29 December 2012

For Satsang Today--Phenomena of Consciousness


External World (Object of Senses)

Gross Body as observed from without


Subtle Body

                 Body as perceived from within
Thoughts
Images and imagination
Emotions
“Energies” Kundalini, Chi, Prana
Inner space/unillumined darkness
Inner Light and lights of consciousness
Inner space, illumined—Imaginal Space

     Relative Moving Void

     Unmoving Void which is a reflection of the Absolute within the      subtle body

                 Sense of Presence (The I-Sense Expanded)

Causal Body—The Unknowing

Dark space

Available as sleep when it comes from without passively

Available consciously by going deep within, beyond and below the subtle body

Head becomes hard like rock. No thoughts, sinking into nothingness, even lose self awareness

Return to waking awareness and remembrance of not knowing

Turiya, the Fourth State

I-Am

Self awareness

Pure Knowing

Bliss, Ecstasy, Love

No Witness state/Oneness

The Absolute/”The Witness” Turiyatta, or Beyond Turiya

Cannot be experienced

Cannot be known

Is the Noumenal Source of the above 4 bodies

Can only be “known of” by apperception and Intuition

Or, you become the Absolute.



Brilliance from a student:

Ed,

I swear, I feel so alive as a human being. 

I have been able to really embrace aspects of my self that I never even knew existed, and not just embrace them but to really love them and value them when the arise, no matter what it is.

I no longer think or believe that to be loving and kind has any greater value over expressing hatred or rage. Just to be fully what I am in the moment is aliveness.
Satsang Today, December 29, 6 PM

Exploring the phenomena of Consciousness.

satsangwithedji.weebly.com

Use Internet Explorer, not Chrome

28 December 2012


Pinned Image

Empathy Glasses

Deeya Needs Help Again

Deeya has three dogs, Fawnie, Freddie and Fuji, their daughter. Less than a week ago Fawnie collapsed and was nearly lifeless.  I, and our sangha, and all of you sent Fawnie healing energy, and she snapped back within hours and is absolutely fine now.

However, now exactly the same thing has happened with Freddie, except it is worse.  Freddie's vet is doubtful he'll last through the night.  His kidney and liver functions show both organs failing, and his white blood count is off the charts.  There appears to be some massive infection.  He will be with a nurse all night.
:

FROM DEEYA:


HELP ME ED HELP FREDDIE!!

Freddie has just collapsed like Fawnie did about an hour ago.   But it looks even worse.  His eyes fixed and he went rigid.  Emergency vet came out to the house and is very concerned about how flat and unresponsive he is.  They took him to the hospital and will keep him there to run tests and have him on fluids.  The vet does not think he'll survive the night.

 


































         Freddie is the dog in front; Fuji is behind him

All three dogs are nearly 14 years old. We feel they may be reacting to Deeya's upcoming, extended stay in California.  They have never been separated except for a few weeks and Deeya was contemplating staying for a few months. If we can pull Freddie through this crisis, we'll work on bringing her dogs to Los Angeles also.

Please, try to feel Freddie inside of you, in your heart.  Wrap him in love and healing energy as we did with Fawnie.

Thank you so much!









26 December 2012

Awakening Spiritual Intelligence


Jiddu Krishnamurti talked about ignoring gurus and seeing your own truth for yourself.  But most people lack either the insight or self-confidence to become their own light.  This self-ignition requires K’s awakening of spiritual intelligence, which is just an extended form of critical thinking.  In other words, what is the salesman really selling under the guise of flowery words?

Jiddu Krishnamurti had a severe critic who is also revered by some as a sage, a guru namely U.G. Krishnamurti.

What follows is a quote.  I want you to read it and then critically evaluate it.  What is he really saying?  What he says may sound good, but if you dig below the surface, you’ll see that what he says is just plain bull.

U.G.:

“It [thought] is a mechanical thing and can solve only mechanical problems. But you want to use it to understand something living; that is the problem. It is not intended for that. Human problems are something living. You cannot use thinking to solve those problems.” 

Let us look at UG’s assumptions to see if the above paragraph has any meaning or value whatsoever:

Assumption One: thought is a mechanical thing.

          What on earth does this mean? What does it mean to say that thought is mechanical? Does he mean it’s like a machine with physical cogs and gears? Does he mean it’s physical? Does he mean thoughts can follow logical rules and construct logical arguments, but not necessarily? I really don’t know what he means by this phrase without explaining it better.

Assumption Two: and it can only solve mechanical problems.

          What on earth does this mean? Thought can only be used to fix Fords and Volvos? It can only be used to create light bulbs? It can only be used to create, distribute, market and sell televisions, cameras, clothes and food? It can only be used to figure out how to build better houses and grow larger crops? It can only be used to invent and build nation-wide electric power grids and the industries electricity supports? It can only be used by businesses to calculate supply and demand for their products and profitability, including the number of additional employees to hire the coming year? 

You see, to me many of the so-called “mechanical problems” are directly relevant to solving “human problems” like hunger, shelter, clean water, indoor plumbing and death by disease and accident.
           
Assumption Three: But you want to use it to understand something living; that is the problem. Human problems are something living.

This is not just an assumption, it is a definition, stating that “human problems” whatever those are, are different from “mechanical problems” and never the twain shall meet. But without explaining what kind of human problems he’s talking about, this assumption and definition just do not make sense.

Mechanical problems, logical problems, mathematical problems, can help a farmer produced three times as much grain brother produce, let automakers make a profit and produce enough cars for the economy to bear, can create jobs, can build a hospital, staff a hospital, and cure thousands of people of hundreds and thousands of maladies, can help researchers invent cures for cancer, polio, the plague, flu, heart disease and diabetes.

Thus it seems the so-called mechanical problems embrace and solve many of what we would call human problems.

But looking even more deeply, his so-called living human problems if they are stated in words, they are thoughts, which are mechanical. If he can articulate his so-called “living problems” with words and concepts, just the postulation and articulation of the problem will automatically result in many different mechanical solutions created by mind.

Of course this narrow quote does not show us the context. Within that larger context many of the assumptions may be spelled out better, and his argument may make sense. From my own teaching position, I know that the mind has to be overthrown, and one operates “kinesthetically,” with feeling, with the mind serving a supportive function, and not being used as the primary tool to interact with the world.

But if we use the same critical thinking to investigate teachings or writings of any guru, politician, or teacher of any sort, we have gone a long way towards developing an awakened spiritual intelligence.

One of my own pet peeves is another online spiritual teacher named Jeff Brown, a feel-good poet who romanticizes a humanistic spirituality. Jeff defines his “real” spirituality as a kind of human striving, even while artfully understating the severity of suffering by giving it a new and flowery names. He then combines these sanitized sufferings with poetic soaring, such that it appears he is saying whatever is happening is a glorious expansion of both his reader’s lives, but also of the human spirit as a whole. There is very little existentialist angst or exploration of pain in Jeff’s writings, only constant, extremely positive thinking, which totally destroys the possibility of an awakening of intelligence. One lives in a spiritual rose garden with no thorns in Jeff’s world.

Such should be the case of my words too. Look at them, see through them, develop your own spiritual intelligence.  Once you can see through my bull, you can see through it all and awaken.

25 December 2012

TAWNIE IS BETTER!

From Deeya:

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :-) 

The EXTRAORDINARY HEALING POWER of your HEARTFELT LOVE has had the deepest of IMPACT on my Beloved little Fawnie who is completely and utterly rejuvenated today!!! 

Yesterday Fawnie collapsed on me and was limp and lifeless. In fact, she didn't even recognise me at all. 

My Heart was breaking as I felt her life force leaving me ... and I cried and cried with Edji as I held her, fading fast in my arms.

Thankfully, she slept peacefully with me throughout the night enfolded in the LOVE of all of you ...

I'm so happy to report that she awoke this Christmas morning with a puppy-like spring in her step and the sparkle fully restored in her sweet eyes! 

In fact, she was right back to bouncing around with her husband and daughter (Freddie and Fuji) and even ate THREE full Christmas dinners today, yes THREE! My Three Muskateers!

My beautiful Satsang Family, I LOVE and appreciate you all SO MUCH for giving me the greatest Christmas gift I EVER received. I got my Beloved doggie back! 

I Love each and every one of you, please never underestimate the Power of your Loving Presence!

All for One and One for All,

Deeya 




Ed:


Tawnie's healing is a sign for me.  My most beloved cat, Satchi, died during October 1997, about six months after Robert. She had been sick with kidney failure for six months.  I had decided that I would do everything to keep her alive.  I felt if I loved her enough and took care of her enough, I could keep her alive and bring her back to health.

But I failed.  One day she started to slip into a coma and I felt her telling me she was going.  She died that day.  

I was devastated. I felt my love had failed her.  Love was not as strong as the powers of dissolution and death, or at least my love.  I lost confidence in myself and went into a deep depression from which it took three years to recover.

Tawnie's failing right before my eyes when I saw her with Deeya on Skype brought back those memories.  I felt such love for Tawnie, and broke open in crying.  I felt her so strongly in my heart and also how much Deeya was hurting. Then I just opened towards Tawnie and loved her, tried to bring her back.  I told others about her, especially Lila, who felt and held Tawnie off and on for the entire night.

Many of you out there did the same and I am so grateful, as it has somewhat restored my faith in love as a healer, remotely over Skype or phone. More importantly, it restored my faith in my own love as healing.  I feel such gratitude now.



24 December 2012


Test Your Healing Powers

This photo is of "Fawnie," one of three of Deeya's dogs.  She is very ill.  Fawnie is in Scotland and it is wet and cold. Try to feel her in your hearts and send healing energy. I don't know why but I feel very close to Fawnie.  Look at that face and her eyes. She reminds me of my own dog, Pepper.


23 December 2012

22 December 2012

POST APOCALYPSE SATSANG TODAY-SATURDAY, DECEMBER  22, 6 PM

Go to satsangwithedji.weebly.com, and sign in with the password "edji" twice.

Please mute your microphone.

Topic will be an overall explanation of everything.


20 December 2012

Saturday's Satsang and Some Comments
























Markus Kasunich:  Thank you Edji for one of the most beautiful, heartfelt Satsangs that I have ever attended anywhere... Your message of deepening into the depths of your own beingness combined with Self love is profound and transformational... I am grateful for your presence in my life...

R.C.:  There is something about an in-person satsang that is special.  It's not as easy to feel the wamth that you exude in the online format.  But either way, it is a boon to be in attendance.  It's much easier to come from the heart.  Funny how priorities change when this is so.  The excuses that my mind manufactures to put off doing some things have much less influence.  I don't get as much "stuff" done, but what is done is quite wonderful to be a part of.

D.: A day later and still in Satsang. Ohh Expert in Elicit Exquisiteness! Satisfaction and Completion beyond Allness as We float in Atonement, Splendor and Wonderment, full and fat like cats that got their thick, clotted, indulgent  cream…. And always the question 'HOW COULD there possibly be MORE!!!?'

P: Yesterday was my first ever Satsang with you and I felt at home in your Presence. Your energy is very much feel-able. It was penetrating through the layers of me especially when you were looking at me and answering my questions. I will always cherish the moment wearing that 'Rudraksha mala' from your hands. I started reflecting on your saying that working with love & subtle energies is the way to go.

I tried to expand the feeling of love for my daughter and I noticed that my feeling of existence grew stronger and tangible. I was having anxieties over my daughter’s health.  All these anxieties disappeared since my love for her deepened.

R: Dearest Edji,  Thank you so much for giving of your time and wisdom at yesterday's satsang. I appreciated all you had to say but I especially appreciate the loving example you set for your people. That to me is what a spiritual teacher should be, he/she should embody and radiate love that has a transforming effect on those who have contact with the teacher. This is what I witnessed yesterday and what I aspire to. Hopefully the grace of  Guru Edji and the grace of God will lead me there.

18 December 2012

Marie, Rosa, Ron and Itta Need Christmas Help

Besides feeding homeless cats myself, I give food to four individuals that feed almost 350 cats in over 70 colonies. One of them is Marie. Many months ago her work hours were cut substantially reducing her income. She feeds over 140 cats. I prepared a flyer for her to take around to pet stores to increase her support above and beyond what I give her, which is about 18 large bags of kibble and about 200 cans of food a month.  Very few have responded to the flyer so I am posting it here.  Meet Marie:



Hi, My name is Marie,

I NEED YOUR HELP!  I feed and help take care of the health needs of over 140 feral cats in 27 different locations throughout Northridge and Canoga Park.  Three colonies have 20 or more cats. I work with several people on spay/neutering many of these cats. I am 66 years old.

A year ago, Jimmy, who had been feeding about 50 cats, moved away and it was left to me to feed his cats also.



My income from employment and social security is extremely limited and I receive help in the form of food from friends.  But I use over 35 large bags of hard food and about 30 cases of canned food a month, for well over $750 per month. Then there are the additional costs of paper plates and gasoline.  My old car broke down and I had to buy a new one and now have monthly car payments and increased insurance. I am over my head financially and stress wise.

If you can donate cat food or money I, and 140 cats, would deeply appreciate it, even more if someone can help me feed these cats.

My Cell is:  818 349-5682         

Ed: You can help Marie directly by calling her and talking to her, or donate directly from this blog on the Paypal link here for our nonprofit, We Are Sentience, and mark "For Marie" on your donation.

Marie is one of four.  Rosa feeds about 100 cats and also does trapping and rescue for Marie.  Ron and Itta feed about 50 cats each.  All three are jobless due to physical disabilities, or lost their job due to the recession.  When you are in your 60s, it is hard to find new jobs.


Isn't ironic that those who have so little give so much?



Marie feeding 5 cats at a shopping center in Northridge.

She did not want her face shown as many people object to people feeding ferals near their homes.

16 December 2012

15 December 2012

LIVE SATSANG IN LA TODAY, 5 PM

YOU CAN TRY TO JOIN US AT 5 PM, CALIFORNIA TIME, BY SIGNING IN THE USUAL WAY:

satsangwithedji.weebly.com.

I have no idea how well it will work.  To this point I've been more concerned with content than media. That will come soon.

Love,

Ed

12 December 2012

REMEMBER!

LIVE SATSANG IN LOS ANGELES

(SAN FERNANDO VALLEY)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, AT 5 PM

POTLUCK

FOR DIRECTIONS:

06 December 2012































Photo of Ed at Follow Your Heart, taken by Deeya

04 December 2012

Emotional "Pain," Resistance and Self Realization


Email 1 from M. to me:

I am so very angry. I spend two years following advice you give on your website. I follow this self inquiry of yours as far as I can. Now I have nothing to go on. All I get is useless advice to become love and maybe something will happen. I have limited ability to affect my feelings. 

I eat medication to calm the cycling and you suggest me to become love. Do you know what kind of depression follows every good period. Do you have any idea how much it can hurt. Do you have any idea what it feels when deep layer of pain covers everything. Do you know how it feels to crash in to depression and pain again and again. Do you know how it feel when good things turn to pain. Do you know what it feels when this happens again and again despite everything you do? 

And you suggest me to become love. All the effort I spend and all I get is futile experience and most painful advice anyone could give. I feel like screaming. I feel like shredding myself to peaces. I hope never finding your website. I hurt. Do you have any idea how much it would hurt to become love. Why don't you suggest me to walk in flames and burn. Why don't you suggest me to walk in water and drown. 

Email 2, from Ed to M:

Your entire email is full of resistance.

Stop resisting, and welcome the depression and pain.  Then they will move through you, pass through your beingness with much less pain.

Who said opening would be easy?

Also, if you read my blog, I have been advocating using a much softer approach than Robert suggested, one of loving oneself and loving others to make change happen more rapidly.

Love,

Ed

Email 3 from M to Ed: 

You are correct about me resisting. This very hard subject to read, write or think about. It is like pushing against a pressure. I have no idea how to stop my resisting. How to stop doing something that is so very central in me. I can't welcome pain. I have fought against it for so long. I have spent thousands of hours finding method against suffering. My whole quest to enlightenment has been finding a way to move beyond pain. To stop resisting and welcome pain in its different forms is inconceivable.

Email 4 from M to Ed:

If my struggle against pain goes away, I don't know what will be left. If I give up and just accept pain, it means I have wasted so much. If I give up I don't know if there will be me left. This constant struggle is what defines me. My endless struggle. Because big amounts of pain really hurt. And because they hurt they are unacceptable. Pain is unacceptbale. It is wrong. And so on.

Email 5, from Ed to M:

M.

Listen carefully. Very carefully.  This may be the most important advice you have ever heard.

Two points:

Depression and anxiety are not painful; they are uncomfortable but do not compare to the word “pain” applied to physical pain, such as from a burn, a broken bone, a deep cut, a pliers twisting your flesh, or a knife wound.

I know M. because I suffered from a deep depression of a long time, took lamictal and other anti depressants, as well as anti anxiety agents.

Psychological/emotional symptoms are not painful, they may be deeply uncomfortable, but it is not like the pain of cancer.

You can look at these feelings as they arise and if you look closely, you will see the word “pain” does not fit them.  You have created a boogey man by calling them painful and then resisting something that does not exist: a painful emotion.  The same with the term suffering.  Suffering is an evaluative term, which really means you do not accept an emotion or mood.  This is your resistance.

Now, resistance can cause pain because the body tightens up to fight the feeling.  The tightening, the holding back can be painful.  The resistance is painful.

So, from a place of feeling relaxed, you can look at the depression and anxiety with an openness and acceptance, one layer at a time, and you will see these moods for what they are: passing psychological phenomena that are not really you at all and which do not touch you.

You will eventually find that beneath the deepest emotion you feel, jealousy, depression (which is really a mood, not an emotion), hatred, etc., there is an underlying bliss, an ecstasy.  But you have to go deep within yourself to find it.  It underlies all emotions, all moods, all body feelings, and lies buried deep within ones sense of presence.  Find it.  It is magic.

Point 2: The advice I gave was not to love your emotions, even though that would help greatly.  It was to find and love the I Am, the core of your beingness.

Within the inner void in you is an energy, the sense of I Am.  Find it, nurture it, love it.  This is the practice I suggested.

Fall in love with someone.  Watch that love and you wil see it is your love.  It arose within you.  It is your love.  The other merely triggered the arising in you, but it is your love.  That love for another can grow until eventually you recognize that that love IS YOU.  It arises from the I Am.  You can use that love for another to recognize the love of your Self, for you.

Self realization is not best accomplished by being a spiritual warrior.  Rather it is best accomplished by becoming a lover or others, of animals, of yourself.

02 December 2012

LIVE SATSANG IN LOS ANGELES
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 5 P.M.

SATSANG FOLLOWED BY POTLUCK

Talk will focus on using the subtle body and loving-self-abidance as a gateway to Self-Realization.  Talk preceded and followed by chanting and meditative exercises. Then potluck late dinner.

Satsang will be in the San Fernando Valley near the 405 and 101.

Contact Samantha for details and address at: samantha@youarelight.net
  

01 December 2012


Satsang is on for today, Saturday, December 1, at 6 PM.

We'll talk about consistency, words, concepts and guru-type bullshit. We may do some guru-bashing.


Enter the password: edji

This will take you to a page with a lot of instructions and a large grey box with a rotating “eye.” It will again ask you for a password. Use the word “edji.”

It will then offer four ways to enter the chatroom, click on “guest.”
It will ask you for a user name. Use any name you want.

You will then come to the chat screen, and in the upper left corner, there is a blue button labeled: Start Broadcasting. Click it.

Then it will ask what camera and microphone you want to use, or it will start one for you automatically.

DO NOT USE GOOGLE CHROME AS A BROWSER; THE CHATROOM DOES NOT WORK WITH CHROME. USE MICROSOFT EXPLORER WHICH I DO KNOW WORKS.

28 November 2012

It is all about presence and loving


     I do not teach theory anymore and have not done so for some time.  I do not talk about the causal body or subtle body, or I Am as if they exist as real entities.  They are only concepts that point to somethings that you ay not recognize as you yet. But I no longer talk theory like you find in Siddharameshwar’s or Nisargadatta’s books. That stage is gone for me.  Such discussions are only philosophy and go no deeper than mind, despite Nisargadatta's belief that correct words are all that is needed for awakening.
     Instead, I try to show you, YOU, directly from within, by waking the experience of You in you.  

     I do this with exercises, meditations, word images and stories, and by wrapping you in the presence of our lineages, the Ramana-Robert and Nisargadatta-Dunn lineage of classic Advaita. Some teachers refer to this "power that knows the way," as Consciousness or shakti to take the student's attention away from the personal, and make it an impersonal process.  But it is personal when I use the term "lineage" because the "energy" acts through the individual entities that comprise the order, whether Robert, Nisargadatta, Jean Dunn, me, Rajiv, Deeya or Ruby.

     I also encourage you to love intensely and frequently, everything and everyone that arises before you. Love, devotion, serving are quickest way to self-realization. The love of another is really your own self seeing the Self in another, and the 'you' recognizes the love you feel for the other is really you.  You are love itself.  It is your own nature, the experience of which was not caused by the other, but only triggered by another.
     Many people have told me, and a learning I received from Robert, the experience of one's own spiritual presence comes easier from sitting in the presence of the lineage and its particular flavor of Shakti. That is, sitting with the teacher in Satsang or Darshan attunes you to the shakti, or the power that knows the way as manifest by a line of teachers.

     Of course constantly abiding in one's sense of self also accomplishes the same end of developing that sense of presence, but loving another, or sitting within the "presence" of the lineage expands the opportunity to grow your sense of presence, the love of which creates sensitivity to internal energies, bliss and ecstasies, that eventually become the explosive recognition of Self.
     What I try to do is set the stage for the breaking out of the explosion, the volcanic eruption of energy and light that happens when you first see your Self, which is my Self, and is the Self of all.  The Bhagavad Gita refers to this experience allegorically, when Krishna reveals his true nature to Arjuna.  Nisargadatta calls it attaining Krishna Consciousness.
     This experience is beyond the emptiness that Robert taught, that you are nothing, no thing at all.  It is beyond the Voids of the Buddhists because it fills those voids with an etheric presence of bliss and light, and empowers you to move worlds by being a vessel for its activity.  It is this Self energy that brings the void to life. 
     Now Robert's own awakening experience was of a classic self-realization experience where he was blown away by a volcanic explosion of energy and light arising from within and exploding the world, mostly he talked about nothingness and disappearing the individual sense of self. Yet, he did not directly teach how to be self realized except through various forms of self-inquiry.  Though he talked about the bhaktic approach, it was not his primary teaching modality.
     Very soon we will have weekly satsangs in LA, meeting at my house either Thursdays or Fridays, then going out to dinner at Follow Your Heart or a quieter restaurant I know nearby.
     I need to be with you more in the flesh.  As it is it is hard to make room for visitors who come for a day or two to LA.  The meetings have to be more consistent and extended.  Single meetings for a day or so do nothing.  It is repetition of exposure to the power of the lineage that does everything.
     I love you all.

26 November 2012

He followed the self-inquiry method perfectly:

Dear Edji,

I have spent last two years trying to become enlightened. I have never read much of the relevant literature or listened what enlightened people teach but concentrated on the practice instead.

The general plan was always simple: find a method that works and execute it. So I chose Ramana Maharshi's Self-inquiry. The practice happened in cycles.

I would try to practice self-inquiry and it wouldn't seem to work so I would try something else, like Osho's witnessing or Gurdjieff's self-remembering. After a while practicing something else I would return to self-inquiry. This went on two years and slowly I became better at what I was doing. Then I found the book called The Path of Sri Ramana Part One suggested by Edji. I didn't quite read the whole book, but enough to gain some inspiration.

After reading the book I started calling my practice witnessing the subject. By doing this I tried to define myself what I should do in order to make progress. I used word witness, because what I did was very passive observing. And I used word subject, because its meaning is to me very clear. Subject means the opposite of object. There are these things around me and then there is me. Maybe the most important reason for choosing word subject was that its exact meaning for me depends on the situation, so there was no pressure to perform this witnessing according to exact instructions of others.

When I witnessed the subject I started by observing the feeling of existence I could feel. This feeling of existence grew to larger sense of self. It was like following a single thread and finding a big ball of yarn. In a sense this sense of self was quite solid and warm. In a way you could compare watching this self to watching your body. So there was big similarity to the sense of body. After some time, witnessing the sense of self turned spontaneously to being/resting in this same sense of self. I would turn my gaze inward and rest in central feeling of existence.

All this happened in about one month. After this month of practice my sense of self dissolved unnoticed. I tried to continue my practice, but all I was able to find were echoes of this sense, but not the solid real deal. I felt somewhat distressed. I didn't know how to go on. In a few days I started feeling different than before. More free. More calm. Certain element of fear/anxiety was missing. Somehow being was more central than doing. My motivation had somewhat dwindled. Few days after this dissolving in one evening I just rested in my bed and listened radio for hours. That is not something I would normally do.

When I tried to find the sense of self all I was able to find were feelings in my body. These feelings I found were in a way part of this solid sense of self, but they were not the whole of it. Some kind sense of existence still existed but it didn't feel as real as before.

When I turned my gaze inwards, I found nothing to focus on. It was like a hand trying to grab something but finding only empty space.

I felt this strong urge to move forward, but didn't know what to do, so I contacted Edji. After several unanswered demands to tell me what to do, I realized that something was happening on its own. I realized that I didn't actually have to do or practice anything at the moment. After this Edji suggested that I could ask myself "I wonder who I am, or what am I?" and be open and accepting to whatever the answer would be.

It was late evening, nearly midnight, when I tried this. At first the answer was that I am my body and that is all I will ever be. I asked second time and something happened.

I understood that I am the current experience. Not some part of the experience, like body or thoughts, but the whole experience. I felt happy, calm and more wide and deep than before. The world was brighter, as if someone had added brightness to the computer screen.

Asking myself who or what am I launched something I first thought to be some kind of altered state that slightly calmed down after 24 hours. Sense perceptions were stronger and more potent than normally. I listened music and it had deep 3-dimensional quality in it. My visual field was bright and very large. Most of my attention was automatically drawn to it. My sense of identity was changed. I felt that I was mainly these sense perceptions. My body, thoughts and feelings were overpowered with sense input.

I strongly believed and felt (and still do) that content of my consciousness is what I truly am.

My identity has always been locked inside my body. When I asked myself who or what am I, the lock opened and my identity expanded to cover the whole consciousness. It has always been undeniable fact, that I am my body (although I have tried to deny it many times). Now it is undeniable fact, that I am this local awareness. These are thoughts, but they are accurate descriptions of the reality I see at this moment.

Everything is basically the same, expect the fact that I'm not quite what I was before. I really don't know yet what this means. Although my sense of identity has expanded, my body and feelings still cover large part of my awareness. I don't feel my senses as sharply as I did earlier, but there is still meaningful difference. My senses and imagination and what they convey are now equals with the old me. I feel that all that is here at the moment is part of me.

It has been few days since I asked the question and at the moment my feelings are quite normal despite now and then experiencing these feelings of space and presence. This all has been quite a ride. But although my feelings and perceptions have changed during the last few days, the basic change that happened few days ago hasn't wavered a bit.  ---M

Ed:

M. realized he was the totality of his experiencing.

The marvelous thing is the more you expand your inner life, the more inclusive that experiencing becomes.  Like Lila found, there is no true or false self objects to be found, only ever changing experiences.  It is words that try to create permanent objects like "Self," true and false selves, God, guru, student relationships.  Really, it is just an ever changing mess that makes no sense if you try to comprehend it with hollow thought.

When you stop trying to understand, your self just gets bigger and bigger until it is all you, but then you realize that too is just a concept.

No you, no not you, and with this comes profound peace and contentment, and ever expanding "growth" of simultaneous ownership and non-ownership of everything.

M.s real path now is just beginning.  But notice how just a small change in the method of inquiry can make a large difference.  M. just changed from a passive watching aspect of cold observation, to one of lightness, wonderment, acceptance and welcoming of experience, and what a difference it made.