Knowledge and Religion

How to approach obstacles to self inquiry

What I found in my practice and from watching the practice of other aspirants is that the real obstacles in practice are not the concepts we bump into. They are rather our reaction to them. So if you find feelings of self judgment and unworthiness creeping into your practice read on and we will deal with these feelings once and for all.

For practice just remember that when you see a limitation you are free of it. This is not the time to judge and measure yourself. Could you imagine how bad it would be if you had to live with this limiting view for the rest of your life and die with it. Now that you see it you have the opportunity to recognize it as a limiting concept and not a natural part of life. This is the perfect opportunity to step beyond limitation. You step beyond it by abiding as the Awareness that sees it.

Thoughts don't define you
From here you will see that the thoughts in your mind can never define you. If they tell you that you are the greatest aspirant in the world or the worst failure of an aspirant to ever live it is like telling you that you are a purple kangaroo. Now you know that you can think, “I am a purple kangaroo,” as much as you want and it will never make you into a purple kangaroo.

Right now your mind is trying to define and measure Awareness. But the problem is that your mind cannot see Awareness. You see your mind but your mind does not see you. You know Awareness in a different way. You know Awareness because that's what you are.

This practice is not trying to line your thoughts up like ducks in a row. It is rather returning to the place where you really stand and abiding there. From here things get very simple. All the complexities of the mind disappear and even your mind will enjoy this new found state.

No matter how much I describe the state of liberation it will still be a surprise to you. That's because the experience of Awareness cannot fit into a linear description. But if you enjoy surprises that are fresh and new and completely unexpected then you will enjoy your practice and you will enjoy waking up.

Then how do you discover Awareness
You might then ask, “If my mind cannot define Awareness how can I know this Awareness?” The traditional way of saying it is that Awareness shines by its own light without the need for another light. I call Awareness your direct experience.

The I thought that attempts to stand apart and look at Awareness like it was an object is not really you at all. It is just a thought. Other examples that might help you to get a sense of this are: the best way to know love is by the heart. The heart has its own intelligence that cannot be captured by the intellect.

Also the gut has its own intuition that can only be understood by standing there. Not by thinking about it. As you dive more into Awareness you will begin to get a sense of what human potential really is. Although words do not capture it completely, it is truly amazing.  "Making Your Wisdom Come Alive" will help you with the nuts and bolts of cutting the bonds of limitation so that you can stand in your natural state as Awareness, always.

Limitation can never define you or defile you
So when you see limiting concepts no matter how terrible they may seem, just remember that this is not the time for self judgment. It is the time to abide in your natural Awareness, which is the seer of limitation. From here you will see that limitation can never define you or defile you.

Of course questions about specific ideas that seem to obscure your natural state of freedom are always welcome here. There is no idea that is so weighty that it cannot be examined and discarded. 

I hope that this helps,

Michael

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

Posted at 04:05 AM in Books, meditation, Religion, Self Knowledge, Spiritual, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Technorati Tags: Nonduality, meditation, self knowledge, freedom

Burning Ignorance

Bernard had the following reply to the last blog:

Hello Michael,

  I love that comment of Ramana Maharshi about the last act in a cremation- throwing the stick that stirs the fire into the fire. I understand that to mean that right in the end the ‘I’  has to finally let go. Perhaps I understand suicide a little better in that statement…it being an attempt to get rid of the ‘I’ which is causing all the problem. Clearly physical suicide is not the answer but somewhere along the spiritual path one has to come to a place of such acceptance that the personal I disappears and that I assume is grace when it does happen.

 So yes I see that my ‘I’ is still very much in charge shifting its attention from one thing to another and that I just need to abide in awareness more and more without using the I to keep searching for it.

Perhaps I am afraid that awareness without the ‘I’ who wants to be in attention can’t function without the ‘I’ WHO HAS A BIG JOB TO DO.

Thanks for pointing me to the ‘I’ who is just another stick that needs to also be burnt up in the fire.

                         Bernard

Hi Bernard,

Thank you for your reply. Ramana also has another meaning for throwing the stick that stirs the fire into  the fire. The last thing to destroy is the one that seeks the truth, not the first.

What you are seeking is what, you really are even now. This is good to know because it gives the aspirant the energy to finish his (or her) practice. When you know that your freedom is right at hand it is hard to stay bogged down or stuck in the thoughts in your mind, or in self judgment and in suffering. You know that if you just look in the right way you will find this freedom.

But some aspirants think, “If I am already the self, why should I seek the self? Once I know this there is no need to practice.” However, they unknowingly remain centered in their mind and not in changeless Awareness. So as their thoughts change they seem to change.

Furthermore they leave certain concepts in tact where they identify with limitation. Although they may have some high experience, these concepts act like hooks taking them back into limitation and suffering.

Burning Up The Hooks
There is a certain stage in your practice where you will start looking for these hooks. That’s because you will know that seeing limitation is a sign that you are free from limitation, not stuck in it. You will then find your life changing in ways that you could never have anticipated. This is the meaning of stirring the fire so that you can bring up and destroy limitation. Once you get a sense for this, you will have the feeling that you want to destroy every limitation that you identify with.

The Final Hook
But long before you get through destroying all of these concepts something remarkable will happen. Even though I had studied the Vedanta on Self-Knowledge, this took me completely by surprise. You will see that the very sense of me, the one looking for limitation and suffering is not me at all. When you see this you will have thrown in the stick that stirs the fire into the fire. This is dying to the separate one who can come back into limitation.

Here you will finally live in your true home, which is reality. You will have the feeling that things are exactly the same but completely different both at the same time. How can liberation ever be described by thoughts and concepts? But you will know the meaning of, “One without a second.”

This sense of me, the stick that stirs the fire, is sometimes called the ego. I don’t often use the word ego because it has so many psychological overtones that my readers start going into another world and to some extent I lose them. But if you think of ego as the presumption of self or the assumption of ‘I’ you will get a sense of what I mean. Even now when you are supposedly unenlightened and ignorant you are not a thought; you are nothing but pure unadulterated Awareness.

So in the strictest sense there is no real ego to get rid of. Only if you feel limited by the objects that you see like the body, the breath, certain concepts in the mind like self judgment, or by the ego, do you have to return to your real home, which is the seer, Awareness.

The energy that you need to discover this is the energy to question the assumptions, which seem so normal, and to look at these assumptions through your new-found eye of wisdom.

An Analogy From the Dream State
This is like in the dream state. Even now all the objects, all the bodies and all of the minds in the dream are nothing but the mind of the waking one. All the dream characters are nothing but the one mind.

But since these characters assume that they are limited to that dream person, they seem to suffer the fate of that character. And so they seem to be born and to die, to suffer and to be happy right along with the changes to that particular person. When these dream people wake up they didn’t really create a brand new self. They just discover what they were the whole time.

Accomplishing What you Want To Accomplish
Now, as far as doing the jobs that you need to get done in life, big and small. Yes, the sense of a separate doer is gone, but you will find that there is a certain harmony in the universe. Where there is a job to do, the universe will take care of it. Although you may appear to work extremely hard, you will be completely at ease and unconcerned. And if the body gets sick and you are unable to work at all, you will still be completely at ease.

No rules can possibly govern a sage. But when you wake up, you will have accomplished the most important thing in life and everything else will turn out just the way it was meant to. So as an aspirant keep two things in mind. First, the kingdom of heaven is at hand and you can wake up at any moment. Second, have the determination to destroy any concepts which appear to keep you in limitation and to cause suffering.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information

www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

What exactly is Awareness?

Bernard had the following questions on the Soul; and on Awareness:

Hello Michael,

   

I have described to you before my understanding of awareness as the eye of the soul and inner peace and non judgment as the body of the soul and unconditional love as the heart of the soul and wisdom as the mind of the soul. I also recognize that I can shift my awareness up and down my body to the various centers such as up into the head area to ‘think’ and down to the heart are to ‘feel’ and further down to the abdomen for a ‘gut feeling’ and even above the head to escape thought. I can also work with a mantra and it takes me to another area of my consciousness.

The question I have though is who is making these decisions to move awareness. While I seem to have identified the ‘soul’ does the soul make these kinds of decisions and if it is just my mind involved in all this then how does one function without deciding to sit down and do mediation and bring awareness into the heart area for example.

           I need some insight here.

            Look forward to hearing from you,

                            Bernard

Hi Bernard,

I really enjoy your questions. That’s because they come from your direct experience and not just from intellectual musings. Because of this with a few little shifts, the sense of you and this Awareness will become one and the same.

The difference between Awareness and Attention
The key to understanding your question is to see the difference between Awareness and attention. It is your attention that moves from one part of your body to another and sees the difference between feeling and intuition. On a more subtle level, when you work with a mantra, it is your attention that goes to a place that feels very real but is difficult to define.

You even see the character called 'I'
You are the nonjudgmental Awareness that sees this shift in your attention from one place to the next. But most important you also see the one who makes this shift, which you call ‘I’. Do you know that the ‘I’ in your statement: “I also recognize that I can shift my awareness up and down my body,” is just a thought, an object in your Awareness, and not really you? You are not only the seer of your experiences; you are the seer of the subject, the character that seems to get caught in them.

Awareness is the substance behind all of your experiences; it is because of Awareness that your experiences seem so real. This Awareness is even in states where there are no thoughts like deep sleep; it is by Awareness that you can tell if you had a good night’s sleep or not. In fact Awareness is the constant light shinning behind all of your experiences. Because it is unchanging there is no way to grasp it as a separate object.

Then how to know Awareness
However, you can still know Awareness. But you have to know it in a different way. You know it by standing there in your real identity. You might call this standing as your Soul. If this seems hard to comprehend here is an analogy that might help. When you fall in love you know love by your heart and not by the thoughts in your mind, right? But being an accountant you start to wonder, “Exactly how much in love am I?” “Am I 68% in love or 72.5% in love? Is my love increasing at a 5% slope or decreasing at a 2% slope?” You know that all these thoughts, even the complicated and convoluted ones, cannot clarify love. Moreover, even if you stop your thinking, you would not come closer to love. The only way to understand love is by abiding in the heart. From the heart love becomes perfectly clear.

Similarly, if you try to think your way into Awareness, it will always seem remote and obscure. That’s because the underlying assumption here is that you are the thoughts and that Awareness is some distant object. But if you stand in your true home as Awareness and look from here, all of the sudden things will become very clear. At the most your thinking can point the way by showing you what you are not. But the light of Awareness reveals itself by itself without the need for a separate light.

Who seeks and who practices?
Now of course as a seeker, searching for this deathless freedom that comes from abiding as Awareness, do the things that will bring your life to a successful conclusion, like reading and listening to sages, pondering the meaning of their words, and endeavoring to abide in the place that they point. Also continue with a regular meditation practice. The very last thing to drop off is the ‘I’ that desires liberation and practices. Ramana Maharshi compared this to the last act in a cremation – throwing the stick that stirs the fire into the fire.

I hope that this begins to answer your questions. If you need clarification or have more questions, please feel free to ask them.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information
www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

An answer to self-purification

This was Michael's answer to some long post on purification that he found on his forum. To see them go to: forum.light-up-your-life.com

Thank you for these long messages on purification and the teachings of Jesus. It is natural that when you feel suffering you feel impure and want to cleanse yourself with the goal of ending that suffering.
 
But you should know that Jesus, as well as every other sage, taught a secret, and people who discover this secret become exceedingly joyful. It is, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” This means that when you feel suffering it is a pointer to look within and discover what you already have.

Suffering is like a shoe that doesn’t fit. It is just irritating. You feel that you have to find an answer. Few people realize the simple fact that happiness does not come from the objects that they see. These objects cannot destroy your happiness either. You find happiness in the exact place that you experience it, in your own heart.

This happiness comes from a source that is so deep that we just overlook it. Trace this happiness to its source and you will find out how things are before they get divided up into separate religions; into young and old; rich and poor; well and sick: and smart and dull. Here you will find a joy that does not depend on the condition of the world, your mind, or body.

This is truly, “The peace that passes all understanding.” Stand here and you will find the joy that never ends. Here you will find a deep oneness with your Lord. This oneness was before the world was. Now that you know of this possibility, look within and return to your true home. Here you will find the deepest meaning of the teachings of Christ.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information
www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we
provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

In celebration of Happiness Day

International happiness day was on July 10. This is a day that we can celebrate with a whole heart. That’s because we know the secret happiness. It is hidden in the last place you would ever expect: the very place where you actually experience it.

We have given up the because in I am happy because….... We have given up asking our spouse, our house, and our car to provide us with something that they just don’t have.

Now we can return to what we are
Now we can relax and return to the place where we always were anyway. That’s because we are the depth of the ocean unaffected by the ups and downs of the waves in life. We know that the impermanence of the things that we see point us back to our real nature, the seer, which remains unchanged. Yes, in all of the changes that we see there is one thing that remains constant and that is the seer. The seer is who we really are, not some limitation like a body, mind or any other object that we see or imagine.

Happiness comes from the seer and not from limited objects. Here we find happiness that is so deep that it is there before we can even smile. There is no expression that can adequately convey the source of happiness.

Unseen by the mind we know this happiness directly because we rest in reality. Here reality knows reality by its self without the need for a separate reality. This is the peace that passes all understanding.

Stop pretending to be limitation
Why put on airs when we can rest in our natural state. Are we afraid that if we stop pretending to be limitation we will not experience what we really are? This is just a lack of self knowledge. When we stop pretending we become the deepest joy that we really are. So this is my blog in honor of International Happiness Day.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information
www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we
provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman

The Cosmos

 

 

Growing from the ups and downs of the world

Tracy lived in an ashram in India. Here are some comments that she had about her experience:

While staying in an Ashram in India and feeling part of a larger spiritual community life experiences are so much different. You live in a higher vibration and life is lived with ease. There are no worries just opportunities to be and enjoy the positive energies that are always present. What if we could have that here?

When leaving such a place it is very difficult to continue with the same good feelings as life soon gets in the way. It doesn’t take long until we are swept up into our old habits and slip back into our life situations as they were before and the magical experiences become just a distant memory. Without a like-minded community you are constantly trying to maintain balance in the middle of everyone else’s unbalanced lifestyles. The conditioning and conformity of the majority is so overwhelming that we find ourselves reacting as before and acting unconsciously without realizing. Getting caught up in the madness that we have created, forgetting who we really are and creating drama around us. Whilst knowing that life could be so much better, while the memories fade into the distance.

Religion has become fraught with problems due to its unwillingness to accept other people’s beliefs and values. Many wars have been fought over such things! However misguided it has been, look what they managed to create and how dominant their voice is.

Because of this, she wants to set up groups to support aspirants who live in the world.

Responding to Tracy's letter
Thank you for sending me this information on your thoughts on this valuable service. In order to avoid the problems with religion that you pointed out, each generation has to renew their religion through living experience.

However we can still use the words of sages of the past to guide us. They strongly recommend coming together in groups where members can support each other. This is sometimes called Satsang.

I think it is very appropriate to spend some time living in a holly ashram and imbibing the wonderful spiritual vibrations. There you can see what life is meant to be. However you should know that the world provides a valuable service too.

The Value of Living in the World
It quickly brings up all our feelings limitation so that we can face them and let go of them. Letting go means seeing that limitation and suffering is not a part of us. Seeing the ideas that draw us back to limitation as just concepts in our mind and not reality is destroying them.

Concepts are the little hooks that seem to bring us back into the world and suffering. They are cloaked with thoughts like the world is a dangerous and scary place. That if we get too close to people they will bring us down.

Thoughts like this do no harm, but when we take them to be real, they seem to keep us feeling separate, away from our natural state of oneness. When we see a thought as simply a thought and not reality, we get to stand in our original nature as Consciousness and Bliss, with no other place to come down to. We have effectively cut the ties that bring us back into limitation. Here we find our real potential.

The secret to finding our real potential
The secret is that a small shift in our identity makes a large shift in our experience. This is a shift from a limited object that we call a body, mind, or I thought to the real subject, the boundless Consciousness that we really are.

I promise you that there will come a point where you will not be able to tell the difference between ashram and world. All these things will be nothing but your own Consciousness. That is the case even now.

So use your time in the world to free yourself. Find the peace that you seek no matter what situation you find yourself in. And if this helps, feel free to ask any other questions that you may have, and this will be a Satsang that spans the whole ocean.

Please join us
Every Tuesday we hold a meeting here in our house in Los Gatos California. All too often it is only my wife and I that attend. But we still have a wonderful time. If you find yourself in this area and would like to attend here is a link where you can find more information www.ananya.com/talks.html

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources. They can help you to sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we offer is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below:

wisdom.light-up-your-life.com

To join our mailing list go to: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/join.html

Please Tell Your Friend
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

You have my best wishes,

Michael Gluckman