Knowledge and Religion

The secret of the resurrection

Those who say that the Lord died first and (then) rose up are in error, for he rose up first and (then) died. If one does not first attain the resurrection, he will pass away.

Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing.

The Nag Hammadi Library
From The Gospel of Philip
Translated by Wesley W. Isenberg

Everyone knows that Jesus rose on the third day after he died, right? But what they don’t know is that this is a mistake; he actually rose before he passed away. You may wonder how I know this and ask, “Are you a PhD. in world history or something?” The answer is no. But by looking inside you too can know exactly what Jesus experienced and what he went through. That’s because in reality we are all a single one.

Rising up is the real purpose of life
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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You would know that if Jesus died first he would not have the opportunity to rise up. But while we are alive we have the opportunity to rise beyond all of our limitations, and to see things the way they were before we were born. This is the real purpose of life.

The Lord said, "Blessed is he who is before he came into being. For he who is, has been and shall be.”

The Nag Hammadi Library
From The Gospel of Philip
Translated by Wesley W. Isenberg

You see limitation; you are not stuck in it
Rising up means that you discover your innate freedom from limitation. Did you know that you were never caught by your body or the thoughts in your mind? You are the stillness that sees your body grow old, and all of the changes that occur in your mind. This stillness was never born. It is your real identity, the place where you stand even now.

It is because of this motionless background that you are able to know change. But you can not know your identity with your mind, which can only know things that change and have opposites. You know your identity in a more direct way; you know it because that’s what you are; and when you find your real home you will never die.

When we celebrate Easter this is what we really celebrate. So let us all rise up so that we can discover this living presence. This is what we always were, always are, and always shall be. When we find our real home we too will rise beyond the limitations that we see, and standing here we will never pass away.

Amen!

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

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 Gluckman

A deadly mistake in your spiritual practice

In this dialog the real names of the people are removed. That’s because we are not here to criticize people. Rather we are here to learn from their mistakes so that we don’t have to repeat them. See if you can find the fatal weakness in the spiritual practice that this gentleman taught over many decades. As a fly on the wall to the conversation, see what you can learn about a lasting spiritual practice. This is a dialog between two Aikido friends. Aikido is a soft-style martial art. You can ignore the Aikido jargon and still get the meaning of this blog.

Hi Michael,

I hope you are well and enjoying your life. I so miss training with you and would love to show you how much I have learned. I think of so many things you kept telling me that I now understand and some of them I can even do! Last weekend I went to a seminar with George. They made an excellent pair and I could hear and see how you had adapted much of what he taught. He did make an odd presence, though. He talks about all this dimensional stuff but his own body is very tense and his choice of words seems awkward. Odd guy. They had a really interesting thing on Saturday. People wrote questions about what they would ask O'Sensei and some teachers answered them on the basis of what they had experienced with O'Sensei. The most interesting part was their remembrances of locals O'Sensei felt connected to, like an elderly woman dance teacher and some woman who ran the local sundry shop. When they talked about them I could really feel presence.

Much love, my friend

Michael’s reply was:

Hi,

I am glad to hear that your practice is going well. Sorry that I haven't been around much. Even though I'm retired I can still watch.

In many ways I thought that George was a genius. His most impressive stuff was around shifting your identity to discover other dimensions. He thought that you didn't necessarily have to train harder to grow in Aikido. In fact if you just train without making this shift you are making a very small circle better, instead of shifting into a larger identity, and becoming a larger sphere.

I'm sure that you can sense when someone is very good at Aikido, but they seem to stay on the same level without going deeper. They seem to hold onto the identity of "I'm a black belt." or "I'm student of whomever," instead of making the kind of discoveries that can only come from letting go of the place where they stand now.

What is a valid test for going deeper
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

___________________________________________________________________

But George made one huge mistake and that's what you are commenting on. He thought that the only way that you could test your identity shifts is through the body and what it seemed to do. And at first blush that seems to make perfect sense, because many people just think about these shifts without actually "clicking" into them.

They hardly realize that they are centered in their thinking and not in the depths of their being. And of course you don't want that, because at the time of death the first one to go is the one who merely thinks about these shifts. Then when it's too late to make change you find out where you really stand. But the one who "clicks" into a deeper space is no longer available for you.

How does a sage perceive the world?

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Carmel California. The plum trees have turned red and the birds are singing. After my last blog when I mentioned that you are the witnessing Consciousness and not limited to anything that you see, you may wonder how a sage perceives the world. Is he or she remote and distant or is there another way that we just overlooked?

Fortunately when you wake up, you step outside the opposites which the mind thinks up; opposites like I'm in the world, or I'm not in the world. That’s why enlightenment is a real adventure.
 
Removing our filters for a richer experience
So to continue this discussion let’s take one of my favorite verses from Saint Paul. “Now we see things through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” OK, seeing things darkly is seeing them through our various filters. These filters include the limitations of the body and limited thoughts that run through the mind. If we take off these filters like worn out clothes then how does the world look? Of course on some level it looks exactly the same as it does now.
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

___________________________________________________________________

But there is a difference. Because our identity is now Consciousness and Bliss, the world is inside of us instead of out there. We are no longer separated by bodies and thoughts. As Consciousness and Bliss there is no distance between us and the world. This means that when we look at another, we are really looking at our self. When the sage perceives the world, the Consciousness that connects everything and makes it seem so real becomes clear. So when the sage is conscious of the world, it becomes closer, clearer and more amazing than he or she could have ever dreamed of.

As an example, look into our dreams
This is like being the mind of the dreamer in last night’s dream. The reality behind the dream is the mind of the dreamer. You are everything, which is the mind of the dreamer. At the same time you are nothing, because apart from the mind of the dreamer, the forms have no real substance. And then when you wake up, the dream returns to the mind of the dreamer.

Now what happens to the sage when he or she enters a different state such as dream, deep sleep, samadhi, or even death? The world disappears as if it were never there. But the sage is secure in his or her real identity, which is the same Consciousness and Bliss in every state. So the sage is just the same as he or she always was and always will be. This is why there is no dieing for a sage.

Yes it is true: when you die to limitation in life, you never die again. But you do get to live and appreciate fully the beauty and wisdom that life has to offer. That’s because you are so close to God that there is no difference. The sense of me and the sense of God merge in boundless Consciousness and Bliss.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

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 Gluckman

How to find the witnessing consciousness

If you read my last blog you know that thoughts do not define you. The proof of this is that you see your thoughts; therefore you are outside of them. This witness is often called the Witnessing Consciousness. So I can already hear your next question: “What’s the trick to enlightenment?" it couldn’t be as easy as knowing that you are the Witnessing Consciousness and not limited to your thoughts, could it?

This is like asking me: “Michael, what’s the trick to being a man.” My answer would have to be: “What! There is no trick, I am just a man.” The same is true of the Witnessing Consciousness. There is no trick; just remain as you are and you will find a repository of freedom and bliss that you never thought possible. Milarepa said it well when he said: “Come inside to enjoy the view.” Additionally, this is often called the natural state.

You know yourself because you are yourself
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

___________________________________________________________________

You look for tricks and special secret techniques that I can charge you lots of money for when you assume that you are somehow outside of your own Self-Nature and have to get in. But I would ask you, “Who is the one that could possibly stand outside of yourself and try to get in?” However you define this separate one, if you look into him or her, you will find only thoughts and that’s not you anyway. Even the body and the world are objects compared to the bliss of your own Self-Nature.

I can anticipate your next question: "Now I know that I am the Witnessing Consciousness and not an object that I see like a thought. But I still don’t feel the freedom and bliss that you described above. What is wrong with me?" The answer, there is nothing wrong; you are just so used to the assumption of being limited. So it sometimes takes a little time to break out of the habit of limitation.

Bringing your knowledge and experience together
But the promise of all the sages from before the beginning of time until now is that you can break free of limitation. How can you do this when limitation seems so normal and natural? Here is a simple technique that you can use: Notice how you view your mind, the world, and yourself. That’s because fear and limitation comes from limiting views.

For instance if you see the world as a scary place that you have to defend yourself against, your responses to relationships and to everyday life will be out of fear. To you life will equal suffering. But I am sure that you would agree that this is not how life is meant to be.

Suffering is not normal
If you feel that something just isn’t right, or you feel plain unadulterated suffering, you will know that you are facing a limiting view. With a little poking around you will find the cause of this suffering. Just stop taking suffering to be normal and you will be on your way to freedom.

OK, so how to step beyond limiting views? Know that it is a one step process, not two. All you have to do is find the cause of your suffering. When you see the cause you are automatically standing in your uncaused state of freedom called the Witnessing Consciousness or your own Self-Nature. Then you will find a new freedom in situations like relationships where you thought suffering was guaranteed. You will find yourself responding to these situations in ways that you never dreamed possible. Life will once again become fresh and new. You will feel like a newborn baby.

With a little patience this practice becomes natural
Although many people find the practice of looking for their limiting views to be difficult, it is also very satisfying. That’s because it results in unbelievable changes in your life and freedom that does not depend on where you are or what you do. That means that your freedom will not be limited to the times when you sit and meditate. Indeed this freedom will begin to encompass your whole life. This process is like learning to ride a bicycle. At fist keeping your balance seems awkward and difficult, but with a little practice it becomes natural.

So keep at it and with a little patience you will begin to see amazing results. If you need additional support I provide it in my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. You can also ask me specific questions about your life and the obstacles that you seem to face. And of course remember: the thing you are looking for is your own Self-Nature. If you become what you really are you will see how amazing life really is. You are the witness of limitation, not the one caught in it. This is the Witnessing Consciousness. So you can rejoice in the fact that you are destined for freedom. Best wishes for your practice.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

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 Gluckman

Is happiness a state of mind?

If you have read my blogs over the past few weeks, I think you will see that happiness does not come from the objects that you see. The proof is that you don’t feel happiness in a car, house, or a marriage partner; you feel it in your own heart and that’s the place were it comes from. You may even have a sense that the source of happiness in incredibly deep; in fact it is unfathomable.

But here is a place where many spiritual aspirants get confused: is happiness a state of mind? This could be a state of no thoughts, or a state of holding on to specific thoughts, like a picture of a calm ocean, a blue cloudless sky or remembering something that really moves you. You can also envision happiness as being the lack of certain thoughts like those causing anger, fear or sadness.

A state of mind does not last
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

___________________________________________________________________

But one thing I can tell you for sure: If happiness is based on a state of mind, it will not last. That’s because the mind is always changing. So many things can affect your state of your mind. A tiny change in the chemical balance of the body, or a disease such as Alzheimer’s can cause tremendous changes in your mind.

Thousands of situations can also cause a change in your mind like the birth of your child, the death of your mother, an attack on the streets of a city, or watching your dog get run over by a car. And then you realize that it wasn’t really your dog and your mind changes again. We classify some of these thoughts as happy, some as sad, and some as just being relieved.

Adjusting your thoughts is a constant battle
So the question is: are thoughts the cause of our happiness and misery? If your answer is yes then the purpose of your meditation would be to bring in the good thoughts and get rid of the bad ones. But since your thoughts are in constant motion, your meditations would feel like a battle, you against your thoughts, where when you are not looking, you lose. Or your meditations will feel like a leaky dam. As soon as you plug up one hole, another one will burst on through.

But if on the other hand, thoughts do not cause happiness then we have a chance of finding lasting peace. One way that you can determine if happiness is deeper than thoughts is to look at your-self when you're supposed to be miserable like at the time of death of a loved one. Of course your thoughts will be sad and you may even be crying. But is there a place of peace unaffected by the state of your mind?

Check your own experience
See if you can find this place of peace. It is like the depths of the ocean undisturbed by the storms above. You will notice that you did not have to change one thought to find this place of peace. It was there the whole time, and, taking you identity to be the thoughts, you just overlooked it.

Rather then changing your thoughts, what you are doing is returning to the place where you really stand. It is the still Awareness that sees the changing thoughts. Did you know that the reason that you can see change is that you stand in the stillness of your real identity, Awareness?

You are not an object
But because it is unobtrusive, you look right past your real identity and settle on your thoughts. The most basic of these thoughts is ‘I’. This is the ‘I’ that is attached to many of our thoughts such as, “’I’ am sad.” But to you the subject ‘I’ is just another object, it is not really you.

Like the objects that I started this blog with such as cars and houses, thoughts are just objects that you see; they do not define you. You are much deeper than a mere thought and you can discover this by returning to the state that you are in anyway. That is the source of happiness that was not created and can never be destroyed. Use your meditations to find your real identity, and you will discover how deep and how amazing you really are.

Then words like oneness, omnipresent, and omniscient will make sense because they will be your direct experience. You will then strip off the limitations of the mind like worn out clothes and return to your pristine original nature.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

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 Gluckman

A Brighter Future for the World Economy

The common theory in the United States is that if you want to improve the economy you consume more, which means that you have to manufacture more things, and that means that you have to employ more people. Then with more employment more people can buy more things and that causes steady economic growth.

Problems with this theory of economic growth
In the short run this seems like a good theory, but in the long run there are some problems with it. First, some people won’t be satisfied with slow steady growth. They will want as much as possible now and will do anything to get what they want. This is because they take happiness to be connected with the things that they get.

And second, when more people have more things eventually we will run out of the materials necessary to make these things as well as suffering pollution and other environmental problems that come as side effects of all this manufacturing. And third, people who are poorer will find themselves marginalized and taken advantage of.

How do you actually get your desires fulfilled?
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

___________________________________________________________________

If we want to really develop a sustainable economy that will serve our children well, I think that we are going to have to examine some of the basic assumptions behind this economic theory. The most important assumption is where do you actually find happiness? Without finding the place where your desires get fulfilled in the deepest sense, people will find themselves getting strung out. As they attempt to get more and more things they will find themselves getting less and less happiness. This is just the opposite of the result that they hope for. They will feel like a donkey chasing a carrot attached to a stick in front of his nose. No matter how hard he tries he never quite gets what he wants.

The reason for this is that happiness does not come from material things. The proof of this is that when you experience happiness you do not experience it in a thing; you experience happiness right in your heart, and that’s the place where it comes from. When you look into it deeply, you find that this happiness was uncaused. It is the thing you were born with and it will be there for you even after you die. It comes from your innate being and that’s why it feels just right. Can you see how profound the discovery of this happiness really is?

Knowing the source of happiness puts objects in proper perspective
With this understanding people will see material things as an aid to help them while they are here on earth, not the end all and be all of life. They will see that the purpose of life is much more profound and beautiful than just obtaining material things. They will then be able to shape the economy as an aid to help people as they search for the reality behind the universe which really causes happiness. The economy will no longer be seen as just a way of making more profits and getting more things.

Right now in our economy the value of a person is based on what he or she has; but then it will be based on what a person is. Then for instance, people will have equal access to healthcare. Access will not be based on how much money a person has and healthcare will not be there as a means of making a profit. Rather it will be there to help everyone live a better life, so that they can obtain their real potential.

As for employment, because of their understanding of where happiness lies, people will need less and will therefore have to work fewer hours. They will then have more time to fulfill their dreams and find the real purpose of their life.

Informing people about the real place of happiness
If this vision for an economy seems like a far off dream, it still starts with the first step: informing people about the real place of happiness. Without this knowledge, whatever system we devise will have the same limitations. These limitations are based on greed and the desire for power. But the root of these problems comes from a simple misunderstanding as to where happiness really lies.

The reason the desire for happiness is so great is because it is the desire to return to our boundless Self-Nature. No regulation or commission is strong enough to prevent us from going towards happiness in the place where we think it is. Like a river we will find a way to flow around regulatory obstacles until we get what we want. The drive for happiness is so strong that in the long run it cannot be restrained.

The real purpose of an economy
However, when we finally understand that the happiness we are looking for actually comes from us and not from what we see, our economy will change in ways that we cannot even imagine now. And most important, people will be happier and have a much greater sense of fulfillment. This is the real purpose of an economy, isn’t it?

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

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 friend
                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                        Best Wishes,

                                                                        Michael Gluckman