Knowledge and Religion

You are One, Not Two

In the last blog Bernard asked a question about an experience that he had and what followed. Here is a follow up question:

Hello Michael,

Thanks Michael. I think you are confirming my experience. I recognize clearly that the mind has its own reality and story using thought and often stirring up emotions to give colour to those thoughts. I see clearly that I am not the mind but use the mind for thinking. It sometimes feels that I live two realities. The one reality is when I identify with the mind, thought and emotions and another reality when even the sense of I disappears and there is just walking or writing or having fun or even getting angry and recognizing that the anger has a place in the context of things and needs to be honoured rather than allowing the mind to grab this energy and use it for emotional charges and becoming a victim.
So where to from here? It almost feels that I am running out of questions or have at last run out of questions and that it is just about making this truth my life and allowing the great mystery of who I am/am not  emerge more and more.
           Warm greetings,
                    Bernard

 
Hi Bernard, you are right; I wanted to confirm your experience. I also wanted to warn you that sometimes after a high experience assumptions come up with a little more intensity. But once you recognize what is happening, you can use this intensity to cut the strings that seem to pull you back into limitation, and remain in your natural state of peace. For more information on this read, “What does it mean to question assumptions?” in “Making your Wisdom Come Alive.”

One typical assumption is that there are two persons in you, one battling with the other. First there is me, and I’m the good guy. But then there is that other entity called my mind with its own story colored by all of its emotions and problems.

Do you get caught in a battle with your mind?
In this battle, which one is going to win? Is mind going to overwhelm me, or am I going to tame my mind? This battle seems to go on and on without any resolution.

This battle has many names. It is sometimes called God verses the devil, or me fighting my ego, or the ego fighting the id, or the ego fighting with the super ego. Whatever the name, these battles are unceasing. Every time you think you are making progress you get ambushed from behind by unwanted emotions and thoughts. What are you going to do?

How many I(s) are you anyway?
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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.

Right now we have 10 copies on sale for $9.65 plus shipping. To get a copy call us at Ananya Systems (408) 353-3000.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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Fortunately there is a way out of this quandary. It comes from the most basic sense that there is really only one I here and not two. In fact both sides of the battle, the good me, and the bad mind are not you at all. They are just objects that you see. You are Awareness, not limited by either of these objects.

The Direct Experience of Your Spiritual Nature

Here is a question from Bernard that will interest all spiritual aspirants who want an experiential answer to grow out of their quest.

Hello Michael,

It must be more than a year ago since we last had contact. Good to know that you are still answering questions.

About 6 months ago I took some LSD with a psychotherapist who works in this way. I sat in meditation with my eyes closed for about 5 hours. When the therapist came to sit in front of me and asked if I was ready to talk I was about to tell her that I had not had any experience and could not therefore say anything but as I sat there it was as if food gates opened up and suddenly a whole lot of realizations started to pour out of my mind.

What I realized though was that the words I was using and the experience I was talking about had nothing to do with the 5 hours which was really a non-experience but somehow that non experience was informing the experience that the mind was talking about. It was something like intuition. When the mind says it has a good idea that good idea has emerged from the unknown.

So it seemed to me that the LSD experience took me into a deeper level than I had actually been conscious of before.

I now recognize that the mind creates ideas, philosophies, patterns of thinking and colors it with emotions and that is the experience that everyone talks about but has nothing to do with the SELF which is not the thoughts, words, ideas and even experience. The latter is generally nothing more that thoughts and stirred up emotions.

So clearly the self is nothing to talk about or can’t be talked about and even the experience is outside mind therefore again difficult to find words for because the words are not the SELF.

The other day I got angry with an organization that was not treating me with the respect I felt was due to me. The great thing was that I just could acknowledge the anger and the energy that had emerged and knew instinctively that this was exactly the energy I need to respond with. The anger seem to emerge as I very seldom get angry and this surprised me but rather than let the mind play games with it I allowed the anger to move and write the email that I don’t think I could have written without this energy.

I would like some feedback of these experiences as I recognize the trickster who is always around.
            Warm greetings,
                    Bernard

 
Hi Bernard,
It is good hearing from you again and learning about your experiences. Congratulations on these experiences. Your intuitive knowledge was coming from a space that was deeper than your mind. The words and thoughts were just following your direct experience.

These experiences can also help you to step out of your everyday views, and get a broader view of the nature of your experience. We often assumed that we are centered in the mind, and that what it tells us must be true. That means when you think, “I am a purple kangaroo,” you must be a purple kangaroo, right? My point is that your thoughts don’t really comprehend what you experience.

The mind is like a one dimensional object that plods along thought after thought, trying to understand a four dimensional space. It never quite gets it right. But if you assume that you are centered in the mind, then what you think seems correct. And then you end up looking right past your most profound experiences as if they never happened. That is probably why at first you called it a non-experience. It was a real experience that the mind couldn’t comprehend.

By your direct experience you know more than the mind can grasp
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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.

Right now we have 10 copies on sale for $9.65 plus shipping. To get a copy call us at Ananya Systems (408) 353-3000.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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Remember Your Aim

Shankara, an Indian sage, said that the most important qualification for liberation is the desire for liberation. God is very shy; if you want something else you will get it. But if you just want liberation, you will end up with freedom from limitation and the source of happiness. Not a bad deal for single minded desire, is it?

But don’t overlook this: if you want liberation, you have to remember your aim. Liberation is not like products at Macy's; first you desire one thing then you desire the next. But it takes follow-through and energy to get to the core of life.

Prevent your life from going around in circles
At one time I studied with a student of the spiritual teacher Ospensky. On of his main teachings was to remember your aim. If you just leave your practice to chance, you will tend to go around in circles like a person lost in the forest. That means that you will die without accomplishing the things that you wanted to.

In the course of your spiritual practice you will find that there are times when you feel like meditating, and times when you don’t. You will find that if you don’t always believe your mind and continue with your practice, your mind will change very fast. That’s why I set up a regular time for my mediation practice. Once I was in the habit of meditating, I would meditate at that time no matter what my mind was telling me.

Your practice will turn out different than you think
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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.

Right now we have 10 copies on sale for $9.65 plus shipping. To get a copy call us at Ananya Systems (408) 353-3000.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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What happened was at times when I thought I would have the most dragged out, dull meditation, I ended up having the best insights into the nature of my mind, the world, and that thing I called myself. I learned one thing from this: just because you think it, doesn’t make it true. Of course you know what I mean, don’t you? No matter how many times you think, “I’m a purple kangaroo,” it will not make you a purple kangaroo. Similarly, if you think, “I don’t feel like meditating,” it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t meditate.

If you practice one thing, like meditation, for a long period of time in your life, you will experience the ups and downs as you continue to learn and grow. If you can persevere even when the going seems to get rough, you will discover some valuable insights that will change your life.

Pick a worthwhile goal and stick with it
You will start to feel that you are centered in a place that is deeper than your mind. This is the first step in your pursuit of freedom; when you take the first step you are very near the end. So in your life, pick a worthwhile goal like Self-Knowledge and stick with it. Then the beginning, middle, and end of your life will be perfect.

Right now I am redesigning Making Your Wisdom Come Alive, a book that provides a step by step approach so that you can find your natural freedom. It also gives you plenty of inspiration for your practice. Because we are doing a publicity campaign, there is a good possibility that I will have some radio and TV interviews. So look for them, and if you are allowed to, call in and ask questions. Remember, inner development is for the curious and this may be your opportunity to practice curiosity.

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 for Your Practice,

                        Michael Gluckman

Freedom from suffering all the time

Recently I was pulling up my blog, How to reclaim your deepest spiritual experiences, on freeing yourself from the places where you come down. I think that sometimes we know ourselves too well. Or at least we think we do. That is the reason that we sometimes rest in limitation. But limitation is no place to rest. The assumption that limitation is normal is the assumption that the purpose of our life is limited.

But a closer look will show you that limitation doesn’t feel right. And the reason for this is that it isn’t right. That’s because you are greater than you think. Think for a moment, if you didn’t already experience the greatness of your being, then you wouldn’t suffer with less. But since you do know the greatness at your core, you don’t have a choice; rather than suffer with limitation, you have to discover what you really are.

You are always attempting to discover reality
In fact you are always trying to make this discovery. It’s just that you are looking for the right thing in all the wrong places. You look for things in the world to provide you with the peace and joy that you already have. Even when you get the relationship, car or house that you want, the happiness that you experience comes from your own Being and not from the object.

Then when the car crashes, or the house gets foreclosed on, you appear to lose that happiness. But the reason that you lose it has nothing to do with the object. It has everything to do with you overlooking your essential nature and taking limitation to be normal. And interestingly enough this is the same process that happens when you come down from a high spiritual experience.

Your experience of joy and oneness seems natural
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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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From within the experience it seems natural. It seems like this experience will last forever. Then something happens and to your surprise you end up back in limitation and suffering. It might happen like this: At first you are just there is your natural space-like oneness. In fact it is so one that you don’t have an inkling that something can stand apart.

At some point you start to think, “Wow this is a high experience,” and that’s when that you start to identify with your thinking instead of your natural state of freedom. Then before you know it, you are back as a separate experiencer in a separate world.

Recognition is the one step for gaining freedom
When you recognize the hook that draws you back down, like the pattern that I described above, you will have the tools to quickly come back to your natural state of freedom. What it amounts to is that you come down to thought patterns that you take to be true. They are based on your beliefs about the world, your mind, and yourself. So you come to rest in your beliefs about reality instead of in reality itself.

But when you recognize these belief, which act like strings that pull you down into limitation, you have found a treasure. That’s because the simple recognition of these patterns is the way out. No other step is necessary. When you become aware of limitation as limitation and not a place of rest, you are free.

You start to get a glimmer of how you can remain free all the time
In effect you have severed a string that pulls you back into limitation. That’s when you see how it is possible to remain as reality and peace all of the time.  Finding one of these thought patterns, you will continue looking until there is nothing left but your natural state. That’s when you know yourself exactly as you are, no more and no less.

The root behind these thought patterns is the belief in a separate limited I. Long before you destroy every single thought pattern the root will become bare. Once you realize that the person you took yourself to be was not really you at all, there will be nothing left to pull you down. That's when you get to remain in your natural freedom forever.

In my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive I describe the process of cutting the strings of limitation in detail so you can destroy limiting beliefs and make the highest wisdom in the universe, your own everyday experience.

You get to remain in your natural freedom
And of course if you seem to come back down to a particular spot, write me about it. Maybe we can work together to eliminate a hook that pulls you into limitation. Then you will be surprised to notice that the situations that used to cause suffering cause nothing at all. Now you can remain as uncaused freedom.

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 for Your Practice,

                        Michael Gluckman