Knowledge and Religion

You can really be free from old age, disease, and death

“Making Your Wisdom Come Alive,” is coming along well as I get it ready to become a real book. Yesterday I took it to an editor for  proofreading. In the printed edition there is much new material based on the questions that you asked. As a book the answers are more refined and clearer than what I can write for this blog.

Also the chapters are in a step by step order, so you can get a clear view on how this wisdom progresses from limitation to ultimate freedom. I also rewrote many of the old chapters in the book to make it even clearer.

But I am still glad to take time off from the book cover to answer your questions. One of the most powerful benefits of this wisdom is that it points to the place where you are free of old age, disease, and death. Bernard has several comments and questions, based on his experience in the medical field that will make this clear.

Hallo Michael,

    While I understand that all my suffering is the result of thought stimulating emotions and my identification with the thought I am still puzzled at why some physical illness does not just shift, and go away as I move deeper and have greater understanding of the spiritual process .The truth is that while most people think I am at least 10 years younger than I am I know that my body does age and that there are signs of physical breakdown .In addition a skin condition which has been with me since 12 years old has only got worse. Despite 40 years experience in medicine I feel less sure that I know why some people get better and others don’t, and why many get better with my natural treatment despite the fact that they have not made any major spiritual turnaround.

        The world of illusion may not be real but it sure can tear us apart and when there is a great deal of pain and suffering it can really dull consciousness and makes awareness very difficult.

                               Best of light,

                                  Bernard

Hi Bernard,

Thank you for your great questions. I agree that we should take care of these bodies and treat them like a temple. Especially when you have the opportunity to wake up by discovering that which lights up the whole universe. Your desire to live a long life, free from disease and suffering comes right from your self-nature.

But that being said, the very fate of these bodies is to be born, live, and in the end to die. Moreover, I’ve never seen a body that lives forever. Some bodies live longer than others, but on the last day, life seems too short. And if you are sensitive at all, you can see and feel your body as it decays and moves towards death.

On the other hand, despite all of this observation and reasoning, do you still find a place inside of you, where it feels like you are not decaying, and you are not going to die – where you look in the mirror and are surprised to see the body getting old, because you don’t feel like you are getting old?

Where do you stand so that you can see the body changing and growing old? Starting with what you experience right now, meditate and find out how you are free of the changes in the body. As awareness you see these changes. Standing as the seer, you will find your freedom from the condition of this body. After all you are the stillness the sees change. These changes occur to the body, not to you.

In the past, I have seen spiritual aspirants who equate their progress with the health of the body. They feel that if the body gets sick, it says something about them. But as you observed, the condition of the body in no way correlates with how spiritual a person is. Bodies have their inherent weaknesses. Some of them heal better than others. If you are sick, I advocate making an effort to get well. If there is a connection between the mind and body, your desire to get well will help line it up.

But you should know for sure that the condition of the body is not a reflection on you in any way. Otherwise when Ramana Marhashi got cancer he would have lost his enlightenment. After all he was in pain and said ouch! Yet Ramana was still free. How could this be?

This is a perfect indicator of how we should meditate. If there was a state of freedom that is so free, that it remains at peace even in illness, pain, and death, how would you have to meditate in order to discover that state?

For instance if you always meditate with a straight back, and then get so sick that you can’t sit up straight, what would you do? Or if you practice watching your breath, and you were in so much pain that you could barely breath, what could you do? Or if you are used to concentrating your mind, mistaking your thoughts for the witness, and the pain gets so intense that all you can focus on is pain, then what could you do? In each of these cases if would feel like the peace that you spent so long cultivating, was ripped out from under you.

Faced with old age, disease, and death, our only hope is to discover that which is free from change. We cannot think about this state. We have to be limitless awareness, the same awareness that knows if your mind is dulled by pain or if it is bright. Nothing else will hold up in these circumstances.

We have to pull our identity out of the objects that we see, and return to the source of peace. This is our real identity anyway. Abiding here we will not be disturbed, even as the mind looks intensely for a remedy for the pain in the body. In good circumstances and in bad circumstances, our freedom will remain the same. This is the great state of enlightenment. It turns out to be just who you are. Not one drop more or one drop less.

If you have more questions about this please feel free to ask. I will gladly take time off from the book to answer them. That’s because when you start to get curious, you are getting very close to your freedom. If you run into apparent obstacles know that they are just apparent, and not real. A little questioning and they will fall apart. Then you will stand as unchanging Wisdom and Bliss and nothing else. The waves of pain will be going through space and not through you.

And if you need help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

The secret of eternal life

I am taking a couple of weeks off from writing this blog because I am editing and revising, “Making Your Wisdom Come Alive.” That’s because it is going to come out printed, in book form. But today I took a break from my editing job to comment on a verse from Sankara’s poem on self-knowledge:

63. Brahman is distinct from the universe, yet there remains nothing apart from Brahman. Should anything other than Brahman appear, it is only an illusion like water in a mirage.

You were wandering in the desert dying of thirst, and then you saw a large freshwater lake. But when you finally dragged yourself over to the lake, you found that the water was just sand. 

In the same way you are suffering from fear as you are on the verge of death. But when you closely examine the world, your body, and your mind, you find that they are just your own self-nature which is consciousness. You see that nothing can stand separate from your true nature. The you that feels so familiar and so natural even now, turns out to be free from the world. But how is your nature free from death?

Discovering this is the real purpose of meditation. It is not to straighten your body, watch your breath, or to calm you mind. Rather you only have to find out what your body, mind and breath really are. The method that you use is to determine what you actually experience even now. It is different from what it’s supposed to be. Now if what I said above seems shocking, just remember that you are looking for your direct experience, you are not looking for some fantastic creation in your mind. 

If you had to create this freedom, then in time it would slip away. But if you can find the thing that really feels like you, you will discover the secret of eternal life. We experience hints of this freedom all of the time. For instance, is there a place inside of you, where you feel that you aren’t going to die? Where does this feeling come from? After all, every body that we see is born, lives and eventually dies. Perhaps this feeling comes from a deep knowledge that the body we see is not really us: that we are much more than just a body.

Ramana Maharshi equates your self-nature, to the screen that the movie plays on. When you reach out to touch the movie, all you find is the screen. The movie with all of its action is only on illusion. In the same way, when you look closely, what you thought was a world, with all of its history and all the people, houses, animals, and trees, etc. turns out to be just your own self-nature – what Sankara calls Brahman.

If you look closely, what you will find is that you are intrinsically free from death. That’s because you are the stillness that knows change, and as this stillness, you are free from the changes that occur to the world, your body, and mind. Because this stillness is before your mind, the mind does not perceive it. That’s why we overlook this stillness and identify with the objects that we see like the body and mind.

However, you know this stillness in a different way; you know it directly because the nature of this stillness is consciousness. So consciousness knows itself by itself without the need for a separate you. When you actually notice this it’s so obvious. Returning your identity to its source, the thing that you actually experience, you are well on your way to finding freedom.

What I recommend is that during this period when I am working on my book and not writing as many entries into this blog, that you meditate deeply and discover the meaning of these words.

If you need help with this meditation, here is a secret. If you read the archives of this blog, starting with the oldest entries and working forward, you will find a map taking you from the place that you think you are now, to what you really are as described here.

And of course if you have questions, I will find time to answer them. There are very few people who question their assumptions of limitation. But when they do, they wake up to their real identity as eternal Awareness and Bliss.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads, go to www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

 

 

 

 

Stepping out of suffering for good

Bernard has some follow up comments:

Thanks Michael,

You have explained it very clearly. I think I already have been doing what you describe. When an emotional reaction really grabs me there is no way I can just dismiss it and stay in awareness. What I have been doing is exactly as you describe… that is just as soon as I can I bring in awareness I allow that awareness to walk with me as it where through the emotion. Sometimes there is a great insight, or the experience shifts allowing something new to emerge. After some time I realize that the reaction has in fact dissipated and a feeling of joy usually emerges. I now associate this feeling of joy with my soul.

Slowly I seen the face of my soul emerging………..awareness which is nonjudgmental, stillness or peace, and now also joy. I sense that these are all held by unconditional love and that this love can’t in any way be personal. Only the mind wants a personal love. The soul love clearly transcends this as it remains non judgmental, aware, silent and joyful.

                      Thanks again for allowing this dance to go on.

                                Bernard 

Dear Bernard, 

Thank you, Bernard for your comments. This is the way to practice. Anyone who reads this blog with the desire to wake up should also read your comments. If you want to get new insights from both your good and bad experiences, view them from the place of non-judgmental Awareness.

Also your process of allowing that awareness to walk with you is good. Oftentimes this will completely destroy the frameworks that cause suffering. But if you find that the suffering creeps back with the same sting, when you’re not looking, it is time to dig deeper. That’s because the purpose of Self-Knowledge is not to provide temporary relief like an aspirin for a headache, or a band-aid for an infected wound. It is to provide permanent and everlasting release from suffering.  

Whenever you view a state of mind, or an emotional state that seems to cause suffering, don’t push that experience away. On the other side, don’t start a fight with your mind. Rather view this suffering from the place of non-judgmental awareness, and just get curious. Wonder, “Does this thought or emotion inherently have to cause me suffering, or is it triggering a belief that I have about my self, my mind, the world, or life.” Maybe these thoughts are just reminding me of something that is unresolved.

All you have to do is become conscious of the belief that the thought is triggering. Just by doing that much, you will take the hook out of your thought or feeling. It will then become powerless, and unable to cause suffering.

As an example, as you notice more and more that joy comes from your soul, and not from your mind, body, or the world, you will start to see the patterns that you ran in order to try and find happiness, when you were ignorant of this. That’s because they will no longer seem normal or just the way you are, or life is. As soon as you notice these patterns, you will automatically return happiness to its source.

If you feel that you are craving personnel love you can ask, “Why do I feel that I am lacking love?” ”What am I taking to be the source of love?” “Am I assuming that love comes through recognition, achievement, or acceptance?”

Get a sense of where you picked up this idea, and how you lived by it. You’ll be surprised at how much you actually know about why you react to your thoughts and feelings the way you do. Ask these questions as if you were trying to find out about someone else, so you have no personal stake in the answer.

Generally when you get swept up in one of these ideas, you think there is only one response to the situation, self pity or anger or whatever you think is “normal”. But once you understand your pattern, if a response is even necessary, you will find that you have many more choices than you thought possible. But most important, these choices will come out of freedom, not from trying to alleviate your suffering.

The reason I am so pushy on this one point is that I found from my own practice and from the aspirants around me, that this type of introspection is the hardest thing to get a handle on. So most aspirants avoid it like the plague. But when they finally see clearly one limiting idea that they assumed was true, their life changes in ways that they could never have imagined. These changes occur outside the opposites that the mind creates, where you are free.

Once you see what I’m talking about, you will know what it means to step out of the patterns in your mind, and stand as Awareness. Now remember you are talking to a martial artist who for most of his life tried to be as strong as possible. I knew nothing about being introspective, let alone psychology. So if you see any resemblance between this and psychology it is just an accident.

But one thing I can tell you for sure, you are not trying to change your mind. You are just stepping out of the illusion that you are limited to patterns in the mind, when you are really limitless Consciousness and joy.

If you find that you still seem to suffer, you can ask me very specific questions. When do you suffer, what situations seem to cause it? Add as much detail as possible. The more specific your question, the easier it is to get to the root of your suffering so that you can step out of it. In that way we can explore and find answers together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael  

What makes the world shine

What makes the world shine? Here in his poem on Self-Knowledge, Sankara answers this.

62. Like fire in a piece of red-hot iron, Brahman permeates the whole world in and out and all through, makes it shine and Itself also shines by Itself.

Here is another excellent example to show where the presence that we experience comes from. What is it that lights up the world, and makes it seem so real?

A red hot iron ball shines with a red glow. That red glow comes from fire, and not from the iron, which is cool and dark. When you mix the fire with iron, iron appears to be the thing that glows.

In the same way the reality that makes the world shine with such beauty and intensity is not inherent in the nature of the world. The world shines because of your own Consciousness. When you mix up Consciousness with the world the world seems real.

The same Consciousness that lights up your mind so that you know your thoughts, also lights up the world so that you seem to experience it as an object that is outside of yourself.

When you start to notice that the reality that you thought came from the world, actually comes from your own Consciousness and Bliss, the world that you thought was out there, turns out to be in here. Yes, what you thought was other, turns out to be yourself. Not being separate from your nature, the world becomes a very friendly place.

Once you start to notice this, everything turns on its head. You begin to see the power of meditating on the self. By simply returning the sense of reality to its source, you completely change you experience of reality and of life.

But having said all of this there is one place where this analogy falls short. Iron and fire are two separate things. When you return reality to its source, you find only one thing, Consciousness. There are not two separate things.

This is the meaning of nonduality, which is one without anything, any person, or any mind to stand separate. From here, because your original nature shines, you get to see the way things really are, without having to remain even a little separate. 

Brahman is another word for your own nature. It means Consciousness and Bliss, without the least limitation.

This isn't the ordinary way that people view and experience the world. So I think it should raise some questions in your mind. Fortunately, here questions are welcome. Once you get your doubts cleared, you will be free to experience the depths of your own Awareness, in ways that you never dreamed possible. And if you need more help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

What lights up the world

Do we light up the world or does the world light us up? That’s the question that Sankara answers in this verse from his poem on Self-Knowledge.

61. By whose light the sun and other luminaries shine forth, but which is not itself illuminated by them and in whose light all this is seen, know it to be Brahman.

Did you know that it is by your light that the sun and the stars shine? After all if you didn’t see them would they really be there? In this case the best way to understand this is by your own direct experience, which is what you actually experience as opposed to what you’re supposed to experience.

Now we all know what we are supposed to experience, right? When our senses and mind are off somewhere else and we don’t perceive this world, we assume that the world is still there but we don’t see it. But now let’s see if that assumption holds up to our “real-world” experience.

If while reading this blog you daydream off into a completely different world, what would your real experience be? Would this world be here and you don’t see it, or would your daydream world be the real world? For instance, if you said to the characters in your daydream world, “This world doesn’t exist; there is another world called the waking world that really exist,” what would they say? “You must be crazy, this is the waking world, and there is no other world.”  

Besides it didn’t feel that you just dropped into the daydream world, did it? In that world you have ancestors, a father and mother, relatives and friends. You are 50 years old and your mother is 70 years old. When inside of the daydream it feels like you were always there.

The point of this example is that the world does not hit you over the head and say, “See I am real.” It is your presence that makes the world seem real. That’s why when you daydream and enter another world, that world seems real. Even when you close your eyes, by your direct experience, the world isn’t there but you remain in perfect comfort. So reality comes from what you are, not from what you see. Experiment with this a little. It will really liven up your meditations.

On the other hand, there is no other light that illumines your being. That’s why it is easy to overlook your self when you look for reality and joy, and assume that it comes from the objects that you see.

But if you want to know the recipe for suffering, here it is. Take your being, which is the source of consciousness and bliss, and mix it up with the limitations that see like a body and thoughts in your mind. That’s when things feel too small, and limited like a shoe that doesn’t fit.

If you want the recipe for peace and bliss just remove the sense of reality from the objects that you see, and return reality to its source, your own self nature. But the obvious question is, if there isn’t a light that illumines the self how would I see the self? The answer is that your nature, being, consciousness and bliss, is self luminous. So you know it directly because you are it; you do not need a separate light. It is by the light of consciousness that you know everything else.

Brahman is your sense of presence undivided and not limited by the things that you see. And that is your natural state. Now what I disclosed here is not your common everyday knowledge. So I expect that it will raise lots of questions in your mind. Fortunately here we welcome questions. That’s because we know that by answering questions we can destroy your assumptions of limitation. Then you can return to your natural state of freedom and bliss. 

And if you need help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael     

Unbounded Awareness, it is you

Here’s another verse from Sankara’s poem on self-knowledge. 

60. What is neither subtle nor gross, short nor long, produced nor spent, what is devoid of form, attribute, caste, and name, know it to be Brahman.

If something doesn’t fit into the categories that the mind creates, does that mean it doesn’t exist? Thoughts work by comparing opposites. If you describe a humongous mosquito, you are comparing it to a small one, and huge mountain is compared to a hill.

At the level of the mind, we know love by hate, high by low, great by ordinary, and on and on. If we can’t make it and sell it, or slap a label on it and call it something, we assume that it doesn’t exist.

That’s because we assume that we are centered in our mind, and thus we think it’s our thoughts that describe our experience. And so it follows that if we want to change our experience, we have to change our mind, right?

And that’s how millions of meditations techniques are born. They quiet the mind, or control it, or change its thinking to positive thinking; they attempt to hear subtle sounds, or see subtle sights by visualization.

But for all of these techniques, hardly anyone considers the possibility that perhaps we are not centered in the mind at all. What would happen if we returned our center to its rightful place, which is the place that’s aware of the mind? 

We would still be aware, wouldn’t we? After all we do see the mind, the body, and the world. But all the limitations that we put on Awareness when we call it mind, or call it body, would no longer apply to us. That’s because these limitations apply to objects that we see like the mind and the body. They do not apply to Awareness.

But at this point you might ask, “If I really am Awareness, how would I know that I am unlimited? After all you say that I am Awareness even now, and I don’t feel unlimited.”

The answer is that it is only an illusion that the mind knows. The boundless awareness that knows the mind is the real knower. This is easy to see when I compare my mind, to the mind of the computer that I use to write this blog.

This computer is a lot smarter than me. It can even correct my spelling, and tell me when my grammar is wrong. But still I wouldn’t want to be a computer. That’s because no matter how sophisticated this computer is programmed, it is not self-aware. And I value Awareness more than even my mind.

So how do you know Awareness? The nature of Awareness is knowing, and that is who we really are. So just by standing as Awareness you know Awareness, without bringing in a separate knower that you call the mind. That' because your identity is Awareness and nothing less. So all that I have to do in this blog is put you in the place where you really stand anyway. Then, without saying another word, you will know as much as I do.

After all, we all partake of the one identity that Sankara calls Brahman. Brahman is Consciousness, without limits. The aim of this blog is so you can stand as your real identity. Hence if you have questions please feel free to ask. Questions are the weapon that will free you from the assumption that you are a limited being, so that you can join us in this great party. It is the celebration of oneness.

And if you need help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

Returning reality to its source

After reading an email I sent her of one of the blog entries, Abeba had some comments:

Dear Michael:

I cannot thank you enough for sending me beautiful messages such as the following.  I think I have already acknowledged receipt. Today, I was kind of down, when I reread it, I felt better.  May you continue being the source of hope and peace to others. 

Thank you again and with lots of respect and best wishes.

Abeba

Dear Abeba,

Thank you for your comments. This is a great opportunity for you to meditate right from your own experience. What is it that makes your thoughts and feelings seem so viscerally real. You said that you felt kind of down, and then when you reread the massages you felt better.

When you felt down, the thoughts and feelings that you experienced seemed real. When you felt better the thoughts and feeling changed, but the one thing that was constant was the sense of being real.

Where did this come from? It couldn’t have come from the thoughts because they were in motion. But the feeling of being real was not in motion. No matter how your thoughts and feelings twisted and turned, the sense of reality was constant.

What happens is that people mix up the sense of reality with their thoughts and feelings. Then as their mind changes, it feels as if they are changing. But as you know, your mind can change for lots of reasons including illness, old age, and side effects from drugs etc.

That’s why mixing up reality with the mind is like being tossed around by the weather. You never know if it’s going to be a sunny day or a stormy one. If you try to deal with your thoughts on the level of the mind, you set yourself up for an endless battle. Stopping or controlling thoughts is like trying to stop the ripples in a lake with your hand. The harder you try to stop them the bigger the ripples become.

Since the nature of thought waves is motion, the more you attempt to stop them or control them, the more out of control they seem to get. But this doesn’t mean that your situation is hopeless. What you can do is take the sense of reality that you experience, out of the thoughts, and return reality to its source, which is consciousness, the knower of the thoughts.

Then the ups and downs of the thoughts in the mind will not be your ups and downs. Instead of being centered in thought you will return your center to your true home, Consciousness, and Bliss.

Returning here, even the thoughts will breathe a sigh of relief. No longer will they have to make the futile attempt to define who you are. You will know that directly. So thoughts can return to doing what they do well. They are a great tool to assist you in living your life, and reading this blog.

If you notice specific hooks that seem to pull you into limitation, start asking questions. Limitation comes from giving your mind the reality that belongs to you. Questioning your suffering is the first step in returning reality to its source. If fact, when you are willing to question what once seemed real, you will not need many more steps as you return to the source.

And if you need help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael 

 

More on slicing through suffering

After yesterday’s blog Bernard had some follow up comments.

Hallo Michael,

      I am following you perfectly I think. I have got passed the mind and how it splits itself into the observer and the observed….. a magnificent ploy which fooled me for many years but thanks to your previous emails this fraud was uncovered.

       Awareness has two qualities which allow me to recognize its presence. The one is silence/stillness and the other is its magnificent non judgmental quality. The moment these two qualities disappear I become suspicious and check what’s going on.

    I am also aware of my emotional reactions and find that by just staying in awareness rather than trying to psychoanalyze myself that the reaction slowly or quickly dissipates.  A friend of mine thinks that I need to do this psychoanalysis  but years of mental gymnastics have only changed me from a negative person to a positive person but I seem to be going much deeper now that I just stay with awareness and watch the mind doing its gymnastics. If I try and understand my emotional reaction I move very quickly into the mind game again which no longer has much  interest for me.

Thanks again, 

Bernard

Dear Bernard,

Your understanding about the qualities of awareness is right on the screws. The aim of self-knowledge is to abide in our natural state as awareness. It is not to fix or improve our state of mind.

Both Atmananda (Sri Krishna Menon) and Bankei knew of people who psychologists might call “crazy”. And yet these sages knew that these “crazy people” were completely free. That’s because they stood in their natural state of awareness, and not as a state of mind.

So unlike psychoanalysis our aim is just to abide in our natural state of awareness. It is not to gain a better mental state. After all when you look for your mind, you find that it is not even there. How could something that by its very nature is absent be diseased?

Furthermore there are so many things that can affect the condition of the thinking process like old age, certain diseases, and drugs etc. If you rely on the condition of the mind for permanent peace, you will be in for nothing but disappointment.

Therefore I agree that most of your practice should be abiding as awareness. But here’s where I’m going to ask you to open your mind just a bit. Yesterday, in my comments I was not talking about the usual mind games that we call psychology. So if you’re used to that game, this is different. When you pull weeds out by the root they never come back again. Similarly, when you pull suffering out by its root, you never have to face it again.

Here’s a little background that might help you to see what I was aiming at. What I noticed from my practice and from observing the practice of others is that when aspirants make the shift from identifying as thoughts in their mind, to identifying as awareness they become very happy and very free.

At first these aspirants just enjoy their new found freedom, but as they advance they start to notice that there are places that they come down to. That’s because oftentimes aspirants leave a few stakes in the ground. These stakes tether them to an old and worn out identity that causes them suffering and discomfort.

So aspirants start to ask questions. Sometimes the questions come in forms like this. I heard that here you can find everlasting peace. Why does my peace come and go? Or at times it seems like my ego is still very strong and I don’t know why. The underling question though is how to pull up these stakes, so that in the situations that inevitably cause me suffering, I can remain free.

If you are a yogi you might call these stakes Vasanas or karmic patterns. These stakes are thought patterns that seem so normal that you assume they apply to you. You might say, “That’s life,” or “That’s the way I am.” The way you free yourself from these thought patterns is to notice that you are awareness and that these patterns are merely objects that you see, and not you.

As soon as you notice this, you are free. Whether you repeat the thoughts or not does not make a difference. You have removed the hook that ties them to you. Since they are no longer a definition for you, they can no longer cause suffering. This is how you find your freedom.

Then the aspirant will ask, “How do I find these patterns? I just don’t see them.” And that’s why I wrote yesterday’s blog. Now Bernard, you said, "If I try and understand my emotional reaction I move very quickly into the mind game again which no longer has much interest for me."

There are several differences between the Bernard that once got swept up in mind games, and Bernard as he stands now. First of all his identity has much deeper roots. Instead of being limited to the thoughts in his mind he is the free awareness. Second of all his understanding of spiritual practice and its purpose is much deeper.

So, with these changes, why assume that you will get caught in old mind games? And even if you did get caught up for a few minutes you would notice that you were caught in an old pattern, wouldn’t you? Just seeing this much is enough to put you back in your rightful place as non judgmental awareness.

So what I am saying is don’t dismiss the form of introspection that I’ve been writing about for the past few days. Rather if you don’t understand it, put it as a tool in your backpack. You will find that almost automatically, it will come out when it is necessary to pull out the stakes of limitation.

You will find that you only have to use this tool once or twice. When you pull out a couple of stakes the whole tent will collapse and there will be no more places for you to come down to. That’s because when the tent collapses, the center pole will come down too. That center pole is a separate ‘I’. When this pole falls you will know the meaning of eternal peace.

If this raises more questions, please feel free to ask. I’ve been describing one of the more subtle points to this practice that is very easy to overlook and misunderstand. But if you make the effort to understand what I mean by this, you will find your practice coming to a surprisingly quick ending. Then you will know by your direct experience what the sages mean when they talk about eternal awareness and bliss.

And if you need help, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

Slicing through suffering

Bernard has finally caught up from his trip to India, and has some comments and questions:

Dear Michael,

At last I am feeling that I have caught up with the backlog and can start reading your blogs again. I would like to tell you of my experience of self at the present moment in relationship to what you write in the last two blogs.

I am now very much aware of the following: That the ego is a construct surrounded by thought and emotions with the deluded I sitting in the middle. That this whole construct is a technical error of the mind which decided to go on a voyage of its own making and will forever sail the oceans of it own illusionary sea.

That beyond the mind is awareness which is about the only piece of soul (Christ, God) that I can regularly experience.

That awareness of itself seems empty at first because I have become so accustomed to emotions and thinking that without this stimulation awareness seems like nothing interesting …yet I have already experienced its wonderful silence which slowly I discover is not as silent as I thought and whispers to me of great things that have nothing to do with emotions and thought.

It seems that as I become more accustomed to just stay with awareness I become aware that just as the physical eye opens to the world of matter and the mind shows me its own construct based on thoughts and emotions …awareness actually offers me the experience of GOD which is very difficult to write about because it then becomes thought or emotions.

Nevertheless I am still astonished how powerful my construct (ego) can still be when confronted by a relationship issue or a crisis in my physical world. I do find however that just by being aware of what is happening rather than going further into thought and emotions ( blaming, judging, anger and irritation) that the process of discomfort clears up much more rapidly now .

                         Wonderful to be able to share this experience with you.

                                           Bernard

Dear Bernard,

Thank you for your comments and questions. Also congratulations on your experiences. I can see that as you have more experiences of your nature, awareness, you have more conviction that there is a way out of suffering. You are seeing that suffering and limitation is not your normal state. Suffering is the teacher calling out from the inside and saying, “Look here and resolve this so that you can return to your natural state of peace.”

Here are a few suggestions to help further your meditation practice. As you practice staying with awareness, notice that awareness is your real center or identity, and not your thinking process. What I noticed is that some people assume that their center is their mind, and so they end up thinking about awareness.

The easy way to actually shift your identity out of your thought patterns, and into awareness is to notice that you are not only aware of your thoughts; you are aware of the one thinking them. That I, the thinker, is also an object that you see; it is not really you.

As for awareness, you will find that awareness shines by its own light. That is really what you are. You can relax and give up the notion that you are an outsider, who somehow has to find awareness. You know awareness in a more direct way. You know it because that’s who you are. There is no separate you that is somehow outside of awareness.

Oftentimes just by abiding as awareness you will be able to destroy the patterns, created out of ignorance, that cause suffering. But what I found in my practice was that occasionally patterns would repeat. I would shift my identity out of limitation and abide as awareness, and the suffering would dissipate. But sure enough a few days later, given the right situation, the same suffering would reappear.

Then, as we Americans say, I had to take the bull by the horns. What I had to do was look specifically at what I was assuming to be true that was causing the same suffering to repeat over and over again.

Now I know that sometimes these assumptions seem so normal and natural that it is hard to get a grasp as to what they could possibly be. When I did see these patterns, I often had the feeling that I just barely was able to see them. But it was remarkable how much lighter and freer my life got, just by becoming conscious of the patterns I was living by.

So by the end of my practice I was looking less to abide as awareness, and more to find and destroy these patterns. Then one day I noticed that the ‘I’ that I was taking to be me, wasn’t me at all. That’s when I woke up.

In my practice, my reaction to relationships was one of the things that I had to destroy in detail. So here are a few things that really helped me.

First, I had to do away with self judgment. I just noticed that as awareness, what I could see I was free of. That no matter how painful it was to see the ignorant and hurtful ways I dealt with relationships, it was more painful to live by them; so I figured I might as well take a look.

Also I noticed that there was no need to replace my thought patterns with better thought patterns. That by simply becoming aware of the patterns that I lived by was enough to destroy them, and to find my freedom.

The breakthrough for me was when I noticed that I was repeating the same patterns that my parents lived by. So by looking at the patterns that my parents lived by, without taking them to be the way things are, I was able to see the beliefs that I picked up. Now remember this was not to blame my parents; it was only for my own practice.

I was able to see that I had picked up their beliefs about the world being a hostile place, and how they were each reacting to those beliefs in their own way. But the result was that because of fear there was a breakdown in communication that affected the amount of love that they could express.

I hope that this will help you to take a look at some of the assumptions that you take to be true, so that you can find your freedom.

Once you get a feel for what I am saying here, this part of practice will become a joy, and you will see changes in your life that you never could have anticipated. That’s because these changes occur outside the dualities that your mind creates which go something like, the sign of my freedom is that I will behave like this, I will never get angry etc.

The real sign of your freedom is that you won’t suffer due to limiting patterns in your mind. For instance in relationships you will still find that there are disagreements. People have different views of things, and sometimes they disagree. But these disagreements will not cover the underling love that you feel.

You will also still, at times, have crisis in your physical world. But this will not cover up the underling harmony that comes from the world being inside of you, and not separate in any way. So if you have any concepts that the world is out of whack, or you have to get away from the world to be happy, just notice that that’s just a concept, and not the way things really are.

In reality there is not two things; there is just awareness, which means that nothing is separate from you. That’s where this great harmony comes from.

When you see the little frameworks that you live by, you will be astonished at how it takes the power right out of the ego, and returns that power to the source, in the form of consciousness and bliss.

Now what I noticed is that this type of meditation is quite subtle for most aspirants. I know in my case this type of introspection took me way outside my comfort level. But if you don’t bring in the idea, I can’t, and if you have a little patients to explore, you will find the beauty that life has to offer. And it will be right inside of you.

And as always if this raises questions feel free to ask. In my practice I felt the one thing I could do was ask questions; no matter how I felt and what the circumstances where. That willingness to question was the thing that really broke up suffering. That’s because my suffering was just based on limiting concepts, and questioning is the weapon that destroys them.

And if you need help with these questions, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael

 

That which prevades the whole universe

Here is another verse from Sankara’s poem on Self-Knowledge. This is a wonderful jumping off point for a discussion on that which contains the whole universe. I think you will be surprised at what you find: 

59. Like butter in milk, the objective universe is contained in it; all the activities are based on it alone. Therefore Brahman is all-pervading.

Sankaracharya
From “The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi
Translated by Arthur Osborne
©Sri Ramanasramam,
Tiruvannamalai, S. India

Brahman is the Consciousness and Bliss that pervades the universe. Looking from here in the waking state, it seems like the presence of the universe is just normal. It also seems like you are the limitations that you see like the body, mind, and thought of 'I'.

But if you look at a glass of milk, butter isn’t the most obvious substance that you see. It takes processing and churning to extract the butter from the milk.

Similarly, when we shift our reference point from the person in the waking state to our own being, which is Brahman, things look different. Our existence shines on its own, without the need for other objects, including the whole universe.

The proof of this is when we slip out of the waking state, and into the dream state. For us the waking universe is gone, as if it was never there, and a new universe appears, with a new body and mind. It is this new universe that now seems real. When we then slip into the deep sleep, all the universes disappear, but we are at peace and right at home. That’s why we enjoy the state of deep sleep so much.

So as all of the objects come and go, and as the universes seem to change, there is something that remains the same. Although we can’t quite put our finger on it, this something seems very familiar. This is our own Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, which is like the milk.

Now to extract the universe from our being what do we need? First we need the sense of a separate ‘I’, which we call the ‘I’ thought. Then we need a separate mind, and a separate body with senses to sense this universe, and legs, arms, mouth, and organs of pleasure etc. so that we can act on what we sense. Finally we need to identify with the limitations that we see.

After all of that we finally extract a universe, which is like the butter. But there is one problem, limitation doesn’t feel right. It feels too cramped like a shoe that doesn’t fit. And so we act in the world with the hope of finding lasting happiness, free from the limitations that we feel. But the secret to self-realization is in seeing that the completion that you are looking for does not come from the objects that you see. It comes from what you are. That's why Ramana Maharshi said, "If you want to be free, go back the way you came."

So all of our activities are done with the hope of finding the completion that we are, which can only be found in Brahman, our true nature. Moreover, like in a dream, all the objects that we run towards, and all of the objects that we consider obstacles and run away from, are nothing but Brahman, our true nature. That’s why Brahman is all-pervading.

Now this is not common everyday knowledge. So I would be very surprised if it didn’t raise some questions in your mind. But the good news is that questions are welcome here. That’s because when you start to question what you think is normal, you get to that which is really normal, your own true nature, the source of happiness and bliss.

And if you need help with these questions, ask here and we can explore and find answers together. If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.

Best Wishes,

Michael