The Torn Page

Excerpt: “We have to perform our function well, with humility and purity; with absolute emptiness of ego – to live in the largest way, to live for God and as a manifestation of Godly power. Power of love and truth, not of ego; not of the desire to dominate or control – to surrender all of that and be in the purity and the flow of the divine nature.” Recorded in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 27, 2012.

Excerpt: ”What we are all here to discover for ourselves – not through hearsay, not through the testimony even of great sages – is what is real. ‘Who am I really?’ ‘What am I?’ ‘What is this world?’ ‘Is there a God?’ ‘Is there a purpose?’ ‘Is there a meaning?’ ‘What do I want to achieve during this short time that I have between birth and death?’ These are questions that each of us must answer in our own hearts. And while it is useful to hear the wisdom of those who have gone very deeply into reality for themselves, and whose words may be inspiring for you, we must go beyond even the great mahavakyas of the great sages and enter into our own innermost heart.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 14, 2012.

Excerpt: “The obstacle is the ego. With all of its chaotic thoughts, negative thoughts, thoughts of lack, of anxiety, of anger, of lust, fear. The ego is a luxury we can no longer afford. It makes our lives unmanageable, as the twelve-step people would say. You can’t manage your life if your life is ruled by an ego because an ego is inherently chaotic, ambivalent . . . and filled with internal conflicts that get projected as external conflicts, paralysis of will, and self-deception of every sort. And all of this produces: suffering. Suffering is based on illusion because the ego is an illusion, and all of its thoughts are illusory. Once you realize you cannot trust those thoughts, you will accept only the thoughts that come from the Source, and they come as inspirations, intuitions, Aha-experiences, and wordless knowing of the true nature of reality – that leads to spontaneous egoless action.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 7, 2012.

Excerpt: “What the path of Advaita says, that is different from every other path, is: all you really need to do is ask the question ‘What am I?’ And just by asking the question, not even getting an answer – in fact you don’t want an answer –  as soon as you get an answer you get another belief system, another mythology, another symbolic situation that needs to be overcome because every symbolic situation you are in is the obstacle to the realization of what you are. So you don’t want an answer to the question: what you need is a wordless realization of your being, which you can only get by inquiring – not conceptually, not to find some new map or some new symbol – but to free yourself from all the symbolic constructs that have then created the need for some journey or salvation or some grace from a God, whether out there or in here; it doesn’t even matter. So the question is meant to get you out of every belief system and to keep you from creating a new one because what you need to be free of is beliefs…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 31, 2012.

Excerpt: “All suffering is caused by identification with an object in consciousness: primarily identification with the physical body, and secondly, identification with language, thoughts. And those thoughts are charged with emotions, impulses, drives—images that create nostalgia, anger, fear, whatever. So there’s a whole cluster of objects, mental objects, that tend to arise that produce effects of suffering of different kinds. And to the extent we’re identified with those objects in the mind, we are on the wheel of karma. . . . And because of our identification with the body, and with thought, we cannot escape because every effort to escape just tightens the noose more: we affirm the illusion that is the cause of suffering. . . .  But there is a very simple way out, and that is nonidentification with any mental objects and instead realization of the Self as the Empty Consciousness in which those objects arise.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 24, 2012.

Student Question: How can I love my daughter without attachment?

Student Question: Last week you spoke about the difference between the ego mind and the Sat mind, and I didn’t really understand what the Sat mind is.

Student Question: When one is in a meditative state, in a state of awareness, and then starts to lose that awareness by getting pulled down by the lower death drive and the lower chakras. What suggestions do you have to help prevent one from falling again and again?

Student Question: There is an attachment to lack, which we don’t want to lose it seems because unconsciously it defines who we are as an ego. So the question is, how does one “attack” that attachment to lack?

Student Comment: Last week I talked about the excitement of different activities, and there are many of them that I feel so excited for. But then it creates this sense that there’s not enough time: I can’t do everything and I don’t know how to prioritize. Then I get this overwhelming sense because I want to do them all and the anxiety is coming up from that.