The Torn Page

Excerpt: ”As the duration of the silence extends, an impulse to go back into the suffering arises – a very strange, paradoxical impulse. And it is this final death throe of the soul that becomes the last obstacle to letting go of maya. There is a preference to hold on to the agony, rather than to die into the peace. And as long as there is any shred of the soul left to try to control things, it will hold on to its death rattle, to its refusal to go gently into that good night . . . and it will rail against the dying of its false light. And it is at this point that there must be the power of surrender to the Absolute to let go of that peacelessness. And to face the transition into the silence which will first appear as a loss, and even as a strangulation of the soul, which in a way it is, as it is finally put to rest. . . . But once the step has been taken, and that Beyond recognized as the real home, as the ultimate abode, then everything becomes very, very simple. And as the attention turns toward the infinite and away from the finite, away from what has been lost from what has died, into what has been discovered, then the power of Love, the meaning of salvation, the truth of redemption, the energy that supports the universe, the stillness which contains all in potential form is recognized as the ground of one’s Being.” Recorded during the Death and Rebirth Retreat, on the morning of Wednesday, August 27, 2014.

Excerpt:” Consciousness begins to realize it’s Beingness, it’s I Am-ness that exists prior to the body that has nothing to do with the birth of the body or its processes of development that are all within the karmic field – but it recognizes that the karma, the world in which the body exists, the body-mind itself, is simply an object in consciousness that is a temporary vehicle of the I Am-ness. But that the I Am-ness is universal and is simply the expression of Love.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 14, 2014.

Excerpt: “Most of us spend our lives waiting for the miracle to come. But the philosophy of Sat Yoga is to realize that you are the miracle – and there’s nothing more to wait for. This should be the simplest concept, if you will, to realize. But it’s not because we hold too many opinions about ourselves – opinions that were formed when we were young that were actually other people’s opinions of us that we internalized and took in as if they were realities when they were merely projections. And so the miracle we’re waiting for is for someone to wipe off the board that we have in our minds with all of the bad opinions . . . but because it is your mind, only you can erase it.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 7, 2014.

Excerpt: ”Sat Yoga means the realization of Sat – which is the fundamental energy of the universe. But we can also think of it as an acronym, of course, as the Silence of Absolute Transcendence. Absolute transcendence means transcendence even of transcendence. Relative transcendence is consciousness, Purusha, separating from Prakriti. That’s the first step in meditation. Because the separation enables you to realize that you are not the body and not the mind. So it is the relative transcendence of the ego, and the localizability in matter; the separation from all concepts, including the concept of matter. But then one must transcend even the concept of transcendence. Even the concept of the Self.” Recoded in the afternoon of Monday, April 29, 2013.

Excerpt: “[The Sat Yoga School] has three basic intentions. One is to help you think the unthinkable. The second is to help you bear the unbearable. And the third is to help you dare the impossible. So let’s take these one at a time. Obviously most people don’t want to think the unthinkable, and there are different levels of un-think-ability. And the first level is really more the resistance to coming out of denial. It’s not that it’s really unthinkable, but “I don’t want to think about it” – it’s that level. And that has to do basically with prudence. Any prudent business person will have fallback positions in case of worst case scenarios. . . . Well, most people do not want to think about the fact that this entire system is about to collapse; that’s too much to deal with. . . . If you want a plan B, and if you want to think your way through this and to survive, then it’s worth thinking about this before it happens. . .” Recorded on the evening of Saturday, July 26, 2014.

Excerpt: ”Our teacher Sri Ramana says that the ego has four pillars. . . . And when we understand the pillars of the ego, because they are all delusional, it is easy to bring them down. And the four are co-dependent on one another. In developmental terms the first is Avidya, or ignorance; forgetfulness of our True Nature. And that forgetfulness makes us vulnerable to false beliefs to buying into preconceptions and impositions and false implications of language, and the belief, that what you see is what you get. And the belief in the implicit reality that there must be some thing that stands behind the appearance of the I-thought.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, July 17, 2014.

Excerpt: ”. . .But there’s no reason ever to leave the stillness of the perfection of what you are; that is already liberated from maya. You don’t notice that you simply create maya in order to then liberate yourself from it. It’s a nice game, but this “Yo" "Yo” game that you play just brings you back to square zero anyway – so why ever leave it? Recorded in the afternoon of Tuesday, May 21, 2013.

Excerpt: “. . . And it’s only when you have entered deeply upon a path of Self discovery that you can even know what are the potentials that lie behind and beyond the event horizon of your current level of subjectivity – that offer miraculous powers and potencies for your own capacity to become and to realize yourself in this plane as the Infinite Being that you are. It is only when we constrain the ego mind and its weaknesses from acting out; its desire to regress, to take the easy path, the comfort zone, and never to dare those levels of your selfhood that are currently not yet known to you – because you are a mystery to yourself. But few of us explore that mystery. Most of us settle for an identity that we received from others that might just be adequate enough to make us a living, and to live a tolerable life, but never to know true ecstatic joy, bliss, and infinite fulfillment.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, July 3, 2014.

Excerpt: ”The ego is an unstable structure – and dependent upon the desire of others, the affirmation of others; what one takes as the love of others – but which is all always, at the level of ego, an narcissistic quid pro quo. To get beyond this impasse, we must dis-identify with any objective other, including the body that is considered one’s own. And to abide in silence and stillness, and inner aloneness without any co-dependence on any other, without any desire from any other – in oneness with the Supreme Self. This practice alone can liberate us; liberate consciousness from its suffering. The problem is, for the ego mind, that the Real Self is inconceivable. . .” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 26, 2014.

Excerpt: “. . . But that means that the Self that you are here to realize is not your individual self. It’s the universal Self, the Supreme Self. This is no small matter. This should not be taken lightly. You are endeavouring to enter the precinct of God, the throne room of God, the highest possible level of consciousness. And the good news is that when you get there you will realize that is your Self. But not the self you think you are now. That self cannot get even close to that throne room.” Recorded on the evening of Monday, May 19, 2014.