Samadhi

[Wind]

Man is a paradox, I am to myself too. We are all complex beings with many sides. I am mostly a calm and quiet person, yet I still have a strong temper. It mostly manifests when I've not slept properly or if things like computers stop responding or get slow. I don't experience road rage because I don't drive cars, but I can relate to this guy sometimes, mentally at least. Note that I've never broken any things including my own bones, only glass accidentally and I'm sure that happens to most of us. "To err is human, to forgive divine."

"One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it.

Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way." ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Also another thing that makes me see red is injustice. So I am both calm, yet there are great emotions inside too. I am only talking about myself in this case an example, not because I think I am anything special. I could be a nutter, but I also am aware that I am just one out of so many. We are all unique in our own way and that is the beauty of life. Everyone is their own musical melody or flavor, some melodies and flavors mix better together. Are people in tune or not, are they experiencing harmony or disharmony? When we look at the world we can see that there is great disharmony.

That must be a sign that there are very many people living in disharmony in their own lives and it is reflected globally too. We could blame the Illuminati, reptilian alien overlords and demons for all the madness in the world, but it still would only explain a part of it. The person looking back at you in the mirror is also responsibe. Not responsible for the actions or atrocities of "others", but for what we are contributing. The person is the society too. While it's true that society and conditions mold us in certain ways and you could say that some people have very little choice to be what or how they are. Yet they are still responsible for their choices too.

The goal is for all of us to know ourselves and it is truly a long path. Although especially introspective and analytical people will become to know their conscious side very well and far more than many unconscious people and once again please note that I don't mean that as a derogatory term. It is just a fact that a great deal of the population is what we call "asleep" and that is to say that they are mostly or completely driven by their unconscious impulses and because they are easily swayed by certain forces and fads. This would naturally also limit one's freedom. People think they make choices, but how much are they actually conscious agents of their choices?

Virgo as a sign seeks perfection yet perfection in an imperfect world is nigh impossible. There is only the ideal, something to aspire towards. To fix and heal things yet as every doctor knows, the world isn't going to run out of patients. Especially not mental patients in modern times. Tools like astrology, psychology and philosophy are helpful in understanding the human condition. Then there is metaphysics too and mysticism.

Despite my past and current pull to Asia and India, I am NOT into guru worship. I can appreciate and revere saints and enlightened avatars like Buddha and Jesus, but I don't have to necessarily worship them at their feet. The guru is a personification of God in a human form. Yet when you see that you know that the same thing applies to you too. Do you understand what that means? We are all that.

"Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.”

"Because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not God in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not."

"Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being.
And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are."

~ Alan Watts

An English journalist, a mystic and seeker of Truth Paul Brunton was traveling all over the world in the 1930's. Egypt, India. He was man of a Western, scientific background with an inquiring mind. He had already had some mystical experiences early on an desired to know more. I have read some of his books and they are quite amazing, there are quite many. In his search in the secret India he encountered many "gurus", fakirs, yogis and lots of unimpressive snake oil salesmen. Yet he also met a few truly genuine ones who truly impressed and even managed to astonish him and it seems that destiny guided to him to this being at the foot of the Arunachala hill, to the west of Tiruvannamalai, Tamil. It was Ramana Maharshi. Maha = great, Rishi = seer.

"Sir Paul Brunton (born October 21, 1898 London, died on July 27, 1981 Vevey, Switzerland.) Met Sri Ramana Maharishi

Paul Brunton visited Ramana Maharshi in the 1930s, he was perhaps the first Westerner to stay in the ashram for an extended period. Certainly he was the first to write about Ramana for Westerners, in his popular book A Search in Secret India. The publicity brought the attention of the world to Ramana’s powerful “Who am I?” exercise; his self-enquiry approach is widely used by today’s foremost spiritual teachers. In these excerpts, selected and adapted from his book, Brunton describes his outer – and extraordinary inner – experience of being with the great master.



One day—sitting with Ramana Maharshi—Brunton had an experience which Steve Taylor names “an experience of genuine enlightenment - samadhi, which changed him forever”. Brunton describes it in the following way:

"Thoughts disappear like a candle whose flame is extinguished, but consciousness does not. I find that I am outside of everyday, worldly consciousness. The world I've lived in is disappearing. I am in the middle of a radiant ocean of light. This ocean of light is the primordial matter from which the solar systems and planets have evolved. It is infinite and limitless, - and incredibly alive. I am filled with bliss and love for all living things."

Brunton asked several questions, including “What is the way to God-realization?”
and Maharshi said: “Vichara, asking yourself the ‘Who am I?’ inquiry into the nature of your Self.”

Ramana Maharshi said; "From the perspective of a jivanmukta, or an enlightened person, all people are enlightened..."

That is to say that they don't know it yet, because they have not realized the divine within and it's not just an intellectual thing.

"By incessantly pursuing within yourself the inquiry ‘Who am I?,’ you will know your true Self and thereby attain salvation.”

Supposedly also one woman from USA seeking advice from Ramana heard this; "Be as you are." She wasn't happy about it.

"Concentrate on the Seer, not on the seen. All that you see is false and the Seer alone is true." ~ Ramana Maharshi



What observes that "I" am is thinking these thoughts?

There is something observing the thinking! Which is it?

So that is pure awareness, the soul... Life eternal.

"The soul doesn’t love;

It is love itself.

The Soul doesn’t know.

It is Knowledge itself;

The Soul doesn’t exist,

It is existence itself."

~ Patanjali




Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji1z2qufpU4


Know thyself!

[Diabolical Boids]

The entire thread is interesting.

Consider that the mind is like an expression of the brain, which has a lot of self protection and defense mechanisms at work reflected in the ego, which is not life but a place fo the soul to inhabit then the I AM doing the observing would be the soul or the spirit which I tend to think of as two related by different components but maybe not. I kind of think of the soul as our spiritual expression here and that spirit as whole existing in multiple places out there in the universe. People who don't bother to 'wake' up or self develop do not make the distinction between the two, and the spiritual soul element is there in the back of the head idling because our brain activity and mind activity and stress don't allow for it to make itself known.

That meditative state when you dampen the brain and still it's activity hence also the body, and then eventually the mind is where the soul and spiritual components are more easily experienced. The body, brain and mind tend to run on automatic programs based in the past or past experiences and it keeps wanting to project those into the future. The element apparent in deep meditative states is the present. The body always has to be dragged back into the present. When you can do that consciously you can be in a normal awakened state and more easily monitor thoughts and emotions that are habits, programs, addictive emotions that come up and then curtail them so that you have that higher element of expression in your waking hours. Lots of people connect with it directly through the heart area.

New thoughts, lead to new experiences which lead to more synapse and connections in the brain so you sort of rewired it away from what its old program. Thats what I view as the observer that is in the present. It's always new instead of old because its not part of the old program. I'm in a manifesting group. We make more of these connections, new experiences and new thoughts every time we manifesting for someone else and flexing universal connection.

The soul goes dormant if its exposed to the same thoughts and experiences (a rut?) day and day out. So does the brain. Yesterday I had this idea about wanting to see those huge Great Lakes Freighters I've recently became so obsessed with. First my mind and brain wants to talk me out of it. It's imminently sensible. NO. It's two hours away, wasting all that gas to hang out by the river not even knowing if you will see anything to begin with and the weather is terrible and highway so is the construction. Sensible. It gave me terrifying ideas of getting stuck or turned around on the highway and swept along with traffic over the bridge to Canada where I'm having to explain myself to Customs and some other like inane improbably scenarios.

So ten minutes later I'm barreling down the highway on this fools errand and arrive at the Port just in time, not even thinking to take a jacket with me, JUST IN TIME to see one of those big ass things coming up the river, taking up the whole river and blotting out the view of Canada across the river I noticed hundreds of people with the same idea , just hanging around waiting to watch the freighters pass. In the meantime there's all this other activity going on. Pilot boats and Coast Guard cutters. These big beautiful dark birds like loons diving into the strong, really strong current, and popping back up yards down river to gobble fish they caught. Not everyone's cup of tea but I'm totally enchanted. An old man surrounded by gulls he's feeding and they are hovering around his head like ghosts. Some people refer to them as flying rats but they are truly beautiful birds and some used to human attention you can walk right up to them. They have such condemning expressions in their eyes like they are so much better than you. Then tantalizing enough I find my very favorite freighter which seldom comes down from the upper Great Lakes (its 1015 feet long) is downbound to arrive in Port in about six hours but it would dark and I would not see it anyway even if I waited.

It will be laid up in port for a few days so I can go back on Monday and watch it as it makes its return journey. I would not have known this if had not taken that inner observer which was seeing something I couldn't until I can see.

That's also getting to know yourself. Boats and birds have such huge subconscious and spiritual meaning for me. I guess its feeding the soul too.

[Wind]

That's also getting to know yourself. Boats and birds have such huge subconscious and spiritual meaning for me. I guess its feeding the soul too.

In that case I could recommend you a fantastic book called The Conference of the Birds by a Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar.

[Diabolical Boids]

In that case I could recommend you a fantastic book called The Conference of the Birds by a Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar.

Awesome. I have all the Taos of the Horse type literature but I never found a book really that covered birds in a meaningful way. I get the bird thing from my Irish grandma who was very into messages from the birds and the bees.

[Emil El Zapato]

Awesome. I have all the Taos of the Horse type literature but I never found a book really that covered birds in a meaningful way. I get the bird thing from my Irish grandma who was very into messages from the birds and the bees.

Irish grandma...yeah, no doubt! Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! Was she Catholic also, or one of those pagans.

[Wind]

Awesome. I have all the Taos of the Horse type literature but I never found a book really that covered birds in a meaningful way. I get the bird thing from my Irish grandma who was very into messages from the birds and the bees.

People have also praised the book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but I've only just started it.

It seems to be about freedom and self-realization too. About the Conference of the Birds:

"Sholeh Wolpé, in the foreword of her modern translation of this work writes: The parables in this book trigger memories deep within us all. The stories inhabit the imagination, and slowly over time, their wisdom trickles down into the heart. The process of absorption is unique to every individual, as is each person’s journey. We are the birds in the story. All of us have our own ideas and ideals, our own fears and anxieties, as we hold on to our own version of the truth. Like the birds of this story, we may take flight together, but the journey itself will be different for each of us. Attar tells us that truth is not static, and that we each tread a path according to our own capacity. It evolves as we evolve. Those who are trapped within their own dogma, clinging to hardened beliefs or faith, are deprived of the journey toward the unfathomable Divine, which Attar calls the Great Ocean."

The birds are after the legendary great bird called Simurgh, but to know it one must get to the end of the story. The cosmic Ocean of consciousness from which all life and matter comes from. The Source, people just give different names and attributes to it. We are all droplets of that primordial ocean and we form it. The drop is the ocean and the ocean is so vast, how could we ever truly comprehend it's magnificence? We are all our own kind of unique birds on our personal journey. Some birds greatly are after freedom. Most birds are afraid of the "last valley" - Fana. Why would one ever even be afraid of self-annihilation when the real self can never be lost? What is tied to time and the world of forms doesn't last forever, it has it's time in the sun and then disappears and that's okay. What is true remains.

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

~ Kahlil Gibran


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkWlDDVB8b8

[Emil El Zapato]

People have also praised the book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but I've only just started it.

It seems to be about freedom and self-realization too. About the Conference of the Birds:

"Sholeh Wolpé, in the foreword of her modern translation of this work writes: The parables in this book trigger memories deep within us all. The stories inhabit the imagination, and slowly over time, their wisdom trickles down into the heart. The process of absorption is unique to every individual, as is each person’s journey. We are the birds in the story. All of us have our own ideas and ideals, our own fears and anxieties, as we hold on to our own version of the truth. Like the birds of this story, we may take flight together, but the journey itself will be different for each of us. Attar tells us that truth is not static, and that we each tread a path according to our own capacity. It evolves as we evolve. Those who are trapped within their own dogma, clinging to hardened beliefs or faith, are deprived of the journey toward the unfathomable Divine, which Attar calls the Great Ocean."

The birds are after the legendary great bird called Simurgh, but to know it one must get to the end of the story. The cosmic Ocean of consciousness from which all life and matter comes from. The Source, people just give different names and attributes to it. We are all droplets of that primordial ocean and we form it. The drop is the ocean and the ocean is so vast, how could we ever truly comprehend it's magnificence? We are all our own kind of unique birds on our personal journey. Some birds greatly are after freedom. Most birds are afraid of the "last valley" - Fana. Why would one ever even be afraid of self-annihilation when the real self can never be lost? What is tied to time and the world of forms doesn't last forever, it has it's time in the sun and then disappears and that's okay. What is true remains.

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

~ Kahlil Gibran


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkWlDDVB8b8

One cuckoo flew over the rest, Wind...hope you don't mind a little levity...it has been considered an important work for a verrryy lonnggg time. A Big lesson in life. I thought it was cool...

Kahlil Gibran was one that really spoke to me....

[Wind]

Yeah, cuckoo sure is your kind of bird.

Kahlil Gibran was one that really spoke to me....

My two top favorite poets in the world besides Hafiz are Rumi and Kahlil Gibran.

Their words guide you to the place where you heart feels the truth.

"The intellect says: "The six directions are limits: there is no way out."
Love says: " There is a way: I have traveled it thousands of times."
The intellect saw a market and started to haggle:
Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market.
Lovers who drink the dregs of the wine reel from bliss to bliss:
The dark hearted men of reason burn inwardly with denial.
The intellect says " Do not go forward, annihilation contains only thorns."
Love laughs back: The thorns are in you."
Enough words! Silence!
Pull the thorns of existence out of the heart! Fast!
For when you do you will see thousands of rose gardens in yourself."

~ Rumi

[Emil El Zapato]

Yeah, cuckoo sure is your kind of bird.



My two top favorite poets in the world besides Hafiz are Rumi and Kahlil Gibran.

Their words guide you to the place where you heart feels the truth.

"The intellect says: "The six directions are limits: there is no way out."
Love says: " There is a way: I have traveled it thousands of times."
The intellect saw a market and started to haggle:
Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market.
Lovers who drink the dregs of the wine reel from bliss to bliss:
The dark hearted men of reason burn inwardly with denial.
The intellect says " Do not go forward, annihilation contains only thorns."
Love laughs back: The thorns are in you."
Enough words! Silence!
Pull the thorns of existence out of the heart! Fast!
For when you do you will see thousands of rose gardens in yourself."

~ Rumi

Truth is, I'm really struggling today...not the first time that's for sure...

[Wind]

Truth is, I'm really struggling today...not the first time that's for sure...

I'm sorry to hear that, I am no stranger to struggling either so I know how it feels. Now the Moon's energy is intense.

[Wind]

I feel synchronicity nudging me again. I watched that Ken Wilber video about I Am-ness you posted Chuckie, I can't seem to be able to locate it anymore though so I've looked up other ones. I've really not listened to him before as I've had many other people and teachers to follow. However, sometimes I have to buy some books and some special books I feel compelled, almost guided to buy. One of them was just recently The Cosmic Game by Stan Grof. It's a must read for anyone who is serious about consciousness research, Stan surely has been. I can't define myself as anything else than a mystic and I suspect that one of my main life path vocations has been to understand consciousness. If it wasn't for that then I don't think I would be here. Anyways, in the back cover of the book I read this praise;

"What moves this book into the status of a classic is that it is in substantial agreement with the world's great wisdom and spiritual traditions. This modern corroboration of the perennial philosophy is a stunning achievement and deserves publication to the widest audiences." ~ Ken Wilber

I've only started to read the book as I've had tons of others too, but this is now what I'm focusing on.
Stan is now 92 years old and still seems to be a well functioning mature wise person and a researcher.

In the beginning Stan says that he's been friends with many greats such as Joseph Campbell and Ram Dass has been one of his greatest spiritual teachers, my favorite again and Rupert Sheldrake have helped him to understand science better. He's thinking outside the box.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNSMDWBSv54

[Emil El Zapato]

The Cosmic Game

I'll give my reflections on this video later, Wind. I've seen that quote somewhere...I think...

[Wind]

I'll give my reflections on this video later, Wind. I've seen that quote somewhere...I think...

In the book Stan says this; "Ken Wilber has done more than any other single individual on terms of laying solid philosophical foundations for future reconciliation of science and spirituality. The series of his groundbreaking books has been a tour de force, offering an extraordinary synthesis of data drawn from a vast variety of areas and disciplines, Eastern and Western. Although we have occasionally disagreed about details, his work has been for me a rich source of information, stimulation and conceptual challenge. I also greatly appreciate his critical comments on the present book."

[Emil El Zapato]

The Cosmic Game

I ain't diggin' the illusion

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm not sure if everything is perfect for what it is, that there is an underlying purpose. The cosmos can't be summed up.