Transformation of PainBody

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"...it's only useless thinking about the present moment that mentally projects you away from the NOW, and doesn't get you anywhere, detracts from the quality of life, and detracts from your sense of aliveness..."

Rising with the Morning Sun

_________

via EliteDaily

© EliteDaily.Com

There’s another world out there. Like entering through a secret portal, it’s a world that only some people experience. A world few have visited and only some can live in.

Like traveling to another country, it’s a world that only some people ever get to see. A chill in the air only some people ever feel; a dew only few walk across.

It’s when coffee is strongest and the air is most crisp. When the morning light is most entrancing and that soft haze makes everything look magical. It’s when there’s nothing but you and the quiet company of the newly awoken sun.

A select few only get to walk along these empty streets, taking in the energy and the absence of sound. Only few get to feel the morning air, before it becomes tainted and consumed by the breaths of the masses.

Early risers get everything first. The first sounds, the first bites, the first waves of new air. They get to the streets before they’re littered and walked across. They get the news before it’s shared and exposed. They get the world before it’s crowded and full.

They are the planners, the leaders, the doers. They are the ones who don’t wait for you to get up, but beat you to the punch. They are the ones who are starting their lives with purpose, every morning. And according to Emotion, the study published in the American Psychological Association journal, even though night owls may be more creative and intelligent, early birds are more successful.

Because our society is structured around a 9-5 work period, people who wake up early are more accustomed and productive during those hours, so we’ve deemed them more socially acceptable.

They go into work already awake, rather than spending half the day in a fog. They go to bed when the sun goes down, rather than when it’s coming up. They are accustomed to — and in-tune — with the schedule society functions around.

This schedule is referred to as our “social clock,” according to Renee Biss, the scientist from the University of Toronto who led the study.

Social jetlag is the term given to night owls; their biological clocks are not in sync with society’s social clock and, therefore, they end up having a hard time meeting societal expectations and functioning throughout the day.

Early birds, on the other hand, are more productive and happier throughout the day because their schedules are aligned.

They reap the benefits of the chaotic threshold that begins when their alarm clocks go off. They are already making their mark, hatching their plans and creating a day worth living before you’ve gotten the strength to get out of bed.
They have first dibs on the day

They get everything first, and that makes all the difference. They get the first opportunities and the first bites of life. They get the first chances to strike and the first attempts at success.

Contrary to night owls, who use the night for creativity, early birds use the morning for planning and plotting. They are hatching plans, finding answers and leading the charge.

According to a study conducted at a Texas University in 2008, college kids who wake up earlier are more likely to graduate at the top of their class.

Using a questionnaire, students were instructed to determine themselves as either morning people or evening people. They compared the results to the GPAs of the participants and found that those who considered themselves morning people had higher GPAs than their night-owl counterparts, with the results a full point higher (3.5 vs. 2.5).

Researchers concluded the reasons for these discrepancies could be found in the lifestyle of the early birds. Kids who wake up earlier are less likely to go out at night and make bad decisions because they know they have to be up sooner. They are also more prone to get to classes on time and create study habits that are more conducive to the college lifestyle.
They have all morning to figure it out

The more time you spend on a problem, the more solutions you procure. Early birds have the distinct advantage of having hours to figure out their days and plan for the problems they will face. They get work done before you’ve even opened your eyes and are on to the next set of problems before you’ve even taken your morning shower.

According to Christopher Randler, a biology professor at Harvard, early birds are more productive because they have time to anticipate problems and solutions. They are proactive and goal-oriented, which is a quality most leaders possess. They are ready for anything because they’ve been awake.

Surveying 367 college students, Randler asked them what time of day they were most energetic and how willing they were to take action to change a certain situation or outcome to be in their favor.

Not surprisingly, the early birds were more prone to agree with statements like, “I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself” and, “I feel in charge of making things happen.”
They have healthier habits

They eat breakfast; they go for a run; they make time for the gym. They have time to do all that stuff you can’t fathom doing when you wake up late for work. They are the ones who are going to find time during the day to do all those things that keep them healthier and, ultimately, happier.

They are also eating better than night owls. According to a 2011 Northwestern University study published in Women’s Health Magazine, night owls eat twice as much fast food than early risers, and have a higher BMI.

Early birds are also prone to eat more fruits and vegetables, as much as double the amount as those who sleep late.

Teal Swan on Anxiety

Sacred Exhaustion

SACRED EXHAUSTION via Jeff Foster


Your tiredness has dignity to it! Do not rush to pathologise it, or push it away, for it may contain great intelligence, even medicine.

You have been on a long journey from the stars, friend. Bow before your tiredness now; do not fight it any longer.

There is no shame in admitting that you cannot go on. Even the courageous need to rest.

For a great journey lies ahead. And you will need all of your resources.

Come, sit by the fire of Presence. Let the body unwind; drop into the silence here. Forget about tomorrow, let go of the journey to come, and sink into this evening's warmth.

Every great adventure is fuelled by rest at its heart.

Your tiredness is noble, friend, and contains healing power... if you would only listen...

- Jeff Foster

Power Of Now, with Jeff Foster

HIS MOMENT, FRIEND, THIS MOMENT

This is for anyone who is going through a crisis, big or small.

Friend, I know that sometimes it feels like everything's falling apart, and even the most beautiful spiritual words sound like bullshit, meaningless, flowery, new-age drivel. We lose everything we thought defined us, or made us happy, everything that seemed to matter to us, and it feels like we will never recover. We are left in total despair, disappointment, disillusionment. It seems like 'the end', with no hope of recovery.

Yet in life, there are no true endings, only transformations, new beginnings emerging from rubble. Old dreams dying, the false falling away, which can be excruciatingly painful, of course, of course! Destruction, breakdowns, disruptions, shocks and losses, often feel like enemies, but always contain seeds of the new, and sometimes it just takes time to recover. This devastation you are going through, this crucifixion of dreams you feel, is an opportunity to let go of EVERY SINGLE IDEA you've ever had of how your life was "supposed to be", all those cherished dreams that were simply false, yet beautiful and useful at the same time.

The invitation today is to be present to your life, to wake up to it, to turn towards this immediacy, to dignify what is actually happening where you are. If there is loneliness visiting you here and now, do not turn away. If there is fear, do not push it away or try to escape. If there is frustration, anxiety, or just a quiet sense of hopelessness moving in you, do not reject these energies. They just want to be felt, now. They are not wrong. They are your lost children, orphans of awakening, and just want to move and be felt. Sometimes life brings us to our knees so that we will FEEL everything we've been running away from all our lives. And yes, the 'meeting' may hurt. But perhaps feeling the hurt is the beginning of healing, not the ending of it.

And watch the mind. How it constantly spins, rewinds and fast-forwards, constantly leaves the present scene of your life, here and now. Thought is constantly running away from the present moment. It goes into memory - of how good things were before, of how wonderful your life used to be. And it longs to return there. And it feels unable to. And despair results. Regret. Longing. Homesickness. And it fast-forwards into the future, imagining all kinds of future scenarios, many dark and scary. It takes you into regions way beyond your control. And both movements into past and future disconnect you from where you are NOW, which is all there is. They take you away from your only point of power - this moment.

But this moment is all there is. This breath. These sensations. Present sounds, smells. Present beating of the heart, the feeling of your butt on the chair. A little bird singing on the tree outside. The buzz of the television over there. A feeling of contraction in the chest, tenderness in the throat. This is a call to radical, radical simplicity. To honouring the not-knowing. To admitting humility in the face of life. Without the story of past and future, can you really know that your life has 'gone wrong'? For that is the belief at the core of everything, isn't it? That your life has 'gone wrong'. That the 'me' has failed somehow. That the universe is cruel and somehow against you. It's an intelligent conclusion to make, yes. I won't judge you for it. But perhaps it's not the truth. Perhaps the mind doesn't know.

My friend, your disillusionment, your inability to believe all those spiritual teachings now, including my own, is not a mistake - it is pure intelligence at work! Your disillusionment is part of waking up, not the end of waking up! This is all an invitation to a deeper awakening than you ever thought possible. You are being forced to question everything - everything - including all those cherished spiritual teachings that once held so much value. You are being called to find your own authority, to let go of all those bullshit ideas about what 'a good life' means. You are being invited to let go of everything second-hand, everything old, everything received - from parents, teachers, gurus - everything in memory, and be present to life, raw and naked.

Sometimes we have to lose everything to remember our total humility, to remember that we are not in control, and that each moment is full of wonder and thrilling uncertainty. You are on a path of devastation now - it was exactly what Jesus was teaching. This is not the end for you - it is the beginning of a new and different life, a new way of moving in the world, however hard that is to see. It is a time of renewal, of slowing-down, of discovering the abundance contained within the nothingness. A time to be kinder to yourself. There is so much potential for you, friend, even if you cannot believe that.

There have been many times in my own life when I felt unable to go on, unable to stand. I felt that I had lost everything, that nothing was possible, that the void was the only life. But I just didn't know what the universe had in store.

Even though you feel lonely and abandoned, frightened and angry, friend, know that many others are walking with you, and many others understand. You will write your own book of transformation one day.

This moment, friend. THIS moment.

- Jeff Foster

Via RAPTITUDE

1. You are not your mind.



The first time I heard somebody say that, I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. What else could I be? I had taken for granted that the mental chatter in my head was the central “me” that all the experiences in my life were happening to.

I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. Thoughts are no more fundamental than smells, sights and sounds. Like any experience, they arise in my awareness, they have a certain texture, and then they give way to something else.

If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? Don’t answer too quickly. This question, and its unspeakable answer, are at the centre of all the great religions and spiritual traditions.



2. Life unfolds only in moments.



Of course! I once called this the most important thing I ever learned. Nobody has ever experienced anything that wasn’t part of a single moment unfolding. That means life’s only challenge is dealing with the single moment you are having right now. Before I recognized this, I was constantly trying to solve my entire life — battling problems that weren’t actually happening. Anyone can summon the resolve to deal with a single, present moment, as long as they are truly aware that it’s their only point of contact with life, and therefore there is nothing else one can do that can possibly be useful. Nobody can deal with the past or future, because, both only exist as thoughts, in the present. But we can kill ourselves trying.



3. Quality of life is determined by how you deal with your moments, not which moments happen and which don’t.



I now consider this truth to be Happiness 101, but it’s amazing how tempting it still is to grasp at control of every circumstance to try to make sure I get exactly what I want. To encounter an undesirable situation and work with it willingly is the mark of a wise and happy person. Imagine getting a flat tire, falling ill at a bad time, or knocking something over and breaking it — and suffering nothing from it. There is nothing to fear if you agree with yourself to deal willingly with adversity whenever it does show up. That is how to make life better. The typical, low-leverage method is to hope that you eventually accumulate power over your circumstances so that you can get what you want more often. There’s an excellent line in a Modest Mouse song, celebrating this side-effect of wisdom: As life gets longer, awful feels softer.



4. Most of life is imaginary.



Human beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life is imaginary things. As Mark Twain said: “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” The best treatment I’ve found? Cultivating mindfulness.



5. Human beings have evolved to suffer, and we are better at suffering than anything else.



Yikes. It doesn’t sound like a very liberating discovery. I used to believe that if I was suffering it meant that there was something wrong with me — that I was doing life “wrong.” Suffering is completely human and completely normal, and there is a very good reason for its existence. Life’s persistent background hum of “this isn’t quite okay, I need to improve this,” coupled with occasional intense flashes of horror and adrenaline are what kept human beings alive for millions of years. This urge to change or escape the present moment drives nearly all of our behaviour. It’s a simple and ruthless survival mechanism which works exceedingly well for keeping us alive, but it has a horrific side effect: human beings suffer greatly by their very nature. This, for me, redefined every one of life’s problems as some tendril of the human condition. As grim as it sounds, this insight is liberating because it means: 1) that suffering does not necessarily mean my life is going wrong, 2) that the ball is always in my court, so the degree to which I suffer is ultimately up to me, and 3) that all problems have the same cause and the same solution.



6. Emotions exist to make us biased.



This discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. I used to think my emotions were reliable indicators of the state of my life — of whether I’m on the right track or not. Your passing emotional states can’t be trusted for measuring your self-worth or your position in life, but they are great at teaching you what it is you can’t let go of. The trouble is that emotions make us both more biased and more forceful at the same time. Another survival mechanism with nasty side-effects.



7. All people operate from the same two motivations: to fulfil their desires and to escape their suffering.



Learning this allowed me to finally make sense of how people can hurt each other so badly. The best explanation I had before this was that some people are just bad. What a cop-out. No matter what kind of behaviour other people exhibit, they are acting in the most effective way they are capable of (at that moment) to fulfill a desire or to relieve their suffering. These are motives we can all understand; we only vary in method, and the methods each of us has at our disposal depend on our upbringing and our experiences in life, as well as our state of consciousness. Some methods are skilful and helpful to others, others are unskilful and destructive, and almost all destructive behaviour is unconscious. So there is no good and evil, only smart and dumb (or wise and foolish.) Understanding this completely shook my long-held notions of morality and justice.



8. Beliefs are nothing to be proud of.



Believing something is not an accomplishment. I grew up thinking that beliefs are something to be proud of, but they’re really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because “strength of belief” is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you’ve made it a part of your ego. Listen to any “die-hard” conservative or liberal talk about their deepest beliefs and you are listening to somebody who will never hear what you say on any matter that matters to them — unless you believe the same. It is gratifying to speak forcefully, it is gratifying to be agreed with, and this high is what the die-hards are chasing. Wherever there is a belief, there is a closed door. Take on the beliefs that stand up to your most honest, humble scrutiny, and never be afraid to lose them.



9. Objectivity is subjective.



Life is a subjective experience and that cannot be escaped. Every experience I have comes through my own, personal, un-sharable viewpoint. There can be no peer reviews of my direct experience, no real corroboration. This has some major implications for how I live my life. The most immediate one is that I realize I must trust my own personal experience, because nobody else has this angle, and I only have this angle. Another is that I feel more wonder for the world around me, knowing that any “objective” understanding I claim to have of the world is built entirely from scratch, by me. What I do build depends on the books I’ve read, the people I’ve met, and the experiences I’ve had. It means I will never see the world quite like anyone else, which means I will never live in quite the same world as anyone else — and therefore I mustn’t let outside observers be the authority on who I am or what life is really like for me. Subjectivity is primary experience — it is real life, and objectivity is something each of us builds on top of it in our minds, privately, in order to explain it all. This truth has world-shattering implications for the roles of religion and science in the lives of those who grasp it.

Stay with the Pain - I

From: SHIZEN.ORG

The Good News and the Challenge
As soon as pain arises in the body, our minds become preoccupied with how to get relief. If we can remove the cause of the pain or numb it with analgesics, well and good. But most people, at some time in their lives, face significant pain from which they cannot escape, and millions of people, victims of disease or injury, must live each day in unavoidable and often excruciating pain.

If we cannot escape from the pain, must we then experience abject and meaningless suffering? No, there is an alternative, a way to escape not from pain but into it. We can apply mindfulness meditation to the pain.

Mindfulness meditation is a way of focusing awareness on the pain and observing it with precision, while at the same time opening up to it and dropping resistance. As we develop this skill, the pain causes less suffering, and may even "break up" into a flow of pure energy. This may sound too good to be true, but it is a fact that has been discovered by thousands of people. The technique of mindfulness takes time, effort and determination, but anyone can learn to develop this skill with regular practice. I want to be honest with you though. Managing pain through meditation is usually not a quick fix. But that is compensated for by the fact that it is a deep and broad fix. What I mean by "deep and broad" should become tangible to you as you proceed through this article.

The meditative approach to working with pain presents us with two challenges. The first challenge is conceptual: to understand the pain process in a new way, radically different from the usual. Often it takes time and struggle before this new paradigm is accepted, but it is well worth it, because this new way of looking at things gives us so much power and clarity.

The second challenge is practical: to acquire the focusing skills and concentration needed to experience pain in a new, empowering way. This involves the systematic, sustained practice of mindfulness exercises such as those given on the tape series Break Through Pain.

Pain comes in various "flavors" or types, such as burning, aching, shooting, itching, pressure or nausea. A person may experience several flavors simultaneously and a given flavor may vary in its intensity. For example, an burning may range from mild to fainting intensity.

What makes the method of "observing and opening" so extraordinary and powerful is that it works for all types of painful experiences, regardless of the type of pain, its intensity, or its cause: injuries, allergies, menstrual cramps, chronic fatigue syndrome, back pain and even the pain of terminal illness, such as cancer or AIDS. Indeed the same basic concepts and skills work equally well when applied to emotional pain such as anger, grief, fear and guilt.

What exactly do I mean when I say, "It works?" First, this method reduces the suffering caused by the specific pain you are dealing with. Second—and this is the really important point—working with your pain in this way fosters rapid personal evolution. It is a way to release psychological and spiritual blockages, a kind of deep and permanent cleansing of the very substance of your soul. To borrow language from the Christian tradition, the experience of pain stops being "hell" (that is to say, meaningless suffering), and turns into "purgatory" (a purification which opens the way for direct encounter with the spiritual source).

As a result of this purification you will eventually experience an increased sense of oneness and connectedness with all things; a decrease in negative emotions; a sense of happiness independent of your circumstances; and the disappearance of imprints and limiting conditioning from the past. Associated with this transformation of consciousness is a distinct feeling which I call the "flavor of purification." It is the good feeling that comes as a person is experiencing painful feelings in a skillful way.

Once you begin to develop a taste for this flavor of purification, pain, even horrible pain, becomes meaningful. Suffering diminishes and eventually is completely eclipsed by the joy of purification. This is what I mean by escaping into pain. If the pain is severe, and you are able to escape into it, you will experience an egoless state, a direct communion with the spiritual source.

The method of mindfulness applied to pain may appear to be very challenging. At first you may not have good concentration. Your mind will wander a lot and you will have to bring it back over and over again. But just as in any other exercise, skill comes with time and practice.

Short Example of How to Meditate on Pain

I would like to give you a tangible sense of the experience of mindfulness. Close your eyes and let your whole body relax and settle in. Pick one area where pain is significant.

Get a clear sense of the size and shape of the painful region. Is it long, round, triangular or some other shape? Is it flat like a pancake or does it have a three-dimensional volume? Is it uniform or does it have areas of greater or lesser intensity within it? Are its borders sharp or diffuse? Does it spread any influence through the body or is it completely isolated? --- You now have a much clearer and more precise sense of the painful sensation.

Now observe even more carefully, as though the pain were a living being in its own right, as though it were, for example, a lizard on a wall. How and when will this creature move? Will its borders change? Will it get stronger or weaker? Will its center shift? Watch very carefully for a while and notice that every few seconds the pain may change, if only in a tiny way. Every time the pain changes in any little way, relax your whole mind and body into it and just observe it without judgment. You may have to try this exercise many times but eventually the pain will reveal its wave nature. When it does, surf the waves!

This is a first step in developing the skill of mindfulness of pain. It is true that sometimes the pain may seem to get worse as you focus on it. This, however, is a temporary phenomenon.

How Pain Becomes Suffering

In order to understand how pain becomes suffering, you need to know a deep truth about the nature of suffering. Most people equate suffering with pain, but suffering is a function of two variables, not just one. Suffering is a function of pain and the degree to which the pain is being resisted. (S = P x R)

Your nervous system has built-in structures that produce and transmit pain signals. We might refer to them as "pain circuits." They are part of you, and left on their own, they function spontaneously and effortlessly as part of the flow of nature, like wind through the trees or ripples on a lake. They have one job and one job only: when stimulated they produce a kind of energy wave which we humans call "pain."

But as the result of a long conditioning process, human beings have also developed another part of ourselves, "resistance." Resistance interferes with that energy wave, fights against it, tries to beat it back. Thus deep within our being there is a kind of violent conflict, a veritable civil war between two parts of the same system.

This produces a pressure called "suffering." Since suffering is produced by one part of you fighting with another part of you, there is obviously a deep link between the physical process of learning to experience pain without suffering and the psychological process of becoming more integrated.

According to this view, resistance is a kind of internal friction; the system is grinding against itself. Such friction produces useless suffering and wastes physical and psychological energy.

Resistance occurs in both the body and the mind, and may be either conscious or unconscious. Conscious resistance in the mind takes the form of judgment, wishes, fearful projections, etc.: "I hate the pain. I can't stand this pain. When is it going to stop?"

Conscious resistance in the body takes the form of tension and holding. You have pain in the leg, but you may be tightening the jaw, tensing the breath, perhaps clenching throughout the whole body, not letting the pain spread and circulate. "Opening to the pain" is the practice of dropping the conscious resistance by letting go of the judging thoughts and continually relaxing your whole body as much as possible.

As for the unconscious resistance, by definition we have no control over this, as it occurs in the deep preconscious level of neural processing moment by moment. However, careful observation of the pain allows the unconscious to gradually unlearn its habit of resistance. This is why the practice of mindfulness involves intently pouring awareness on the pain as well as "opening up" to the pain.

The formula "suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance" contains both good news and bad news. The good news is that (at least in theory) no one ever has to suffer, because resistance can be made very small and eventually be reduced to zero through mindfulness exercises. When the resistance factor becomes zero, suffering is zeroed out, no matter how big the pain factor may be.

What's the bad news? In many cases resistance grows if the pain persists. Even though the pain may stay the same, the perceived suffering becomes unbearable because the resistance has become so large. Furthermore, according to this formula, even tiny subliminal pain can cause immense suffering if you strongly resist it. The suffering that underlies many forms of compulsive behavior such as substance abuse is often caused by subtle subliminal pain that is subject to immense subconscious resistance. In working with pain remember: subtle is significant!

Dropping resistance to the subjective flow of pain in no way implies that you stop resisting the objective source of the pain. In fact, as you get more and more skillful in opening to the pain, the energy that was being wasted in fighting with the pain is now freed up to fight for recovery and to live your life despite the pain. Although you need not necessarily surrender to the objective situation of being ill, you do surrender to the subjective sensations of pain that the illness causes. This reduces your suffering and increases your energy.

Pain Without Suffering

Although the suffering diminishes as resistance drops, the pain may stay, preserving the proper function of pain as a warning, motivation, etc. In other words, it is sometimes necessary to feel pain, but it is never necessary to suffer.

Pain informs and motivates; suffering drives and distorts. Pain experienced skillfully brings us closer to our spiritual source; suffering alienates us from our spiritual source and our fellow human beings. Suffering obscures the perfection of the moment; pain experienced skillfully is the perfection of the moment.

For most people the notion of pain which is not suffering may sound like a contradiction in terms. People have difficulty imagining what the experience of pain without suffering would be like. Does it hurt? Yes. Is that a problem? No.

People have difficulty understanding this because they are not familiar with the experience of pure pain, that is, pain without resistance. Since much of our habitual resistance to the flow of pain begins at the pre-conscious level, by the time we consciously experience a wave of pain, it has already been converted into suffering by unconscious resistance. In other words, most of us cannot remember experiencing pure pain. What people call "pain" is actually a combination of pain and resistance.

I might add that most people are also not familiar with the experience of pure pleasure. What people call "pleasure" is actually a mixture of pleasure and grasping. Just as consciousness is purified by experiencing pain without resistance, it is equally purified by experiencing pleasure without grasping. The dropping of resistance to pain and the letting go of grasping onto pleasure are sometimes called "equanimity."

Pain and Spiritual Purification

Many spiritual traditions involve the practice of asceticism, which means voluntarily taking on discomfort or deprivation. The hair shirt and self-flagellation of Christian Europe, as well as the sweat lodges and sun dances of the Native Americans, are examples of asceticism.

Unfortunately even people who practice asceticism sometimes do not clearly understand the underlying principles. This has led the entire endeavor to be looked upon as somehow perverse. It is often said that the Buddha rejected asceticism. I would rather say that he refined it, both conceptually and in terms of practice. Crude asceticism often involves a sense of oneself being sinful and worthless or an attempt to get tough or to achieve special powers through inducing altered states. But properly understood, asceticism is done for spiritual purification, i.e. softening the substance of the solidified self.

Pain multiplied by resistance equals suffering, but pain multiplied by acceptance equals cleansing. This tells us two important things. First, when pain is very intense, if you are able to maintain even a small degree of acceptance, then purification is still going on; that is, the pain is productive and meaningful. Second, even a small pain can bring significant purification if your attentiveness and equanimity are high. Thus, even though you may never do intense practices such as the Christian renunciates or the Native American spiritual warriors, you may attain comparably deep purification. This can be achieved by bringing an extraordinary amount of openness to the ordinary aches and discomforts of daily life.

Once you clearly understand that pain multiplied by equanimity equals purification, you are able to make a "conceptual reframing" of the pain. You are able to sacramentalize it, to see it as a kind of imposed monastery or sacred ceremony. Seeing pain as a natural monastery or imposed retreat for spiritual growth is particularly significant for those in chronic pain.

I have spoken of mindfulness meditation as being composed of two elements: an opening up to the pain, and a careful observing of the pain. The opening up fosters a process of spiritual purification. The careful observation leads to deep insight. This insight is like a many-sided jewel. One facet of this jewel is insight into impermanence.

Pain and Impermanence

I sometimes ask my students an odd sort of multiple choice question: Are the mountains moving? The possible answers being yes, no and it depends. I suggest that the correct answer is "it depends." It depends on how carefully and patiently you observe the mountains.

Certainly from the ordinary scale of time and space a mountain seems very solid. Indeed, mountain is a metaphor for permanence. Yet, viewed microscopically, even mountains are a dance of energy. Vibrating molecules are made up of even more rapidly vibrating atoms, which are made up of even more rapidly vibrating particles, and so forth, and viewed with the patience of centuries, the earth's surface resembles rippling protoplasm.

In the same way, your pain may seem as solid and permanent as a mountain. But as your powers of observation sharpen and your patience grows, you begin to perceive aspects of change or impermanence. The sensation of pain shifts shape or position every few seconds, becomes stronger or weaker, expands, contracts and circulates. Flavors change; a burn becomes an itch, the itch becomes a pressure, and so on. Eventually you come to realize that even the most horrible pain is in fact made up of pure vibrant energy. At this point, not only the pain but the whole sense of a suffering self dissolves and becomes part of the flow of nature, as effortless and refreshing as ripples spreading on a pond.

As insight into impermanence deepens you come to realize that not only pain, but indeed all seemingly solid experiences, are in fact elastic, vibratory, porous and transparent. With this realization, your understanding of yourself and the world goes through a remarkable and empowering shift in perspective.

This is analogous to the paradigm shifts of modern physics. The material body dissolves into a field of energy. The self as a separate particle dissolves into a vibrating wave which can unite both with your spiritual source and with all things. You become spiritual in the literal sense of the Latin word spiritus, which means "breath" or "wind," something insubstantial yet powerful.

Begrudging Down Time

Now I'd like to cover a few specific areas where people often have questions about working with pain. For instance, people often resent the fact that the pain takes time away from life, preventing them from participating in the meaningful activities of work and play. And indeed, unless you understand how to use the situation to evolve and purify consciousness, time spent in pain is mostly wasted and meaningless.

Fortunately, you can make a "conceptual reframing" of the meaning of time spent with pain. If nature (or "God") has given you so much pain that you cannot do anything else other than be with it, then there is a message here: you are not expected to be doing anything else!

In other words, spending time—even long periods of time—just feeling pain is a legitimate calling in the eyes of God and nature. Assuming that you are making at least some effort to purify and evolve consciousness by being with the pain in a skillful way, you are engaged in productive and meaningful work. You perform an important service to others by becoming an example to them, a source of hope, inspiration and empowerment.

Consider even the most extreme case, a person in so much pain that they can do nothing but lie in bed, seeing very few people, perhaps with no prospect of recovery, perhaps dying. You might think that in such an extreme case, even if the meditation were to help the victim, there would not be any broader benefit to humanity, but this is not necessarily the case.

Some scientists postulate the existence of "morphogenic fields." Put simply, this theory states that whenever a person does something, it makes it easier for all others to do the same thing, even though the others may have no direct contact with or even knowledge of the original person's work. This is sometimes referred to as the "hundredth monkey effect." According to this theory, a person isolated and cut off from contacts, who is working to purify through pain, is in some way making it easier for all other sufferers in the world to do the same; a worthwhile and meaningful job indeed!

When and Where to Meditate

People sometimes ask me, "How many hours a day do you meditate?" They are, of course, referring to the amount of time I spend in formal sitting practice. I answer, "Usually about an hour a day," but often I feel like saying, "I meditate twenty-four hours a day, hopefully." In other words, meditation can be carried on during the daily activities of life, as well as during set formal periods. Both forms of practice are useful.

If your focus of meditation is pain, then you can be meditating any time you feel the pain, because whenever you are observing and opening to it you are by definition meditating. If pain is always present, then you have a reminder and motivation to be in a meditative state all your waking hours, like the monks and nuns in monastic training. For you, pain is your monastery. This is another way in which your pain can be looked upon as an ally.

Of course it takes practice to meditate on pain while at the same time engaging in other activities. At first it will be challenging enough to meditate quietly by yourself, but as the state of concentration becomes habitual, you will be able to meditate in the midst of life activities.

Try to set aside a period of time most days for formal meditation, perhaps a half an hour each morning. Of course, if your pain prevents you from doing other activities, you may be formally meditating for many hours each day. You can meditate sitting in a chair, on the floor or lying down. During your periods of formal meditation, make sure that there will be no distractions. Turn off the phones. Let friends and family know that you need to be alone for a period of time.

Meditation is a state of both relaxation and alertness. If you meditate in a seated posture, try to keep the spine straight. This will help you to remain alert. If you meditate lying down, you must have very strong determination not to let your mind sink into sleepiness or even fuzziness. If you become even slightly drowsy, open your eyes and stare at infinity without getting involved with visual objects. This will help you remain aware and alert.

Some conditions that produce pain are made worse by prolonged periods of motionlessness. If this is true for you, be sure to move appropriately. But in between moving, try to be very still and focused.

The most important moment in any period of formal meditation comes when you get up to resume your daily activities. Your ability to maintain a meditative state throughout the day (and hence reduce the suffering from your pain) depends on how you handle this transition. Instead of thinking, "The meditation is over, now it's time to do this or that," think, "I have become somewhat more calm and focused. Now my job is to try to preserve this state."

During the day, whenever you become agitated or start to suffer a lot from pain, drop everything for a few minutes. Sit down or lie down and do a short but high quality "mini-meditation" to re-ground yourself. Do this as many times a day as needed throughout the day.

The combination of setting aside at least a half an hour each day for formal meditation together with frequent mini-meditations will eventually allow you to maintain a state of deep calm and high focus for much if not most of your day.

Melting and Freezing

I'd like to say a few words about the phenomenon of "melting and freezing." Sometimes as you are observing and opening to the pain, you may experience the pain softening. Sometimes it softens just slightly, flowing like thick molasses or lava. Other times it may become quite fluid and vibratory, expanding and contracting like an amoeba or even breaking up into a shower of champagne bubbles and subtle energy like an atomizer spray. If that happens, enjoy it and concentrate on the vibrations and undulations, letting them relax you, massage you, and take you into a place of peace and safety.

After long and consistent practice of mindfulness meditation, such experiences of impermanence happen more frequently. However, it is of the utmost importance not to make this the goal of your meditation. The only goal is to do your best to observe carefully and to open to the pain as it is. Whenever you do this, you are helping along a natural process of purifying and evolving yourself, whether or not you consciously experience any change in pain at that moment.

Along the course of this purification the pain may melt, but it may also "freeze up" again for various lengths of time. When the pain "melts" there is a tendency to think that the meditation is working, that you're making progress, or that you're doing it right. But if the pain "re-freezes," you may think the meditation is not working or that you are doing it wrong. Always remember the definition of a successful meditation session: a successful meditation is any meditation you did!

Consciousness is a many-layered structure. Like the geological strata of the Earth, the deeper layers contain older fossils. As you are pouring clarity and openness on your pain, the pain is actually functioning as a conduit or tunnel into the deepest reaches of your subconscious mind. As a layer of psychological blockage comes to the surface, it may cause the pain to solidify or get worse. Just open to that and keep on observing as much as possible, without an agenda that the pain soften or go away. It is part of nature's wry sense of humor that the quickest way to "break up" pain is to observe it without the slightest desire that it be different in any way.

So if the pain melts and then gets hard and harsh once again, you have not gone backwards, but rather a deeper level of blockage has percolated upward. You may go through many cycles of softening and re-congealing. The English poet, T. S. Eliot, who was also a Christian mystic, vividly described this aspect of the spiritual path in his "Four Quartets," where he writes, "Between melting and freezing, the soul's sap quivers."

Fainting

When pain is extreme, you may feel like you are going to faint. Lie down and open up to that. Try to maintain your meditation technique through the fainting. Then the fainting will turn into an experience of deep meditative trance. You will feel that you have gone beyond the body and transcended suffering.

Admittedly this can be very frightening. It may take some practice before you can really "let go" into the faint. Eventually you will learn that there is nothing whatever to fear, as long as you keep a level of mindfulness and openness.

Primary Pain and Secondary Sensations

I would like to mention an important phenomenon which I call "secondary sensations." In addition to the primary sensation of pain, you may have secondary sensations such as heat, nausea, fatigue, agitation, heebie-jeebies, jerking, creepy-crawly feelings, etc. You may feel like your marrow is itching everywhere, bugs are crawling in your veins or that you're going to jump out of your skin. You may have pressures or tensions over your whole body. In some ways this may seem worse than the pain itself. These global secondary sensations are sometimes quite subtle. Remember, subtle is significant!

Often these secondary sensations are associated with emotionally charged resistance to the pain. Try to notice that your fear, hatred or annoyance is not continuous but tends to well up then subside for a moment then well up once again. As an experiment, feel your whole body and carefully observe what happens there each time annoyance or hatred of the pain arises. You may feel a wave of sensation spread for a moment through your body, perhaps so subtly that you aren't even sure it was there. That is the secondary sensation associated with resistance. Try not to resist the resistance!

Treat these secondary reactions in the same way you treat the pain itself. Observe them carefully and open up to them. Indeed, honor and welcome them because they are an important part of the purification process.

There is a deep relationship between these secondary sensations and the process of releasing blockages stored in the unconscious. I don't have time to really explain the theory at this point, but here's the gist, overly simplified.

Physical pain tends to activate your body's subtle memory of past pains, both physical and emotional. These will magnify your sense of suffering from the present pain unless you are able to detect them and open up to them. All you have to do is observe and open up to such secondary sensations the same way you observe and open up to the primary pain. This creates an optimal environment within which your unconscious can unburden itself. For years, unbeknownst to you, these subtle body memories have been continuously subliminally present, preventing each moment from being as fully satisfying as it could be. Now the pain has brought them clearly to the surface where they can be "felt through."

Character Distortion

Suffering may warp your perceptions and behavior, and this distortion can be a big part of the horror of the pain. If the pain persists or is chronic, a person may begin to act out of character and alienate friends, family and caregivers. There are a number of ways to deal with this.

First, try to remember that it is the suffering which is making the world look so grim and causing you to act out of character. As you learn to develop mindfulness, these distorting effects drop away.

Second, be willing to forgive yourself and others, over and over again. You aren't expected to get it right the first time around. It doesn't matter if you stray from the path, as long as you always return.

Third, remember impermanence. The periods of distortion don't last forever. As the Bible says, "This too shall pass."

Fourth, you can create and use a support structure of individuals and organizations who can give you objective feedback and get you back on track when you become mired in subjective suffering.

What to Do If Meditating on the Pain Makes It Worse

It is important to acknowledge the fact that the act of observing and opening to pain sometimes causes the pain to become dramatically aggravated. The pain may intensify or spread over the whole body. Sometimes it both intensifies and spreads; the hardest, worst flavor of the pain which previously had been confined to one region now fills the entire body, turning it into a single condensed mass of uniform sting. This sounds frightening and would seem to belie the claim that mindfulness helps one to cope with pain. Concerning this phenomenon, which I call "inflation", several points need to be remembered.

First, observing and opening usually lessens suffering. Inflation takes place only occasionally. Many people never experience this phenomenon. Second, when it does happen, it represents a stage in a natural process of liberation. Basically the body has now become a single sensation, unified and integrated. It has become "one", a necessary step before it can become "zero". Many victims of chronic pain are familiar with the cycle of the pain spreading and intensifying before it finally goes away, perhaps over a period of several hours or several days. The seeming aggravation of the pain as the result of meditating is in fact just the speeding up of this cycle. If you can somehow keep meditating through this inflation, the pain does not merely go away, but rather "breaks up", leaving insight and purification in its wake.

This should not be taken to imply that you must necessarily keep meditating on the pain if meditation is causing it to intensify and spread. When to do so is a subtle decision and depends on many factors. Allowing the pain to inflate too much too soon may create aversion to the meditative process or use up valuable energy that you need for healing or life's activities. So sometimes you may want to switch to a different kind of meditation, one that relaxes you or perhaps focuses away from the pain. You may even need to stop meditating entirely for a short time; use your own judgment.

When you finally do gain enough experience to stay with the pain no matter how much this worsens it, something like the following will happen.

Time slows down, the thinking mind more or less shuts off, the external world fades and the sense of a controlling self is neutralized. The entire stinging mass of the body slowly begins to lose its rigidity and to flow, first like dense lava then like honey… each wave of sensation seems to break up another kink in the substance of your soul.

The perception of the body "being material" is in fact produced largely by our habit of congealing around the flow of body sensation. The inflation of pain brings the body to a state of maximum uncontrollable congealing. When this finally gives, one comes to understand that there never was a "material body" in the ordinary sense. Body is just coagulated spirit.

Summing It Up

As soon as pain arises in the body, the mind becomes preoccupied with how to get relief. There are two kinds of relief, both of which are valid. There is the temporary relief that comes through eliminating a particular pain, and there is the permanent relief that comes through retraining your relationship to any and all pain. If temporary relief is not possible, then become ardently preoccupied with the noble quest for permanent relief!




Y V CHAWLA"Any attempt or idea to escape from the uneasiness of ‘what you are facing at the moment’ is dissipation of energy, keeps one addicted to escape."

How you face, meet the immediate problem, disturbance contains the key to the secret of existence. Seeking satisfactory answers about Truth, God, soul, liberation is a distraction, is an escape. You have to be fully interested in your work, in what you are doing, in dealing with what you are facing at the moment to come to ‘what is True’. Any attempt or idea to escape from the uneasiness of ‘what you are facing at the moment’ is dissipation of energy, keeps one addicted to escape.

You are physically safe and secured now. Any insecurity, uncertainty, discomfort you are experiencing is only psychological, that is, it is in respect of future. To be comfortable with this insecurity, uncertainty is to ‘feel’ complete security now. One is on the self-sustained ground. Touch of the Original has happened.



Y V Chawla

Dealing with Panic (Via WikiHow)

Via Wikihow:Panic

Living in constant fear and suffering from panic attacks? Think your time is up? Read this and you may be able to avoid these thoughts in the future.


1. Understand that panic attacks are a mind state. A panic attack can be a very frightening and uncomfortable experience, but it is absolutely not dangerous. Panic attacks are a state of mind, not an illness. Only in some cases is a panic attack a symptom of another illness.

2. Realize that you are not alone. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder that many other people share.

3. Understand what panic is. Panic is just excess adrenaline that runs through your body when it's confronted with a possible life-threatening situation also can be caused by something that triggered an event from your past that placed you in a threatening situation. Panic attacks are physiological. Feelings of panic can be very scary, but the feelings you have are your body telling you to fight or run away from the potential danger. They are mechanisms that evolved to protect you; but now, in this moment, there is no real danger. Close your eyes for a second, take a deep breath and rationalize your thoughts.

4. The brain's has tremendous capacity to heal and generate its own feelings of well-being. So avoid drugs for well being. If you have been relying on feeling better using some substance that is harming your health, then control your intake - once you push yourself past that point which you felt you could not cross - you brain will reward you with feelings of well being. Enhance this feeling with exercise. Do not underestimate your brain's capacity to generate feelings of well-being on its own. Its over all strength is as high as the strength of your outer skull. The brain rewards positive achievement positively. Overcome a weakness, overcome a fear and the brain will reward you positively.

6. Do not try to avoid those situations where panic happens. Avoidance will only 'reinforce' your panic and the more you avoid, the more panic the avoided situation will generate. When attacks do happen, don't try to fight the feelings. Instead, let the feelings of panic come and wash over you, and they will pass soon if you let them. Focus on your breathing during challenging circumstances.

7. Try as much as possible to decrease the speed of your breathing by seeking to relax. This should also help to ensure the right amount of oxygen gets to your brain. As a result this will help bring the anxiety or panic attack to a close more quickly.

8. Do endeavor to make an effort to include a daily exercise routine into your life. As well as helping with your overall health, you will detect that you can grapple with panic attacks much better.

9. Have a serious look at your overall lifestyle. In addition to regular exercise, you need to study your diet: Are you eating too many processed foods (junk food)? Does your diet include the required amount of vegetables and fiber?

10. Get some rest. The lion's share of us need a good 7-8 hours of sleep to feel rested. This will equip us so much better for the stresses of daily life.

The Transformation

6 Signs You Are Actually Maturing, Not Just Aging

VIA Wisdom Pills.



1. PATIENCE

Increasingly, we live in an on-demand world. With the exponential rise in technological smarts, patience levels seem to be dropping as a corollary. We have become so used to having our needs met at a quicker and quicker pace that there seems to be no stopping it. People want what they want, and they want it now. Yet no matter how fast our automation gets, no matter how much speed the service and technology industries gain, we will always be left waiting. Waiting is an intrinsic part of life. There is no escaping it. If you notice, as you get older, that you are more accepting of situations when they don’t go as planned, or long line-ups that can’t be avoided – even when you’re in a rush – congratulations! You have matured in a very particular manner and, whether you’re aware of it or not, you are no doubt happier because of it.


2. THE ABILITY TO LISTEN

The words ‘listen’ and ‘silent’ are composed of the same letters. In order to truly listen, one must first know how to be truly silent. What this is, is presence. You are present with the other person as they are speaking to you. Your mind is not wandering, you are not distracted or thinking about how they look or what they’re wearing, nor are you simply waiting for them to finish so you can then say your part. You are fully there with them, really hearing what’s being said and taking in both the emotion and the reality of it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a 2-year old or a 90-year old, the mature person understands that only through the practice of this still and silent attention can they possibly respond in an honest manner.


3. A SURRENDER TO CHANGE

There’s only one constant in life: inconstancy. If there’s one thing both scientist and sage can agree upon, this is it. As we age, this is a lesson we learn time and again. No matter how strongly we attempt to keep things the same, there is simply no doing so. Even if it takes years, life will shake things up, scare you, force change upon you. It will dash your hopes and collect dust on your desires, even as it surprises and delights you with things you could’ve never imagined. Most people, however, fail to grasp this and continue to push, plan, fight and resist, even up to the very end. If you are someone that has caught on, however – no matter what stage of life you may be at – again, congratulations! You have come to understand one of the greatest teachings the world has to offer: uncertainty is a precondition of life. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you don’t make plans and go about your business, it simply means that you let go of the need for things to turn out in a narrowly specific way. Which leads us to our next point…


4. A RELINQUISHMENT OF EXPECTATION

Ask most 20 year olds what kind of future they envision for themselves by the age of 40 and they’ll most likely have a few solid ideas. Check in with them at 40 and they’ll most likely tell you how they never could’ve imagined their lives turning out the way that it did. Far from being the burden so many experience this as, it is in fact one of life’s greatest gifts: the calling for you to release expectation. As we just pointed out, life is an organic process. Its flow is unpredictable. The mature person has been paying close enough attention to this over the years to actually come to understand it and integrate it into their world-view. This is the next stage of surrender to change, and it results in a change in perspective, due to a deep understanding of the uncertain nature of life itself. It’s signs are clearly reflected in the actions of the mature person – there is very little to no negative reactivity to what life throws at them. They have a calm presence. They’ve learned how to relax. Their mood is not dictated by specific outcomes, but comes instead from this Que Sera Sera attitude. They’ve learned how to go with the flow.


5. AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT ‘LOVE’ ACTUALLY IS

This is a big one. So many young people are sure that they have experienced ‘love’, when in fact what they’ve been through is an intense combination of biological and psychological need fulfilment, most often unconscious in origin. Unfortunately, this is often a pattern that continues throughout life for many, without there ever being a break-through into the deeper levels of love that lie waiting for them. Infatuation, lust and obsession are not love. It takes heartbreak, and the courage to face oneself to know and learn what love actually is. Whether it takes place in a string of relationships or in the issues that can arise over the course of a single, long-term love-affair, a mature person has come to understand that the purpose of all relationship is personal growth, and that nowhere is there more potential for personal growth than in the dynamics of their love relationship(s).

Through these relationships, the mature person has learned acceptance; they’ve learned empathy, understanding and compassion. Instead of appreciating only those things in the other person that they agree with or approve of, which is a very shallow form of love, they’ve learned to honour and even appreciate the other’s individuality instead, knowing that there is always something to be learned by the differences between them. In this way the love has deepened. It has become a choice, not some out-of-control whirlwind that sweeps you off of your feet and holds the power to make or break your happiness. Above all, the mature person understands that love is work. It is a commitment, and through the honouring of this work, through the honouring of this commitment, they have come to know levels of love, joy and ecstasy that could’ve never been reached through other means, no matter how seductive the shallower forms of love may have appeared at the time.


6. A RELEASE OF SELF-IMPORTANCE

The mature person has learned that the world doesn’t revolve around them. They know that they are not perfect, nor will they ever be, and they have therefore given up the game of projecting an air of perfection to others. They are honest about where they are at, their skills and talents, and their shortcomings. They understand that mistakes are an integral part of life, and they are not afraid to make them. They are also unafraid of being proven wrong. (In fact, the highly mature person celebrates it.) Having learned this, they are not only happier, but have probably accomplished many things, learning even more about both life and themselves in the process. Because of this, the mature person most likely enjoys what they do for a living. Those who have failed to get over themselves and face their fears are more likely to be stuck in a job they dislike. The willingness to try and fail, time and again – due to the understanding that they are not as important as their mind makes them out to be – leads to a greater understanding of one’s strengths and weaknesses and, ultimately, life itself. Although it seems almost paradoxical, through this releasing of a sense of self-importance, the mature person has almost assuredly achieved a number of important things.

Global, Universal Suffering with Carolyn Myss

I would love to have to ability or the inclination of conscience that would allow me to block out the events occurring in the world right now. I could tell myself that just by not watching the news, I succeed in keeping the horror show of destruction and murder from my life - my quiet neighborhood - but that is just illusion....more illusion.

The horror is global and it travels within the psychic field of life. Deep in the intuitive reaches of my soul, I am immersed in the sensation that the system of life itself has gone on alert - somehow humanity is coming close to losing its fundamental reverence for human life. That reverence is our essential touch stone with our humanity.

A collective madness is manifesting in choices that are repeat performances of previous slaughters are rationalized to be sound judgments - once again. If ever a person wanted to understand the handiwork of darkness, one need only look at how acts of hatred are rationalized. There is no reason for someone who identifies him or herself as a "conscious" much less "civilized" human being to ever participate in an act of hatred - ever.

That first time you declare yourself to be "conscious", you are saying that you have successfully rid yourself of those demons that give you permission to violate your own spiritual beliefs. You are saying that you have shed the option of violence because you see the folly in it, the uselessness of it - that indeed such acts only lead to more. You are saying that you have discovered more "conscious" resources within you with which you will now engage with life You are saying that you are strong enough, conscious enough to recognize when a demon - pressing upon the Victim or Martyr archetype in you - is talking you into betraying your higher instincts. You are telling yourself that your soul has the stamina to withstand the tsunamis of life without turning dark and hostile.

Human actions are increasingly becoming the antithesis of instinctual choices that lean in favor of humanity. We are growing increasingly frightened instead of increasingly open, loving, and global. We are moving in the opposite direction of where an "advanced" society should be headed. We are imploding. We can feel the tension building in the collective atmosphere - even if we cannot name that tension. An ordinary woman, interviewed for a comment on the Malaysian crash said, "What's happening in our world?"

All life breathes together. All events impact all life one way or another. Some people are physically wounded and others will absorb the wounds on the psychic level. Even those who ignore the events will experience the consequences as they continue to unfold. If ever we needed to pray for the world and for humanity, it is now. We must be about the business of utilizing what it means to be "spiritually conscious". You become conscious in order to put your soul to work. If it feels right to you, consider this prayer of your own version of it, "I open myself as a channel of grace for healing and restoring the balance of life. I ask that all life be blessed." And stay ever mindful of how easily anger and hatred bite at your heels...."Hover over me God..."

After Death Musings - I

VIA : http://thespiritscience.net/2014/06/28/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-death/

BY ANNIE KAGAN:

The List

surrender-goddess

1. The First Thing that Happens is Bliss. As soon as you die, you’re sucked out of your body into a Healing Chamber. The lights in that Chamber erase all the harm you suffered during your entire lifetime, physical, mental and emotional. So, in less than a nanosecond, all your pain is gone.

2. You Still Feel Like Yourself. Even though you don’t have your body anymore, you still feel like an individual. Actually, you feel more like yourself than you did when you were alive. There’s so much influence from others while you’re on earth that in a way you don’t get to be you.

3. Light Has a Personality. In the afterlife the light rays have qualities like wisdom, kindness, compassion and intelligence. This light makes visible what is invisible on earth, the Divine nature of all things.

4. Sin and Punishment is a Human Concept. There’s a lot of mumbo jumbo on earth about what might be waiting for you after you die. Making mistakes while you’re alive is part of the earth deal. If we had to be perfect to get to so-called Heaven, no- one would make it there.

5. Your Life On Earth Isn’t a Punishment Either. Sure, there’s pain in life, but not because you’ve done anything to deserve it. Pain is part of the human experience, as natural as breath or eyesight or blood moving through your veins.

6. After You Die, Instead of Judgment Day There’s No-Judgment Day. When you review your life, you see the paths you took and the ones you didn’t. You see where your genius was and where you might have done better, but you don’t feel judgmental about it. And even though it might not make sense to you now, after you die you understand that you had a great life, even the hard parts.

7. You’re Happy You Look Like Yourself. You’re not concerned with the way you look. There are no pretensions or efforts to appear any which way. You just radiate, which is effortless.

8. Love Is Not the Same As Earth Love. You’re not loved because of what you do, how you look, how famous you are, or how much money you make. It’s not like yesterday I loved you, but today I don’t anymore. Love is truly unconditional. Most controversial of all is that in the afterlife there’s perfect compassion and no matter how you lived you are loved.

Kundalini The Joy Of Celibacy And Yoking The Life Force To Enlightenment

KUNDALINI THE JOY OF CELIBACY AND YOKING THE LIFE FORCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT

By Yogi Tom/Silver Dawn Media © 1997

I found that once I had sat out the immediate crisis of desire that inevitably arises with the practice of celibacy if one has previously enjoyed an active sex life, that I had to master the very esoteric art of “inner sex”.

Even among knowledgeable Western Tantric and kundalini yogis celibacy can sometimes be under-rated or undersold, when traditionally it has always been a useful, even essential, means of spiritual development that can have quite dramatic effects – usually positive, but potentially negative and dangerous, if one doesn’t understand the esoteric nature of sexo-yogic techniques and the Pandora’s Box of the mind they can open up.

Furthermore, given its association with repression and “unnaturalness” in Western popular culture, celibacy in general has a bad image.

When kundalini awakens one often enjoys very intense, fulfilling and powerful sexual union in the conventional manner, and, even if one knew how to practice celibacy in a positive and spiritually creative manner, it might seem too ambitious a goal given the – often urgent – need to find an outlet for this extraordinary energy that often has a very powerful will of its own.

Thus it is, that, if one is thinking about possibly practicing celibacy as a positive spiritual move to harness the energy of an awakened kundalini, it is best to do so holistically, slowly and from a firm foundation of deep spiritual commitment and study of the relevant scriptures.

The sexual energy and fluids are the purest energy source on the planet and transform the mind, body and spirit in very subtle and profound ways.

They are the lifeblood of real Tantric meditation and transmutation of mundane consciousness into pure consciousness. Have no illusions about what Tantra really involves – on a truly cosmic level – once the consciousness begins to be nourished, invigorated and purified by one’s very life force.

Once one has started to go upwards as well as outwards in one’s focus of energy then there can be no going back as a transformed and purified nervous system, for instance, cannot be de-sensitized, and spiritual revelations flowing from the opening of the head and throat chakras cannot be forgotten or ignored.

Given these factors one needs a certain healthy caution as well as, in some ways, recognizing what an opportunity for enlightenment kundalini awakening offers and just how rapidly and effectively celibacy can transform a kundalini experience into a truly extraordinary expansion and deepening of understanding and spiritual consciousness…there is, as ever, a dramatic tension within, between the urge for conventional outer union and the more intuitive sense that perhaps a deeper, more permanent and more profound inner divine union is possible through the esoteric art of sublimating the sexuality.

To sublimate one’s sexuality one needs to know all the esoteric theory of the chakras and nadis, prana and chi/ki, the meridians and the significance of the spinal column as a channel for the sublimated sexual energy and fluids.

One needs to have mastered the fundamentals of hatha yoga, in particular the three major body locks – mulabandha, uddiyana and jalandhara – that are like natural fuses on an electric circuit board carrying high voltage current.

To gain this knowledge one must create a deep and safe foundation by drawing on the basic ideas of the Hindu, Taoist and Tibetan traditions at the very least.

To get an idea of what’s involved one could start with three classics: Swami Radha’s Kundalini Yoga for the West, Richard Wilhelm’s translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower and Lama Govinda‘s Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism.

The spine feeds sublimated sexual and spiritual energy upwards into the brain and so one must be prepared to experience “spiritual and psychic brain surgery” in the long run if one is going to become celibate after the kundalini has awakened.

If one is interested in further researching into the psychic and spiritual effects of celibacy, one could read Gopi Krishna’s personal account which describes how, in the male, the sublimated semen feeds the nervous system and brain and subtle body round the clock once this esoteric evolutionary mechanism has been activated.

Krishna also notes how his semen was refined in nature and produced in greater quantities than usual to meet the needs of the evolving nervous system and subtle body.

Given this intense and extraordinary effect of celibacy one has to prepare carefully – no high pressure job – and preferably a highly flexible one in case things move faster than expected, a pure diet, a happy partner who won’t try to tempt you away from your monastic vows, friendships based on an understanding of the subtle and profound nature of what you are doing, a peaceful environment in which to nurture the subtle experience unfolding within as the chakras are purified and flower so revealing your true spiritual nature, no dire financial pressure and, ideally, some kind of guru or spiritual tradition that understands the principles involved in this hidden path that is, in effect, the fast track to enlightenment.

I actually used both the Hindu Tantra and the Tibetan Tantra and found different scriptures and different gurus met different needs as things progressed.

I was not shopping around for influences, I simply used what was appropriate at the time and let it go when that influence seemed to have run its course.

One has to travel light with kundalini and there is no way one can ever know what approaches will be appropriate once one has passed the point of no return with the full flowering of the throat chakra. Theories and fixed concepts become redundant as one travels from world to world of the mind and universe.

However, it can be a very lonely universe without a guru one trusts totally….and there may come a time when even he or she cannot help you.

So have no illusions about what the Tantra involves – it’s like a crucible of fire at times, a cruel cosmic vice sometimes, a still golden pool at other times…..you learn to co-operate with the forces involved as there is literally no alternative. Once started it can seem as if there is a conspiracy to make you become enlightened or burn in hell for the rest of time !

As one goes beyond the heart chakra into the world of the throat chakra, this opens up the world of pure sound in the form of mantra which, in some ways, is an introduction to pure symbolic forms such as yantras, yidams and mandalas.

While one cannot predict which forms will be useful for yourself, it is worth reading up on the significance of these in some depth in advance as you won’t have much time once they begin to get a grip on the development of your consciousness as it is purified by sexo-yogic techniques and the spontaneous natural processes that come with creative celibacy.

I found that once I had sat out the immediate crisis of desire that inevitably arises with the practice of celibacy if one has previously enjoyed an active sex life, that I had to master the very esoteric art of “inner sex”.

Anyone who’s seen Tibetan or Hindu Tantric art will probably already understand that erotic coupling mirrors our potential for integrating, synthesizing and sublimating our natural dualistic nature through esoteric meditation.

In many ways this is actually an extraordinarily natural and straightforward process if only our conditioning would not get in the way and so repress, distort or cling onto our sexual nature.

Dreams can be very useful guides to where the mind has got to as highly erotic, beautiful or dualistic themes can point ot the nature of the energies emerging from the subconscious as the mind becomes purer and feeds on the new fuel or nectar you have offered it in the form one’s own sexual fluids and energy.

One has to listen very carefully to these messages and, quite literally, start to live the dream so as to integrate the waking consciousness with these emerging primal forces.

As these very pure energies emerge into the conscious realms, one will discover why it was so important to have prepared oneself through spiritual practice, study and integrating one’s lifestyle and relationships in true yogic fashion – for, as the cleansing of one’s consciousness begins in earnest, the past and the old self will begin to look very different to how one imagined them to be at the time.

Without a firm foundation and faith in the Tantra in general and the particular method or guru one is following then things can get out of control very quickly as these are forces that rarely manifest in everyday life.

Minutes and seconds can bring insights and revelations and bliss that go beyond anything anyone could dream of, even in the course of a lifetime, on a more mundane, but less hazardous, spiritual path.

In the Buddhist tradition the sutras of the Theravada and Mahayana were specifically designed – amongst other things – to prepare one for the rigors and lightning fast path of the Tantra.

Some teachers say 10 years of sutra practice is needed before seeking Tantric initiation, but if one already has a spontaneous kundalini awakening and one is interested in exploring celibacy, then one will have to backtrack somewhat and lay the foundation before taking the direct route to the crown chakra and beyond.

Given one is laying the foundation with the added power of kundalini, the linear time spent doing this is not important, what counts is the depth of one’s commitment and understanding of what it is to lay spiritual roots to one’s every thought, word and deed until one’s whole being simply becomes a spiritual tool that is obeying the intelligence of kundalini rather than pursuing the plans of the ego.

Thus, perhaps the most powerful technique for transforming a celibate mind is the savasana or corpse pose of hatha yoga for, done correctly, this allows the mind to become integrated in a way no conscious technique could ever hope to attain.

Perform savasana before sleeping each night and the effect can be indescribable in giving one an extraordinary sense of wholeness and healing on every level of being.

And one may well find that psychic and sexual phenomena such as the dakini – forms of mystical goddesses embodying different aspects of one’s true mind – emerge from the depths of one’s mind quite readily and lead one into the extraordinary world of inner orgasm that can, at best, permeate the whole body and mind for hours on end, creating a new holistic and indestructible consciousness capable of breaking free from and dissolving all the old attachments.

If one doesn’t like wild orgasmic psychedelic trips with crazy women – such as the dakini of the Tantric scriptures – then don’t even think about sublimating your sexuality if one is undergoing a kundalini experience. It is truly a primal experience encountering the female aspects of the psyche.

If one is serious about going all the way with kundalini, celibacy and meditation, then by this stage one obviously needs to be able to focus within all the time and so some logistical planning is needed that is flexible enough to adapt to the whims of the shakti and the dakini.

Even living in a spiritual or monastic community may not be the best bet if this involves following strict rules as these kind of primal forces are no respecters of etiquette or mundane notions of spiritual discipline and may require both long periods of intense introspection as well as periods of rest, exertion and integration of subtle forces with the physical body….explaining this kind of erratic behavior to a community working to a routine could be very difficult if they don’t know the mysteries of the Tantra.

In some ways, celibacy is the foundation stone of real Tantra, so think about it, read about it, spiritually refine your existing sexual relationship if you have one, but if you have an awakened kundalini remember the Zen saying before actually trying celibacy in earnest: “Better not to start. Once started better to finish.”

Think of it as like Himalayan mountaineering – the preparation has to be perfect, but even then one can find oneself on the receiving end of Nature in its cruelest forms in ways that no mortal could have predicted. Ignorance – even of things one would not normally be expected to know – is no defense on the upper reaches of the Tantric path. Kundalini can forgive, but even she has her limits if you push things too far.

So have a guru to bail you out should things get out of control (and to ensure this need does not arise in the first place) and create as many safety nets as possible through sincere and natural spiritual practice long before embarking on celibate Tantric meditation.

For sublimating one’s sexuality after a kundalini awakening is like putting the purest fuel in a rocket – it’ll give it the means to get airborne so long as mission control and the flight planners understand the principles of gravity and aerodynamics….and the beauty and terror of the Tantra is that the spiritual equivalent of this kind of knowledge and understanding comes from the heart, the intuition, dreams, scriptures, Mother Earth, Nature, the stars and the guru. It is a vast, limitless and ancient primordial wisdom that has no time for the arrogance of the Western ego.

The one thing you can probably leave out of the Tantric equation is one’s own conditioned intellect and the mundane self that goes with it. Lose that in deference to the rest of the universe and one may begin to learn something and become something of spiritual value. – SILVER DAWN MEDIA

COPYRIGHT TOM ASTON/YOGI TOM/SILVER DAWN MEDIA 1997 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOR THE USE OF THE WEBSITE KUNDALINI RESOURCE CENTER AND OTHERS INTERESTED IN KUNDALINI. MAY BE REPRODUCED FOR NON-PROFIT SPIRITUAL ACTIVITIES ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The ideas and opinions expressed here are those of the author and/or authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the site host, or the community at large. Also, any exercises presented here, either physical or mental, are to be practiced at your own risk. Consult your physician, therapist, guide, or guru before you begin, or should you experience any discomfort or trauma from any of the processes involved in the awakening of kundalini energy. Many people consider this energy force too powerful to work with on your own without the active assistance of a guide. Use your own best judgment. By all means, be extremely careful, and progress slowly and cautiously on your path to Kundalini Awakening. It is in your best interest to do so.

Vivekananda on Maya and Illusion

Swami Vivekananda

MAYA AND ILLUSION (Delivered in London )



Almost all of you have heard of the word Maya. Generally it is used, though incorrectly, to denote illusion, or delusion, or some such thing. But the theory of Maya forms one of the pillars upon which the Vedanta rests; it is, therefore, necessary that it should be properly understood. I ask a little patience of you, for there is a great danger of its being misunderstood. The oldest idea of Maya that we find in the Vedic literature is the sense of delusion; but then the real theory had not been reached. We find such passages as, "Indra through his Maya assumed various forms." Here it is true the word Maya means something like magic, and we find various other passages, always taking the same meaning. The word Maya then dropped out of sight altogether. But in the meantime the idea was developing. Later, the question was raised: "Why can't we know this secret of the universe?" And the answer given was very significant: "Because we talk in vain, and because we are satisfied with the things of the senses, and because we are running after desires; therefore, we, as it were, cover the Reality with a mist." Here the word Maya is not used at all, but we get the idea that the cause of our ignorance is a kind of mist that has come between us and the Truth. Much later on, in one of the latest Upanishads, we find the word Maya reappearing, but this time, a transformation has taken place in it, and a mass of new meaning has attached itself to the word. Theories had been propounded and repeated, others had been taken up, until at last the idea of Maya became fixed. We read in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, "Know nature to be Maya and the Ruler of this Maya is the Lord Himself." Coming to our philosophers, we find that this word Maya has been manipulated in various fashions, until we come to the great Shankaracharya. The theory of Maya was manipulated a little by the Buddhists too, but in the hands of the Buddhists it became very much like what is called Idealism, and that is the meaning that is now generally given to the word Maya. When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts--what we are and what we see around us.

As I have told you before, the minds of the people from whom the Vedas came were intent upon following principles, discovering principles. They had no time to work upon details or to wait for them; they wanted to go deep into the heart of things. Something beyond was calling them, as it were, and they could not wait. Scattered through the Upanishads, we find that the details of subjects which we now call modern sciences are often very erroneous, but, at the same time, their principles are correct. For instance, the idea of ether, which is one of the latest theories of modern science, is to be found in our ancient literature in forms much more developed than is the modern scientific theory of ether today, but it was in principle. When they tried to demonstrate the workings of that principle, they made many mistakes. The theory of the all-pervading life principle, of which all life in this universe is but a differing manifestation was understood in Vedic times; it is found in the Brahmanas. There is a long hymn in the Samhitas in praise of Prana of which all life is but a manifestation.

By the by, it may interest some of you to know that there are theories in the Vedic philosophy about the origin of life on this earth very similar to those which have been advanced by some modern European scientists. You, of course, all know that there is a theory that life came from other planets. It is a settled doctrine with some Vedic philosophers that life comes in this way from the moon.

Coming to the principles, we find these Vedic thinkers very courageous and wonderfully bold in propounding large and generalised theories. Their solution of the mystery of the universe, from the external world, was as satisfactory as it could be. The detailed workings of modern science do not bring the question one step nearer to solution, because the principles have failed. If the theory of ether failed in ancient times to give a solution of the mystery of the universe, working out the details of that ether theory would not bring us much nearer to the truth. If the theory of all-pervading life failed as a theory of this universe, it would not mean anything more if worked out in detail, for the details do not change the principle of the universe. What I mean is that in their inquiry into the principle, the Hindu thinkers were as bold, and in some cases, much bolder than the moderns. They made some of the grandest generalisations that have yet been reached, and some still remain as theories, which modern science has yet to get even as theories. For instance, they not only arrived at the ether theory, but went beyond and classified mind also as a still more rarefied ether. Beyond that again, they found a still more rarefied ether. Yet that was no solution, it did not solve the problem. No amount of knowledge of the external world could solve the problem. "But", says the scientists, "we are just beginning to know a little: wait a few thousand years and we shall get the solution." "No," says the Vedantist, for he has proved beyond all doubt that the mind is limited, that it cannot go beyond certain limits--beyond time, space, and causation. As no man can jump out of his own self, so no man can go beyond the limits that have been put upon him by the laws of time and space. Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time, and space would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three. What does the statement of the existence of the world mean, then? "This world has no existence." What is meant by that? It means that it has no absolute existence. It exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind of everyone else. We see this world with the five senses but if we had another sense, we would see in it something more. If we had yet another sense, it would appear as something still different. It has, therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it. It is a mixture of existence and non-existence.

Coming from abstractions to the common, everyday details of our lives, we find that our life is a contradiction, a mixture of existence and non-existence. There is this contradiction in knowledge. It seems that man can know everything, if he only wants to know; but before he has gone a few steps, he finds an adamantine wall which he cannot pass. All his work is in a circle, and he cannot go beyond that circle. The problems which are nearest and dearest to him are impelling him on and calling, day and night, for a solution, but he cannot solve them, because he cannot go beyond his intellect. And yet that desire is implanted strongly in him. Still we know that the only good is to be obtained by controlling and checking it. With every breath, every impulse of our heart asks us to be selfish. At the same time, there is some power beyond us which says that it is unselfishness alone which is good. Every child is a born optimist; he dreams golden dreams. In youth he becomes still more optimistic. It is hard for a young man to believe that there is such a thing as death, such a thing as defeat or degradation. Old age comes, and life is a mass of ruins. Dreams have vanished into the air, and the man becomes a pessimist. Thus we go from one extreme to another, buffeted by nature, without knowing where we are going. It reminds me of a celebrated song in the Lalita Vistara, the biography of Buddha. Buddha was born, says the book, as the saviour of mankind, but he forgot himself in the luxuries of his palace. Some angels came and sang a song to rouse him. And the burden of the whole song is that we are floating down the river of life which is continually changing with no stop and no rest. So are our lives, going on and on without knowing any rest. What are we to do? The man who has enough to eat and drink is an optimist, and he avoids all mention of misery, for it frightens him. Tell not to him of the sorrows and the sufferings of the world; go to him and tell that it is all good. "Yes, I am safe," says he. "Look at me! I have a nice house to live in. I do not fear cold and hunger; therefore do not bring these horrible pictures before me." But, on the other hand, there are others dying of cold and hunger. If you go and teach them that it is all good, they will not hear you. How can they wish others to be happy when they are miserable? Thus we are oscillating between optimism and pessimism.

Then, there is the tremendous fact of death. The whole world is going towards death; everything dies. All our progress, our vanities, our reforms, our luxuries, our wealth, our knowledge, have that one end--death. That is all that is certain. Cities come and go, empires rise and fall, planets break into pieces and crumble into dust, to be blown about by the atmospheres of other planets. Thus it has been going on from time without beginning. Death is the end of everything. Death is the end of life, of beauty, of wealth, of power, of virtue too. Saints die and sinners die, kings die and beggars die. They are all going to death, and yet this tremendous clinging on to life exists. Somehow, we do not know why, we cling to life; we cannot give it up. And this is Maya.

The mother is nursing a child with great care; all her soul, her life, is in that child. The child grows, becomes a man, and perchance becomes a blackguard and a brute, kicks her and beats her every day; and yet the mother clings to the child; and when her reason awakes, she covers it up with the idea of love. She little thinks that it is not love, that it is something which has got hold of her nerves, which she cannot shake off; however she may try, she cannot shake off the bondage she is in. And this is Maya.

We are all after the Golden Fleece. Every one of us thinks that this will be his. Every reasonable man sees that his chance is, perhaps, one in twenty millions, yet everyone struggles for it. And this is Maya.

Death is stalking day and night over this earth of ours, but at the same time we think we shall live eternally. A question was once asked of King Yudhisthira, "What is the most wonderful thing on this earth?" And the king replied, "Every day people are dying around us, and yet men think they will never die." And this is Maya.

These tremendous contradictions in our intellect, in our knowledge, yea, in all the facts of our life face us on all sides. A reformer arises and wants to remedy the evils that are existing in a certain nation; and before they have been remedied, a thousand other evils arise in another place. It is like an old house that is falling; you patch it up in one place and the ruin extends to another. In India, our reformers cry and preach against the evils of enforced widowhood. In the West, non-marriage is the great evil. Help the unmarried on one side; they are suffering. Help the widows on the other; they are suffering. It is like chronic rheumatism: you drive it from the head, and it goes to the body; you drive it from there, and it goes to the feet. Reformers arise and preach that learning, wealth, and culture should not be in the hands of a select few; and they do their best to make them accessible to all. These may bring more happiness to some, but, perhaps as culture comes, physical happiness lessens. The knowledge of happiness brings the knowledge of unhappiness. Which way then shall we go? The least amount of material prosperity that we enjoy is causing the same amount of misery elsewhere. This is the law. The young, perhaps, do not see it clearly, but those who have lived long enough and those who have struggled enough will understand it. And this is Maya. These things are going on, day and night, and to find a solution of this problem is impossible. Why should it be so? It is impossible to answer this, because the question cannot be logically formulated. There is neither how nor why in fact; we only know that it is and that we cannot help it. Even to grasp it, to draw an exact image of it in our own mind, is beyond our power. How can we solve it then?

Maya is a statement of the fact of this universe, of how it is going on. People generally get frightened when these things are told to them. But bold we must be. Hiding facts is not the way to find a remedy. As you all know, a hare hunted by dogs puts its head down and thinks itself safe; so, when we run into optimism, we do just like the hare, but that is no remedy. There are objections against this, but you may remark that they are generally from people who possess many of the good things of life. In this country (England) it is very difficult to be a pessimist. Everyone tells me how wonderfully the world is going on, how progressive; but what he himself is, in his own world. Old questions arise: Christianity must be the only true religion of the world, because Christian nations are prosperous! But that assertion contradicts itself, because the prosperity of the Christian nation depends on the misfortune of non-Christian nations. There must be some to prey on. Suppose the whole world were to become Christian, then the Christian nations would become poor, because there would be no non-Christian nations for them to prey upon. Thus the argument kills itself. Animals are living upon plants, men upon animals and, worst of all, upon one another, the strong upon the weak. This is going on everywhere. And this is Maya. What solution do you find for this? We hear every day many explanations, and are told that in the long run all will be good. Taking it for granted that this is possible, why should there be this diabolical way of doing good? Why cannot good be done through good, instead of through these diabolical methods? The descendants of the human beings of today will be happy; but why must there be all this suffering now? There is no solution. This is Maya.

Again, we often hear that it is one of the features of evolution that it eliminates evil, and this evil being continually eliminated from the world, at last only good will remain. That is very nice to hear, and it panders to the vanity of those who have enough of this world's goods, who have not a hard struggle to face every day and are not being crushed under the wheel of this so-called evolution. It is very good and comforting indeed to such fortunate ones. The common herd may suffer, but they do not care; let them die, they are of no consequence. Very good, yet this argument is fallacious from beginning to end. It takes for granted, in the first place, that manifested good and evil in this world are two absolute realities. In the second place, it makes a still worse assumption that the amount of good is an in-creasing quantity and the amount of evil is a decreasing quantity. So, if evil is being eliminated in this way by what they call evolution, there will come a time when all this evil will be eliminated and what remains will be all good. Very easy to say, but can it be proved that evil is a lessening quality? Take, for instance, the man who lives in a forest, who does not know how to cultivate the mind, cannot read a book, has not heard of such a thing as writing. If he is severely wounded, he is soon all right again; while we die if we get a scratch. Machines are making things cheap, making for progress and evolution, but millions are crushed, that one may become rich; while one becomes rich, thousands at the same time become poorer and poorer, and whole masses of human beings are made slaves. That way it is going on. The animal man lives in the senses. If he does not get enough to eat, he is miserable; or if something happens to his body, he is miserable. In the senses both his misery and his happiness begin and end. As soon as this man progresses, as soon as his horizon of happiness increases, his horizon of unhappiness increases proportionately. The man in the forest does not know what it is to be jealous, to be in the law courts, to pay taxes, to be blamed by society, to be ruled over day and night by the most tremendous tyranny that human diabolism ever invented, which pries into the secrets of every human heart. He does not know how man becomes a thousand times more diabolical than any other animal, with all his vain knowledge and with all his pride. Thus it is that, as we emerge out of the senses, we develop higher powers of enjoyment, and at the same time we have to develop higher powers of suffering too. The nerves become finer and capable of more suffering. In every society, we often find that the ignorant, common man, when abused does not feel much, but he feels a good thrashing. But the gentleman cannot bear a single word of abuse; he has become so finely nerved. Misery has increased with his susceptibility to happiness. This does not go much to prove the evolutionist's case. As we increase our power to be happy, we also increase our power to suffer, and sometimes I am inclined to think that if we increase our power to become happy in arithmetical progression, we shall increase, on the other hand, our power to become miserable in geometrical progression. We who are progressing know that the more we progress, the more avenues are opened to pain as well as to pleasure. And this is Maya.

Thus we find that Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of facts as they exist, that the very basis of our being is contradiction, that wherever there is good, there must also be evil, and wherever there is evil, there must be some good, wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow, and everyone who smiles will have to weep, and vice versa. Nor can this state of things be remedied. We may verily imagine that there will be a place where there will be only good and no evil, where we shall only smile and never weep. This is impossible in the nature of things; for the conditions will remain the same. Wherever there is the power of producing a smile in us, there lurks the power of producing tears. Wherever there is the power of producing happiness, there lurks somewhere the power of making us miserable.

Thus the Vedanta philosophy is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It voices both these views and takes things as they are. It admits that this world is a mixture of good and evil, happiness and misery, and that to increase the one, one must of necessity increase the other. There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms. The great secret revealed by this analysis is that good and bad are not two cut-and-dried, separate existences. There is not one thing in this world of ours which you can label as good and good alone, and there is not one thing in the universe which you can label as bad and bad alone. The very same phenomenon which is appearing to be good now, may appear to be bad tomorrow. The same thing which is producing misery in one, may produce happiness in another. The fire that burns the child, may cook a good meal for a starving man. The same nerves that carry the sensations of misery carry also the sensations of happiness. The only way to stop evil, therefore, is to stop good also; there is no other way. To stop death, we shall have to stop life also. Life without death and happiness without misery are contradictions, and neither can be found alone, because each of them is but a different manifestation of the same thing. What I thought to be good yesterday, I do not think to be good now. When I look back upon my life and see what were my ideals at different times, I find this to be so. At one time my ideal was to drive a strong pair of horses; at another time I thought, if I could make a certain kind of sweetmeat, I should be perfectly happy; later I imagined that I should be entirely satisfied if I had a wife and children and plenty of money. Today I laugh at all these ideals as mere childish nonsense.

The Vedanta says, there must come a time when we shall look back and laugh at the ideals which make us afraid of giving up our individuality. Each one of us wants to keep this body for an indefinite time, thinking we shall be very happy, but there will come a time when we shall laugh at this idea. Now, if such be the truth, we are in a state of hopeless contradiction--neither existence nor non-existence, neither misery nor happiness, but a mixture of them. What, then, is the use of Vedanta and all other philosophies and religions? And, above all, what is the use of doing good work? This is a question that comes to the mind. If it is true that you cannot do good without doing evil, and whenever you try to create happiness there will always be misery, people will ask you, "What is the use of doing good?" The answer is in the first place, that we must work for lessening misery, for that is the only way to make ourselves happy. Every one of us finds it out sooner or later in our lives. The bright ones find it out a little earlier, and the dull ones a little later. The dull ones pay very dearly for the discovery and the bright ones less dearly. In the second place, we must do our part, because that is the only way of getting out of this life of contradiction. Both the forces of good and evil will keep this universe alive for us, until we awake from our dreams and give up this building of mud pies. That lesson we shall have to learn, and it will take a long, long time to learn it.

Attempts have been made in Germany to build a system of philosophy on the basis that the Infinite has become the finite. Such attempts are also made in England. And the analysis of the position of these philosophers is this, that the Infinite is trying to express itself in this universe, and that there will come a time when the Infinite will succeed in doing so. It is all very well, and we have used the words Infinite and manifestation and expression, and so on, but philosophers naturally ask for a logical fundamental basis for the statement that the finite can fully express the Infinite. The Absolute and the Infinite can become this universe only by limitation. Everything must be limited that comes through the senses, or through the mind, or through the intellect; and for the limited to be the unlimited is simply absurd, and can never be. The Vedanta, on the other hand, says that it is true that the Absolute or the Infinite is trying to express itself in the finite, but there will come a time when it will find that it is impossible, and it will then have to beat a retreat, and this beating a retreat means renunciation which is the real beginning of religion. Nowadays it is very hard even to talk of renunciation. It was said of me in America that I was a man who came out of a land that had been dead and buried for five thousand years, and talked of renunciation. So says, perhaps, the English philosopher. Yet it is true that that is the only path to religion. Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream--the child gives up its play and wants to go back to its mother. It finds the truth of the statement, "Desire is never satisfied by the enjoyment of desires, it only increases the more, as fire, when butter is poured upon it."

This is true of all sense-enjoyments, of all intellectual enjoyments, and of all the enjoyments of which the human mind is capable. They are nothing, they are within Maya, within this network beyond which we cannot go. We may run therein through infinite time and find no end, and whenever we struggle to get a little enjoyment, a mass of misery falls upon us. How awful is this! And when I think of it, I cannot but consider that this theory of Maya, this statement that it is all Maya, is the best and only explanation. What an amount of misery there is in this world; and if you travel among various nations you will find that one nation attempts to cure its evils by one means, and another by another. The very same evil has been taken up by various races, and attempts have been made in various ways to check it, yet no nation has succeeded. If it has been minimised at one point, a mass of evil has been crowded at another point. Thus it goes. The Hindus, to keep up a high standard of chastity in the race, have sanctioned child-marriage, which in the long run has degraded the race. At the same time, I cannot deny that this child-marriage makes the race more chaste. What would you have? If you want the nation to be more chaste, you weaken men and women physically by child-marriage. On the other hand, are you in England any better off? No, because chastity is the life of a nation. Do you not find in history that the first death-sign of a nation has been unchastity? When that has entered, the end of the race is in sight. Where shall we get a solution of these miseries then? If parents select husbands and wives for their children, then this evil is minimised. The daughters of India are more practical than sentimental. But very little of poetry remains in their lives. Again, if people select their own husbands and wives, that does not seem to bring much happiness. The Indian woman is generally very happy; there are not many cases of quarrelling between husband and wife. On the other hand in the United States, where the greatest liberty obtains, the number of unhappy homes and marriages is large. Unhappiness is here, there, and everywhere. What does it show? That, after all, not much happiness has been gained by all these ideals. We all struggle for happiness and as soon as we get a little happiness on one side, on the other side there comes unhappiness.

Shall we not work to do good then? Yes, with more zest than ever, but what this knowledge will do for us is to break down fanaticism. The Englishman will no more be a fanatic and curse the Hindu. He will learn to respect the customs of different nations. There will be less of fanaticism and more of real work. Fanatics cannot work, they waste three-fourths of their energy. It is the level-headed, calm, practical man who works. So, the power to work will increase from this idea. Knowing that this is the state of things, there will be more patience. The sight of misery or of evil will not be able to throw us off our balance and make us run after shadows. Therefore, patience will come to us, knowing that the world will have to go on in its own way. If, for instance, all men have become good, the animals will have in the meantime evolved into men, and will have to pass through the same state, and so with the plants. But only one thing is certain; the mighty river is rushing towards the ocean, and all the drops that constitute the stream will in time be drawn into that boundless ocean. So, in this life, with all its miseries and sorrows, its joys and smiles and tears, one thing is certain, that all things are rushing towards their goal, and it is only a question of time when you and I, and plants and animals, and every particle of life that exists must reach the Infinite Ocean of Perfection, must attain to Freedom, to God.

Let me repeat, once more, that the Vedantic position is neither pessimism nor optimism. It does not say that this world is all evil or all good. It says that our evil is of no less value than our good, and our good of no more value than our evil. They are bound together. This is the world, and knowing this, you work with patience. What for? Why should we work? If this is the state of things, what shall we do? Why not become agnostics? The modern agnostics also know there is no solution of this problem, no getting out of this evil of Maya, as we say in our language; therefore they tell us to be satisfied and enjoy life. Here, again, is a mistake, a tremendous mistake, a most illogical mistake. And it is this. What do you mean by life? Do you mean only the life of the senses? In this, every one of us differs only slightly from the brutes. I am sure that no one is present here whose life is only in the senses. Then, this present life means something more than that. Our feelings, thoughts, and aspirations are all part and parcel of our life; and is not the struggle towards the great ideal, towards perfection, one of the most important components of what we call life? According to the agnostics, we must enjoy life as it is. But this life means, above all, this search after the ideal; the essence of life is going towards perfection. We must have that, and, therefore, we cannot be agnostics or take the world as it appears. The agnostic position takes this life, minus the ideal component, to be all that exists. And this, the agnostic claims, cannot be reached, therefore he must give up the search. This is what is called Maya--this nature, this universe.

All religions are more or less attempts to get beyond nature--the crudest or the most developed, expressed through mythology or symbology, stories of gods, angels or demons, or through stories of saints or seers, great men or prophets, or through the abstractions of philosophy--all have that one subject, all are trying to get beyond these limitations. In one word, they are all struggling towards freedom. Man feels, consciously or unconsciously, that he is bound; he is not what he wants to be. It was taught to him at the very moment he began to look around. That very instant he learnt that he was bound, and he also found that there was something in him which wanted to fly beyond, where the body could not follow, but which was as yet chained down by this limitation. Even in the lowest of religious ideas, where departed ancestors and other spirits--mostly violent and cruel, lurking about the houses of their friends, fond of bloodshed and strong drink--are worshipped, even there we find that one common factor, that of freedom. The man who wants to worship the gods sees in them, above all things, greater freedom than in himself. If a door is closed, he thinks the gods can get through it, and that walls have no limitations for them. This idea of freedom increases until it comes to the ideal of a Personal God, of which the central concept is that He is a Being beyond the limitation of nature, of Maya. I see before me, as it were, that in some of those forest retreats this question is being discussed by those ancient sages of India; and in one of them, where even the oldest and the holiest fail to reach the solution, a young man stands up in the midst of them, and declares, "Hear, ye children of immortality, hear, ye who live in the highest places, I have found the way. By knowing Him who is beyond darkness we can go beyond death."

This Maya is everywhere. It is terrible. Yet we have to work through it. The man who says that he will work when the world has become all good and then he will enjoy bliss is as likely to succeed as the man who sits beside the Ganga and says, "I will ford the river when all the water has run into the ocean." The way is not with Maya, but against it. This is another fact to learn. We are not born as helpers of nature, but competitors with nature. We are its bond-masters, but we bind ourselves down. Why is this house here? Nature did not build it. Nature says, go and live in the forest. Man says, I will build a house and fight with nature, and he does so. The whole history of humanity is a continuous fight against the so-called laws of nature, and man gains in the end. Coming to the internal world, there too the same fight is going on, this fight between the animal man and the spiritual man, between light and darkness; and here too man becomes victorious. He, as it were, cuts his way out of nature to freedom.

We see, then, that beyond this Maya the Vedantic philosophers find something which is not bound by Maya; and if we can get there, we shall not be bound by Maya. This idea is in some form or other the common property of all religions. But, with the Vedanta, it is only the beginning of religion and not the end. The idea of a Personal God, the Ruler and Creator of this universe, as He has been styled, the Ruler of Maya, or nature, is not the end of these Vedantic ideas; it is only the beginning. The idea grows and grows until the Vedantist finds that He who, he thought, was standing outside, is he himself and is in reality within. He is the one who is free, but who through limitation thought he was bound.

Pema Chodron:

"Recently, in a friend’s kitchen I saw on the wall a quotation from one of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s talks, which said: “Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.”

I was struck by it because when I read it I realized that I myself have some kind of preference for stillness. The notion of holding the sadness and pain of samsara in my heart rang true, but I realized I didn’t do that; at least, I had a definite preference for the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. My reference point was always to be awake and to live fully, to remember the Great Eastern Sun—the quality of being continually awake. But what about holding the sadness and pain of samsara in my heart at the same time?

The quotation really made an impression on me. It was completely true: if you can live with the sadness of human life (what Rinpoche often called the tender heart or genuine heart of sadness), if you can be willing to feel fully and acknowledge continually your own sadness and the sadness of life, but at the same time not be drowned in it, because you also remember the vision and power of the Great Eastern Sun, you experience balance and completeness, joining heaven and earth, joining vision and practicality."

- Pema Chodron