09 December 2011


Robert was able to talk less and less over the years because of Parkinson’s Disease. He knew all of his teachings were just flapping of lips, and he taught just to get people around him, because it was in his presence one felt the peace of emptiness. I understand that during his last Satsang he only said one word over and over, and that was “Freedom!”

This is what I try to teach. Freedom from concepts, freedom from conditioning and society, and mostly freedom from the known. I try to help people get entirely out of concepts and limitations, to face each moment totally unknowing, seeing what is without systems, learning or conditioning. I try to teach to see from emptiness or the heart without all the inner and outer conflict, unarmed by knowledge. Functioning from this place is complete happiness.

However, most seekers for most of their seeking careers are looking for knowledge and techniques.  Book after book, workshop after workshop, guru after guru; on and on they plod. Even Robert submitted to their needs by providing Advaita teachings and techniques because this is what beginning and intermediate seekers look for, crumbs of knowledge.

I find most teachers give knowledge and techniques, providing means of control over the mind or external environment, and lots and lots of descriptions, nouns and adjectives, rather than action verbs that lead to freedom. They have systems, progressive emptiness meditations, theories on the meaning of dreams, they teach siddhis, or mantras that do such and such. And students love knowledge because that is the minds function, and most seekers rely on the mind rather than their hearts or their nothingness, if they even have an acquaintance with their nothingness.  Many have brief encounters with nothingness and are either terrified to find they are nothing, or think nothingness has nothing to teach, and being teachings-seekers, they leave the most exquisite states possible--nothingness in its many manifestations--to go back to a learning, mental mode.

This way is difficult because you really have nothing to show for it except increasing happiness, joy and energy. But once you get into a system, like learning the different kinds of emptiness, or learning several thousand koan answers, or developing a siddhi, or learning intellectually about chambers of the heart rather than feeling the rivers of love that are always directly flowing through us, freedom is lost. You are back in school learning someone else's opinions and concepts, rather than living freshly every moment with all kinds of limitations and boundaries.

I have found the highest teachings before one obtains liberation are those of Nisargadatta and Krishnamurti. However, Krishnamurti never offered a method or way, while Nisargadatta did. Mine is a modification of his way and Robert’s.  I know all teachings are basically illusion, but students don't, so I pretend to teach concepts in order to end all concepts.


All the other posts you see on this site are for one purpose only: to get you to question and overcome your preconceptions and concepts.  Recently I have focused on sex, marriage and the guru idea, because these issues are so loaded down with concepts, scripts, taboos, etc. If you can let go here, you will be a long way up on freeing yourself from many other concepts.

13 comments:

  1. Witness, no witness?
    Emptiness or spaciousness?
    One Self or no self?

    Questions left behind
    Like brightly colored prayer flags,
    Hanging by the gate.

    Haiku by Cathy Ginter

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  2. you know edji, i've been so caught up in your personality; the humor,
    the history with robert, zen, personal realtionships...

    reading your last two blog posts i was like: holy shit,
    he's a serious advaita teacher! this is why i came in the first place!

    your last post as you spoke of robert speaking less and less
    because of his parkinsons, i thought recently it was a blessing for
    him! wouldn't it be funny to have found out after he died that parkinsons
    doesn't cause a limitation and he was just using it to
    be able to sit in his beloved 'silence'.

    as i read this last post edji, it cause terror. not of seeing my own
    nothingness, but realizing that almost no one has that goal in mind.
    just as you said, it's all philosophy, look how smart i am, social
    b.s.

    can you imagine? how the hell have you plod through this game
    for so long. how have you not commit hari-kari by now, answering
    superficial question after superficial question?

    i suppose you never know when a surface student will go deep...

    you deserve a medal for that patience. John

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  3. Ed, you stated, "I find most teachers give knowledge and techniques, providing means of control over the mind or external environment, and lots and lots of descriptions, nouns and adjectives, rather than action verbs that lead to freedom."

    Yes, they do. This is what I was used to when I came to you. This is also what I found to initially be most frustrating about you. I wanted the usual, the status quo and you did not offer it. I often felt not helped at all. You gave me nothing to hold onto. This has taken and is taking a lot to get used to.

    You are hard to follow, but I am willing, at least most of the time.

    With Love and Respect,
    Joan

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  4. This is exactly what I’m after these days. The only concept that means anything to me anymore is the knowledge I AM, resting there as much as I can remember to and knowing that it is the doorway to the Absolute. All that I desire is to be the fullest possible expression of love, and I know that the way is through the I AM, as you and Nisargadatta teach. Nothing could be more simple and natural, and I am grateful for how this is manifesting more and more in my life right now.

    I often have to do research online for my work, and yesterday I felt blown away once again by how many versions of Christianity there are and how identified people are with their particular belief systems, how fixated some become with certain periods of history, patriotism, and the list goes on and on, as you know. I felt like I was swimming in a sea of insanity. It was all I could do by the end of the day to just lie on the couch and let my mind go blank so I could come back to life.

    I’m grateful I found you, Edji. You’re right where I want to be.

    Love,
    Janet C

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  5. Just read this again, OMG, it is so straight forward, so direct, so raw, so unsparing, so OUCH!!!!...

    Very much appreciated.

    Joan

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  6. damnit!
    i wanted to be your wisest, most sincere student!

    then i read posts from joan and janet c., and i feel like
    an idiot, a fraud.

    amazing people around these parts edji.

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  7. I like your recent posts, Ed.

    They're brief and to the point.

    I've been close to giving this all up recently. I feel I haven't been making any progress and most of my attempts to make progress are usually thwarted by worldly duties and other factors like illness, and so on.

    I'm still hanging on, but I feel I'm starting all over again from the beginning, like I'm back at kindergarten.

    You seem different to me, too.

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  8. Ha ha, John, very funny. Now I feel like a fraud. It doesn’t take as much to realize the way to go as it does to actually be there. Well, it actually did take almost 60 years and a lot of finding out what doesn’t work. Anyway, sorry if I gave the wrong impression ;-)

    Janet C

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  9. thanks for responding janet c.
    i was beginning to wonder if everyone here was too detached from the world to communicate.

    i wasn't being funny, your first paragraph to edji about staying at the i am as a doorway to the absolute and being the fullest expression of love are incredibly
    beautiful and clear.

    it's just simply lovely to see other human beings making real efforts to realize. something i'm certainly not used to.

    precious devotees of Truth,
    lovers of God.

    here's the chant i use while gazing at edji's photo. it's a good one. once it starts rolling
    at around 1:20, it settles into a

    nice rhythm of call and response.
    good for working into a devotional state. i gently sway back and forth in my seat looking at edji's beautiful face, feeling him here with me. try it!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93yjicvca0Y

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  10. Janet, very good, you said, "It doesn't take as much to realize the way to go as it does to actually get there."

    It is the apparent span of time between the two that is what we refer to as the 'spiritual journey.'

    It is characterized by all sorts of happenings, experiences, feelings, moments of clarity replaced with doubt and confusion, I'm close, I'll never make it, days of austere devotion followed by days of coldness and dryness, three steps forward, one step back...

    It is this apparent span of time between, "Not this, Not this" and AHHHHH! "I AM That" which can seem unbearable at times. I guess it is supposed to be this way because it is surely how it is, at least for me.

    It's so hard living in this world when it holds no interest; and yet, that which is longed for still seems to be a mystery.

    Joan

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  11. Joan said: “It is characterized by all sorts of happenings, experiences, feelings, moments of clarity replaced with doubt and confusion, I'm close, I'll never make it, days of austere devotion followed by days of coldness and dryness, three steps forward, one step back...”

    I think it’s when you realize that this is all good, things level out and you also realize that all this is THAT. There is no separation. Then you start seeing the magic open up in the moments, no matter what’s going on. And feel more peace. I wish I could say this was happening to me all the time, but at least it's getting better.

    John, thank you so much for your response and for the link to the chant. Another beautiful one!

    Love,
    Janet C.

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  12. Thanks Janet,

    It's getting better here at times as well and then there are days that seem almost unbearable...and yet, somehow they are borne.

    Love,
    Joan

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