Unedited discourses on meditation

Intention

Intention begins the spiritual work. Intention is what is important; not so much form. For without intention we tend to drift about in the habits and patterns of our personality. Intention can open a door to a way out. Now, there are many possible kinds of intention, just as there are many possible goals. One possible intention is freedom, to be free of our subjective cage. Our intention might also be to break out of our present level and pattern of mind, in order to reach a higher level and more expansive consciousness.

There is an unfortunate condition in our human existence, which is that we tend to become lost and trapped in repetitive patterns of mind and emotion. We get trapped in our unique cage of karmic thought and emotion. It’s karmic because it is revolving and repeating. This is our subjective cage. We each are in a unique subjective world of our thought patterns, beliefs about reality, and emotional issues. This is what we believe is reality, and of course it is reality but only until we break free of it. A difficult problem, though, is that we tend to forget (or maybe don’t even know) that this reality-experience we are in is just one small possible world. And we don’t have to remain stuck in this cage. The way out is called freedom. And freedom is a greater space in consciousness – a greater openness of mental space.

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First step in meditation is to transcend the usual personality routine – those automatic patterns of thoughts and behavior. Meditation functions as a kind of stop and recalibrate time, stop and re-tune our self. Such transcendence of the personality routine requires some fundamental steps, all included in a useful meditation practice. One step is relaxation of the body and mind, and quietness is part of this. One reason for this relaxation is to relax the personality pattern itself – which has a rigidity in its automatic and routine mode – so we are actually relaxing the rigidity of this pattern which then softens and loosens it, making it more pliable for change. But as well, unified consciousness is required, an unscattered consciousness, which is the remedy for those semi-conscious, automatic personality patterns. The mind is now truly waking up and the usually scattered parts of mind are coming together into a unity. Next, bring attention (or consciousness) into the heart of being. Then here, experience I am. Sometimes it helps to have the question in mind of who am I, or one can simply delve deeper into this inquiry and discovery. But it is the heart that reveals the essential emotions, feelings, sincerity, and intentionality of who we truly are. Our fundamental attitude and intention here is to deeply discover and realize our sincere, authentic, truth of being. This truth of our being is the same as our soul, and also same as the spirituality or divinity within us. This is not the same as the outer shell of personality. Crack the shell to find the kernel.

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The Path is up to us

One overall theme of true metaphysics and religion is that we each need to be responsible for our spiritual Path. It is up to us, each day, or even each moment, to come into relationship with the Greater Divine Mind/Love/Will, or more simply, God, then maintain this connection and live from this greater inspiration and knowing. It is up to us to make the necessary effort and practice, and open to the Greater Divine, and allow the Divine Power and Presence to move through our experience. If we do not, then nothing Real will happen, and our usual personality patterns will merely continue on and on, including our automatic reactions to undesired circumstances. Until we take responsibility for our self and our Path, with consciousness and intention, the usual will most likely continue, which really means we are not on any Path at all.

Up by our bootstraps -- Buddha says, work out your own salvation.

Those who claim that God will do everything, or that it’s all up to God anyways, are using misleading religious clichés to justify their lack of taking any responsibility. By only relying on God and not taking responsibility for oneself along the spiritual path, is like deciding to become an invalid depending on Another, so that you don’t have to do any work. God wants people to do some work; we are not meant to remain as babies or invalids.

In the process of divine manifestation, and as part of the spiritual path, God does play a significant part. Where would one be on the Path without the Greater Divine Love, Wisdom and Inspiration? So of course God or the Divine is significant. It is this very Power of Love and Guidance and Healing that we need to be open and allow through us. But this flow of the Divine into manifestation, through us, requires our conscious agreement and effort at opening. We have to make the connection. Why? Because we are the one in this relationship that has been turning away or not opening the door. The Greater Divine Power, God, is standing at our door, knocking and waiting. That is why it is now up to us. God is already ready and waiting; waiting for you to open the door and consciously allow this relationship. So there is no sense just waiting for God to open our door and embrace us. God is respectively waiting for us to open the door and renew the relationship; because God did not leave us, rather we had left God. So God provides the Creative Will, Love and Wisdom for spiritual manifestation. But we have to be in the agreement, in the relationship. We need to be conscious mediators between the Divine and manifestation. God does not force Itself into manifestation. Rather, God inspires the mediators.

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At each level of Consciousness and Being there are groups of intermediates between the next higher and next lower levels. Each of us are at one of these levels, helping to intermediate between the higher above us and the lower below us. Therefore, those above are as our teachers and those below are as our students. Yet the whole of this great system is inspired by God, Allah, Shiva, or whatever one calls the Supreme Conscious Being from which all levels of Consciousness and Being emerge. God’s Will depends on the mediators. God’s Will depends on us. I do not mean that God depends on us for there to be a Divine Will. Surely, God is the originator of God’s Will. But the fulfillment of this Divine Will depends on us. This is because the fulfillment of Divine Will requires a receptivity and agreement. In other words, we need to be receptive and agree to it. The Divine Will radiates as inspiration, guidance and love. But it does not forcibly dictate or compel. It is like Truth that is always here, but many do not see it.

Manifestation of Divine Will requires a blending and cooperation of two main forces. One is the active energy of Divine Will; the other is the receptive and responsible activity of human will. This is the metaphysical science. Another way to describe it is to say that we need both receptive and active energies, and then the higher energy of Will can enter through us. But the idea that God will do it all is just nonsense. And the idea that God is doing everything, as ‘He Wills’, is also a bunch of nonsense. A related idea, that everything is really perfect, since it is all God’s Will or God’s Plan, is equally nonsense. We have to be ready to give up some of the old religious clichés, in order to understand the real truth. There is a Divine Will, but it waits upon us as receptacles and instruments for its manifestation. This Divine Will inspires, yet waits for us to realize it and act upon it. Eventually everyone will come into this realization, but it takes time and learning and mistakes; which is why our human history is so full of troubles and treachery. Yet, in spite of all of the stupidities and evils around, the servant and disciple of God keeps on working from the Divine Will and Inspiration, trying to bring about more realization and good in humanity.

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Active and Receptive meditation

Most meditations involve some degree of activeness and some receptiveness. Yet some meditations are more active and some are more receptive.

Active meditations involve more of our will.

Two kinds of active meditation can be mentioned.

One is intentional visualization, which is to inwardly see something positive occur. Positive visualization is another term for this. Visualize the positive, in order for the positive to actually occur. This follows the mental principle of energy follows thought. Thinking or visualizing something as occurring will produce a pattern or path for its actual occurrence, Energy follows thought. The effect of this can even be instantaneous, though in some cases there will be a time lag between the mental occurrence and the physical. If we are visualizing something which requires a number of physical causes, then this will require more time. But if we simply visualize Light permeating our being, then this can be instantaneous, since it only involves the higher planes.

Another kind of active meditation is higher thinking. This is intentional thinking, or intentional reflection upon a spiritual theme or idea. But since this is to do with a spiritual idea, one needs to be receptive to Higher Mind, or to what is Really True, as well as being intentional in the practice.

Here are two kinds of receptive meditation. One kind is a like a listening. It is listening to the Higher. Or it may be listening to the Deeper inside oneself. Or it may be a seeing, as in a receptive seeing. Or it may even be a receptive feeling of what is Higher or Deeper.

Another kind of receptive meditation can be called a ‘being with’ meditation. The meditator is just being with whatever is. An example of this is when one peacefully experiences a sunset or a beautiful view. The only activity necessary in this is to just be conscious and fully present with what is. It’s more of a receptive experience, or an appreciative experience. And a key in this is simply ‘being with’ it. For it is not merely a ‘looking at’ something beautiful. Most people ‘look at’ a sunset or a beautiful view. They are looking at something which is very definitely outside of themselves. But a meditation of ‘being with’ the sunset is much different. It is an at-one-ment.

So this leads us to consider meditations involving, in somewhat equal proportions, both activeness and receptiveness. We have already mentioned intentional higher thinking, which is to reflect upon higher ideas or principles, yet to do this properly one must also practice receptive listening or a receptive attunement to such higher ideas. As well, the practice of receptive listening to the Higher or Deeper will also require an ability to actively focus. This is similar to any real listening to others, because the listener needs to actively be present and apply some degree of a will-to-listen. So we might call this active listening, to distinguish it from a mere passive state. Anyone who wishes to learn in a college class should know that real listening and comprehension requires active will, or in other words an active listening, rather than assume that listening and learning is merely a passive pursuit like opening a jar and pouring stuff in. Real learning is more of an interaction between the source of knowledge and the receiver. Both have their respective active roles, yet it is true that the learner is more on the receptive side. This seems lot to say about listening, but it is a very important factor in spiritual teachings, whether we are listening and learning from others or from our own inner intuitive source, or maybe we are listening and learning from the inner Masters of Wisdom. There has to be some will in any real learning, a will-to-learn and willingness to listen.

Even realization could be considered an active practice. One normally thinks of realization as something that just happens without any will or active mode on our part. It is true that realizations can come suddenly, surprisingly, and without any activity on our part. However, this is not necessarily the only way realizations can occur, for it is possible to actively catalyze realizations. All one needs to do is to make realization an active practice. Make an intention to realize something. Look around and realize something, realize a truth. Or close the eyes and realize something about oneself. Just try this. Most people will be skeptical about this because they haven’t ever tried it, as they assume that all realizations come upon a passive state. But also important to realization is the mode of receptivity.

Opening and letting go must also involve some degree of an active mode. One only really opens up their mind and heart when they have some intention or will to do so. We even say that opening up requires a willingness – but it’s a willing receptivity. Letting go is similar. One has to be willing to let go. Yet this willingness is a surrender; so it isn’t like taking charge or making something happen how we want it, so it is certainly not like what we usually think of as an action. But is a kind of verb, isn’t it? I let it go, or I let go. There is an activity in this; it’s just not trying to make something particular happen.

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Being relaxed

Being able to relax and enjoy peace inside is a very high station along the path. Stress is often to do with desire and ego, whereas spiritual acceptance and attunement bring emotional peace. So relaxation, or the feeling a being totally relaxed and at peace, is quite a refined spiritual place. Find the place of peace within. Find it in the centre of being. This place of peace is also the place of the soul. It is a place where reactions, tensions, and disturbances (sometimes from outside but sometimes from inside) are peripheral. Those tensions and disturbances may well cloud the atmosphere of our energy field, making us feel in a whirlwind or sometimes in a hurricane, but they cannot really disturb our soul centre. Though sometimes we can feel all overwhelmed, it’s just because we are not in touch with our innermost centre of peace.

So find a way to relax and find the peace within.

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De-stress. Let go of tension and stress. This is most important but not easy to do when one is already stressed. There is natural stress when one attempts challenges, but here we are concerned about the unnecessary and harmful inward stresses that linger on into those times when we ought to feel relaxed. For example, if one feels stress when just sitting around or when meditating or when going to bed, then this is not a good stress.

Two main root causes of such stress, or anxiety, is desire and reaction, which have to do with the emotional body (or we can call this the emotional aura or energy field). Stress stems from desires, because we get worried about our desires being fulfilled. And stress also stems from reactions, such as anger or regret, which are reactions to unmet desires.

So if one were free of desires and fear of failures, and also free of reactions to unmet desires, then most our stresses would not even exist. So ultimately we could simply say that the way to freedom for stress is the abandonment of desires and reactions about desires. This is parallel to the Buddhist path of renunciation, but it is not at all an easy path. The actual Buddhist path is a practice of non-attachment to desires, so one does not have to completely eliminate them, but nonetheless, this non-attachment is not at all easy. Remember that non-attachment to desires would also mean non-reaction and non-worry about their success or lack of. Generally, non-attachment is the path to take, but we cannot expect to succeed in an absolute sense. So a better approach is to make non-attachment a practice, and do the best you can, realizing that one always gets more success with something with more practice. Also be wary of any inner tendencies to try too hard to succeed, for this will surely cause more stress.

Still, while attempting such practices of non-attachment to desires or even letting go of desire itself, we also need more immediate remedies to our stress problems. So here is the immediate practice to alleviate stressful energies. It requires intention and breath. First, one has to have a definite intention to let go of the stress, or a definite decision. This has to be maintained throughout the practice involving breath and transformation of energies. The breath practice is rather simple. Breath deeply and slowly. Then breathe in God’s Loving Energy, or Divine Love, and let this good energy fill all the spaces of one’s stress, filling up the stressed emotional field. Next, breathe out the stress, with a feeling of letting it all go, and let it all go out through the base chakra (or anus) and see it all go to Mother Earth, which will transform it into a more useful life energy. Mother Earth, or let us say the Green Ecosystem, will transform our energy eliminations into useful energy. This is part of the spiritual ecosystem. The plant-tree kingdom receive and use our emotional energies, even the stressful and chaotic ones, and they transform these energies. So give your emotional stuff to Earth! This is an important self-healing practice we can do when walking in a forest or in any natural space.

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See and feel the highest qualities of nature. Walk in a sacred natural place and feel the quality of energy there. Feel the spiritual presence there. Listen, feel. Be open to the silence. Meditation in nature is a wonderful experience. Let nature bring you into meditation. Just be with it. Be in it. Let the place speak through the silence. Listen.

Listening through silence is meditation. Just listening. Just pure awareness, pure mind, without commentary and without opinion. Most verbal and mental chatter is commentary, or else opinion. People want to give their little opinion about almost everything. People want to share their thinking, which is mostly opinion. And the mind is like this. It wants to make commentary about everything, or else it wants to give its opinion about this or that. But pure awareness mind is just listening, just seeing, just feeling, and thus experiencing directly and intensely what is present. Yet with commentary and opinion, the mind never really experiences what is, since it is all to quick to make a comment or opinion about what is. So just be in nature. Just be conscious in nature. Just be in a pure experience – without commentary, without opinion, and without chatter. Then it is possible to have a profound meditative experience in nature.

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Meditation and Beingness

There are different kinds of meditation, and one of the important kinds is

being-meditation, though there are other names for it as well. This kind of meditation is just being consciously. Its aim is to just be, and its method is to just be. Now this is certainly quite simple, and many will prefer meditations that are not so ridiculously simple. Complex meditations will be preferred, with step one, then two, etc. And these are good kinds of meditation as well. But there is nothing that can really replace the importance of just being meditation. It is extremely simple, radically simple, yet somewhat tricky to explain and certainly not so easy to achieve. One of the reasons it is difficult is because it is so radically different from our normal average way of being. It falls against the grain of our habitual mental patterns. Yet ironically, it is really with the grain of our own truth and who we are in essence.

There is effort involved, but this effort is merely to relax from our usual ways of effort. There is an aim, but this aim is to just consciously be oneself without focus on any aim. So, it is more of a disattachment and surrendering of aim and effort. One could even say that it is aimless and effortless. On the other hand, there is a required aim and effort needed to get to the point when all aim and effort is let go. Now if one is reading this with little study and great impatience, then it might appear as contradictory nonsense. But if one studies this teaching seriously and also makes some practice in it, then what is being said here will make sense.

One has to begin any adventure or any practice with some kind of intention and even some kind of aim, and also some amount of effort. Otherwise, one will never get out of the stream of routine that is currently in power. We normally do not wake up to realize that we are currently in a stream of routine, with all sorts of ritualistic patterns and subconscious habits. And the most difficult to realize habits of routine are mental and emotional. The most difficult to alter are these mental and emotional routines. So because of this difficulty in changing course, or of becoming free of the current stream of routine; intention and effort are needed at the very start, and also aim, but at some point these have to be surrendered.

The aim can be said in many ways. This is merely one. The aim is to consciously just be oneself. Perhaps we might also add the aim of knowing oneself. But knowing oneself without any pre-conceptions or conditioned ideas. If one carries into this a set of already established ideas or beliefs about oneself, then these thoughts can get in the way of discovering one’s real true being. Thus, the just being meditation has to surrender and be nonattached to these pre established ideas in one’s mind. In fact, all thoughts and ideas will have to be surrendered – which requires first a nonattachment to them. These thoughts and beliefs will probably arise, since this is part of our mental routine, but these will need to be surrendered – for the sake of discovering one’s unconditioned true essence. So the aim is to just consciously be oneself, but just in the beingness of oneself, without having to think about oneself or think about who one is, and without any recurring ideas about oneself. The aim is to just be conscious in the beingness of oneself. For unless one comes consciously into the very ground of being, the very essence-beingness of oneself, there can be no genuine discovery of who one is.

Yet in the true discovery of oneself, there is no definite ground to stand upon. No final resting place. Because any place one lands is itself a limiting concept about oneself. Whatever ideas emerge about oneself are aspects of oneself, yet not the ultimate complete truth of oneself. Realize that any ideas can only be partial truths about oneself. One’s essence is itself an infinite indefinable depth of possibility. So there is no final or absolute resting point in the quest for self-knowing. No final ground to ultimately stand on. In a sense, then, the method of this meditation is free fall. Well, at least, one needs to become nonattachment enough and trusting enough to be free of any fear about not having some definite ground to stand upon regarding the truth of oneself. Only in this nonattachment and trust can one be free enough to discover truths of beingness without preconceptions and also soar into the possible expanded spaciousness of mind-reality without limitations.

Meditation is to know oneself in this essence, and to be able to relax in this and just be, without the impatient routines of mind insisting on having to think about everything, plan and calculate. Yet to achieve this, finally, one has to give up efforts to achieve. This is because the aim is really already here. In a sense, the aim is to be aimless, and the effort is to be effortless. The method has to do with an unraveling of thoughts and efforts. It is an unraveling of both. It is a relaxing and unraveling. This unraveling is, perhaps, what makes this kind of meditation unique and special from other kinds. It is a kind of loosening of thoughts and effort, a loosening or unraveling of those particular patterns in oneself.

This sense of unraveling is quite important, because the major obstacle in this meditation practice is a mental-ego pattern to compulsively make effort toward some definite desire or achievement, and also to compulsively think about and analyze these efforts and those aims. These compulsive patterns are very difficult to break. But the meditation practice of being just conscious requires nonattachment and freedom from such active patterns. Besides, this meditation practice is the method for transforming those patterns. But it will not necessarily be easy. We need to be realistic about this. So there will be a needed effort, even though this seems contradictory to this meditation practice of non-effort. You have to understand the subtlety of this. The meditation itself is a practice of effortlessness and just being oneself, rather than trying to do something or make something; and yet, to reach this effortlessness requires an effort and work to triumph past the obstacles of compulsive doing and the mental compulsion to always think and analyze.

We are socially/culturally conditioned to think that life is being wasted and time wasted, if one is not working towards either some sort of achievement or some sort of pleasure. These seem to be the two major choices for sane activity. Either you are working and thinking-planning towards some kind of achievement, or else engaged in some kind of pleasure. But the meditation of being just conscious, or of just being, and being able to relax in this and remain in this, is a radical departure from one’s mental conditioning of compulsive doing and thinking.

It can be quite difficult to sit and just be consciously relaxed in the beingness of oneself, without a compulsiveness of thinking or trying to do something in order to achieve something. When one has an attitude that there is nothing specially needed to do or think about, then a deep realization will spontaneously happen in this meditation of just being. This will be a realization of one’s essential being. But understand that there is nothing one especially needs to do or think about, in order to have deep realization of beingness, because one’s essential being is already right here and is already the truth of oneself. So one doesn’t actually need to do something to get here, nor think in a certain way. In fact, if one gives up the doing and the thinking, the realization of essential being will spontaneously arise. Indeed, any attitude of needing to do something first or a supposed need to think about something rightly or believe in a certain way, will merely keep one blocked from the essential realization of pure selfness – which being-essence, not mere ego.

Meditation and Being

The great meditation is consciously Just Being. From this comes all of the finest insight and wisdom. This begins as a meditation on oneself, which evolves into a pure experience of I – the one who is conscious. This experience is very profound. And yet another stage transcend this, in which the I disappears. Because in deeper truth there is no real I; the I is merely a concept or a belief, though individual choice and intention are actually real. The Reality in this deepest of meditations is not I nor oneself, but rather Being Itself, the Only Being there really is, which can be called God or Allah or Brahman or whatever. This is realized when the ego-self lets go of its own self, or when it lets go of its underlying concept of I-ness that is making it appear to be real. So when the I-ness is released, Being Itself emerges suddenly into experience, and this is much much more than an individual self. Consciousness has been freed from the previous mental bounds, resulting in a spacious expansive experience of Reality. This is Allah, or God, though still limited by our individual capacity of consciousness. Thus, consciousness is not of I, nor on I, but of Life Itself, Being Itself, Presence Itself.

In this is self-transcendence, for there is no longer any self nor I. there is only Beingness, or the One Universal Self as it were. This is the mystical meaning of meditating on God or of being in prayer with God. It is a unitive meditation, for there is only oneness, not twoness. It’s not a meditation of our awareness on some idea or power. Neither is it a prayer between us and God. Because in this, there is only Oneness in the experience. There is only the One Being Itself, which happens to be the knowing consciousness; rather than a consciousness and what its conscious of. For in this, it’s all the same.

This meditation embraces what is. Now this is not about a concept or idea. At times it is very useful to meditation on an idea or a quality or a theme. But in this meditation, known as Mahamudra, there is only Consciousness and Being. But these are actually One Reality, which can be intellectually distinguished as Consciousness and Being. Being is Consciousness, and Consciousness is Being. They aren’t separate things or parts; just that the One Reality is both Consciousness and Being. It is also both Mind and Heart. And it is also both Presence and Vibration. These are all Qualities of the One, or essential experiences of the One. The Maha meditation is all about the One Consciousness, Being, Presence, Vibration, and Life. Become consciously absorbed in this Living Reality, the Reality of Life, the Beingness of Life, the Vibrational Presence in which we live. It’s all about being conscious in the Life-Presence, of the world around or the space around. For in all space there is this One Great Presence, which is also Consciousness, Beingness, and Vibration (felt as either the Vibration of Life or of Love).

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Being and meditation

The meditation of essence is to meditate in being. Being is one’s essence of self. So this meditation is to return to one’s pure essence, which we can call being. But there is nothing much to say about what this meditation is about. It does not have any form, nor any concepts to dwell upon. Thus, it is pure formless meditation. Though that is the goal, which may require time to discover, because the mind will try to continue in its inertia of providing content – either thinking or being distracted by something. So it takes a while to reach this possible place of non-thinking mind at peace – or to just be conscious without any thought. And it takes some practice. Part of the practice is to acquire a steadfast attention to just being, and another part is to renunciate the mental habit of thinking.

It would seem rather easy for the mind to simply rest in the peace of just being – just being conscious – but it is not so easy for the mind to simply rest and not think. The mind is usually restless, rather than restful. And of course there is nothing inherently wrong with an active, thinking mind. The possible problem is when our mind cannot simply rest in non-thinking or in just being. There is a kind of ineptitude of mind, or incompetence, if the mind cannot simply take a rest from thinking. What power does this mind have that cannot rest in non-thinking, or is this mind a slave to its thinking habits? So, we are speaking about a significant power of the mind that has nothing to do with thinking; in fact, it has everything to do with not thinking. It is to just be conscious, or to simply be conscious in being.

To side track just a bit: Esoterically, this is called the pure path – to discover the essence of being and just consciously be. Then from here we move onto the Greater Vehicle, or called the Universal Wisdom. This is the realization that one’s own simple being is the same as Universal Being, and the meditation is called Conscious Being. Some will understand what this is about, and some may not. But really, it doesn’t matter because both meditations are essentially the same, since there is no difference between pure being meditation and Universal Being. To side track even further: there is no difference between Being and God, and no difference between Being and Buddhic Mind. These are all just different terms for the same.

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An awakened mind is to be completely receptive and present to whatever is. This also requires emptiness in mind, empty of preconceptions and expectations about the other person or the circumstance encountered. This could also be called a state of pure mind because there is nothing in mind: only the empty and receptive state. From this state, insight is possible, insight into what really is. Sometimes we simply need to stop our usual mental chatter and refrain from our usual thoughts and expectations, in order to truly perceive what is really present or who is really present.

outer and inner reality Objective and Subjective Reality

Spiritual teachings make a distinction between outer and inner reality, or between objective and subjective reality. We could argue that these are not necessarily separate realities, in that they often merge or filter in together. For example, some of our inner reality might reflect the outer world around us, and we have probably introjected from outer to inner. Likewise, some of what we believe is the outer reality might be projections or reflections from our inner world. Nonetheless, the distinction between inner and outer is overall useful, as long as we realize that there is some crossover from inner to outer and from outer to inner.

In the bigger picture, the bigger spiritual metaphysics, the One Being has both a Subjective and Objective Reality, though again these are not absolutely separate. The world we perceive and in which we physically interact is the Objective, while the Subjective is Consciousness, Mind and Heart.

If we go inside ourselves into the subjective, at first we probably encounter the thoughts and emotions of our personal psyche – which is our inner individuality as distinct from other individuals. But if can go further inside, past the personal realm, it is possible to reach the Universal Essence of Subjective Mind, which is Transpersonal. This can be called the Mind of God, or of Allah or Shiva or Brahman, or whatever name is given to the One Universal Being that is the Cause and Wholeness of all. At this deepest level of Essence, Consciousness is One Unity. Here is the Unity of Being. Consciousness is One, and Love is One. So at this level of Subjective Essence there is Only One – one Mind, one Love, one Reality of Being. Here is the Unity, which is reachable by meditation. It is knowable by meditation, and this is the goal of Yoga – to attain this knowingness of Unity. And since this same Subjective Essence is within and through all people, all life, there is really unity pervading all people.

Mostly though, people don’t know this unity, or it isn’t immediate and continuous in our realization; because the realm of personal psyche is so active and at the forefront of experience, or else because the outer world is so forceful and distractive to an inner meditation. The outer world is pervaded by the Essential Unity, by Divine Consciousness, but its events and activities are often not in harmony – so the Unity is not yet manifested.

The One Divine Being pervades all, and all is in this One Unity. But not everyone is in conscious unity – that is, not everyone is in this consciousness of Unity. Therefore, not all speech and action is in harmony with the Unity of Being. And thus, the external objective world can be disharmonious and out of synch with the Divine Unity. People can make mistakes and the external world does not reflect a perfected wisdom as potentially it could. Yet, a harmonious unity of our external world is the goal – as love and wisdom filter into the external world from the inner realm of Potential and realized Unity. So, Unity in our world is a Process at work toward completion, which comes from the Inner into the Outer.

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So now, take this understanding into actual spiritual practice. First, discover the Unity through meditation practice. Realize and experience the Unity of Being first through the inner subjective realm. Remove mind from the outer perceived realm of differences and diversity, and proceed to go inward into the inner subjective space. This is part of the Whole Divine Subjective Reality – the Knowing aspect of the One Self. The beginning of inner experience is just a part of the Whole, like an individualized portion of the Whole, which can be understood as our divine soul (the child of God). Yet in this inward meditation one proceeds to open up to the Whole and surrender any boundaries or limitations, which can also be experienced as an opening to the Greater Light or to the Greater Love, and this process of opening can continue indefinitely until there is no more separation nor even any individuality, as only the Wholeness of Being is Real.

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Open heart, Open mind

The higher practice of wakefulness is Open mind Open heart. This means opening our wakefulness to the greater mysteries of God, both outside us and inside us. The practice here is to simply open your mind and open your heart. Be empty of preconceptions and expectation about what the experience will be. So this is an opening of mind and heart, with an unconditional accepting attitude, or the attitude of an explorer who is ready and awake to learn about whatever is here in this world. If we have this practice with someone in front of us, our mind and heart is wakefully open to who this person is and their present concern. If we are in a peaceful world of nature, our mind and heart is simply open to what-is, including the diversity of life, its movements, and also the energies and presences around us.

Open Space Meditation is a way of experiencing the inner and outer world without any borders, boundaries or fences. One experiences all phenomena and diversity as reflective lights of the One, so the heart and mind becomes an open space, and all is received in love. This includes all of each person and all of oneself as well. We can still acknowledge levels of quality, levels of beauty, and levels of healthfulness, and we can still desire and strive for these levels of refinement; yet all is nonetheless loved, and in this love there is healing and refinement. The love actually brings about the healing and refinement, and circumstances will miraculously change with the power of love. In effect, we love all that is and we also love our natural desire and striving to make life even more beautiful and to heal any temporary disharmonies. All is realized as in the One, even including conflicts, disagreements and also our striving desire to heal and resolve those conflicts.

Now to reach this experience of love in Unity, it is usually easier to begin in the inner subjective realm, then this transformation of inner experience will subsequently unfold in our outer world of experience. So we begin with meditation, or in some traditions it is called prayer. It is a deep inner experience involving ego-surrender – a surrender of self-arrogance and ego-manipulation – and also involving a free and trustful opening of both mind and heart. Also, watch for any feelings of boundaries or of separation, then with trust allow these to dissolve upon the out breath. Upon the in breath one opens, and upon the out breath one allows any barriers or disharmonies to dissolve. Open to love, to Essence, to Divine Reality, to Oneness. In essence there really is only One Self.

There is only HU. HUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

One could make the whole of spiritual practice to do with love – realizing that love is the Real. In practice, come into the Inner Reality of Love and here find Love permanent.

In deepest meditation, there is just one Inner Reality, and you simply surrender to this. And also realize that all diversities are of the same One Being.

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clearing and connection

Two major aims can be present in meditation, two purposes, two processes. One is clearing. The other is connection. Both are tremendously important. Clearing is to do with clearing tensions and discomforts in the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of oneself. This is clearing the physical, emotional and mental aura. Each person will feel and know the energies that need clearing. And if in doubt about what needs to be cleared, then clear it all!! Clear everything, all energies, and become the pure water. Become so clear that consciousness can see through all three auras and not see anything there but the very light of consciousness. The way to reach this clearing is to first relax. Relax and let go. Surrender physical tensions, emotional distresses, and thought concerns. It’s like taking a shower. Sometimes it helps to imagine a waterfall of watery light clearing away all the distresses and tensions and unneeded thoughts. Sound can also help, such as the sound of Hu. And what is the purpose of clearing? To be clear, to be purified, so the Light of consciousness can shine through. So truth can shine through. So that your inner reality can shine through and be discovered. Or perhaps, so that God can shine through.

Consequently, in this meditation the other important purpose is connection. A clear and pure heart and mind is insignificant unless there is also connection, which them makes movement through this cleared space of oneself. But what kind of connection? Obviously we are not suggesting to be open to anything. Find connection to the very highest, or the very greatest, or the very most innerness of oneself. Make connection with what or who you love. Make connection with what or who is most spiritually important to you. Everyone is searching for something. Every human heart is searching for something. Make connection with this. But you will need a cleared space in mind and heart, in order to make this connection. The clearer is the space, the easier is the connection. Yet you will also need the intention or inner desire to make some connection.

This connection happens on two possible levels, mind and heart. Both can happen together, which is best, but in analysis we have to consider one at a time.

How is connection in the heart made? How is connection in the mind made?

Self-emptiness

Our greatest Aim is for the Divine to come through us, to live through us, to express through us. Emptiness is the key for the Divine Love and Intelligence to come through. Emptiness, openness and willingness for the Divine to come through – this is what we need. Agreement might be an alternative description for willingness. One has to agree to the Divine coming through, or willing for the divine in the sense of being willing to be a medium for the Divine.

Being empty is an emptiness of mental preoccupations. It doesn’t mean to be an airhead or to have no mind. The mind is divinely useful, so there is a need for something to be happening in mind when needed. The mind’s true function is not to just be an empty bliss all of the time. But when the mind is at work, we want the Divine to be working through it. We want higher intuition to be expressing through the mind, not just an ordinary repetition of thinking that is habitually concerned with one’s own pleasures or achievements. So what we mean by emptiness of mind is an emptiness of these repetitious patterns of mind and habitual over-concern for one’s own pleasures and successes. Empty the mind of all these usual preoccupations, in order for the mind to crystal clear and like a peaceful lake. Then the higher intuition or Divine Intelligence will be able to come through. The Divine cannot come through if the mind is full of thinking. It has to be clear as a spotless mirror, peaceful as a quiet lake, and empty like a chalice awaiting the Divine Intelligence. A clear and empty mind can also see the world and people around more clearly and truthfully. We do not see how the world truly is if our minds are full of preconceptions and pre-judgments about things. If the mind is already full of presumptions, preconceptions and prejudgments, then this is all the mind actually sees when it views the world and people in it. So this is another reason for being able to have an empty mind.

Yet emptiness is not just about the mind. It is about our emotions and all our inner experience of being. So really the whole meaning of emptiness is an emptiness of all being, and especially emptiness of selfness. Now of course we all have selfness, and without any selfness we would simply merge into our environment and offer nothing unique to the world. So selfness is good, in its basic functional purpose. But one does not need to be continually self-focused and preoccupied with what the self wants. In other words, the negative possibility of selfness is to habitually preoccupied with oneself, to be habitually concerned with what I want or how I feel, or me me me. This is the kind of selfness that we can be empty of. And this is what we mean by being empty of oneself. It is only when we are empty of self, in this sense, that the Divine can come through, because otherwise there is no room in us for the Divine. There is no room in us, if we are full of ourself. Most people in the world are very full of themselves. Their experience of living is so dominated by self-concern, which mostly includes self-wants and concern about how others think about them. If all of this can be emptied and disappear, then the mind and all of our being will be clear enough and have room enough for the Divine to come through. But the Divine cannot come through us if we are so full of ourself.

Now mostly, people express from this self-fullness. Their fullness of self simply overflows into the world. Their minds and hearts are obviously preoccupied with self-desires, self-pride, and self-interests, as well as negative reactions to circumstances that threaten such preoccupations. When people express from their habitually self-fullness, this will probably not express the highest Divine Love and Truth. Instead, their expression will probably be self-ego tainted and colored by self-interests. If this is true, then it must also be true that not all events in the world are divinely inspired. The Aim is for expression to be divinely inspired, or to have the Divine express through us in quality way. But this does not happen very well if we are full of self and self-ego preoccupied. So the needed transformation is towards emptiness of self, so the Divine can come through us with clarity and quality. When we are sufficiently empty, then there is more possibility for the Grace of Divine Love and Wisdom to come through us. This is an important divine principle to remember and work with. The emptier we become the more possibility there is for Divine Love, Wisdom and Creativity to move through us.

Also, the emptier we are, the closer we come to Divine Being, God-Being, and the closer we come to Light. The emptier the mind is, the more Light can shine through it. One way of understanding this is that we have a certain amount of consciousness energy, but usually it gets used up in thinking patterns or else in sensory phenomena. But once we withdraw from automatic unintentional thinking or from sensory attractions, all of a sudden more of this consciousness energy is available. In other words, if consciousness energy is wrapped up automatic thinking or in the sensory world, then there is very little pure consciousness available. But if we withdraw from what is holding consciousness wrapped up, then consciousness is free to shine in its purity, and the result of this is to experience an increase of consciousness or of inner light. Remember that consciousness and inner light are really the same. In fact, everything is ultimately made from the consciousness energy or inner Light of the Creator-Being-God. The closer one comes to God, the greater is our experience of inner Light. The greater is our experience of inner Light, the closer we are to God.

In mystical Sufism, the very point is to come ever closer to God, with an ultimate ideal of conscious union with God, and the way to this goal is to become evermore empty and pure in being. The real Sufis were known as the pure ones. They were pure in mind and heart, having surrendered mental and emotional attachments, and having mastered their selves. It is not that one becomes empty and pure, and then embarks toward God; rather, when one becomes emptier and purer in being, God is then able to come into our experience. So the emptying and purifying is really a direct way to become closer to God and more in the Light. Similar to clearing a lens or shining a mirror, the purification process simply allows the God-Light to be experienced. Thus, one comes closer to God as a direct result of becoming emptier and purer in being, because God can then come through us; whereas it is much more difficult for God to come through a chalice that is already full of itself or a lens that is clouded with all sorts of things.

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Greater comprehensiveness

Human selves spiritually evolve, from separation towards synthesis and unity, and from ignorance towards gnosis. This can also be understood as a progressive comprehensiveness of realization and manifest capacity. We each have an inner divine potential to comprehensively realize and manifest the most intelligent and virtuous divine qualities. If we are on the right path, we are progressively realizing and ever-better manifesting these divine qualities. We begin with some degree of spiritual realization and some degree of spiritual manifestation; then we gradually progress towards greater comprehensiveness in our realization and manifestation.

Greater comprehensiveness means realizing more of the whole God-Being and becoming more of a whole and complete spiritual person. One should occasionally stop on once in while and consider how one is not yet a fully realized being; for there is more to realize about God in this world and also more to manifest of God’s Qualities. We may be on the path to a fully comprehensive gnosis and manifestation, but we are not fully there; so we need to maintain our spiritual motivation and perseverance. And we may never fully reach a complete comprehensiveness of spiritual realization and manifestation, but we can at least pursue this. Yet there are so many side-paths that we get tempted to take, it is quite a miracle that we actually progress at all.

The human being is meant to be on this path towards greater comprehensiveness; it is our higher purpose in life. On this path, one progresses through levels of spiritual energies and qualities, progressing higher in fineness and wider in comprehensiveness. There is a progressive refinement and synthesis of the spiritual qualities.

Angel Qualities

This is also related to the realm of Angels. In the esoteric tradition, angels refer to higher beings made of spiritual light-energy, who ontologically descend directly from the God-Source, so they exist between God and man. The Angelic realm is between the Being-Source and the mental realm of thought and ideas – which is the highest level of the human being. The Angels are simply names or references for the highest spiritual qualities of God. In other words, they are the qualities of God, existing as Energy-beings in their own dimension. Each angel is the beingness of a particular spiritual quality. And each angel knows its own particular quality more than anyone could ever fully know; and yet each cannot really understand the other qualities. They only understand themselves. And even when they perceive other different beings, they cannot help but project their own color of reality, and so they understand everything else from their own particular perspective or quality. They are, as such, the ontological sources of divine qualities. Thus, for each divine quality realized or manifested through us, that particular angel is present and active through us. Thus, we have these angels in us, and we are these angels. Though the divine capacity of the human being is such that we can comprehend and manifest more than just one particular divine quality. We can comprehend, synthesize, and include a great plurality of divine qualities, while each angel can only know its own quality. So the human being has a capacity to progressively include, synthesize, and comprehend more and more of the divine angelic qualities; thus synthesizing these angelic beings in oneself. Esoterically, the first step is to make contact with an angel-being. A second step is to receive help from this angel-being. A third step is to allow this angel-being to express through oneself in certain situations. And the fourth step is to actually synthesize this angel-being into one’s own inclusive being. Finally, the angels become as parts of oneself. Though each angel-being continues to exist in its dimension as the pure ontological source of its particular generative quality. They do transcend our limited selves, so in that sense they are outside of us. Yet remember that the angels are divine qualities in ourselves; they are our divine capacities. But until these are actualized and assimilated as our self, they are thought-projected to be outside of ourselves.

Angels are spiritual energy-qualities. They are the qualities of God, and the first emanations of God. The angelic realm is mediates between the Absolute God-Source and mind-ideas. The angels of spiritual qualities are really the sources of our mental ideas, rather than being just the ideas. Qualities ontologically precede ideas. For instance, the spiritual quality of peace ontologically precedes an idea of peace; that is, the idea of peace emerges into mind only because the quality of peace subsists already. It is already a reality in Being, though not yet completely actualized in most individual beings or communities.

The human being, in essence, is that part of the Whole God which has a capacity to integrate and synthesize these qualities of God. So we have a capacity to progress through these spiritual energies, to rise through the world of angels and synthesize them in our own being and expression. This is the progression of a soul. Every soul begins as a mixture of various angelic, spiritual quality energies. At first these will be weak, divided and partial; though nonetheless they will be spiritual qualities. Then, as the soul progresses through life experience and challenge, it becomes more of an integrated synthesis of the spiritual qualities. This is also a progression from lower to higher energy; for the higher energies are also greater synthesis. This can also be understood as a progression from pluralistic separation to more integrated unity.

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Our own spiritual work

An important aspect of the spiritual work that is meant to help the world evolve is to do with oneself. Or in other words, a large aspect of world service, from an esoteric perspective, is to do with one's own expansion of consciousness, one's own purification of heart, and one's own intensification of spiritual will.

Make a Goal towards God consciousness, God Love and God Will (the Will towards love and beauty). Make a Goal towards Self-knowing. God and the Self are the same. Two words for the same reality. The Self is our real essential self, the Self at the essence of all selves. This is not just my self; it's our Self, our true Self. This is God – Who is within and all encompassing. The Self of God is both within and surrounding everyone. The sense of being a limited self is just from one's limited sensory perspective.

The way towards God consciousness is by self-surrender. This of course sounds very pious. It is pious, but it may not mean what is usually thought of by this term. What is meant by self-surrender, esoterically, is a continual surrender of self in the experience of meditation or in prayer. It is a surrender of any current limited self-consciousness. It is a surrender of any self-separation (in one's mind) from other selves. It is a surrender of one's heart to God, the One in whom we live. So it's a surrender of self boundaries, self separation, and self limitations. It is a surrender of one's smaller light into the much larger Light of God.

Our smaller light is our own self consciousness at this time, or our own self-knowing. This needs to surrender itself into the greater Light, or allow itself to be dissolved into the greater Light. In a sense, one disappears into the greater Light. Or one disappears into a greater Presence.

Or this could be a surrender into a greater Unknown, as one is willing to surrender into what is not yet known – in order to come into that next step of Knowing. Our next greater self-knowing can only unfold as we surrender or let go of our present self-knowing. So there has to be a willingness and fearlessness to self-disappear into the Unknown, but consciously rather than fall into unconsciousness.

Now just to make something clear here – one should never assume that one has absolutely reached God consciousness, nor that one is ever experiencing the complete absoluteness of God. These teachings are not assuming this, nor even suggesting it is possible. It might be possible, but this should never be assumed since there is no way to really know. For all anyone knows, there could always be a greater room of which one is not yet aware, which is just on the other side of a hidden veil. Thus, no one can rightly claim to have complete God consciousness, since it would be impossible for that person to absolutely know whether another veil existed or not.

The best attitude to hold is that it is possible to incrementally enter into ever-expanding states of consciousness and love – and to ever-increasingly approach the infinite absoluteness of God consciousness and love. The key understanding is that one is capable of an increasingly closer experience and communion with God. One can self-surrender into greater and ever-greater states of divine consciousness, or Self-consciousness, or of the Infinite Light. This produces ever-greater Self-knowingness and real Self-understanding. This is also known as the soul's journey towards God.

Another way of understanding this is that it's about an expansion of consciousness and love. Consciousness can ever-expand into the Infinite. Love can ever-expand into infinite inclusiveness. So one can understand spiritual evolution as the steps towards being an evermore Inclusive Self, evermore inclusive in consciousness and in love. This means that one's consciousness, or subjective experience, is evermore embracing and inclusive.

In other words, one's consciousness is gradually expanding towards being everyone and everything.

Expansion of Consciousness

The essential practice is expansion of consciousness – consciousness to include the Whole of Self. This is also called God-consciousness. Or consciousness of God. Our usual sense of self is probably limited to just this physical body, emotions and intellect.

But expand and hold consciousness into the greater field of Universal Everything. Then surrender all limited self-identification into the All-Self. I am the Universal, the All, the Only Being.

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Make a decision to live in expanded Awareness. But this is just as much a heartful Awareness as it is mindful. Expansive Awareness is both heart expansive and mind expansive.

Going beyond thought and desire

We have to go beyond mere thought, or thinking or reasoning, in order to have direct and immediate experience of Being Essence, the Divine Truth. This is our own Being Essence, and this is also the Being Essence of all life. It is my own and it is everyone’s. But thought just gets in the way, like clouds obstructing the clear sky. So thoughts have to fade away. They have to be surrendered. And this is done in a trust or faith that God, or Being Essence is already present behind the thoughts. Stop standing in the way looking at your own shadow. Instead, lay down and let the Truth of Being be present without shadows or obstructions.

Also what gets in the way is incessant desire. This may be desire for material benefits, or it may be desire for social applaud. But one cannot reach the heights of heavenly experience if still carrying the weighty burdens of these desires. For these desires are like weights on our ankles, holding back our inherent ability to fly freely to the heavenly sky of Pure Being. In addition, these desires bring about a restlessness, in their incessant trying to get something, which produces a churning of the lake of heart and mind. Then, instead of a peaceful and clear lake, we have an unsettled and muddy lake.

So what we need is a calm attitude of mind, a coming to peace, and simply sitting in Being Essence without any restless desire nor obstructing thought. How does one get there? Relax and just be. Breathe consciously and sink into the lake of Being Essence. Let go of any thoughts or desires that weigh you down, then float easily up into the heavenly sky of Being Essence. These are just ways to describe possible journeys.

Now in speaking about thought and desire, it should be pointed out that these are not fully negative, as though we never should have any thought or desire. First of all, thought and desire have important functions in life. Thought is useful for understanding the world and planning how to achieve our goals. Desire is useful for motivation and getting things done. Second, these can even play a role in reaching realization of Being Essence. Use thought for intention. That is, use a thought to make an intention to reach experience of the Divine. This is using thought as a tool, rather than merely letting thought steer us. Begin to use thought and mind intentionally, in service to a deeper heart desire or spiritual desire. A spiritual heart desire is a very positive quality and energy, and it is certainly not to be discarded. This deeper heart desire for Truth and for God enables us to focus our energies and propel us to our goal. So desire can also be an attractive energy to God. God’s attractive force upon us is like a desire for us to return, and this is experienced as a desire or attraction to God. This desire for God brings us closer to God.

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Spiritual purification

Spiritual purification is transformation of lower energies into higher, or transformation of the lower ego into higher being. To become purified is not so much a matter of personal will. One needs will, a will to be purified in the spiritual light or fire, yet the way to that purification is not actually by a force of will. Will initializes the alchemical transformation, but will is not the final key. Surrender is the key, and the other great key is allowing the higher energies of Love to permeate one’s being. Love is the great purifying energy, so the way is to fall into love or surrender into it. If allowed, love will transmute the dross and dirt that we have unfortunately accumulated. Love will redeem us, heal us, and finally resurrect us. This is what the Christian mystics meant by the redeeming power of Christ. It’s the power of Love. The other great key to spiritual purification, or purifying the ego, is the light of consciousness. The lower energies remain as they are because they are able to hide from higher consciousness. Yet higher consciousness is kind of ruthless in a way, because it doesn’t let the lower ego hide, and when it meets with lower energies those energies are transformed. So consciousness is a key and is able to transform energies in our self.

Now all these keys have been briefly discussed, but it should be understood that they all have to be present for the transformation. Both love and consciousness have to be present together, along with a balance of will and surrender. The easiest way to begin is to bring love into the present, then add in the other keys, until it all clicks as a transformative experience. Nothing more can be said; thinking about it is not the practice nor the experience of it.

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The Great Work

It is said that the Great Work is to do with oneself. It’s to do with becoming more awake, more conscious of oneself and of life, and it’s also about Transformation. One difficulty with transformation is when one part of the little self wants to transform another little part. One part of our self doesn’t like another part, so it wants the other to change. This kind of transformation can work a little, but the Great Work is about Transformation of all our self, and this requires higher Grace, Divine Grace. The little self cannot do its transformation all on its own. So the Great Work of Transformation requires Divine Grace, and yet the little self must also participate by being open and allowing for transformation, and by being willing to surrender into a Greater Love. So an important element of the Work is softening and surrender, rather than a struggling fight between one part and another. And this includes an opening to the transforming power of Love.

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An important theme in the Great Work of Transformation is clearing. Our energy bodies need to be cleared, then continually cleared. So this becomes an important practice. Our energy bodies include the mental, emotional, and etheric.

The etheric body, or energy field, is different from the mental and emotional experience. It is felt as the vital life energy running through the physical body, which is the same as chi and prana, and this energy field is directly related to physical health. We can work with this energy through breath and movement and also with visualization. This energy body needs continual clearing and refreshment. Bring in the highest and purest vital life energy from the sky, and from the green, and from the fire below in the Earth, Breathe this in with visualization and feeling, and see it all circulating throughout the etheric and physical body, and clearing away any negative or dark energies. Bring in the freshest and purist energies, and light as well, then see this vital energy and light clearing and purifying one’s whole energy aura.

Next, we need to work with our mental and emotional fields, clearing our mind and emotions. Again, work with Light; not forcing the Light, but allowing Light to shine through our mind and emotions. The goal is to keep mind and emotions clear, pure and positive.

In this, there is self transformation. But there is also world transformation, because whatever clears in our own mind /emotions is also a clearing in the world. This is known as the Astral Clearing. One is clearing the whole astral plane of the world. So we can participate in more than just our own clearing. Help clear the whole world.

Clear the mind of all negative thoughts. How? With positive and loving thoughts. Clear the emotions of all impatience and frustration. How? With Trust. Remember that mind and emotions are intimately related. So the emotions can be cleared and healed with positive, trusting thoughts. Work with the highest and most positive thoughts, and be in the most trusting and peaceful emotions. It’s like a continuous meditation.

How we perceive is also importantly related. See the highest and most positive in the world and in everyone. In fact, how we perceive others and the world is a necessary part of the Great Work, which also creates a transformation of our self. So try to see the best and most positive in others. Then the whole world changes for the better. The whole world transforms around us when we see the best and most positive in others, rather than let our mental habits of opinion and judgment determine how we see the world. And when we transform how we see others and the world, those people and that world seem to transform as well. It’s like magic. So transform the world by seeing and recognizing the best positive goodness in everyone we meet, and with creative imagination see everyone in the world in a more positive way.

This is something to work on, to practice. At times it will seem easy, but then at other times it will be difficult and we will falter. But remember this is a continual work. Practice will make it easier.

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Intentional practice

One needs to keep working on making practice. In Hindu this is called Sadhana, meaning a spiritual practice or discipline. The word practice is appropriate in this, because the spiritual consciousness and life requires practice, just as any kind of endeavor that one hopes to become better at. Great spiritual teachers, initiates or masters are those who have attained mastery by fervent and persevering practice, just as a great musician must have practiced hard before reaching where they are now. Practice itself is hard enough to maintain, let alone mastery. The concept of practice also reminds us that we are not yet attained, since we are still practicing. But it can also relieve us from being too judgmental about our self; since we are simply practicing, we do not have to expect any perfection in our practice. Yet to do any spiritual practice requires some discipline – which requires intention and perseverance. However, we could just as well regard discipline as an aspect of practice.

There are many possible practices in each spiritual path, but in each there is the need for practicing. And in some way, the practicing itself is more important than the actual particulars of the practice, because of the required intention, remembering, effort, perseverance, and the overall will and discipline involved. Each step in a spiritual practice, or each try at it, is a step out of the bonds of automatic thinking and behavior. So whatever one practices intentionally and consciously is one’s step into freedom. And freedom is much of what it’s all about. The spiritual practice itself could be regarded as practicing freedom, that is, freedom from the bondage of our habitual mental, emotional and behavioral patterns. These patterns of obsessive thoughts, repeating desires, and unconscious behaviors are so often going on and so often what our life is, that we don’t even realize how trapped we are in it all. This is known as the great Trap. It’s not the physical world nor the body that is the real trap. Certain religious sects called this the trap, but this is not correct. The real trap is our subconsciously manifesting repeating patterns of the same thoughts, the same obsessive desires, and reactions.

The only way out of it is conscious, intentional practice. What practice to choose? Really any practice will do, but the best are those with intention towards greater love, higher listening, joy, givingness, and alignment with a higher purpose. The key is to keep on climbing out of the Trap. The first important step is freedom. Free oneself from reactive patterns, guilts and worries. Free oneself from obsessions. This will not be easy, because they are the repeating patterns of our subconscious. But freedom is a definite feeling and one will know it. Be as the eagle, know thyself as the eagle, and fly free and high. The second step after freedom is to fly high. Fly high spiritually. Fly high into love, joy and even ecstasy. This becomes the new enjoyment. The new spiritual enjoyment is beyond mere body pleasures, beyond drugs, and beyond sensational rushes. The new kind of joy, the spiritual fly high joy, is love and joy that is found in the freedom and in the Spirit we are now consciously in. Flying high is to fly towards love, wisdom and divine Will. Practice higher love, wisdom and beauty. This requires choice and intention, and practice. This choice is might be difficult, because we are choosing a higher path over the previous habit.

But let us bring this into something that is do-able anytime. Just pick a spiritual practice or spiritual goal; then start practicing it. Simple as that! But it’s the practicing that makes the difference. Practicing higher thought, more beautiful thought, more loving thought. Practicing expanded love and considerate love. Practicing conscious breath. Practicing choice.

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Deliberate effort in meditation is first needed.

Effort must come first, then we will eventually come into an effortlessness. Effortless meditation, without any feeling of being deliberate, is a wonderful experience, such as when one is lost in light or in love, or in peace or in joy, or in emptiness and bliss. But these states do not just happen without a meditational stage of deliberate effort. This is because we most often begin meditation from a state of automatic mind, where there is no real conscious intention, and where the mind is already effortlessly going about its usual pattern. The mind is doing its thing, and we are on automatic. So meditation must first break free from this automatic state, and this will require intentional, deliberate effort, or conscious will. Thus, spiritual practice must begin with deliberate effort, before we can ever get to a spontaneous spiritual activity of mind.

One of the very most important spiritual practices is simply being intentionally conscious. It may be hard to understand what this is, since everyone already believes they are conscious throughout the day. First to understand is what has been said previously, that mostly we are on automatic pilot. The mind is automatic; it’s in a pattern. It’s not evolving, but rather revolving and repeating the same stuff or the same ways or the same thoughts. So we call this automatic mind. There is consciousness here, but actually not very much. External stimuli is entering our mind, and also and the repeating stuff from our subconscious is emerging into consciousness. Nothing really ever changes, until we consciously observe ourselves and make conscious, intentional choices.

So the very important spiritual practice we are describing here can be called intentional consciousness, or being intentionally and deliberately conscious. It is kind of like waking up from a dream state, or from the automatic state whereby our subconscious ego is running the show. The importance of this practice is threefold.

First, as already hinted at, the practice of intentional consciousness breaks the usual automatic patterns of mind. It is a different mode of mind altogether, being intentional rather than automatic. For instead of our subconscious ego and its patterns emerging unimpeded into conscious experience; intentional consciousness does not just succumb to the emergence of automatic patterns from the subconscious.

The second importance is that intentional consciousness observes the content emerging from the subconscious mind, observing its ego desires and reactions. This helps our conscious intelligence learn about our own subconscious contents and also how our experience is so often a result of these subconsciously-automatic emerging desires, reactions, and past associations. This self-observation also will necessarily involve intelligent valuation, because we need to know the difference between intelligent response and mere ego reactions. So we might add to the name of this practice, calling it intelligent intentional consciousness. In other words, our best intelligence needs to be self-observing and valuating what is useful from what is not.

The third importance of intentional consciousness is that one can intentionally contact and attune to higher-deeper purposes. There is no sense in remaining caught up in automatic patterns, which is one good reason for practicing intentional consciousness, but also we can make contact with the highest-deepest purposes, the deeper love and higher will. In other words, we can intentionally-consciously dis-identify with our automatic desires and reactions, and instead make connection and attunement with the highest-deepest Purpose that is presently possible for us to realize. We can intentionally be conscious of Divine Love, which is the essential Reality. We can also reach to Divine Wisdom, and then possibly reach to Divine Will.

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Have an intention to allow God to enter. Find the intention in oneself. This is where the power is.

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Meta awareness (also called meta-cognition) is being aware of and reflecting upon our present thoughts and emotions. And we learn from this. This is how learning occurs.

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Upstream and Downstream practices

A spiritual practice is any activity that brings one into a higher energy state, or a deeper heart space, or a better attunement with the Source, or into greater Light and Love. These practices require an intention or a decision, and they take one out from an ordinary automatic pattern of life; thus being transformative. They move one into an enhanced state of being, different from our ordinary or usual state.

Some kinds of practices are more demanding and require extra discipline and effort. These are the uphill practices. But some kinds of practices are much easier and not so effortful. Most will consider the harder disciplined practices as better, but this is not necessarily so. Both kinds have a value, so both kinds ought to be pursued. The difference mostly depends on one’s attitude, more than anything else. One kind requires a struggling and disciplined effort, while the other kind requires a willingness and relaxed attitude to get into a flow with it all.

Being in a flow is the key to the easier way. This is an opposite attitude from the disciplined, effortful kind of practice. The disciplined kind is sort of like marching to a count; it has a regimental quality to it, and one feels like being a soldier or an obedient devotee. On the other hand, the easy flowing kind of practice is all about letting go and enjoying it all. Enjoyment and flow are the keys in this kind of practice. It’s more like a spontaneous, enjoyable dance. It’s more like actual singing than voice exercises. Chanting and singing are its best examples, and also dancing. The secret to this is finding what is enjoyable. For if an activity is enjoyable, then it is maintained by this enjoyment rather than requiring discipline or uphill effort. Find what is enjoyable. The easy flowing way is to get into an enjoyment with a practice, or altering a practice in some way to make it enjoyable. With the enjoyment one can then get into an easy flow with it, which sustains the practice just as well, if not better, than the disciplined way.

You see, most spiritual paths tend to involve some kind of difficult discipline or special devotional obedience. Yet, this is not necessarily the only way. For some types of people the discipline way feels more appropriate. But for some other types of people the way of flow will be the best way. Ultimately, each type of person ought to work with both kinds of practice, so not to remain one-sided.

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I transcendence

In meditation the self can be transcended by letting go of oneself. In other words, I let go of myself, which is to let go of the concept and emotional identification of ‘myself’. From this self-sacrificing leap a new and wider dimension of experience suddenly appears – which is Universal Being. What happens is that this letting go of selfness clears the space of consciousness – the individual self (or I) disappears in this self-sacrifice – and what suddenly becomes clear to experience is the underlying Reality of Universal Being which was already present but never yet experienced because the individual selfness was previously in focus. Once the small focus [on I or me] disappears, the background Beingness suddenly comes into view or into immediate experience. The greater Beingness was already there but unknown due to one’s small focus or fixation upon our I-ness.

Another pathway to self-transcendence is by directly experiencing Divine Presence in and through the I-self-ness. This pathway might seem different from the other, but really they are merely two different perspectives on the same transformation. In this second way the practitioner does not self-sacrifice or let go of oneself, but instead, inwardly perceives the greater Divine Presence effervescently pervading and inspiring oneself. In other words, the Universal Being as Divine Presence is found to be already present in and through oneself; so when one becomes aware of this Essence/Presence and remains in this awareness, then the small self-focus has been transcended. Therefore, this brings about the same result as the former way. One way is to surrender the self-focus or fixation on oneself to discover Universal Being/Presence underlying this self or existing in the background. While the other way is discover Universal Being/Presence directly pervading in and through oneself.

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How about a book called “mystical experiences”

Depths of Mind

The deeper levels of mind are the more universal levels, moving into the Mind of God; while the more surface levels are the personal mind. Thus, mind stretches in depth from one's unique personal mind all the way to absolute universal Mind – which is the deep essence of all personal minds. This means that, in theory, each personal mind is connected in depth to the Divine Mind of God. There is a connection, but normally the connection is so weak and obscured that the personal mind has no access to the universal Divine Mind, and the Divine Mind has reliable means to communicate its wisdom and will to the personal mind. Thus, even though the Divine Mind exists in the deep Depths of each personal mind, there is not enough connectivity and communication between these two poles, the Depth and the surface, for there to be significant practical value. The personal part of mind is so preoccupied with its own content that it cannot realize that the Divine Mind is just underneath it and ready to help with greater intelligence and higher vision. Then from the other perspective, the Divine Mind is unable to help and guide the personal mind when the connectivity is so obscured by the personal mind preoccupations. Any real positive change in this situation must come from the personal part of mind, for this is where the limitation lies.

So in summary, our personal mind has a very deep Depth, which is the Divine Mind; the deeper into mind, the more comprehensive and complete is the experience of Divine Mind, or Essence. So on one side a continuum there is an unknowable Depth of Divine Mind, while on the other side is the pole of personal mind – which is limited in its knowing, a knowing based on just personal experience. Our goal should be to connect the two poles – the personal mind entering into the Depth of Divine Mind, and the Divine Mind entering into the surface levels of personal mind.

Somewhere in the middle-between is our individual soul. Our individual soul has a conscious connection with Divine Mind, yet it is not comprehensively universal. Each soul has some degree of uniqueness and distinctness in relation to other souls. This is because each soul is on its own individual and unique path towards realizing the Depth and Totality of Divine Mind. Or in other words, each soul is on a unique journey towards God Knowing, also known as Universal Gnosis.

Our soul is in the depths of mind, deeper than the surface personal mind yet not as unfathomably deep as the absolute Divine Mind. And our soul is connected to both the personal mind and Divine Mind. It mediates between. Our soul is a degree, or an amount, of the Divine Gnosis. Our soul has a connection with our personal mind, but the connectivity depends on how well the personal mind can open up the connection rather than keep it obscured.

Each soul stands at some degree in the Depth of Divine Mind; or in other words, each soul is more closer or less closer to the absolute Depth of Divine Mind. This deepening and more comprehensive relationship has progressed over many lifetimes. Thus, each soul stands at the limit, at this time, of how deep into Divine Mind that the personal mind can go. The personal mind can only go into the Divine Mind as far as its soul presently has. So each soul stands as a limit of possibility, at this time. However, each soul can progress further, given enough self-work and experience coming from the challenges or intentional work of the personal aspirant. Each personal life of the soul is the soul's place of work – with its learning opportunities and challenges – in which the soul further develops its spiritual knowing, its compassionate love, and its spiritual will. The soul learns and progresses from its connection and involvement with the personal life; but simultaneously, the personal mind must progress towards its own soul knowing. Then, once the personal mind connects completely with its own soul and reaches its soul limit of divine knowing, the soul-infused person can then progress as a conscious Soul-person towards ever deeper Divine realizations and knowing.

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The I-self might also be called personal self, ego-self, or self-consciousness. What is the I-self? The basis of I-self is a thought-desire. Normally it is a complex of many thought-desires, but at its most fundamental state it ends up being a single thought-desire, which is like a thought bubble within a greater Field-Space. This greater Field-Space is God-Being, Universal Mind, Love-Being. So the ego I-self, or self-consciousness, is within a greater Universal Field-Being of Mind Consciousness. It is surrounded by this greater Field and sustained by it, just as any light reflected off objects depends upon a Source of light such as the Sun. So the individual self-mind, the little I am, is within and surrounded by the Greater Self-Mind, the Greater I AM, which is we call God or Allah or Shiva or other names.

Now, in the meditation of surrender and transcendence, the subject I-self surrenders itself and lets itself dissolve within the Greater Field-Being, the Greater Consciousness. The thought-desire bubble of I-self disappears in the Greater Space of Consciousness/Being. At first there is fear of death that holds this back, but gradually the I-self is coaxed by the Love-Presence of Great Being until the little I-self bubble lets go its self-created boundary and melts into the Universal Mind-Love-Being. And as the I-self is letting go of itself, there is more allowing of the Universal Love-Being into experience. Allowing and receptivity are essential keys in this transcendence, because when the I-self becomes purely receptive and allowing, there is just openness and no more boundaries.

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I copied this segment into Balance

In the process of transcendence and for the purpose of self-transmutation, the I-self needs to let go and dissolve into the Greater Being from which it originally came. But this is not the highest goal of the spiritual disciple. We are not meant to eliminate our I-self completely at every moment. Self-transcendence is only meant to be a practice and a portal to another level of self-experience. For the individual I-self is significant and necessary along the road of Divine Discovery and Divine Expression. The real ideal is a healthy balance between self-transcendence and self-will.

There is need for the I-will. There is a need for this affirmation of self and will. This is because we each must take immediate responsibility for being an agent of God, and agency happens through will. I must will. God’s Will is already at work. It is the greater Power that is trying to work through us living beings. But until we say ‘I will’, or until we are willing to be an agent of God, there is no conscious agency for Divine Will to come through. Of course something of the Divine may happen unconsciously and unintentionally through us. That can happen, but it is not a reliable act to count on since it would also depend on other parts of our subconscious not getting in the way. So it is far better to be a conscious and intentional agent of God, rather than hope that the Divine works through us while we are sleep walking.

The conscious aspirant acts with intention and will. He does not say, “my will is not needed because God will do everything,” or “I have no will and I let God do everything.” All of this is nonsense, yet still quite a popular religious idea. If no one used any will, then how would anything get done? Or is God supposed to work through us, as if we were like puppets? Is that the ideal of spiritual life, to become like a puppet, waiting for God to move my arms and legs? It is time to break from these false ideas. God wants us to have and use will. That is why we have this capacity. We need to use conscious will, yet may it be aligned with Higher Will. One could wait for God to inspire your will and help guide it, but don’t wait for God to do everything or move you like a puppet. You need to exercise your own will and get done what needs to get done.

One correct way of understanding God is that God is Will. God is Will. Well actually God is Will, Love, Consciousness, and Intelligence: all four aspects in One Being. Yet it is helpful to consider each aspect at one time. So we can say that God is Will. And the universe is filled with Will, since the universe is filled with God. And so Divine Will is everywhere. But it is not active and perfect everywhere. Rather this Divine Will, God, is present everywhere. It is like waiting for us. It is waiting for our will, waiting for us to be willing, waiting for us to have conscious I-will [serve the Divine]. The greatest will is the will-to-serve. Though other wills are significant as well, such as the will-to-know. Affirm I-will love and serve. I am here to serve Divine Love and Wisdom.

Remember that we are individual beings within Being. We are beings of Being. We are instruments of God-Being. We are functional capacities of God-Being. Thus we are functions of God-Will. Our will is to be reflective of God-Will.



what consciousness means ?

This is a word which, like many key words, refers to a phenomena or experience. The reference is what is referred to, and this is the meaning. So a definition would have to somehow point to such an experience. But how does one use words to point to an experience without using other words that also in turn need to be defined? At best one uses ever simpler words to describe or define the experience, so that as one approaches the experience, via words, the words get simpler at each step. Another approach to the meaning of a key word is to describe or explain how one knows if the word being used for a certain discourse is true or not; that is, what are the criteria for its verification. One would then have to say what evidence there is for using this word in descriptions. This approach again forces us back to describing the phenomena being referenced. In the specific case of consciousness, we could add one more approach, which is that consciousness simply must be presupposed for any experience to be known, and this may well be the meaning – that is, consciousness means that which we must presuppose for any knowing to be. We could, of course, eliminate the term consciousness and just use experience in its place. For when one says they are experiencing something, this already includes the meaning of consciousness. Afterall, could there be an experience without consciousness? Thus, consciousness and experience really mean the same, since neither could ever be true without the other. Except that consciousness is usually regarded as a kind of energy, whereas experience is often just a mysterious event that strict objectivists can never explain, though experience could just as well be regarded as a kind of energy. Mostly though, experience is regarded as an event, as in one is experiencing, or one is having an experience. Yet consciousness too might regarded as an event, or a kind of energetic happening. In a critical analysis it seems that the word consciousness is actually just an alternative grammatical use derived from its true base of being conscious. In other words, being conscious, as an activity or event, is the true phenomena, and consciousness is merely a grammatical derivative of the base word conscious – which is to experience or to know directly. Still, this approach seems to beg the question of what make it possible to be conscious or to experience, and this deeper question is probably why the term consciousness and its use arose. For in order to explain or say how one could be conscious, or experience, it does seem that one might then suppose a metaphysical energy that we could call consciousness. Finally, let us make a supposition about the meaning of consciousness, as a kind of energy. Let us suppose that consciousness is really the same as light. When we look out into the objective world, we notice light and science finds that without this energy of light we would sense nothing, that is we would have no outer experience without physical light. Now suppose that this same basic energy of light also works subjectively or within the knowing-experiencing part of a being. This then is the light of consciousness, and it is what makes knowing and experience possible. Thus, the supposition here is that consciousness is light energy, yet working within the brain or mind or intelligence of a being. Metaphysically, consciousness is light; it is the Light of God, the Knowing of God, the experiencing of God. The Light of God is consciousness; therefore, this Light of God is no further than the consciousness of my own experience.

Also, the meaning of consciousness would have to be intrinsically related to the meaning of conscious. So, in whatever way one uses the word ‘conscious’ in sentence (such as I am consciously loving) would have to be a key to the meaning of consciousness. Such as: he who is ‘conscious’ must therefore have ‘consciousness’; the two words have to mutually imply.

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Many layers/levels of Being,

Let us not become complacent that we have arrived into an experience of the Ultimate Being, for there are many layers/levels. The Ultimate Being is the Infinite Reality in which all layers and structures of Being exist. It is the Ultimate Background of Being, from which all Beings emanate out of. This is important to know in our journey towards The Absolute One, who we can call Absolute God. Because in our journey towards Absolute God, we will need to pass through the many layers of Being which precede this Final Arrival. Some teachers have even said that the layers and the journey are actually infinite. As for this teacher here, I don’t really know. I have arrived into Stations of One Being, experiences of Vast Being, and this Space of Being appears to be infinite, but how would I know for certain if that is so? For there could always be a greater Space. So how could anyone ever really know if they have reached the Final Destination or the Ultimate? A new and greater Space of Being, a greater Reality, might suddenly open up unexpectedly at any moment. So we should keep this in mind – that we just don’t know how far we are in this Great Journey. And one ought to be wary of anyone claiming that they have arrived at the Ultimate Destination – that they are ‘There’ and no further need they go.

Consider this in meditation. After preparation practices and meditation, imagine that you arrive in an experience of infinite Being-Space, or Pure Consciousness, or Pure Love. This is a great arrival. And let us say that this is the highest and deepest and most spacious spiritual experience you have ever known. You are in a Samadhi, a Great Realization of Being. This is a worthy place to abide in. Enjoy. Be. You have dissolved into a Great Oneness of Being.

Now in this Space, there are two modes of experience. One is ‘I am this Being’. This affirms who you really are. You realize that you are this Being, and this Being is you. So you realize, ‘I am this Being,’ or ‘this Being is I’. The other possible mode is simply ‘This IS’, which is without any identification or realization of I am this. The experience, the Beingness, is just what it IS. This is Truth, this is Reality, this is God, this is Being Itself. So, one experiences Being in one of these two possible modes: the ‘I am’ mode or the ‘This Is’ mode. The first mode has some degree of duality in it, in ‘I am This Being’; while the second mode distinguishes duality in simply ‘This Is God-Being’ – where there is no I. Yet neither one is really better than the other, because both are important in the full transformation process and in the Journey.

So now you have reached this Place, this Space, this Beingness. One could stop right here. And why not stop? Stop and BE. Be Here. Be Who you are. This is good meditation, good experience. It is good to just BE in such a meditative Space. It is like just being with yourself. Or it is like just being with God. Just hanging out with God. Sitting by the fire with God. Or, just hanging out with your own pure being. However you want to think of this. Or don’t think about it at all. Just Be. That is even better.

But alright, now, I must tell you a secret. This Beingness, this Spaciousness, this God you are with, is not the Ultimate Being-God. What you have reached in this Vast Space, in this highest Realization, in this deepest Experience, is but one Layer of the One Divine Self-Being. This is but one Station along the Journey. By all means, stay and enjoy. Stay and explore. Stay and realize what this is. Yet this is but one Layer of the [infinite] Self-Onion. This is but one Station along the Journey. Remember that at every step each experience of the Divine is always limited, in some degree. God, the Infinite One, knows Itself in Fullness, but we as limited beings can only have limited experiences of The One. Yet we can gain ever proximity to the Infinite, coming closer and closer to experiencing God Consciousness – in greater degrees of fullness. In each jump closer to this Goal we move into a Deeper Layer of Divine Being.

So then, once one is in a Deep Experience of Divine Being, the question now might be, how does one go to the next Layer? (assuming one is ready to embark once again). There are a few ways, though we cannot delve with too much elaboration on any of these. One way is to renounce the Being or Space you are in as an illusory dream of the Deeper Reality-Being. Another way is to realize that this present Beingness-Space is dependent on a Background Greater Being-Space. That is, Something Greater is Behind this present Being-Space. Then discover the Background Reality. A third way is to surrender the present identity of Being, and trust that the next layer will then reveal Itself. In short summary, these three ways for moving on to the next Level (or Deeper Being) are as follow. One, realizing and renouncing one’s present experience as an illusory dream state or limited mental construct. Two, realizing dependence on a Higher/Deeper Being-Reality, then seeking this Deeper Being. Three, surrendering one’s present experience state, then trusting that the next Layer will reveal Itself.

Remember that what is at present a Deeper Layer of Being-experience is now unconscious. It is the Great Unconscious, the Great Mystery. But then, when this Layer is consciously known, there will be another Layer underneath this, which will then be the next Great Unknown, Unconscious, or Mystery. And we keep on plumbing the Depths in this wonderful Journey of Inner Self-Exploration. Each new Depth is a new Layer of Being and a greater Expansion of Self-Experience (or Self-Realization). There is no hurry. One moves on to the next Layer, the next Depth, the next Expansion, when one feels ready.

Yet this whole discussion only really applies to those times when one reaches a very deep level of meditation and realization. This is about moving on from a very Deep Place to an even Deeper Place. So this discussion is only for those who have already reached those deep places and have sustained those experiences with mastery and comfort. This has nothing to do with mere sudden experiences or mere glances with Being. In order to apply what we have been discussing requires a good degree of mastery in meditation and a sustainable experience of Divine Being (to some degree).

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Mind is the key. If there is mastery in mind, then all else follows accordingly. Outer circumstances and other people of course are factors in how our life is, but mind is really the more influential factor. Two people might have similar outer circumstances and challenges, but one person might be consistently joyful while the other is miserable. Why the difference? Because mind makes the difference. That is, it is how our mind experiences life that makes the difference. Mind is the experiencer. Mind is consciousness. Mind is the medium in which we think about life, and it is how we understand life. So if mind can find joy in its own light, then all will be joy. Heart is involved in this as well, but for now we are considering the power of mind and how mind determines the way life is experienced.

The first possibility of mind is transcendence. Mind has the power to transcend the physical and also the emotional. Mind can just be in its own light. Mind, consciousness, can simply be free on its own. This is what is meant by liberation. Mentally liberate yourself from everything. This is easier to do in times of meditation. Consider the meaning of resurrection. It is to be free from the world. We all have this possibility, not just Jesus. When we die our mind is freed from the physical body, but this freedom can happen before we die or anytime in life. The Masters of mind have the power to resurrect at any time, which can also be called conscious liberation, whereby mind is free in its own light. A helpful clue to reaching this is to realize: I am mind and I am free.

The next possibility of mind is to create. Mind is ultimately transcendent from the world yet also is the creator. Remember that man is the microcosm of God. Mind is the creator. We do this with thought and visualization. The power of Mind to be creative is unlimited in essence, but it needs to be actualized in each person, little by little. The possibility of mind being truly creative, according the metaphysical law of energies follow thought, means that we now have to think about what to create. We can create just for ourselves, or just for the world, or we could do both. We can use mind to create good for ourselves, and we can also use mind to create good in the world. When we use mind to create good in the world, this is called esoteric service, because our creative work is invisibly unknown to others.

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The remedy to righteousness is love others. Practice it. You cannot so easily get rid of righteousness. You can only replace it with love.

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Meditate into the Essence- Light- Consciousness- Presence- Beingness.

Keep seeking a higher resonance with Divine Being-Presence. Attune and resonate with the highest-deepest.

meditation; relaxing and higher resonance attunement

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I am conscious and alive. and this is the same Self in everyone. I can look at anyone and see them as a Self that is conscious and alive. When I simply experience myself as conscious and alive, without any other thoughts or explanations, this primary self-experience would be no different than anyone else’s, if they were to strip down to this primary essence of self-experience. So this basic, primary experience of being conscious and alive is the common essence of all human beings, and thus it is our common self-essence or common self-knowing.

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a NEW MODEL of self

Realize that there are many possible levels of being, levels of life, levels of being awake. The average man doesn’t know this. He thinks there is just one possibility – that which he is now. He might imagine different possible circumstances, like being wealthier or living in a nicer place, but he does not imagine that he could experience this present reality in new ways, in higher ways. The wise know that there are different possible levels of experience, some higher than others. Once we know this, we can know that at any moment it might be possible to experience life in a higher way, or in a more awake way. At each level, one cannot really grasp what the next higher level of experience is like. In other words, higher levels of experience are beyond comprehension of the lower level; just as a neophyte cannot grasp the experience of a true master. So when we come into a higher level of being, we are surprised because it seems so true yet so veiled from our previous level of being. We look back, as it were, and realize that we were unknowingly asleep before. It’s as if the walls of a small room suddenly disappear and one now witnesses a vast expanse which one had previously not known existed. Somehow find a way to reach a higher level, then live at this highest quality of Being. Maybe then, eventually, a further level will open up.

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Practice – with emotional energies

Be aware of the emotional energy quality of the space you are in. Yet don’t get caught in it. Don’t get caught in the emotional energies of other people or of places. Try to stay above and beyond the emotional energies of a space. We need to practice this, and it is difficult, because our human tendency is to get all caught up in the emotional energies of others and then react emotionally ourselves. This might sound like a teaching that looks down on emotions, but not really.

There are high and positive emotions; but then there are low and negative emotions. We may want to fully experience the high and positive emotions of a certain space. But we don’t want to unintentionally lose ourselves in the negative or reactive emotional energies of other people. Yet this is what mostly happens to us. Without even being conscious of what is going on, our emotional sensitivity is picking up on the emotional energies of others, or of the local space, and then our consciousness gets all wrapped up and caught up in those energies, then resulting in our own automatic emotional reactivity. So it requires an extra intentional mental effort to be disattached from these emotional energies. Use the practice of conscious breath, along with an intention and will to be emotionally detached, and combine this with detached intelligent observation. This is a way to become free from drowning in the emotional energies of others, and freedom from automatically reacting to it all.

At the same time, this is not a teaching that is anti-emotional or degrading of emotional energies. Living and experiencing emotional energies can be very beautiful and life-enhancing. But not if the emotional energies are low and negative. The teaching is to live and love in the high and positive emotional energies; while somehow, dis-attaching and non-identifying from the low or negative energies. We need to have our own internal power to choose, for ourselves, what kinds of emotional energies to participate in. Choose the good ones, the enjoyable and positive ones; while being dis-attached from the chaotic or negative ones. This means that we need to have a self-power and ability to not merely get caught up in whatever emotional energy is going on. So we need to develop this self-power to dis-attach our emotional sensitivity from whatever energies happen to be going on. Once we exercise this power of detachment, then we can exercise our power of choice – choosing what emotional energies to participate in, and what to not.

For any kinds of emotional energies are, in themselves, very powerful forces, which the average human being most often gets caught up in; that is, our own emotional bodies tend to get caught up in the emotional energies of the people we are around and even with the spaces we are around. It’s like falling into a river and getting caught in the strong current. Most people are continuously falling into the emotional river that is all around them. They fall into these emotional forces, get caught up in them, and even lost in them. This is an overall fitting analogy for the average person, which is probably oneself. Wake up! One needs to continually remind oneself to be aware of the surrounding emotional space, and to not automatically fall into it and get lost in it. And it requires practice to develop an ability of non-attachment and non-identification. We need this ability to counteract the automatic tendency for falling into the river. Then, we will acquire the spiritually advanced ability to actually choose when to fall in. Because sometimes it is quite wonderful to fall into an overall emotional energy, enjoying dancing and swimming in that group emotional energy. But since not all emotional waters are pure and beautiful, it behooves us to develop an ability to choose which waters to swim in, or not.

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The Renunciation of Buddha and the Becoming of Christ

Great Ones tend to become archetypes in our minds. Buddha tends to be seen as an archetype of renunciation. This is true, even though Buddha is also to do with compassion and service in the world. So the simplistic archetype of renunciation is not the whole of Buddhism, but it is a significant quality.

Consider the meaning of renunciation. There are many related meanings, but one meaning would be non-participation. Don’t participate in what is going on. Normally we would consider participation as a good quality. It is social, and it has to do with being involved with others and with life. So, usually we would say that participation is good, maybe even necessary. But what if a possible participation is not helpful? Not all groups or activities are worthy of participating in. There are a whole bunch of crazy people with crazy ideas, and some are even dangerous. As any teenager will know, sometimes one has to just say no. So, continually, one has to decide what to participate in, and what not. Therefore, renunciation is not really anything exotic or weird; it is something we must do throughout ordinary life. Nonetheless, renunciation can be a difficult task. It is easy and natural to not-participate in things that we dislike, but it’s not so easy to stop participating in what we like, or in relationships we are already in. This is when the renunciation requires a special effort.

But let us also consider renunciation as it mostly applies to oneself. We will need to renunciate from certain things externally, but let us also consider internal renunciation. Sometimes we need to renunciate certain parts of our own self, or renunciate an ordinary pattern we might have. This kind of renunciation is subtle. We need to renunciate a way of life, or a way of living; without renunciating life itself. We just need to give up some things, or let go of some patterns. This is all quite obvious, isn’t it? But not so obvious, perhaps, are renunciations to do with our reactions or responses.

…. Not to react to other’s stuff, or not participate in it.

Not participating in reactions or in the emotional games that people play

And not just agreeing easily with propaganda that coming at us from economic and political sources (from both sides).

The way of renunciation is thought to be a renunciation of the world. But this is too simplistic. One does not to leave the world at all, nor hide away in a cave or monastery. Instead, renunciate the world of illusion, which is the illusory nonsense that people think is real. Imagine a child having an emotional fit about not getting their way. Or imagine an adult getting emotionally upset about the driver in front of them. This is the kind of nonsense that is world illusion. It is illusion because this relationship between world and reaction is thought to be the world. It is the world experienced. The world we experience as ‘real’ is often an illusion, because it is all mixed up with our emotions and reactions. The world as we experience it and think is real is also mixed up with our presumptions, prejudices and other belief-concepts. The solution to this is to renunciate from such illusions, but this involves seeing through the illusions we are creating about the world around us. so it is not really about abandoning the real world; rather, it is about abandoning the nonsense we are bringing to the world.

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The Renunciation of Buddha and the Becoming of Christ

Christianity is sometimes thought to be in contrast to Buddhism, since one invokes God while the other believes that God is an unnecessary concept. Yet there are many similarities, too many to consider at this time. But also often in contrast are Christ and Buddha, though here too are many more similarities than actual differences. Now for interest sake, let us see Buddha as representing renunciation, while Christ represents participation. The life of Christ life is defined by his voluntary participation in the world, and he chose to stay the course in this even though his life was at stake. Christ sacrifices himself to the world and for the world. He is spiritually committed to serving the world and healing those in it. So he is fully participating in the world with his whole life.

Of course, we could also say that Buddha participates in the world because he walks around teaching, even though he leaves the social world to discover his own wisdom-awakening. But, different from Christ, he is teaching the way of non-attachment and annihilating our socially conditioned beliefs, while Christ’s teaching is that we are children of an almighty loving God and that this world is his creation. God’s children need to serve God’s creation; much the same as children need to keep their house clean and in order. Christ is teaching that everyone and also this world is sacred. There is evil, but this is from ignorance or the unrealized mind of many people.

This is God’s world and we are God’s children. Everything and everyone is sacred.

Evil is the result of not knowing this, and thus treating others or earth as things to spite and manipulate. So Christ’s teaching is to love this world and everyone in it, since this is all God’s creation. Now, interesting, this has similarity to Buddha’s teaching, which is that we are all in the same kind of boat – that is, we all have a similar existential circumstance and are under the same existential law of karma, and thus empathy with others is natural, and compassion is a true natural response.

Then also there is some similarity with both teachings regarding renunciation, or non-participation. Already mentioned is the renunciation teachings of Buddhism, which includes non-attachment, non-identification, non-reaction, and also a skeptic attitude towards most truth claims of religions and culture. Yet Christ’s teachings also have a renunciating theme, which is called the renunciation of sin and evil. And also Christ shows by example his critical attitude towards religious authority figures and the greed of society. Jesus does not renunciate the whole world, but he renunciates the culture of greed, prejudice, hatred, etc. Furthermore, he teaches the renunciation of sin and evil. But this sin and evil is not inherent in the earth or the world. Instead, it is a human problem, though he does not seem to explain why this is. Nonetheless, this sin and evil are tendencies we need to renunciate and denounce. We see how to do this by how Jesus heals. He heals by affirming the Truth of Divine Goodness, while denouncing forces of sin and evil which he regards as delusions of the person (the same as being possessed).

There is so much to write about on this -- it seems overwhelming.

Much to learn from the above scattered kind of writing.

Christ

Next -- perhaps consider the ontology from Being … start from the Being, then add in space and Time and energy/matter, then also the Intelligence of this Being… and what love is, and what will is… thus developing a metaphysics from Being…

Now – back from the sidetracks??

…..

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The spiritual path is very much about mind and heart. It’s about our state, or quality, of mind and heart. It’s primarily about the purity of mind and heart. Mind and heart mostly co-function together, but they can have some independence. They also have interrelated meanings, but we can also discuss each one separately.

So, what is an ideal state of the spiritual mind? Pure and free mind. We can learn from the archetypal idea of Buddha. Though, let’s consider the state of Buddha, rather than anything about Buddha as a religious master or teacher. What is the mental state of Buddha, or what is Buddha mind? Simply said, it is empty, pure, and free mind. It is empty and free of thought distractions and desire wishes. This is because the Buddha mind is free of karma. Buddha has freed himself from karma. And this is quite important, because most people in the historical days of India believed in a kind of inevitable karma. Yet Buddha freed himself of karma, just in meditation. This is possible because karma is essentially made of thought. Or we might even say that karma is thought. Thoughts determine how we react and how we create, so thoughts have future results, which can be good or bad, in terms of life harmony. Karma, thus, can be understood as thought-karma and manifesting karma, the former being the karma-cause and the latter being the karma-result. Worrying about the outer-manifest karma is sort of a waste of time, though we have to deal with the stuff we made. But working with thought-cause karma is very efficacious, because then we are dealing with the root causes. So Buddha understood that he could release or annihilate his karma just through meditation and, specifically, by releasing thought attachments. These thought karmas are like causal chains, as each thought is related to another; so as one comes to the foreground, another is ready on the way, because they are causally connected. Therefore, it is hard to break the chain. Another way to understand these thoughts is to imagine balls roaming all over the space of mind. Each thought is a moving ball, and these balls often collide with other thoughts that had been merely at rest. So our present moving thoughts will collide into some resting thoughts, which then make those thoughts move into other thoughts, and so it goes. Also to remember about these thoughts is that they are most often connected to desires or wishes. This connected reality of thought and desire is called kama-manas, desire mind. Anyway, these thoughts/desires are extremely difficult to release and let go. There is a kind of glue or stickiness about the whole desire-mind, and so we have this stickiness of attachment to deal with. The master named Buddha was one who successfully released these thought karmas and attachments, so much so that they simply never came back and he was left in a content-less mind state known as nirvana, meaning emptiness or nothingness, because there was no more thought, no more desire, and thus, no more karma. So the state of Buddha-ness is mental freedom, with mental clarity and purity. And when there are no more thoughts, desires or attachments left in the mind, and no more karmic thought chains, then there is freedom and just Pure Consciousness. In this sense, Buddha is just Pure Consciousness, or just Pure Conscious Being. We all can reach this state, though it will never be permanent until we have completely released all of our karmas of thoughts.. which take a while and will certainly require dedicated meditational practice.

Now, Buddha can still think, use thoughts, mentally figure out things, and use memory, because we need memory and practical thinking to function aptly in the world. But Buddha-mind is not bound by thinking and thoughts. Nor do the thoughts arise automatically and without practical purpose. Thoughts do not lead Buddha; Buddha leads thought. Thoughts can be as tools to use on the Path, but we should not let our tools use us. The thought-body, as it were, is like having a donkey to help us on the path, but we need to not allow the donkey to wander wherever. Intention and Intelligence have to come together, guided by Love, to lead the mind, and thus to lead our lives.

detachment from reaction is an important daily (Minutely) practice

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Now let us consider the pure heart. Christ is the archetypal idea of Love being personified, or Love being expressed through the human heart. Christ gives us an ideal of being Love, or being Pure in heart. Three qualities are especially meaningful in connection with love. These are compassion, embracing, and caring. Compassion is being with

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Christ and Love Embracing and Compassion

the Masters are those who have attained a purity of selfless service, whereby nothing else is continuing in their being, no karmas of kama-mana desires.

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THIS NEXT part was copied into Balance

Patience (as an essence of meditation and of being in the moment here or anywhere)

There are many meanings of patience. Three will be given here. There is outer patience. This is needed in our outer life with other people and with circumstances. We would like things to go the way we think is right, but this won’t always happen. First of all, we often have an ego-centric perspective about life, and so we expect that circumstances will fit our wishes. It’s like expecting that the bus will arrive right away because just got to the stop. Most often we have to adapt to outer circumstances beyond our control, and there is no use in becoming upset when things don’t fit our timing. We cannot expect life to the adjust to us; rather, we must learn to adjust to life as it happens. This is part of outer patience. Second, we cannot expect that everyone will agree with how we view things or what we believe is a right way. A kind of patience is needed in order to suspend our own beliefs and judgments about what is true and right, so that we can hear what others believe. And sometimes we just need to accept other people’s views, even though they are different or even opposite to our own. This too requires a kind of patience. Third, we need to realize that everyone is on a learning path. This means that everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect; even by their own standards, let alone ours. So we need patience with everyone; similar to how we need patience with a child learning a new skill. Patience is not expecting or forcing everything to happen in an ideal way, right away. We need patience with learning and time, and with different perspectives on truth and rightness.

Inner patience is similar to outer patience, except that it applies to oneself and the emphasis is being patient with one’s own learning path and progress. We cannot expect instant mastery in what we set out to achieve. Learning and mastery takes time, so this also requires patience. In fact, if we lack patience with ourselves, we will make more inner obstacles, and then mastery will take even more time. Nobody wants to make mistakes, and we all have ideals for ourselves, according to our own vision and standards; but we cannot expect to always live up to our own ideals, nor expect to never make mistakes. So, patience with ourselves is also about being easy with ourselves: not being too hard on ourselves, nor being meanly judgmental about ourselves. Thus, patience goes along with love and compassion; which we can apply to ourselves and others as well. Yet, along with patience we should be practicing determination (or effort); otherwise patience alone can turn into a passivity. Determination and patience balance well together. They are like two essential legs on the path. Go forth with determination and effort, yet also have patience and compassion along the way. And again, this can apply to ourselves and also to our relationships.

Another kind of patience, the most subtle one, is deep patience with life. This is being patiently open to the moment and to whatever it brings. It is being peacefully content with just being, allowing the place and the moment to unfold in its own way and in its own time, without opinion nor manipulation. Trust in life and trust in the moment is part of this quality of being. What makes this a patient quality is that one is not pushing anything to happen, not trying to make anything happen, but rather allowing the moment to unfold or allowing experience to be whatever it is. It is a inner repose with life and a satisfaction with what is. An example of deep patience is being able to sit by a little creek in nature and just be in the place and in the moment, without plans or worries or the need to move doing something else. This requires patience inside oneself, a patience with just being in the moment and place, and allowing the experience to simply unfold in its own way, without any manipulation by thought or desire.

Really, this is meditation, yet it is an outward meditation with life, or with nature. It is an active state of mind, in that one is fully conscious, but it is a not-doing¹. The not-doing requires patience. The opposite of patience is wanting to fix or change something, or wanting to move on to somewhere else or be somewhere else. The opposite of this contentful patience, of just being, is a habit of doing and also a habit of wanting to move on to the next thing rather than being patient with just what is in this particular precious moment. Being able to not-do, and not-plan, and not move on, is an ability that takes some practice at first and patience as well, because our habitual tendency is to always stay busy with something, doing things, or always having a goal to reach or plans to fulfill. How often do we really relax and just experience the place we are now at, the place of this unfolding moment? And not simply rush off to the next place or the next plan. This is deep living patience. And it is also trusting in the moment.

Trusting in this moment means feeling alright with being right here, right now, and not thinking about being somewhere else, nor that one should be somewhere else. One is not thinking that one should have made a different choice rather than this one. And one is not regretting being in this place, in a thought that one could be somewhere better. Instead, one feels just right about being in the place one is and opens up to the enjoyment of being in this particular place. This is all about trusting in the moment. There is nothing better to do than what we are now doing, nothing more right to do, and nothing else that we should be doing. This is the place we are now, and this is what we are now doing, and this is good, this is right, this is just fine the way it is.

This is trusting in the moment and trusting that we are in the right place in this moment. It probably won’t be possible to feel this way all of the time and in every circumstance. But we need not worry about all the time. Rather, just begin when it feels possible; begin to trust in the moment and trust in the place where we are. Then, when we completely feel good and right about being just where we are in this moment, a deeper meditation can unfold, because now we can completely relax in this moment and place, without thinking about being somewhere else or needing to do something else. And so now we can relax and explore what is here and who we are right now. This is very important.

In addition, this trusting of moment and place brings forth an experience of unity, where there is no distinct division between self and place, and there is even a timeless quality to these moments.

Clear mind and heart are the keys for meditation and virtue. Out from clear mind-heart can emerge the Divine Mind-Heart, which has always been the essence of our limited mind-heart. The Divine is always ready to emerge, both into our experience and through our self-expression, but normally it is clouded and obscured by thoughts and emotions of the mind and heart. Thus, clearing is the way, the path, the method. For once we are clear, the Divine Intelligence and Love will emerge and unfold naturally through us. This might sound too simple and even too easy, but it is the way. The Sufis use a repeated phrase that means, ‘No other but God’. It can also mean, ‘nothing is but God’ this is an affirmation of Unity, Only One Being. But it can also be an affirmation about what we accept in our experience. So it can mean, ‘Let there be nothing but God’. And this goes along with a practice of surrendering everything we hold onto, so that only God will remain in our mind and heart. If we surrender all thought and all emotion and all selfness, then eventually there is nothing but God in our mind and heart.

What we seek is transparency in mind and heart, a transparency of the consciousness in our heart…. whereby consciousness (or inner experience) is more transparent.

The practice is to meditate or repeat prayer in the heart, while continually clearing mind and heart, so that the transparency of mind-heart becomes evermore clear. This transparency is like looking through a window out into the whole universe of space, an infinite space of the heart, and seeing nothing obstructing this view into the infinite. It is when one sees clearly, through mind and through heart, and the window is perfectly clear and transparent. One’s whole self appears t be transparent as well. And because of this transparency, The Divine Consciousness and Love shines through, without anything clouding it. Then, you know the Divine, and this is all you know.

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The deepest meditation is in the heart, and the true Way is living in the heart.

The true Way is to live in the heart. This is a very radical Way of being. It is radical, because most people learn to live in the head. People have heard of this way of living in the heart, but most have rejected this possibility because they fear that if they actually live in the heart and from the heart, they will lose all rational intelligence and also become kick balls for others. In other words, the common belief about this possibility of living in the heart is that intelligence will be lost and also personal power. One is afraid of becoming a mad irrational lover of everyone and also a push over for others.

To quell these fears, consider that you can live in the heart and from the heart, but still keep your thinking and rational mind, and also keep your personal power and protection. You keep your intelligence and protective power, but you make your true home in the heart. Mind and power can still be accessed, but one lives and centers in the heart. One interacts with the world from the heart, meets the world from the heart, sees the world from the heart, and makes decisions from the heart. And if you need the mind to figure things out, or if you need protection from the world, then you can use these capacities. Nonetheless, you can still live in the heart and from the heart; rather than living in the head-mind or living from personal power. Living in the heart is really a very special way to live.

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Meditation in the Heart

We come closer to God by turning inward. The world is like the Body of God, which we live in, and the natural world manifests the Mind of God. So in the world we find the manifesting Mind and Body of God. Here we find God Objectified. But to find Subjective God and God in Essence, we turn our awareness inward. We look inside our own deep being. For some traditionally religious people, this sounds arrogant and it might sound like one thinks they are God, but this is a misunderstanding. One is not being arrogant when one turns inside to find God, and no one is claiming to be God in the sense of being the same as our Creator and Sustainer. Rather, what one is believing is that we are all in God, living in God’s Being, and God is in us, living in and through us. Therefore, we can find God inside ourselves, yet we have to go very deep into our core essence and also let go of our little personality thoughts about being this person or that person, or about believing this or that. One has to let go of everything about oneself, and go very deep into one’s truth.

God will then eventually be revealed in this inner consciousness. It probably won’t happen right away, because God inside is veiled by quite a lot of self-thoughts and personal emotions. So in a way this is like peeling an onion and, in fact, there might be some emotional pains in need of release as part of this peeling process. This is called the journey within, and it is not just a one day journey. But if one pursues inward and works through the processes of peeling and release, then eventually one comes to the very essence or core of oneself, and one will discover that this is the Light or Consciousness of God, though in a limited portion (just as one sun is not the same as all the galaxies of suns).

The inward journey and the discovery of God within is specifically a journey in the heart. The meditation for discovering God within is in the heart, rather than in the mind or in the head. Often, one begins meditation practices in the head or practicing focusing the mind, etc. This is of course important, because if the mind is always chattering, then one will never get anywhere. But at some point, we need to meditate in the heart, because here is where we will find God within. In the most advanced spiritual practices, it is really about being in the heart, where one discovers a much deeper inner knowing that cannot be found in the head mind. God is in our heart.

So we come closer to God, and closer to experiencing God, when we turn awareness inward into our heart. Simply, we call this turning inward into the heart. The Mevlevi Sufis, under the spiritual guidance of the Mystic Rumi, have a practice called the Turn or commonly called whirling. But the physical aspect of this practice is less important than the inward aspect of it, because one is really practicing an inward meditation of continually turning inward into the heart. And by turning inward into the very heart of their being, the turning semazen remains balanced because they are orbiting around their true centre of being, the heart. And the semazen is empty of all self-thinking, by surrendering mind into heart, and surrendering little self to God - in what is known as servanthood. This state of servanthood is a key to ego transformation; for there is a very significant transformation of oneself, if the ego can surrender itself and allow itself to be a servant of God, which again is an attitude of the heart. Finally to mention is that this physical practice of Turning is symbolic of the more important inner practice of turning towards God, in our heart, and also surrendering and giving all of oneself to God, which is necessary for any real transformation of self-ego.

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Now once consciousness is finally in the heart, there will come a time when God is not anymore within. This is because once we are truly within, after having gone within, God suddenly is experienced as all around, in the space all around. Once one is completely in the heart, there comes a time when there is no more within, because one is already there. And it is here, in this heart within, that God may then be experienced in the space all around. It is like going on a journey into a deep sacred cavern to find God’s home; but when one finally arrives inside the deep cavern, the home of God is not anymore deep within but all around in this space. So, once one has journeyed within and finally arrived in the space of within-ness, the God presence is now found to be all around.

So we can experience God as the Divine Presence in the space around us.

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Presence

The practice of presence, or having presence, can fundamentally be described in the following manner. First, presence involves full awareness of oneself, not just of the body, but awareness of our complete self, including mind, emotion, and our pure beingness. This is being fully consciously present in our self, rather than awareness being scattered or when awareness is primarily involved in thought.

Second, presence involves full awareness of the space around, including people, objects, and energies. This full awareness of the space around is essential to really being present in our immediate space or environment. More often, we are only partially present in our immediate space or when we interact with others, because part of our awareness is scattered in various thoughts, or worries, or plans for doing something – other than what we are doing right now. Our thoughts are often drifting off either into the remembered past or into the imagined future, rather than our full awareness of mind being completely present in this very moment, right here with whoever is here or whatever is here. Presence is being fully present, right now and right here.

Third, presence involves a conscious and intentional bringing all of oneself into this present moment and space. This includes all of our awareness, mind, emotion and heart, as well as all of our physical senses and sensations. We bring all of our mind, but also all of our heart. This means being whole-heartedly present. It also means bringing all of our spiritual qualities, from within, into the present and into this immediate space. This would include our love, caring, concern, dedication, sincerity, highest wisdom, and goodwill. The list of possible spiritual qualities can of course be expanded further.

{Clear and open heart ; caring and dedicated heart}

What essential qualities of heart can we bring into presence, or into the present? Some have already been mentioned. Four essential qualities of whole-heartedness will be especially mentioned here, though each is derived from love, the very essence of heart.

One essential quality is a clear heart; not a heart preoccupied with mere self-interests or carried on resentments. Can we clear away these preoccupations? Can we clear away all resentments and worries?

Another essential quality of heart, besides clarity, is an open heart. We can bring our openness into presence, and into the way we interact. This is an openness to the other, or to the group, or to the immediate world around. And this openness is open to receive who the other is and what presence they bring. A real meeting of presences can only occur when there is this mutual quality of openness. But of course, openness always has to begin with one person starting it, so may it be me. If one person begins the openness, it is likely that others will follow, because when someone has an open hearted presence, our subconscious fears and distrust will naturally dissolve.

Caring is another essential quality of whole-heartedness. The open heart is similar to caring, but caring is more than being open to another. First, it is having positive good thoughts about other’s well-being. Second, it is being ready and willing to give whatever we can to the real needs of this person and to help them progress further as developing human-divine being. When we care about the world, or community, we not only have good thoughts but also are ready to help or lend a hand when needed. To be full of caring in one’s heart is to be ready to give and full of a capacity to give. There is much more to say about caring, but this was a start.

Dedication is another essential quality of whole-heartedness. Dedication does not have to mean dedication to someone else, though it might include this. More importantly is dedication to love itself, dedication to being fully and whole-heartedly present, and dedication to serving a higher purpose than just our own little desires. Dedication is similar to commitment -- being strongly present and unwavering. Dedication is also related to sincerity.

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Mindfulness

To be fully present to whatever IS, and to simply discover what IS, without a preconceived agenda to find this or that, or to change this or that.

An absolutely essential spiritual practice is mindfulness, and there are various degrees of mindfulness. First, we can be mindful of our body, behavior, and physical surroundings. Next, we can be mindful of our emotional energy – our feelings, moods, reactions and desires – and also the emotional quality of our surroundings. Next, we can be mindful of our mental world – our thoughts, assumptions, and judgments. Yet we also need to be mindful of that beyond our own being. Firstly, be mindful of the local physical environment. Then in addition, be mindful of the emotional and spiritual quality of the place. But we can even expand from this level to be mindful of the larger world, even the whole world. And again, this mindfulness can extend into the physical, emotional and also mental world of the whole world. Additionally, we can be mindful of interconnected relations; that is, mindful of how interconnected this world is, physically and in mind. We are now approaching a mindfulness of the Unity of all life. So the next step is mindfulness of Unity. What is meant by Unity is more than connectiveness, though it certainly involves connectivity. Unity means the Reality of One Being. So this is mindfulness of One Being (which of course includes oneself and everyone). This is also called God – The One Being – in Whom we all are.

Lastly to ponder upon is that each life is God’s life, and each moment is God’s moment.

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 Theme of spiritual wakefulness

2 levels?:

one is the level of being fully conscious as we do things in regular life, such as daily work, chores, cooking, dressing, and other activities. Most people assume they are awake at these times, but we often do these things with very little consciousness because we can do them automatically, mechanically, and almost subconsciously. So on this level we practice wakeful consciousness in what we say, do, and how we are in mind and emotion. This is being wakeful to oneself. We can also be more awake in how we sense the world around us. For example, when walking in a forest, how awake are we really to what is around us? In any outer experience we can be awake more or less. So we can practice being more awake to what is around us, and this can include being more awake and sensitive to subtle energies of nature.

(So at this level of wakefulness, we are more conscious and sensitive to the world.)

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Being truly awake – we are awake to both the outer world and our inner world. Remember that God, and the Process of Divine Revelation, occurs both through the outer world and through our inner world. That is, God emerges from both the outer world and the inner world. We experience God through both the outer and the inner; that is, God is discovered both outward and inward. God is outside and around us, and God is inside and through us. So the experience of God and wakefulness to God has these two dimensions, the outer and the inner. In the outer, one might be awake to divine intelligence, love and beauty that is manifested through people and nature. From the inner, one might be awake to divine intelligence, love, and creative inspiration that is emerging from within us.

Remember that God and all of the divine qualities are seeking to emerge from deep within us, from the deeper dimension of Spirit-Essence within. Often we think that we are seeking God, including God’s love and wisdom; which is true, but it is also simultaneously true that God’s Love and Wisdom and Creativity is seeking us – seeking to emerge through us to become known and manifested in the world. God is seeking to be alive and awake through us, and to unfold spiritual qualities through us. This is our functional purpose for God; it is our real reason for being. Some do this quite naturally without any philosophy or religion, while others consciously know this purpose and perform their spiritual role intentionally. Others do not know, nor do they succeed much for the good of this spiritual purpose. Also remember that God seeks to experience divine qualities in the outer world around us; so any moments that we are awake to intelligence, love and beauty in the world are experiential reflective moments for God, as we have become the perceptive instruments for God.

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In both the natural and social world, there are two sides for us to be wakeful. These two sides will be called the outer and the inner, or they can be called form and presence.

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Notes: (below are thoughts and notes about presence which could be edited or summarized better.

There seems more to this than just a self-awareness and spacial and kinesthetic awareness, though the intensified awareness of self and environment would of course be foundational to presence. This foundational awareness in the practice seems gurdjiefian (in a sense) -- which is how I understand being 'consciously aware' (as an extra-state-of-awareness, or conscious of awareness, or 'self-consciousness') which could then be the same as 'having self-presence', or being 'self-present'.

But there is an added profoundness to the practice when we include all oneself into this present moment or into whatever activity or whatever place-space we are. That is, all of my awareness, all of my energies, all my intention, all my commitment, all my heart, and all of self from highest to lowest. This then becomes a huge possibility and a practice that could never be merely taken for granted (as easily done or mastered. Thus, bringing whole-heartedness as well as full mindfulness to our present moments and to our activities and meditations or prayers. As people sometimes say regarding presence, that you have full presence when you are fully here-present - and we can feel-taste someone's presence - the presence of a teacher or swami.

And possibly we can also bring to the moment a deep consciousness of Being (Oceanic consciousness), or God-consciousness or God-realization or God-presence to the moment and place.

Furthermore, it seems that presence is magnified when one is conscious of Divine Presence, and at this point the self-presence seems to be assimilated into the Divine Presence. But at this point descriptive language becomes too inadequate.

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My committed intention to be fully present,

mentally and energetically.

Awareness intensified or maximized; not a lazy

awareness yet relaxed.

Bring one’s being-consciousness into this

present space.

Bring all of one’s energy to this present moment

or space

All of one’s awareness/consciousness and inner

listening into this present

All of one’s spiritual light and love

All of one’s spiritual energies and highest

qualities

Bringing our spiritual heart and awakened mind

to this present space.

Being fully here with all of oneself, (from

highest planes to lower planes)

Open heart of love/compassion and ready/awake to

respond.

Being fully awake to need – to what is calling

for our attention and care.

Ready and willing to respond to any need, or to

what is being called for.

What is NOT happening is merely being in a

thinking mind, or a distracted mind, or in emotional

reaction.

It is NOT a half-ass awareness of the present.

It is not an incomplete present-ness : like,

“I’m sort of here for you”

here is my description of being in the state of presence, returning to presence, and sustaining presence.

1. Awareness (or consciousness) is fundamental, but it must be an intensification of awareness. Awareness has to intensified/heightened to its maximum. Though this would not be a clinching of the fists kind of mental intensification; it ought to be a relaxed yet energized awareness.

2. It is an intensified awareness (or consciousness) of whatever is present in this moment, without becoming mentally occupied just on particular details.

3. To fill the room with one’s general awareness is also a way of filling the room with presence.

4. It also involves a receptive sense of listening or feeling what is around. This might involve fully listening to another person, or maybe feeling the energies of a space.

One must bring all of oneself fully here in this present, so to be fully here, present. This involves bringing all one’s energies (soul, mental, and emotional) into this present or into this space.

See also my file on presence to add to here

(check on what is already pasted here and what is not)

God is the infinite possible, the Source, the Ocean of Being.

I-Christ is the expression, limited yet divine.

Be the Good.

The Will of God is the same as the Good

Come together as a Group to be a power of Good in the world.

The heart-wisdom of humanity is the hierarchy.

Mind is unlimited in possible expansion and expression.

The conscious mind of man is part of God’s Self-knowingness.

The creative imagination of man is part of God’s Creative Imagination, reflecting the higher more or less.

Conscious mind must exercise its volition, its decision-choice, the I-will.

The I-will uses divine power. Affirm your choice!!!

My individual power of choice is the power of God in me.

This power of choice is the greatest divine power in us.

Choose with unwavering affirmation and faith in the outcome.

But also be intelligent and cautious about your choices, knowing their power.

Conscious mind is also learning – becoming more intelligent – by understanding Intelligence of Spirit. Also : another function of conscious mind is knowing and learning.

The mind of God in me is my soul, my light.

When this is directive, one is directed by God because soul is God in me.

The spirit of man is the Spirit of God; there’s only one spirit.

The Spirit of God is Self-knowing.

My spirit is the Self-Knowing in me, or my Self-knowing.

Selflessness is thinking and action without egomania, that is, without an inflated sense of self importance and concern for just one’s own wishes.

Selflessness is losing oneself, then finding a spiritual purpose, or finding purpose in serving the greater Life.

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Add to part about the divine child:

God is both majesty and innocence, both King and child.



In Sufism the sound of HU (it sounds like who) is the Divine Essence – before attributes or before knowing God in this or that way. HU is the Divine Being prior to Divine Knowledge and prior to manifestation. It is Divine Essence in its most primal purity. For Sufis, the sounding of HU or the moving into this experience, is also a way towards ego-annihilation, as one dissolves into the primary essence. Moreover, HU is WHO, the Divine Subject, the One Self Who experiences all the objects of life and all objects of experience. This is the true real Being, whom we are. We are just rays from this One Conscious Self. This is the Divine Within, the True Self; yet most often layered with veils of i-dentification, i-ness, and all the various limited beliefs and reactive emotions about oneself. This is why we need to get at our core; give up these layers of i-dentification and i-ness beliefs in order to discover the One who we are in essence.

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Consciousness Essence is HU. Pure Consciousness is HU. HU is the First Essence and the first knowing of Being.

Also, HU is the first vibration or first sound of Divine Essence. So HU is the first beginning of manifestation from the Unmanifest. Out from the Transcendental Unmanifest Being comes the first Sound-Vibration of HU. So HU is Spirit coming into this world of manifestation. Hu is God’s Creative Power and Grace coming into manifestation. And the breath of HU upon someone brings them Grace. So HU brings Spirit into this world.

Yet HU also returns us back to the Source. HU is Spirit coming into the world, but then HU is Spirit returning back. Spirit comes and returns on the same sound. So a Sufi Master breathes out and sounds the HU, in order to facilitate the movement of Spirit-Essence-Grace into this world. And yet the sound of HU is also a path of return, upon which we return to the Essence, to just Being. One could also say this is the return to God.

So HU is the pathway of birth, manifestation from Essence, and HU is also the pathway of death, dissolving back into the Essence, God. This is the rhythm of Divine Breath, the coming in of Life and the going out, birth and death.

Death is an act of returning, just as birth is an act of coming in. Both are equally important directions. Though of course, births are much more enjoyed by us than deaths. Births seem to be miracles, while deaths seem to all be tragedies. No doubt that deaths have a tragic and sad feeling. But we have to accept death as an inevitable part of this existence. Actually, we experience deaths everyday, in some way, because throughout every day and every year and every life there are dying things in our lives. In fact, circumstances are always dissolving, always changing, always in flux. This is the nature of our transient existence. Life around us is continually transforming, changing, and also so are we. So every moment is, to some extent, a death and a new birth. Notice the changes. There is nothing we can do but accept. HU.

Everywhere is HU,

God as Presence, Love, Intelligence coming through manifestation.

But in degrees. Just as the Divine Self in persons is often veiled by their identifications (veils of belief and I-ness)

See God everywhere, Present,

here and there seeking to come out,

With love to share.

See God in everyone,

A hidden radiant sun,

Wanting to laugh and smile,

To love and have fun.

HU DOST

I found the Friend in God,

Then I found God in my friend

I who calls Thee is Thee who calls me.

Everywhere is the substratum of Being-Consciousness.

My inner essence Treasure needing to be known

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When we get beyond the illusion of my mind and my heart, then the Holy Spirit might begin moving through our experience. This Holy Spirit is the Divine Presence. It comes in many possible qualities, such as joy, love, and peace. You feel it coming through the heart. But it only comes when one is open to something greater or more essential than oneself. This is Divine Transpersonal Love. Experiencing greater Love is the most fulfilling of all experiences. It’s also vital to our health and emotional well-being.

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One can take two kinds of path, but both end up the same. One can seek what is beyond one’s own personal mind, the greater mind. Or, one can seek the very essence or truth of one’s own personal self. Each way brings one eventually to the same. Likewise, I can seek to know myself, my own deepest truth and purpose. Or, I can seek to know the greater Reality, the greater truth and purpose that is beyond this little self. These are different and seemingly opposite kinds of path; yet they actually come to the same truth and purpose. For the Greater Purpose is really the same as my own deepest purpose. Both reflect one another. The Greater Truth and essential individual truth are reflectively the same.

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The greatest journey is to find out who I am. There are so many places to visit on this whole planet and so many possible experiences; yet we seldom think about the discovery of our own self.

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In eastern psychology the inner world of conflict, the psyche in conflict and in development, is known as Prakriti, sometimes translated as the lower human nature. In polar relation is Parusha, Spirit or Consciousness, which is beyond conflict. Parusha can also be understood as the spiritual nature of oneness, while Prakriti is the nature of diversity and conflict. Both are basic to the reality of our self. Now in one sense, there often is a conflict between Parusha and Prakriti, in that our Prakriti nature may attempt to suppress or avoid the power of Parusha, in order to maintain its status quo, much like both sides of conflict refusing to allow a higher source to resolve the conflict. Prakriti nature prefers to fight everything out or maintain this struggle for dominance. Parusha, though, does not actually take sides in the psychological conflicts of the Prakriti psyche. Instead, Parusha provides the power of pure consciousness and impartial self-observation, which are the necessary means for resolving self-conflicts of the psyche. So in this sense, Parusha is not really battling Prakriti, but offering itself as the energy and model of peace. Prakriti may be battling Parusha, but Parusha never battles Prakriti. Instead, Parusha offers this power of honest self-observation in an attitude of unconditional love, which is the power of Spirit, and its will is to resolve conflicts, bringing about peace, love, harmony and cooperation in oneself; thereby transforming Prakriti with consciousness and love.

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surrender of the shoulds

As necessary to the spiritual practice of surrender, in order to uncover the deeper core and reality of our self, we need to surrender all preconceptions of what is there and what should be there. And we need to make the journey of self-discovery without any old patterns of shoulds dictating the rules and landscape of such discovery.

Ordinary awareness and being is often caught up in cultural, religious, or parental ‘shoulds’, which can become subtle and hidden patterns that will eventually obscure spiritual seeing and experience. So we need to be vigilant in self-observation, in order to catch these patterns at the moment they come into action. But they are very good at hiding, masking, and obscuring themselves. They are also very adept at justifying themselves, in ‘I should be doing this’ or that; though remember that we also project these same shoulds onto others. Now it would be unfair to suggest that all shoulds need to disappear; which would be like saying all morals should disappear. Shoulds have a rightful place in our psyche and also behavior. The problem is when rigid and uncompromising shoulds always dictate how we relate with others and how we go about in our own self-discovery. At least in terms of self-discovery, these shoulds often get in the way of freely experiencing who we are at the deeper core of self, because the shoulds continually want to direct the discovery and make sure that any possible discovery does not contradict or oppose one of the sacrosanct, self-justifying shoulds.

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Clearing practice

La illaha il alla is the clearing of everything in our mind, emotions and energy field. It means there is no God but God. Yet this is meant to be more of an affirmation or commitment, than an idea. It affirms there shall be no other than God in one’s energy field and consciousness. I let go and clear away all thoughts and emotions, to be completely empty like a perfect flute. Finally I let go of myself, all of me, all of this individual identification. And when there are no obstructions and no fascinations of the mind, when everything is let go of, then God naturally comes into awareness, because God is the real Essence or Truth of our being. God is Who we really are, and God will become our only experience, once the many obstacles and fascinations of the mind are let go of and cleared away. God then comes into awareness, into experience; but not if we have particular expectations, ideas or images of what God is. For if we have such expectations, ideas or images of God; then these self-produced ideas will come into experience, rather than the Truth of God. So we not only need to let go of and clear away our own self-identifications, but we also need to let go of our God images and ideas. Remember that your mere ideas about God could not be the Truth of God, and you want to experience God, not just an idea about God. Therefore, give up your thoughts and ideas about God, so that God can come into experience unobstructed and uncolored by these ideas. This is the commitment and affirmation that I only want God, and everything less than God I willingly let go of. Once there is this absolute dedication, mixed with patience, God eventually arrives into our experience, untainted by expectations and presuppositions. God eventually emerges from the depths of hidden mystery, once the obstructions and the veils of thought have cleared, because God is who we really are, so this emergence is fundamentally natural. Then we begin to learn about God as God really is. And we understand more of our own true qualities of being. But first, we need to allow God to emerge without any presumptive ideas.

So the next practice is just repeating Allah, in our heart. This is opening the channel for Allah to emerge. It is like an encouragement for Allah to emerge through the now clear and empty flute. Allah, show me your Truth of Being and your beautiful Qualities, and may all of You express through me, your servant, your lover, your child, your instrument. And the more Allah is repeated; the more Allah emerges, comes through this being, and into the world. Study this and then practice this. May God bless you.

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The Allah Practice for purification of mind and heart.

The practice of repeating Allah, from the heart, in rhythm with breath, with love, devotion and surrender, is helpful in concentrating the mind and heart towards God, and also purification of the mind and emotions. Higher transformation requires transmutation of lower energies into higher energies. We are normally stuck in lower energies, or east we are usually stuck in automatic patterns and preoccupations. So the only way out must involve sacrifice and transmutation. The practice of Allah brings about this sacrifice and transmutation. For besides the obvious focus and repetition of sound, there needs to be a sincere sacrifice of usual preoccupation and a turning towards what is greater and finer, a turning towards God. It is a letting go of the old stuff, and a turning towards a much more refined state of being, at a higher stage of Love and in a more intense experience of Light.

So part of this practice is letting go, and the other part is entering in. One is entering in to a greater Love and Light. But this entering into the Greater Love and Light is actually the easy part. The much harder part is sacrificing the preoccupations, desires, and attachments of the moment; in order to reach the point of freedom whereby one can enter into the higher realms and move ever closer to Allah. The final thing to remember is that subtle snares and deceptions are all along the Way to higher realization, or to Allah. These are not made by Allah; rather, they are part of the ego in need of transformation.

Thus, the practice of repeating Allah is for purification and transformation. It is for the purpose of ascending to higher levels of love and consciousness. One is saying, in effect, Allah is my highest focus and nothing lower than Allah can disturb my consciousness or hold me back. So in the practice one ought to be ascending higher and higher, and continually moving beyond the lower attachments. You are traveling back to God, and nothing lesser will disturb or distract you. This is the attitude. Only Allah, only Allah, only Allah. This is the sense, the feeling, the attitude. And thus, one keeps on moving past the old preoccupations and attachments; moving onward and upward and inward towards Allah. Allah, I keep turning towards You and You alone. This is the purification. This is the ascension. No more idolatry. Just return back to Allah. Return to the essential realization of True Being. I am now just Love, just Light, just Life, just Pure Being. Just open Love. Just knowing Light. Just living Presence. Only Allah. This is the practice.

How does experience Allah? There are a number of ways, rather than just one way. But we can mention the main ways. First to understand, though, is that Allah can be experienced as either inside us or all around us. These are the two gestalt modes of experience. Next to consider are the different kinds of experience, of which just a few shall be mentioned. One kind of experience of Allah is about love. Allah is love. So we can experience Allah as love. For example then, one might repeat the sound of Allah while focusing on or tuning in to the vibration of love, the Power of love, or the Presence of love; which may be inside us or all around us. Or instead of love, one might focus on or tune in to the vibration of peace, the Power of peace, or the Presence of peace. One could tune in to other Spiritual Qualities as well. We can bring our mind and heart to any Quality that is a Divine Quality of God, then contemplate upon this Quality, Vibration, or Presence, as we sound the name Allah. We can also simply feel the Presence of the Divine, inside us or around us. This is an experience of a Greater Presence, which has the Qualities of love, peace, harmony, wisdom and light. Finally to mention is the Presence of Life, within us or around us. This Presence of Life is Allah. Yet this needs to be a direct experience, not merely an intellectual thought. It is an experience of Living Essence, the Living Essence of life. It is not just thinking, wow I’m alive. It’s deeper. It’s an experience of the Conscious Living Power of life, or the Power behind life.

The practice and experience of Allah is to come into the Presence of Allah. Then we come into the Qualities of Allah and also into the Will of Allah. From the mystical view, one comes into the Will of God through experience of God. For example, when God is consciously in one’s heart, as Presence or Love, then one is already in the Will of God and one’s self-expression is under the Will of God. This is different from the exoteric religious view, which believes that one does the Will of God when one performs the given rituals and follows the given rules. One should always be careful in discussing religious views, because sensitivities can be high. But in general, there are often fine rituals and rules in religion, which help the aspirant’s heart come closer to God and help make the world a better place; while there may also be rituals and rules in a given religion which were at one time useful and good, but now have become burdensome and dysfunctional. So performing given rituals and following given rules may not necessarily be God’s Will, even they once were. The circumstances and needs of life change over time. For example, some rules that were useful in childhood may not be useful anymore. So we need to know when to let go of certain rules and rituals, or at least know when to let go of certain rigidities about them. This is part of growing up.

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…. God is the pure I-consciousness without quality. If all quality and content is removed from our conscious experience, without lessening pure consciousness, then what remains is God-experience, though to some extent this will be a limited God-experience because of limitations in our physical medium.

The transcendental I is the Divine Spirit.

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Presence of Christ

Surrender, then go through the inner portal to the next dimension of God, and find that all real Being is God.

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Be in the NOW. Dissolve attention from the past and future, so to be just in the now. From here arises spiritual power, love, and insight.

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Hafiz:

“Between lover and Beloved there is no obstacle but yourself, a curtain in between.

Raise the curtain!”

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Zero point self.

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Metaphysics and Experience

The whole inner experience (when emptied) is God-Divine.

This light, or the love, is God. This Beingness is God.

(Realizing Beingness is Realizing God)

And; everyone and everything around me is God-Divine

(yet limited and kaleidoscopic, multi-layered and multi-colored )

Even the bad is just an absence of Divine Good…

Or it’s Divine Potential undeveloped, in progress, or temporally stuck.

Conscious self-being is the start. But then sacrifice this self, this place of being.

Absolute Beingness is placeless. It isn’t seclusively centered anywhere or in anyone.

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First Know you are IN the Whole. I (this self) in relation to the Whole (or Total Self). (or with Mother –as Earth)

Then be conscious of the Whole and make a sacrificial relationship with it.

Sacrifice attachment to your own point of view. Surrender to the Whole. Surrender awareness to the Whole.

Just BE the Whole.

There are two ways to experience God-Being. One way is to let your-self dissolve into the One Being. As I dissolve, the One Being remains. The other way is to go deeper into the I-self, going deep into who you are, into a direct knowledge of your own self depth, your own deepest truth, which is God.

The HU sound refines consciousness energy to higher frequency; it refines into Essence. HU is the movement into Essence. It is the path of self-annihilation into Essence.

Move into the Essence. This is the path of the mystics. The other half of this practice is to see Essence in the world, seeing with the inner eye of the heart.

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God/Being is the One Who is consciously experiencing through us;

So to really Know God is to experience the One Who is experiencing.

The first One experiencing through us is our greater soul, which is our higher Being-Intelligence. The next One experiencing through us the Earth-Being. And the next One experiencing through us is Universal Being, God. This is actually simplifying a more complex understanding involving greater Masters and Angelic Intelligences.

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From our own still-point, at the center-most source of our being, at the center where all thoughts and feelings revolve around, from here comes all potentials, all possibilities, all creativity and all renewal. Return to this center of oneself. Then, return to the Root of the root of your being. Keep going deeper inside to find God. At the deepest level of mind/heart experience the God-Being.

God-Power is always at work through nature. And also remember that we too are of nature.

God/Spirit is coming into expression through us and through nature, from INNER to Outer, as the great Process of Unfoldment.

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Only One Mind;

Be aware of All.

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meditation of just being in the love presence,

enfolded in love.

Be transformed in the Fire of Love

- move from an experience of love to being love.

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SPACE:

External things and events exist in space, but this doesn’t exhaust space. Absolute space is always greater than the space containing things and events, and space is independent of these things and events. This is the external space of God, and everything exists in this space of God. Thus, everything is in God in the same way as everything is in the universal space. Likewise as well, all inward experience and I-consciousness exists in God Consciousness – the inner space of God.

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