28 February 2015

SUNDAY SATSANG TIME CHANGED TO NOON ARIZONA TIME WHICH IS 7 PM FOR THE U.K., AND 8 PM MAINLAND EUROPE.

Password is edji which is asked for two separate times.

Then go to the START BROADCASTING button to get on camera and mike.

SUBJECT: THE SPECTRUM OF CONSCIOUSNESS; A TALE OF ENDLESS DISCOVERY AND GROWTH

27 February 2015

THE WAY OF THE TENDER HEART

Hi Edji,

Meditations (got to be another name for that) get so good I could stay there all day long. The feelings in the Hara and chest and head area are getting more identifiable and stronger.

What is Life for except this...your method of Manifesting the Self.

Deep loneliness, fears and long ago forgotten thoughts (totally forgotten) just surface but they just do not have the negative impact they used to. The days of wanting to leave the body are Gone....Now I look forward to them showing up unexpectedly and letting them overtake me then gradually leave. Leaving me more blessed than before. Never thought I'd look at them as a blessing.

I am much closer to all the cats now. and can tap into their feelings and fears. Took Orry to the Vet today for a teeth cleaning and let him know days before what was going to happen and the I would be with him and the girl technicians were very nice and loved him too. So he was all ready to go this AM and when I left him for several hours he was very calm and relaxed. Oh , just feeling the Love between him and I was overwhelming. He was so happy and secure. Almost like I am talking to myself.

A strange thing happened yesterday: we have granite counter-tops and it is like they said to me "what right do you have to destroy a beautiful mountain in South America just so you can have a special counter-top?"

Then I could see the destruction we humans foster on Nature just to pretty our abodes.

I guess we do this to animals, confining them to tiny torture pens, pretty fish taken from their havens and shipped from around the world for our pretty aquariums, birds trapped in Africa so we can lock them up in little cages, Oak and maple trees cut,split and killed just so we can have nice looking trim around our doors and windows...the kind of things that now make me sick but maybe that is a part of me also. Its here now so I have to face it.

So it is not just Orry and the cats and animals that I feel but it has to extend to all of Nature. All of living Nature. The mountains are alive, trees and plants wherever they live, the air we breathe.
I AM all of that and now feeling it.

I remember seeing a picture of an old man, a Native American and a tear is rolling ever so slowly down his cheek. I know that Man....today I know that man.

Love you , steve

I gotta say Edji you really opened it ALL up for me, and I bow to you SIR!!

26 February 2015

Feedback on process

Dear Edji,

I continue to search for the I am. I'm back on my job again after two weeks of vacation and with the daily stress it's more difficult to go deeper but I do my best.

The satsangs send me deeper very quickly. There is the feeling of electricity around the heart and lots of buzzing in the emotional body. 

I feel some positive changes in my daily life. I feel like a more heart centered and warm person. My connection with my kids are getting better and they seem to like my presence better too. It's like they finally have become part of my spiritual life instead of an obstacle to it.

Different emotions are coming up too. During my years with the void/pure awareness life was often experienced as a flow but a flow without or with few emotions. I feel more whole now but am also confronted with feelings of being timid, vulnerable and having a lack of self confidence. I have been away from life and emotions for quite some time and it's like when you don't use your muscles they get weaker. I haven't been used to meet life as a whole person and haven't exercised my emotions. I try to embrace whatever comes up in me.

The last satsang was so great and I regret I didn't record it. I'm already looking forward to next Sunday.

It sounds great that you may want to hold the satsang one hour earlier. Since kundalini awakened 6 years ago I have become very dependent on my sleep and when I go to bed later than 10 pm local time I'm always totally devastated the day after. I'll try to attend satsang no matter what you decide but if it is an hour earlier it's great news. 

Thank you, Edji

Love

My response:  Wonderful news! It is feedback like yours that keeps me going.

25 February 2015

DOCUMENTARY: SILENCED

I just saw  documentary called “Silenced” about three whistle blowers regarding torture that took place under bush, and the cover-ups by the NSA and other agencies to hide the truth.

It exposes the corruption that was and is the White House under both Bush and Obama.  I didn’t know that only 11 people had been charged with treason under the 1917 Espionage Act that was directed against German spies in WWI.  Of those 11, seven have been charged and prosecuted under Barack Obama.

Cheney, as Vice President orders the Justice Dept. to burn anyone who reveals the truth about what happened and then deletes a broad spectrum of documents and emails that would reveal what really happened.

This has continued under Obama, and is part and parcel of Obama’s war against journalists, federal whistle blowers, and transparency anywhere in his administration.


See it if you can on TV.  Also, I saw Citizen Four, a documentary about Edward Snowden.  It is a mirror reflection of Silenced, exposing that the Espionage Act makes no distinction between leakers and spies.  If a person reports illegal activities of the government that have been classified as secret by that same government as an act of coverup, that person can be successfully prosecuted for treason.


One of the whistle blowers followed just revealed to a congressional committee some lies the CIA had told Congress about the torture project, and he was prosecuted.  All three whistle blowers were effectively blacklisted and emotionally destroyed.

The degree of secrecy and destructive coverup and corruption now in the government mirrors the utter depravity of corporate greed, deceit, and corruption that has become America during the past century and a half.


I experienced the same sort of lies and coverup when I lived in Santa Monica from obfuscating City staffers, who, as one city employee told me, lied all the time about nearly everything. They hide from fear of retribution from a public if exposed for some of their acts.
THE ONLY ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE IS DEATH; SHORT OF DEATH WE MUST BE OPEN TO AN INFINTE RANGE OF INNER PATHS AND EXPERIENCES.

The range of human experience, both inner and outer, is quite broad and includes many levels and states of Consciousness. When one runs into a new area of one's heretofore unknown experience, the experience or state can be engrossing, and may last long enough to write books about it.

Here I am talking about the Void, emptiness, bliss, overwhelming love, the sense of presence, Self, personal self, the light of Consciousness, joy, sadness, grief, sahaj samadhi, waking, sleep, dream, Turiya, Witness.

Although theoretically the Witness precedes all other experiences as the subject, and the Turiya state of Consciousness underlies all other states of Consciousness, what we as humans are aware of is just one small spectrum of the entirety being in the foreground.

Then as naturally as waking up from sleep, or going from dream to deep sleep, the state we are in as our primary state can change in seconds.

Our being deeply rooted in Christ Consciousness, bliss, surrender, alternative worlds, depression, joy---all can disappear in a few heartbeats as we move elsewhere.

Some "advanced" souls can stay in one state more or less permanently through specific spiritual practices, in fact, they have reached a dead end through their efforts and attachment to these states, and lose their humanity, their vulnerability, their openness to change and loss. They cannot grow much.

From my point of view there is no final  state, and real advancement is an ability to move between and among various states, awakenings, levels of Consciousness, and experiences with complete openness, acceptance, and loving anticipation for what comes next.  When one door closes, it leaves an opportunity for another door to open: a new love, a new movement of Shakti, acquiring a deeper acceptance of the totality of who and what we are as we live the experience of each awakening for a time, integrate it into who we are, then more on, perhaps to even create and teach an entirely new “path.”

I know Robert said there are no new paths, but that was only his opinion after exploring Eastern teachings and teachers in India for 17 years; but Robert knew nothing of depth psychology, object relations psychology, Christian mysticism or Sufi teachings, practices, or teachers.

I would amend Robert’s opinion to “New paths are constantly opening as times, cultures, and human experience accumulates and matures.”  Besides new paths, someone who has attained some deep experiences and understandings, for example, by following the Nath experience of Nisargadatta, can then be open to an entirely new path, such as of awakening Kundalini of Kashmir Shaivism, or focus more deeply on the Emptiness teachings of Buddhism, becoming a Bhakti and following a path of love, because one has left emptiness behind and accepts his or her human condition, and focuses on love and surrender.

The universe of potential inner experiences open to every human being is infinite, just as there is an infinite range of human experiences available for the taking in the external world, experiences that range from human love, being an explorer, wife or husband, athlete, auto mechanic, home-owner, economist, academic, psychologist, tax collector, artist, writer, politician. No one person can be all of these things at the same time or even in succession. At most one may have a dozen or so careers even though one’s interests may extend to many dozen areas.


In no way am I suggesting that the search for truth, for love, for God, for Self, for bliss, for emptiness is futile; just the opposite.  I am saying the search itself is intrinsic to a constant opening and acceptance of one’s Self in its infinite nature and multilevels.  It is just that the Self is so large, multifaceted, hidden and exposed, filled with a very wide range of emotions and moods, memories, good and bad.  But the experience of the divine within is life enhancing and life-changing, as is the experience of no-self unity Consciousness, endless bliss of Christ Consciousness (Turiya—Atman), the Void, joy, the sense of Presence or energy body and finding an ability to heal one’s own self, psychologically and physically, as well as others.  All these things and states are gifts of sentience, of being alive, even pain, grief, and loss.  Robert used to say that life gets interesting when you get old—so true!

24 February 2015

Interesting information about Robert Adams regarding feet of clay.

I recently received an email from one of Robert's former students that visited him in 1993.  At one point she asked Robert "What were Neen Karola Baba and Nisargadatta like?, too which Robert responded, "Just guys, XXX, just guys."

When asked "Robert, how do you perceive the world: As light only?  As Emptiness?  As bliss?  As Consciousness alone?", Robert replied, "I see the world just like you do.  If I saw any of those things, I could not function. The only difference is that I know it is all Consciousness."

Samantha, one of Robert's students who was obviously a quasi girlfriend for a while, because he bought her flowers and chocolates for her birthday, and he took me to lunch with her, at one point had an angry falling out with Robert. 

She would never say what happened, and at one point, as Robert exited one Sunday Satsang in Woodland Hills, he threw a bottle of pills at her which shocked everyone there since he very rarely expressed anger.

Samantha lived near me in Santa Monica and I saw her once in a while, but she would say nothing about Robert except, "He is just a man, an ordinary man."

Yet so many teachers act as if they have gone beyond being human, forsaking even human love for a supposedly transcendental spiritual love of loving everything equally, just being love.

Others are just emptiness, nothingness, like Robert, while others are just the Self, the Manifest Self of Turiya, and Turiyatta likeRamana.

But so many feel they have gone beyond being human, rather than having added onto their humanhood.  Imagine, forsaking the love of a child, a lover, or a cat--human love--to been ensconced in a constant state of love for everything.  It sounds good, but misses the human vulnerability of loving another with the possibility of loss, death, and grief.

My dear friend is lost in seeking this state of ever increasing love for all beings, while another ex-student has run away from human love because of hurt, and now only talks about grace and her lack of need for love or a teacher of any sort.

I ask my students to always be loving of others and themselves, but also to seek within the Self, as well as greet and love all emotions and tensions that arise in themselves while doing inquiry.  Most of all, they need to be "tender" to themselves and others, be open and vulnerable to everything, and don't be attached to any state that much, like I was to emptiness, the Void for  many years, or even to one's sense of presence.  They can be taken away from you in a moment.  Your personal unfolding reveals innner vistas such as the Void, Bliss, Total Love, then you transcend them and move on to something else, or else they just disappear one day with no warning.

All in all, remain in your humanity no matter what spiritual vistas become yours to explore.

23 February 2015

Right now I am the humanly happiest that I have ever been, largely due to my move to Arizona.

The area I live in has an ideal climate except for June through September.  It is very peacefulrom our patio and residents are friendly and involved in the community and with each other.

Life in a house with my cats and the magical screened in patio on a golf course provides peaceful viewing beat only by a Malibu ocean view, but without its traffic.

The cost of living is substantially lower in all categories, from rent, to gasoline, to electricity and water, and even Directv.  Food is a little lower, harcuts, handymen, auto repair are all lower than Los Angeles, so I don't have to worry so much about finances.

You don't even need a car here.  You can buy a used golf cart for $2-4,000 which serves you well for shopping and other chores, or ride a bicycle or tricycle on sidewalks and very calm streets.

Veterinarian costs are signitificantly less here and basically, my cats love the house, watching wildlife from the screened in patio, and sleeping on Kerima and me.

And, the bliss continues along with going deeper into Self not on a temporary new realization basis, but during everyday life.  As Almass might say, I am living and expressing my realization.

There is an opportunity to expand here that I found lacking in Los Angeles, where one is assaulted on all sides by traffic, noise, rules and regulations, too many people, and a much higher level of expenses.

The weather has been unbelievable.  Today it is raining a bit, but on the average it only rains 8 inches a year.  No snow.  Avergae daytime temperate this and last month has been around 69-70 degrees, with night temps dropping to the 50s.  There are clouds frequently which yield incredible sunrise vistas and sunsets.

Sedona is an hour and forty minutes away with its breat taking views and extensive wildlife, while Grand Canyon is just another 21/2 hours further North with even more breat taking views and more wildlife.

I can't tell you how much I would like other sangha members how much I would love you to move to this area and we could watch together the wildlife from our patio.

OTHER FACTS:

There is no limit on the number of dogs are cats you can have in your house. Because of coyotes, no one leaves their cats or dogs outside except in yards with 8 ft. walls.

Real estate is big here. There was an economic collapse and the housing market collapsed dropping housing prices up to 60%. Rents similarly low, but the market is beginning to come back.

Golf is big here. It seems like hundreds of golf courses are here and houses on the courses.
Sales tax 6% and I don't think there is a state income tax--I am not sure.

The biggest area of employment in my area o Phoenix is in the health care field, home care, and retirement services at home and in retirement communities.

The City of Phoenix lists high tech and construction as the predominant industries with highest employment.

22 February 2015

ONLINE SATSANG TODAY (Feb. 21), 1 PM ARIZONA (MOUNTAIN TIME), 8 PM GMT.
Sign in with the password edji. You will be asked to do so on 2 different screens.
Then push the START BROADCASTING tab, and follow the menu.

21 February 2015

Photos of my home, cats, and local scenery.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205122296330302&set=pcb.425149940985666&type=1&theater

Continuously Unfolding

Any path of any teacher can rapidly become a dead end for followers and does not lead to freedom for most.

But is that what spirituality is supposed to be about: freedom?

That was never my motivation. For me, I sought the final truth because I was lost in my mind. I was confused by so many concepts from Western Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, science, politics, economics, etc., and all I found were myriads upon myriads of concepts, most of which contradicted other sets of concepts that I also felt had a degree of truth.

But even from an early age knew there were alternatives to scientific, religious, and spiritual knowing, and that was “searching” for a bedrock of faith, a fundamental state, or that elusive final truth by looking within.

But searching within can be at least as confusing as searching outside for truth, especially given all the neo-Advaitin teachers who guide people with direct pointing to the simple-minded and superficial discoveries they have made concerning the emptiness of concepts including the concept of a personal self. Yet these superficial discoveries seem to satisfy the spiritual hungers of a vast number of people, at least for a time, just as other spiritual concepts found in fundamentalist Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths, satisfy an even larger number of people the world around.

And in the area of spirituality and religion there are so many experts who gain followers through eloquence, or simplicity of their teaching, or clarity of concepts, or promise of spiritual powers, or promises of finding peacefulness and silence within, or finding bliss, joy, aliveness, or Self. People who follow these teachers can gain the ends those teachers teach and be satisfied for a while with Emptiness, silence, bliss, unity consciousness, Self-Realizations of one sort or another, only to—years later—find these ends wanting, initiating a new round of internal discomfort and abandonment of those earlier hard-won concepts or spiritual states. You see, they did not find their own truth, but found someone else’sand made it their own.

I am not saying that because you discover in yourself something your teacher found in him or herself, that the experience for you was not real.  No indeed.  The places found within are definitely real and may offer salvation and joy.  But it was not the culmination of your own ultimate path.  Yes, maybe you stayed in Robert’s Arhat  Nirvana for a few years, or stabilized in Sahaj Samadhi, or discovered the light of Consciousness.  But only that? Is that all?

Is there a final truth, an ultimate teaching? Or, like Buddha after seven years of seeking, turn within and say to himself, I will kill myself unless I find my truth. Thereafter he finds the truth of Nirvana, or attaining a no-desire state of purity which later becomes teachings of emptiness and no-self, by relying only on himself and deep meditation under a Bo tree. He found his own ultimate truth which may have matured over the rest of his 47 years of teaching, but apparently the peace of the Arhat is what he settled on.

Me? I know that for myself I am pursuing a path of endless openings and growth having followed many paths with many awakenings, and many truths. It is a path of life-long adventure, of unfolding one’s own truth by being a light onto oneself yet being completely open to listening to the truth of others to find if there is something worthwhile to explore. (I know many of you will not believe I am open to listening to the truth of others.  But I am if they are offering something different from the paths I have already traveled and left behind, such as Neo-Advaita, Buddhism, Zen, Advaita, and even Kashmir Shaivism and depth psychology.)

But, while I have found many truths, many states of being, many kinds of emptiness, bliss, and energy levels, that which I most prize is my ability to love others as myself.

I have one cat, Buddy, who I love so deeply that we have become fast friends. I know his ways as well as my own. I feel his sentience, his life-force and his openness to me in my heart area—literally, I feel his tenderness and consciousness existence as my own, and delight in his happiness. But this delight is always undermined by the fact he is not well and the vets don’t know what is wrong with him. His death will affect me deeply when it comes to pass, but that is the price you pay when you love someone or something deeply.



Buddha blew out that flame of love in himself and it transformed into a generic compassion to teach people how to go beyond love, attachments, desires to the Nirvanic peace of no desires, no self and no suffering—to kill the ego so to speak. And some day perhaps even this ability to love so deeply and with such attached concern on my part may die in me, for I realize nothing in life stays still.

There is no final state, no ultimate teachings, Sahaja Samadhi is just another dead end path for me no matter how happy it makes some others, or provides some with a captivating goal. Ditto attaining the Void, or attaining constant bliss, or stillness or Christ Consciousness. All of these I have experienced and they are all transcient, even as is life.


What I am transcends all of these teachings and experiences. I am beyond all teachings, all experiences, all truths because I contain them all. Still, for me, the most important thing in life is having somebody or something to love. It keeps the ever-present Void from getting too cold, too remote, too dispassionate.


Buddy likes spending time here with his deceased brothers and sisters



18 February 2015

Something strange has happened to me.  I have become the laziest, self-satisfied human that I know.  I no loner desire the company of other humans by going to a coffee shop in the mornings. I just stay home with my cats watching them play with each other, argue, knock things off of the table, vomit, and otherwise draw attention to themselves.

I happily do nothing.  No reading tempts me.  I force myself to walk a mile every other day gradually recovering my pre-surgery strength. 

On the odd days I begin practicing kettlebell swings for core strength--but reluctantly.

Not knowing what else to do I play on Facebook and answer many emails from seekers all over the world.

I eat four times a day, often a meal with two of the delicious, sweet and very juicy oranges from my back yard.  Max can tell you about these--and Max, they are sweeter now than when you were here.

I watch a gaggle of five geese that like staying close to my back yard on the golf course while I read about Steve's and Syndria's and Shane's and others' experiences of Shakti, enjoying them thoroughly.

Then I take out my cheap 7X35 binoculars for a closer view of the wildlife all the while I am in a T-shirt because the daytime temperatures are in the 70s and once in the while low 80s.  I read about the horrors of the snows and sub-zero cold in the East and genuinely feel sorry for people living there, and fo all the cats and wildlife that have died during the repeated freezes.

I don't even feel an urge to get a car or even a golf cart to go shopping or ride around the local streets--for I am at peace.

I have Almass's new book onthe table who talsk about living a life of continuous self-discovery, of endless paths, old and new, recognizing that there are infinite potential end states not just the ones listed by Ramana, Nisargadatta, Buddha, or Christ, and that each of us has an opportunity for forging a new path after any basic awakening on any traditional path.  A life of continuous exploration, with no final awakening whether it be to Christ Consciousness, the Witness beyond Consciousness, Jan Esmann's Sahaj Samadhi after 33 years of pranayama and visualizations, or Robert's silence.  

Yet I cannot move myself to read it even though that is exactly my view which I set forward in Self-Realization and Other Awakenings where I talk about a spiritual mansion with a thousand different rooms of states and experiences, and which any one human can only explore a few.

Right now I am forging a path of peaceful nothingness, a subtle happiness, and rest, rest, resting in mySelf. Maybe tomorrow will bring a new path?

14 February 2015

Why do teachers and students waste so much time talking about Eastern Philosophical concepts, which are more advanced, or mature, or balanced than other teachers and teachings?

This does not help their own realizations one iota.  It is just a pissing contest, sometimes motivated to win students or a following, or in a good-hearted way because they don't want people to follow the wrong teaching.

Why don't teachers talk about their own awakening experiences and day to day realizations instead of about Atman, Brahman, TurIya, Causal Body, witness, ego, personal self, mind in the abstract, and  talk about what they know and feel in experience-near terms, such as joy, bliss, sorrow, grief, sense of presence, energies, lights, grace and what they mean by the experience of God or the divine?

Or talk about the experience of Kundalini without all the Eastern terms.

Because discussion of "reality" in the abstract IS A HUGE DIVERSION FROM ONE'S OWN IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE AND SELF-REALIZATION.

Only by going within, deeper than mind, will anything worthwhile be discovered.

SATSANG SUNDAY FEBRUARY 15, 1 PM, ARIZONA TIME (8 PM IN THE u.k.)

ONLINE:  Go to http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com.  Use the password   edji   on two different sign in screens.  Then if you want to be on video, go to the sign in button and foLlow directions.

TOPIC:  WHY DO PEOPLE WASTE SO MUCH TIMEON FACEBOOK TRYING TO BE RIGHT ABOUT EASTERN PHILOSOPHY AND ENLIGHTENMENT RATHER THAN TALKING ABOUT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES?

13 February 2015

As I sit on my patio overlooking the green fairway in this bright early light of day, I feel the bliss of Self permeating me, my body, and the entirety of the world around me.

When I “look inside” using my inner vision, sentience pulsates within me, throbs with energy and life within the emptiness that pervades and surrounds all things.  These energies pulsate and radiate outwards from my body into the world—my world that takes it's life from me.  Oh how wonderful!  Everything is me, or nothing is, and both simultaneously.  I am the life of the world as well as the emptiness that supports it.

One more cup of coffee, then I’ll go for a walk and spread the joy of beingness.
FROM SYNDRIA:

Reading this post is more like feeling your experiences in me. Edji, you have reintroduced me to my own inner landscape. I felt these nuances, energies, interconnections with nature and animals, wonderment, joy....all this rich inner life was mine as a child. I remember ...

But it got squelched in me early in life, and even my later spiritual practice felt walled off and unrelated to me. I felt dead inside, even though I could pass koans and sit in emptiness for long periods.

Now, using the map you've given me as guide, the love you've helped me rediscover within me, I feel like Im being slowly reborn, rebirthed. I really do. I'm not Self-Realized, not especially talented at self-investigation, but I now feel more alive, like I did as a child.

I still suffer and cry and complain, but its also now a joy to feel pain as part of me, a larger whole being. I'm not so identified with suffering at my core. Now pain is gradually becoming part of Life, along with wonder, delight, humor, joy, bliss, sadness, anger, all of it.

I feel very tenuous and vulnerable at just being human, but I love it too. You've helped me so much, Edji. I want the same for other people too.

I'm beginning to think that not many people are actually experiencing what they need to in order to grow spiritually enough to truly know the Self. That's very sad. I hope they can eventually hear you shouting. I'm happy, beyond words, that I did.

10 February 2015

WHY  I SHOUT ABOUT MYSELF

I GET THIS A LOT: Ed, why do you talk so much about your awakening experiences, as if you are the only one who has ever had a spiritual experience?  It appears so narcissistic and self-involved.

The reason is that I searched for the truth of my existence all my life, or at least from the age of 12.  I am 72 now and I found what I was looking for five years ago.  For 55 years I looked and could not see.

Mostly I looked in books from science, physics, relativity, to economics, to science fiction, then to all the religions of the East, but most prominently Zen, then Ramana Maharshi, then Nisargadatta, then Robert Adams.  I looked within for at least 40 of those years. Imagine, searching for something for over 50 years, then finding it in a hugely explosive experience as a result of loving someone other than myself, totally, completely.  Would that not be worth shouting about? 

Would not changing the direction for finding that truth, that divinity is within oneself, away from pranayama exercises or meditations on emptiness, to love, and a loving introspection to offer a new path through the wasteland of Zen and neo-Advaita, be worth a shout?

Imagine, a path of loving others, serving others, caring for others as a path to one’s own Self?  Imagine that!  I found my own divine, energetic, loving Self by loving another!  After 40 years or so of constant meditation, self-reflection, self-inquiry, many Zen masters and other teachers, finding only emptiness for 40 years, then finding the magic of presence, of Self within that filled all that emptiness with life, with bliss, with love through loving another.  Is that not worth a shout?

I found that by looking within, one finds only the  Void, emptiness.  But feeling within leads to finding the Self of all, the Atman, Satchitananda. Who dares to talk about finding love for ones own Self through feeling great love for another?  One makes love one’s own self, and as Nisargadatta writes, the I Am reveals all of life’s secrets.

AND, that experience stays with me all the time.  The Self burns within as a flowing, glowing energy, effulgent, light explosive happiness that flows from within the deepest level of my own being; it flows outwards into the world with joy and caring for others, wanting others to experience the joy of their own beingness for we all share that  same Self.  Is that not worth a shout?

This is the only thing I have to share: the knowledge of Self; the joy of Self; the power of Self. I cannot take my attention off my Self.  It burns brightly, and I, the Brahman, the Absolute, the Witness, constantly adoringly looks at the Self, the Manifest side of my own existence, in utter bliss and awe.  Is that not worth a shout?

AND, this Self within is a tiger, a dragon of awesome power and beauty that I cannot look away from even for a moment.  Is not that knowledge of the Self within worth a shout?

The emptiness of Zen and Buddhism has an antidote and it is the experience of the manifest Self within. Is that not worth a shout?

You see, this Self is the antidote to all the emptiness, hate, hurt, depression, and death in the world.  Yes, this is worth a shout.


The Self shouts out, I have come alive! I Am!   I Am! It revels at its own beingness, its own existence, its own light, its own bliss and joy.

09 February 2015

Sri Edji,    Believe it or not I think you are initiating a new paradigm.    

Many of the past teachers have little or NO clarity in their teachings....I know I could never find any explicit method to achieve Self-realization....just a lot of babble. How to sit, how to breath, what to eat, money to pay....just mostly crap.

On the other hand you my dear Edji give very down to earth instructions, very clear and concise.  It may be more difficult than most people can handle but it is there.  And it includes a completely new idea...A MANIFEST I AM.

I think you have started something that can't be reversed and is going to build slowly throughout the United States and all around the globe.   I have felt this for many months now.

Your frustration must be immense because of the coming and going of many devotees. 

That is because your teachings tear away all  of the obstructions into the depths of one's being. 

MOST people can't handle that, so they find any excuse to Stop the method and find something safer.  Sometimes even to blame you for their shortcomings. 

I barely could handle it and you know how close it came on many occasions. 

A handful of us devotees need you as you have brought us to the brink of salvation.  Hell look at Jesus and his followers...you are no different.

If you did elect to go with the Koreans you may have lots of followers but you wouldn't have the contact either. Plus deep down you really couldn't continue teaching their method.   You have your own method build on many many years of searching and that saves us devotees today many years on our own path. You allow us to build on your experience.

You are a total blessing to this world Edji. A very Rare blessing indeed.

Love you with my whole Heart,  steve

08 February 2015

NO SATSANG TODAY.  I HAVE TO THINK OVER AND PONDER SOME THINGS DEEPLY REGARDING BEING A TEACHER.

The field is so very crowded with teachings and teachers that often it feels pointless because it is too confusing for seekers.  Why add to the confusion?

And the teachers don't want to communicate with each other, or debate with each other, or defend their teachings as was so common a thousand years ago.

Few teachers are very nuanced and offer very simplistic teachings and most students want something easy to grasp, like basic Nisargadatta, basic Ramana, basic Tolle, etc.

And most teachers discount the Manifest I as illusion, but to me it boils with energy and bliss.

So I have to ponder what to do.

I will never abandon my current students who have stuck with me so long, but I have seen so many students come professing great love, commitment, attachment, etc., only to run away in a flash of anger of unknown origin and I am tired by the constant sense of loss.

07 February 2015

WHEN LOOKING TO FIND A SPIRITUAL TEACHER, DON’T HESITATE TO ASK QUESTIONS.

During the decades that I studied with various teachers I don’t think I ever asked any of them about their day to day experience of how they experienced themselves and the world. I was just kind of open to whatever they shared, a cup at least half-empty waiting for truth to fill me because I was utterly clueless regarding who or what I was, what “reality” was, what “truth” was. I thought perhaps I could learn truth from them by passively listening, since I had not learned any final truths by myself through thousands of hours of meditation and introspective self-inquiry.

I think back to these days and think that had I asked Zen Master X, Y, or Z, what their immediate self-experience was, or how they perceived themselves, or perceived others, or if they had any extraordinary daily experiences, and, had they answered truthfully, I would have heard that they were as lost, clueless, and disturbed as I was, but over 30 years or so of training, had constructed a cloak of Zen Master, Swami, or Teacher with a capital T.

One Vipassana Abbot at a Los Angeles center told me Buddhism was a lifestyle that you learned over a lifetime of practice. In other words, one became embedded in a milieu of teachings, scriptures, robes, prescribed morality and monastic rules. They was very little talk of enlightenment so ask as you would, you would learn little about what being enlightened is like.

With Seung Sahn, all that one heard about is Dharma-Talk, a very regimented way of teaching a simplified format containing the basic understanding of the teachings of Chogye Zen. Or, more clearly you heard his exhortations to become dumb as a rock, to stop thinking about everything, and just act, otherwise also expressed as “Just (go) straight ahead; don’t wobble.”

Why I never questioned them about their 
awakening experiences or what they experienced in everyday life now that gave them the authority to teach, I don’t know. It just never occurred to me to ask. I guess I was still looking for “teachings” not direct experience of my own to be my guide even though I spent many hours each day investigating my own direct experience through meditation and self-inquiry.

It was not until I had the shower experience in 1995, the experience that the emptiness that I had been witnessing as permeating everything, but had regarded as something other than me, was really me essentially, that the reliance on any words or concepts was finally and completely destroyed. From that moment on, I, as emptiness became the Alpha and Omega of truth for me.

My truth became that “The only truth is that there is no truth; beware even of this truth.” There was only emptiness that destroyed all concepts, all truth. It destroyed the entire network of interconnected thoughts. Any expression depended on mind, and mind was superficial compared to the emptiness that underlays the mind. The mind was just interconnected thoughts with no referent in the world or in me. There was no me. There was no I. There was no thing called mind, only thoughts. This was not an understanding; this was a direct experience of having no understanding because the reality of experiencing emptiness destroyed everything.

A few weeks later I experienced that all experience, including that of the emptiness was just the coming and going of states of consciousness, like clouds passing over and through me, who was disembodied, having no existence or awareness in myself except as a passive witness to the coming and going of waking, dream, and sleep states, as well as the Absolute.

With this, I felt I knew everything. I understood Zen Koans, the Sutras, etc., and I taught about Robert Adams from this viewpoint.

Later, then I came alive to the Manifest Self through an experience I have described many times, I saw how incomplete my experience had been as well as my understanding. Finding the Manifest Self of energy, Love, power, willfulness, bliss filled out the emptiness with presence, with Life, Love, joy….

Now, since I had gone from a place of being clueless, to knowing emptiness, the Void and being assured that was the final state, and then finding the Manifest Self that had been hidden within the Emptiness, and feeling now I am really complete, I do not doubt that more awakenings are possible.

Remember, Robert searched all over India for 17 years trying to “See if I had missed anything.”

Thus I highly recommend to anyone who is seeking anything from attaining a secure sense of personal self, to the Absolute Witness, Parabrahman, to Self-Realization to carefully question any prospective teacher about his or her awakening experiences, what understanding those experiences revealed, and what their current, daily experiences are. Do they currently experience bliss? Do they experience joy? Do they experience a full range of emotions or have none as when I lived in emptiness, the Void?

Are they able to relate to you as a person as well as a teacher, or do they merely talk endlessly about the nature of mind, the nature of emptiness or of the present moment? Do they talk about the absence of time, the Absolute, or the “real?”

These latter teachers are likely talking about a philosophy or the nature of existence, or of a theory of knowledge and not from their direct day to day experience. Like the Vipassana monk mentioned above they have taken on a cloak of knowing, a philosophy of Advaita, neo-Advaita, Kasmir Shaivism, Tantra, etc. with no day-to-day real-life freedom experience that hides their true cluelessness.

Do they experience Self? Do they experience a sense of I? Do they experience bliss? Do they experience Emptiness. Or do they throw all experiences out as merely experience which is vitiated by emptiness—nothingness? Such people have nothing to share because they have no experiences to share. They are just parroting other popular teachers and have not gone deeper than mind. Their minds are convinced that what they are is beyond experience, but otherwise have experienced no deep changes or deep realizations of either emptiness, the Witness, or the Self.

Even the greatest teachers can be deluded by their mind even at the core of their own teaching and awakening experiences, such as Ramana, who experienced a great fear of death. I have quoted his experience many times on this blog and hesitate to add it again. But he decided to examine his own experience of death to understand what died. He said to make the exploration more real he pretended to be dead, closing his eyes and imagining that his “dead” body was going to be carried to the cremation grounds.

Then he concluded, “What dies? The body dies, for though it is dead, I still feel the full force of my personality and (consciousness). Therefore, the I, consciousness was real, and immortal, eternal, and did not die.”

What Ramana really discovered was the distinction between spirit and matter, Purusha and Praktrikti. He certainly could not conclude from his imagined death of the body that the spirit was immortal because his body had no actually died, but he did discover I as real, as an entity, and from that day forward he was always aware of the Self through the being that was Ramana.

But people followed Ramana because of his behavior. He sat in silent meditation for decades and became revered as a great yogi because of cultural expectations. Here, in the US, he would have been hospitalized.

Later he gradually learned about Vedanta by being visited by scholars, hearing them recite various scriptures, and acknowledged that some fit his experience, and these became his accepted teachings, such as the Ribhu Gita. But I don’t think he took these teachings seriously because he was glued to his own experience of Self.

So, again, I urge you to ask prospective teachers about their “realization” experiences if any, and what conclusions they drew from those experiences. That is, how did they come to their teachings, was it from reading books or listening to some third party teachers and take those teachings on faith? Or, did their conclusion flow in a reasonable way from their awakening experiences? And, what in their daily experiences here and now support their teachings?

Avoid teachers who don’t talk about their experiences or from their own experiences, and thus just talk about reality, the mind, time, space, awareness, etc., and thus reveal nothing about themselves.

They should be an open book about everything, and you should also be an open book. Hide nothing. Express everything. Be open to your own experience of everything that arises from doubt, to emptiness, to depression, joy, bliss, energies, Self.

05 February 2015

SELF-REALIZATION THROUGH LOVING SELF-ACCEPTANCE, MY STORY AND ITS APPLICATION TO VARIOUS PERSONALITY TYPES.

SELF-REALIZATION THROUGH LOVING SELF-ACCEPTANCE, MY STORY AND ITS APPLICATION TO VARIOUS PERSONALITY TYPES.
I believe that ‘true’ Self-Realization of what I call the Manifest Self, AKA Atman, would be a natural consequence of a successful developmental sequence of the self experience as opposed to a “normal” self engaging on a path of spiritual transcendence (Transpersonal Psychology).  Based on my own experience, and observing many spiritual students over many years, I think a large number of people could be Self-Realized by the  age of 40 in the sense of Ramana Maharshi’s experience or Nisargadatta’s early Self-Realization experience if their self-developmental maturation processes were not made so torturous by the cultural, ideological, and familial matrix almost all humans are born into, and by extension, Self-Realization is the undoing of self-experience developmental failures.
In my view the infant to adult self-developmental take place in an incredible overload of external stimuli of conflicting concepts, messages, mind-numbing educational systems, social media, television, social pressures, legal constraints that make just adapting to the confusion and overload and extremely difficult task.  Failure to adapt leaves the vast majority of us confused, fragmented, unsure of our everyday let alone life-decisions that leaves us insecure, frightened, and directionless.  Then we are told we can end this insecure and frightened status by holding on to a belief system, or a cause, or a relationship thus becoming a cog within one of the larger wheels within the matrix.
My own journey was just this way.  I was utterly confused by the bewildering variety of conflicting concepts about everything and by the perceived utter nonsense of my own life and those of others living in the matrix.  I felt I did not belong in this world but did not know how to find my way home which led me for some unknown reason, straight into spiritual studies of the East, primarily to Zen because of its inherent distrust of concepts, and to Ramana, because of the utter simplicity that appeared to be the quest for knowing the I directly.
Thus I rejected all learning, all concepts, all social norms, and everything that I could perceive came from others in a quest for the real, or for truth, based on my own experience.
However, I realized then that I started this search while still embedded within the social/educational matrix I was born in, and could not myself begin to overcome my own embeddedness unless exposed to people and philosophies totally alien to my conventional Cleveland Ohio 1950s upbringing.
Long Zen practice including many tens of thousands of hours of meditation, study with six Zen masters, Koan study, sutra study led to hundreds of “spiritual” experiences that while liberating me from the conventional matrix, did nothing to clarify who or what I was, and, in fact, added whole new levels of uncertainty and doubt.
My whole life until the age of 30 or so was dominated by fear and confusion, and behavioral reactions to fear and confusion.  I studied martial arts and lifted weights because I was afraid, and studied Zen Koans as well as looking into my inner world for any kind certainty because I was confused by my profoundly distorted conventional upbringing and the early death of my father that made me realize how tenuous and uncertain life was, and that no concepts seemed at all real.  Words became just noise with no information transferred.
To make a very long story short, my inner search revealed an Emptiness within.  When I first looked within there was only darkness, but over months and years of meditation practice and looking for the I thought’s origin, that darkness became translucent and then filled with light such as my inner world and everything within it, from thoughts, to images, to daydreams, became as clear as anything seen in the external world.  This awareness of Emptiness, the Void of Zen, gradually destroyed all concepts that I was aware of until that point.  Yet, based on these experiences, I developed a new set concepts based on my direct experience of the Void and objects within the Void that was very similar to those now promulgated by the neo-Advaitins. Mind created everything.  No Mind, no-self was the answer.
However, I was wrong.  This was only one answer and the answer was hollow.  At least for me, this solution felt incomplete and not very rich or nuanced.  It lacked emotional warmth, and I realized I lacked emotional warmth, which  I both wanted and feared. Emotional warmth led to love and dependence, which led to heart-tearing loss, such as of my father through death.  I wanted love, I wanted warmth, but I hung onto the security of Emptiness through fear.
At this point my understanding and experience of the Void and changing forms within it had led to Robert Adams recognition of my awakening, and also being appointed to the position of America’s First World Teacher of Chogye Zen Buddhism in Korea in 1999.  But I waited five more years before I began teaching in 2004 when I erected the itisnotreal.com website which was a tribute to my own teacher, Robert Adams.  The whole site was dedicated to him and his teachings which I adopted as my own, since at this point, the only thing I knew for sure was Emptiness, as well as the subject, the Self which witnessed Emptiness and the world permeated by Emptiness.
But there still was an absence of warmth and love in my life.
When love came finally in the form of a nonsexual but romantic love for a female student, everything changed.
Love and internal energies burst forth from every pore in my body.  My body shook from surging energies everywhere within.  I could “see” energy currents flowing within my body, from toes to regions above my head.  I would feel bliss that deepened into ecstasies that lasted hours. My body became totally alive and I was filled with love for this woman, and that love just grew and grew until it was so overwhelming I identified with being love itself.  The love was so large that everything else was shoved out of my awareness and I became that love.
Shortly thereafter my own deepest Self, the same Self that dwelled within the Self experience of everyone, revealed itself to me as an Other, as God, as divinity separate from me as a most awesome presence, a being of infinite power wrapped in the light of a thousand suns which appeared within my experience of my own body, and then arose within me, going into my heart center, then bursting forth outwards and also upwards carrying me as a human witness, everywhere within the vast domain of the Void.
That experience was coupled with emotions I had never felt before: Intense gratitude for being allowed this experience, intense humility at seeing how small and insignificant I was compared to God, more gratitude for being allowed to serve this being in any way that I could, intense grace as all my sins and guilt were washed away and I was made pure by the presence of God within and without—everywhere.
Then came the recognition that this experience of Other, of God, was really the experience of the Witness of the Emptiness, now experiencing the flip side of Emptiness, which was the fullness of Shakti, the Manifest Self of energies, light, love, and emotion, and the recognition by that Witness of the identity of all three: Witness; Emptiness; Presence, which can also be expressed as: Noumenal or Absolute Self;  Emptiness and Presence as witnessed; the human personal self offshoot which is God incarnated.
Along with this recognition, I realized my whole life after age 18 was a journey towards Self-Realization through destroying the external social and cultural matrix that I had been embedded within by chance of birth, followed by dwelling in that scourging desert of Emptiness for decades, a kind of purgatory, which finally allowed for enough “purity” or absence of internal barriers to the experience of Self, that allowed me to see, feel, and in all ways experience Atman, the Manifest Self within, that also revealed the trinity of the Unmanifest Self, Manifest Self, human self.
Now, I know this is purely my own experience and others have had entirely different experiences, and thus different ways of living and teaching. But my way is a way that led to an explosive experience of Self within that was filled with fire, energy, complete self-abandonment into love, or emptiness, or whatever emotion or memory that arose within that my way may appear reckless or out of control, but it is only because I feel now complete security within my Self.  The experience of Self as wild energies, love, passion, gave me complete confidence in a passionate, deeply surrendered acceptance of that which had been long buried, long neglected, long repressed areas of myself, the lack of experience and integration of which, had prevented a natural Self-Realization experience many years before.
I truly believe that a person raised in a more permissive culture with a less confusing and contradictory social matrix, which promotes introspection as much as making it within the matrix, and which has more loving acceptance of all that arises from within, would result in many, many more people realizing both the Noumenal Self of the Witness, but also the salvation of the Manifest Self of Love, divinity, energies, and certainty regarding one’s own beingness.
This experience happened naturally to Ramana Maharshi at age 16 when he realized his own deepest Self—Atman, and I include his description at the end of this essay, but I am quite certain that many more people would have such a Self-Realization experience if raised in an alternative matrix that was not so screwed up, conflicted, confused and violent.
I also believe that many people could realize their own Self by practicing a method of Self-inquiry that emphasizes not only looking within to find one’s own source (the Noumenal Self), but feels within to find the existential source, the phenomenal or Manifest Self within which is embedded the personal, human self.
Not just any method of self-inquiry will do the job.  The self-inquiry suggested sometimes by Ramana and Robert Adams of “looking” within for the source of the I-thought will only reveal endless Emptiness—the Void, which is infinitely deep and within which you can be trapped for life.
One needs to practice an internal emotional inquiry of feeling within whatever arises, trying to feel the source of one’s own existence.  It is a search for that inner spark that feels like “I” or “me.”
And looking for that spark, that I Am, and resting there when you find it, will automatically reveal over time all those areas of emotionality and buried memories and trauma that has prevented you from realizing Self to this point, and this can be a heavy journey filled with emotional chaos, deep depressions, raging anger at the matrix for having prevented you from long ago feeling the Self within, and filled with other periods of intense love or longing for intense love, bliss, and eroticism which is a byproduct of an awakening Kundalini.  For this approach of using all emotions and memories that arise from within is basically a Tantric approach of incorporating lost emotions and energies into the self, both the human self, but also energizing or at least releasing the Manifest Self within—the God, AKA, the Atman revealed as a self-experience.
I would guess that my own psychotherapy of eight years with a brilliant psychologist, Eric Reitz, my immersion in the clarity of the Void for decades, followed by a reincarnation of the Manifest Self within me as a human gives this approach which could be called Devotional Advaita or Incarnational Advaita a distinctly emotional approach of liberating oneself from the matrix and then reowning the lost Self-Realization developmental trajectory.
Thus I can without doubt join with Swami Muktananda in saying that happiness and bliss, as well as the sure certainty and end of confusion is your birthright, even though I found many Siddha Yoga Swami’s devoid of actual self-realization because Muktananda did not provide a simple and direct means for Self-Realization.  The simplicity and directness of loving the loving  self-inquiry and self-acceptance that I advocate makes it an ideal path for those who are capable of becoming emotionally open.  The method itself helps one become emotionally open, for this openness is itself a developmental process.
It is an ideal method only because of its directness and simplicity, not because it is easier than many other paths.  In fact, it is easy to lose one’s way or get distracted.
Also, it is a quite difficult path for many kinds of students, such as those who are closed to many kinds of emotions, as I was (to love and bondedness out of fear of separation and loss), the so-called schizoid personality, and at the other end of the spectrum, the 2% who suffer from borderline personality dysfunction, also the narcissistic personality, and the histrionic personality. Here the problem in reaching Self-Realization is that the exposure and acceptance of the inner core emotions and damage already done, comes within a context of an ego or small self poorly adapted to regulate the intensity of emotions and spiritual states that are released making the journey much more intense for these people and potentially more dangerous in the sense of possible psychotic breaks and dysfunctionality.
However, I should mention that the Self-Realized state is inherently predisposed to dysfunctionality, because once you are fully aware of the Self within, God, there is nothing more to do in life: you are complete, happy, utterly self-reliant with a tendency to fall off the grid unless something within drives you on an external course of action, such as to become a teacher of Self, or an artist expressing Self through creativity, or an animal rescue person acting out a shepherd leaning that is part of Self-Realization—a kindness and compassion for all living beings.
I truly believe the reward of Self-Realization is worth the risks, because the life of a person with a borderline personality disorder, and those around such a person, can be rather painful, directionless, and confused way beyond the “normal human unhappiness” (Freud) that most people suffer from.
The histrionic personality is probably well-suited to this approach because of their relative willingness to experience and express some types of emotion.  What they need to learn to experience are other types of emotion very deeply and completely and those will be revealed through the self-inquiry process, notably depression and grief.
Other types of conditions well-suited for this approach are those with depression (but not during major depressive episodes), manic depression, grief and loss, for during these experiences one is sunk into deep layers of one’s own awareness of Self, often a kind of emptiness and aloneness that is enervating and empty. This is a place very similar to a description found in the Nath tradition of Nisargadatta of the Causal Body experience, which isjust one layer removed from the Manifest Self of Turiya, the Fourth State that underlies and permeates all other states of Consciousness.  It is just one short step from being frozen in a deep depression, to lovingly accept that total depression and dysfunction, and thereby bringing it into one’s own self-experience, integrating it, and then revealing the most ecstatic blissful state that lies just beneath the depression.
Once one has experienced this transition between deep depression and ecstasy just a few times, one can hardly wait for the development of the next depression so that one can experience the reward of continuous bliss for a few days afterwards.  Eventually, the period between the depression/bliss cycle widens, becomes less frequent, and the depressions gradually become less deep, they become more a delightful mood swing and less of a personal catastrophic challenge.
Using this method, under guidance, will make you a master of emotions for yourself and others. And, you will have a tamed wildness in you, a burning fire of the divine flame in you such that you will be able to cut to the heart of any situation, for you will have broken through all barriers of emotional expression and have a highly charged mastery of the Shakti within you, or better said, Shakti will lead you to very effective interactions within yourself, and between you and the world.  You will radiate with energies that many others can relate to positively but also negatively.  Some will be frightened by what you bring to the table, while others will be drawn to the freedom of Self that you have become.

RAMANA’S SELF-REALIZATION EXPERIENCE SIMILAR TO MY OWN BUT EXPRESSED MORE PROSAICALLY:


The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.

’I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered.
‘Well then,’  I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’

All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process.

‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.

Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note  that underlies and blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else, I was still centered on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.

One of the features of my new state was my changed attitude to the Meenakshi Temple. Formerly I used to go there occasionally with friends to look at the images and put the sacred ash and vermillion on my brow and would return home almost unmoved. But after the awakening I went there almost every evening. I used to go alone and stand motionless for a long time before an image of Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja and the sixty-three saints, and as I stood there waves of emotion overwhelmed me.