji's “I am free” brings about a feeling of ease and release, I'm talking about something tangible in body and mind, something that does indeed grow over time. I mean, I can feel that every little bit of it helps me grow a little bit more, and feel a little bit more, and that this accumulates not like a pile of dog bones buried in the back yard, but as a deepened sense of release and freedom. It just feels that the more I do this, the deeper that release grows, bit by bit, and that none of it is really wasted or futile. Yes, sometimes it actually triggers a reaction in me, but even those reactions are simply part of a larger purification cycle. Sometimes those reaction cycles get acted out in life, in relation to other people. Sometimes I get distracted by them. But eventually, when the reactions have died back down into self-enquiry, I find myself feeling at least a little bit deeper as a result. I find the breath fuller and stronger, and the prana even more pervasive and enjoyable. And the love, all the more tangible. I'm lucky of course to have a wife who is sensitive to spiritual things, and who has a great capacity for love. And kids who are similarly inclined. And friends as well.

Now, the other thing someone brought up is the old saying “In maya there are no answers, in Brahman there are no questions”. Which is of course true, even of self-enquiry. Self-enquiry is not something that is done in Brahman, it is done in maya. The only answer to the question “Who am I?” is not found in the mind, in maya. It is found in Brahman. So it requires that we leap out of maya if we really want the answer. It requires that we leap out of the very mind that asks the question. This is not actually a paradox, or an impossibility, as maya is simply a superimposition on Brahman. In other words, even as we ask the question, we are already dwelling in Brahman. We are already free. We need not search for an answer. We need merely to pay attention to where we already are, to what and who we already are. There are of course no answers in Brahman, because Brahman is itself the answer. It is the “who” of “who am I?” So the practice of self-enquiry is something of a bridge to Brahman. But even that is misleading, because you can't build a bridge to a place you already are. It is really just a reminder, a way of drawing attention to the fact that we aren't in maya at all, that we are not who we think we are at all, that we are Brahman, that we are free. In that sense, it serves its purpose well, even in the form of a question. But the question is not itself the true form of self-enquiry. The mere turning of attention upon itself is the real form of self-enquiry. Noticing that we are aware, and noticing this with greater and greater depth, is all it really amounts to.

Freedom Is Just Another Word For Freedom

In case anyone got the wrong idea, the purpose of this blog is not to give a blow-by-blow account of my experiments in the practice of self-enquiry, but simply to post whatever seems relevant to me in the course of attempting to immerse myself in this process. I'm not even sure how to describe self-enquiry in that way. I will probably try at some point. I'm still just trying to understand self-enquiry more fully myself, and how it relates to everything else. One commentator of old acquaintance suggests that self-enquiry has nothing to do with truth, or maybe with anything else for that matter (I'm not sure exactly what his point was). Well, I may or may not find out the answer to that question. So far, I can't say that is literally the case. I think it is simply central to consciousness, but not apart from life in any practical respect.

Take for example this practice I've been experimenting with of Papaji's, which is merely to repeat the admonition “I am free”. Here's Papaji's explanation of it (full text at this website, under the title “Who are you?”):

“When you still all activities, without doing anything, without thinking any thought - when you do not stir any thought from the mind ground, without moving, without moving the mind, without starting a single thought - in an instant of time you are free. When you give rise to any sadhana or practice, when you go to any center or ashram, when you go to any teacher or pilgrimage or church, when you make any prayer, you have postponed it. This you have done.

Be free of all these things right now. Because free you have been, free you are. You cannot achieve anything other than what you are. Anything gained afresh or achieved for the first time - anything which is new to you - you will certainly lose because it was not there at all. All that is natural to you is already there. Do not try to achieve anything or gain anything or attain anything which is not already there. This is not a fresh gain. People think, "At the end of this sadhana I am going to be free." But it is not like that. You have been looking for something else, not freedom. Freedom is already here.

When you exert effort or practice sadhana you will camouflage and cover the truth. You will have to remove this covering because it is you who put it there. This covering will be removed through your effort. And when all efforts are done away with - when all attempts, all intents and intentions, all ideas and notions are rejected - at that time ask yourself, "Who am I?" You will certainly find the answer.

This is how freedom is already attained: You are already free. If you can hear this once from a teacher you are free. If you cannot hear this, then practice. If you can listen to a teacher who is not a liar, who is speaking the truth, and if you are honestly longing for freedom then listen once and you are free.

If you are not honest and if the teacher is not authentic it will not work. You will have to take up a practice if something is false somewhere. What is that practice? At all times, walking, sleeping, dreaming, on waking, while standing, sitting, lying, go on chanting the mantra. I can recommend mantras also, as a second best. If you can repeat this mantra from now till your last breath I guarantee you will not appear again in a next birth; you will not fall into any womb. What is the mantra? "I AM FREE!" Take up this practice if you do not believe me.

If you can listen, if you long for freedom, and you feel that I am honest when I tell you that you are free, then accept it! Hear this only once and you are free.

If you do not accept what I am saying then I will give you a practice as a second best. You will have to continue practicing on every breath - every breath of the waking state, of the dream state, of the sleeping state up to the last breath. Then I guarantee that you will not appear again in this miserable samsara.

Here's what I find: this works. I'm noticing that most of my problematic feelings about life are simply based on the conviction of bondage, limitation, and restriction. Something impinges on my mind, and I believe it, I let it define me, and I struggle with it (or just give into it and try to accept it). Instead, this “mantra” of “I am free” cuts through that to the core, and lets me remember that this bondage isn't true, that I am truly free, for real. Repeating the admonition intensifies that feeling, that intuition, such that I can relax and surrender rather than feel cornered and resorting to the fight-or-flight mechanisms of stressful seeking. It brings an original, natural strength and balance to my disposition, to me feeling, and to my action. My mind relaxes, and my breath fills with life-force.

Now, I'm not practicing this with every breath – far from it. But even practiced every now and then, it seems to work as advertised. In other words, it's helping cast out some of my doubts, and replacing them with a basic sense of faith. Slowly, to be sure, but slow is better than nothing.

One other thing I'll say about this practice is that, for me at least, it isn't a mantra. I haven't really tried to use it as a mantra, at least not in the traditional sense. For me it's the meaning of the words that matter, not their repetition. A mantra as I understand it is some word or phrase that is repeated to the point where it no longer means anything, it's the sound itself that matters, or the connection it creates with one's God or Guru. Mantras are supposed to carry some magical resonance to them, such that merely repeating them creates a force of sound and psychic force that in itself produces some kind of effect. I don't find this to be the case with “I am free”. I mean, its power come directly from its literal meaning, not from some magical power within it. It directly connects me to the simple reality that I am free. In fact, the reason I think I find myself more drawn to this form of mantra, more, say, than “I am Brahman” as Papaji and others also suggest, is that I know immediately what the word “freedom” means, whereas I have to do a kind of translation process in my mind with the word “Brahman”. In essence, they mean the same thing, but the meaning is more direct and clear to me using the word “freedom”. What the hell is “Brahman” anyway? I'm not a Hindu, after all. The word is a bit loaded at this point, like using the word “God”. If I were to repeat “I am God”, I think I would encounter a fair amount of confusion and resistance, because of all the oddball connotations associated with the word. Whereas “Free” is, well, free of those things.

My Latest Guru

A few months ago my wife and I stumbled across a remarkable show on television. I say remarkable not because it's hugely entertaining in any obvious way, but because it's about the only example I've found in the popular media of real human and spiritual wisdom. It's a reality show called “The Dog Whisperer”, and it documents the work of Cesar Milan, a famously skilled dog trainer, dealing with ordinary people's problems with their dogs. He has amazing success dealing quickly and effectively with the kinds of dog behavioral problems that most owners can't seem to make a dent in for years and years. Even more remarkable is the way he goes about it, and the understanding that he brings to both the people and the dogs.

His approach is to treat dogs as the pack animals that they are, and recognize that they have innate social needs that must be provided by the pack, or the dogs become aberrated, neurotic, and dysfunctional. The primary need of the pack is a pack leader, someone who demonstrates the proper skills to maintain pack cohesion and safety. When Cesar diagnoses problem behavior in a dog, generally speaking he finds the problem not in the dog itself, but in the “pack”, which in this case is the human family the dog is a part of, and how that family relates to the dog. He points out that to the dog, the human family he belongs to is his pack, and the human owners are the pack leaders. Unfortunately, it seems that human beings simply don't know how to be good pack leaders much of the time. They relate to the dogs as if they are human children, and fail to give them the necessary discipline and leadership they need. Instead of being firm leaders, human dog owners tend to indulge their dogs and let them do whatever they like, and then when the dogs do things they don't like, they don't know how to stop them.

It surprises most every dog owner on his show that what dogs really want is to find their proper place in the pack, which in their world means to be subordinate to the pack leader. Yet even the most alpha-leader dogs recognize humans as their dominant pack leader, and expect humans to fulfill that role. Humans tend not to understand this, however, and so when the human owner fails to act out that role, the dogs become insecure and panicked. They feel a necessity to act aggressively and dominantly to fill the gap that their human owners have failed to take responsibility for. They will test the boundaries of their owners, and end up in a state of perpetual nervous exhaustion rather than what Cesar calls “calm-submissive” relaxation. He points out that what dogs really want is to be submissive, to be relaxed and at ease within the pack, and that this is how they achieve stable happiness. Humans, who have different social needs and ideals of individuality that dogs do not share, fail to grasp this, and keep expecting dogs to act as responsible humans, rather than as dogs. The result is chaos and irresponsibility on both sides.

What Cesar teaches people who come to him for help with their dogs is how to act as “calm assertive” pack leaders. He eschews any kind of violent or angry behavior, which usually has the opposite effect, and is a sign to dogs that their human pack leader is himself out of control. Instead, he shows that the pack leader must demonstrate a calm but assertive attitude towards the dogs, constantly aware of their presence and state of mind, and constantly setting simple limits on their behavior. Any signs of deviation from a calm-submissive attitude by the dogs is met by a simple corrective communication, often just a small “ssshhhhhh” and a slight movement or pull on the leash. Cesar points out that the energy we bring to the animal has a profound effect on their own response, and that a constant maintenance of this calm-assertive attitude can very quickly bring about dramatic changes in the behavior of dogs, who will fairly quickly resort to their natural calm-submissive response.

The turnaround in problem dogs documented on his show is quite remarkable. We began watching the show because we thought it would help with our own two dogs, who sometimes get overly aggressive themselves, and the techniques he gave do indeed show real results. But there's something more to the show than just that. One thing that seems clear is that Cesar himself is a very remarkable person. He's simply mature and calm, which is so rare in our media world that it sort of leaps out from the screen. His way of dealing with the human beings on his show is as remarkable as the way he deals with dogs. He's able to bring some fairly intense criticism to these people without their reacting or rejecting his ideas, but rather embracing and enacting a new way of doing things. That in itself is pretty remarkable. And quite a few people seem to recognize that he is teaching a basic principle of life that can bring about changes in far more thean their relationship to dogs. One couple realized very quickly that they had to change their whole life around, including the way they ran the five businesses they were involved in, including the way they related to their employees. They began to understand that being overly aggressive and angry with others simply did no good, but created an environment where people could not simply relax and be happy, but were always worried and tense, because they as “pack leaders” were bringing the wrong energy and attitude to the pack.

In some sense, human beings are indeed very much like dogs. They too have leaders who must fulfill a basic role in order for them to feel relaxed and at ease. Unfortunately, too many human leaders don't know how to practice this “calm assertive” disposition, and instead bring a dysfunctional and neurotic attitude to their social sphere. One thing I notice about Barack Obama during this election cycle is how much he is able to bring this “calm assertive” disposition to his campaign, and how strongly people respond to that. (I've been a big supporter of his from the start). And likewise, how many other candidates fail to grasp this basic sign of human maturity, but instead resort to fear, manipulation, excessive dominance, indifference, and mixed messages that merely make people anxious and insecure.

On the other hand, human beings are also clearly different from dogs, and have much more need for individual autonomy and personal responsibility. However, I think there is indeed a real correspondence between this “pack leader” role and our own internal psychology – particularly in relation to our own “animal”, the human body. The body, after all, is very much an animal that needs to be led by our conscious mind, which, unfortunately, often does a very poor job. Like an irresponsible dog owner, we tend to indulge and ignore the real needs of the body, which simply wants to be relaxed and in a state of “calm submission”. However, because our minds are crazy, neurotic, and swinging between passive irresponsibility and overly aggressive domination, our body suffers immense stress and instability. So in relation to our own bodies, we have to take on the “pack leader” role with an attitude of calm-assertive authority. We have to set simple limits for our body and its desires, and make corrective assertions that keep the body in line with what is healthiest and best for us.

But it doesn't stop there. The mind itself is merely a pack of thoughts and desires, and it too must be brought under disciplined control by the real “pack leader” of our psyche, which is consciousness itself, the central intelligence of awareness itself. The mind has to be made still, calm, and submitted to the conscious being, the “who” of our own being, or it will run amuck, and if it runs amuck, so will the body. There is a natural hierarchy within the psyche which needs to be recognized and taken into account, and the lower orders of the hierarchy must submit to the higher orders, or chaos and unhappiness will result. So many human problems are simply the result of irresponsibility at the higher levels of the psyche for what is below, and not understanding how to assume and enact that responsibility. Like bad dog owners, we tend not to bring a calm assertive attitude towards our own mind and body, but instead indulge them and whip them into a neurotic frenzy which results in all the various forms of depression, anxiety, and ill health, on the mental, emotional, and physical level.

Taking responsibility for these things is a basic form of spiritual practice which is often underestimated or ignored in favor of more esoteric ideas. But without the proper “pack leader” attitude towards our own body and mind, these ideas never actually go anywhere. They don't develop or take hold, because our own relationship to body and mind is aberrated and unclear.

Body and mind are always on the verge of veering off into disaster if we are not properly steering them into the correct disposition. As with Cesar Milan's dogs, the body and mind just aren't all that smart, and they can't help but instinctively respond to the leadership we provide for them, positive or negative. When we have problems, it is generally because we are not providing the proper leadership to our body and minds. We are simply bringing an irresponsible attitude, and our body and minds quickly decay into aberrated patterns which seem intractable, just like these dog owners whose dogs can't seem to change. But if this calm assertive leadership attitude is brought to them, they fall into place very quickly. It can take time, to be sure, but not nearly as long as we imagine. The body-mind naturally wants to return to a state of calm submissive happiness, and it will as soon as we take the position of conscious intelligence seriously and bring the right energy and attitude to the body and mind. When we do that, the body-mind naturally relaxes into a state of ease like a dog lying at our feet.

So, this should give a few hints as to what self-enquiry is all about in practice. In relation to the body-mind, it means assuming the position of consciousness that can calmly but assertively “lead” the body-mind, and allow it to fall into a state of calm submission and happy easefullness. These are the signs that self-enquiry is working, that we are genuinely finding our real self, our real position in life, and acting from that position. The body immediately relaxes. The mind immediately relaxes. We don't become dysfunctional, we become functional at last, but within a calm dynamic of ease and relaxation, rather than frantic activity or dulled depression. This is what is called “sattvas” or balance, in the traditions. It is pointed out that such sattvas is natural to us, and natural to the body-mind. So self-enquiry is really just about calmly asserting the conscious position which allows the manifest body-mind to return to its natural state of submission and balance. One doesn't need to do all kinds of tricks and training programs to achieve this. One simply needs to play the proper role of pack leader in relation to the body-mind. One simply needs to assert consciousness as primary and at the top of the hierarchy of the psyche. One needs to issue corrective communications to the body-mind whenever it begins to step out of line, or really, even before it steps out of line. Over time, it will learn to stay in line without much correction. It will find itself attracted naturally to the pack leader, and to the disposition of calm submission within the pack.

So, I bow to my Guru Cesar Milan, teacher of dogs and humans. May I become a wise pack leader of my own mind and body.

Allowing Nirvikalpa

There's an interesting comment from an earlier post that I thought was worth responding to. It's from mayagaia, who has an interesting website worth checking.

“I've spent the last couple of years in a fairly intensive effort to rationally integrate a Nirvikalpa Samadhic experience I had over 35 years ago. My modis operandi is to subject accounts of realization from various religious disciplines and contemporary "knowers" and see what "sticks" based on my revelation. I can see why the Mellon-Thomas Benedict account has been embraced so ardently because embedded in its convuluted scenario witnessed from a state of dual consciousness are many of the revelations found in the non-dual traditions. But my issue regarding its credibility as original source is the fact that it issued from a consistantly dual state of consciousness. In the case of Ramana- I take issue with his change of heart regarding the significance of Nirvikalpa Samadhi to realization as he developed his discipline for Self-inquiry where he eventually dismissed it as being no better than a "drug experience or going to sleep" He further confused the issue by adopting the Sikh sahaj and redefining it as a superior state because in rising to it all (bad) vasanas are destroyed. In my opinion he simply failed to understand that authentic NS is just the start of the immediate challenge of integration- where only few assimilate tradition to the degree that they become jivanmukta or tahagata and most reamain partially enlightened but all having experienced the same samadhi. Realize this may not stay posted but liked your posts on the forum where you were eventually banned!"

Cheers mayagaia

Mayagaia is referring to an extraordinary mystical experience that spontaneously occurred in 1970, when he was forty-two, a full description of which can be found here, with a number of links to his long study of the subject, and speculations as to its meaning found in links from that page. All of it looks quite genuine and well-considered. I can't offer much more than my own particular take on these descriptions, which may not be worth much, but the subject matter is interesting in any case.

In the first place, Mayagaia mentions that this experience took place after a particularly ecstatic and loving sexual encounter with a woman he was very close to at the time. There's certainly a history of people using sexual energies to stimulate experiences like this, but it doesn't appear that Mayagaia was consciously intending such a result, or even practicing “tantra” in any formal sense at all. He simply found himself in an uncommonly relaxed and ecstatic state, and allowed this ecstasy to overwhelm him. One way these kinds of experiences are looked upon is some kind of end result of a long search and disciplined exercise of one's faculties – an attainment of sorts. This doesn't appear to have been the case here. Another way of looking at these experiences is that they are simply natural to us, but held at bay by the constant activities of mind and ordinary seeking that generally prevent us from knowing ourselves as we really are. That would be Ramana's view on such things. When we relax the mind and allow attention to fall into its natural state, these experiences spontaneously appear. They are merely a sign, in this view, of what is already the case, of who we already are, and of what the world is really about.

What we see and experience and understand in these experiences depends upon the depth of our surrender, our simple relaxation, so reports always vary. In Mayagaia's experience, his spontaneous surrender appears to have been deep enough that he entered the famed “nirvikalpa samadhi”, meaning “formless bliss”. Now, one cannot presume that all forms of nirvikalpa are the same, but they do indeed tend to have a very similar descriptive content – meaning, in effect, no content at all, other than non-dual bliss and infinite ecstasy. The content of such experiences usually involves what led up to nirvikalpa, and what followed. Often there is something profoundly insightful in these before and after periods that reveals something about the nature of the mind, life, and even the cosmos. One could look upon these experiences as something like “atom smashing events”. In other words, when scientists want to look at the deeper structures of matter, then use high energy machines to smash sub-atomic particles together, and the results show all kinds of spontaneous by-products. In Mayagaia's case, he shows a particular kind of by-product that he has been trying to analyze for quite some time. This is natural enough. However, the question is, are these byproducts the real point of the experience?

Mayagaia asks me to explain Ramana Maharshi's views on these matters. Of course I can't speak for Ramana, I can only offer my sense of his teachings on these matters. In general, I'd say that Ramana would consider the analysis of these personal and cosmological by-products of the experience to not be the real point of them. Ramana's basic view is that focusing on the content of experience is of little value insofar as spiritual realization is concerned, that instead of focusing on content, we need to look at the structure of our experience, which means the structure of the “I” that experiences. While it is of course almost irresistible to investigate and explore the various meanings and correspondences of these experiences, this tends to take our focus off the transcendental nature of what is at the core of the experience, which is the formless reality itself, the very Self that is left over after all content is removed, which is what occurs in nirvikalpa samadhi. There's not much to say about formless reality, of course, so we tend to focus on content, meaning, history, and relationships to other content in the world of religion, history, etc. Which as I say is almost irresistible, and I've done it myself as much as anyone, so I certainly have plenty of experience on this road, most of which I can't be too proud of.

Mayagaia says that Ramana called nirvikalpa samadhi “worthless”, and I'm not familiar with that quote and would have to ask for the actual quotation and some context, if Mayagaia is still lurking out there. But in general, I think Ramana is merely talking about whether nirvikalpa samadhi leads, in itself, to realization. His view is that it doesn't, that nirvikalpa samadhi, however deep and profound, is only temporary. In other words, no matter how many times one experiences nirvikalpa samadhi, one will come out of it, the mind will return with all its attendant desires and distractions, and one will have to consider the basic truths once again. One has to realize that Ramana was addressing himself to a spiritual culture in which nirvikalpa samadhi is intentionally sought as a means for realization by large numbers of aspirants. I don't think he was trying to suggest that nirvikalpa is literally worthless, only that the intentional seeking and attainment of nirvikalpa is not a path that actually leads to realization, and it can therefore be as deluding as any other experience, from drugs to sleep. One also has to realize that Ramana felt that sleep itself was quite instructive, and offered an excellent opportunity for spiritual understanding and growth, particular the moment just as we are losing consciousness and falling asleep, or just waking up. In the same vein, he'd probably consider drug experiences to have some value, at least in that they reveal the underside of the structures of our consciousness. But in general, yes, I think he would equate the repetitive seeking of nirvikalpa with repetitive seeking through drugs.

The greater point of Ramana's teaching is to direct our attention to the “I”, to the self we feel and think ourselves to be, rather than to achieve profound experiences, either worldly or spiritual, even non-dual experiences such as nirvikalpa. If there's a value to these experiences, it's merely to convince us of the reality of non-dual reality, and give us a taste at least for what that is about. But we will not grasp that nature through any experience, even that of nirvikalpa. What is required in his view is an intensive, one-pointed investigation of the simple experience of “I”. He calls this self-enquiry, a concentration in the “I”-thought, until all other thoughts and experiences subside and are resolved into the root “I”-thought. At that point, Grace moves us beyond the “I” into the Self, the transcendental Source of the “I”. If we have not resolved the “I” which experiences, we will constantly be thrown back into experience in the dualistic fashion, as a separate “I” that experiences a separate “world”, unable to comprehend our state, but seemingly confined by it and propelled into a destiny beyond our control.

This is why Ramana described realization as “Sahaj” Samadhi, meaning “natural”. In other words, ordinarily nirvikalpa requires a subtle force or effort to enter into or attain. Even spontaneous incidents like Mayagaia's are often the result of past karmas of spiritual search. They do not repeat themselves, generally speaking, without concerted effort and attention. What Ramana is saying, I believe, is that one would be far better served to put one's effort and attention into observing and understanding the “I”, through self-enquiry, than to trying to understand or analyze or repeat the experience of nirvikalpa. Or, put another way, real understanding of experiences like these would lead to a deep commitment to the practice of self-enquiry. That would be the sign that one had genuinely understood and made use of these nirvikalpa experiences.

That said, I think a lot of what Mayagaia has grappled with in trying to understand his experience is valuable and true. I'd point in particular to something he has singled out from his experience, this admonition that he had to literally allow this death-like surrender to occur. It reminds me of my own earliest nirvikalpa experience, which occurred when I was sixteen, and had just arrived in Switzerland after leaving home to begin my own grand spiritual odyssey. It occurred during a very dramatic lucid dream that I can never forget, and I won't bother with the details here, but essentially it involved me being mortally wounded and dying. As I lay on the ground bleeding for an excessive period of time, wondering why I wasn't dead yet, I finally realized that I could not die without granting permission to die. I had to literally allow myself to die. When I did so, and gave myself permission to die, I suddenly felt myself blasting off like a rocket ship. As in one of those classic OBE experiences, I left my body and rose up with great speed. I could see my body lying on the ground, then the surrounding landscape, then the the earth itself as I blasted off into space, then the solar system, then the galaxy, and then the universe itself, all of which simply vanished into a tiny point, a singularity, and then this point itself vanished. I was left in an infinite vibrating field of pure energy and bliss, with no objects, no experience, no memory of anything at all, no world, and no movement to do anything or go anywhere else, since there was nowhere else. However, in retrospect I could see that there was, indeed, a very subtle sense of ego, of individuated self, remaining, and experiencing this. For what occurred was that out of this infinite vibrating energy a single form began to materialize. It took the shape of a single porcelain tea-cup, and as it materialized into form, I realized that it represented all my attachments to form, to living in a world, and that it meant that I would have to return to the world to work out and be released from my attachments. And then I too began my “descent” back into the world, and woke up from this visionary dream feeling deeply moved by it. As another parallel to Mayagaia's experience, even though there was no sexual content to the dream at all, I woke up realizing rather quickly that I had ejaculated during the night, probably during the experience itself. Of course, I was sixteen at the time, and wet dreams were pretty common for me back then, so it may not mean much of anything, but there is probably a connection to sexual energies in any case.

Whatever the meanings of such dreams, I think there is indeed something to this notion that we have to consciously allow ourselves to surrender in order to know ultimate truth, or even to be successful in the practice of self-enquiry. The fear of death is perhaps the primal barrier we must cross, and to cross it, we have to allow the “I” to die, both psychically and spiritually. This is of course not the death of who we really are, but the death of an illusion we cling to. Clinging to the “I” is the primal attachment, from which all other attachments follow. Ramana's method was not to try to eliminate all our peripheral attachments, but to concentrate on the primal attachment, cut it off at the root, and let all the others fall away as a consequence. This is why he considered it the quickest and most direct path.

Anyway, I thank Mayagaia for sharing his experiences with all of us.

Reality Checking the Reality Checkers

Okay, some more thoughts on the “Reality Check” discussions I linked to earlier.

Apparently the guys over there are still in a tizzy. I thought they'd just drop the whole thing and pretend it never happened, but apparently not. A number of people are still trying to discredit me, and their leader Kyle Griffith is now claiming I have some secret theocratic agenda of my own. As if I didn't see that one coming. This is getting way too funny. Here's Kyle in his own words:

“The reason I kicked him [Conrad] out of RC when I did was simply that I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN he has a hidden agenda to recruit members of the "silent majority" of RC readers for some kind of New Age theocratic cult, and that he would like to "poison" the atmosphere here so we can't conduct positive discussions based on the WiH ideas.”

You heard it here first. I'm looking for recruits for my secret demonic cult, and that means YOU! Be afraid, be very afraid. If you are, remember Kyle was afraid first. As he says in a followup post:

“To put it in a nut-shell, the more I see from Conrad, the more scared of him I get.”

I don't know whether to be flattered or applaud the comic skills of this guy. Unfortunately, the dude is actually serious, which inspires a certain amount of pity, at least for those gullible enough to have drunk his Kool-Aid. Now, there's not much I can say about my own demonic cult here that wouldn't annoy my theocratic masters and spoil my sinister plan I've been unfolding aimed at controlling the universe and devouring the souls of the innocent (BWAHAHAHA!). But I can comment on what goes on in cults like this a bit, since it seems to be fairly common in the world of spiritual and occult groups.

Here's the frightening dilemma Kyle finds himself in:

“[Conrad has] been posting some very dangerous Theocratic propaganda on the RC boards, where it may be seen by readers who are vulnerable to it. Essentially, Conrad wants me to put me in a lose/lose position where I have to either violate the most important principles of the whole IR/SR movement by compromising the basic cosmology described in WiH, or else appear to be egotistical, close-minded, bigoted, and cultish.”

Yes, that's some lose/lose position to be in. Either violate some internal taboo against actually questioning anything about the whole WiH thesis and cosmology, or end up looking like a crazy cult. The choice seems obvious to Kyle, which is to go down the crazy cult route and refuse to even engage anyone who is skeptical and raising questions about his views. To him, of course, this seems like the high-minded route of integrity and honesty. And this is the problem with cults. They create self-reinforcing ideologies that have to be defended at all cost, the best defense being to refuse to even listen to or engage criticism, and to label critics as demonically possessed enemies of all that is good and true who are conspiring to destroy the defenders of liberty, who as it happens are naturally identified with the cult leader, and his secret sources of truth.

Now here's the problem, and how I came to such wrong-headed (and positive) ideas about Kyle and his work before I started posting here. As I said, the basic ideas of WiH aren't bad, within a certain context. The notion that much of religion is parasitic and run by demonic beings from the astral planes doesn't seem all that far fetched, once you accept that astral beings exist and see what so much of religion is really up to. Likewise, the notion that there are astral beings fighting against this is reasonable too. The Vedantic tradition, for examples, often mentions the endless battles between devas and asuras, and of course the Christians talk about angels battling devils, and almost every dualistic religion has something similar in its cosmology. Likewise, the notion that something refreshing began to be introduced to the world during the Renaissance is quite reasonable as well. Kyle's “Invisible College” is supposed to be the astral body that has essentially inspired and worked towards promoting the whole humanistic, scientific, secular and even occult movement which has helped change the western world, and even now much of the east, for the better, by introducing rational skepticism and a whole system of evidentiary-based models for dispelling many basic illusions. Likewise, they have inspired democratic forms of government which have helped bring down tyranny and exploitation around the world, which would seem to represent the earthly counterparts to the astral theocrats.

All of this suggested to me when I first read it that these Invisible College fellows were pretty much “the good guys”, and were interested in promoting the questioning of authority, self-knowledge, openness, critical inquiry, and all the various facets of intellectual integrity and the rejection of received knowledge that is the hallmark of what is good in the western secular movement. So given the claims by Kyle that the IC is behind this kind of positive development in the world, I simply assumed that's what would be evident in Kyle's group. Unfortunately, the opposite turns out to be the case. Rather than being full of skeptical and intelligent people rigorously trying to determine the truth for themselves, what we get is a group that is incapable of even considering basic questions about Kyle's WiH writings, and who view any form of outside questioning as hostile intrusions by demonic forces who wish to undermine their “positive” discussion.

Even worse, I started to get a real taste for how Kyle has set himself up for failure and rejection, over and over again. His basic idea is that everyone else in the history of spirituality and psychism who has described spiritual reality in a way the differs from his WiH books has basically been duped by these theocrats, who have implanted these ideas in their heads in order to make them susceptible to theocratic parasitism, and to enslave or even devour them in the afterlife. Likewise, his view of the afterlife is remarkably bleak:

“The vast majority of souls on the Astral Plane are like homeless people living on the streets, begging for sustenance from living people and being preyed upon by gangsters who are called "Theocrats" in WiH. Using this analogy, the IC spirits are like urban guerrillas living among the homeless and fighting the gangsters. But where the analogy breaks down is that there is no government or police force on the Astral Plane is there usually is on the Earth Plane -- just criminal gangs CLAIMING to be such...”

Now, as I said on their forums, this may in fact be the case in SOME astral planes, in some afterlife scenarios, perhaps of people with very negative karmas or obsessions, or even among people with very passive attitudes towards religion. But the notion that this is the only reality of the astral planes, and that there's nothing else, and that anyone claiming to have experienced anything else is merely promoting a theocratic agenda, is well, let's put it kindly, extremely unlikely. Kyle is putting himself in the position of basically claiming that virtually everyone other than himself in the history of religion and spirituality is deluded, and he is not. It's not just that I'm deluded in his view, but so are the greatest figures in the history of spirituality. What are the chances? On the face of it, it not only sounds absurd, it also sounds precisely like the kind of crazy claims that the truly perverted forms of religious cultism I had assumed he was fighting make. Kyle is of course certain of his own truth, and likewise certain that anyone who disagree with him or criticizes his views is in league with the devil:

“Over the two years I've been back on line, I've read material posted by literally hundreds of other people who are saying essentially the same things Conrad said here -- and they have ALL turned out to have a similar [theocratic] agenda.”

Here we have, in effect, a lone savior, unappreciated except by a tiny group of followers who have complete faith in his revelations, constantly bombarded by hundreds of people who somehow share the same theocratic agenda. This is not ordinary paranoia, this is a clinical pathology. The sad things is, of course, that it didn't have to turn out that way. I'm sure Kyle didn't intend for it to turn out this way, and I'm also sure that in his own mind it hasn't turned out this way. He truly does believe he's not created a cult, and I'm sure the people in his group find the charge preposterous. Unfortunately, the progression from skeptical psychic inquiry to true-believer cultism is often a seamless one, step by step, that we should all take seriously. We could smirk at Kyle's foolishness, but perhaps a better reaction is to say, “There but for the Grace of God go you or I.”

As mentioned, there is some truth in Kyle's views nonetheless. Unfortunately, partial truth is often the path to cultism. The virtues of the true parts of a message hide the faults of the false parts, and lead to the development of a faith-based approach to the entire message, which masks its falsehoods and ignores or facilely explains away its contradictions. The problem with Kyle's message is that there is virtually no outside corroboration for it. Oh, sure, there's some corroboration for some parts of it, but there's huge amounts of evidence that contradicts its overall claims in so many areas, particularly in big picture terms, that it's virtually impossible to support it without resorting to completely deranged forms of cultic thinking. The need to support this way of thinking becomes a rationale for becoming even more extreme in one's views, and this just spirals out of control. Kyle has been doing this for so long he can't for the life of him see how deranged he has become, and at this point there's probably no hope for him. That may or may not be true of his followers. I would suggest that they begin reading some good anti-cult literature and compare the descriptions of cults and cult thinking that is found there with what is going on with Kyle and his group.

Now, as I think back to when I first read WiH, I recall that parts of it seemed true, but there also seemed to be a wild paranoia to it that was highly disagreeable. Others seem to get the same feeling from the material, and the forum itself. What's interesting to me about it is the literal descriptions of what goes on in the astral planes, the various astral bodies, the structure of the astral realm, and the mechanisms by which theocrats feed upon others and exploit them. A fair amount of this material seems at least partially accurate to me, though rather slanted and reductionist. For example, he describes the human being as being composed of essentially three bodies, the physical body, the “soma” body which corresponds almost exactly to the physical body, but is made out of astral matter, and the “astral body”, which is connected to these by a silver cord. Fair enough. This corresponds quite well to what in the Vedantic system are called the physical body, the pranic body, and the lower astral body. However, as I tried to point out to Kyle from the beginning of our thread, it doesn't end there. The traditions of Vedanta and Buddhism also describe an even subtle astral body, called the “vijnanamayakosha”, or “discrimination body”, or “wisdom body” or “prajna body” (and more beyond that as well). While the lower astral body corresponds to the lower thinking mind that deals with the more ordinary matters of life, this “prajna body” corresponds to the higher mind, and these traditions basically describe spiritual growth as a process of developing this higher mind, or “prajna” - in other words, wisdom and discrimination.

Much of spiritual life is essentially just about developing true and higher discrimination, the ability to tell truth from falsehood, happiness from unhappiness, paths that lead to misery and paths that lead to health and happiness. It is more than a merely intellectual capacity, it is a deep feeling capacity to recognize and separate the wheat from the chaff, the bullshit from the real deal. It is also associated with higher realms of experience as well, astral planes that are much deeper and more interesting than the lower astral realms.

One thing that is pretty quickly evident in Kyle and his group, however, is the near-total lack of discrimination. They simply cannot ask themselves the kinds of questions that would allow them to discriminate the good from the bad in his writings and ideas. They have to accept either all of it or none of it, and so of course it ends up being all of it (anyone who doesn't except all of it either leaves or is forced out). And they find anyone who brings any kind of discrimination to their group to be an agent of the devil. Why is this? It's simply because they haven't developed any discrimination, and find discrimination threatening. This is of course one of the standard signs of cults, and one of the pathological side effects of being in a cult. Cults degrade the ability to discriminate, to use one's real, innate intelligence to reject what is false and accept what is true. They either have to accept everything as true, or reject everything as false. The world view of the WiH follows this pattern. Everyone and everything else in religion is false, and only the IC messages are true.

Likewise, the cosmology of the WiH lacks any discriminating capacity, literally, in that it rejects, or is not even aware of, the existence of the higher, discriminating mind. It's view of the astral dimension only includes the lowest, most hellish planes of the astral worlds. It excludes the higher worlds, and everything associated with “prajna”, including the vijnanamayakosha body itself, as well as anything beyond that. So it is left with a reductionist world that seems bleak and empty and subject to parasitical attacks by astral thugs. Well, naturally. When you reject anything higher, of course you have no defense against the deprivations of more powerful beings. Just as one could say that people without any responsibility for the lower astral become subject to attacks from astral beings, so people who lack any responsible discrimination also become subject to attacks by more self-aware beings. What's the answer to this? Well, develop the discriminative mind. Unfortunately, this is precisely what most cults discourage or even make taboo. That's certainly what is going on in Kyle's group, and his cosmological views simply reinforce this lack, by insisting that any higher spiritual truths are demonic. This is just what fundamentalist religionists do in relation to people who might even talk about the astral worlds at all, such as Kyle himself. These types are always accusing such psychic and spiritual talk of being demonic and satanic, and of trying to diminish the revealed truths of their scriptures with delusional talk about astral planes, etc. Higher knowledge is always seen as the enemy, rather than a friend, and consequently they never develop any.

One thought I had about this that's interesting is the possibility that Kyle and his group represent the very problem they are fighting, in a much more literal way than I've suggested so far. As I said, I think his descriptions of the afterlife are not valid for anyone but those with particular karmas that draw them into such worlds after death. However, it seems quite possible to me that Kyle and his followers are precisely the kind of people who are likely to be drawn into those realms after they die. They are certainly the kind of people who are susceptible to mind-control techniques in this life, as their blind acceptance of Kyle's channeled messages indicates (including Kyle himself, who accepts what his “guides” tell him virtually unquestioningly at this point). So here's the situation: if these theocratic afterlife scenarios are for real, it's very likely that Kyle and his followers are the very people who will be drawn to these worlds, and become subject to the theocrats who dominate them. The kind of admonitions and directions Kyle gives to these people, to reject any experience of higher spirituality as being theocratic in origin, would be exactly the kind of path that would lead them, after death, to reject anything that didn't correspond to Kyle's dismal, dystopian afterlife worlds, and hence, that is precisely where they would find themselves. This leads to the question, are Kyle's guides themselves theocratic? Or, if not, if they do indeed represent these guerrilla fighters on the astral planes who are fighting the theocrats, are they really much different from them? In other words, this kind of conflict seems to be a karma in itself, and those who are sucked into it will indeed be sucked into that kind of afterlife experience. Whereas those who are not, will find a very different kind of afterlife, and even a very different kind of spiritual life, here and now.

Well, people have to make up their own minds and be attracted to whatever they like. I certainly hope the people in Kyle's group find a way to expand their horizons and see beyond the reductionism and cultism of his views, and the views of his “guides”. I hope those people can find a way to move on to something else. And all joking aside, no, I'm not looking to “steal” Kyle's followers. I have a tiny blog here, and no “following” whatsoever, just people like myself who like to wander in on each other's blogs and forums. People should become aware that they are free, really free, and have no need to be bound by fear and terror, real or imagined.

Restoring Self-Enquiry

Had an interesting time last night re-aligning myself to self-enquiry after the distractions of the last week. As mentioned, I'd been feeling a little weakened in that dimension. So I began re-applying myself to it again with a little more conscious force, and for some reason I became rather naturally drawn to Papaji's recommendation of using the mantra "I am free". It's funny how effective that can be. Even a few years ago, I'd have considered this approach a little flaky, or silly, or just plain forced. Now it just seems natural and true and restorative. It's not really about the mind thinking itself into freedom, it's about directly connecting to our inherent freedom, and just affirming what is actually true of me, and of everyone. Really liberating and strengthening. In some basic sense, practiced in a certain way it really is a form of self-enquiry, in that it is a way of putting attention on the "I", and seeing that the truth of "I" is that we are free. I can't tell you how good this feels, how certain freedom can feel, unless you know this yourself already - which you do.

Coincidentally, I got an email from a friend asking me to take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Ramana Maharshi. He felt that it had been watered down by new agey western neo-Advaitists, and needed re-editing, and wondered if I could be of help. So I went to read it, and found it to be a little sloppy, disorganized, and in places hagiographic. It could definitely use some work, but I don't think I'm expert enough in Ramana's life and teachings to be the guy to do it. I clicked to the entry on self-enquiry and likewise found it in need of work. Even so, I still found it very inspiring, and found myself drawn into the practice very directly. The use of the "I am free" exercise seemed to prep me for this, and the self-enquiry took on a lot of strength and depth. It's rather amazing to me time and again how quickly and easily self-enquiry can restore me to a basic and open-ended sense of freedom and happiness. Even if the source is imperfect, it doesn't matter, because self-enquiry derives its power from the Self, not from whatever book or person inspired us to practice it. And perhaps that's a point the Ramana entry in Wikipedia misses. It was certainly a major point in Ramana's own teaching, that the "power of silence" referred to in the article is merely the power of the Self, not something peculiar to Ramana.

Cultic Diversions from Self-enquiry

Well, that was an interesting week.

Sorry for dropping the ball on this blog. In part, it's kids home from college – the good part. In another, not so good part, I ended up finishing out my time on the Lightmind Forums before they closed for good. Made the mistake of getting into it with Gaddy there, my long-time mean-spirited foil, and boy, was that a mistake. Rather dispiriting, but what the hell did I expect? As I mentioned, I need to get out of the forum world in any case, and I guess this should have been taken as a sign.

But do I listen? Nooooooooo. Somehow, I get an email from an MSN forum, just some little link to a post on the afterlife of animals (don't ask), which out of lame curiosity I follow, and end up getting into a thread there. For a little background, this MSN forum is called “Reality Checkpoint”, and it has an archive of channeled material written by Kyle Griffiths (forum handle “spiritrebel23”) who has a very interesting thesis he has been pursuing for over 20 years. He originally published his ideas in a book called “War in Heaven” in 1988, which as manager of the old Dawn Horse Bookstore in San Rafael, I got a mailer for, ordered some copies of, and bought one myself. The book is rather remarkably fascinating in creating a complete, internally consistent, if somewhat paranoid vision of the history of religion, past and present.

The thesis of War in Heaven is that almost all of religion and spirituality is basically a false front for a massive scam run from the astral planes by perverted souls he calls “theocrats”. These souls are no different from ordinary human souls, except that they have learned how to stop reincarnating by feeding off the energies of other souls on the astral plane, and the energies of humans on the physical plane, who they develop a parasitic relationship with, called “religion”. The basic idea is that all religion is essentially the creation of these theocrats, who convince humans to worship them, give them energy, and keep them alive and growing on the astral plane. To keep this going, the theocrats induce humans to enter into a passive trance-like state through prayer, chanting, ritual, and all the various methodologies of religion. During this trance state, theocrats are able to both feed off human energy, and send subliminal messages to the humans which reinforce this state, and which develop into a whole set of religious cosmologies and moral systems which become codified as various forms of religious tradition. He describes the evolution of this theocratic basis for religion from early shamanism to traditions of human sacrifice, animal sacrifice, and then monotheism and other more stable religious systems, and finally to the modern era of extra-religious systems of politics and modern technology, all built on the same model of theocratic mind-control. Griffith has gotten all this information from channeled “guides” who belong to an astral-based group called “the Invisible College” that has been fighting these theocrats since about the 13th century, and who come from other planets, and are responsible for everything from the Renaissance to modern science to the secular revolution and popular democracy.

I could go into more detail, but I won't. If anyone is interested, the entire text of “War in Heaven”, along with plenty of updates, is available here. (The chapters are numbered, but not in order. Scroll down to the bottom for the beginning chapters). A good summary by another member of the group is available here.

Now, I had been quite impressed with the book back in 1988, and kept its ideas in mind over the years. I felt the guy was onto something, even if it didn't seem like the whole picture. Certainly there's plenty of reason to see some kind of psychic vampirism as a big factor in a lot of religion and spirituality, but it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that all of it is built that way. In any case, I didn't pay much attention to it again until this past summer, when I found these links again, reread the material, and thought about posting on their forums, and asking a few questions. I never got around to it, until I got this little email about the animals, went there, perused the forums, and found this thread here, which is basically a very harsh critique by Griffith of a near death experience (NDE) by this guy Mellen-Thomas Benedict, who had a very powerful NDE that is posted on his website. (I'd recommend reading it for its own merits. Quite an interesting NDE many seem to consider one of the best out there). Griffith in no uncertain terms finds Mellen's experience to be an example of very sophisticated modern theocratic deception, using cosmic visions of oneness and love to fool us into thinking that there is anything going in the astral realms other than theocratic abuse. Looking for forum-action (fool that I am), I began posting there in response, because I felt that Griffith was being quite unfair to Mellen, and labeling even what I would consider good and positive spiritual experiences and messages as theocratic.

You can read the thread here if you like. It degenerates pretty quickly. I gotta admit, I wasn't expecting this to happen, and in part its my fault, because pretty quickly I start realizing these guys have created a very insular cult-mindset around this material, and just aren't interested in questioning their basic assumptions, or feeling any need to examine the bigotry implied in their criticisms of others, like Mellen. (And as is my way, I wasn't shy about pointing this out). It's an example once again of how the cult mind operates, and excludes everything that doesn't mesh with the received wisdom of the cult. I really go into it for a few days, and as you can see if you read the thread, it ended up with me being banned. Form your own ideas. It's a shame in a way, because like I say, I think there's some merit to the ideas in WiH, but they just are one slice of the realities of this universe. An important one, I think, but one that is relegated to oblivion, I gather, by the close-mindedness and cultic exclusivity of its advocates. Kind of like Adidam in its own way.

Anyway, it's all a little embarrassing to me, and the real question is, what's any of it got to do with self-enquiry? The short answer is, nothing. In many respects it just represents my own ability to get distracted from self-enquiry by whatever gets into my mind. And I certainly noticed that over this time, my practice of self-enquiry has been much weaker and I have felt the effects of that – weakened energy, subtle fascination, mild irritability, slight depression, etc. It's a sign of my karmas, my tendencies to get into stupid shit like this and become distracted by conflicts with other people. In this case, it's much worse than anything you'd find on Lightmind, where most people at least were very much engaged and open to questioning themselves. In many respects, it's good that it turned out this way. I got my views on the WiH material clarified and deepened, and being banned will keep me from wasting any more time on these guys.

Still, it's not a bad set of ideas. Even the criticism made of higher spiritual experiences as potentially being abused by astral theocrats isn't something I dismiss. It's just that there's far more to it than that, and far more to the universe than these hellish lower astral planes described by Griffith.

So, maybe I'll get back into focusing on self-enquiry, and return this blog to its intended purposes. Not that I mind a little commentary on other spiritual matters like this now and then.

Update:

I want to add that I'd discourage people from posting on the Reality Checkpoint forums in response to my contributions there. I don't want to flood those guys with any more traffic bringing questions and opinions they might find disturbing. Clearly they don't want that kind of attention, and I don't want to encourage it. So feel free to read the posts, but only respond there if you're really interested in their program. You have to get Kyle's permission to join in any case in order to post, and I don't think he'd like that if it was inspired by our thread. That said, do as you wish, naturally.

Self-examination in the First Person

One of the difficulties I have writing this blog is that I am so accustomed to responding to others, it is hard to simply think for myself, and write about what I really care about. My long experience in Adidam required me to think along certain lines, and to constantly respond to both Adi Da and his whole community of chattering practitioners in a manner that constantly compromised my own integrity in both thought and action . The Daism Forum helped break me from the spell of Da, and allowed me to think for myself, but I became bound instead to a constant dialog with people who were not pursuing the same goals or interests or outlook. As a consequence, I could seldom speak as freely as I wished, and pursue the lines of enquiry that genuinely interested me, at least in my writings there. I may have seemed at times to be highly outspoken and opinionated, but my writings were constantly circumscribed by the particulars of the dialog, and who I was speaking with, and responding to. I seldom initiated a dialog there, but in general only responded to others. This left a gap in my participation there that I think has had consequences, just as being in Adidam had consequences.

The consequence in both cases has been an inhibition of the development of my own thinking and feeling. Of course, I haven't limited myself to the forums, and have pursued all kinds of ideas and spiritual practices of my own. But I haven't written about them, and since writing seems an important part of my self-development, that omission seems important. Even more importantly, my addiction to those dialogs seems to indicate an emptiness in myself that I have been trying to fill, using a source and method that can't possibly be fruitful or fulfilling. Conversation with others is of course important, but I think it is secondary, and unfortunately I think I have made it primary, simply by default, whereas what I have neglected as a consequence is the conversation with myself that really is fruitful and fulfilling.

So I resist writing on this blog, I think, not so much because of the personal exposure it brings, but because it requires a commitment to self-examination, and self-development, that is not bounded by others. I have very much enjoyed the forums I've participated in, but I think I've allowed myself to be limited by them as well, in part because the constant give and take helps distract me from myself, from the hard work of self-examination and facing up to oneself that can only be accomplished by myself, in relation to myself, in cracking the nut of self. That kind of distraction has not really served me well, I now think, and it is time to make a few course corrections.

So this blog, if I do it right, will reflect what I care about, and think about, and feel, and not necessarily what any readers out there will care about. I may be entirely wrong about so much that I present here it won't even be funny, but I think I need to pursue my own wrongs as much as my own rights. It's not that I don't welcome feedback as such either. Already there's been quite a few good comments. I could respond to them, but I just don't know that I want to allow this blog to become driven by the dialogs I might enter into with readers and others who respond to what I say. I don't want to be limited by having to explain myself to others in a manner that I think “works” for them, or makes sense to them, or allows for a dialog to proceed in some sensible manner. I may not proceed in any sensible manner, or at least not sensible to anyone other than myself, and maybe not even to myself.

Nor do I really want to be limited by any outside authorities. I will probably be examining various scriptures, Gurus, and various spiritual writings. I've even thought of doing regular book reviews. But I don't want to be defined by such things. One question that intrigues me is, “what is Brahman?”. If I had begun a thread on the Wilber Forum about this, we'd get quite a few opinions, and scriptural citations, and a long list of the various traditional arguments that have been pursued historically about this question, and then a lot of bickering and backfighting that could be both amusing and productive in a certain way, I'm not trying to knock it. People have lots of interesting things to say about the subject, I'm sure. Yes, fine and well, but I don't really care about that. I want to know what Brahman is - directly, in my own experience, my own consciousness, my own being and life. That's what counts to me. The rest is secondary. Now, it doesn't mean that secondary issues aren't relevant or important. I think they are. But they are secondary, not primary, and I don't want to become distracted by secondary issues to the detriment of what is primary.

When I ask myself what is Brahman, I don't look to scriptures, I look to my own experiential being and life and consciousness and awareness. What here is Brahman? When I say “I am Brahman”, why does that resonate and become meaningful to me? Because it does, and I'd like to pursue that matter further. What some scripture might say about that could be helpful, but it's only helpful if it provokes the direct finding of Brahman, the knowing of Brahman, and if it doesn't, then who cares? It might help someone else, to be sure, but if it doesn't help me, it's not very consequential to me. Many things which help me may be of no consequence to others, and I expect that few readers will care about my pursuit of these things. Except, perhaps, to the degree that I'm pursuing them at all, which may be interesting in its own odd way. I don't know if this blog will really be directly meaningful to anyone, unless, to some degree, it simply inspires people to make their own enquiry, and pursue their own truths, in their own way.

Enquiring about Self-Enquiry

I almost decided this was all a mistake and that I should delete this blog. Then I just realized I was being a chicken. So what if this comes off as really, really stupid?

So, what's the important thing here? The practice of self-enquiry. I'm not entirely sure how to write about it. All I know is that it feels right and good and stabilizing.

I started practicing self-enquiry in a very loose way a couple or three of years ago. When I was still in Adidam, or at least thought I was still in Adidam, I had gone through a real crisis about what the hell I was practicing. The whole form of Guru-devotion I had been involved with there fell apart, and the whole notion of meditating on something or someone “else” no longer made sense. I found myself falling back on myself, on my own sense of self. This was in part due to a way I had begun to approach the whole practice of “inspecting the self-contraction” as Da refers to it. I had come to the conclusion that the way to do this was just to feel the sense of “self” itself, feel into it, and through it. The more I did this, the more interesting it became, and the less interesting the rest of Adidam became. So as I left Adidam altogether, I didn't really have a practice at all, so I just felt this sense of “self”, and something about that seemed grounding and centering. I wondered if this was me just reinforcing my ego, a bit no-no in Adidam and certain spiritual minds sets, including my own, but I was in a taboo-breaking mood in any case, and thought it was a good idea to see where this went.

One thing I started to do back then, before I even began anything else, was “praying” to my own Self for help. I didn't even quite know how to conceive of this, I didn't even know what my own Self was, but I just felt that there was something far deeper to me than I understood, and if I couldn't pray to a Guru anymore, couldn't pray to Adi Da anymore, at least I could pray to my deeper Self for help. So once in a while I would just address a prayer to my Self, in whatever way I could, asking for help. And it seemed to come to me somehow, first in the form of various teachings and scriptures, but also in the form of self-enquiry itself. It just took me a while to figure out what was going on. I'm a very slow learner, if you haven't noticed by now.

I began to read Ramana Maharshi again, after many decades of barely glancing at his dharma, apart from its occasional appearance in Adi Da's own teachings. I was deeply impressed and so much of it began to seem natural to me, which was odd because while I had always loved Ramana, I had never felt much moved by his teachings, especially self-enquiry. I had tried Adi Da's various forms of self-enquiry over the years, but never fully connected with that either. Although I recall a very strong dream I had maybe ten years before this, in which I suddenly realized with deep conviction that I would never mature spiritually until I completely committed myself to the practice of enquiry. However, even after that dream I couldn't really do that, at least with Da's forms of self-enquiry, but the memory of this conviction remained with me.

I only very occasionally practiced enquiry, even after reading Ramana's teaching. I didn't quite understand what it meant in practical terms, and didn't know how to engage it. I began to read other Advaitic teachers, including Nisargadatta, Papaji, Annamalai, etc. I also perused A Course In Miracles and its non-dual teachings. These were helpful, but also confusing. Eventually, I decided to write to David Godman, who had written or edited quite a few books on these people, asking for help in trying to understand self-enquiry. We probably exchanged about 30 emails, and he recommended quite a few good books on the subject, particularly his own Guru Sri Lakshmana's book that David had written and edited, and two books by Sadhu Om (another disciple of Ramana). The essential summary of all these was that the practice of self-enquiry boils down to feeling the feeling of “self”, of “I”, of ego, and simply observing this feeling, and simply observing everything from the position of this self-feeling. I began to see that in the most basic sense this was what I had already been moved to do, but didn't quite consciously understand, and didn't know how to engage. In some sense, understanding this was itself liberating, but it was also a bit threatening, and scary.

I tried practicing this fairly intensively for several months. It felt good, but also difficult, and I had quite a few stumbles along the way. One thing I noticed was how intensively this practice aroused a devotional response in me. One thing that had spontaneously begun to occur in me while leaving Adidam and first beginning the rudimentary practice of self-enquiry without really knowing what I was doing is that I would sometimes begin to spontaneously start saying to myself “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you” for no particular reason. This would happen while I was working, or just sitting around, and I never really had much of an explanation for it. I wasn't sure who I was saying this to, or if I was really saying it to anyone at all. I never actually “tried” to practice this in any way, but I would just start saying it, and with real feelings of love, and it seemed to purify my mind and action somehow, so I didn't really try to figure it out.

I could feel that this whole practice of self-enquiry was very purifying, and yet it was also rather unsettling. At a certain point I simply got confused and uncertain about it all, and I found myself getting complicated and unclear as to what to do. At the same time, all kinds of unsettling things were continuing to happen in my life, and practicing self-enquiry began to seem both a little too difficult to maintain, and secondary to so much else. However, I did manage to keep it going, and over time my life got quite a lot simpler and less distracting. At this point, I don't have many distractions other than ones I generate in my own mind. So it seems like a good time to finally get serious and committed to the process, and see how deep I can go with it.

I really do enjoy self-enquiry at this point. There's a great feeling of freedom that comes with it, and just plain enjoyment. The feeling of self is simply so grounding and life-giving that it attracts me more and more into the practice for its own sake, rather than any sense of “getting somewhere” spiritually. And the question of “who” I am is so much more wide-open and liberating than I had imagined possible. Combining it with the mantra of “I am Brahman” seems quite natural and inspiring.

I'd like to write more about self-enquiry, I'm just not sure how to do it. I suppose in the weeks ahead something will come to me.

Poonja Swami

Here's an interesting recent experience:

Last week, on my 50th birthday, the "formal" beginning of this whole hermitage phase of my life, I woke up at about 5:00 AM from a very odd dream. In the dream, I was waiting for a table at a fancy seafood restaurant. Out in the lobby, there were aquariums filled with strange fish that were on the menu. My name was called to be seated at a table, but the hostess explained that before I could be seated, I had to disclose my religion. I told her that I didn't have a religion, but I did have a Guru. She asked me the name of my Guru, and I blurted out “Poonja Swami” before I could even think further. For a moment I felt some sense of guilt or uncertainty, that perhaps I should have said Ramana or Saradamma, but it seemed telling that my immediate response was Poonja Swami. I was asked to write his name on a slate, and I did, but I misspelled it as “Pooja Swami”.

On awakening, I felt into this dream, and something about it felt right to me. I have no real clue about my whole relationship to Gurus, and what any of that ultimately means. But there's some solid reason to feel a strong connection to Papaji. For one thing, he's the only one of these neo-Advaitin guys that I ever actually met in the flesh, back in 1974 in Saanen Switzerland when I was there to see J. Krishnamurti's talks for the summer. I was just 16, and I had no idea who Papaji was at the time. He was just this very impressive looking Indian dude hanging out in the tent where Krishnamurti gave his talks. They had a book stall in the back of the tent, and after Krishnamurti's talks I would linger there and look at the books. I noticed Papaji hanging there also, looking at the books. Something about him struck me as incredibly mature. He seemed to carry himself with such confidence and ease, without self-consciousness or ego, just a mature human being, and I thought to myself, damn, that's what it is to be a man. I wanted to sidle up to him and strike up a conversation, but I felt a bit nervous about this. I did stand next to him, and noticed that he was looking at the books in the Ramana Maharshi section, and I wanted to point out the “Talks with Ramana Maharshi” book to him and recommend it, but something stopped me. I just wasn't sure if I should impose myself on him. So I didn't. Regrets? Perhaps! Of course, it would have been rather hilarious to recommend Ramana's books to one of Ramana's primary disciples, but that's another story. In any case, I went home to my room in a local farmhouse, and began studying the same book of Talks, and while reading Ramana something extraordinary happened. I began to watch my mind speed up, as if it were a tape recorder playing at high speed, accelerating faster and faster, all my thought whipping around in a frenzy, and then suddenly the whole tape slid down the back of my head, through my neck, and into the right side of my heart. Suddenly my mind was empty, and a tremendous feeling of peace pervaded me, and the whole world. I stopped reading and simply sat in this peace, and it persisted for days on end. My mind slowly came back, but it was easy to simply sit without mind, to walk without mind, and to simply feel this pervasive peace in the midst of everything. Over the next few days I went on walks in the Swiss countryside, and on a couple of occasions I came across Poonja Swami and some of his friends walking also. I didn't say anything, and I didn't even connect the experience to him. But I realized that I had seen him several times before around town, in the tent, and even on leaving the train station on arriving in Saanen weeks before.

I didn't connect all of this to Poonja Swami until a couple of years ago when I read David Godman's autobiography of Poonja Swami, Nothing Ever Happened, in which he mentions that Poonja Swami actually went to Saanen and attended J. Krishnamurti's talks in 1974, the same year I was there. I then realized who the Indian fellow was in the tent, and the experience I had afterwards began to make sense, since Papaji was well known for traveling around the world and spontaneously giving experiences of the Self to people in the course of his travels, often without any formal meeting at all, just while walking around. So I figure I was one of those people. I was having all kinds of unusual spiritual experiences that summer, and though I didn't connect them to Papaji, it's interesting that I kept bumping into him there.

Since leaving Adi Da several years ago, I have often wondered if I would ever have another Guru again. The only living Guru who I feel at all attracted to is Muthra Sri Saradamma, who lives in India and keeps a very private life. I've hoped to travel to India someday to see her, but for now that's not realistic. Ramana of course is a possibility, but I never actually met him in the flesh, and somehow that seems important to me. I did have an extraordinary spiritual “meeting” with him when I was 15, and have felt connected to him ever since, but it's always felt that he was pointing me to others, not to himself. And I don't know if it matters that Poonja Swami is no longer alive in the flesh himself. But this in some respects doesn't matter. My own situation is what it is. What interests me most is Poonja Swami's teachings, and I suppose this dreams suggests to me that I should pay special attention to these.

It happened that for a couple of days prior to this dream I had been reading some of Papaji's teachings for the first time in a few months. I thought this is what probably triggered the dream. I found a couple of talks online which were quite inspiring, such as this one. An excert from this talk stuck out in my mind:

When you exert effort or practice sadhana you will camouflage and cover the truth. You will have to remove this covering because it is you who put it there. This covering will be removed through your effort. And when all efforts are done away with - when all attempts, all intents and intentions, all ideas and notions are rejected - at that time ask yourself, "Who am I?" You will certainly find the answer.

This is how freedom is already attained: You are already free. If you can hear this once from a teacher you are free. If you cannot hear this, then practice. If you can listen to a teacher who is not a liar, who is speaking the truth, and if you are honestly longing for freedom then listen once and you are free.

If you are not honest and if the teacher is not authentic it will not work. You will have to take up a practice if something is false somewhere. What is that practice? At all times, walking, sleeping, dreaming, on waking, while standing, sitting, lying, go on chanting the mantra. I can recommend mantras also, as a second best. If you can repeat this mantra from now till your last breath I guarantee you will not appear again in a next birth; you will not fall into any womb. What is the mantra? "I AM FREE!" Take up this practice if you do not believe me.

If you can listen, if you long for freedom, and you feel that I am honest when I tell you that you are free, then accept it! Hear this only once and you are free.

If you do not accept what I am saying then I will give you a practice as a second best. You will have to continue practicing on every breath - every breath of the waking state, of the dream state, of the sleeping state up to the last breath.

This seemed to apply to me. I've of course practiced self-enquiry, but I haven't immediately awakened from the practice. No doubt few do. I seem to be one of those people who needs to continue doubting, or at least needs to slowly remove his doubts. My general stupidity and slowness in all these matters will undoubtedly become a theme in this blog, so it's best to just lay it out there. In any case, this recommendation form Poonja Swami certainly made some sense, and I wondered if this might be a good thing for me to practice.

The next day, I read this from another online talk by Poonja Swami:

The practice nearest to truth for those few who want to realize absolute Brahman is meditation only on attribute-less Brahman itself, without any object of concentration. When people start to mediate they do something, they hold some image in the mind or some word. That may be useful, but it is even better to think of attribute-less Brahman, to always keep aware of the attribute-less Brahman during meditation, knowing that, “I am Brahman.” without focusing on any object of the past, present, or future.

This is the nearest practice. If you want to do any practice, to meditate on attribute-less Brahman, immaculate Brahman, which is none other than your own Atman - your own fundamental nature. If you are not able to realize the truth instantly you can continue this practice for a while. Slowly you will see that the meditator and the meditated upon vanish. Neither attribute-less Brahman nor meditation upon attribute-less Brahman has anything to do with a meditator or something meditated upon.

So this constant exercise is advised, constant sadhana on attribute-less Brahman, thinking, “I am Brahman.” If you want to think something, why think, “I am the body?” The body does not last. Why think, “I am this.” or “I am that?” If you want to have a thought at all and you cannot live without thinking, then have this supreme thought: “I am Brahman.” This is the exercise which is nearest to your goal of Brahman itself. The meditator and the meditated upon will vanish. This is the goal that we started meditation for. No other sadhana or exercise is as near as this for one who wants to be free of this samsara, from this going again and again from death to birth and birth to death. This is how to break the cycle. There is only one way and this is this way. This can continue always wherever you are.

Being one of those lame fellows who doesn't “get it” the first time, who needs some kind of practice, this felt appealing. I have not been very big on the recitation of the Mahavakyas, the “Great truths” practice, but something about it seemed right and good and natural now. So I wondered if this too was worth practicing.

When I woke from this restaurant dream I couldn't help thinking about Poonja Swami and these teachings of his, and after a while something seemed to click. I of course thought about Self-enquiry, and how it relates to these other “mantras”. It seemed that there's a complimentary relationship between them, that Self-enquiry is not really different from them in its basic emphasis on feeling into the sense of self, of “I”, and what is beyond the “I”. So I began to practice Self-enquiry, and then practice these matras, saying “I am Brahman” and “I am free”. Or using a more English translation, saying “I am Infinite Consciousness” or “I am the Supreme Being”, or even the Sanskrit 'Aham Brahmasmi”. All this seemed fine. After a little while, it seemed as if there were a natural progression of sort here, that I could begin by asking “Who am I?”, then after a pause (short or long) say the invocation “I am Brahman” (or one of its correlates), and then say, “I am free”. This seemed to have a very positive effect altogether, bringing a deeper sense of peace and freedom and relaxation.

So I've been trying to practice in this format since then:

1)Who am I?

2)I am Brahman

3)I am free

I don't feel any need to be strict about the order. I still feel that enquiry is primary, and of course Self-enquiry doesn't require the verbal question “Who am I?”. It merely requires a feeling investigation of the self-sense, the feeling of “I”, of identity. When this feeling of identity becomes strong and prominent, it then feels appropriate to say “I am Brahman,” and “I am free”. And sometimes I just practice the Mahavakya “I am Brahman”. For now it is all just experimental in any case, but it feels already like a good experiment.

What Comes Around Goes Around

I notice it's been over a year since I last posted here. That may change now.

I think I just needed to clear my system. I've been doing the usual forum posting over at Lightmind, but let's be honest, it's just habit keeping me going there, and probably a bad habit at that. Now that Tom is shutting things down over there, I've been forced to face up to this, and think about what I want to do. One possibility is to just stop messing around on the internet entirely. Or, get involved with the new Ning sites that are opening up. I wonder, however, if it's just time for me to stop playing the back and forth games I get into on forums. I don't think it does me much good anymore, and my life is going through changes that make most of that kind of dialog obsolete. So the question is, what suits me now?

I turned 50 last week, and it's clear to me that my life is moving in a different direction. I've always kept in mind the fact that my life has reflected, at least in a general sense, the Vedic stages of life, which is composed of four distinct phases of spiritual practice: Brahmacharya, Householder, Hermitage, and Sanyas, each reputedly lasting 25 years. My first 25 years of life were clearly a Brahmacharya phase. I became strongly interested in spirituality when I was 13, and oriented myself towards that kind of disciplined life all the way through my youth. At 25, I met my wife, settled down, had a family, earned a living, and lived my spiritual practice in a householder setting. I've been aware for years that my householder life is coming to an end, and that means I would soon begin the "Hermitage" phase of life.

And low and behold, that's been happening quite spontaneously. Events have led me to live in a forest setting in Humboldt County, living on a rural property in the redwoods, ten acres nicely fenced and private, with few neighbors, all the seclusion I need, and yet all the basic amenities of an ordinary life. My kids have gone off to college, and though they still visit regularly, my wife and I are very much on our own now. I still work of course, but I do so at home, keeping my own schedule, and I have a great deal of freedom to do as I like. What I find I like, is to simply settle into a form of spiritual practice that is natural and sattvic.

So what I've been thinking of doing is simply keeping a blog that describes my spiritual practice in this "hermitage" context, and my thoughts about spirituality altogether, and whatever else seems relevant. For several years I have been experienting with Self-enquiry, and studying it, and trying to put it into practice, and I think it would be interesting to put my experiment with it into this blog, especially now that it feels like I can settle into this practice in a more dedicated and undistracted way. Some people might find that interesting, and might offer some helpful hints as well. But I don't think I want to get into the kinds of debating exchanges that I've had on the forums out there. I'm not interested in promoting anything, or arguing anything. I think I've had my fill of that, and I don't think I want to perpetuate those inclinations any more. They've served their usefullness, and now it's time to move on.

So I think I will experiment with this blog again, and see if I can turn it into something that is useful for me. I doubt it will be very interesting to many other people, unless they have a strong interest in Self-enquiry and related practices and considerations. I plan to be immensely boring to everyone else. Don't say you weren't warned. Of course, I don't think anyone is reading this blog anyway. Blogger reports that I get about 4 hits a day, and that's probably just accidental surfers.

So let the wild rumpus begin! Okay, maybe not so wild, and not much of a rumpus. Just a quiet place to talk about the practice of self-enquiry.