Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Dress for Power by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

There are two primary aspects of your being. This is in the framework, of course, of mysticism. We use different languages to discuss self-discovery; it's important not to become stuck in a particular language. To learn to be fluent in many languages is the best, or to know one very, very well. Either will do, it depends upon one's personal needs. But in the language of mysticism, we say that there are two sides to a person's being, the superconscious and the conscious. These have reverberations in the popular works of Carlos Castaneda, in the don Juan terminology of the tonal and the nagual.

One's progression along the spiritual path is a very, very intricate matter. This evening I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the structure of your being and how this process actually works, with specific recommendations as to what you can do to radically alter your current state of knowledge and awareness. In essence, then, this is a technique-oriented presentation, but I'd like to begin with a consideration of the dynamics of this process.

To begin with, the process of self-discovery normally involves, in mysticism, a teacher and a student. In some forms of mysticism, there are two teachers for a student. One is referred to as the teacher, one is the benefactor. The idea is that the teacher prepares the tonal being, the conscious being, whereas the benefactor prepares the superconscious side of one's being, or the nagual. In your case, you have one teacher who does both. There are teachers who teach both sides. Some only teach one.

The job of the teacher is to first, in some way demonstrate to the individual the eternality of reality. This is normally done in the first encounter, occasionally before, through dreaming. If it's before, the teacher will reach out in his dreaming body and appear to the student and give the student information, a particular experience in dreaming. The student may or may not remember these encounters. Very often the student won't remember that the teacher came in the body of dreaming for many, many years. After a student has studied with a teacher for many years, suddenly he or she may remember that years before, even before they had physically met, the teacher came in the body of dreaming. But whether it was in the body of dreaming, or in the first or subsequent encounters, the teacher does two things: One, the teacher has to demonstrate to the awareness of the individual that they're dealing with something which is outside of their normal description of reality; and two, the teacher is looking for a specific sign as to whether or not they should work with an individual on a close level.

Naturally, there are many different types of students. Some teachers have a small group of students, in mysticism, maybe ten or 12 or 15, whom they work with very closely, or perhaps 100. The teacher may have no more students. Other teachers have hundreds of students, of which there's a smaller group they work closely with, and a larger group they work with as a pool. They're trying to constantly bring the members of the pool closer so they can be one of the students whom they work with more closely, but they're not ready yet, otherwise they'd be working closely with them. So on the one hand, they're doing a type of basic education where they're trying to raise the consciousness of many people so they can work more closely, and at the same time they're working with their graduate students at a closer level.

There is no exclusion for size. It's not as if there's a certain number of people whom the teacher will work with on a close basis. The teacher will work with as many as are ready, the more the better. But for the closer students, a teacher has to look for an indication, a sign, an omen. The superconscious will point out to the teacher that this person should be in their field of attention on a closer basis.

In the initial contact, either through the body of dreaming or in a physical meeting, the teacher will, in some way, touch the superconscious aspect, or what we would call the nagual, of the other individual. When I met all of you, this is what I did. When you came to a talk, a meditation, however it was that we met, at that moment, I used the superconscious and I slid through it, you might say, and I touched you in a certain way. I opened up a doorway for a brief moment, to show you another side of reality. There may have been hundreds of people in the room, but perhaps for only 40 or 50 or ten or one, on that particular evening, I slid through the superconscious—it's like going down a big slide—and opened a doorway for that person and brought them into a very different field of attention, different even than the field of attention of all those who were there who were obviously being brought into a different field of attention through meditating.

What I'm suggesting is that a teacher has the ability, if they're a teacher of knowledge, if they're fully developed, to be in a room with hundreds of people and affect them all individually. They can only do this through the body of dreaming, which does not exist in linear time. In linear time, one can't do that. We can only do so many things and so many operations in a given time frame. But if we step outside of linear time with the body of dreaming, then it's entirely possible to do millions of things in a moment because the moment does not exist. We go out of time and come back into it.

So initially, I touched each one of you in a specific way, which is why you're here. And I presented a possibility to you. Now, it's necessary in this process to do several things— again, we're in the language of mysticism tonight, which is the language of power and apprehension. It's necessary first to show you the limitations of your world, to posit an alternative which is acceptable to your intellect and to gradually lead you down the path of that alternative until you become strong enough so that you can fully deal with the superconscious. At the same time, it's necessary to approach your superconscious side, that which you were not yet aware of, and have discussions with it, you might say.

We're dealing, then, with two sides of your being. At this time you're only aware, consciously, of my addresses to your conscious being. But at the same time, since I happen to play both roles, through the body of dreaming I'm addressing another side of your being and have, either since we met or before that time, which is why you're actually here. It really was not a conscious choice on your part. Rather, your superconscious side made a decision and fed that information to your conscious mind, and your conscious mind now believes that it made the decision. What I'm suggesting is that the deeper side of the study occurs on levels of attention that your conscious mind is not aware of, but that your superconscious mind is. What, again, don Juan calls the nagual, although I'll be using superconscious and conscious instead of tonal and nagual.

Once I've touched you through the body of dreaming through the superconscious and made you realize you were dealing with an unfathomable power, I must then placate your reason with positive reasons as to why you should undertake this study. In other words, even though it was sufficient for us to meet and meditate for a moment and have an inner experience, and your inner being, you might say, already made the decision, in order to avoid frustration and confusion, it's necessary to address the outer self—that which we can discuss, that part of your being—and give it reasons. To do that, we posit an alternative, and that alternative is what in mysticism they call the "warrior's way." It's a way of life that brings happiness, freedom and abandonment in the face of all odds, which is something that almost no one in this world has.

Each one of you is journeying, then. You're journeying into the unknown, into the superconscious, into the beyond. But the journey is from this side of the coin. It's from the top of the coin, not from the bottom, at least at this stage. And your ability to grow and develop into the infiniteness of your impeccable spirit is bound by the orderliness of your outer being. While I can address your being inwardly, you are only capable of integrating a specific amount of that information, and that's dependent upon the receptivity of your outer being.

Why is it that when we go to the desert or sit here and meditate as we did a little while ago; why is it that one person will go much further than another will, when theoretically there's enough energy, you might say, or the doorway has opened sufficiently, so each one of you could have walked entirely into the beyond? It's because one person has taken the time to order their conscious being and has followed the suggestions that the study lays out and employed them, or at least some of them, in their life and tightened up their life.

No matter how much light comes into your being, if your being has a lot of holes in it, it all passes out, in a way of speaking. Also, as one goes deeper into the study and the encounters with eternity become stronger and stronger, it's necessary to have a very strong being. If you don't, then the problem is that you'll be filled with fear, you'll become distraught, you will reject the study.

Nothing can happen to your being in a negative sense; that is to say, there are no scars. There are no repercussions from these encounters with the superconscious because you're dealing with light so no harm can come to you. But what can happen is you'll be, in effect, turned off to the study, to your own self-development—if you have experiences that you are not properly prepared for.

The teacher, then, on the one hand, gives you a direct encounter with power, with eternity, with a land that is unfathomable and unthinkable to you at this point, where your description of the world falls away and you see things that don't fit in your description of the world. We go to the desert and you see me dissolve in front of your eyes, or if it happens here, if I do many of the different things that you see me do when I move into those realms, your description—which was handed to you since you were a child, by the world, of a world in which those things don't happen—obviously must fall away. Because you will see that these are not tricks of your eyes or the imagination, but you're sitting there rubbing your eyes and still seeing it, which means it's happening, which means that the description that was given to you of the world is not correct and accurate in all respects. Therefore, that means there's something else.

When I touch you with the body of dreaming, which I do constantly, I open up the doorways of perception for you to a deeper view of existence. But I know that you will only go a certain distance, and that distance is limited by the tightness and fitness of your outer being. Tonight, then, what I will be addressing is not the superconscious side of your being— that will wait for some time, although I'm certainly addressing the superconscious of your being at this moment and many other moments. But in words tonight, I wish to address the conscious side of your being and explain to you exactly what you can do. When you have implemented these suggestions in your life, the human form you now have will go away.

The direct encounters with the superconscious change your structure. Each one of us is an aggregate of awarenesses. We're a conglomerate. We are a portion of eternity in this finite form. Just as the DNA is a structure of double helical bonds, so your being is a structure of elements—not physical elements, but awarenesses that have come together in a ring of power. They are bound together by the threads, the luminous threads of life. At death these threads dissolve and return to the superconscious. The awarenesses separate. They come together in another life, in a different order.

When we meditate together, when we go to the desert, when we meditate and we're not physically together—and you'll be sitting there and suddenly I've come to you from a distance as your benefactor through the body of dreaming, and the room will light up and these different things happen, or in the body of dreaming when you're asleep—at that time I'm opening a doorway to you and saying, "Come, play with me in the other world, where none of these rules apply, where one is always free and life is quite perfect." I know you can only journey a certain distance, but I continue to expose your being to that energy because it changes its structure. But no matter how much I expose you, you can't change unless you want to. That's the rule.

The rule is—though I open the door to eternity for you, as a doorperson— you must decide, and you alone, how far you wish to walk through it. No one is ever forced through. It goes against the very essence of the teaching. But you will only walk through as far as your outer being permits. There you will stop.

So then, while the superconscious awaits and is ready, and while in this study I am constantly exposing you to it and it's causing major structural changes in your being, your outer being is actually controlling the situation, and everything I do is subject to its approval—although certainly there are interactions on other levels that far transcend the awareness of your outer being. But still, it’s your outer being who controls your life, at this point.

An interesting concept is presented in Tales of Power, and that's "sweeping the island of the tonal." I like the language that Castaneda uses; the greatest gift that Castaneda has given us is the language to discuss things, and it's very easy and accommodating for most people. His teacher and benefactor suggest that what is necessary is to tighten one's life, that most people have very loose lives, they're all over the place. I agree. This is my perception also. It's necessary then, to bring about—and this is where my language would differ a little from theirs, although I'm saying the same thing—a tremendous refinement in your being. That refinement begins from the ground up, and it is the focus of the daylight hours of your study, if I can use that as a metaphor.

The night hours are the study of the superconscious, metaphorically, and the daylight hours are the study of the conscious. At night I address your superconscious, not in hours in the day but in hours of eternity. But today, it's day—even though it's night, it's day. And in the day, we begin at the ground. We begin with the physical.

It is necessary for you to focus your attention upon your physical being—your body and its strength, upon your mind and its clarity, upon the place you live, the manner in which you live, the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you speak, the way you laugh, the way you think, the concerns that you have, the depth and level of your emotions, your attachments, your career, your interactions with those around you, how and where you spend your time—all of the subjects of your daily life, be that in the waking hours or ultimately in the dreamtime, but for now in the waking hours.

Let us begin with clothing. It doesn't really matter where we start because the rule will apply to everything we discuss. We could discuss the orderliness of your room or your house, your career. But let us begin with clothing because once you understand the principle, you can apply it to any aspect of your life.

The way you dress is extremely important. If you don't think it's important, then you're failing to see that everything matters along the warrior’s way. It's very important because it demonstrates the impeccability of your spirit. It's the guise through which the world evaluates and views you and the way people treat you in a world in which the description of clothing is essentially more important than what a person is. You have to, in other words, realize that the way you dress determines the way that people treat you. It's a statement that you make, quite loudly, and every person who sees you physically evaluates you and projects energy towards you based upon the way you've dressed, the way you wear your hair, your posture and your language. In other words, all the visible sensory details determine how they see you and how they react to you.

In the path of mysticism we do not believe in wasting energy. We learn to conserve power, store it and increase it, and we learn to see where we're wasting power. We learn to become efficient. As we increase our personal power, we're able to go deeper and deeper into that mysterious land of the superconscious, where we become complete and perfect.

Naturally, it's necessary to dress in such a way as to project your warrior spirit. Of course you have to conform to a certain extent to the dictates of a society, of a particular career and a particular situation. For example, a person who doesn't dress well, who doesn't spend time and attention with their physical being, has a very loose being. The conscious being is very loose if they're sloppy, and that looseness will catch up with them. It's a reflection. The same is true of how you keep your house, how you run your career, how you treat your friends and the people you love. But it's easier, sometimes, to see it with clothing. The other issues are sometimes a little more complex.

When you dress in such a way, unless that's your particular role—if you're an entertainer, obviously you would dress in a certain way—but on a daily basis, if you dress in such a way as to attract attention to yourself, that's exactly what you'll do. You'll pick up a variety of different energies from others. So it's very important not to be too flashy. At the same time, you don't want to dress down too much because that attracts attention in another way.

The rule of thumb for the warrior is to be conservative in outer appearance, to find a very clean image and to use that image as a gateway into another world. It's not a sense of conformity. Most people dress to conform. They see an ad on TV for a certain type of Levi's that everybody is wearing—you see everybody now, the women are wearing legwarmers because the girl in “Flashdance” wears them and Jane Fonda does. So now that's the fashion. That's conformity. What I'm not suggesting is conformity at all, but rather realizing that there's power in how you dress, and that many of the interactions that occur to you throughout the day would go in an entirely different way if you paid more attention to the way you dressed, if you became more impeccable. That you can radically alter your life by the way you dress, and many other things, of course, all of which we won't discuss now, but if you can get the principle here, you'll apply it everywhere.

It's important to pick a form that the world can understand. People have value systems in the description of the world that they now have that evaluate you. So you have to fit into one of those value systems, not to conform, but to accomplish effectively that which you want to do. One example would be a spiritual center. When you come to meditate, it's very important to dress in a very, very refined fashion. You will find that the time and attention you spend in selecting the clothing that you wear to see your teacher is a reflection of your warrior spirit, and if you don't spend any time with it and give it any care, then that's a reflection of the current state of your spirit; your spirit is ill, it's in need of help. If you spend a great deal of time carefully selecting each item that you wear, whether it's for color or vibration or whatever it may be, the selection is not as important as the feeling behind it. That night, when you come to meditate, you will have a much deeper meditation because you spent five minutes caring about the selection of what you wore. You will raise your entire energy.

Clothing is very, very powerful. People don't realize it. It's your presentation to the world. To be unaware of this and simply wear what's around, in a society which is obviously very concerned with these matters, is to be unconscious—but nevertheless, to feel the effects and the vibrations of others that are projected towards you by this type of behavior.

It's very important to be conservative in dress and to pick an image that people can relate to in a specific way, and to start to consider your clothing. My recommendation for most people would be to throw out almost everything they have and start over with a new wardrobe, and in the act of shopping for those clothes, to be very, very picky. When you go shopping for clothes, you just don't go in and buy what's on sale. Better to have a few things that have the right vibration. The colors should be clear—they reflect your spirit.

The way that you manage your finances is a reflection of the tightness of your being. If you have enough personal power, money will not be a problem. If money is a problem, it's because you're not using the personal power that you already have properly. You're wasting it.

It's necessary to devote a certain amount of time and energy to analyzing your career situation, and if you see yourself in a career that is not doing what you need economically, to change it. Not to rush into it, but to analyze and consider. You're leading a way of life that was handed to you by others which may be inadequate and now it's time to pick and choose your own way, but very carefully. A spiritual warrior deliberates every choice very carefully before accepting it. It has to feel just right.

The condition of the place you live is very important. Where you live is a place of power. All day long you draw power from where you live. Whether you're there or not, you're drawing energy from that place. There shouldn't be one drawer in one bureau that is not in perfect order. There shouldn't be one piece of furniture, one painting, one piece of notepaper in a scrapbook that you don't need, that is there. In other words, you should eliminate anything that does not have a very strong value. People clutter their lives with people, relationships, furniture, ideas and emotions to the point where they choke themselves.

You should go through every aspect of your life and you should do this about every six months or every year because as you progress along the path of knowledge, you will change and your structure of evaluation will increase, so that as you examine the things you have and your lifestyle and your dress and your career and so on, and you're at a new level of attention, you may see it all in a new way. But the two always correlate. Your development in the superconscious will correlate to your level of physical togetherness.

What I'm suggesting is that until the physical togetherness increases, your development in the inner worlds will not increase. The two always go together because you simply can't handle more power, because your life isn't tight enough. You must consciously work for when you can come to me and say, “My life is in complete order, my career is in complete order, my relationships are in order, my physical body is in order and strong”— which is absolutely necessary to deal with the superconscious. The kundalini is so strong, you must have a strong physical body. You have to exercise, even if it's just walking. There has to be a sense of a strong physical. When every aspect of your life is impeccable, then you will find that there's no limit to your journeys into the infinite.

Cleanliness and plants are very important. It's very important to try and be clean whenever possible because water, of course, washes away the negative energy. We live in a world with a lot of lower energy. The auras of people are very muddy, and as you go out in the world, they rub off on you, particularly if you work in a situation where you're around a lot of people. By taking two or three showers a day, you'll find it will make a tremendous difference in your field of attention. Water always neutralizes negative energy of a certain type.

Your relationships with others have to be exacting and precise. Whenever you have any dealings with anyone, you should only bring them your best. Don't bring them wilted flowers. You should gradually try and undo all of your attachments. Make a list of all those you are attached to, and learn to love but without attachment because each attachment you have ties you to this world. The reason you can't fly in the superconscious yet—you've tied yourself to the world with attachments. When you came into the world and were born, you had no attachments, but gradually you've developed them. You're attached to friends, family, career, many things. You don't need to give these things up, but you have to give up the attachment.

If you're in school, you should be an impeccable student within the structure of the time that you have. At your place of work you should be impeccable. You should be the best employee. What they pay you is irrelevant. While you're there you're paying yourself, you're paying yourself by the amount of impeccability you bring into what you do. It doesn't matter if others notice or not. That won't change its effect. When you go to work and you give everything and you do your very best, when you leave work that day, you've increased your impeccability. You've made a donation to the bank of your warrior spirit, which you can draw on later and will—when you move into the unknown, when you move into deep meditation.

Why is it when you start to meditate that you stop at a certain point? These are the reasons—because you're tied to the world, because you have holes in your being, because you haven't learned to lead an efficient life yet, which is filled with love. When you find a negative emotion moving into your being, you have to push it away. If you find yourself hating, being afraid, whatever it may be—you're simply allowing it to rape you. You have to push it away and simply say, "This is not of me. This is an outside emotion that is not indicative of my true nature," and simply push it away.

Your ability to do that is correlated to the plants you have in your house. It's very important to have a good relationship with plants. If there were no plants, you'd all be dead. No oxygen. Plants affect people more than they realize, on other levels. You can judge a civilization by its level of agreement with the green world. When people respect nature, it's a sign of a healthy situation. When they denigrate nature, it's a sign of an unhealthy civilization that will soon perish.

In the inner world, plants can help you. They have a very strong vibrational force. If you've made friends with several of them, they will come and aid you when you've reached that critical moment and you're at a crossroads of knowledge. I'm not speaking metaphorically, I'm actually seriously saying that plants have very strong tonal beings and that the plants that you have in your house, or if you've ever made friends with a tree somewhere or whatever it may be—that there is a moment that these beings can aid you, can assist you. When you come to that point where you're out in the desert and the power is getting stronger and just at that moment you check out, you run away from it, if you had a good relationship with a plant, it would come to your aid.

It's very important to respect the plants that you have and to develop a relationship with them, to take care of them because as you assist them, they will assist you. In other words, what I'm suggesting is, we've lost touch with our lives. We've lost touch with what matters in this world, in this civilization. We've taken the mystery of life and tried to explain it away with reason. And in doing so, we have lost touch with our essential power, with our power as magical beings. Each one of us is a magical being. But we've killed our magical side with reason and with science. Science is important and reason is important, but it cannot possibly explain existence. From this little island we call the earth we cannot possibly have the frame of reference to understand eternity. We must move into eternity itself to understand it. And as long as we want to stand in the framework of the conceptual mind we cannot leap forward.

My suggestion to you, then, is to take your life and begin to take it in your own hands and shape it, as one takes a piece of wood that one carves and shapes, and to begin to consider the way you dress as a starting point. You must have a starting point on any journey. Gradually get rid of all the clothing you now have—if it's clothing from some time ago. Economically at this time, you may not be able to go out and get a whole new wardrobe, fine. Perhaps once every week or two weeks, once a paycheck, get something new and throw out something old. When you go home, eliminate old clothing, because you're associating it with a self that no longer exists.

Go through every closet in your house in every room. Consider the way you speak, and your use of language. It's a reflection of your warrior spirit. Consider the music you listen to or the music that you play. Consider your relationships. Go through every aspect of your outer life. And when you have taken every aspect of your outer life—your career, your economic situation, the cleanliness of your car, of your relationships—when you have done everything perfectly, when you only dress impeccably, be it for the desert, for a center meeting, for your job, then and then alone can I take you fully into the beyond, as the teacher of your other side.

So tonight, as the teacher of the physical, I'm suggesting that the way of life that you have is out of touch with nature and the world and with power. I'm positing an alternative for you. That alternative is not something that you will accomplish in one day, nor need you. But it's something that you need to make steady progress at.

I think you should start with clothing and go forward from there. And start with your home and your job and your career, or your schoolwork and your relationships. These are the places where most people lose power. Look at yourself in the mirror and see what you see. Ask yourself, "Is this the image of the impeccable warrior that I want to present?" When you can dress perfectly, it will suggest to me that your spirit is perfect. Do you understand? I could have taken this with any reference point in your being, but we're using clothing.

It suggests the health of your spirit and its well-being. When your home is perfect, every plant is in place, every piece of furniture is impeccable, each one suits the space completely, and you've taken hours to look it over again and again, even if it's only a tiny apartment, and each thing is perfect—you've completed a task.

When your career is perfect, when each relationship is in order, when your physical body is strong and healthy, when each aspect and nuance of your life bespeaks refinement and completion, when your language is impeccable—then your life will be sufficiently tight so that I can throw you through that doorway and you'll bounce back. Otherwise your life is too loose and you will only walk to the same point again and again. People say, "Well, why don't I go further?" It's because your life is not impeccable. It's not tight yet.
So start on clothing and your home and your relationships and your career. And we'll see how you do.
Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence How To Make Friends with God by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

The main problem that most people have with self-discovery is that they think of themselves much too much, and they forget about God. God has always existed and will always exist. God is existence. And it's amazing to me how many people who profess to be spiritual seekers are self-seekers, and how few of them ever consider God.

God is the forgotten subject. I realize that there are many books that have been written about God, people give talks about God, people profess to show the way to God, but in my estimation, these people are usually talking about themselves or their own ideas, and not really about God. I think God is the least discussed subject. Less is known about God than anything else. People know about the world, they know about careers, they know about time, space. They know how to succeed, how to attract other people, how to raise children, build tall buildings, have advanced telecommunication networks, build bombs, pave roads, construct complex societies, write books, but they don't know anything about God. It's amazing.

How do you get to know God? Well, there has to be some sense of humility to start with, and need. Only a humble person can come to know God because the humble person can recognize that there is something more powerful, more complete and more perfect than they are. Without this recognition, it's impossible to get to know God. The humble person can also accept that life is a wonderful mystery. Life is a very mysterious thing and God is the mystery of life.

The vain, self-seeking people will seek to explain God away by defining God. You'll go to their catechisms, their churches, their monasteries, and they will explain the mystery of God away. And the more they talk about God, the less you'll know about God. I can't tell you anything about God at all. I can suggest how you might find God, then you'll have to deal with God yourself. I can't tell you anything about God, though.

God is limitless awareness. There. Now I just told you everything I know about God. A lot of good it did you. You probably knew that already. But do you really know what limitless awareness is? Oh, sure, you can hear me say, "God is limitless awareness." But immediately when you think of God, you have a preconceived cultural notion of who and what God is.

Since the time you were born, you were taught about God. If you were taught to believe in God, you were taught what to believe, that God is a certain way and not another way. If you were taught that God doesn't exist, then you were taught about God. Our society dwells on God. God is mentioned on our currency, on the money that we carry in our wallets. God is everywhere, but no one knows about God.

There are a few people who do know about God. They tend to be, usually, kind of quiet about the subject. Now, I can't claim to know a lot about God, but I never talk about God. As a matter of fact, to my remembrance, this is the first talk I've ever given about God, out of giving talks for 14 years. I don't think I've ever talked about God. I think the reason that I've never talked about God is that no one ever wanted to hear about God. I knew as soon as I said the word "God,” if someone was a sophisticated spiritual seeker who moved beyond conventional religion, they'd be turned off. Because they're too important. They don't have time for that which they are.

It's the funniest thing. People fly hither and yon in the world, doing all kinds of important things, trying to attain enlightenment so they can be happy, trying to build careers, families, futures, nations, philosophies, so they can do what they think is right. But they never find God. Because they were never really interested. In my estimation, most religious people never find God. They find religion, not God.

No, I never talk about God because I think that God is not very important. As a matter of fact, God is the least important thing I know of—to most people. Last on their list of things to do—get to know God.

The way to God is meditation. That's how you get to know God. When you meditate, you experience God. That's meditation. Now there are people who meditate, who meditate very well, it would seem, who don't know much about God. So that might seem to be a problem. But it's easy to understand. When they meditate, they don't actually see or feel God or get to know God, what they do is they meditate upon how wonderful they are. During their meditation, they think marvelous thoughts. Or during meditation they enter into states of awareness where they feel a wonderful ecstasy. But all their ecstasy is, is a reflection of their own personal consciousness in a heightened form. They really don't see God, they just see themselves in a fancier mirror. No, I hardly know of anyone on the planet who knows God at all, although many people claim to.

Tonight I'd like to pass on a couple of thoughts to you about getting to know God. I can't tell you about God, you'll have to find out for yourself. And I probably will never talk about God again as long as you know me, because I know that no one's really interested. But just tonight, since it doesn't seem to be very important, it might be a good thing to talk about—just for a couple of minutes, not for very long.

Getting to know God involves a tremendous, tremendous, openness. God is the universe. But not the universe that you see or feel, as long as there's a you to see or feel. All you're seeing is your own reflected universe. Everything that you see and feel is a reflection of your own form. In order to understand God, you have to learn to listen. Some people talk very loudly. You do. Your thoughts talk very loudly all the time. But God is very, very, very quiet. God doesn't speak through words or thoughts, God doesn't speak. God is silent.

Everybody's trying to get somewhere in life, did you ever notice? Everybody's trying to get somewhere. They're trying to get to a passion, an experience, a feeling—but there's no place to go. We've all been everywhere there is in one lifetime or another. Why bother? Oh, it's interesting to go places and have careers and feelings, but you must realize not so much the ultimate futility of it all, but that it's just a dream.

You still think life is physical, and yet you've gone to the desert with me and I've shown you that it isn't. But you still think that there is an actual world. I can't believe it! After all the experiences we've had together, after all I've shown you, you still think that this world is solid, that it actually is taking place. I can't believe that! I take you out into the desert and give you these marvelous experiences where we go into states of absolute dissolution, where we go above the level of the dream. We do it here in the meditation hall, sometimes we do it when we're separated and we just join our consciousness.

In other words, my consciousness fixes on God. I go away, and there's just God—and you. And you'll look right at God and you won't see. Oh, I'm not there. I can't get in the way, that's my talent—dissolution. I dissolve myself. I become invisible. Well, then, all you have to do is deal with God, not with me, thank heavens. But still, you don't see God.

It astounds me that with the amount of experience that you've already had in meditation, with the levels of awareness that you've been exposed to, with the level of the dharma that's available to you, that you just still don't see God. Because I know if you did see God, you would lead different types of lives than you do. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I just think you're unhappy, that's all. You're unhappy because you don't know God.

You see, that's the one thing that I've managed to do that you haven't done in life. You can probably do everything better than I can. But the one thing that I've managed to do is make friends with God. It took a while. First I thought it would happen on my terms. I thought that I could define the relationship and make myself available when it suited me. Then I realized that while God would put up with that, God would never really show me Herself. I was lucky. God smiled at me. God decided to absolutely destroy my life in front of my very eyes. Over and over. And it was so wonderful, it was so liberating.

I know that all this will come and go. This world, all of you, all of me, all of this will go away. That's a wonderful feeling. For me there is no death, there is no rebirth, there's only God. That's all there is anymore. I see people who are asleep, who dream unusual dreams, but I don't really see any people on the earth—many of them—who want to come to know God as God really is, not just their version of God.

So I don't talk much about God because I figure, what can you say about God? The more I say about God, the less you'll know about God. I just think maybe that if I just stay friends with God, that maybe that would inspire somebody; someone would see that the most important things in self-discovery I never discuss. The things I discuss I think are important, but how could I possibly discuss what lies beyond words? God lies beyond words.

The way you make friends with God—well, how do you make friends with a bird? Birds are curious creatures, they tend to keep to themselves. But the way you make friends with a bird is, you make a little bit of an offering of friendship, a little food or something. You give the bird some food. But you don't ask anything of the bird. Then you give it a little more food, and so on. Over a period of time the bird might come and visit you, or maybe the bird won't.

This is what people did with sacrifices. That's what sacrifice is all about in religion. They wanted to give something to God. Sometimes they sacrificed material possessions, sometimes ghee—clarified butter, sometimes horrible things—animals, other human beings. But they were onto something. In other words, there's a basic religious principle that they understood and that's that sacrifice, giving God something, is a way to start a conversation anyway. But they misunderstood that you don't give a thing. How can you give something to someone who has everything? If you think men are tough to shop for at Christmas, try God. God has everything except one thing. Friends. God doesn't have friends.

So the one thing that you can give God that will truly impress God is friendship. God is an eternal companion, who is always with us all the time—never judges, just is. God is isness. People like gods and goddesses, male deities, female deities, but they miss God. God's not into sex. God's into eternity—timeless eternity, beyond the dream of this life.

Life is a thin fabric, a gossamer web, that's been spun by existence itself. And there's lifetime after lifetime; creation, dissolution, creation; world after world; dimension after dimension. It's endless. You could explore them all and never know God. Or you could just stay right where you are, in this life, in this planet, in this locale, and come to know God.

The reason you don't get to know God is because you're afraid. You're afraid of the immensity. You don't understand that the immensity is your friend. You've come forth from God, you exist in God and you will return to God. That's all there is to know. If you could remember back as far as remembering is, you would remember God. You would remember being there. If you were able to see what was really happening right now, you would see that you are in God. You’ve never left.

This is just a dream. You're at home, asleep, and you're dreaming. In the dream, you think you're off someplace in another world having adventures. And in the dream you are. But actually your body has never left the house. Eventually we return to the source. That's the awareness of God. God is the source.

When we see qualities of character that we admire, we're seeing God, freely translated. When we see qualities of character in human beings that we don't admire, we're seeing God, roughly translated. But in order to see God and make friends, you can't be a person. People don't make friends with God. People are vindictive, self-seeking creatures. No, you definitely can't be a person. People aren't interested in making friends with God. In order to come to know God, you have to go beyond personality. And you can only do it for pure love. You can't have any motives.

You think getting to know God is going to help you because then God will be on your side and fight for your army, give you the things you want. Well, God can easily do those things. You see that all the time. People get what they want all the time in life. God is happy to do that. God is the wish-fulfilling tree. Whatever you wish for, you'll get in one lifetime or another, if you wish hard enough, if you work for it, except one thing—God. You'll get everything but God. The more you want, the more you'll get, but you'll never know that which is eternal.

They say in many, many spiritual books, in the Bhagavad-Gita and other books, they say that out of the billions of people in this world, only a small group will seek to know God and out of that small group, only a few of those who seek will continue, most will give up. And even of those few who continue, only several will really come to know God. Not very good statistics. But actually, that's simply because they didn't want to. It wasn't that the percentages were against them and it was an impossible task. Anybody can come to know God, anybody can attain God-realization. That's what God-realization means. Godrealization means making friends with God, going back home, merging with the source. But people don't really want to do that, they want everything else.

So my question to you is, what do you want? I can teach you about power, I can teach you about many, many things—dreaming, seeing, meditating, all kinds of things. I'll teach you whatever you want, whatever your desires are, as long as they don't hurt another individual, I'll fulfill them, if your desires are pure. But I'll never teach you about God because you never asked. No one's ever asked me, in all my years of spiritual teaching, to show them God. And I don't think anyone ever will. Oh, someone might hear me say this and then they'll ask because they think it's the right thing to say. But on their own, no one's ever come up to me and said, "Could you show me God?" They talk about their enlightenment, their spiritual progress, their pain. I see beautiful self-giving in people sometimes, within limitations of the human frame. But no one ever really wants to know about God. I did. I found out about God. It doesn't make a lot of difference, except to the person, I suppose. Then the person goes away, and you become God. You become eternal awareness. Then you're free.

Most of you will probably never know God because you didn't think God was important enough to know, not mentioned in Who's Who. You had so many things to do with your life, so many places to go, so many things to get, whether they were material or spiritual, that you never had time for God. You didn't care enough. The quality of your love was not pure enough. Only because you were busy. Well, I understand that, and I know you're busy and you've got a lot to do. And my job is, within the limited time I have in this plane, to help you, if your motives are pure, get whatever you want. And that's what I do.

I can fulfill wishes you can't imagine, and do all the time. Most people don't even have very large wishes. They're very mundane so they don't tax me even, with the powers that I have. They just want to succeed, they want to make more money, they want to find someone to love. They want a little inner peace, they want to get away from their pain. Easy stuff. But no one ever wants to know God. Poor God! Fortunately, God is very unattached.

They never come to know the dharma, the real truth. They were always so busy striving for their own enlightenment, that they missed enlightenment. Nothing wrong with striving; it's all the same—striving, non-striving—just words. But they didn't listen. They didn't understand the magic of God is just magic. Life is magic. The dream is magic.

How to know God? With your heart, your body, your mind, your soul. You know, all the things they used to tell us in catechism are right, even though the people teaching them didn't even understand what the words meant anymore. The words had been handed down to them by somebody who once understood, and they didn't know what they meant, they just kept repeating them. They used to tell us in religion class when we were kids, "You have to love God with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul." Well, they were right, but they didn't know what it meant. They'd forgotten. It was an empty ritual, words that they taught. They thought they knew what it meant, but they didn't know.

It's very, very rare to find someone who knows God in this world. There’s only a handful, just a few, who have made friends with God, who are God-realized. There are people with impressive powers, impressive words and impressive knowledge. You can study with them and become like them if you want to, and then you'll be impressive. But only a handful have reached that friendship, that realization, and that's because they wanted to. Anybody could. They didn't have a special ticket. They just decided one day that everything in life without God didn't mean anything.

Oh, people say that. You can read the great stories where people say, "I realized that nothing mattered but God and I devoted my life to God." Yeah, but they devoted their life to their version of God, their version of paradise. That's what they did. Then people like to be impressed. They like their God to come in robes and satin. They didn't see that the people in front of them were God, that everything was God. You have to dissolve the dream.

Now, if you really want to make friends with God, of course, it's no effort. It's no effort to become perfect because you have to become perfect consciousness in order to make friends with God. But you don't feel it's an effort. God is your friend, and for a friend that you love, it's easy. But everyone else has difficulty with the spiritual path because they're doing it for themselves, you see? As long as you do it for yourself, it's very hard. But when you really have a terrific love for God because God is your friend, what's hard? The most difficult task becomes easy.

If the person you love is on top of the mountain, even if it's the biggest mountain on the earth, but if you just love them and you're infatuated with them, it's not particularly hard to go up the mountain because every step up you're closer, and all you're doing is thinking about them and how happy you'll be together. Even on the way up, everything is filled with beauty because you're in love and your consciousness is love. It's no effort. No task is too great, but who knows that? Who feels that way? No, you have to overcome all selfishness to feel that way.

From age to age an enlightened person comes along, one who has made friends with God. They're usually forgotten or scorned, once in a while they're remembered. But then people don't really see who they were, they invent religions around them—ways, forms, catechisms, rules—and they miss what the person said. All the person said was, "Listen, God is your friend. Get to know God and you'll be free. You'll be beyond the transitory, beyond this world and all worlds. That's all there is, is perfect freedom."

I know we live in a sophisticated age now, where religion is either something we scorn because we're too rational or it's the realm of the fanatic who insists that their God and their religion is the only way and everyone else is damned. It's one or the other. I suggest it's neither—oh, it is for them. It's much simpler than that.

Only a pure heart, a completely pure heart can house eternity. Your heart has to be absolutely pure. You can only want that which is absolutely good. You have to live in goodness all the time, and nothing else can matter. There can be no thought of self, no apartheid in the inner world. No discrimination. It's only with that absolute humility and purity that you can make friends with God because otherwise you're just too busy with all your desires.

I don't know if I'll ever teach anyone to realize God. Oh, I'll teach them to develop great powers, to move into other fields of attention. I do that all the time. But I don't know if anyone's really interested. I don't find that sad or harmful. I'm happy to teach them, whatever they'd like to learn.

But I know that if any of you ever have an actual aspiration to become a friend of God's, to realize God, to step in that absolute effulgence of light, not for personal pleasure, not because it feels good, not because it's ecstasy, not because it's knowledge, not because it will give you some ability, but if you actually just wanted that with your whole being, you ached for it—you have to ache for God, just because you love—and if that was the dominant theme of your life, the only theme of your life, if that's all that mattered and yet you would live your life as perfectly as possible, for that, then it's easy to realize God. It's not hard at all.

If you cannot do that but it still matters, try and be around those who try to do that. That is Krishna's suggestion, and I concur, that if you find it impossible to have a pure heart and pure mind all of the time, if you cannot totally devote yourself unceasingly to God, if that's not all you think about and dream about and care about and all your work, even with others and in the world, is a medium of exchange just for that, if that isn't really how you feel all the time, then try and be around those who are like that, who aspire to that.

Let's face it, not everyone is pure, not everyone is holy. Most people are very worldly, even people who are spiritual seekers. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can always better your position. If you can't make friends with God, make friends with somebody who is a friend. Maybe you'll get invited to the party after all.

That's the classical spiritual advice. If you yourself are not capable of meditating on the clear light of reality and holding nothing else, of being drunken with the love of God all the time, which means not just sitting around in amorous self-delight but going out and working and doing whatever tasks are laid before you without thought of reward, then try and be around those who are. They're remarkable beings, the holy. There aren't many; it's an endangered species. But try and be around them because if you are, your little light will increase and become brighter.

The holy are very few in this world. There’s a handful of realized souls. Some teach, some don't even teach. They just are, that's enough. They're happy—they're friends with God, why do they need to teach anybody anything? God, their friend, is showing them that all they have to do is just be. They're not even in this world. You see them, they look like they're in this world, but the realized are not. They're far, far beyond the dream.

I can tell you and assure you that ultimately everything does work out OK at the end of the movie. It does have a happy ending. But it's a long movie, or so it seems. But I can also tell you that the shades of darkness that you dwell in, these different strata of reality, will never fulfill you. The only thing that will finally fulfill you is when you merge with the superconscious. Not for yourself, though. You can't do it then, because there's still self. You can't go beyond the self when it's for self. You can climb to a certain distance that way. But the final entrance into nirvikalpa samadhi, into nirvana, God-realization, when you become the absolutely best friend of God, can only come when your love is completely pure, when your heart is completely pure and your life is what it is, with humility. Only then will you find that which you seek.

In every lifetime you seek it, birth after birth, world after world. You can go to the highest worlds or the lowest worlds, it's all the same. It's just real estate, different locations— Beverly Hills, Watts—different locations. But even in the highest worlds, you won't be perpetual. You'll go and experience—it's like a ride at Disneyland. It's a lovely ride. But the ride won't fulfill you because you weren't pure, your love wasn't complete.

There are no techniques to realize God. There are no things that you must do or not do. There are suggestions. But it takes just wanting. God is very available, but you must want. Oh, some people want for five minutes a day or ten minutes or once a month or once a year, or when they're dying and the fear of death comes, they want—when something bad happens. A few people, nice people, when something good happens think of God and thank God. But they don't know who they're thanking, they're just saying the words, ritual. There's some love there but it's not complete, otherwise they would merge with God.

So then, meditate more deeply if you seek to know God, because in meditation you will find God. This I can tell you. As you meditate more and more deeply, you will come to know God. But your meditation will stop eventually at a certain point. You'll reach a certain point in this life where you'll hit a plateau that you'll never go beyond until your love is absolutely pure. Until nothing else matters, until you literally ache for God, cry for God, your whole being wants nothing but that absolute reality—your friend, your mother, your father, your child, your brother, wife, husband. All of the words that we use for things that we love—“Porsche.”

When all of your feelings are conjoined and all you seek is that, and that, of course, is here in the material too, then and then alone will you come to know God. Until then, it's just words. But in the meantime, if that's your interest, if you have interest of that type at all, even if it's just for a few minutes once in a while, then try and associate with people who are pure and who have humility. Try and keep company with the holy. Be around people who care about God, who aren't trying to impress others with their spiritual knowledge, who aren't trying to show that they're "in" with their spiritual teacher, who aren't talking in a certain way and affecting the various mannerisms that people who profess to have spiritual knowledge do—who are just plain, simple people, but who have ultimately this purity and terrific love of God. You’ll know because you'll feel comfortable when you're with them, unless they threaten you by their simplicity and purity.

Again, simplicity and purity does not preclude worldly success. They may be very successful, very powerful individuals, geniuses, artists. One doesn't have to go live in a shack and be poor to be holy. It has nothing to do with it one way or another. No, wherever they are, whatever they're doing, you'll see this beautiful childlike simplicity that they have when you look within them. You'll see God then, in varying degrees, according to how meshed their consciousness is with God. Of course, if you can find a God-realized person who's no longer a person, then you'll see innocence, absolute innocence.

That's what always surprises people. They have the images of what God-realized people are like, God-realization meaning they made friends. You go and see one, and you expect some powerful display of something or other and all you do is find this person (Rama chuckles softly) who just loves God. But if you look inside them, of course, you'll see that they went away a long time ago. All there is is God in there. They became such good friends that they joined. And still they're here in the world for a while. Well, isn't God in the world?

Oh, everyone is God, and everything is God. You'll see that someday. Now you may have the idea, but one day you'll actually see that. No, there's only light and more light and infinite light. You shouldn't worry about the transitory in the world. You shouldn't worry about success or failure, whether you're in or you're out. If you only concern yourself with God and living your life as best you can, then it's out of your hands, isn't it? Well, that's humility, isn't it? If you're not envious of others, if you feel that you trust God and that God has put you in exactly the place you should be with exactly the experiences you should have, well, that's what we call purity.

You must have that acceptance. If you question God's judgment for a moment, then you're not a real friend of God's. It's only when you accept completely, not only in success but in so-called failure, not only in health but in ill-health and pain, that [life] is exactly correct, that God is doing everything perfectly—only then can you be a real friend of God. Otherwise you think that God is making mistakes, you think that there's another way to do it. Well, there may be, but you won't be a friend of God's—you lack the purity necessary and the receptivity.

Those who seek, find. Jesus said that. He knew. He found God. Lao Tsu did, Krishna did, Buddha did, Sri Ramakrishna did. I found God. Others who aren't really well known, whose names you'll never hear, who haven't written spiritual books—when we found God, we were home. We found that we had always been home, we'd just been asleep, dreaming, and we woke up and we realized that we weren't important. There was no importance or lack of importance because there was no world. The objective reality faded. All there was was God.

So, appearing to be asleep in this world, we walk, a Baudelairean vision of a sleepwalker, through the world, children of light, just pure. Assuming whatever role that our friend God asks us to. Not questioning it—if the role is to be crucified, if the role is to be crowned king, if the role is to be rich or poor, to teach or to be silent. Since God is our friend, we trust God implicitly, we'll do whatever God wants, without question.

We don't care about the opinions of others because we have such a good friend that our friend fulfills us. Our love of our friend is our happiness. Why should we be concerned about other people's dreams? What we do is not necessarily logical, it's just what God tells us to do. God doesn't speak in words, God just acts through us and we observe.

I don't know if you'll ever become a friend of God in this life. God’s your friend. But I don't know if you'll ever open your heart that much. If you do, then surely you'll realize God. Surely you'll merge with the superconscious, all those different words that describe a very simple action. If that's what you want, it's so easy. The only way to engender that is to be around those who feel that way, and not to hate yourself for having desires and for being human because your hate is the hate of God.

If you hate yourself and your desires, well, you know, God is your desires, and God is your self. As long as you hate God, you'll never realize God. If you hate your body, your body's part of God. You're not going to realize God if you hate yourself. You have to accept yourself. Regardless of what your condition is in life or what you think or what you feel, you just have to love more and more. You may not be able to alter your condition in life, but you can love.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Instant Enlightenment by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

How can you tell when you're enlightened? I recently received a letter from one of my students who was informing me that we were no longer going to be studying together, which is fine. In my estimation, a healthy spiritual community is one in which there are constantly new students coming in and other students going out. Some of the students who go out will go out for a while and come back, some won't.

A spiritual community is not a place that you are to come to and stay. It's a place like a college or university that you come to for a while. There should be absolutely no shock value in anyone leaving at any time because from a Zen point of view, they were never here to begin with, so how could they leave? Or from a mystical point of view, they were always here, long before they arrived in the physical, and simply because their body goes elsewhere, how could they go?

So when I receive a letter from someone telling me that they're moving forward, I always feel very positive about it. Whether I've known them for a short time or worked with them for years and years, I think it's a very healthy sign. It's a sign that we're doing something right. If everyone was staying, there would be a problem, there would be an imbalance.

The letter I received from one of my students was informing me that she had attained enlightenment, and I had received two other letters over the last several months from two other women who had also informed me that they had attained enlightenment. They all live in San Diego, and they're good friends.

Now, since they've attained enlightenment, they of course no longer feel the need to study with me, and I agree, once you've attained enlightenment, I wouldn't be much fun. Although, actually, if you actually attain enlightenment, or let us say when you do, I think we could have a good time together. At that point, then we might be able to sit down and talk for the first time in a new way.

But I've noticed the pattern with these individuals is that when they attain enlightenment, rather than at that point coming and sitting down and for once we can communicate on many levels or go beyond communication, they tend to always leave and write me, usually, a very nice letter, thanking me very much, but telling me now that they've attained enlightenment they have to go off and teach and do whatever they're going to do. And of course that, naturally, from my point of view, prevents me from discussing the matter with them. In other words, it's kind of interesting, I get this very nice letter and someone says, "Thanks, Rama. I've attained liberation now, and I'm self-realized and I'm on my way, and you've been such a help and I experienced so many good things with you at Lakshmi, it just made all the difference. But now that I'm enlightened, I have to go on my own way.” Which I understand. However, I think that if their enlightenment was solid, they might come in and chat for a little bit, and we might have some fun, go out to the desert together or something like that, and they could show me what they know, and I could show them some new things, maybe. So it makes it difficult from my point of view, and very easy from their point of view, to feel that they're enlightened, since there's no one who can possibly criticize you or ask you any questions since you remove yourself from that possibility.

Now, the question this brings up, and I'm not making fun of them at all, but these are serious questions, is—how can you tell? Well, in the letter, one of the women and one of the other ones also had stated that when they're with people now, people see light around them. Sometimes people see them in meditation dissolving and disappearing. And at other times they feel that they're going into samadhi, so they have now deduced that they are enlightened. Sometimes, one of them said, when she walks in a room now, the room kind of lights up.

Well, these are not at all signs of enlightenment and should not be misconstrued as such. Any student who studied with me for any length of time will begin to notice these things happening. People who have some subtle-physical vision will see light around you. If they don't, you're not doing something right. Anyone who watches you meditate, after a while, will begin to see a dissolution of your physical form. This simply means that you're doing a very good meditation. It's not a sign of enlightenment at all, in my estimation. You may be able to go into samadhi. There are many stages and many levels of samadhi. Pantanjali outlines four. The initial stage of samadhi is very easy to go into, and I would hope any of you after a couple of years could go into some basic level of samadhi. I don't even usually call that samadhi. I just differentiate between salvakalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi, but there are lower samadhis that I just consider good, high states of meditation.

So from my point of view, these are not at all signs of enlightenment. They're signs of a person making healthy spiritual progress. I have no objection at any time to someone attaining enlightenment. I'm working very hard for it. Nor would I in any way feel threatened by it, or feel that I would want to hold anyone back. For me it would be very exciting to see, and when I do see you attain enlightenment, that would fulfill my purpose. There is nothing I would like better, and then I'd have someone to play with on other levels. I would like that very much. I never want anyone to feel that because I suggest that someone might not be enlightened who thinks that they are, that in any way I am trying to hold anyone back or be an authority figure. I am essentially your friend, and as a friend, I will help you in any way I can at any time, to broaden your awareness.

But part of being a friend also means that you have to be honest with people. So I try to be honest when I can be, when people are interested in hearing about it. Now, my question is not so much having to do with these three individuals. I wish them well, and they're very nice people and good friends of mine, and interestingly enough, they were all Buddhist monks in past lives and had done a lot of meditation. I personally don't feel that they have experienced a significant enlightenment. I feel that they have done some good meditation; they've learned.

Anyone who sits here when I demonstrate the siddhas over any period of time, should, after a while, be able to do a few of the things that I do—make rooms light up and basic things like this. But these are not signs of enlightenment. In my case, enlightenment came long before the powers did. The powers are of a secondary nature and should never be confused with enlightenment. They're interesting. You can develop many powers, impress people with glowing lights and things like that. There are lots of teachers who do that. But I don't consider that to be enlightenment at all. That's what we call, in the trade, special effects. These are nice people, and they really believe that they've attained enlightenment; they're not being overly egotistical. I think they're just generally confused as to what enlightenment is, perhaps. So that's what I'd like to talk with you a little bit about—how can you tell if you're enlightened?

Enlightenment means the total dissolution of the self in the white light of eternity. It doesn't simply mean that you can sit and go into samadhi and have a very high meditation. It means that there is no longer a personal self. In the period of spiritual growth you will go through many different selves, so simply because your old self is gone and a new self has taken its place, that's absolutely no sign of enlightenment, in my estimation.

Enlightenment is difficult to discuss, of course, because there are different types of enlightenment, we could say. There are the enlightenments that occur every day when we meditate. That's a type of enlightenment. When we just perceive something in a new way, that's a type of enlightenment. There are satori illuminations when we have a very high meditation. And classically, when you have a satori illumination, for about 40 days afterwards you will be in a very high state of awareness. You experience satori, you go into a type of enlightened state. But then, after that time has passed, gradually your consciousness will return to the world.

Enlightenment, from my point of view, does not involve going into samadhi a few times or having a few satori experiences. Over a period of years of going into samadhi day after day, night after night, for hundreds and thousands of hours, enlightenment takes place. The way I define it is self-realization. That is to say, enlightenment doesn't simply mean that you've gone up a few times and seen the white light of eternity and merged with the all. I would say that's a basic level of samadhi. Enlightenment has to do with the erasure of the samskaras, the past life tendencies, after you've gone into samadhi for hundreds and thousands of hours, many, many times over a period of years, as is described, let's say, in the biography of Ramakrishna.

You know, Ramakrishna didn't suddenly become enlightened. We had years of him meditating, seeking, crying to Mother Kali, going in and out of samadhi, and he would never have referred to himself as enlightened, certainly, in those early stages. But after many years of this process, he was enlightened. He was no longer a finite individual.

From a distance, an enlightened person will certainly look like anyone else. If you can't see, they'll look like they have a body. If you can see to an extent, you'll see them glowing at times, at times they may not. But real enlightenment means the thin air. It's an absence, not a presence. It means that all that is left is a thin shard, a strand of personality that changes constantly and which is essentially very, very childlike, although it can assume any form necessary. It can be powerful or benign, compassionate or frightening, whatever is necessary. It's like an enlightened person is a supreme actor or actress. If you ever want to study acting you should be around an enlightened person for a while, because all they do is play roles, since they no longer have a self. They play thousands of them upon the stage of existence; each one is different for each person they're with. They not only play a role in the way they speak and the way they act, but inwardly they actually appear differently to each person.

There's a marvelous section in one of the Castaneda books where Carlos and don Juan are out walking around in the Sonora Desert and it's nighttime and they come across four travelers, four men in the desert, who are all apprentices. Don Juan meets them, and they meditate together around the fire. And the four plus Carlos all look at don Juan and when they see don Juan—don Juan performs a little mysticism for them—they all see him very differently. Each sees a different face, a different mode of dress.

What's occurring is, the enlightened person is acting differently for each one. An enlightened person actually becomes whatever you want, in a way. They assume whatever form you choose, so it's possible for them to appear differently to thousands of people simultaneously. But if you really research them, if you go inside them, you'll see that there's no one and nothing there anymore—which is a way of saying there's simply no way we can talk about it. It's not as if there's a nothingness, it's not as if there's a somethingness.

Enlightenment doesn't come easily. It comes over many lifetimes of spiritual practice and, in most cases, in the lifetime that it occurs or recurs a person will spend many, many years in contemplation and meditation, hundreds of thousands of hours in self-giving. They'll lead a very high and very pure life, and it will take a long time for them to either attain enlightenment or to bring it back. A tremendous amount of self-giving and dedication is necessary, beyond the point of exhaustion, for years and years.

In my own case, of course, enlightenment came back from past lives, but even so in my own case, while there were certain indications early on in my life—I was drawn to the Far East and things—I really didn't become overtly interested until I was 15 or so. There were many years of dabbling and researching, trying different things, experimenting, and then of course at the age of 18 I started to meditate every day and started to go into samadhi right away. But even so, I would have never considered it samadhi. It's what my friends were describing. They were very powerful meditations; people would have seen me glowing, and so forth. But I had no way of integrating that with my world. I was still a person. These experiences went on for 11, or say 12 years; I would say 12 years of that experience every single day, many times a day. I joined a spiritual community when I was 19 and devoted 11 years of my life to it—doing constant service to others, meditating day and night, sometimes meditating with my teacher for 12 hours or 14 or 16 hours in a row.

Not that time is a requisite, but I'm just trying to give you a tone or a description of what's necessary. I struggled with my fears, I struggled with my doubts, I struggled with my ego—all of the things that all of you are going through, I watched myself go through. I didn't have an easy ticket to enlightenment. I cared a great deal for my teacher and I cared a great deal for meditation and for self-giving. But I was very selfish and had many sides I didn't particularly like, although I had a nice heart. I liked my heart, the part of me that loved. Gradually over the years, I watched myself change and develop. Then, after about 12 years, I left my teacher and went out on my own, you might say, when I'd reached a point where my own level of advancement far transcended the teacher I was working with, who was not a fully enlightened teacher but a very, very powerful occultist—a mystic, principally.

Now, even at that point I told my friends, “I'm not self-realized.” Some had come to study with me, and I said, "Now I have to be honest with you. I can't claim to be self-realized. I'm going into samadhi on a regular basis, but I'm far from that." Then there came a period of several years of meditation and constant self-giving, literally 24 hours a day running a spiritual center, announcing quite blatantly that I wasn't self-realized but that I had developed certain powers that were starting to return and that I could guide a person to the level, obviously, that I had reached but no further. Then after those years in constant meditation and trying for people and literally giving them my life and everything I had, every day, nonstop, day and night, the old self dissolved completely. It just went away. I had gone through hundreds of selves over this period of 14 or 15 years, and finally a day came where I said to my friends, "Well, he's gone. Enlightenment is all.”

Now, even once that's happened, I continue to see growth and change. There's no end to enlightenment. But let's say if I was following the definitions of Shankara or Pantanjali, who I believe were actually self-realized and could speak eloquently on the subject, I'd classically fulfilled their definitions of enlightenment, and this is 15 or 16 years now of constant meditation, where there was nothing else in my life but that. It may take someone else less time, I don't know. The lessons that were learned, the states of consciousness that were experienced, the thousands and thousands of hours of meditation, of pilgrimage, of traveling, so many things culminated eventually in realization, which I can honestly say I had nothing to do with. But I developed phenomena early. I had psychic powers, my God, just after a year or two of meditation. I was going into samadhi immediately because of past lives of liberation.

So when someone writes me a letter and says that they're enlightened because they see that the room is lighting up around them a little bit or they're going into a basic level of samadhi, I would say they're having some enlightening experiences but they're not enlightened. And the only thing that troubles me is not them going out on their own, that's fine; if they feel that that's what they should do, I respect that completely. But what troubles me is they're not going to go any further in their self-realization because if they really believe that they've gone about as far as they can go, that's where they'll stop. And these are very nice people, as you are nice people.

All I can tell you is to never stop, that there's no end, that enlightenment and spiritual liberation and realization are not quantifiable, but there are definite points where we can say you have reached a plane of awareness, which is nirvana, where you're beyond dissolution and creation. All your samskaras have fallen away, and you are not what you seem. There is only silence and stillness within your being, and you are no longer subject to selfishness and you are no longer subject to adharma. You can only do dharma.

In Tales of Power, Carlos is talking with don Juan, and don Genaro has been teaching him a little bit, and at one point don Juan says, listen Carlos, once you enter into the world of power, once you become a man of knowledge—which is the mystical version of selfrealization—you are a servant of power. You can no longer do anything wrong, even if you want to. As a matter of fact, he'd say, you're not even a servant of power, you're a slave of power. You only have one choice left, and that's whether to do something impeccably or not.

Self-realization is a very quiet thing. It's not flashy. No one might see you light up a room. No one might observe anything. For some people there's very little visible phenomena connected with self-realization. Some people, when they attain liberation, it's just very quiet. It's just an absence; it's a nothingness. They have merged with the vast. Many people, upon attainment of self-realization, leave the body—they die. Some don't. Some choose to and some don't. But what I'm suggesting is—self-realization is a very, very advanced state of awareness, which in my estimation at this time in this world is experienced by very, very few people.

When I look inwardly, I see that there are perhaps 12 persons on this earth right now, incarnate, who are what I would call fully self-realized. They have no rough edges anymore. This has nothing to do with their body or their personality structure. But inwardly, there is nothing there any more. They can do no one any harm. Now, there are people who have their desires under control, who can meditate well, who aspire, who care for the welfare of humanity, perhaps even more than they care for their own welfare. I would say this is a saint, a highly advanced spiritual seeker, but not a truly self-realized person.

There's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is something that an advanced spiritual seeker has. Wisdom is something that an enlightened person is. While an enlightened person can be funny and silly and very often will pretend to be kind of dumb so that people will not be overwhelmed by them—they sort of do the “Columbo” routine, where Columbo pretends that he's not too smart and that way people don't think he's too smart, and then he outwits them as a detective. So part of being an enlightened person is what they call in the I Ching, veiling the light.

Very often you have to present yourself in a form that people can deal with. In the Bhagavad-Gita we see Krishna and Arjuna cruising along in the chariot, and at one point Krishna reveals to Arjuna his universal form. He just shows him his enlightenment, and Arjuna is flipped out by it. Arjuna can't handle it. He says, Krishna, turn it down, it's too bright, there's too much light. I'm seeing eternity, I don't know what to do with all of this. Up to that time Arjuna thought that Krishna was just his charioteer and his spiritual friend. In other words, it's something that the enlightened person can turn on and off. You don't reveal it to everyone. And even those who see it, they may think that they see all that there is, but they don't.

How will you know when you're enlightened? You won't care. It won't make any difference. There won't be any sense of having to go anyplace or do anything. All there will be is emptiness. There will be no one home at your address. When you sit by yourself, there'll be no feeling of accomplishment or loss. There will be no fear of death or dying or of living. You will resolutely have accepted your destiny no matter what it is. You will no longer have a personal choice in any matter whatsoever. At times you will observe as a witness. At other times you will dissolve in nirvana and you will go beyond both voidness and samsara, the world appearance. There will be no illusions. And yet at times there will be a personality structure which you will use as we use clothing, to wear—no more and no less.

There will be no sense of a personal self. There will be no sense of permanence or impermanence. There will only be infinite awareness and infinite existence, infinite consciousness, which you will see as a complete illusion, and all illusions are complete illusions. There will be absolute discrimination with no sense of ego for being able to discriminate.

That discrimination will discriminate beyond discrimination, not simply to another world or another reality or a timeless state but beyond fixation, beyond becoming and being, beyond the triple consciousness of sat-chit-ananda itself—without any sense of being beyond, or that there ever was a triple consciousness or that there was ever anything or nothing— beyond all relative conditions and among them, in the world and yet nonexistent. Subject to birth, death and mutability in terms of the physical; seeing yourself as those very things, and yet being beyond them completely, with no apparent awareness of this world, as if you are always in a dream in this life. This is enlightenment.

The experience of nirvana is not an experience. There is simply no way to describe it whatsoever. You're dealing with your ultimate destiny, nothing special, nothing necessarily hard to get—that which you really are, but beyond any relative conditions or discussion whatsoever.

So when my friends write me and tell me they are enlightened, it's like someone who has just taken a second-year French course announcing that they have just completed their Ph.D., or maybe post-doctoral study. While I appreciate their observation and I'm glad that they're making good spiritual progress, certainly there's a tremendous difference between what I and tradition define as enlightenment and their version of enlightenment. If feeling the way they do makes them happy, then I salute them. If it inspires them to make more progress, then that's fine. But it certainly is not a classical self-realization in any sense of the term, and I would do you a great disservice to tell you that it was.

When a person attains self-realization, it's no big thing at all. It's not important. It's irrelevant. It has no relevancy whatsoever, and as long as it appears to, to that individual, they have definitely not attained self-realization. It's just a way of talking about something that's undefinable. It just means that you've gone home. No more, no less. But at the same time, it's subject to scrutiny. It's not a simple declaration that someone feels one day, that they want to set themselves up as an enlightened teacher and declare themselves so. There are thousands of people on earth who have done that, and they're certainly not enlightened. They may have more spiritual knowledge than the average person, they may be able to banter a spiritual phrase around and they may have mastered certain powers and do things that would surprise my three friends in terms of occult power—the siddhas. They may be able to walk on water, to fly through the air, to travel to other worlds and other planets in their occult body, to do many, many things. These are not signs of enlightenment, these are signs of the powers and they're definitely not the same thing.

Enlightenment is a state of quiescent nothingness, of perfection. You've become God, and then you've gone beyond God—to perfection. There's no way to describe it, and it's what we all seek, always. Each one of you here will experience that, will be that, because you are that. You need to become aware of that. It's not far-fetched. It doesn't happen just to a small group of people. Every day you're moving into it more. And you will see signs. You will see yourself glowing. You will experience the kundalini moving. You will have all kinds of spiritual experiences when you study with an enlightened person. Because when you study with an enlightened person, you're moving into that field of attention by virtue of studying with them. It's like marrying someone who's very wealthy. As soon as you marry them, their wealth becomes your wealth, which is the idea.

My friends will discover, however, over a period of time, that to some extent the power will lessen because a lot of—the wave of energy that they've been riding is their teacher's energy, mine, which they acknowledge. But as they move out into the world themselves, the connection becomes threadbare, and they will see it's not quite as easy as they thought, which shouldn't discourage them. I hope that they meditate more deeply and continue in their evolution.

If you want to be honest with yourself, if I'm going to be honest with you—and we must always use honesty as our basis for communication—the process of self-realization is very sophisticated and very complex. That's what we study together, and it gives us wonderful lives. We see things and feel things sometimes in a half an hour, in a second, that other people don't see in a hundred lifetimes, in terms of ecstasy and bliss and awareness. But still, that's not enlightenment. It's a step along the path.

When you become enlightened, I will be the first to tell you, if you haven't told me first. I'll know immediately, and I'll come by and we'll go out to the desert and have a good time. We'll go on an adventure. Maybe you can help me with my work. I'd appreciate that, or maybe you'll just feel it's your destiny to go off on your own. But there's no competition. It would be a wonderful thing. It would help others tremendously, and I expect that that will happen to many of you in this lifetime. If it doesn't, then it's because you didn’t try hard enough—because certainly many of you have the ability within this lifetime, but it will be many years still. To think that you've done it beforehand is only to do yourself a disservice, and those you could have helped if you had kept on studying, a disservice. You will not reach them, you will not help them, because you shortchanged yourself and the world by cutting your education short.

It is of no matter or importance to myself who a person studies with, since I'm no one, and we're all no one. Wherever they go, the dharma will take them. Whatever they do, the dharma will do. I wish everyone well. A healthy spiritual community is a community in which there's constant change and transition, where some of the oldest and closest students go out for a while or maybe for the rest of this lifetime, where new students come in. There's constant change and transition. This is a sign of a healthy community. A stagnant community is a community in which everyone remains. There's no change. There's no growth. There are no new students. There's no transition. There must be transition. However, there's a tremendous difference between enlightenment and enlightening experiences, and the two are definitely not the same.

How can you further your progress in self-discovery? How can you do all you are capable of doing? This is the question that we have to ask of ourselves, those of us who are on the pathway to self-knowledge. There's a feeling in the heart that's of primary importance in self-discovery. Everything else is illusion. Everything else is fabrication. Everything else is methodology and technique. There's a feeling of love and dedication for a cause that's not our own self-realization.

As long as your self-realization is of great interest to you, as it is obviously with my friends, then you're really not on the path. I never thought of self-realization or dreamed of it for 15 or so years as even a possibility. Fifteen years of spiritual practice. And then it just happened. When it did, I felt neither lucky nor unlucky. When I saw my past lives in which I had been realized before, it didn't make me feel particularly important, it was just an objective fact. Other selves emerged, other selves dissolved, and then everything was transmuted into light and beyond light, and then back.

What matters is feeling that as part of a spiritual community you are on a group adventure, you're not just on your own trip, doing your own thing. It's fine to feel that way, if that's how you feel. Be honest. But a sign of advancement is when you reach the point where the group dream is more important than the individual dream. The nation is more important than the state. The world and its conditions are more important than the individual country. This is a sign of mental health, psychic health and spiritual rebirth. You should feel that the goals of the community are your goal, and at the same time your individual goals are important. You have to have a sense of spiritual dignity. This is the most important thing, in my feeling, in attaining enlightenment.

Spiritual dignity says that I don't have to compete with anyone, I don't have to do what my friends do. All I have to do is be myself and be dignified in my meditation and in my lifestyle. I have to feel that there's something more important than my own personal desires for liberation or houses or cars or clothes, or whatever it may be—husbands, wives, children. What's most important is to do what is right. We call that dharma. And that I must go to the person on this earth who I feel is most knowledgeable—whomever that may be, wherever that may be—and ask them to teach me. Then I must sit with humility for many, many years and learn from them all I can and aid them in any way in the projects that they are involved in. This is the proper attitude for actual enlightenment.

I should never think badly of my teacher. If I think badly of my teacher I should leave and never think badly of them. Because this doesn't help my teacher nor does it help me. Better to go out on my own and deal with the world than be in a spiritual community and think badly of my teacher.

I should only see the good in those around me. If I see that someone has a side that's not too developed, I acknowledge that, and I'm aware of that, I don't pretend it's not there, but we all have those sides. What I see is the greater good in that individual. I don't allow people to harm me because it harms them. They create bad karma. Ultimately I have to be very compassionate to others, but I don't have to work out anybody's self-realization for them.

I don't have to spend endless hours convincing someone not to leave the spiritual center that we're all in together because endless hours of talking do nothing. A person must have enough strength to be there because they want to be there, and when it's time for them to leave, I shouldn't hinder them with my self-knowledge or my self-importance. I should let them go. It's not my responsibility to bring anyone to liberation, including myself. My responsibility is to be the best that I can be.

There are times when I may be able to say something helpful or useful to others, when I can give them a piece of advice that will help them—but without any sense of selfimportance. I should always remember that, absolutely, that there's always someone who can do anything that I can do better, more completely, which simply gives me a sense of accuracy, honesty and humility. At the same time, I am uniquely a part of eternity, no more and no less, and my destiny is out of my hands. I've given it away to God.

If I feel I should have a family, if I feel I should have a career, whatever I feel I should do, I'll do, and I gain these feelings from my meditation, from my self-discovery. I'm completely focused on my teacher and the teachings without over-focusing. I don't feel that if I were not with my teacher that I would die and not be able to do anything. That's an insult to my teacher. If my teacher has taught me anything, it's to stand on my own two feet. The teachings are everywhere. The wheel of dharma spins everywhere, not just in a defined spiritual community. If my teacher tells me to leave the center for a period of time, I shouldn't complain for a moment. I should accept that as a great gift from the teacher, knowing that the teacher sees correctly. If the teacher invites me to a special excursion, to be part of a special group, I shouldn't feel important because the teacher is simply doing what is best for me. If I don't have this faith in the teacher, then I shouldn't work with the teacher.

If I feel that my teacher is corrupt, that my teacher is not telling the truth, then I should simply leave the teacher. It's not my duty to interfere with anyone else's destiny there. That's not respectful or correct because perhaps, for them, the teacher is still important. Perhaps for me the teacher is no longer important. It's best not to criticize. It's best to live and do that which is positive.

I feel that my teacher and I are connected beyond life and death—if the teacher is really my teacher. In other words, once you've found the teacher who leads you to realization, then that teacher will be the one. Whether you reject them or accept them, it does not matter. They are the one, and in this life or another life, they are the one who will take you to realization. There is one person who takes you along the final stages, and no one can take their place. If that teacher is not in the body, then they will come to you in the subtlephysical and help you.

There are many students who come and go in spiritual communities. But after awhile a core group forms, and they remain. These are the true students of a particular teacher. They are not better or superior to the other students, they've just found their teacher. Those who go usually were not true students of that particular teacher. Occasionally, a true student does go, or very often they're asked to leave. Sometimes a spiritual teacher will literally kick out some of their best students because it's time for them to go out and experience awhile in the world. They need a change. Sometimes a student just isn't doing well. They're knocking their head against the wall. Well, if you're a good teacher, you don't let them keep knocking their head against the wall. They hurt themselves. You send them out for a while and say, "Take a year. Take a trimester and go out into the world. Then after you've worked out these problems, after you've moved into a new level of attention, we'll work again. In the meantime, we'll be working inwardly.”

Love is the only rule in self-discovery. If you've forgotten that rule, you've forgotten everything. It's not what you can get, it's what you can give. If it is not the appropriate time for you to give, then you must be patient.

You shouldn't need to be entertained by your teacher. You shouldn't feel the need to constantly be fulfilled by them. What they're doing is teaching you about all the complexities of existence, and almost all of their teaching, if they're actually self-realized, is done inwardly. You should listen to what they say, but also listen to what they don't say. You don't have to force a relationship with a teacher. It evolves in its own time, naturally. This is the flow of existence and eternity.

Now, all of the things that I've just said are very often used by what I would call “cults.” While all of these things are true, there are those false teachers who will say these things, and people will recognize that these are truths. But the people saying them will be false, and then people, of course, will lead lives that are very terrible. A true teacher will never force you. They will never tell you what to do with your life. They will make suggestions. They never try and take your money or anything. These are of no interest to someone who's enlightened. Naturally, if you give and you give economically, and the teacher has a path and many students, the teacher can use that money to aid others and that's a wonderful thing to do. But they don't look for that. They don't ask you to go out and do that sort of thing. It's not necessary. They have everything. Their primary interest is the service of others, and if in any way you can help that and stay in a good consciousness while you do, then it's interesting because it will help you.

A spiritual teacher's first responsibility is to truth. Their second responsibility is to the welfare of their students. The welfare of their students means not the students who are coming, but the students who are here now. These are the most important ones. So they will never expend a student who is currently here under the guise that this will help those who are coming. False teachers do this. False teachers will use up a student's resources, claiming that it will help those who are coming for the good of the mission. This has nothing to do with the way a real spiritual teacher operates. A real spiritual teacher would not let you give all your resources if it was going to make you poverty-stricken. They would prevent you.

There have been many cases where people have offered to sell their homes and give me the entire proceeds, and I told them to keep their home. People have offered to give money that they have inherited, and I told them to keep it, even though at times we could have used it to do good things, because I saw that they needed the money, that that was more important, or that a later time in their life, they might, if they were in a mediocre state of consciousness have felt, well, this person, look what he did, he took advantage of me, he took all my money. You see? So I would rather not have it and not give the person an excuse, even in later years, to blame me and blame this process. This is spiritual honesty. I have a great deal of spiritual dignity. It's on loan from eternity, and you do too, and we have to use it in our relationship with each other. Without that poise and balance and gentle humor and caring sense, nothing happens at all. It's just egotism and vanity and jealousy and possessiveness. This has nothing to do with liberation.

Liberation is the study of our own immortality, of the thin air. To become conscious of all that we are, to go through thousands of dreams of God and then become the dream and go beyond it and then be in it again. We're slaves of love, like don Genaro. This is the will of eternity.

So it's with this feeling, with this warmth, and putting up with all of your separate selves, but always rising above them, always doing what is right—this is the symbol of spiritual greatness, which can be done at any level, in any stage. No one can ask you to do more than you are capable of. All you can do is all that you are. But to not do that is to deny truth, to deny yourself and to make yourself unhappy.

To attain liberation, then, you must be very patient and feel that there's no rush, that it's not an issue. The issue is to be impeccable. To do each thing in your life—your relationships, your bookkeeping, your housecleaning, your job, your spirituality, your friendships—to do everything perfectly, to bring your best to it. To meditate each day as deeply as you can. No one will ask you to do more than you are capable of doing, and you will be forgiven no matter what you do—if you study with a true teacher. Even those who destroy a teacher, the teacher forgives, because we understand.

But that's really not necessary. What's necessary is for you to aspire, to meditate, to rise to higher levels of attention, to cultivate humility and purity and integrity. Then when self-realization comes, it comes by itself. It's not a matter of glowing lights or people feeling a little kundalini coming forth from you. I could take you to India now and introduce you to hundreds of occultists who could do a thousand times more than that. People who can lie on beds of nails, who can project their bodies, who have mastered the etheric double—all kinds of skills. They'll be the first to admit that they're not enlightened because people see phenomena, because they go into a lower level of samadhi—because they have humility, because they value these arts and respect them, even the occult arts.

So my advice to you is to become consciousness itself. To not be in a rush, to know that enlightenment is far, yet near. To not feel that it's impossible for this lifetime at all, but that it doesn't matter. What matters is to aid others, to have a group dream. We're tribal, we're tribal. We work together for a common dream. If you still feel that you're here just doing your own thing, then you don't understand yet why we do what we do. If you doubt the purity of our motives, then you don't understand yet. You're an infant still.

To know that these are people who for a moment, in glory, in light, were true warriors, and you had the chance to associate with them, to live with them, to share with them, words and moments of power—this is the nature of the spiritual study. It's silence, it's sound, it's laughter, it's frustration, it's everything that you are and a thousand, million times more. And it's acceptance of the will of God—waiting, if necessary, forever, happily rising above your desires and above your frustrations to always do what is right. Always do what is right. This is the spiritual study.
So I wish my friends luck in their enlightenment, and I wish you luck in yours.
Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Love - the Fourth Level of Ecstasy by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

It seems to me, that it's essential to know about love. Love comes in many forms. And to not love, is to not live. Many people talk about meditation and self-discovery, bringing themselves to higher levels of consciousness. Yet they seem to, for all their knowledge and ability, for the various terminologies that they can utilize in descriptive discussion, they seem to not know very much about love.

So this evening I'd like to place you a little bit ahead of the game if I can. I'd like to save you about ten or twenty lifetimes. And I'd like to talk to you about love. Now, other people have talked about love. As a matter of fact, I have spent my whole life studying love. Love has been the only thing that's ever really excited me in this world. Even in school, I was drawn to the study of poetry, which usually dwells on the topic of love. Love is an unbending emotion that is a reflection of a higher truth. Love is the ability to extend yourself beyond yourself and become perfect. Love is light. In the inner worlds, it's an energy, a luminescent energy which is the basis of all creation. Love is the only thing in this world that is worthwhile. Because it is the only thing in this world that is eternal.

Love has fascinated humankind for as long as we have been, because something in us knows that it is the only thing that will bring us ecstasy, that will make us happy, that will give us any kind of completion. I really don't suppose that I can add anything to what's been said about love. Books have been written about love. Plays, poems are filled with it. It seems to me that the best thing you can do to teach people about love is to love them. Example -- and this is what I try to do.

I have a disease. I fall in love with people very easily. I say that it's a disease in that it has a certain pathology that we can follow and observe, and that sometimes it's painful, and sometimes it's almost destructive in a way. But maybe sometimes diseases have their place too. Maybe sometimes they cause something in us to fall away so something new can spring into place. Love is not reasonable. If we could assign it to the reasonable world, it would not be useful. Love is something that causes us, in its higher aspect, to unite ourselves with God. It is the only thing that I know of that will do that.

All of the various forms of self-discovery, ranging from Zen and Tibetan tantra on through Christianity, Buddhism, whatever it may be, all of them are based on love. While in some forms of self-discovery, love may not be discussed a lot, it's understood to be the basis of all spiritual and religious practice. It is the essence of being and living. When a civilization, a race, a people, a society, when they lack love, they are soon destroyed. Gandhi realized this. Love makes you immortal because it connects the world of mortality that we live in now to the immortal kingdoms of higher existence. Love comes in two forms -- higher love and lower love, or let us say advanced love and the beginning of love.

The beginning of love is self-oriented. The natural model, as Fromm has pointed out in his book, The Art of Loving, is the child. The child loves him or herself. This is not a bad kind of love; it's a very immature, basic, beginning love. If we were to graph the development of love, this would be the beginning, when we just come on the chart with our line. The child is only concerned with itself, with its pain, with its pleasure, with its feelings. If things don't work out, the child will be unhappy and cry. When the child is happy, it smiles. There is no regard for others, only for the fulfillment of the self, one's happiness and one's unhappiness. This is self-love. There is nothing wrong with self-love in its proper place, but it doesn't bring one much happiness.

At a certain point the child grows up a little bit. One day the child comes home from school with a terrible drawing of its mother or father. And the kid brings it in, and says, "Mommy, look what I drew!" And it sort of says "Mom" in kind of twisted letters, that look more like W's than M's, and there's this stick-like figure, and that's Mom. Mom looks at it and is delighted, because the child is saying, "Here, here's a present, I made this for you." That's love in a slightly more advanced form. The child is now looking beyond itself, and wants to do something for someone else. That's in essence all love is. It's the want to make someone else happy, to alleviate their suffering. That's love.

Now, of course, there are gradations. The child will then want to receive something in return. The initial impulse is, "Mommy, I've made this for you, out of love." But then, perhaps, the child will want Mommy to say, "Oh, how wonderful!" So then, there needs to be, in early love, a return on the investment. In other words, "I love you and do something for you, and in return you do something for me." In the very first stage of love, there is only concern for the self -- y happiness, my unhappiness, my pleasure and my pain.

In the second stage of love, the pattern moves beyond the limited self, and we love someone else -- but we need a return. It's a business deal, it's an agreement so that I will do something for you, I will give you something, but I expect something back. Naturally, this love is vulnerable. Because if we expect something and we don't get it, sometimes we're not happy. So you love someone, you bring them flowers, candy, something like that -- a granola bar. And they take your granola bar, and they eat it and walk away. And maybe your granola bar made them happy, maybe it added to their day. But they sure didn't let you know. So then, you expected to receive something in return, and it didn't come. Therefore, you'll be unhappy.

Now, had you been able to love in a more advanced way, you would have realized that they didn't want a granola bar. (Audience laughs.) And you might have brought them something more apropos. A little serious out there tonight I'm afraid. OK, I'll dispense with the humor. Had you been able to love a little bit more deeply, what you would have done was not to seek a reward, or return on your investment. It wouldn't have been necessary. It would have been enough just to love, and you would have been happy, just to give. The giving itself would have been enough.

There are very few people who love this way. It's a wonderful ideal. And you can do it, but very few people love this way. So then, in the first stage of love, "Love seeketh only itself to please," as the poet William Blake said. In the second stage of love, we move into contractual love, where we give something and we receive something back. The first stage of love has very little happiness in it. The second stage of love has more happiness because we're concerned with the other, not just the self. In the first stage of love, one is only happy when things are going well. And even then, happiness is rather shallow. In the second stage of love, there's a deeper love, there's a recognition of the other, and that the other is worth loving and worth giving to But there's still a claim check. We still expect something back in return, and that love is vulnerable.

In the third stage of love, we love selflessly. We give just for the sake of giving and we love, just for the sake of loving. That's as far as human beings go, and human love goes. And if you can reach the third level of loving, that's a wonderful thing to do. And you'll be happy in love.

But of course, in the spiritual realm, we know that there's a fourth level of love, a fourth level of ecstasy. That is the love that we see in complete selfless giving, in complete self-offering. We see that love manifested normally in the soldier, in the parent, in the lover, and of course in the spiritual teacher. In the soldier, we see the love of country. When you are willing to go onto a battlefield and risk, or perhaps give your life to defend an ideal, knowing that you may not live throughout the day, the sensible person would say, "Listen, lock me up, do what you want. At least I'll be alive." But the soldier is willing to give their life, perhaps for someone they never even met in their country. That's a type of very high love. That's why it's always said that when one is a soldier and dies in battle you go to a very high world. There's a great and good karma for the soldier who dies in battle because it's an extended selfless giving.

In the parent, ideally, we see love. Not always. It's strange, but there are many parents who really don't love their children at all. Who are more interested in their own welfare, than the welfare of their children. I, myself was very fortunate. I grew up in a family that, while I'm sure it had its difficulties like most families do, there was never any question about love. If anything, there was sometimes too much of it, but there are many, many homes in which parents simply don't love their children. They don't make any sacrifices for their children. They're not willing to go and work extra hours so the child can have something nice to wear, attend a better school. They're more interested in their own vacations, in their own holidays, in their own state of the art living. It seems to be a rather backward way to be, and there's not much happiness in it.

But ideally, what we see and sometimes just practically, is the love of a parent that's a self-sacrificing love. When you could go out that night, you stay at home to be with your child. It might be more fun, but the child needs something. And there's a recognition of that need, and while that need could be overlooked, the need is not overlooked because of a basic love. You love your child, and you want to do anything you can for that child because it makes you happy. You can go out and buy clothing for the child. You work all day and make some money and you buy the kid a new outfit. And the kid is happy! The kid may not even say thank you. They may be so anxious to run off to school to show their friends. But it doesn't matter, you're happy that the child is happy. So there's a deeper type of self-sacrifice. Even in the animal kingdom, we see that a mother bird will give her life to protect her young. It's a basic nature to love one's child. It's more than instinct. It's intelligence of a higher sort.

In the lover we see self-sacrifice sometimes. When someone is -- Shakespeare loved this -- when someone is inundated with love, infatuated, they'll do ridiculous things. They'll stand under the window of their beloved all night and sing songs and have shoes thrown at them. They'll write terrible poems and waste postage (audience laughs) and they'll make a complete fool out of themselves. But it doesn't matter. Because they're in a kind of intoxicated state that is love. The poets celebrate it. Although many of them ended up killing themselves. But in their good moments – (audience laughs) they reveled in love.

So there's a kind of an intoxication, there's a beauteous love in which the identification becomes so complete -- Petrarch, in the Italian sonnets, the idealization of love, was so caught up in the idea that nothing but the beloved exists, and of course, the sense of an ideal. That the beloved is not someone whom you simply love for personal sake, but that your love for someone else is representative of a higher spiritual love. That there is a principal that is active in the act of loving, that you are mirroring, which is the principal of the universe itself. And so your love for Gwendolyn or Bernie is a reflection of the divine principle itself and should be appreciated as such, and as sacred as such.

All three of these types of love come together in the love of a spiritual teacher. That is to say, if I can use an example that most people are familiar with, Christ is in the West of course, known as an incarnation of love. The idea was, simply, that here was this guy who attained self-realization. He reached a place where he no longer was a "he" but pure intelligence, pure knowledge and pure consciousness. He became a super being, a limitless one, one with God. United with eternity. And yet, this being, who no longer needed to suffer, was willing to accept suffering to be an example for others. Of course, the popular line is, "He died for our sins." It seems to me that's an honest but simplistic way of looking at a very magnificent act of self-sacrifice. Christ didn't just die for people's sins, he lived, and suffered and brought joy to elevate the awareness of humanity. And he didn't have to. He could have walked away. But he didn't. This is self-sacrifice in its highest form. We see it in all spiritual teachers, in all real spiritual individuals. It's one thing when you're still bound by the three worlds to love. It's another when you no longer are bound and yet you love anyway.

But let's descend, for a moment, from this lofty world of love, this highest ideal of selfsacrifice, and come down to a more basic, common level of living. This is why Gandhi appeals to me. Practical man. It seems to me, that love begins where you are. That it is first necessary, if we go back to the basic level of love, to love yourself, to like yourself, before you can really love others. It's very hard to love yourself if you're not truthful, if you haven't taken the time and trouble to find out who and what you are. It's very hard to love yourself. Because something in you instinctively knows that you're covering up. You're not being honest. It's very shallow. To not take the trouble and time to discover your own beauty and perfection, it's really not much of a life. Very superficial.

In self-discovery then, we admonish people to take the time to discover themselves. This is done in a variety of different ways. In other words, the suggestion is that you are more beautiful than you realize, that you are more wonderful, that there is something inside you that IS you, that is eternal and perfect, and that is God. And that thing is not hidden somewhere in there. It's in every part of your being. In every atom. It is the atom, it is the smile, it is the frown, it is the thought. It is everything. Everything is holy, everything is divine. And you must recognize that.
But of course, we won't recognize that if we're superficial. If we hide behind the mask of ego and illusion. We won't discover who and what we are. Because we're selfish. It takes selfeffort to inquire of the self. It takes energy. It takes commitment, and that commitment will only come when it is spurred either by pain or love. Pain spurs us forward. We are in pain, we're uncomfortable, we want to get away from that condition, so we'll do something to get away from pain. Anything to get away from pain. Once we're away from pain, though, we won't necessarily go any farther. We've eliminated pain, that's enough. Now we're happy.

Love, on the other hand, will not stop at that point. Love will continue on. Pleasure and pain are irrelevant. So in self-discovery, in the process of self-discovery, pain will spur you on. You're unhappy, your life isn't working out, you get depressed, things aren't going as well as they might be. That will encourage you to seek something higher. Relief. You'll meditate, you'll put your life in order to a certain degree, so that you smooth that pain out. That's as far as most people go with self-discovery. They'll find a teacher, they'll attend a church, hatever it may be. They'll do things to make them feel better, and there's nothing wrong in that.

But the true spiritual seeker is motivated by love. They seek union with God. They realize that love is union. That in life we have diversity. Everywhere we look, we see opposition, juxtaposition, pairs of opposites. But in love, we go beyond separativity. We're not standing back watching the movie, we go into the movie itself. Love is union. It's the union of the finite and the infinite, it's the union of God with God. And only in that union, be it on a simple, physical basis, a transitory love, an affection, a deeper love, a higher love, a more evolved love, or the absolute love itself -- of God for God -- is there release from the bondage of the three worlds; is there release from pain, desire; is there absolution. Only in absolute and complete love is there the radiance of eternal, perfect being.

I personally don't talk about love too much. This is one of the few talks I've ever given on the subject. Because it seems to me that we don't talk about the most important things in life. I could take you up to Colorado and show you the Continental Divide and say, "Look at the beauty of the Continental Divide." There is nothing that I, as an individual, can do to add to that beauty. I am insignificant. I am nothing. My job is only to help you see that beauty.

Now, if I brought you up there and we went up to the Continental Divide, and you saw these majestic mountains that are covered with snow, up at 14,000 feet, a world beyond what most of us experience in our daily life, just in terms of natural beauty. But you were there, and you were worried about your investments, your health was lousy, you were worried that someone was dating someone who you were in love with, you were discouraged because things weren't working out in your career -- you would go up there and you would be so self-involved, with your mind, with the thoughts, the sharks that were swimming through the sea of your mental consciousness, that you wouldn't enjoy it.

Or, after years of living this way, your perceptions would be so dulled that you wouldn't even really see on a basic sensory level what was in front of you. You would live in such a world of illusion that when you looked at it, it wouldn't mean much, it wouldn't touch your heart. You'd be dead.

In self-discovery then, what I as a teacher do, or what any teacher does, we can't make it more beautiful -- we don't need to. The Continental Divide is beautiful. - The ocean is beautiful. -People are. -Everything is. -But what we do is teach you how to look again. - Or, if you've never learned, we teach you how to do that, by clearing the mind. Life itself is complete beauty. In every stage there's beauty because God exists in all things. And when you can see that, then there's happiness. As long as you're dogged by desire, you're nagged by fear, jealousy, frustration, lack of mental clarity -- as long as you're not experiencing a deeper, higher love, which need not be emphatic. It need not be the kind of love where we're parading it back and forth, as does the lover for his beloved - rather, it can be a simple, quiet love, that needs no expression because it's sufficiently strong not to need a false covering, or any embellishment at all. Because it is what it is. That love is eternal.

In self-discovery, it is our intention -- the intention of spiritual teachers, of those of us who have climbed these mountains and seen them -- to come back down from the mountains and say to you, "Life can be better. Life is better than you realize. But you must see it. And to see it, you must clear you mind. Your mental conditioning, the way you look at life -- which has been engendered by your society, your upbringing, language, history, past incarnations
- prevents you from seeing the radiance of God all the time. And you are capable as an individual, at any age, if you truly want to, of seeing the radiance and perfection of life. And there are definitive, scientific methods for doing so, which we call self-discovery. There are many of them, and those are not simply methods, which are taught to you in the sense of techniques or mantrams or things like that, but rather that the spiritual process is an art form. And what a spiritual teacher does is radiate consciousness and light and create substantial changes in the structure of your being to allow, with your self-effort, patience, perseverance, and dedication, to see eternity.”

So while there are certain meditation methods and techniques, that's two percent of the study. Ninety-eight percent of the study –is that one who has attained self-knowledge is able to transmit it to others. Not simply in the sense of a one-shot transmission, but by continually bringing light into their being, they effect change -- and then showing people how to retain that light, and of course, how to gain that light on their own. Every day, if we take a plant and we put it in the sunlight, if the sunlight comes every day, the plant grows and develops. Without light, the plant does not do well. It needs it for its photosynthesis, to create food.

In the same sense, you as an individual need the light of God to grow. Now, true, the light of God is available everywhere. But most people don't access very much of it. So when we want sunlight, we go out of doors and we find it. If you want the light of God, you go to someone who is imbued with it, who is one with the light of God, who radiates it in every action, in every way. And if you are with such a being, it's catching. It touches you.

Now, you can go to a beautiful place. You can go to see the Continental Divide, to the ocean, wherever it may be. But you can turn your back on it, even though you're there, and not see it. You can be so caught up in the maya or the ignorance and frustration and illusion that you will not see the simple beauty of perfection.

The spiritual process, then, is the process of learning to love. Because only love will have the power and the velocity to hurtle you beyond your own imperfections, imperfect ways of seeing, that is. And the way you learn to love is by being around someone who loves. You could read all the books in the world about love and not learn anything about love. But if you live with someone who loves, if you watch them, if you observe them, love actually emanates from that person and touches you.

That's why the simple self-sacrifice of a man two thousand years ago who gave his life out of love still changes the lives of so many. People give their lives every day. In battle. Just in life. Working for their families. So why should what one man did two thousand years ago create such an impression? Why should the Buddha and his life create such an impression? Why do religious leaders create impressions that last beyond all the politicians, all the Nobel laureates, why? Because of their love. Because the actual potency and strength of their love is so great, that it makes an impression on the universe. Because something in us recognizes that and responds to that. And it's not necessarily conscious. We know it to be true.

So you, in your life, need to bring about a revolution, a silent revolution. It's a revolution of love. And you need to start in the first stage -- self-love. You can't skip it, but you can do it in a more mature fashion. You must accept yourself and discover yourself and discover that there's someone in there who's worth loving. That's you. Your spirit. Not what you do, not how you think, not how you feel, not what you've done in the past. Not what you believe in, not what you hope to achieve, not what you're afraid of, not what discourages you, not what encourages you. The actual spirit of your being, which is birthless, deathless and immortal is well worthy of loving.

And once you come in contact with that animate spirit within yourself, you will fall in love with it. Not in an egotistical or self-centered sense, but simply, you will recognize the beauty of perfection, which exists in you. When we meditate, this is what happens. But still, there are forces in the universe that make it very difficult to do this. There is the mental conditioning that we have, the operative forces, the erosive forces of existence. In order to love ourselves, we need encouragement, we need example. So we try and associate with those who have succeeded.

If you want to learn to be happy, go find the person you know in the world who's the happiest and spend time with them. If you want to learn to make a fortune, go find someone who's made a fortune and apprentice yourself. Whatever you wish to learn in life, go find that person whom you consider to be the most successful and be with them, and you will learn. The real things in life that are taught are taught inwardly, not outwardly. If you want to learn to be very successful financially, the way you'll learn is not so much by learning a formula. There are lots of books that have been written that can tell you investment formulas. But the person who used those formulas or who invented them had more than a formula. They understood something. They had a certain energy, a certain strand of kundalini. And when you're with that person, when you're around them, it touches you. It enters you. You can recognize it, and it's within yourself and you can bring it out.

When you study with a great professor at a university, at which I was fortunate enough to have many, if you observe them and not simply what they say, but what they are, you will learn a great deal. I was very fortunate. I had one professor, a Dr. Charles Owen at the University of Connecticut, and he was a Chaucerian. I spent a great deal of time with him, not only in class but I participated in a special group he had of honor students who would come over to his house just because we all fell in love with him. He was this marvelous old man. He was an old scholar, but he had an animate spirit -- he was alive. And I used to go, and we used to study certain archaic books, which I really didn't have much of an interest in, to be honest with you. But he was fascinated by them, and I was fascinated by him. So I was willing to put up with the books for him. I loved to be around him. There was something in this man, some deep truth, that touched me. And so I would sit and listen to his lectures on these old texts and I would study them, just so we could be together. Because what interested me in him was what he was, his essence. That's what I fell in love with, and that's what I responded to, and I wanted to be like him. I felt a goodness that I responded to, and I fell in love with it.

I told you before, I have this disease. I fall in love with people. I had many professors like that as an undergraduate. In graduate school, the man who directed my dissertation, Louis Simpson, who's a poet -- I took as many courses with him as I could -- hHe's a marvelous scholar -- because I fell in love with him. In other words, that aspect of eternity that reflected in him -- his strength, his beauty, his vision, his mental clarity, whatever it was
-- I fell in love with his consciousness. And that happened to me many, many times in school. I met these wonderful professors, great souls, in other words. It didn't really matter to me what they were teaching, whether it was Milton or Chaucer or Shakespeare or botany or biology or biochemistry. It didn't really matter. I wanted to be around them because I recognized a great goodness in these souls, and I apprenticed myself to that goodness. And I studied them.

I learned what they said. I passed their examinations, I wrote the papers. But what fascinated me was them. And by affixing my consciousness to them, I gained something. I didn't do it to gain something, to be honest with you, I just fell in love and found myself doing it. Love creates a bridge, a bridge between peoples, a bridge between nations. The absence of love is war, hate, enmity, fear.

So it's necessary in self-discovery for us to contemplate the meaning of love. Love makes you alive. We take an individual who's very successful -- I read a story in the Los Angeles Times not long ago, about a fellow who made himself several million dollars, but his life was empty. He'd succeeded at doing what most people want to do. This article went into long descriptions about all the different automobiles he had and homes he owned and places in Switzerland, and all this sort of stuff. But once he'd done it all and he had achieved everything that everybody thinks will finally make them happy, he found that he wasn't happy. He had it all but he didn't have anybody to share it with. So then he began a long search to find someone to share it with. Hhe suddenly realized that, having gotten it all, it really didn't do it. So he went through this long process of placing ads, I guess, in places to find the ideal woman, someone he could love. And finally, after many years of searching, he found her, and they married. And they'll be happy for a while. (Audience laughs.) Well, everything is just for a while, but at least it's working for him at the moment. In other words, finding this person animated his spirit, and he feels more alive than he did before. Does he feel more alive because of her? No. Because of his love for her.

You see, the great mistake we make is we mistake the object of our love and love. We think that it's the thing that makes us happy. It's not the thing, it's the emotion we feel for it. That's what's so great about love. You'll find someone and you'll say, "I could never love that person." Someone else will find that person to be the most adorable person in all the worlds. Well, somebody's wrong!

Well, actually, no one's wrong, everyone's quite right. It's not the person, it's the love. Whatever engenders that love is the catalyst. It enables one to bring out something that makes life worth living. There are people in cancer wards, who are dying very painful deaths. They've reached the point where even the morphine doesn't stop the pain completely. And they are happy. They are happy because they love. They have a love for God, and they feel that they are going to God. And that love sustains them. They are happy because they know their families are doing well. Because when they get a visit -- the son is succeeding at school, the daughter has just become a physician -- whatever it may be. In the minds of these sometimes simple people, basic down to earth people, they found something that makes them happy. It's the love of others, even in their darkest moment. Sometimes it isn't until that moment comes that we realize what we love. It is not 'till we are about to leave this life that suddenly we realize there were a lot of things we loved, and we want them all, right away.

Well, a great secret that we learn in self-discovery, of course, is not simply to love people and plants and physicians. But to love love. And to realize that love is God. t's a hackneyed phrase. It's written all over church walls and in books. But it's amazing, people hear the phrase, but it doesn't mean much. “God is love” -- what does that mean? Not much, if you can't meditate perfectly. Because then you don't know what God is, nor do you know what love is. To love is to be God. Not God as a persona, as a being, perhaps -- perhaps as all beings, as all things.

In metaphysics, which is the applied study of meditation, we realize God through love. That love may cause us to follow the path of Zen; we may practice discrimination – jnana yoga; we may do karma yoga -- wwork for others; we may practice mysticism and study power, but all of it, all of those applications and processes, are motivated by love. Without love, there is very little.

Now, naturally, we learn in self-discovery that love can be a very painful experience. For a person who's in an earlier state of evolution, in their early incarnations, it's enough to go out and love and have a family, have relationships. But of course we know that that love is also mixed with great pain. You love someone and then they decide to leave you. They die - this world offers constant transition. And when we become attached to something, when we lose it, it's terribly painful.

So in self-discovery, we learn to love without attachment. To just love, to realize that love is eternal, as is everything And then we don't get hurt in love. That's a higher type of love. It's an unconditional love. You can't just do these things. There has to be something that brings you in touch with some part of yourself that you are not yet in touch with. When you come into contact with that part of yourself, you will begin to love. These are fine ideas and ideals, you may embrace them, and this little talk may inspire you for a short time, to love more deeply. Hopefully it will. But it won't last. Your inspiration won't last. It won't last unless you find some way of being in touch with that part of yourself which you are not yet in touch with. That's why we meditate. When we meditate and stop thought, or at least slow it down, or at least feel we're separate from it, we clear the air and we can feel and see the deeper parts of ourselves. Not necessarily with our conscious mind, but it happens. We slowly come to consciousness, in the short span of time that we call life. We experience awaking. We wake to life in new ways.

As a spiritual teacher, as one who teaches others to love, hopefully by example, I observe a great lack of love in the world that we live in. I don't find this discouraging. Rather, I think that it's the age, it's the time, and that rather than being discouraged by the lack of love in the world in general, you should be encouraged by your own ability to love.

My ability to aid another in self-discovery, aside from just the quantum energy transfers that occur when I meditate with people, is strictly apportioned to their love of light. Now we're getting into basics of self-discovery here. All spiritual teachers try and create an experience of love. This experience of love varies from teacher to teacher and from lifetime to lifetime, and according to the evolution of the teacher, and of course, the evolution of the people they work with. But I'd like to give some gross generalizations that are usually fairly true.

A spiritual teacher tries to ignite love in someone. Now let's understand what the teacher is -- the teacher is someone who's climbed the high mountain, with a great deal of effort, with a great deal of ease, however it was for the teacher. The teacher was not always a teacher, there was a time the teacher was a student. And the teacher climbed the mountain as a student, and after a great deal of effort and time and incarnations, reached a point that we call self-realization. There are many teachers -- very few, in any of the three worlds, are selfrealized. Self-realization is a very, very rare thing. There are saints, wages, spiritually advanced people. But a completely self-realized individual is very unusual. There are very few of them.

When someone has attained self-realization, it means that they are no longer human as we know human to be, or perhaps they are human for the first time. It means that they have, in the absolute ecstasy and union of love, attained the highest truth. And they live that truth. They can no longer be separated from it. It means that their ego, their personal motivations, even the higher motivations have been lost in the ocean of love, and that they are willing, eager and conscious to live whatever is truth. Because love cannot be separated from truth. They no longer have individual desires or motives. Or, as Ramakrishna said, desire passes through the teacher, through the enlightened one, as smoke does through the thin air.

Enlightened people experience desire, as it's part of the multiplicity, it's part of creation. But it does not create an effect. As smoke passing through the air leaves no residue in the air, the air is clear. Whereas with most persons who are not enlightened, when smoke passes through them, it's like smoke passing through a building. The smoke will pass, and it will leave soot, it will leave residue on the walls.

To be enlightened is to be the clear air, is to be not one particular strand of consciousness, not just nirvana. It's to exist as an endless, changeless being who is always new, and who can exist in any plane, in any level, and yet is beyond change. It's a curious duality. Now, teachers who are at that stage of evolution, few though they may be, or even those who are just fairly along the way who perhaps had thousands of incarnations as a holy person, and while their self-realization is not rounded yet, they are quite advanced -- these individuals go about the teaching process. Now there's a great book, of course, called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which in my estimation is worth rereading occasionally. Because what this little silly book about a seagull does, this little parable, is trace the spiritual teaching process, which is very simple.

Something in you sought light. You found it. You became enamored of it.You gave everything for it, without wanting anything in return, or even if you did, you kept wanting it. You yourself passed through the stages of love in your self-discovery. At first it was just for yourself and your happiness. Then you became aware of the existence of God and others, and you did things for them, but it was contractual, you wanted something in return, and that was happier, but also more frustrating. Then you passed beyond that and you only had selfless motives, and then you had no motives at all.

So you went through the four stages. You attained knowledge. But then, that wasn't enough, you see. The fourth level of ecstasy is taking that knowledge and sharing it with others, if that's what's truth. Or, if that's not truth for you, to not do that. To always follow the will of God or eternity, and to unite yourself with that will at all times, in all places. There is nothing else. And if it makes you a fool in front of others, to play the fool. If it makes you a hero, to be the hero. In other words, you're a slave of God. There is nothing else for you anymore. You're not interested in the opinions of others, in winning their favor, in courting their money -- if that's the will of God, you'll do that. And even if others say terrible things about you, they say, "Well, look at that spiritual teacher there, he's seeking money or fame." Some spiritual teachers have done that because that was the will of God. But it doesn't matter. What do you need people for? What do you need places? What do you need press? Because you realize that all things in this world are transitory. None of them last.

God is eternal. And you have founded all of your realization upon that fact. You have merged with the light of God, so nothing matters anymore. You don't need anything, you are everything. And yet, if that everything manifests itself in and through you to do a certain thing, you are more than happy to do it. No matter what the expense. Which is why, of course, Christ could die on a cross or Buddha could live to be very old. Sometimes living is equally painful as dying. But you go where the company sends you, joyfully, because what else is there to do? You're free. And you're willing to give that very freedom that you worked so hard for up, and go all the way back to the beginning again. For love. Risky business, loving that way.

A spiritual teacher, then, tries to ignite the flame of love in others because they realize that that's the very nature of existence, and that's the only thing that brings happiness, that lasts. The love that most people experience is better than no love at all. But it's a rocky road, that love. Sometimes up, sometimes down. Sometimes more down than up But at least it's better than nothing. I's better than the nebulous, sterile state in which we don't love. That's death, not even a pleasant death.

You try and ignite that love, any way you can. By example, by instruction, by meditation. Now, of course, the great advantage that the self-realized person has over one who is just inspired, a saint, someone who has had great visions of God and tries to tell others, is the self-realized person has power. When they meditate with others, anyone who has any psychic perception can see them surrounded by glowing lights. They see that there's not a body there, they see them disappear, they're invisible, they see nirvana or various forms manifesting through them. They see the universal form of God, whatever it may be. The visions will vary according to the level of awareness of the audience.

But a spiritual teacher who has attained enlightenment, when they meditate with one person or a group, or even with someone who's not physically present, thousands of miles away, or in other worlds, has the ability to channel what we call the kundalini energy, consciousness itself, to others and elevate them in ways that that person would not be able to do themselves for many, many lifetimes and advance them spiritually. The teacher does this, of course, out of love. Because it matters to them that someone else can be happy. You see, love is so simple, even in the most advanced beings it's really the same. You just care about somebody else and their welfare. You want them to have a nice day. After you're enlightened, it doesn't change. It adapts new forms.

So a teacher then will strike out into the world, and sometime strike out -- but they will form a community. The community may be a few students, it may be hundreds, it may be thousands. But the principles that are involved in the community are always the same. The study makes it necessary for it to be the same. The teacher has reached the point of enlightenment. Or, perhaps, you don't have an enlightened teacher. Perhaps an individual has a teacher who is only partially enlightened. A teacher can go into samadhi but is still subject to a great deal of illusion but is certainly far more advanced than most people are.

The teacher will try and inspire others. And the teacher will have to deal with the public, initially, to encounter students. This is called spreading the dharma. And even after one has many students, most teachers will continue to deal with the public even if they don't want any more students because they want to advance others in any way that they possibly can. So the role of the teacher, then, is not simply to deal with their own individual students but to advance anyone they possibly can, in any way. Yet, they have specialized missions sometimes. So then, a teacher will normally divide their time between dealing with the public, dealing with their students, of which there are two types, and between their own meditations and their own adventures. There are really four elements.

A teacher has two types of students -- very close students and what we'll call general students. A teacher can only have very few close students at any one time, perhaps a dozen, only because there's so many hours in a day, so many days in a week, so many weeks in a year and so many years in our lives. And by close student, we mean someone with whom you spend a certain amount of time physically. In order to bring someone to enlightenment, it is necessary, at a certain stage of their development, to spend time with them, to teach them on an individual basis. A teacher has to spend a certain amount of time with an individual to do that, and you can only do that with a very few people, let's say, perhaps, a dozen. You just wouldn't have the time otherwise -- there aren't enough hours in the day, literally.

While an enlightened teacher is able to inwardly communicate with thousands of people simultaneously, still, there remains the need to physically interact with students. An enlightened teacher -- well, let me give you an example. As I sit here tonight addressing several hundred of my students, I am also communicating with some of my students who are not here inwardly, my students who are in San Francisco, or non-resident students in other parts of the world. Right now there are dialogues taking place on other levels of attention between myself and them. But my students who are with me tonight need the actual physical experience of sitting in this hall, listening to me talk and experiencing, of course, more importantly, the energy that's radiating from me at this time that's entering their subtle physical bodies and helping them to store power, bringing them through a variety of different transitions. Each one is going through different transitions, which is why they sit here and put up with me.

It really doesn't matter to them essentially what I say, hopefully it will be encouraging. But I'm transferring consciousness to each one. And consciousness transfers in a special way in the physical presence of a teacher, in a way that it really doesn't long distance -- unless a person is very spiritually advanced and has a very close connection with a teacher. If you're very spiritually advanced, if you're quite close to enlightenment or in that ballpark, you have a close connection with a teacher which is love, then it is possible to experience exactly the same energy transfer at any distance. But that's very unusual. That's why it's necessary to come and see a teacher in person.

People in India and in Tibet would travel thousands of miles to just see a teacher, to be within a hundred yards of them. And they'll travel on foot to be there for five minutes when the teacher came out to give a short discourse. Because they knew that to be near a holy one, an enlightened one, was so beneficial, so much prana, energy came forth at that time, that to be in the physical radius of that energy could cause their whole life to change, their consciousness to change, their level of meditation to change. That after they went away from that experience, they would be different. They would experience an epiphany. A metamorphosis would take place in their consciousness and being. And of course it would take place not simply because the teacher was there, but because they were at a level of attention that drew that.

The teacher could be out in the street and people could be passing by, and while a certain radiation emanates from an enlightened being which touches all, those who seek it, who admire it, who love it, will draw more of it. And it will cause them to evolve spiritually. To become more conscious of what they are.

So, as I sit here this evening, there's a correspondence course taking place between myself and each student of mine, whom I love, otherwise I would not accept them as students and work with them and absorb their karmas. There is a correspondence course taking place between myself and my students who are in other locales. There is a correspondence taking place between myself right now and members of the public, persons who have come to recently see me at one of our public meditations. When they leave the room, the correspondence doesn't end. Sometimes, that's when our dialogues begin, that's when it gets fun. Right now, I feel a number of people who will never be students whom I'm corresponding with inwardly. I'm corresponding with friends I had years ago. They may not be consciously aware of that, but I help them in their daily life, some of my teenage friends when I was growing up. They don't know what happened to me, they have no idea that I attained liberation or anything like that, but I help them. They don't need to know, I can help them anyway, effectively, inwardly. I can send them energy and light and help them in their evolution. There are people I feel in other parts of the world who will never meet me or hear my name. They are probably better off. But I help them inwardly. I feel their souls seeking light, and I help all who come. They don't have to physically come.

This is not because I am so great or so wonderful, it's just the way it works. I'm not particularly great nor I am particularly wonderful, yet I'm capable of doing some very interesting things. Because I am no longer a single individual. I have merged with a force that has infinite powers and possibilities, and it works through me as it does through any fully enlightened being, as it works through all beings, in one way or another. But naturally we can do amazing things with it as we extend ourselves into the superconsciousness. Because we are no longer human in the sense that we're capable of the actions that human beings are capable of. We can do impossible things -- impossible from the eyes of those who still don't know their own limitlessness.

So a teacher then starts to teach. They go out, they give some talks -- the Buddha gave his first talks, you know, and three or four ascetics became his first disciples. They recognized his enlightenment. They knew before he was not, and then something happened He went through this incredible transition. And they saw he was enlightened, and they became his first disciples. Over a period of many years he collected thousands of disciples. Many became his students. Many didn't become his students but whenever he was in town -- he traveled a lot -- they would go and see him, listen to his discourses. Some tried to kill him. There were assassination attempts. Some hated him. This is par for the course.

The story is the same, is what I'm suggesting. There's an archetype working here. The story is retold again and time after time, land after land, world after world, but it's really the same. And when you understand the active principles of it, it becomes fun to participate in. And you do better at your participation.

So a teacher then has two types of students. One type of student is a close student. The other is also a close student, but not in the sense of physical proximity. Now, the close students rotate a lot. What I mean by that is this -- let's say a teacher could be with maybe 12, perhaps 20 close students at a time. Rarely is that number achieved. As far as I know, it's never been necessary in the history of spiritual teaching in this world for a teacher to turn away someone who could have been a close student because all of the slots were filled. There's not that much aspiration in this world. So you should never feel as an individual that your teacher is turning you away because they have too many close students. That's nonsense.

There's an inviolable law that when there's a want for light, there's a fulfillment. That if, when you reach a certain level of understanding, a teacher is provided. And when you're ready for a close association, that association is provided. That's taken care of for you. So never feel, "Oh gosh, my teacher has so many close students, I can never be close." That's not true. If you have a real teacher, an enlightened teacher, that's not true. The teacher will immediately recognize that it's your time and you will be placed in a closer proximity. But that happens to very few people at a time. Only because very few people want that.

Now, we enter into humor. You have to have a good sense of humor to understand this part of the talk. Because it's very funny. People do not want to achieve liberation or be happy. This is the basic guideline that they teach you in spiritual training school, as a spiritual teacher. You must recognize people love misery, they love to feel sorry for themselves and they definitely don't want to be enlightened. If you don't know that, then you will not succeed in spiritual teaching. That's the first thing they tell you at boot camp. In the higher worlds. They're not interested. You've got to do something to interest them.

Don Juan in the teachings of Carlos Castaneda makes the same point. He says you have to fool people into seeking knowledge. People will not do it of their own volition. Now then, of course you have the spiritual teacher who says, “Well, it's absurd. How can you fool anyone, there's just love.” Such a teacher is either not being up front, they're speaking metaphorically, or they're not very advanced. It is necessary to engage a person's attention and show them the benefits of self-discovery versus the detrimental effect of their current lifestyle. In other words, you've got to make a person aware of how miserable they really are, and show them how happy they can be. Otherwise, why should they seek this nebulous goal called self-discovery? And the lengths that a teacher will go to do this are unbelievable.

Now this is where it gets fun. As you know, I recommend frequently many different books. But very often I recommend the books of Carlos Castaneda. Particularly Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power and The Second Ring of Power. From my point of view, it's not important whether the characters in these books ever existed or not because I find the spiritual principles in them to be true. And there are some great stories in them about what, particularly, I think, in The Second Ring of Power, about how don Juan and don Genaro found their apprentices. They're in the school of mysticism so they call them apprentices. They're students. And what they went through to fool their students into seeking light. They're well worth reading. Perhaps I myself someday will sit down and write some of the experiences that I've had (Rama laughs) with some of my students. I don't know if I could print a lot of them. Because no one would believe them. But some of the things you have to do to get people to be happy are remarkable.

So you have to engage someone's attention first off. The person is locked into maya. They're miserable. But they don't sometimes even know how miserable they are because they don't know what happiness can be, because they don't know what love is -- yet. So you have to attract their attention, and there's a variety of different ways to do this.

Ramakrishna, of course, the great spiritual teacher in India, at times used to go on top of his house and yell out for students to come. This is called Indian advertising.' (Laughter [who? Rama or a udience?]) Hy, it must have worked, he found some good students, who later started the Ramakrishna Math.

However, what most teachers do is not so much to climb on top of the house and yell
-- and he of course was doing this too -- but you meditate within. When you sit down and you do your daily meditation, you reach out and you look inwardly and see who is available. You just send out light. Then you do whatever seems appropriate physically to make yourself generally available.

Some teachers are extremely inaccessible. They feel that's the best thing. They feel that their teachings are for very few so they make it intentionally hard to get to themselves. Some teachers are very accessible. They advertise a great deal, they go out into the public. But while they may be very accessible on a simple level, if they're advanced teachers, doubtlessly they are very inaccessible in terms of physical proximity. There are different forms, but essentially they're the same.

A teacher will have an initial contact at some point with someone. But my point is, it always happens inwardly first. Before you ever meet an advanced teacher, they have somehow traveled inwardly along the astral planes to you, and they've probably been in contact with you for perhaps many years before you ever met them physically. Of course, in some situations, where the teacher has had many incarnations -- in my own case and other cases -- many of the people I work with I've worked with in other lifetimes. What happens is you come back, you reincarnate, your own realization returns after a number of years and spiritual transpositions, and you encounter your old students again and perhaps new students too. You reach out inwardly and find them. You move to the place where they are.

In my case I moved to California because I knew that many of my students from past lives were in California. I could see that. So I changed location because I knew it was easier for me to go to them, than for them to come to me. I travel now. I'll go to a city and give a lecture, a school, because I can feel someone there. Whenever I give a lecture series someplace, it's because I inwardly see first that there's someone there who is waiting. Whether they'll show up or not, I don't know. That depends upon many factors.

The initial contact is inner. But then there has to be a secondary contact which is outer. So you go and give a talk. Perhaps you advertise, you've had initial contact with the person, and if they follow that stream of light, life in some way will open a door for them. Someone will tell them that you're coming to town, they'll see a poster, read a newspaper about you, something will happen. Maybe they've read a book of yours. Then when they come and meditate with you, of course, if you enter into samadhi, if you're absorbed in the superconscious, they will feel that and it will change their life.

Their whole life will begin to shift, from their first physical contact with you. Sometimes their immediate reaction is to want to run away because they realize inwardly that the transpositions their life will now go through will be remarkable, but in a way it will change everything. And part of them has grown very attached to a certain way of life. People they associate with, careers, everything is going to go topsy-turvy now, it has to. Because they're remembering who they are.

The king had a daughter -- the king and the queen. And she was stolen by a roving band of flamingos out of her crib. And the flamingos took her to a small island. They raised her and told her that she was a flamingo. They taught her various arts that only flamingos know, secret flamingo arts. And she walked around thinking she was a flamingo.

One day, as fate would have it, a great spiritual sage was traveling through the astral planes, and he saw the little island of flamingos where this young girl was. And he saw a delightful opportunity to confuse everyone. So he manifested himself in the material on the island in the form of a flamingo, naturally, because she would only listen to a flamingo, because she only spoke flamingese. (Audience laughs.)

The sage approached her, and he explained to her that she was the daughter of a great king and queen and that she came from another kingdom. She listened, and of course the light of knowledge dawned, and she left with the sage, and they married and lived happily ever after. (Audience laughs.)

Not really, no, what actually happened was that she went back to the kingdom and realized that she had a lot of money because her parents had died and she led a flagrant but happy life (audience laughs). No, not exactly, I'll get the story right yet, be patient. What happened was, as I think the legend goes, she suddenly realized that she was not who she thought she was. So she decided to walk on two feet instead of four, and life was different. She gave up flying.

Anyway, at some point when you run into your spiritual teacher, you realize you're not a flamingo. That's my point. And you begin to change. Suddenly you realize, something inside you knows that you've been slumming. Your soul has not been living up to its highest destiny. You've been slumbering and now you begin to awaken. But naturally, there are parts of yourself, your mental conditioning, your attachments and so on, that will fight this process, so then the battle begins within yourself, between the old self and the soul. And the spiritual teacher engages in warfare and uses all the light and powers that he or she possesses to aid you in that battle, but still, it's up to you.

You can be a very advanced soul, and not follow the higher call and miss it for a lifetime. Or many lifetimes. That happens quite frequently. You have to decide what you want to do. Now this is where love comes in. Because if you love, if the light of that contact has triggered something on subconscious levels, then that love will compel you to leave your current comfortable or uncomfortable but attached lifestyle and to take up something new.To begin again in a new land. The land need not always, of course, involve changes in your physical lifestyle, very often it does. There's no set change. But it involves large, substantial changes in the way that you lead your life, how you spend your time, what you think about, all this sort of thing.

Then, if one is drawn, one applies to become a student of the teacher. You say to the teacher, in effect -- we don't do it quite the way they used to do it in Japan and India and Tibet -- but in effect you're saying, "Please accept me as a student. I seek knowledge, I seek light, I want to learn how to love" -- whatever it may be. We're not so formal in the West. And we begin this marvelous process.

Now, at that point you enter into a general pool of students, and the teacher will begin to work with you inwardly and outwardly, according to your level of development. What you need at the time, the teacher will provide, if you've got a good teacher. Because the teacher is interested in one thing -- your progress. The teacher will do whatever is necessary and will hold back nothing for you as an individual. But you must have faith in your teacher. If you don't have faith, you shouldn't study with a teacher because the process won't work. And that faith will only come about through love.

The spiritual teaching process is a process of mutual love. Without that love, very little can happen. You should recognize that the reason you were ever drawn to a teacher initially was out of love. You might have thought of beneficial reasons, categorical reasons, logical reasons. But to be honest with you, it was an inner motivation of love. Your soul fell in love with that being, just as I used to fall in love with my university professors. And I'd put up with anything. I'd study old, archaic books that I didn't even have an interest in just to be around them. Because I was in love. That's what makes love so great is that it takes us beyond what we desire, which is what binds us, and it leads us to something higher. It causes us to change and do things we would never do. Love knows something. It knows about selfsacrifice.

What a spiritual teacher, what I have to ask you to do is unbelievable. It's impossible. I have to ask you to become perfect. To change yourself through thousands of personalities in one lifetime. To give up everything, to accept everything. To do things that no reasonable person would do, to become a saint, a sage, an enlightened person eventually. The only way you will ever do that is if you fall absolutely in love with God, truth, yourself and your teacher.

The student-teacher relationship is very important to understand because it's very difficult for most people to love God. God is an abstraction for most people. Even when you meditate and feel God, you may love God then, but once you stop your meditation and you go out to work, you'll forget about God. You must think of God 24 hours a day in order to attain enlightenment, or even to make serious spiritual progress. That's where the teacher comes in, spiritual friends come in, spiritual books come in. You have to aim your consciousness at light. You have to access it more and more all the time. It starts gradually but increases as you progress, and there's a beauty and an ease to this progression.

The teacher is a surrogate for God. The teacher is someone who has merged themselves, melded themselves with the light of eternity, and it's easier for you to focus on them than on the unmanifest. The teacher is pointing. They've got their finger out saying, "The unmanifest lies over thar pardner!" "Thar's gold in them thar yugas, in them thar Himalayas." But all the time the teacher is putting you on completely. It's not over there, it's right in front of you, it's right within you.

So then we begin this wonderful dialectical process of self-discovery that drives everyone up the wall. That turns you inside out. That brings into effect every emotion, emotions you didn't know you had, every ability. That tests you at every moment, that gives you everything and offers you nothing, inverts you -- the process of self-discovery. Which is surely not my topic tonight. That's our constant topic. But my point this evening is that it seems to me most people haven't doped out that the most important factor in their selfdiscovery, other than making friends with themselves and making friends with God, is making the relationship between student and teacher work. And that it only works because of love. You can't buy it although people try sometimes -- if it's a real teacher.

You can't fool a real teacher. You can't impress them with your qualities and abilities. The only thing that impresses me, to come down to the brass tacks of the situation, is love. It's the only human quality that impresses me -- love in its pure form, or love as selfless giving. That's the only thing that impresses me about a person. The only reason I want to work with a person is I see that they have some possibility of manifesting a higher love. The only reason I ever work with a person at a closer distance is because they lead a life of self-sacrifice, and they have a great deal of purity which has been won through continuous love in this and other lifetimes.

And it seems to me that there's a terrible misunderstanding between us. It seems to me that I love you a great deal, my friends. That's how I feel. I don't feel students, that's of course the arbitrary relationship, but I feel friends, lovers. But it seems to me that you don't understand yet that the real fun of the whole process is loving. That the only way you can move into the higher spheres of attention, unless you were an incredible meditator, you were spotlessly selfless, you were completely motivated all the time, is through the grace of a spiritual teacher. So say all the holy books, and they're right. And that grace, if you want to call it that, comes about because of love. In other words, the teacher doesn't sit back and say, "I have billions of dollars I'm gonna give out to my favorites." The teacher is Impartial City.

What the teacher does is simply observe who accesses what. The teacher wants to give consciousness and light and love to everyone. The problem is not that, the problem is that people don't take what's there. The reason they don't take it -- they're afraid, they fear light, they have mental conditioning that prohibits them from being what they truly are, you know, the reasons are endless. But what really prevents it is that they don't love. What I'm suggesting is that when you sit down and meditate with myself or any enlightened teacher or when you just meditate directly on God or on your inner self, whatever form you want to use, spiritual teachers who are no longer in the body , OK, you're all trying to access light. And the only way that light can enter you is when you love it, and that's a fact. And that if I have anything to teach you as an incarnation of Vishnu, it is that love is the way.

All incarnations of Vishnu are incarnations of love, of that strand of light we call Vishnu. In other words, I am an embodiment of the quality of love. Enlightenment takes many forms. Yet in an individual being it manifests through a series of qualities. So different teachers are different incarnations of different things. And the qualities we give names to. Vishnu is the quality of love. In the Hindu trinity, there's Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahman is the creative force, a very intensive transmuting force that brings the unmanifest into the manifest. Shiva goes in the other direction. Shiva transforms, destroys, changes. But Vishnu is the aspect of love. Love is preserving and persevering. In other words, the aspect that they call Vishnu is that which wants to hold life and keep it alive because of love. Love is in all the aspects, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. These are names, in other words, for a cycle, a circle. But Vishnu is the aspect of love. So when I say to you that I'm an incarnation of Vishnu, what I mean by that is not that I'm particularly high and mighty. I'm anything but that. I'm nothing, if anything. I'm not even sure that I'm nothing because that sounds like something. But that your particular teacher named Rama, the quality his soul is, is love.

Some teachers, the quality they are is power. That would be, let's say, the Shiva quality. ,You see, there are different names. ,We as human beings like names for things that are really unnameable. ,But the particular method that I use in teaching is love. ,The one thing anyone can learn from me is how to love. ,Love is self-giving, with discrimination and detachment, yet with rhapsody and absorption.

The reason I took the name Rama is that Rama was an incarnation of Vishnu. And the very strand of energy that I have been in this and other lives is Vishnu, is love. I use the word Vishnu because it has a very deep, somewhat forgotten meaning, which is love of a certain type. And I am an incarnation of that love, as each of you is an incarnation of something. You see, when I say I'm an incarnation of Vishnu, people immediately want to think that I have elevated myself to Godhood. I don't have to, I am a god. So are you. We're all gods and goddesses. I have no more God in me than anyone else does, I'm just aware of that. So when I say I'm an incarnation of Vishnu, please don't think that I've placed myself on a pedestal. That's not true. It's a way of trying to express in exact spiritual terminology a point to you. That is to say, I'm an incarnation of love. That is to say that what I am is love. That's the aspect of God that you see through this being that we call Rama. You could go to another enlightened teacher and you'll see another aspect, or perhaps see the same aspect.

There are currently 12 fully enlightened teachers in this world. Each one manifests a different aspect. The aspect that I am manifesting is love. Others have manifested it before, others will again. You don't have to be fully enlightened to manifest that or any other aspect, it's the quality of the soul. A person who wants to learn about love will be drawn to me. Someone who wants to learn about power will be drawn to one of the other of the 12. Someone who wants to learn about knowledge will be drawn to another. Now all of us, all 12 of us, are more than capable of teaching all of the aspects, and we do. But let us just say that each one of us is a string on the lute of eternity and that each string has a certain note, a certain quality. And therefore the students who will be attracted to us will be those who seek to work on that quality. Either because they're very good at it or it's because it is the thing that they are the worst at, that they need the most. In other words, you'll seek your opposite because you need that to complete yourself. You may have learned all of the other qualities and perfected them but if you have not perfected one, you will not attain God realization.

So I deal with two types of students, either those who have a very deep-seated knowledge of love, which are few, or those who in all of their lives have ignored love. And you have come to me for karmic discipline, as it were, or karmic illumination, depending upon your point of view. The one thing that you have overlooked thus far in all of your lives is love. That's why you're here with this guy. He is here to teach you about love and selfsacrifice. That is the course I offer. Now, as a dialectical teacher, as you know, I've had many lives where I've taught Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and mysticism and many other things. So because of all that experience, I teach in many different modalities. But the theme that unites them, the theme that I live by, the theme that I attained realization through in this life and in other lives, is love. It is not the best theme. There are others. Naturally, I'll say it is the best because I'm biased. But I can accept that bias and accept that it's one way of talking. So love, then, is the central theme.

We've named our spiritual center Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the incarnation of love. But it's a curious thing that you will see so many of my students have trouble, more trouble with love than anything else. You should understand that the reason is, that that's the reason they're here. They had been drawn to an incarnation of love, one who loves more than anything, beyond reason, beyond sense, because they need to see someone who can do that and feel that with their bodies and with their spirits. Because that's where they need work. Or, you will see a second type of student who has done this for many lives.

In other words, I have graduate students who have developed this ability to love and they want to finish and perfect it. Those are the students you'll find that I spend a lot of physical time with, because they at this time need that. Then there are most of my students who don't know a whole lot about love. Poor, poor things! You don't know what fun love is. And I will remain inaccessible to you until you learn how to love.

Love is an exacting teacher. It includes everything in life, which is why I teach tantric mysticism. Because tantric mysticism is the love of life. So, as an instrument of love, as an emblem of love, since I practice the way of love exclusively, yet I find the way of love integrates with every form of self-discovery that I know, it's the tonality of this particular study. Then I know that your ability to work with me successfully is based upon your ability to love, and you'll find that the more you love, the deeper the connection will be between the level of meditation I can do and you.

I can sit absorbed in samadhi, radiate light, but it won't reach you. Only a certain amount will. Oh, a certain amount has to. It's just pure radiation. But the real ability to transform your nature and your consciousness, which I have, is strictly in your hands. In spite of all the things I can do, all the occult powers I have, still everything I do is based upon your ability to love. When you love light, you love God, you love your spiritual friends, your family, myself -- that ability to love opens a doorway, a channel, through which I can then do my magic. The more you love, every time you can love more, the more I can do for you. The less you love, the less I can do for you, even though I want to. You see, I have a disease, I fall in love with people. Because love is my way, it's the only way I know. It's not sensible, it's not logical. But love makes demands too upon us. It discriminates. The kind of love of which I speak is not necessarily a maudlin love. It's not a love that professes itself through vast phrases and adorations. It's a love that involves discipline and self-sacrifice. It's a love that will turn people away if necessary.

Sometimes I ask some of my students to leave. Now then, you say, how can you say that love is your principle quality when you do that? Well, I can say because it is my principle quality, I do that. Because when you love someone you always do what's best for them, whether it makes you happy or not. That's love, friends. And you do it with caring and exactedness, beyond exhaustion, beyond limitation, beyond life and death. Complete commitment. Unswerving. That's the way I love. You always do what's best for the other. And you take the time and trouble to find out. It's not your self-imposed ideas, but rather you meditate until you see what is right, the dharma. And you practice that always. So I work with an individual as long as it's helpful to their growth, and when it's no longer helpful, when I see that what they need, what is dharma is for them to be on their own, then I do that. That's love.

Love is not admiring yourself in the mirror of humanity and having millions of people come to you and profess their love and adoration for you. That's not love, that's selfindulgence. Sick, from a spiritual point of view, for a teacher to do that. Love is quiet commitment. It's the ability to withstand pain for others. It's the ability to give your life for others, either in an action of death, or of continuous life. It's an unwavering spirit and it produces results. It is the strongest power in the universe. The atomic bomb is nothing compared to love, it's a child's toy. Love sustains and holds this creation into place. Without love, without the Vishnu aspect, it doesn't stay. The Vishnu aspect is no more important than the Brahma or Shiva aspect. That is, to say, creation, preservation and destruction, these are the three aspects of change. Each is unique, each is as important as the other. But it is the preservation aspect that is life. t is love that holds the universes into manifestation.

So then, this education process that we are engaged in is love. And what I can offer you, by example -- I don't tend to talk about love too much because I think that one lives it. If you talk about it too much, it's just words. People then seem to believe that what you talk about is what really is. There's no way to express it, you live it. What I can teach you is how to love. You have come to study with a being who knows how to love, who's an emblem of love, an incarnation of love, who's stuck with it -- and that's all I know how to do. But again, that love is not going to necessarily take the forms you think it should with your understanding of love. It takes millions of forms and it's formless, and it leads to Godrealization and to a rather lovely, sometimes painful but happy life.

You should start to think about love. Because you're with me for one of two reasons. Count 'em, two. (Rama laughs.) Reason one is because you're quite good at loving and you want to learn more. The other reason is, it is the one course you have either not taken too far or done well with. You're in here because you're a beginner -- you're in Love 101. (Audience laughs.) You're in remedial love. You have not done well with it in other lives, as a matter of fact you moved in the other direction and I am your bad karma. I am the grim reaper. (Audience laughs.) You get me. In the Marines, they have something called motivation. When you don't do well, they send you to motivation. The sergeant there motivates you. So I am motivation -- for those of you who do not know how to love. For those of you who are just beginning, I am the voice of inspiration. Love and be happy. Love and be free. Love carefully.

For those of you who are advanced in the study of love, who have done this before, then naturally we have mutual recognition and admiration. For you I am not the study of love, I am love itself. And you seek to merge with me, and I with you. And there's a decorum and a formality and a dignity to do that. Then we get involved with spiritual etiquette. And then I teach you the higher points of living a life of complete and absolute love. That's where the real fun begins.

So I'm either motivation, inspiration or beatitude, depending upon where you are. But all of you who follow this path of love will find out that love is the shortest path to selfrealization. A to B, it's the happiest path, and C, it's the most complicated and the craziest. When I say the path of love, I mean the quality. On the path of love you can study Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, mysticism which is the path of power, jnana yoga which is discrimination, any of the traditional or nontraditional forms. It is not the form when I say the path of love, it is the motivation. Therefore, I adapt love into all the different paths. But within each terminology we see love, within each meaning.

You have come to learn to love. And it can be easy or difficult depending upon your mood. But I can tell you that my ability to act in your behalf is based strictly upon your ability to love. If you wish to do well, if you wish to learn from what this vehicle can offer, then I suggest that you begin to consider love. Whatever your level is. And begin to think about how you can love more and how you can open your heart. But again, not in a maudlin way, not in a sort of a phony, flaky way where you talk about it a lot, but how you can live a very quiet, simple efficient love which will grow and become bigger than the universe itself. And then you will be absorbed in God and there will be nothing left but eternity. And then that will do as it will. Whether it manifests in forms and you reincarnate again, whether you go beyond incarnation is irrelevant because you've become the self. Selfless. Eternity.

This is what I do, this is what I teach, this is how I live. And it is of use to you. That is why you're here. And as long as you're here, and as long as we're working together, you might as well understand what we do and why, why you're here -- and you should be able to decide which of those three categories you're in, one is not better than another. Because each one who pursues this path of love will attain immortality, will go beyond the finite and the bound worlds, will go beyond the samsara. Whether it's because you didn't do well at it before, well this time let's get it right. That's my position. That's why I'm a teacher.

I love people who make mistakes. That's why I'm in the teaching business. That's why I incarnate as a teacher. I enjoy that. As long as they have a good and cheerful attitude, I love people who make mistakes because I enjoy watching them learn and helping them, assisting them. Because I find it a beautiful process. So if you've had terrible trouble with it, maybe you finally found a good teacher. Because I understand. Incarnations of love are extremely compassionate, you know.

If you're a beginner at love, then well, pleased to meet you. I have a good friend who I think you will become very close with called love, who will do everything for you and make you very happy. And I've had quite a bit of experience with love. o I'll share my experiences with you. I'll share my life with you, my meditation with you. My meditation is love. It's an ecstatic meditation, as is all higher meditation.

Or if you're advanced in the ways of love, then I'm happy to show you the fine points. Great! Now I've got someone I can work with a little more closely. And I'll show you the higher etiquettes of love -- complete self-sacrifice, with no thought of the self whatsoever, complete absorption in God. When it's time for you to become one of those closer students, I will be the first to walk up to you and say, "Hi! It's that time now." Until it isn't, I'm doing everything I can for you. If I were to do that and spend more time with you on a physical basis, it would interfere with your spiritual progress. You'd get all confused.

I have plenty of room. I'm only working these days, since I started this process of spiritual teaching, I've worked with maybe, what, 30 people closely. Sometimes just for a month or two. And that was all they could take. That's all they needed. Now they have to go and make changes in their life.

You see, you work with a person closely and you give them as much as they can take. So let's say, suddenly, I called you up on the phone and I said, "Hey, let's go on an adventure, let's meditate." For a while we work more closely. But then a day would come when I'll say to you, "OK, thank you!" And then I won't call you for a while. It's because you've reached a point where I've taught you all I can teach you in your current form, and now I have to wait to see what you do with it. And then when you grow with it, and you move to a higher level, then I can teach you more. Until then I have to wait. If it's six weeks, six months, six years -- I'll wait I'm patient. If you're trying, I'll wait.

There are many people who, again, I've worked with about 30 over the years, who I don't see now at all. And they feel very bad sometimes. They think I don't like them. They don't understand. I called them all into the room the other night. I read all their names out. Those are all the people I've worked closely with, either inwardly or outwardly in a certain way. But most of them I never see anymore, because they need time to work it out now. I gave them the best I could, and now we work inwardly. You know, they come to meetings, we see, we talk, we chat. But they don't need that close contact until they reach another level. They've been given their homework assignment. When they've done it correctly, then it's time for another assignment.

There's a lot of turnover among that small group. Always. It's very easy to get in it. All you have to do is love, totally. I'll know immediately. And sometimes a person is in it for a day or a night. I just see them for a day because they reach that moment, and I recognize that and I call them up, and I say, "Hey, let's spend a day together, let's spend an evening together," because at that time they've reached that moment. Then they feel very bad because I don't call them for a month or two, or maybe ever. They shouldn't feel bad. That was the night they were in, or the day they were in, their highest consciousness. I saw that they were ready for the higher teaching at that point at a close level, I called them up. Now, they shouldn't feel frustrated when we don't see each other because it means that we had our moment. And then if they use that moment, they now have developed a connection and they can draw inwardly in a way they never could before. If they get frustrated and mad at me or at themselves, then they'll lose that connection. The time we spent together gave them a deeper connection to draw more light.

I'm available inwardly to everyone all the time. I do not love -- this may seem strange to you -- but I do not love any one student more than another. The student I've worked with for many, many years whom I see every day, I do not love that being any more than the first one who just joined. That's how love is, you see, it's impartial. But while one loves all equally, you spend time with people according to their need. But the love is universal. If you don't understand that, then obviously you don't understand love yet. It's universal. There's enough for everyone. But at the same time it's precise, it's not sloppy. It gives each what they need, according to their need. Sometimes people think they need something that they don't need, or they don't recognize something that they need. So it's the job of the spiritual teacher to administer properly with justice, but more than justice, with love. If I used justice, you'd all be dead. (Audience laughs.)

No, the karma that you throw at me when you don't like me, if I just let it come back, you'd all be destroyed in no time. But as an incarnation of love, you put up with the flack until it becomes detrimental to a person. There's a time you can't turn it back. When a person is very destructive, when they hate you tremendously, even though love is your aspect, you have to disassociate yourself with them. Many spiritual teachers have done this. They have disbanded their whole community because everyone got angry with them. All their students got angry. And the teachers had to ask them to leave because the karma at a certain point, you can't stop it, it has to go back to the person; it's intensified, and it hurts them spiritually. So then, it's better not to be their teacher.

It's a deep matter. There are many sides to it. We won't see them all tonight. But my message is very simple -- love each other please. Love each other. These are the nicest people in the universe. Here. Because they're here now and they're all interested in love. Love each other, accept each other. Don't expect perfect people. There are none. Discriminate, follow your inner voice, be unattached when you must be unattached, or if you find yourself hopelessly attached, then at least love. Don't judge others, don't tell them how to live their lives. Concern yourself with your own love. Become absorbed in love but not a sloppy, maudlin love. You don't have to profess it or tell people. Sometimes it's fun to do that. But live it. Be consumed in it.

Meditate on love. And then bring that love into whatever practice appeals to you, into Zen, jnana yoga, mysticism, selfless giving, it doesn't matter, it's all the same family. But bring love into your actions. If you want me to be able to help you at all, you have to love me as I love you. The more you love me, you'll find the more this consciousness is with you. It's not my consciousness, it comes through me. It's eternity. I have no consciousness anymore, I am eternity. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you'll gain more of what's here for you. I am powerless to aid you unless you love. And that's the truth.

So now you have an inside secret that can save you 20 or 30 lifetimes. You are studying love. You are on the path of love with an embodiment of love. It is where you are supposed to be at this time If sometime you feel that this is not the teacher, this is not the study, love is not the way, then find another way. I'll love you anyway. If I have to make that decision, if I see that's right some day, then please accept that with an even mind knowing that I love you and I made the right choice because I love you. I don't know how to do anything else but love.

It amazes me that people can come to our meetings and not understand what holds the whole center together, why we all give everything and never hold back -- it's because we love madly and wildly, the few of us who do that. We give everything for the study because there's nothing else, because when you love, you love completely. You can't hold back. That's why we're free.

Be patient with yourself. This takes time. You must learn to meditate and to love. To give and to love. It takes time. There's no rush. But begin to explore your heart. Don't be afraid to discover yourself. What you're going to find is really not so horrible. You'll have to be honest with yourself, you'll have to admit your jealousies, your selfishness, your anxieties, all the parts of your being that limit you. You have to become honest in love. Love is terribly honest. It's not blind, not the kind of love that I know. But it forgives, it understands, and it engenders new life. Such is the way of love and the path of love. It's a lovely path, I think. I follow it. Walk it. And it takes me to very lovely places. I see beauty everywhere and love everywhere. Even in hate I see love, even in hate.

So try to love each other. Begin in your spiritual community. Then spread it to the world. Don't expect others to love you. Don't expect to be understood -- and be discrete in your love. Don't profess it, love quietly. It's the best. There's less ego problem that way. And don't tell others how to love. Let each find their own way. Help when you can, but don't be so self-knowledgeable that you know the way for everyone else. I'm the teacher, and as a teacher I'm only a student, to be honest. I just follow love, and wherever it directs me I go -- without shame, without fear. However it wants to express itself through me, I am that. I know nothing else, and need know nothing else, except that that is God. Everything else is beyond words. It is the meditation we do, the samadhi. It is nirvana. It is absorption beyond all these descriptions and ideations. It is the eternal light of existence. That's all there is -- timeless, birthless, deathless, immortal.

We are the strands of eternity. We are existence. These words are just a little weight around your half sleep to make you remember that you're a flamingo. No, you're not a flamingo. You're a queen, aren't you, or a princess? I forget, it was a story from a long time ago. If you meet a flamingo, you might ask them.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Seeing by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

This evening I'd like to talk to you about seeing. Seeing is the ability to tell what really is. There are many different forms of seeing. Some forms of seeing involve apprehending that which is occurring in the world. Other forms of seeing are more esoteric, and they involve the perception of perception itself. Without seeing, it's very difficult to practice self-discovery. You're quite blind. Most people of course, think of seeing as the thing that we do with our eyesight. We're using the word “seeing” not in that sense at all, but as a metaphor, almost a mixed metaphor, for knowing. Perhaps “knowing” is a better word. It's a little bit of both.

Everything that we apprehend goes through a selective screening process. This screening process involves the senses, our mental state, desire, conditioning. Each one of us perceives life, at least initially, when we begin self-discovery, through the senses. We hear something, we feel it with our bodies, we taste it, we recognize it through our eyes, we view life in terms of physical orientation. We've grown up in a world of sights and sounds, textures. When we think of something, we measure it. Is it tall, short, what color is it, what does it sound like? The way we try to understand something is by apprehending it in the mode of physical awareness. This is not necessarily the best way to understand something, but it's a way that we've been taught.

Conditioning is responsible for what our life is. The totality of your life at this time is dependent upon what's happened to you. What's happened to you is your awareness now. Your current awareness is a reflection of everything that has occurred to you since the time you were born. Your awareness is a reflection of the people you've known; the experiences your body has undergone; the language and structure of the language or languages that you speak; the way others have treated you; the way you've been accepted by others; the exposure you've had to media, be it print or television or radio; the recollections of others because the experience that others have had upon you is formed largely from the recollection of others. Your parents, in other words, treated you growing up as their parents treated them, as their parents treated them, and so on and so forth. So what we have are reflections of reflections of reflections. These images are literally programmed into us from the time we were born. Even if Rama said "are", "were" is grammatically correct since you need past tense to match "programmed."

The strongest factor in conditioning is sex, in the sense that the first thing that a person is really taught is whether they are male or female. When you are taught that you are male, you will be taught what that means. And the definitions will vary a little bit, according to who's teaching you, the country, the family, and so on. But the world will teach you what it means to be male. The world will teach you what it means to be female. Both experiences will be programmed into you.

If we could think of it in terms of writing a computer program -- when we write a program, initially we're dealing with nothing. We have a blackboard with nothing on it whatsoever. Now what we're going to do is make a series of pathways, a series of choices, be they binary or otherwise, to create a structure. But initially there's absolutely nothing, there's the thin air. Now we're going to create yin and yang. We're going to create yes and no. We're going to create plus and minus, or zero and plus, or however we want to do it. There are only two choices available in duality -- one side or the other side. Everything is formed from that. The I Ching, of course, is a study in duality and what lies beyond duality. The idea is that there are two oppositions, or complements if you prefer, and varying shades in between. And when we have these complements or oppositions, change occurs. Change can only exist in time. Without time there is no change. Change can only exist with a background of that which is changeless, otherwise it has no definition. We can say that the stars are moving because we have a relative context. They have a background; we're perceiving the movement or perhaps a foreground. If there's no background or there's no foreground, if there is no opposition, if there are no complements, then there is no change because there's no subject and object.

The Chinese used the symbol of tai chi, the undifferentiated reality. No separation, no left and right. Before perception, before a perceiver, existence was - is. And that's all. This is the consciousness that we refer to as nirvana, God, eternity. There's no way to measure it because there's no one there to measure it. Everything is part of one web, one matrix of existence, beyond discussion. This is our true self in its undifferentiated form. From this we have come forth, and to this we return. In this we exist constantly. The dreams of existence that we call time, space, matter, subject, object, yin, yang -- everything flows forth from this tai chi, this nirvana, this endless reality, this God.

We see what we have been taught to see. We perceive what we have been taught to perceive. Nothing is as it appears to be, at all -- except that perception makes it so. Perception is conditioning. One of the questions that we have to raise for ourselves at some point is: does anything have an absolute identity or reality or is everything purely subjective? And the chances are that we could have both answers, but let's delay on that for a little bit and come back to male and female.

Male and female are the first things we learn because they represent the polarity of existence. For a person who lives in time -- for you there's time, for you there's space, for you there's a world. For such a person, differences are the most important thing because the differences represent your existence. When there's no difference, there's no time, there's no world, there's no separativity, and there's no you, nor is there an I. Most beings in this particular dream believe that [differences] and enjoy that. And so time comes into being. And when there's time, there has to be suffering. Because in time there's desire and attachment and transition, and whenever there's desire and attachment, when we want something or need something, when we feel something, then there has to be loss and gain. When there's loss and gain, of course, there's pain and pleasure and so on. This is the world of experience.

But life is not necessarily this way at all. The only reason that life is this way, or appears to be this way, is that we have been taught that life is this way. Now, indeed, at the age of six months, or one, or two, or three, or five, or 30, no one sat you down and said, "OK, this is how it is. There's duality. Duality comes out of the ultimate reality. There's yin, there's yang." No one gave you a theoretical explanation. What they did was they gave you an experiential explanation with prototypes, stereotypes, and the principal stereotypes, of course, are parents or whomever or whatever we see around you.

The mind of the child is not formed. There's a certain amount of conditioning, you might say, certainly within the structure of the cells and the DNA. There is a tremendous amount of conditioning in the subtle-physical reflecting the essence of that which one has been in many, many lifetimes or in many incarnations. We call these the samskaras or tendencies. So we have the racial tendencies that are in the physical body; and within the subtle physical we have the tendencies that are a reflection of something deeper, which are all the various lifetimes that we have had. Of course, there's also just the absolute understanding of existence itself because we are that existence. That's enlightenment, which all of us are. But we are not necessarily cognizant of that because our field of attention is fixated, or focused in duality.

So we are shown, then, that this is life, this is the world. And our seeing is sexual, initially. You can tell a great deal about a person's relative state of awareness, that is to say, how far up they are on the ladder of consciousness, by their sexual attitudes. Those people who run towards or run away from -- are still very fixed in time and space because they still seek to define existence in sexual terms. I started to finish the "run away from" with [sex], but this doesn't quite get the point so left it aloneThose who really no longer see any difference whatsoever, other than the differences in operable energies, but with no conditioning, are much further along. So in other words, those people who are terribly, terribly drawn to sexuality as a method of definition, or the experience, or those who are terribly repulsed -- either way you're dealing with a tremendous fixation in time and space, and you can judge your own progress spiritually by the movement you make towards something that's less defined and more actual at the same time.

So there's conditioning. Conditioning begins with a sense of "I am this, and everyone else is that." That's how it begins. I am male or I am female, you are male or you are female. This is my sister, this is my brother. OK, my brother wears pants, my sister wears a dress. My sister is not as strong as my brother because she's a woman and he's a man. We develop what seems like very innocent definitions. I'm a little girl, therefore I have a doll and I'm going to be like mommy and mommy is something that we have a definition for. What I'm suggesting is that at an age when we really have no choice in the matter, we are given a description of the world that is much more potent and much deeper than you might realize. You don't remember, perhaps, being taught these things. You may not remember what it was like when someone first said "No" to you or when someone first said "Yes" to you with affection in their voice when you did what they wanted or what they did not want. But a structure was formed, a program was written. A number of different interlocking programs were written, and gradually you were given a description of the world, a way of seeing, which is largely sexual.

There are alternate descriptions of the world, and what I try to do is provide not simply one other description, but a number of different descriptions that you can use. We can think of the descriptions almost as computer languages. The very basic languages or the most basic language --machine, assembler, something like that, is the description of the world that most people have. It's an operable description that really only deals with very simple operations, and its code is sex. Male, female, dark, light, up, down, in, out -- it's the language of duality.

Then, of course, just as in computers, there are more sophisticated languages, Pascal and so on. So there are other languages, other ways of speaking, other descriptions that are useful for you. Do we need a description of the world at all? It would seem that perhaps it would be better simply just to see life in its purest form, without having to bother with all this language stuff, all these descriptions. Yes we do. No we don't. It depends. In order to go through this world, or other worlds, you do need a description. You need a map. You need a way. But there are times when we need to go beyond all descriptions of existence.

So I have handed you initially four basic descriptions and one overriding description. The four basic descriptions, of course, are love, self-giving, knowledge and mysticism. Each has a language all its own. They are all united by something we call Tantric mysticism (should mysticism be capitalized?). no Tantric mysticism is kind of a wayless way. The idea behind Tantric mysticism is, of course, the government that governs least governs best, but governs sufficiently.

Tantric mysticism is the glue that binds together not one description, but all descriptions of existence. The initial description that we have is sexual, and we see life in those terms. We see life in terms of punishment and reward, of love and hatred, of success and failure. So the first step then that you really need to take is to see beyond the description, or, if you prefer, maybe a more Buddhist approach is to see the limitations of a particular description that you may have. If you find, for example, that the description of existence that you have, the way you see life now, engenders pain and suffering and if you don't like pain and suffering but it is definitely in the description that you now have, there's no way around it, then that could motivate you to go beyond the description that you have. Or you might take, I suppose, a positive approach. The positive approach would be to feel that one could experience more light, more love, freedom, abandonment, awareness. Not simply in an intellectual sense -- that I'm going to have more ideas, I'm going to read a book and learn something new -- but that I am going to become something other than human. Much more, let's say. Much, much more.

The limitations that we can see of the sexual description of reality are very apparent. Very few men attain enlightenment. Even fewer women attain enlightenment. That would tell you that the definition of being male that most men have is not very adequate because their understanding of themselves is so far from the truth that it causes them not to be what they really are. The definition that women have of themselves is even more so. It's even less accurate, if that's possible, because we can tell even fewer women attain enlightenment. So that definition is even further from truth. Well, how can you tell then, where's the truth? How can you tell if the description that you have is accurate at all? How can you know what another description is and if it's more suitable? Most importantly, how can you tell if you're hung up in a description of existence, if you're spending so much time on the language that you're forgetting what the language means? This is what seeing is all about.

Seeing is the art of detachment. In order to see, you have to be able to push away any and all descriptions of existence and move into a different modality, a different plane of understanding, of awareness, which we call intuition or knowledge. Seeing is an ancient process and there are definite means to go about seeing. There are definite ways. It's not accidental at all. It's something that you work at every day and every night. Otherwise you won't learn to see. Seeing is initially more of a process of tearing down something -- we're trying to tear down this silly description of reality that we have, the way of seeing that we now have. We developed a habit, and the habit is very strong. So we're going to try and break through that habit, even if only for a moment, and then gradually we'll be able to break through it a little bit more and a little bit more. And we can't be too hasty, or too abrupt. Because if we are, if we tear down the description too quickly and we don't have anything to replace it., we'll feel lost. And we'll feel so awful that we'll feel that nothing else exists beyond our description of existence, and it's so painful without it that we'll cling to it all the more.

That's why it's very, very important not to hurry the process of self-discovery. Because when you hurry it, you alienate yourself from the process itself. You need to develop a sense of gentleness and grace. You shouldn't force yourself. Because while forcing yourself may give you some kind of immediate result, the result probably won't last because your being will rebel. It's better to be gradual but to continue and then gradually, of course, you'll see that it's not so gradual.

Nothing is or is not, unless thinking makes it so. We all know the words. Therefore the only way you can tell what is beyond, what is or is not, is to stop thought. Seeing is the process of stopping all thought. This is meditation in its absolute form. Meditation in its relative forms, of course, is to limit thoughts, have nicer thoughts, to fixate our field of attention in a certain way. But to truly see something, meaning to know it, to merge with it -- there are no words in our language to describe it -- means to go beyond thought. And part of the description that we have of the world, part of the problem that we face is that we have been taught that when we don't think, we're doing something terribly wrong.

There's a sense of productivity which cripples us terribly. We feel that we have to always be doing something worthwhile or that if we're not, we're doing something that's not worthwhile. We're back to our little binary male/female code of it's either good or it's bad or it's somewhere in between. It's either yin or it's yang or it's a combination, you see. You're either male or female or somewhere in between. You've got to be somewhere on the map. But that's not true at all. Who says that's true? Who started all this, anyway? A Zen question for you.

Why is that so? It's not. Yet you believe it is. So, for example, if you see me sitting here, if you're looking in the way that most people do, you will see this man in front of you sitting, talking. You will have certain ways of seeing this man. You will judge this man according to men you have known and your experiences with them. You will judge this person according to what you hear them say and your experience with words. You will judge this person by your desires and what you want. And very often a person will bend reality to suit their desires. They will want to see one thing or not want to see something else, and this will cause you to run sort of a subroutine in your program and that is to avoid truth -- because there's some sense of either the avoidance of pain for most people or seeking something beneficial, something that's in your definition rewarding or pleasurable.

So it's necessary to begin to get a sense of how you operate. Even if at this time you're not capable of doing much else, first you need to begin to get some distance on yourself and understand the multilevel structure that's operating. In other words, there's a power structure inside you. You're a very political creature. You need to understand the politics of the system before you can really get around it. And also, part of the system you might find useful still. I wouldn't throw it all away necessarily. But what you want to do -- you have to have enough integrity to be willing to examine every single thing that you've been taught. And when I say taught again, I don't simply mean what they told you in school, but I mean the images that have been held up to you since the time of your birth, and you have to examine each one to see if it's correct or true. Tthe only way you can do that, of course, is if you have a background. You can only tell if the stars are moving relative to the foreground or the background.

Seeing, then, or using alternate descriptions of reality, gives you relative backgrounds by which you can evaluate and understand the level of the language that you're now using. Maya means that you don't see. It means that you see maya, or illusion. The idea being that the world is solid, that there is time, that there is a tomorrow, that there was a yesterday -- ideas that most people hold in common -- which doesn't make them real at all, it's just that most people hold them in common. And if you hold that idea, you're in maya. Because any idea relative to anything or relative to nothing is still a structural illusion. Not meaning that it isn't real; it's as real as you are. But perhaps you're not real at all.

So the way out, then, is to stop thought. When you stop thought, you stop time, and you stop life and death. Well, what then? This is the moment of fear, from the point of view of one who has not done this or is not at the moment doing this. The sense is that we'll lose our sexuality, we'll lose our definition. We will no longer be what we are. If I go out to the desert, and while in the desert I become something other -- a luminous being capable of what most people would say are impossible things -- one who watches that, who operates under a simple description of the world in which people can only do certain things and they can't do other things, will only see what they want to see. You know, the question comes up all the time. Why does one person see more than another? Why can you sit there and see red auras and blue auras and the person next to you won't -- if the auras are in fact there? Well, the reason is very simple. The only reason all of you don't see more than you do is because you're held back by your description. Because in your description, certain things happen and certain things don't and your description won't bend.

So how do we bend that description, if it's not in fact true? If much more is happening than you realize and the reason you don't see it is because you don't feel that it could possibly happen according to your understanding of the nature of existence. Then, initially, we have to show you that there are a couple of holes in the way that you see. And that's where the kundalini comes in handy. The kundalini makes little holes in your awareness. So, if we're sitting, meditating together, and we use the kundalini in a way that just breaks through your awareness, then suddenly you see the room turn into a web of luminous fibers
-- energy appears, I disappear, something like that -- and if those things are not in your normal description of the world, you have three choices. The first choice is, of course, to pretend that it didn't happen. The second choice is to find some alternative explanation that will in some way interlock with your description of the world. And the third way, or the third choice, is to realize that there are holes in your description, that there are discrepancies which cannot logically be filled. This is, from the spiritual teacher’s point of view, the use of miracles.

Some people ask me, "Well, why do you do the things that you do? Why do you perform these miracles?" Which are not, in my estimation, miracles. In my world, according to my description of reality, they're just reality. The structural reason is to make little tiny holes in your awareness. If we make these little tiny holes, they may become larger and larger and larger. Then after a while you'll be able to see out through them, and see that there's something beyond what you now know.

What most people do when confronted with a situation that does not fit their description of the world or reality is to deny it. A person comes into a public meditation that we're doing, and they sit there, and suddenly they have some phenomenal experience, beyond anything they can possibly explain. And they'll sit there, and they'll tell their friend about it, and say, "My God! The room turned paisley. I suddenly had the feeling that I was up on the ceiling looking down and I saw everyone's heads, and a lot of the people, they were bald!" You know, whatever it might be. And then later on, they'll walk out, and the next day it never happened. They will never [say]– "Oh yes, yes, well, sure, oh yeah, sure." And their friend will say, "Well, gosh, how about the other night, I mean, how do you feel about life now?" "Say what? What other night? What, what happened? Oh, I don't know about all of that."
Kali, I changed "admit" to "say" as its more neutral
Now, a person who is a little more clever than that will construct an alternate possibility. This is why Carlos Castaneda is so marvelous, he's so clever. So you'll say, "Well, I was hypnotized. That's what he did, he hypnotized me." There was a little article in the San Francisco paper that was about people who used the siddhas. I was listed, and several other well known people were listed, and the person who wrote the article was trying to explain away what we did, and one of the favorite methods was that, well, what we do is we hypnotize people. You see, we cause them in some way -- now how you could hypnotize someone to see the things that they see without ever talking about them, I don't understand. But this person didn't bother to deal with that. What they suggested instead, was that, well, yes, they used hypnosis.

Someone else will say, "Well, it was that eggplant parmigiana hero I ate before I went. That's why I experienced all that heat coming up from the base of my spine." You see. The definitions, of course, and the explanations can get very, very clever. But when you read -- that's why Carlos is so great because he can stand back from himself and say, "Well, OK, look this is what [happened] -- I was out with don Juan and suddenly I heard this noise in the bushes, and it must have been don Genaro out there with a little noisemaker." Yeah, I mean, he'll come up with the most farfetched things. Now you have to understand, the reason that he does this and the reason that you do it, more importantly, is that you're trying to defend the little that you have. See, you live on a little island, it's a little tiny island called selfawareness. And it’s all that you know. All around you is an ocean, a tremendous ocean, and it stretches on forever. There are big waves, and there are things that swim above the sea and under the sea, and who knows what's out there, but you know this little island. You've lived there all your life. It's what's familiar.

Now, some people are voyagers. They get on a little boat and they leave the island, and they just go off. Well, that's what you're trying to become. But at the same time, you may have heard reports from a few others that there's something out there, but you may have also heard reports of terrible, terrible things that are out there. At this point, you're not sure. But you know this island. You know where the coconut trees are, you know where the crows live, OK? You have an understanding of what's there. And while it might not be the greatest island in the world, it's your island and you're not necessarily going to just trade it for something that you're not sure about -- unless you're either very brave or very foolish.

So when you build these rationalizations about your behavior, about what you see -- when you try and explain away the mysteries of life, which almost everyone does, and make them into some sort of dull and boring routine, which is safe but dull and boring and not particularly accurate, don't think badly of yourself. You're still in the commodities exchange market consciousness. You still think that you actually have an island. And as long as you think it, that you have an island, you'll defend it. That's what the Atlanteans thought. But sometimes things don't work out quite the way you thought.

The third approach, of course, is to begin to perceive the possibility that there's something other. So when you meditate, if you see somebody do something or you feel some new sensation, you move into a new level of awareness -- you don't have to accept anything at its surface value. But rather you should begin to see the possibility that there's something more, something different, something inexpressible, which is the nature of existence itself.

In this study, you're face to face with yourself, which is what makes it difficult for each one of you. You are fighting against everything that you've been taught, everything that you believe. Not against what you believe or what you've been taught, but against the very nature of teaching and believing. The particulars don't matter. You see, that's a great way of losing yourself so that you don't have to deal with yourself. It's sort of disinformation.

You're out on the battlefield and you leave the plans for the next battle where they can be found by the enemy. Of course there'll never be such a battle, so the enemy all masses there, and you made it all up. The way that we do that with ourselves is we will become concerned with morality or immorality, with relative truth, and we will have an argument within a structural system of belief as opposed to looking at the entire system itself. So we're not going to deal with whether artichokes are good or not, but we're going to talk about different types of artichokes and evaluate them. And in that way we can stall for time and hope that it all just goes away, all the things that we have to deal with or that we don't want to deal with.

But sooner or later these little holes are going to begin to appear. You'll begin to notice, for example, that yesterday didn't happen yet. You might notice that sometime. Or suddenly you'll notice repetitive history, you go through the same day twice. Now we explain a lot of it through dreams. We say that well, when we dream that's not real, and this world is real. You see, we're back to sexuality again. We're back to "There's the opposite self and the self," as opposed to just seeing that that which is a dream is neither real nor unreal nor is this real nor unreal. It's something else.

You cannot force your being to accept the totality of your being or the totality of your self, no matter how wonderful that awareness may be, all at once. I think the best method, initially, is to look at the positive benefits which will accrue from seeing. In other words, if you think that seeing means you're going to put aside your old self and you still like the old self, then you won't like seeing. Rather, if you can see the positive benefits of learning to see, meaning to come to some sense of what is and is not and beyond both, then it will be helpful to you. When you can see, you can avoid problems. Not necessarily problems in the physical, but problems in awareness. When you can see, you have, I suppose, what they call peace of mind. It's actually much further than that because it's not limited or relegated to the mind. If you don't see, you'll die because in your world, people die. And you're people, therefore you'll die. When you can see, then there is no death.

Seeing isn't everything. It's only a step, a progression. It's the beginning of a new awareness for you, and this awareness is unlimited consciousness and unlimited reality. As I speak, it's necessary for you to try and see beyond my words. If you only listen to what I say within the context of the language that we have, then you will understand very little. But if you can see what I'm saying, meaning if you can shut your mind off and just listen and not analyze, but just be conscious and allow consciousness itself to direct the flow of awareness, then something will begin to happen. And that something will be perception. Not perception as you've known it, but perception of an infinite sort that allows you the possibility of your own immortality.

The best way to practice seeing, of course, is to be around someone who sees and observe them. Not observe what they say, but observe their conscious awareness, the vibratory field of energy that surrounds them and flows through them. What you're trying to see is not what's happening on the other side of the building, or even what's happening on the other side of the universe. What you're trying to see is existence, beyond structure and beyond definition. When you can see, you'll amass a great deal of personal power and then, of course, you will be able to step outside of the definition that you now have for yourself. So if in your definition a person can't walk on air and you can't see beyond that, then, of course, you'll never allow yourself to do that. If you see that this is something that you're capable of, that people are not what you thought, then one day you'll be able to do that.

Seeing is essential. Without it there's very little progression in self-discovery. And it all begins with silence in the mind, with an end to thought, and an end to conscious awareness, where begins the superconscious.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Sophisticated Sexuality by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Today is eternity. In eternity there is only awareness. Awareness of the infinite, that which is beyond description. Awareness of the finite, that which we can describe but not necessarily understand. The infinite is the unknowable. The finite is what appears to be known. But ultimately the finite, the world, that which we believe we understand is, in my opinion, as mysterious, as the infinite is. When we meditate, we experience the infinite. We go beyond time and space and condition. And we experience the mystery for which there are no words. We experience more of that according to our awareness. The pathway to Enlightenment leads us to see that we are luminous beings, mysterious, unknowable, unfathomable. Yet, there is a pathway. There is a journey which we feel we can understand, but we can't. We can only witness it and observe it, and be awed by it.

Over the years, I myself have witnessed eternity. And continue to, in many, many different ways. There is no end to our realization and there is no end to perfection. Ultimately, we're just confronted by the wonder of it all. Beyond reason, beyond morality, beyond rationality. Try as we will, we are confounded by life itself. And while we invent splendid ways to frustrate ourselves, and we make a knot which appears to be very hard to unravel, which we call our lives, life itself unravels it. Life ultimately puts all the loose ends together, rounds and shapes everything perfectly, effortlessly. We have much to learn from life. This is the study of meditation.

My own experience is neither typical nor atypical. I was born into this world without knowing why. I grew up, lived, experienced, and was always drawn to beauty, to light, to eternity. I've never been able to separate the finite from the infinite. I find eternity is present in a flower or a person, in the sunshine, in the rain, in pain and health, in all of the humanness, as in Nirvana. The way I follow, and the way that I describe and guide, as a teacher, as a guide is this way: to realize eternity in the moment and beyond the moment. To balance the beautiful incongruities that our mind invents. To be both beyond and within.

We don't really have to do this. It just is. You might say we're just trying to perceive our "isness". There's really not much more. The ways are specific. The methods make no sense. The techniques are numerous. But ultimately, everything is done for us.

Today is the Summer Solstice. In this world, it is the day of the greatest light. We celebrate the Summer Solstice because we celebrate light. We celebrate the Winter Solstice because we celebrate night also. Night not being connected with evil, light not being connected with good. Both light and dark are eternity. Human beings assign relative values to colors. But beyond the relative, there just is. What in Zen we call suchness. I find the paths circuitous and unusual. At a very early age, I was attracted to light, as most children are. I grew up in a world that seemed very complex. I watched people dreaming their lives. Even when I was very, very young, four, five, six, I could see inside people, their motives, their dreams, their apprehension of reality. This awareness has always been there for me. The ability to see has always been a native talent, I suppose.

I've gone through many steps and stages in my own spiritual development. They appear to be neither typical nor atypical, they just were, or are. And yet they're all a dream, and they fade upon waking in eternity, in Nirvana.

I've always found God in love, in selfless giving, in art, in literature and poetry. In people. The people of the world. In plants, in nature, and in the sky and beyond. It's always seemed very simple to me. There is light and there is form, and they play together. So when I was very young, it was very clear. The way was apparent. Then they sent me to school, and things became very, very confusing. Fortunately, I had an interesting balance. I had two parents who were somewhat unusual. I was very lucky, and always have been. Life seems to have taken vast exceptions for me, but I suppose each one of us could say that.

On the one hand, I had a father who was strong, and kind, and loving beyond, at least in my case, anything that I could understand. And at the same time, who was extremely puritanical, who had been raised in a religious tradition with extensive morality. I had a mother who was very developed psychically and spiritually, who was very remarkable in many, many ways. Who was in a way, an opposite, a complete liberal in every sense of the word. Interested in women's liberation before it was the fashion, believed in reincarnation, psychic development, all kinds of things.

So, it was interesting to have both a very conservative and very liberal parent. Because we deal with both of these elements in the world, and we have both elements within ourselves. So at an early age, I found the world very natural, a place to be. I was always in a meditative consciousness as a child, which all children are. Then they sent me to school. And school was a strange place, where they tried to make you into something. Not simply what they taught you, but they presented a description of the world to all of us which was very limited and narrow. And while I don't doubt the intentions of the people who did it, what they passed along was incomplete. They only passed along, of course, what they had been taught.

I found that the breakthroughs for me, as I went through school, junior high school and high school, came through sexuality, came through explorations of consciousness, in reading, and loving, through friends. Through time alone in nature, through yogurt (laughter) and through psychedelic experiences. I had been pretty well made a prisoner by school, by society. I had been given this description which I couldn't accept and it's projected from the televisions, the radios. The images of the world, the teachers. Now, I must say, I've been very fortunate, and I can only thank all of those who I have known, because many of the teachers I had were exceptional. All of the teachers, it seems, were exceptional. But I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that all teachers were not like the teachers that I had known.

In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom which I didn't see at Woolworths. And so I was drawn to the arts. Because I sensed that I was by nature Bohemian, and yet, very conservative. How strange to have two natures.

So I would read a great deal. All kinds of things. Everything from Shakespeare to Science Fiction. I read voraciously for years and years. Sometimes a book a day. I learned a lot from my friends in school. I had lots of friends. And yet I was very indrawn. I didn't really want to be a part of the world because I found that the world was filled with unkindness. People didn't love each other. They didn't understand. In every home in America, in the world, there was cruelty, and anger, and hatred and things that I didn't feel. And so I found friends who were somewhat similar, a little bit. And didn't think about it too much. Because life just takes us where it will.

I found growing up that love and sexuality was a wonderful way to understand existence. Because when we love it takes us beyond ourself. Otherwise we're just absorbed with the preoccupations that we invent. But when we love someone we can do something magnificent. We look beyond our own immediate needs and we become more concerned about the welfare of another. So I was attracted to poetry, which is perhaps the purest of the art forms, where love is the medium of exchange, and the nobility of love is considered. It's a land of higher ideals. I was very drawn to music. All types of music. From Beethoven to Jimi Hendricks. Finding that a great deal of music offered nothing but the description of the world that I was given in school, but that there was creativity in music. That there were musicians and composers who obviously were expressing a vision that was beyond the mundane, beyond the ordinary.

I was very fortunate and always have been that the women I met and fell in love with were exceptional. From my first girlfriend at 15 to the woman I married when I was 21, to all the remarkable women I have known. Either as friends or lovers, I think I've learned more from women than anyone else. And perhaps from love. What a wonderful testing ground. What a wonderful place to see and sense our limitations. To feel the pain of the ego. To be remarkable, which is to be ordinary. And to give without wanting anything in return. To know that the pain reflects your state of awareness and to not be able to hide from it. To know that the self-giving reflects your state of awareness and that will be the absence of pain, when you love really freely.

Through high school, college, graduate school and beyond I had a number of relationships that were wonderful. I didn't realize that all people were not like the ones that I met. I'm very naive in a certain way. I didn't realize that it was a setup. That eternity was leading me on. That the women that I met were exceptional. Extraordinary. Tremendous purity. Tremendous gentleness and self-giving and power. For some reason, the women in my life have always been extremely powerful. And I've learned a great deal from that. I've learned that we're all women when we're complete, and we're all men when we're complete.

So love was where I learned to go beyond myself, essentially, and the arts through relationship, through sexuality. To look outside of myself and to know without any question when I was being selfish because it would hurt. And to know without any question when I was being selfless, which is to be ordinary, because it wouldn't hurt. It would be elevating. Then, of course, as was the fashion, I explored alternate states of consciousness at one period of my life through psychedelics. As was the fashion with all my friends, we all did. It was a time period, I suppose, in the 1960's when a generation of souls, or part of a generation in a particular country looked at the established society, looked at the pettiness, the greed, the hate and rejected it and tried to create something new. Their creation neither succeeded nor failed. It was another experience. We sought a tribal society. To be close to each other, not to sit behind a television with our families and not see our families, but just to watch the evening news, and the inane comedies designed to pacify the multitudes. But rather to explore ourselves, to come to some definition of what this world is. What life is. To at least live it while we are here. So we experimented. And we experienced many altered states of awareness. We used the power plants. And I did that for a year or two.

Then, of course, when I was nineteen, I was very drawn to meditation. Oh, even with the use of the psychedelics, it was all based around the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Using them to experience Enlightenment, or to try to. But then when I was nineteen, I started to meditate. And as soon as I started to meditate, I went into Samadhi, although I didn't know what to call it at the time, and never used another drug, and never have. It was no longer necessary to alter my consciousness through the use of these things. I was very grateful that I had, for the period of time that I did because I learned a lot. I learned about the benefits and the vast limitations of such types of exploration. As did all my generation. But then at nineteen I meditated and had such powerful meditative experiences that the idea of using anything to alter my consciousness was absurd. So I pushed those things aside, and I entered into a world of meditation which I've been in ever since.

I meditated on my own for some time, read spiritual books, became a vegetarian, and had incredible experiences every day, every meditation, where I was just thrown into the infinite. Never realizing that other people didn't necessarily have those experiences in meditation that quickly. I never considered myself to be special, if anything, I considered myself to be awkward. And still do sometimes.

I entered a spiritual community when I was 20 which I was in for eleven years, with very strict meditative practices with an Eastern teacher. It was very much like a religious order. At the same time I went through college, graduate school, received a Ph.D. and started to teach. The training was rigorous, hundreds and thousands of hours of meditation, self-giving. But it was easy, I loved it. I would merge again and again with the superconscious in meditation. I liked my teacher very much, and after some years of meditation, after mastering basic techniques and levels of attention, I began to teach meditation, teaching only that which I knew, and referring all things that I didn't know to my own teacher. As the years progressed, and I learned more, I tried to share that with my friends. Because in meditation I found light. I found sincerity, purity, and a quality of experience which few people seem to have in this world. And I became very convinced that by practicing meditation one could have a life that was uncommon, remarkable. Because I found that happening to myself.

At the same time I was very immersed in the world. I'm very worldly, I love the world. I was immersed in my career, in school, in graduate school, in teaching. I married for a time. And again, as my meditative experiences grew I had wonderful relationships, I just met the most wonderful women, who meditated and shared certain understandings that I had. And our time together was invaluable, as was my time alone. I was drawn to be very solitary as a scholar. I lived a very quiet life - aloof. With my books, with my walks in nature, and meditating, of course, with my teacher, and living in the world of the spiritual community. At the same time I was very drawn to people I loved, to my family. To my father, to my sister, to my brothers.

So, a large part of self-discovery was quite personal. It had to do with relationships, with people. Some of the most exalted states of consciousness I experienced were in bed with someone. Or alone. Or with my spiritual teacher. There was never a difference for me.

Now, I became aware, as time went on, that this was not necessarily an ordinary experience. Because I lived in a community where celibacy was the rule. With the word rule underlined. Where one, as a matter of fact was expelled, from the community, if you were not celibate. My own teacher knew that I always had a girl friend. I never kept any secrets from my teacher. And I saw many people asked to leave the ashram for so much as looking intensely at a member of the opposite sex. And for some reason, my teacher never said anything to me about it, which I never understood. I wasn't going to argue. (Laughter). I loved my teacher, and I wanted to be there. But I also knew that I loved other people too. And I just couldn't give up one for the other, because it didn't make any sense. Because some of the most exalted moments I had were with the people that I love. Some of the most exalted moments that I had were with my teacher, and with my brothers and sisters in a spiritual community. Some of the most exalted moments I had were by myself. Studying, or in nature, or walking down the city street. I found light in the darndest places. Or it found me.

During those years, the past life recollections began. Psychic powers developed, my meditation increased. And I found myself changing, over and over again. Becoming someone new almost every day. The form that I had known, the person whom I had grown up went away. And someone else would come. Another self that was a little more refined, that had a little more purity. A little more humility. Not too much, a little more. (Laughter). Because I was quite egotistical. I thought I was quite wonderful. I did very well in school, I had lots of honors, so I thought I was quite smart. And I, of course, had to find out that that's quite ordinary if you work hard.

So I seemed to be leading a very incongruous life (from the point of view of the definition of the community I was in). Yet I noticed that my brothers and sisters in the community, my friends, were not too happy. They seemed to have a lot of trouble with sex. It was a very touchy subject for them. Some of them looked quite askance at me, as a matter of fact, because they knew that I had a girl friend, which was, of course, against the rules. And they didn't understand why my teacher tolerated it. But I had a respect for all the students of my teacher, because I felt that if they were with my teacher, they were special. I had a terrific love of my teacher. He was my whole life.

So it was incongruous because some of these people actually hated me because I was doing exactly what they wanted to do. On the one hand I was successful in the material world. I was successful, I suppose because my teacher sent me all over the world to talk about meditation; Germany, Switzerland, Europe, all over America, Canada. I wrote books. And most of the students in the ashram didn't do this sort of thing. They lived very quiet lives, following strict spiritual disciplines. Well, I also followed all of the strict spiritual disciplines. But I wanted to tell the world about meditation because I felt there was something wonderful to share. This was my honest, innate feeling. It was a wonderful adventure, and a wonderful dream. So I would drive thousands of miles, travel, all at my own expense, to do this. And hopefully, positively influence many people to learn about meditation. Hundreds of people became students of my teacher through the talks that I gave. And their lives seemed to benefit and improve. And as time went on, I changed. The more I worked for others, the happier I was. The only incongruity in my life was that I had a girl friend. Everything else seemed to be going well. I went through terrible times, I went through times of self hate, thinking how undeveloped spiritually I was. Everyone else in the ashram, you know, a thousand people in the ashram, nobody had a girlfriend or boyfriend. I did. And honestly,, I went through terrible, terrible times when I just took myself over the coals. I thought I must be the most impure person in the world, because that is reverse egotism, so I thought I must be the "second" most impure person in the world {laughter from crowd].

But yet I found the experiences that I had with sexuality were wonderful, they were very uplifting - we had a good time. Didn't seem to affect the level of my meditation, my meditation kept improving. I seemed to be able to be helping more and more people all of the time.

So it was quite incongruous. Bit I perceived that other people couldn't necessarily do this, I realized that many of the brothers and sisters that I had, my friends in the ashram, need to be celibate, because for them sexuality was a very tacky issue. As I am sure you are aware, sexuality is the primary focus of our culture, and almost no one has come to resolve it. Most people are terribly afraid of their own sexuality, and one has to respect another person's sadhana, another person's path. So I came to respect that my friends needed celibacy, that having relationships wouldn't work for them at all because it seemed to bring out in them attachments and emotions which did interrupt their meditation. Very often I would see one of them who perhaps did become involved with someone, and then they'd leave the spiritual community, and I could see a residual drop in their awareness, a remarkable drop in their awareness. It seemed to bring out an undeveloped nature, selfishness, all kinds of things, which I didn't experience. On the contrary, for me it seemed to be something that helped me go forward. So I learned to respect that each one of us in self-discovery walks a different pathway and naturally when I was with my friends I would never discuss my girlfriend or anything like that, because I realized it just upset them, because a part of them, obviously still wanted to have relationships, yet they had chosen not to because they felt that was the way for them. So I have tremendous respect for them and do to this day, they're spiritual warriors, wonderful people. And over the years of much self hate I came to realize that well whether sexuality was in my life or not, which at times it would be and at times it wouldn't be, it didn't seem to matter a heck of a lot, and I just surrendered the whole thing to God, and I said "God, if I'm supposed to celibate I will be, and if I'm not I won't be, it's up to you , it's not up to me. Who am I to be so vain as to think that I know what's right. Only you know what's right."

So as the years went on I found that my relationships got better, they changed though, as I changed. In the process of the years of meditation and self-giving, self analysis, I found that I no longer loved as I had formally done, I used to love and it was very painful, there was jealousy involved, frustration, attachment. But that self seemed to go away and then I could just love someone, and that was enough. The love became very pure, and it was no longer painful. So while I saw a world of relationships with people who seemed to suffer more in their relationships than in any other way, I found for myself quite the opposite was true. As I went on the relationships got better and better. And they meant less. In my early life, in my adolescence, love as I think for most of us, was a tremendous focus, I wanted to find the perfect partner. I did, I married her. And then I realized that after being married for some time, that while I could go on being married and that was a wonderful way to be, and I'd actually found the most remarkable woman, or she had found me, or whatever, that it wasn't enough. That it wasn't enough to lead an individual life where I loved one person and we created a world together. I couldn't be happy, I was too restless, too strange, too possessed by this love of light. I just had to be alone, because I had to spend my time working for others, I just knew that I had to do that. There were people in our spiritual community who were married and their marriages seemed to work. So it wasn't that I felt that one couldn't be married and have a very progressive life. On the contrary I think one can, I just knew that it wasn't for me. I just knew that there was something I had to do, I didn't know what it was. But I knew I had to be alone to do it. So I found that as time went on the relationships that I had became more and more impersonal, yet had more love in them, it's an odd incongruity. I loved more but I was less attached, if the person I had just been with, if they went away and I never saw them again, it wouldn't matter. I wouldn't think about it for a second. Yet I loved them more than I ever had. In other words my love was no longer bound by the body, it was a love of spirit.

In poetry, and in my study in graduate school I was drawn to a particular poet, Theodore Roethke, I did a dissertation on the evolution of matter and sequence in the poetry of Theodore Roethke for my Ph.D. It was very interesting, because in Roethke's earlier poetry he was very drawn back and forth. On the one hand he wanted to have the spiritual quest, on the other hand he was drawn towards love. And he found the two, this terrible dichotomy that certain forms of spirituality seemed to set up -- where the flesh is bad and the spirit is good -- and he struggled terribly in that, and I identified with that because I went back and forth. But then ultimately in his later life, he came to see that body and soul are one. That everything is the same, that everything is spiritual. It's not a question of what we do, but of intent. And it's as spiritual to be alone as to be with a partner. And this is my view.

As the years progressed, my spiritual evolution seemed to increase in speed. I stepped outside of this world, the cells reordered. The combination, the aggregate of beings that I was dissolved in the white light of eternity. The realization of existence returned, or we could say it became manifest. At a certain point I left my spiritual teacher, because I began to see the limitations of my teacher. While I loved my teacher, my love was a bit blind. I didn't really so much love my teacher, as what my teacher represented. Although my teacher had many wonderful sides. But it's like with our parents. When we're young, we look at our parents, and we think that they're Gods, and we grow up and we see that they are. But Gods have limitations sometimes. And Goddesses. And we see them.

So, as I grew up spiritually, as I entered into Enlightenment, I saw the limitations of my own teacher who was a very powerful occultist, but who I thought was to some extent, limiting others in their spiritual growth. And so I went off on my own and started the process of spiritual teaching.

Now, being a spiritual teacher, of course, in the modern world, I realized that sexuality was going to be a very hot issue for people. And, of course, I had come from eleven years in the monastery, essentially. And while I'd had a girl friend who I spent a few hours with a week, maybe Friday night at the movies, almost all my time was in this very refined spiritual community where people had dedicated their lives to God. There was nothing else. It's was like being-it was a spiritual order. Where we were renunciates, we gave everything up. And while we may have held jobs, all that mattered was yoga and self-discovery. Our only connection with the world was because our teacher said work in the world, and so we did. And I found myself in the world, outside of that community. And I started to teach. Without any effort. It all came back. I remembered my past lives, as a Zen monk, as a Tibetan master, many, many things. Jnana Yoga teacher, mystic. I've had hundreds of lifetimes as a spiritual teacher. And yet, even as a spiritual teacher, I continued to have relationships, I continued to love people. The quality of the relationships, of course, changed, as I changed. And I think that you'll find this will happen to you too. What became important was to do your very best for someone in every way. To be a servant of another individual. That there should not be one impure thought, action or motive. That everything is directed towards the welfare of others. That you meditate and you lead an impeccable life (while being yourself at the same time). A fine balance. And that whomever you're with, whether it's a student you're teaching, whether it's a woman you're having a relationship with, whether it's a book you're writing, a lecture you're giving, whatever it is that you do, it really doesn't matter. You have to give everything without any sense of self. And yet at the same time, not trying to fit into some sort of silly image. To be Zen. To be awareness. Without any thought.

So I found that love and sexuality continued to be one of many doorways that seemed to continue to help me in evolution. It just seemed to be there. I had no choice in the matter. As I have no choice in anything that happens anymore. But I found that I could no longer have a relationship with anyone. Relationship meaning that there are two people who love each other. And they create a separate world. And I no longer felt that way. I no longer could love one person. I just found that I loved everyone, equally. But yet, at times there would be someone who entered my life, whom I found I would be involved with. And so I decided the best path to follow would be to be very open about this. With my friends, my students. While it was not necessary, it was my personal life, and certainly it could remain personal, I had seen a number of spiritual teachers over the years who had obviously not been celibate, but who had told everyone they were. And when the news came out, of course, people were very dismayed and shocked.

Now, I have no doubt that the reason they didn't tell everyone was either they felt it was none of their business, because it was their life, and I can respect that position. Or because they felt people wouldn't understand. That people were so caught up in ideas of morality and immorality, that they weren't at the point yet to see that it really doesn't matter. That Enlightenment has nothing to do with sexuality, one way or the other. Nor does the process that leads to it. That a person will go through different stages. At times they may have relationships. At times they may not. It depends on the phase of their spiritual discovery that they're in. The watchword is being yourself, and seeing what works. And if you find that sexuality limits and drains your consciousness, then one naturally avoids it. If it seems to enlarge it, then it seems to be a fine form of yoga.

But I had seen that even those may have been their motives, I don't doubt that their motives were pure. Because, you see, as you enter into Enlightenment, as you enter into the nagual, everything changes, nothing is the same. There are no reasons anymore. Or they're all different. The descriptions of the world have totally reordered. You're no longer a person. So, I suppose the things that apply to people don't apply to you, which doesn't mean that you're special. It simply means that you've thrown those descriptions away. Still, we live in a world with people who have those descriptions who interpret you by them. So, a lot of the teachers had obviously decided that it was better to fit into people's descriptions, and don't rock the boat. Don't upset their ideas and their ideals if it helps them to think that being celibate leads to Enlightenment, and one should always be that way, and that sex is dirty or harmful, then you should foster the illusion until they reach such a point of self knowledge that they'll understand that it really doesn't matter. That sex is as holy as anything else. It's only attachment that's the problem, and egotism, and things that limit us.

But I saw that these feelings ultimately led to their downfall, when sooner or later either one of the young men, or young women, or whatever or who they were involved with, would suddenly declare to the world that they had slept with Swami So and So, and wasn't it wonderful. Maybe they felt special for some reason, I don't know. It's no more special to sleep with one person, than another. What's the difference? It's all a dream anyway. But anyway.

So I decided the best thing to do was to avoid the Watergate mentality, and to be in full disclosure. (Laughter.) Without the sense that anyone would understand. Most people, and most of you, are threatened completely by your own sexuality. You don't know how to deal with it. You're terribly afraid of it. And it's a terrible threat to see someone who's at ease with it. Who it really doesn't matter to, one way or the other. So I knew that it wasn't going to be that simple, it was a great idealistic theory, on my part, to think that people - you could just say how it is, and that would be enough. But we're dealing with human beings who have been given very strange descriptions of the world and sexuality by people who weren't too happy, and obviously hadn't worked it out too well themselves.

So I knew it wouldn't be easy. But at the same time, I couldn't see, as I couldn't even for the guru that I loved so much, for my students living my life in a special way. I had to be myself. Because otherwise, there was no truth. And how could I purport to teach the way to truth if I didn't live it. Even though it didn't fit into the circumstances and the value systems of others. Who cares? I was never particularly interested in impressing others. Otherwise I would not have been part of the "Woodstock Nation." I rejected society ages ago and came back to it because it seemed like an interesting thing to do.

The opinions of others really don't matter. What matters is truth. And truth as we learn, as we progress spiritually, is a very, very complex affair. No pun intended. (Laughter). Now, of course, there would be people along the way who are always looking to create problems for themselves and for others. So I thought that disclosure was the best way to deal with it. To say simply, "Well, I'm not celibate, or some days I am and some days I'm not." And you should be whatever works for you, under the theory that people would be able to be mature enough to feel that, `well gosh, Rama sets no limitations upon us. Why should we set any upon him? The reason that we like him is because he meditates well, and when we're with him, we change. What does it matter? When I first met him and began to change and experience light, I didn't know anything about his personal life. That didn't matter. What mattered was what was happening. What mattered was the kind of person he was.' You see? But again, I'm very idealistic. People aren't like that. I'm realizing. I'm very naive about people. I didn't realize I had a very cloistered life. The people I met, the friends I had, the women I've loved, the teachers I've had have been selected for me. I just have never been exposed to worldly people, even though I lived in the world. It was a setup. Suddenly I found myself a spiritual teacher with lots of people who weren't like that. In other words, while my path had been one thing, their path had clearly been another. And they were filled with suspicion, fear, anger, and all kinds of things. And I didn't know what to do about it, except to continue on the way I'd been on. Which was to be me. Whatever form that took. And if it contradicted itself, from one day to the next, then that was an interesting ride. Because that lent the possibility that other people could live the same way. That they didn't have to hate themselves. That they could do whatever they wanted to and attain Enlightenment. Choosing for themselves. So it was a great theory. But obviously, that's all it was. And it's the way I live and the way I will continue to live.

I believe that sexuality is essentially unimportant in the spiritual process. Yet people seem to make it awfully important. I believe that love is totally important in the spiritual process, in any form. It is the spiritual process. I became a spiritual teacher because I cared about people. And I know that my motives are unsullied. All I do is work for the welfare of others. At the same time I love the world, and I don't find that incongruous. But I realized that people have a description of the world, and in their minds they see things a certain way. They see that spiritual teachers should wear ochre robes and walk on air - and perhaps some do. So I knew that my lifestyle was going to create a few problems. Because I have the sports car, and I have women that I love, who I spend time with. And I thought that that might rock the boat a little bit. Then I said, well no, the Sufi's, the Sufi's do that. (Laughter).

So maybe there is a tradition. There's Padma Sambhava, the head of Tibetan Buddhism. The founder, and boy! Phew! Wow! Talk about sexuality. Well, I guess he had a lot of kundalini, and had to do something with it. (Laughter). There was Krsna who had more girlfriends than one could count on a calculator. The gopis. I mean, there's a lot of tradition behind all of this, but then again, I'm in the West, I'm in the land of the puritan. Who has sex and hates themselves. (Laughter). But I knew it wouldn't be this easy. Because then there would be those who would say all kinds of things. Because if you're open and you tell the truth, it's bound to be distorted. That's a rule of thumb in life. So then I began to hear rumors that, well, I was, I don't know what I was doing. I haven't listened to much of the rumors. But I guess, I don't know - that I was making love to millions of women or something like that, I don't know. That hasn't been the case. It might be a wonderful idea (laughter). But to be quite honest, I haven't the time (laughter) because I'm very busy, it's very demanding running a spiritual community. It might be a heck of a lot more fun than some of the things I do. But the reason that I've always had a relationship or whatever we call it with someone is because I fell in love with them. I've been very fortunate, without one exception, all of the women I've ever met and been involved with have been wonderful, remarkable, absolutely remarkable. And I feel they've all been my teachers. As are all of you my teacher. I also knew my stand on the gay issue would be very misunderstood, and is. Most teachers say that to be gay is very bad spiritually, that there's something wrong with a person. And I don't see that at all. While I myself never had an inclination in that particular direction, if someone is gay, and they progress spiritually, and it doesn't interfere with their spiritual evolution, well, what's wrong with that? Maybe it will foster it. You see? In other words, cosmopolitan spirituality in a world that is not necessarily interested in it, with people who are very hung up on sex, very afraid of their own sexuality. So then I said myself, "Well, what am I going to do? Gosh, there are all these rumors. Well, why are there rumors?" Well, I suppose there are rumors because people like to gossip. Because they're still in that state of consciousness where they like to talk about things. Where they can't just be strong enough to see independently one way or the other what's right for themselves. In other words, in order to escape their own lives, they need to focus on something else, so they don't have to deal with themselves.

Also there's the constant recognition of spiritual teaching. That as time goes on, people need to leave a spiritual community, because they know if they stay, they'll change. And they reach crossroads along the way where every once in a while they want to leave, because they're going to change, or maybe it is just time to leave. They've exhausted that community. As I exhausted the teacher I worked with at a certain point. And they need reasons, because they can't just say, `it was wonderful, I'm glad I was there as long as I was', which is what I feel about my teacher, but now, then it was time to go on my own way. And I don't regret one moment of being there. Which I don't.

No, they had to have reasons. They had to find something to put down. It's like when people leave a marriage, they can't say it was wonderful, and now it's time to go our own way. Instead, they have to say, `this person I loved, who I said I will be with for the rest of my natural life', they have to say `is horrible, is hateful'. They have to trash the person so they can feel good when they leave them. It's the ego. Or they're just not independent and strong enough.

So then I said, "Well, this must be what's happening. People are indulging in these rumors, because what they need to do is, they need to have an excuse to leave. So I tried to, then, I tried to provide people with excuses to leave. So I then would talk endlessly about the benefits of leaving a spiritual center. Why it's good, why it's a natural process, which I believe it is. This is a school. People come in for a certain period of time. Some people for many, many years. Some people for a few months. Again, this is all a wonderful, idealistic notion. But obviously, it will only suit people who can climb up to a higher level of understanding and who are beyond simplistic concepts of right or wrong.

So my theory then, for sexuality, remains the same. And for lifestyle, and for everything that we do. Laksmi is a place for an exceptional person. O.K., it's sort of like a spiritual Montessori school. (Laughter). Our methods are nontraditional. That is to say, we say it's O.K. to be yourself. And if you feel uncomfortable with your own sexuality, then this will not work for you. Because I don't feel it's an issue. If you want to make an issue, you either want to run away from sex and put it down, or you want to run towards it. And I feel that it really doesn't matter, it's whatever makes you happy. And I respect your feelings in the matter, whatever they may be. But I certainly don't feel that you should mold your lifestyle upon what I say. Nor do I feel that I'm going to mold my lifestyle upon what you want. And I know that this way, whether I have zero students, seven students, seven hundred or seven thousand, those persons who are there are somewhat balanced. And they're interested in sophisticated spirituality. Sophisticated spirituality meaning beyond simplistic morality. That you can be and do what you want, as long as you don't hurt anybody else. And while people may not understand you, who cares? Do you think the Christians were real interested in what Caesar thought? Do you think in spiritual tradition people have ever been really interested in the current morality or current establishment, you have to do what you see is right. That's all I'm trying to teach you. And if I couldn't do that myself, how could I teach anymore?

So, then, on this infinite issue of sexuality all I can suggest is that you experiment. And if you find that being celibate works, there's plenty of room in our community for you. If you find that having relationships works, being married works, being gay works, it doesn't matter a bit. Life is an experiment. We don't live that long, you know. It's a very brief moment, it's a blink of the eye. A moment of seeing. And all I can tell you, as a spiritual teacher, is that if you are not yourself, you will not attain Enlightenment. There is absolutely no way if you try and fit into someone else's description of the world that it will work. It is impossible. Because you are trying to be something that you're not and it is only when you accept yourself as you are that you will actually begin to change. Which doesn't mean that you will stay the same. You will evolve.

So I don't feel, then, that my lifestyle or your lifestyle is a matter of discussion. I offer a lot of suggestions about alternate ways to live. Many, and you pick and choose among them, as suits your level of attention. My job is to teach you about the unknown. And also about the known. And I use the various energies and powers that seem to come through me, which you experience, which is why you're here, to do that. But essentially, you and I are friends. And I don't examine your life, or question it. I believe that you are doing what is right. And you have to have the same faith and trust in me. And if you don't, gosh, then you should use that as an excuse not to be here. It's a marvelous excuse. But I'm just going to, as Bob Dylan once said, "Keep on keepin on." I'm definitely not going to change. If I didn't change for the teacher I loved more than anything in the world for eleven years, then I'm certainly not going to change for anyone else. Because it's something that we don't control. We have to be ourselves, whatever that means. And my point is that you can be sexual, nonsexual, asexual, bisexual, trisexual (laughter), any kind of sexual or nonsexual that you want, and it really doesn't have a lot to do with Enlightenment. And while you may have gone to churches where they told you that sex is dirty, bad, harmful, awful, or whatever, I don't think so. And while people may come along and promulgate rumors about what I do or about what you do, I don't think we should listen to them. I don't think that one has sex with someone to teach them something. I think it's because you fall in love with them. And whether that's for a short time or a long time, that's just whatever happens. I hope you learn from each other, as we do in all aspects and processes in our life.

But I think it's time everybody grew up. And stop being so petty about their own lives, or other people's lives. And instead turn their attention towards what matters -- Money! (Huge laughter). Sex is the preoccupation of adolescence. Money is the preoccupation of adults (laughter). And Laksmi is the Goddess of money. That's where real power lies. (He laughs).
While you're all worried about sex, the world is out there making money. You should catch on. And then there's the superconscious.
Laksmi is tribal. We are a tribe of beings. Most of us have been together for many, many, lives, and we know each other all too well. And we've seen each other in good times and bad times, in sickness and in health, at death we parted, and we came together again. (Laughter). And I will see some of you go and come back again, as I have in other lives. I've seen you married, I've seen you with children, I've seen you dying, I've seen you being born. I'm used to it. I'm like a family physician who's been around a long time. (Laughter). And you don't surprise me. You don't surprise me if you hate, if you love me, if you hate each other, if you love each other, it doesn't matter. I just ask that you try not to hurt others. Yet you have to be yourself, you know? Don't be afraid to be yourself. Some people say, `well gosh, I just can't do that, it'll hurt somebody', no, you have to be yourself. When I say don't hurt someone, I mean overtly. But if being yourself means that someone else's attachments will get hurt, well that's the way it goes. We try and be kind to a person, but ultimately you have to follow truth. But we try and do it with kindness to others.

So I think it's time that everybody adopted a more professional attitude about their lives. In other words, don't focus so much on your relationships. Have fun with them. Or if you don't have them, you don't want them, have fun with that. But don't bother what other people in this center do so much. If one of your friends is having a relationship, you see, the only reason you won't like it if they do is because you want one, and you're jealous. And you can't deal with it. You can't deal with your own sexuality.

Men are terrified of their sexuality. They're all afraid of impotence. Women are terrified of their sexuality because they've got so much of it. And we live in a society that says they don't. And its very incongruous. Because women are told that they don't have sexuality. That men are sexual and women basically are not, and actually quite the opposite is true in terms of the kundalini and the structure of the subtle physical. Women are much more sexual as Masters and Johnson discovered, than men are. And people are very put off by that, you see. But it's all just light, its all just energy. What's the difference?

Always remember the story of the Zen master. It's very important, that's why I tell it so often. The Zen master, the young woman in town says that who's pregnant, her family says, who did it, and they say, the Zen master? She says made me pregnant. They go to the Zen Master when the baby is born, give him the baby and say that he is a disgrace. He says, "Is that so?" Years pass, he raises the child, he continues to meditate, and just do what he does. The young woman says, well gosh, it wasn't really true. It was the guy who worked in the fish market. The parents are totally ashamed, they have lost face completely. They go to the Zen Master, they apologize. They take the child back, he says, "Is that so?" That should be your attitude towards what people think of you. Don't live for what the world thinks. Live for what is right. And only you can determine that. Each one of us determines that, and what we determine changes. We'll contradict ourselves. When you contradict yourself in life, it's a sign that you're growing. When you say, "I'll never" and later you do, that's a very healthy sign. (Laughter). That means that the self that said "I'll never" went away and a new self came. Live with yourself. You're a living contradiction. But don't hate yourselves. Because of your sexuality. Be yourself. If you're in relationships, they're a wonderful doorway. If you're not in them, then that's a wonderful doorway. And as far as I'm concerned, I just do whatever I do, but I don't use sexuality as a method of teaching, particularly. Sexuality, I think is a little bit different, for me, than it is for most people, in that, there's almost no body awareness whatsoever. It's just light, but that's how everything is for me. But that doesn't mean it's special or mean I have special privileges, or I can do something you can't do. That's ridiculous. Everybody can do whatever they want to do. We live in California. (Huge laughter). And even more we live in Malibu. And by Malibu standards, we're pretty tame.

So, you can do as you will. If this sophisticated, immoral, moral spiritual process is too much for you, I respect that, and if you can't handle the fact that someday you might be enlightened and still fall in love with people and love them and be with them, and if you can't deal with that, if you hate yourself so much, and hate your sexuality so much that you think it has no light in it, then I don't blame you for rejecting the way I live. If you think it makes a difference if I have ten thousand sports cars, ten million girl friends, and lead a very flashy life and eat at only the most fashionable restaurants, which I don't, but if that would make a difference in what we do, in other words, if you can carry my lifestyle to the most absurd proportions in your mind, and that would make a difference in our meditation process, then you shouldn't work with me. I don't think you should work with any teacher, cuz you don't know what it is all about yet.

You should come to the fashionable restaurants with us and have a good time. Because we have a good time. Because God is in everything. Now, again, this is advanced spirituality. I don't think most people can handle it. So my choice is to either drop it down a number of levels, or to just continue on knowing that those who can deal without rules and without conventional morality will have a good time with it. Of course, the opposite condition is obsession. Then there are those who think "Wonderful! Now I have license to go do whatever I want." Well, fine, if you need that, if you were so hung up, if you were just waiting for someone to say, "It's O.K., it's spiritual to go out and have sex with your friends," I'll say it, "It's O.K." (Laughter). Now you can go out and do whatever you want to. I really don't think you needed my approval. You're grown up now, you're over eighteen, and you can do whatever you like. Except that you've been conditioned, and you know and I know it's not that simple. So here we teach you the way beyond conditioning. Cream Rinse. (Laughter). Gets out all the tangles. That's Enlightenment. Everything clarifies, nothing makes sense, it's not what you ever thought it would be. Who said it should be, who said it should be to please you? Yet you'll find it's very easy if you just leave yourself alone and be natural. Then it's fun, then it's not a struggle. You only set up these battles within yourself. I'm going to go on, doing what I'm doing, having a happy life. Because by nature I'm a very happy person. It's just my way, is the way of happiness. And if the way of happiness appeals to you, fine. If you need a somber way, if you need a way of self hate, of guilt, if you need to criticize others, if you need gossip, then I can't help you much. But if you're interested in the way of happiness, that's the way that I know. And I teach. And I walk all the time.

So on this solstice, on this day of light, I'd like to share some light with you. On a subject which affects every one of you more than you realize. Sexual conditioning is one of the most difficult things to overcome. And you have to begin to accept yourself. And all I'm trying to do is to show you that it doesn't really matter, just to live as you see fit, and that will change. And if I can't do that and if I have to bend my lifestyle to suit the taste of others, then I wouldn't be fit to teach, or to learn. So that I can't do. Even if it would make you happier, and you could go on with your idealistic notions of what self-discovery is, which are untrue, I can't do that. Not for anyone. It goes against truth.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Spiritual Crossroads by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz
The stages of spiritual growth and development.
The spiritual process is not at all arbitrary. It's not necessarily sensible, from a structured point of view. But it's not at all arbitrary. A lot of people in self-discovery have this sense that they're involved in some process that they don't understand. That one can't understand. They feel that they're climbing a mountain that never ends. That self-realization and liberation is something that will never occur to them, it's some mysterious process. They don't know quite what to do.

This is not a helpful way to think or see. Because really, quite the contrary is true. Self-discovery to a certain point is very understandable. Beyond that point it's not understandable, it's knowable. And beyond that point it's something that you become, to the point of dissolution and back again.

In the beginning, in the early incarnations of spiritual development, a person is usually drawn to a very codified spiritual structure. They need instruction in how to live. Basic commandments and rules. As a person evolves through countless lifetimes of selfdiscovery they begin to get a sense of spiritual refinement. It's not necessary to be told what to do anymore, one does it naturally. The inclination is towards light. Yet even among those innocent souls who have put aside hate and anger and jealousy, even those souls, when they reincarnate in a given lifetime - even though in a previous lifetime they may have made a great deal of spiritual progress - when they come into a new lifetime they get tainted by the world. Their outer being is something that's directed by others. But eventually an evolved soul will always come forward.

Now, there are stages in the progression. And my talk tonight is not so much regarding the structure of reincarnation and one's evolution through the incarnations - that's another topic for another time, perhaps - but tonight my interest specifically is the crossroads that we come to once one has reached the point where there is no other alternative but selfdiscovery. There is nothing else but the roadway, the path. There's no possible alternative.

Until a person has reached that point, they'll go through many trials, tribulations, good times, bad times - experiences - in life after life. But one reaches a certain point after many incarnations of self-discovery where there's a great purity in one's being. While the aspirant still may lack a certain volition and awareness of who and what they are, the right tools are there, the right quantities are there in the right proportion. It is then the task of the spiritual teacher to ignite the fire, you might say, that will burn up the final composites of self. This is a very complex process. The most beautiful process that I know of, in which two beings become aware that they're one. Initially, one knows that. But then the other eventually sees that.

Now, as I've suggested, there are different types of spiritual seekers. Traditionally there are thought to be three types. Those who are very heavy, very dross. Those who are more worldly in their aspirations, and those who are extremely refined. And the pathway to enlightenment works for all of them. Life embraces and accepts all of us. When we're wonderful, when we're horrible, life embraces and accepts all of us. Because life isn't so picky. Because life gave us birth, life sustains us, life transforms us, because we are life itself.

But at the same time, life discriminates. While life will accept all, even the worst of human beings is still god, still at the same time life selects. And this is what we call the lila, the divine play. Countless forms and radiances. Spheres of being, levels of attention. Existences beyond time, beyond space, within time, space and dimension.

So, then, it's necessary to understand which type of spiritual seeker you are. It will help you tremendously in your journey. The most evolved type of spiritual seeker has a very, very refined heart. Their life speaks of nothing but gentleness and purity. They want nothing but the welfare of others. And while certainly in their initial stages of evolution in a given lifetime, once they've reached this point, while they will have a number of qualities that they'll sort of pick up along the way, and some baggage that's kind of tattered in that lifetime, as soon as they encounter their teacher it will fall away. The teacher is there to remind you that you are wisdom, and you are light. And their response is humility. Needless to say there are not too many of these seekers in the world. And when they graduate they leave this world. And they move on - to other places. Other planes of being, or to dissolution itself.

These are not necessarily powerful and strong individuals. Very often we make a mistake. We mistake charisma for spiritual development. Now the two are definitely not the same. Simply because a person can command attention, a following, because they speak well, because they have power, does not necessarily suggest that they are spiritually advanced. They're advanced in the ways of power, perhaps. But when Jesus said that the meek will inherit the earth, what he was saying was that those that have tremendous purity and a spiritual refinement are those who the kingdom of heaven, as he called it, or enlightenment, will open up to. But yet no one is denied. No one. Because that seeker has passed through the other stages. Because that seeker not long before then was in the middle section where they were very worldly in their aspiration, very volatile. Prior to that they were in another stage where they were very tomasic, they were just very heavy and very slow in their spiritual discovery.

So all of us, all of us and myself of course, have passed through these different stages or are passing through them. One stage is not better than another. We find ourselves in different worlds. What is important, though, is to recognize where you are and to make that your strength, not your weakness. A person in first grade is in no way inferior to a person who's in 12th grade, and they should never think so, but they should be occupying themselves with different subjects.

So a person who's very slow in their spiritual seeking, who's very earthbound still, has to be at this stage dealing with very basic questions of morality, of their lifestyle, and learning very simple disciplines. Persons in the second stage will be very mentally acute. Their minds will be sharp and they'll be very philosophical. They love the concepts of selfdiscovery. In the very early stages people tend to be rather devotional. When I say that they're heavy, I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't mean that they lack a certain purity. Sometimes they almost have more purity than the people in the second stage. They have a childlike simplicity and devotion that's unmatched. But in the second stage, in another succession of incarnations of spiritual seeking the mind develops and the intellect develops. That soul chooses a developed intellect in each birth. And they become very philosophical, and this is when the ego develops. In other words, in the early stages of spiritual seeking, an early seeker is much more instinctual in their beliefs. They don't need to reason it out. They have a simple, profound faith. And while they themselves may have a lot to still go through, their faith carries them. That's all they need. They don't need anyone to explain. They feel life. It's a very physical understanding, of perceiving life through the senses and through the body and perceiving God through the senses and through the body. The second stage is the most problematic. Because here the ego develops. Many people who teach in the world, who are not enlightened, are in the second stage. They're in love with the concepts, they can talk about it for hours, and there are many, many of these - in the west and in the far east. And they're evolving like everyone is. We're all on a large wheel, the wheel of dharma, and the wheel of dharma spins. We spin from lifetime to lifetime, from birth to death.

The third stage, of course, is one of spiritual refinement. And our particular center is for persons who are in the third stage. You might say that Laksmi, and other places like Laksmi, are spiritual finishing schools. What we do is show a person how to overcome the final rough edges.

Now, there are those who are spiritually advanced souls who are in that third stage of their evolution. And in that third stage of their evolution, in this lifetime they've become stuck in the illusory nature of existence and they have no conception of who or what they are. And so initially they go through a great, great struggle. And they usually feel very, very uncomfortable in this world. The world doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them - I've talked to you about it before. But yet there's a distinctive purity, a childlike simplicity to their nature. And they can "see," even when they're children they can "see." Sometimes they tend to be pushed aside by the world because they don't force themselves on others in the world. And many of them have no idea, very few of them have any idea who or what they are. There's no sense of their evolutionary level. Those who have a sense of their evolutionary level are normally in the second stage. Those who think that they're spiritually advanced - they're in the second stage. Those in the first stage - very humble. They're not even concerned about it. They're concerned about being with light and working for light and that's their concern.

Now, let's drop back from this perspective that I've given you. This is one frame of reference. There are many that we spin through. And let's think of a journey. Let's think of a long, long road that stretches nowhere! It doesn't go any place! And the reason we walk along the road is 'cause we find ourselves doing it. And that the journey can be wonderful or the journey can be horrible. It depends upon the impeccability of our spirit.

But let's say as we walk along the road, let's call it the road to truth. It doesn't go anywhere, in my opinion. But let's call it the road to truth. People like to have a sense that they're going someplace. But actually the whole road was truth. The place that they've come from was truth. Although if you look behind you when you're on the road there's nothing there. In the distance you can see some hills. Usually no houses, just hills. Sometimes a bird flies by. Oh! Sometimes a horrible monster pops in the road and you have to fight it to the death. Sometimes someone winks at you and you go off and have fascinating experiences for a lifetime or so. But eventually you go back to the road. This is the road to truth - it doesn't go anywhere. That's what makes it worth walking upon. Because every other road that you could walk on is going to take you someplace and then you're just gonna get there. What fun is that? Because once you get there, you're just gonna be in another place. And you've been to all of them before. But the road to truth is marvelous, because it just doesn't go anyplace. It goes through many places, but it doesn't have a defined stopping point or starting point. It's infinite. Otherwise it would get boring. Otherwise once you've seen where it goes, well, then what? But the road to truth just goes. There's no sense of frustration. It's not that it doesn't go anyplace in the sense that you're on a treadmill. No, it goes through every place. That's what makes it interesting. It goes everyplace - the road to truth. There's no place that it doesn't go! So I suppose we could say that the road to truth goes everywhere and nowhere!

But yet, along the road to truth there are these other roads. Which I suppose go to truth also, since all roads lead to truth. And these are crossroads. We're walking down the road, another road cuts across the road we're on. And at that point we can decide to turn left or right or keep going straight. You can't go back on the road to truth, it's a one way. If you try and go back they'll arrest you. (Slight laughter) Give you a ticket. You have to go to court. Superior Court. You might say the Supreme Court (laughter). So you can't go back. It doesn't work. You can only go forward. Which is in your favor. That's the way that the river flows. Devolution is very difficult. Evolution is easy.

The first crossroads that you will come to, as a seeker, which you have already passed through, all of you who are here (Phew!) (laughter) (Rama changes his voice) "I made it through one at least! Thank heavens!" (Laughter.) (Back to normal voice.) The first one that you're going to go through is the recognition that light is worth at least looking at occasionally. Now there are many people who don't have that recognition. At all. Oh, some people look at darkness and they say it's light. Maybe it is, I don't know. I don't think in the sense that you mean though.

Initially they decide they like to look at light once in a while. By that I mean they meditate. Until a person has started to formally meditate they're still early on. But once a person has started to formally meditate on a relatively regular basis striving to cease their thoughts, to gain a little bit of control over their life, they've made a decision, and that's to try. That conscious decision is the first crossroads. When you come to it, you could have stopped there and said, "Well, not this life." "I'm (Rama yawns loudly) kind of tired actually and I think I'll just rest, the next life I'll get there. What's the difference. We're all eternal anyway. I read that in one of those books." (Laughter) "Why should I try. I know I'm gonna get there. Listen, I'm just having a good time as it is. I like Hollywood Boulevard on Saturday night (laughter) - or wherever it may be. I'm happy the way I'm not, I am, I'm not, I mean. So I'm just gonna stay here. It's nice and comfortable here. You know, that light can be blinding and annoying to your eyes, don't you think?" (Laughter) "No, I like it here. It's sort of like having my sunglasses on all the time."

(Rama returns to his normal voice.) So you've, you've gone further than that. You've started to meditate. Well, you know, you crossed another crossroads. There's another one after that, and you crossed that. And that was you joined an organic fellowship of beings who were walking together along the road. What we call a spiritual community. That's another step. You've decided to study with a teacher. So you went through a second one. Because some people meditate out there on their own, and they're doing fine. But they just feel they don't need the teacher, because they're not in a rush. Why rush? You've got all of eternity. Or at least till you die. Who knows, though. You're not sure, I can tell. Maybe you better rush.

So the second step is finding a teacher. But teachers are a complex issue as you're finding out now. It's not so simple. It is, actually, except that you make it complex. To find a teacher and be accepted by a teacher and start along the way in the spiritual community is the next crossroads. Now to have done this, you're still an absolute beginner. But you managed to get in the door. Step number two.

The next crossroads, ok?, is one that you come to, I would say, at about year one of studying with a teacher. Now, when I say studying with a teacher you understand I mean studying with a teacher who traverses the superconscious. What we call enlightened. Enlightened is a funny word. Hard to define. The less words used, the better. But I think you know what I mean. One who is consciously one with eternity. Not just in thought, but in action and deed, and yet still.

So the next step, then, is that - that first year. OK, now - now this is where it gets more interesting here, we get down to the basics, we're past the prologue. And in the first year of spiritual study with an enlightened teacher you are exposed to a variety of different energies which when properly used will accelerate your growth tremendously no matter what level of spiritual seeker you are. One, two or three; primary, intermediate or advanced. You will see tremendous changes in your life that first year. But - a person will have to make a decision, and that's whether to make it through the first year or not. And a lot of people don't. The first year is definitely the most difficult. Until you reach the second year. (Laughter) The first year is difficult in that suddenly the velocity of the energy gets to you. In other words, on the one hand - it's like a crazy roller coaster ride. You go up and down very, very fast. Your downs are not as far down as they were before and your ups are much higher, but it's very fast. Everything that you're going through is accelerated. To work with someone who's enlightened means that you step onto a faster field of attention. You evolve very quickly because you're in their energy. You shouldn't think for a second it's you. That's a terrible mistake. Because you saw how you were doing before. But you've moved into a faster field of attention. Yet it is you. Because your personal power and your choice in evolution brought you there. It's both at once. But don't think it's all you. Terrible mistake. A lot of egotism. And don't give all your own personal power away to a teacher and say, "Well, it's all them." It's not. It's two working together as one.

So the first year is a very trying time. For some people. For some people it's absolutely easy because they just watch their life changing. They watch the level of attention rising, and suddenly life becomes fun. But for some people it's very demanding. The reason: they're not really ready yet. Or let's say that power, or life gave them an opening. It gave them a doorway that they walk through. And they walk through that doorway. But in walking through the doorway, once they got in the room they decided that they didn't like what was there, and now they want to walk out, which is their privilege. Let's say that the reason you find a spiritual teacher, and you come into an advanced spiritual community has to do with your past karma. What you've done before. You get an opportunity. Otherwise you would just never find it. You could search the world over, and never find it. Life just wouldn't work that way. The cards would be dealt a different way. So, but finding it is not the same as staying there, nor should it be. In other words, a person's karma gets them to a certain point where they found a way - teacher, community, friends - but then the karma runs out. That's as far as it was supposed to go. That's how far they got in their previous life, and they stop. Now, at that point, if they wish to go further forward, they have to work at it. They have to sum up their limitations and overcome them. They have to listen to what the teacher says, as I have told you many times, the teacher is not just the body - nor is it an individual - the teacher is life. And while you may be in a community studying and there is "a teacher" who is showing you things, helping you, at the same time, all aspects of your life are teaching you, and you have to listen.

So, at this point, some people then, leave. And it's a very wise thing to do. Because they have walked into the room, but they found that the light is too bright there, they're just not comfortable in this life. They, perhaps, are not ready for such an advanced school. Perhaps there's another school, another community, where the rate just isn't quite as intense, where there's more structure. And if they go back there and do well there, then later they'll move up to the next level. Very easily. To go to college after you've done well in high school is not a problem. To go to graduate school after you've done well in college is not a problem. To try and go on to college after you've done a very poor job in high school is very hard. Better to go back to high school for a little while, do well, do some remedial work, and then go into college and do well.

Graduate school, of course, is much more demanding than either and a very small group of people go to graduate school. Maybe 10%, 9%, something like that, of those who graduate from college. They're not better, they've just chosen - that's their way of life. They want to be scholars. So the spiritual education is very much like that. All souls do not attain liberation in the same way. In other words, there are different types of liberation. Some souls reach a certain static plane and they stay there forever. And then they reincarnate and come back after that point in another cycle of creation, and so on and so on, infinitely. Some souls move beyond that. Why? No one knows. What's important is to accept your fate. One only gains power and life after you've accepted your fate. If you try and fight your fate you waste your power. Power only begins to work in your life after you've accepted your fate. Your fate may change, and then you accept that.

So, persons who find themselves in a school that's too advanced should have the humility to go out and find another school, which might be the school of life experience or another teacher, that moves at a slightly slower rate. Then, when they feel the time has come, they should go back to the advanced school. Those who are in the advanced school, OK, will do well their first year. They'll go through many, many changes, but they'll find at the end of the year they're still there. Usually about 75% will last through the first year. 60%-75%, it depends. Some teachers allow many students to come in - they feel they'll give everybody a chance - they're not too selective because they know that life itself will make the selection. Others feel that they should be selective. One is not right, one is not wrong. The dharma expresses itself in different ways. So after you've crossed that first year threshold, that's when the real opportunities begin and the real problems begin.

The first year, again, the student is really not quite sure what they're doing. They're just trying to learn to listen a little bit and assimilate the energy, and the teacher's doing a general clearing of their outer and inner being by exposing them to light, giving them tasks, and making general suggestions.

Now, the second year is a very difficult year for some people. The reason it's difficult is because they become complacent. They've reached a certain level. Their life has improved to a certain degree through association with a spiritual teacher who's enlightened and through association with others who are advancing. And now they've gone about as far as they want to go, so now what they'd like to do is sit back, and be observers, and not get directly involved with the process. In other words, they went through one or two transformations of the self, which occur in the first year. After the first year of study, you will be radically different. You will not be the person who started. In one year, the whole self that lived for 18 or 30 or 40 or 50 years will change. If it doesn't, something's wrong. There'll be residual traces, of course, but the actual personality structure will have radically altered.

In the second year, though, you won't want to go through it again. And this is where the resistance comes up. People feel, "I've reached a certain point, I'm kind of comfortable with it, and I'd like to make a little spiritual progress."

They don't think this, but this is going on inside. So they level. But this doesn't work in an advanced community. Because in an advanced community it's graduate school. People are always going forward. So what will happen at that point is they will begin to feel resistance. And what they should do is make a very simple decision. They should decide either to advance and dissolve their self again and die again and be reborn again and go through this endlessly, or they should choose to step out of school for a while.

Because what happens, is, they will feel this resistance and they're not quite powerful enough to overcome it yet or they don't want to, actually, and now what they do is they go backwards. Instead of stepping out at that point and saying, "Well, I've gone as far as I wanted to, I was in this school for a year, a year and a half, My God! Look, I became a whole new self. I learned so much. Now I'm just going to go out on my own for a while and just practice what I've learned and be this new me and try it on for size." Instead they stay there, heaven knows why, not liking it. Because there's a pressure there and they can feel it. There's a pressure to evolve quickly. And it feels like that for them, it's a pressure and they resist it. And their resistance begins to manifest in anger. They get angry at the other students, angry at the teacher, angry at the structure, angry at themselves. And this anger turns into hate, self-pity, complacency, self-importance.

In other words, they come up to the point where they were in their last life. And the same things they didn't overcome in their last life will come back again. Each one of you is dealing with that. It takes at least a year to get back. The first year, again, is a general clearing by the teacher. But then after the first year, the residuals of this life have been somewhat broken up. They're not all gone, but they're somewhat broken up. And the samskaras, which means how far you've come in a past life comes up again. And the things that threw you last time are all ready to throw you again. Takes at least a year to get there, though.

So at that point, what you can do, is, say, "This is how far I went before, and I'm not ready yet for this challenge." And there's nothing wrong with that. That is a very, very astute observation which has a great deal of personal humility and dignity. At that point the person steps out of the school and goes on with their meditation, of course, because they've reached the point where that is their life, and they give themselves time to think about things and to change. Because the resistance and the hate will drive them backwards and they will come in, they will then reach a point that's actually a lower level of consciousness than when they started at the beginning of their first day with that teacher. They drop, because it comes back, the karma bounces back, the hate and so on.

On the other hand, the majority of people, after their first year will find it very smooth sailing. And it will be a much easier year. And each year will get progressively easier. In the sense that they build up velocity. It's like a snowball effect, where the snowball's rolling down a mountain and it gets bigger and bigger, only it gets smaller and smaller in this case. And the snowball is self. You unravel. And they will continue very eagerly to go through dissolution after dissolution. And each self that the teacher dissolves will be followed by a more refined self. Now, naturally, it's not smooth. That's what makes it an adventure. And there are many dragons to save, and many maidens to slay. (Laughter) Along the way. And all of them are your selves. But it takes a while to realize that.

So, I would then say, the second year is a time when many people check out. And wisely so. Because the first year gave them a new self, that's as far as they want to go. Their enthusiasm has run out. But out of a sense of spiritual obligation, moral obligation, because they think that there's something wrong with leaving when they've come a certain distance, they stay, doggedly fighting when it isn't fun anymore. They should go then. They would do themselves a great service and they would not prohibit the possibilities of growth later in that lifetime. But if they get all meshed up in their doubts and hates and project them on innocent spiritual seekers or teachers, all they do is, they drop to such a low level of evolution that in this life there'll be no other possibility of real spiritual advancement. It's a karmic situation. Perhaps for many lives to come. So they're very wise when they step down.
[Long pause on tape . . . ]
For most people, though, the second year will involve several dissolutions. Several new selves will appear and disappear in that year. And they will begin to get - just get a slight sense of what the teacher is doing. And that the teacher is not the body. And that most of the information that the teacher is addressing to them is not in discourse or one-on-one conversation, but it's happening on another plane of attention. While they'll miss most of it consciously, they'll begin to get the sense that that's happening.

Now, in the second year, it's very necessary for the spiritual seeker to begin to come to terms with their physical life. In the first year of study it's just enough to be there and sit there and learn to meditate on a regular basis, and learn to just become aware of other levels of attention. And of course to try, with enthusiasm, to evolve and just learn about this new world.

But in the second year, it's time to begin to draw your attention to your physical life and to place it in order because as I've suggested before, the two must go hand in hand. Every step you take forward spiritually must be followed by a step in the material world. Meaning that your life becomes tighter, prettier, your consciousness of beauty in your environment increases in your personal self. You become aware of the types of thoughts that you think during the day and you begin to eliminate those thoughts that are not helpful, that are not happy. You begin to make changes in the structure of your life, selecting your friends more carefully. You assess your position in life, your career. You begin to look at life, in other words, with new eyes. You got those new eyes in the first year. A certain amount of this goes on in the first year, but it becomes much stronger in the second year. And the connection between the student and the teacher, in most cases, really begins in the second, and particularly the third year.

But in the first year, unless there was a past life connection between the student and the teacher, which is almost better to ignore in the first year, in my estimation, and not think about it at all - but sometimes that's there and there's a great deal of love between the student and the teacher. Because they're old friends. But even so, one doesn't want to ride the friendship, because it's a new life, and it's a new world and it's best to start over again. And even though you're friends with the teacher, you don't want the teacher to give you good marks simply because you're friends, but because you're doing a good job. Because otherwise you won't learn. So you shouldn't ride the friendship. In friendship we don't ride it, we better it by bettering ourselves and doing more for others.

So then the student will then turn their attention in the second year to their physical life and the teacher will suggest certain things that they should do. Now, in advanced spirituality there are no demands. If we were in the first or second level in the schools for people in their earlier stages or intermediate stages, a lot of lifestyle suggestions are made. Mostly in the second. In the first it's just enough to kind of come to church on Sunday. But in the second more discipline is involved in those lifetimes. But in the third, the teacher no longer says, "Listen, you must live this way, you must think this way, you must dress this way." Rather the teacher will make casual suggestions.

In high school they watch over you and they tell you what to do with your homework. In grammar school they don't ask too much. It's just enough to kind of get by. But in high school, there's much more discipline and the teacher will yell at you if you don't do your assignment. In college the teacher doesn't do that because the teacher feels if you're there, you've already got that together, and you're there because you're very motivated and you want to be. And if you don't come to the lectures, fine. If you do, fine. It's entirely up to you. The teacher's going to come in and do their very best job to aid you. But you need to be selfmotivated and you should be by that time, otherwise you're not ready for college. And then, of course, graduate school. Takes us all the way back to the beginning again.

So, then, in this particular school of self-discovery, at this level, at Laksmi or other places like Laksmi, the teacher will make general suggestions about lifestyle for their first and second year students, and so on, if they haven't mastered it by the first or second year, the suggestions still pertain until they're done. And these are made as suggestions. The teacher won't say, "Do this, don't do this" because they don't feel they have to. They should feel that automatically the student will respond and do it without having to be admonished. Otherwise the student is not ready for that level of study. No one has to stand over you and say, "Be a vegetarian, don't smoke anymore, be kind to people, straighten out your relationships, live in a very clean and beautiful environment, work hard, and do your best. Be kind and courteous to others," and so on and so forth. You know, "Always have a nice vibration because it's a form of spiritual service to others," the teacher will mention these things casually and also give very explicit suggestions which will vary according to the teacher, and the student, and the culture. But again, most of this will not be done on an individual basis. The teacher usually will not sit down with you in those first years and give you a talk as to what you should do. It's very unusual. And if the teacher ever does that, if the teacher walks up to you and says, "Charles, or Ellen," or whatever, "Please do this," you should listen to them because it means they've seen something. It's very unusual for an advanced teacher to walk up to a student in the first few years and give them specific instructions. If they do, it means that thy have seen something, it's an exceptional situation. It doesn't mean you're an exceptional person. But you should listen very carefully. You should know it's unusual. Therefore, it's very, very important.

Again, in sophisticated spirituality you are free to do whatever you want to. No one is going to insist. But the teacher is making a point. And the more advanced the teacher, the subtler will be the point. In other words, the teacher will not say, "You must do this" or "This is dangerous." The teacher will just very casually mention as they walk by you, "Oh, why don't you do this. That might be a nice idea." Feeling that if you're aware enough, you will hear what they say, and put it into practice very quickly. And if you're not that aware, then you're not ready yet. And then you wouldn't have understood, even had they explained it to you. You would have heard their words, but missed what they couldn't say in words.

So the teacher will then observe. We're going to then go through a period I would say from about year three to year five. And during this period of time, year three, four and five, again these are general outlines of time, it varies, sometimes there are exceptional cases, the teacher will observe whether you are actually implementing the suggestions that he or she has made. You'll come and meditate with the teacher if you live near the teacher, you'll meditate with them physically on a weekly basis, if you don't live near the teacher physically, you can have as much contact inwardly, but you should meditate at the times they meditate with their students, if possible, and try and connect with them every day inwardly. And learn from them. And realize that you're dealing with a magical being who is not particularly logical or sensible but who is ultimately much more logical and sensible than anyone else you'll meet. And this is something you should have learned in your first year. In your first year you should have determined whether this was your teacher or not. In your first year, you should have seen, "Is this person really enlightened. Do they really have powers and abilities to help me transmute my consciousness?" And if you found out that they didn't, of course your first year you should have gone elsewhere. Unless there was no one else available, and they never claimed to have those powers.

If someone is just a yoga teacher, or something like that, and an inspirational individual, well, you can study, and you'll learn more by being around them. They may have a purer level of attention than yours. But they'll have the humility not to claim that they're enlightened. And you can learn a lot, and they are a friend.

When you deal with someone who claims to be enlightened, if they're not, of course, then you are with someone who will be harmful to your evolution, and your first year will tell you if they're real or not. Now, naturally, just because they are, doesn't mean you're capable of working with them. In reference to our earlier discussion a few minutes ago, you will make the decision yourself. You can find an enlightened person, and it's very baffling then to find your being reject it all. Well, you shouldn't be mad at yourself or ashamed of yourself. You were a good warrior to get as far as you did, and maybe that's as far as you're supposed to go for now, and now you need to go back and work on some other basic things.

Time is a wonderful healer. Sometimes we just need time. We need time in the world. Things have to work out. Sometimes there's nothing wrong - in my own study with the teacher I worked with for many years - I at one point took about two years off, and just went out into the world, got married, had a lot of experiences, you know, I continued my meditative practice and my spiritual search and my reading, but it was a very good period for me. It just gave me some time and some room, because I had reached a point where I had roped myself in, because I still wanted to be in the human world. And I had to find out that that wouldn't work for me anymore. And even though I could say it, I had to have the experiences. So for me it was a valuable experience. I learned a lot. It was the most painful period of my life. (Rama laughs) It was terrible! But I put myself through it, me and my ego! So it was an interesting experience, and I decided that was definitely where I didn't want to be, but I had to have that experience to know that. Sure I could appreciate the idea, but I needed the visceral experience. Life gave it to me. Life is wonderful. Everyday I meditate on Mother Kali - Maha Kali - and she treats me well. She's given me the short path to evolution. And I love it. I wouldn't live any other way.

So then, the teacher will observe how you're doing in year two, three, four, five. And let us say that after the second year, the observation will grow a little more intense. The second year, from the teacher's point of view is still something you just have to pass through to prove that you're at all interested in the higher aspect of the study. This is again, even in a sophisticated spiritual community. That's just like, sort of a letter of intent. After the second year, except in unusual situations where the teacher will step in directly into your life on the physical level, then the teacher will begin to look a little more closely.

Now, this comes to the subject - What is it that creates spiritual advancement? Is it a nebulous process, is it just fate, is it just karma, or can we actually get involved in it? Well, I would suggest that for the first year, what's required is enthusiasm, and that you will ride your enthusiasm through the first year. In the second year, having survived the first year, if you have then what's necessary is to begin to circumspectly examine and begin to make structured changes following this suggestions of your particular teacher, and to not be disappointed when you find that you're not capable of fulfilling all of those suggestions. The teacher may make hundreds of suggestions and you may be only to implement one or two at a time. What's important though, is to see yourself making progress in the second year, and to feel good about that. You need to begin to love yourself and accept yourself. You won't accept your fate yet, it's too soon. And if you think you have it's egotism. It's too early yet, that comes after you're five, I would say. But rather to just begin to feel good about the fact that you're making progress, even though it doesn't seem like you are somethings. But what will happen is when you are alone, when you're alone, which is the only time you can really tell, you'll notice that you're more sensitive. When there's no one else around you can feel eternity more, very simply. That's the sign that you're making spiritual progress. Somedays you're happier, somedays you're not, it depends on the world, your aspiration. You still fluctuate a great deal in the second year, up and down, radically. That doesn't matter, but when you're by yourself you should see more stillness. You should also begin to experience more compassion for others, and begin to be more interested in listening, and not talking.

If you survive the second year then as you enter into your three through five that's when the real separation occurs. That's when you will determine how far you want to go inwardly. It is during these years that you begin to get to know your teacher. Only because in the first years, unless there was an unusual situation, you simply didn't have the sensitivity level to have any idea what the teacher was talking about, even though you heard the words and you did your best with them, and you didn't do a thing wrong. You did everything right. But the teacher doesn't speak to you with words. Mostly it has to do with their other sides, the teacher is not a person, they're a field of energy, they're a series of levels of attention. While they have a body, and appear to be there, they're not. Not in the way that we normally understand, anyway. So it's only after practicing what the teacher has said and bringing your physical life together learning to meditate well, developing the ability to be happy in almost all circumstances, learning to control your emotions, your depressions, deciding that this is your way, and this is your teacher, and being so confident about that that nothing else could interfere with that. That's your sense. Once you've reached that point which I assume a person would after their second year, even though their meditations, individual daily meditations will fluctuate widely, their life style may not be totally together, but they're having fun implementing these suggestions. It's not that wild enthusiasm, perhaps of their first year, but at the same time the progression continues, and they're very confident about their way. They feel there would be no other possible way, no other possible teacher, at this stage. And they're right, at that stage.

Then when they cross the border into the third year, the teacher will begin to examine them more carefully to see if they continue to change, if they continue to grow. The teacher is then beginning to look for some stability in their life. Their meditation level should be improving their vibration, there should be more humility, more purity, a sense of commitment to the study, and to light. They should be seeing a person, in other words, who's happy -- starting at around the third year. It takes two years just to remember that life is fun. And as they see the smile grow and increase, not even necessarily outwardly, but inwardly, regardless of what they're going through in life, whether they're in a crisis situation or not. The time you show your spiritual strength is in a crisis situation, if you've learned anything. A balance begins to develop. And that balance should increase every year. And those are the working years, those are the years when you will determine your fate. I would say years three to five. One and two aren't that intense, but the velocity each year is stronger. Your own inner being demands more from you, not the teacher, the teacher is content to sit back and watch, unless you're creating a terrific problem for others. But you want more, and that's when you determine what will happen for the rest of your life. If during those years you fully apply yourself, if you actually learn to meditate well, if you become patient, if you don't expect attention, if you do all of the things we talk about all the time, then when you reach year five which you most certainly will, something happens. Now it could be year four, it could be year three, it could be year nine, I'm using five as a general figure for most people. You loose your human form. When you loose your human form traditionally at that time you are given a spiritual name. The spiritual name suggests not at all a high level of advancement, but it suggests that at least for a period of time you have so radically transformed that you are no longer the same person. It is possible, and I've seen it happen, to receive a spiritual name, and then jump backwards, and go right back into the form, that's unfortunate when that happens. Simply because a person has a spiritual name doesn't mean that they are staying beyond the human form. It means that they did, at least for awhile. Sometimes as soon as a person receives the name it becomes an ego object and they go right back, it's terrible. But that's not the teacher's fault. Some teachers give out new names immediately, as soon as a student becomes a student of theirs, that's not what I'm speaking of. Uh, some teachers initiate and give a mantra right away, as soon as a student becomes a student of theirs, that's not what I'm speaking of. I'm speaking of a formal teaching process in which one moves towards completion. The end of the cycle of rebirth and death. And when the name is given it's a very serious thing. Unfortunately, most people who receive their names don't take them seriously. The name is an opportunity, it's a doorway which they can walk through, and they should never be as they were before. They have to move into a different level of attention, it's a crossroads, another one. But remember simply because someone has a spiritual name is no indication of their advancement, unfortunately. It means once they were there. But what matters is what's current, not what's past, in selfdiscovery. We remember what's past, and we don't forget it, and we value it, but what's current is what's important. The current level of awareness.

From there the study becomes very personal, sometimes it does before. But at one point, let us say, a personal relationship will begin to develop between you and the teacher, very often it happens before you receive the name. I have some of my closest uh, students, have not received their names yet, who have much more spiritual potential than some of those who have received them. It's just not time yet, it's not eternity's moment. I have given out maybe eight or nine spiritual names at this point. But many of the students I've work with very closely over the years still do not have their names. It's because they still haven't overcome one or two things that are necessary for that transit. But on other levels they may have advanced much further than those who received their names. So I'm trying to suggest it's not a simple process, receiving the name means that a certain level has been cleared, let's say of four or five major points. Whereas a person may still have one point there which is preventing them from receiving their name, but not only have they cleared those four other points, but now they have cleared on several other levels, entirely, but still one point is hanging them up, and they won't receive their name until that happens. Then once they get their names, as I've suggested, they can use that as a marvelous excuse to go right back down again. Or, they can ride it as a vehicle to eternity. So receiving the name is symbolic, but it's more than a symbol, if it's used properly by the aspirant it's a new identity. It's a fluid identity, it means they've lost their human form, by that I mean that they're no longer a structured human being. They see that, or some part of them does, even though their mind may not yet be fully conscious of it.

So as I've suggested, after year three the relationship begins to develop. If it doesn't there's a problem. The relationship between student and teacher though is not always sitting down and having conversations, it's sitting down and having conversations, but not necessarily physically together. But let's say there should be a very deep communion taking place between the student and the teacher. They become no longer student and teacher, but friends. It's not so formal any more, but the student must keep it formal, in other words they have to keep the formality to keep their own aspiration high. Just because the teacher now is more casual with you and is your friend and plays around with you doesn't mean that you should become casual. That's a terrible mistake that some people make, they misunderstand the intent of the teacher. The teacher is just saying, "look, I'm kind of like you too." So you can feel comfortable with yourself and not judge yourself. But at the same time they're not at all, they're just assuming that form as a gift. You've done something well and they want to be your friend, and make it more casual for you, but also it's a test, on the part of the teacher, for the aspirant. The test is, if I relax with them now or give the semblance of relaxation will they just let go and go backward, or will they take it with humility as an opportunity to go forward. Another crossroad.

The teacher will from time to time, as you advance, and it's a very healthy sign if your teacher does this, give you a task. Be very aware when the teacher gives you a task - the teacher may just say something very lightly like uh go to the Himalayas and bring me back some snow uh, so we can have it in our drinks during the intermission at our meeting. Cuz you just sort of mention it casually. I'd be on the next plane if I were you. [laughter from crowd] Usually the tasks are not quite so awesome. Usually it's a very simple suggestion, initially, regarding your life style. The teacher will say, "Gee, you'd look really wonderful with a new hat." Now you may think well God, what does this have to do with anything, oh that silly old teacher. You don't understand that they've seen something, that for some reason, if you perform that action even though they just mention it very subtly, you will completely change. It's not because of the action, it's because of your intent. And sometimes it is the action. If you succeed, the teacher will then give you another task, and another, and another. Each one is an opportunity for you to step up. Sometimes the teacher will give you a job in their spiritual center, which is a tremendous opportunity for, again, as all things are, to go up or go down. For egotism, and to get lazy, or to see it as a tremendous doorway to be of service to others. So what I'm suggesting is it becomes a kind of fun association, where the teacher will, in spiritual montessori, give you the next step after you've completed the previous one. But no steps will come until you finish the one before. So if a person is still not accomplished basic life style changes, which will raise their level of attention into a higher degree of purity, then they won't receive the next step. And they'll keep working on that until they do. There are no in groups around teachers. It's unfortunate, once in a while I receive a letter saying "Well gosh I used to be in, and now I'm not." There's no such thing. People who spend time with a teacher either do so because they have worked very hard and cultivated a spiritual level of refinement, or because they're very very very slow. It can be either. If they worked very hard and cultivated a level of spiritual refinement they may still have many things to go through. Association on a close level with the teacher, spending time with them physically, doesn't mean that a person is really advanced. It just means that in one respect they are advanced. They've purified their being to a certain extent. Someone else in the center may meditate better, someone else may be more advanced, but they still haven't learned spiritual refinement. Because that's necessary, because for a teacher to spend time with some one, the teacher being a very refined luminous being, on a regular basis, the person has to have a certain degree of vibrational refinement, which comes with time, practice self giving and following the overall suggestions of the teacher. The other case, of course, is when the teacher just wants to work on someone very closely for a short period of time. The student is showing very good signs but they're very slow. So the teacher wants to speed that up through maybe a week, or a day or a month or an evening of interaction, knowing that even an evening of interaction can be so intense that the person will change, but then they'll let go of them, and just leave them maybe for another six months, or maybe a year or two. They've given them a terrific boost, no more's required, they couldn't deal with more. It would be too much kundalini, too much energy. It would overload their circuits. So then the teacher then would watch and see what that did, in other words, what I'm suggesting is four hours or three hours in close association with an Enlightened person is enough for years and years. Very traditionally, very often a person will come to a teacher, and a teacher will spend a few minutes with them and then send them away and say come back in two years, feeling that they gave them enough light in those few minutes and now it will take them a few years to assimilate on it, to work on their consciousness, and then if they refine it, and come back, the teacher will show them the next step. Naturally we do it a different way here, we have continual association, but the principles still apply.

At a certain point you will accept your fate. When you accept your fate that simply means that you won't fight anymore. You won't fight against light. That's a very fine achievement, if you can do that in this life, that's remarkable. That's the sign of humility. It means that you are completely committed to light, you will always work for it, without complaint, to the point of death and beyond, to the point of life. Without any sense of worry about your own advancement, your only interest is the welfare of others. You develop tolerance, patience, and commitment. Beyond that there are many many points, which we'll discuss perhaps sometime, when they'll be relevant. Having to do the Samadhis, their intricacies, advanced stages of the rebirth process, and so on.

The way is very joyous and very happy, and very complete. For those who enjoy the way. But there are definite stages in one's progression, and you need to gain a sense of these. You need to honestly evaluate where you are and not think poorly of yourself. And if you do, you'll do very very well. But what I'm suggesting is there is much more to this process than meets the eye. You're dealing with the complete restructuring of your being. When I say that what I do is bring a person through a thousand lifetimes in one lifetime, I'm not speaking at all metaphorically. Sometimes more, any enlightened person does that. But yet we just seem like an ordinary person, just sitting there talking, unless you can see. If you can see, of course, you see that you are not dealing with a person but with a vortex of light. Something that's incomprehensible and that you are becoming yourself. What we do, in other words, as teachers, is we take our luminosity and we put it into the bodies of others. We give it to them. We give them our own life force. Our own energy, and then we watch what they do. And if they cultivate it, they grow. If they waste it, then they don't. If they abuse it and think poorly of it then they regress. If they share it with others, then they become magnificent beings and warriors of life. But we have to be very very detached in this process. While one gives one's own life force, literally, to others, at the same time one must be very detached and observe what they do. And if they show the proper signs, over a period of time, then you give them more and more, committed beyond understanding to this unusual process, which is life, which is self giving, which is giving everything you have to others, without regret, without thought of importance or notice, in complete abandon, yet within very definitely restricted guidelines, the guidelines being only engendering the welfare of others, and never hindering it. And when this spirit is understood then life becomes not at all common, but a constant magical circus in which you see yourself reflected in all forms, and all formlessness. One day you will pass through these stages, you will straighten things out, the house will be orderly. You will move into the superconscious realms, which we haven't discussed tonight, which will just enter into meditation now, in a minute or two, and experience. But remember you experience is generated not by yourself at this stage but by someone else. Which engenders your progress. It's a free ride for now. But only to interest you in creating that for yourself. So try and gain a sense of what matters. What matters is your commitment to yourself, but don't think that you're further than you are it's a terrible mistake because you loose your humility, and without your humility you can't grow. If you find you've reached a point where it's not working for you, where you're very frustrated and very confused, where you're getting angry then step out of the process for awhile, it's a very healthy thing to do. Perhaps you've gone as far as you should in that life, and have the humility to accept that. Otherwise you prevent your future possibilities from occurring, or at least you delay them. On the other hand, if the process is working for you, if you're having fun with it, if your life is getting more joyous all the time, if you've lost your suspicions, then engage in it fully and you'll find what it can do for you. The world is magical my friends. There are no limitations except those we set for ourselves, and that's what you will discover. You need to have the humility to accept your limitations as long as they're there, and have the humility to accept their end, when that time comes. But it's only with that feeling, with that essential spirituality, with that terrific love of God and light that you will progress. Otherwise you delay yourself by fooling yourself, so take each step in turn, don't be in a rush, do each thing well, and that which will follow, will follow. But be aware that this is a very sensitive process, where only slight suggestions are made, but it's necessary for you to respect those suggestions, and do as you will. Always follow your own common sense and your own heart in the matter. But realize that when a teacher makes a suggestion if it's not followed no more usually follow. It will take quite a awhile to bring yourself back to that level of attention, where they will be made. It's a curious balance between being yourself, and between loosing yourself, that each of us has walked through in many lifetimes, whose reached this point in which you're walking through now. But if we did it, you can certainly do it!

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Storing Power by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

What causes us to change? Sometimes a piece of music causes us to change. Sometimes the way the light falls on a particular day. Someone says something - it opens a doorway for us. We find it happening without knowing why. Very often we try and reason existence. We try and calculate it; to discover it. And while we can certainly discuss portions of existence and we can discover layers of reality, yet we find ourselves straying very far from existence itself in its absolute form. We're out playing in the world of self-discovery. We're looking at different pictures in the gallery. Very rarely do we look in the mirror of the self.

In the practice of mysticism there are four stages. The first stage is gaining power. The second stage is avoiding the loss of power. The third stage is storing power. And the fourth stage is giving power. There is a type of mysticism, a lower occultism, where there is also stealing power and using power for destructive ends. We really don't need to consider that unless of course someone is doing that to us. So we should give it enough consideration so that we're not naive. But we don't really have to focus on it too much because it's not something that pertains to us.

It's necessary first to gain power. We gain power so that we can walk through that doorway that leads to Enlightenment. There are countless planes of existence; stages, where life is presenting itself in different ways. One description of the world, one way of seeing it is not necessarily better than another. What's important rather is to become conscious and not to be fixed in any one description of reality but to move fluidly through all of them. In order to do that it takes a great deal of power to reach Enlightenment, to become conscious, to become what you really are, it takes a terrific amount of power. So if the house is very cold, our first step is to get the heat going, to get the furnace going. Then once we've done that it's much easier to see where we're losing power and also we'll stay warm while we work on closing the leaks. Then once we've reached a point where things are warm enough and we've sealed the biggest leaks, then we can increase and refine the power. Perhaps we can store fuel for another time. We can eliminate the smaller leaks and maybe if we have enough power then eventually we can share it with someone else and help them to be liberated. These are the stages of mysticism.

The first thing that you need to do is to increase your personal power. A decision is made on a very deep level of being. We could say that power or life chooses you. We don't know why. All things cannot be explained. To try and explain everything is to waste and lose power. Certain things are better as mysteries. Mysteries not meaning that they're unknowable, but simply that they can't be explained. They have to be intuitive and felt and grasped in what we call the superconscious.

So you have to make a list of the things that cause you to gain power. And to do this accurately you need to take a piece of paper out when you're home sometime and write down all of the things in your life that have ever caused you to change in an affirmative way. For example, there may be particular places that you've gone to which are for you places of power; and these environments cause you to increase power, to change. There may be certain experiences, maybe helping others, maybe reading, writing, a hobby, a career, an attitude. You have to trace back all the moments in your life when you have gone through a major transit or change and recall the things that worked. And in many cases it's necessary to do those things again. We have a lot of friends who help us. But in the course of life sometimes we forget our friends. So we remember and we bring them back; exercise, a type of diet, a type of food, music.

There are literally dozens and dozens of things that increase our power. Obviously meditation. Being around powerful people - meaning people who radiate a higher octave of light. Then we need to assess and make a list of the opposite of those things in our life that have caused us to lose power. Again, people. People whom we find that when we're around we lose power. No blame is necessary - it just happens. People whom when we entangle our lives with them or types of persons that cause us to lose power. Maybe for someone else it doesn't happen that way but for us it does. Habits could cause us to lose power, places, attitudes, ideas. But try as you create this list to be as physical in your perceptions as possible. Very often the things that cause us to lose and gain power are not necessarily all that profound, they're rather simple. And it's good to make a list because you bring these things then into your conscious field of attention. And whenever you bring anything into your conscious field of attention, you focus on it and you begin to work with it. Meditating is certainly the strongest, most powerful, most effective means of gaining power - stopping thought, watching the world dissolve as we've come to know it.

What we call life is a description of existence - it's a way of seeing that has been fabricated by others and presented to us as the truth. But what we see is far from the truth. It's a type of truth. It's a body of perception. From the moment of our birth to the moment of our death we're handed a description of reality in this world on this earth. However the description that we've been given is not necessarily pleasant. It was devised by persons who are not happy and who don't see. Seeing is the ability to look through the fabric of existence and perceive eternity. Descriptions of reality are useful in that they enable us to go from one point to another.

There are other descriptions of reality other than the one that you have been presented with. In the process of this study I present you with a variety of different descriptions - we call them different dreams. None of them are absolute - they're maps that you follow. The most important thing is not to get stuck in any of them, yet you will find that some lead you to happiness and fulfillment; whereas others lead you to pain and misery.
The description of the world that you've been given by societies, families and so on, leads to unhappiness, it leads to hate and violence and fear and anxiety.
The description of the world that we deal with in mysticism is very different. We see that everything in life is a opportunity, a challenge. There are no dull moments or dull situations. Whether you're at work, having lunch with someone, by yourself, in the desert, driving, every moment is filled with countless realities which if you have enough power you can see into and use to go forward to learn, to grow and to become all that you're capable of being. So it's necessary then to leave the description of reality that you now have behind and to enter into another one; one that's much cleaner, much more complete and much more open-ended.

In your version of the world a man is one thing and a woman is another. Day and night are different. There is love and hate and good and bad. In my description of the world these things don't exist. These are ways of seeing that you use to ultimately entangle yourself in very painful emotions and your life lacks light. It lacks power. It lacks total being. A prescient awareness of all that is. So I present to you another way of being. A way that is not easy - however in my estimation it's much easier than the description of the world that you've been given which leads you to pain and frustration and incompleteness.

I've talked a great deal about gaining power and losing power. But one subject I haven't dealt with is how to store power. And that's what I'd like to talk to you a little bit about. Gaining power as I said you can make a list and see the things that cause you to gain power. And if you do them, your power will increase. Go back over the moments in your life where your power has increased. And of course hopefully you're learning new skills that cause you to increase power. Losing power, you've experienced that. So again make a list and go over these things. And you'll find that if you avoid them you won't lose power. Observe yourself in situations when you're with people. Observe certain attitudes and thoughts and see if they cause you to lose power and what attitudes and thoughts cause you to gain power. But to store power is a different matter. To store power you must use specific occult methods. When I say "store power" what I mean is you are going to take awareness and consciousness and go into another plane of reality with it and leave it there and draw on it. And there are many, many ways to do this. Tonight I'd like to allude to a few of them.

One of the easiest ways to store power is in a physical location. You won't exactly be leaving power in a physical location but let's say in a plane of reality that corresponds to that physical location. So for example, when you go to a place of power, a place that you're drawn to, outdoors some place let's say, perhaps a certain beach, a certain hilltop, a park, a mountain, wherever it may be, a shopping mall. Something draws you there and when you're there a certain chemistry takes place within you. You move into another level of attention. At that time if you observe the place very, very intensely, not just physically, but inwardly, if you see the place as it really is, and if you move into a higher level of attention there the words that you speak there, the thoughts that you think there, the emotions that you feel there will engender a power to that place. And no matter where you are you can draw on that place as an ally, as a helper.

When you go to a place of power with someone who is a teacher, someone who has a great deal of power, it's very easy to do this because they will lift you into another level of attention while you're there and it's easier for you to leave power there. Or, you might say, to draw power from that place. There are different ways of talking about something that's a little bit hard to pin down in words.

There are objects that afford you power. For many people plants are very good. Plants have a power all their own. And if you make friends with plants, they have a certain strand of luminosity that in times of difficulty or transition you can draw from. Every living thing has a certain strand of luminosity. And everything that we see in the physical world is a result of that strand of luminosity. When you know how to you can go into the inner worlds and touch those strands of luminosity and connect them with your being. Right now you are a bundle of fibers, luminous fibers and your luminous fibers in your occult body are connected to other people, to places and so on. These are the so-called lines of the world that exist everywhere. They're the lines of power in the occult world that hold this reality into place. And we move along those lines, whether we're conscious of it or not. When you can see, when you reach the point where you can look beyond the physical, you will see these lines. They're actual. And you can move through them, everyone does. But you will find that you have connected yourself in a process of living to certain elements, people and experiences that drain your power and that you can also connect yourself with things that will help you.

In other times, if I was giving this talk let's say perhaps 1,000 years ago, I would say that another way of storing power, aside from going to places that are very powerful for you in feeling heightened emotions there and being there with good friends and just feeling eternity there and knowing that you can, you're creating a bond with that place so that at the moment of your death when you try and move into another vortex or during anytime of great transit you can do so you can draw power from that place, at that moment, because you've created an affinity with it.

But if this was another time I would also suggest that building things is a way. When you build something with your body you store power in it; when you create something, when you build a house or a musical instrument or a floor. You can store power in it. Now, not everybody who builds things does this. Remember, what I'm suggesting is that there is another side to life than that which most people are conscious or aware of and that you can become conscious and aware of that side and that side will bring you freedom and perfection. Whereas the side or the description of life that most people have only causes them eventually to die. Whereas you can go beyond life and death in this world now. You can go beyond being a shadow and become free and luminous and no longer of this world although you will be in it for a time.

But today I would not recommend that you build things because we live in an age in which the body is being replaced by the intellect and all of you are intellectuals. You use the mind more than the body; you relate to it more; it's a societal condition. In your description of the world the mind predominates, the body is secondary. In other times the body has been the central focus. One is not better than another, they're different ways of looking at existence. So to store power in this age the mind is the best vehicle.

Now, one of the most effective ways to store power is writing because you're engaging your intellect in going over moments of power and as you write them down on a secondary level you're fixing that power in a specific place. For example, in other lifetimes I have gone to places of power and I have left power there. And in this lifetime when I've returned to those places I've been able to pick up what I left there. Recently I went to the Grand Canyon, for example, a place I've been to a long, long time ago and I had left certain things there which I was able to reintegrate with upon a return there. Again when I saw the Grand Canyon I didn't seen the Grand Canyon as the average tourist might - what I saw was not the physical but the inner structure of the beings, the vortexes of energy, the doorways into other worlds and so on. These things that all exist but that most people are totally unconscious of. So I was able to go there and go through those doorways and see what I left there and bring it back again. This is a way of course of trying to describe something that's quite beyond words.

Whenever you write something, meaning write about a moment of power, if you write about a desert trip that we go on or a meditation that you have or whatever it might be, when you write it down you are pressurizing it, you're compacting it. You're taking all the force and energy of that experience and you're squeezing it into a few words. By doing that, forget about the paper for a moment and the words, but the moments that you are sitting there struggling to do that, you are compressing power, you're storing it. You're taking something that's every large and making it very small. And later you will be able to come back to it when you need it and make it very large again. This is an occult practice, a mystical practice. At the same time you are creating an identification with something specific. When you go to the bank you give them money. Now if you just give them money when you go to take it out they won't give you anything. So what you have is a passbook with an account number or a checking account number. When you give them that number, and you have some piece of identification or something, then they'll give you money. But it's gone once you hand it to them, you see. So you have to have a medium of exchange.

The medium of exchange can be a physical location. It can be something that you make or it can be words. In our world words are power. Our world is run by words. When you write something - or when you say something, but let's deal with writing at the moment
- you compress a level of attention. The reference point are the words. For example, we recently wrote a book together The Last Incarnation and what we did was we all wrote stores about our most powerful experiences, spiritual experiences, and we put them into words and we put them into a book, we collected them. The book is a collection of over 100 peak moments of experience; when a doorway opened and someone walked through. Now if you wrote one of those stories, you stored power. And if you read that story at another time, maybe a year from now or six months from now, a day when you're just not in a good level of attention or a day when you're in a very high level of attention, at that time it will bring that power back to you. You will reenter that moment. Because when you wrote it you compressed power. You're not just going back to the moment. What I'm suggesting is that there was that moment which will always exist which you can return to. But also in the action of writing - as opposed to just thinking about what had happened and not writing it down - in the action of writing you were compressing that moment and actually storing power. And when you read that you will let it open again. Or if someone else reads it of course to a certain extent they will draw the power from that.

Recently there were two women who are students of mine who were in a very bad automobile accident. They didn't listen to anything I've said about driving. They didn't wear seat belts and they fell asleep. The passenger fell asleep and the driver fell asleep. And they were in a terrible car accident. And they were both very severely injured. Now while one of them was in critical condition, in the intensive care unit, I of course went down there, did what I could, but I asked one of my students who was a nurse who was also present there to read stories from The Last Incarnation to the woman who was in the accident who was lying at that time reasonably close to death. And in doing so as she listened to these stories, the reason I was doing this was there was such a volume of compressed power in that book that as she listened to these stories it changed her power level. In other words, as she was injured having even broken a steering wheel in half with her chest when she hit it, she had lost all her energy and she wasn't obviously in such a hot state to begin with otherwise that whole thing wouldn't have happened. This caused her to access a tremendous amount of energy and get her life force moving again so that she was able to keep going. This is why the Tibetan Book of The Dead was read aloud not so much to the dead as to the dying - was because there was such power in it that it could cause a tremendous transit even at the moment of death. When a person heard the words, the power of the words even if the person didn't exactly understand them, would be unlocked, and the person could draw upon that power and at the time of death they could gain power and move into a higher sphere after death to a higher world than they would have been able to. It's a very powerful book. You don't have to understand it but just to have it, the words in it are extremely compressed.

The I Ching is the same way. I was recently looking at some books occultly that I have which are my favorite books which I find are the most powerful books that I've encountered in this life. And as I was looking at all of them it was interesting, I was looking at the Tibetan Book of The Dead and the I Ching as the two most powerful of these 12 books just in terms of power. There are many other books: The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali and the Way of Life and the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads and all extremely powerful books. Not in terms of what they say but the energy. And I happened to have a copy of The Last Incarnation there which contains stories that you have written. And what I observed was that that book was a powerful as the Tibetan Book of The Dead or the I Ching. Much more powerful than the others in terms of compressed power. As far as I know another book like it has never been done. It's unique in the history of spiritual writing in this cycle.

So I had her read the stories because she related more to them of course than to the I Ching or to the Tibetan Book of The Dead plus if we read her the Tibetan Book of the Dead it would probably have scared the life out of her. (Audience roars with laughter) And it caused her to access a tremendous volume of energy and power. She was able to draw on the power that others had stored.

So I recommend writing as the primary vehicle for storing power. I suggest that you keep a journal and in that journal you write down your most powerful experiences. When you write them I suggest that you do them in story form (as stories in The Last Incarnation are written). If you don't have time, just make notes. But it's very important to do it as close to the experience as possible, because the further away you get from the experience the more of the power you'll lose. So if you can write it down that night or the next day, that's the best because you'll compress more power. Then it's very important to refine it. The rewriting is very important. In other words, you sort of write the story down or the experience down. That will compress a certain amount of power but as you go back over it and rewrite it, when you rewrite it you're seeing. You're looking beyond the words to the actual experience. You're going over it again and again and trying to make it tighter and tighter and as you do the closer to the experience it gets the more power it will have. That's why rewriting is so important, because you compress more and more power.

Then of course what I suggest that you do is set aside a copy for yourself and send me a copy. You know, always bring one. You can always drop one off with someone who takes attendance here. And if it's a particularly powerful story, if I feel that you've really hit something, then I might even ask you to rewrite it because I see that you can do more with it. And then there's the possibility that we'll use it in a book or in our newspaper which will be starting next February which will consist of these stories or in a Self Discovery, which means then that you will then share power with others.

But writing is very, very important. I recently gave an assignment to people who've studied with me for over two years to write a paper on tantric mysticism. The reason I did this was so that they could compress power. I asked them to survey everything that we've ever done together and in 5 to 15 or so pages to write it down. I didn't do this to give them a hard time or to give them a meaningless assignment. If they did it properly, they will change completely. Because I had asked them to compress all the power of everything we've had together, all the moments, the desert trips, the meditations, the dialogs, the inner experiences when we weren't physically together, the dreaming (I've spoken to them or been with them in dreams) to compress all of it, the tapes, the books. And if they've done a good job then they will have compressed so much power that whenever they read that or just think of it it will cause them to go through a major transit.

So I recommend as the primary forum: writing. And I think that all of you should do that. If you're really serious about changing levels of attention, you'll find that it's very easy. The moments while you're writing, once you get the hang of it, you will find, you will shift into a tremendously high state of consciousness. Just while you're sitting there at the typewriter. You'll see that you go through a tremendous transit.

So you have to avoid losing power. Most people lose power in relationships. About 75-95% of all attention in this world, so says Don Juan and I think he's right, is devoted to romance. And it's such a waste, it's incredible. Because you get almost no return on your investment. As power lost. So I think you need to look at yourself a little bit and assess how much of your energy you're putting in that direction. I have no argument with romance or with love but if you're fixating on it too much you'll find that you're losing a tremendous amount of energy. If that's the way you look at life then you're an amateur from a spiritual point of view.

At the same time you have to think of ways to increase power. I suggest writing them down. Do you see why I ask you to write them down? When you write down the things that cause you to lose power, when you make a list, if you go home tonight and do that, you just sit down and take two pieces of paper. Don't use the same piece. (light laughter from audience) Use two different pieces. Very important. On one piece put down all the things during your life, yoga exercises, eating a yogurt, whatever it is; sometimes there are silly things that cause you to move into a higher state of consciousness. Okay. Write those down. And as you write them you're obviously going to be compressing power, compressing some of your strongest moments, you see? Then, write down those items which cause you to lose power. And when you write those down, what are you doing then? You're negating them. Because what you're doing is making a list and putting a list of all the people who hurt you, of all the ways you've hurt yourself, okay, of all the experiences that have been negative. Just list them real simply. You don't have to list them individually. You can list types. But as you do that you are going to retrace them in your mind. You're recircuiting yourself and you are compressing them into a plane of consciousness where they cannot hurt you. Now these are mystical practices. They work. They're very effective.

So if you make a list of all the people in your life who ever hurt you, you know they were vicious and hostile let's say. You know unfortunately sometimes we run into people like that. When you make that list you are disconnecting yourself from them. The luminosity within yourself, those strands are being separated from them. If you don't do that you can have an experience with someone 20 years ago and still be connected with them today. And they can be drawing energy from you the whole time or putting a negative energy into you because you were too nice and you didn't accept that that's what really happened and that is continuing to happen. You can be drained by people thousands of miles away. And because you're a nice person you're not going to thing that someone will do that. Believe me the world is filled with people who do that all the time. Most people do. They affix themselves to someone and they drain their power. And just because you're not conscious of it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It has a lot to do with illness, of both physical and psychological types, and generally keeping you into a very lowered state of awareness. But if you list them and you actually admit it and you brand them with no hate, with no bad feelings, only with pure awareness, and you write them down you will consciously accept that and then you will kind of cast them into another reality. You'll separate yourself from them.

On the other hand when you make a list of all those persons who have helped you in life - I've had myself, I've been lucky, I've had wonderful teachers all my life, I've had professors at the Universities and spiritual teachers when I was a student and so on, all the way through, just I've met remarkable people all my life, I've been helped that way - so when I write them down I compress that. Even if it's not in story form, just to note that, you see. You compress power. Again I bring your attention to the last story, the epilogue story in The Last Incarnation where Ganesha does exactly that. In writing that story he has compressed all the moments in his life. In a particular way he used gratitude and he compressed them before he made a major transit and moved to Malibu. And so it was very nicely done. Carlos does that. And that - well don Juan and don Genarro have Carlos do that at the end of Tales of Power. They have him stand there and compress power.

You can compress power with words too. When you go to a power place, if you speak very powerful words, it does the same thing. When I bring you to power places you'll notice that very often I give you a very hard time if you say things that don't mean anything, that don't have heart and feeling because you're doing the opposite. You're losing power because you're in a power place. But when I get someone who can see and actually says something with feeling even if it's very simple, they're compressing power in that moment. And that power will always be there if they think about that place. You can always go back to those moments that we've had together - whether they were 10 years ago or 10 lifetimes ago. If you can remember them. And the way we remember them is we think of the physical location if it was a vortex of power. And you remember that, you see. So when you go to a power place, you say powerful words or you have powerful experiences. You compress power there. Then if you write it down afterwards, you compress it again. This is how you store power.
You also store power through love. Whenever you love you compress time. Time stops. The world stops and you step outside of it.
Moments of self-giving compress power. Now, some people give, but they don't pick the right moment or they don't pick the right way, so there's very little power in it. But you compress power. What I'm suggesting is that as you compress power, as you store it, you'll go to higher and higher levels of attention. Why is one person enlightened and another not? Why is one person able to see the lines of the world or see the different vortexes? Why does one person go into Samadhi and another not? Because they have learned to stop losing power, to maximize and gain power, and to increase the power they have by storing it and compressing it.

Sometimes sharing power with others increases power and compresses it. That's what I do constantly. At the same time you need to be aware of people who drain your power and they can be in your past, years and years ago. All you have to do though is list them and recognize them. As they say in the Tibetan Book of The Dead: "recognition is liberation". When you recognize something it's not simply a mental awareness. Your occult body is doing something at an entirely different level. It's causing a transition.

So try writing all of your experiences down. Initially it'll take a while. And if the stories don't come out clearly, it tells you that you're not clear yet. And as you write and as you take the time to do this over a period of time (six months, a year, two years) as you keep doing this you'll find as your writing gets clearer it's because your power is getting stronger. If you find your writing is real sloppy and all over the place and the stories aren't good, that's your consciousness. Don't be embarrassed, improve it. Meditate more deeply and write more. It doesn't have to be a grandiose prose style. That's not the point. The point is to be accurate and have power in your words. That's how you should live - with power in your words, in your life, in your gestures.

When you move into a higher level of attention, you will understand. You need to learn how to see. To see means to look beyond what most people call the visible. There's dreaming and seeing. Seeing, of course, means perceiving what things actually are - not what they appear to be. Dreaming is not what you do at night when you fall asleep. That's having dreams. Dreaming is either perceiving a dream directly, a moment of reality and entering into it with your other body with a double the etheric double, or it's what I call the caretaker personality - moving into different descriptions. So in dreaming what you would do is while awake or asleep you can travel to another place. And of course the time will always be the same. That's one of the ways you know you're dreaming. If in dreaming, if it's daytime when you're dreaming and you go to some place 20 miles away it'll have to be daytime there. In other words you are using the etheric double to travel to another locale.

Then there's the very sophisticated dreaming which is the Tibetan Rebirth Process, which I've talked about. That's a very advanced form of dreaming. But in order to see you have to have more power. The thing all of you lack is power. Before I can teach you the arts of seeing, and dreaming, and all these different things you have to assess more power. And you have to stop losing power and you have to store it. And then you'll be in a position to give it.

So if you would do these very simple things: make a list of those ways you gain and lose power; and then start to write. And also when you go to powerful places to be in a higher state of attention and then write these things down and then of course give them to me so I can see how you did. And if you don't get them back or you don't see them in some form of writing, it means that they weren't quite there. They were good attempts and you did store some power but when I feel that you've done it properly I'll let you know. You'll get some positive feedback. If you do these things, you'll find that your consciousness will change more radically than you can imagine and then we can move on to the more advanced arts.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence The Non-Doing of Meditation by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

I don't think anyone knows why they meditate. As a matter of fact I'm not even sure that we do meditate. All we know is that we don't know. That's all that we can be absolutely certain of. Meditation is not a doing. It just is.

We think of meditation as something that we have to do, something that we have to accomplish—to do, to accomplish, to be. This is emblazoned on our consciousness by our lives. That's why I think essentially people have difficulty with meditation. They try and do it. You can't. It's not something that can be done, nor is it something that can be undone. You can't even say that meditation is or is not.

If there were no world, no time, no space, no condition, if none of us existed, that would be meditation. Pure and simple. To say that we have to meditate implies that we have to accomplish or do something, that by following a planned series of actions we will reach a destination point. We like to think that all we have to do is know how to implement that knowledge and voila! We've done it.

That's not meditation. Meditation has nothing to do with building a building, taking a journey, not even setting ourselves on fire. Meditation always has been, is now and always will be. Meditation is dreamless sleep.

I think it would be a good idea, as you're setting your sails for the land of meditation, to consider wisely, o nobly born, before you venture forth into the bardo of experience, what it is that you're trying to do. Not so much why, because I think the why eludes us all. We may come up with reasons as to why we meditate, why we live, why we die. But ultimately those reasons will not effect what occurs. Those are just panaceas, things that perhaps make us feel better, inspire us. They're neither good nor bad, it depends on their usage.

Think of meditation as a summer night. The crickets are chirping, life is going on, with or without us, within or without us. Life is going on, on the stage of life in front of our eyes and senses. In the house next door that we may not be aware of, life is going on—in countries other than our own, in worlds other than ours, distant galaxies. Life exists in the sub-atomic regions, in the quasars. Life is all there is. That's meditation.

Beyond this plane, this plateau we stand on that we call life, there are infinite planes and plateaus. Beyond the physical, there's a subtle-physical, astral worlds extending forever. All of this is intertwined in the web of nirvana, the unspeakable, that which exists without existing, sustains creation without holding it, transmutes creation without involvement or attachment—the mystery, the riddle.

How is it possible that we are all eternal and yet so ignorant, so forgetful of truth, while we are the truth itself? They call that maya—forgetting truth, or perhaps seeing a lesser truth instead of a greater truth.

We sit here on the shore of existence watching the boats go back and forth. Sometimes there's a vast ocean liner out on the horizon. It approaches us, perhaps it comes right to where we are. We watch the people get off. They embrace each other. People meet them. Whole lives pass before our eyes, emotional whirlwinds, the people who work on the boat. Then the boat leaves, the people go away. The ocean is the same.

Where do these images come from and to where do they return? All answers are only found in the super-conscious, and the super-conscious doesn't really house answers. It takes us to a point where we don't ask questions anymore because that part of us which would ask or which would inquire goes away, is quietly absorbed in eternity.

Meditation is not a journey. It's not an arrival. It's not an action. Meditation is just awareness. You don't have to do anything to meditate. That's what makes it so difficult. Everybody wants to do something. You're so used to doing or to undoing that the thought of non-doing is baffling. And that's what you're asked to do when you meditate. To just sit. That's all—that's all physically. To become aware.

Well, first our awareness is in our thoughts. We're sitting down to meditate and the thoughts are chasing each other around—thoughts of past experiences, thoughts of ourself, of others, of the world around us. Desires, something that we want. Aversion, something we want to get away from. Personal history. Remembrance of the self: I am so and so. I am a person, I have a history, I define myself by that history. I am the sum total of my experiences. This is what the personal self thinks.

Meditation has nothing to do with that, the personal self, that is. Meditation is timeless awareness. You don't have to do anything to make it happen. You don't have to rub two sticks together vigorously to create fire. The fire is already burning inside. To become aware of that which is, you simply have to stop. Stop all the doings that you do, all the actions you perform, all the rituals, the nine to five rituals. Living in front of the make-up mirror— applying a little rouge to one cheek, a little lipstick, working on our eyebrows, combing out our hair, all the doings, the creations. Preparing ourselves to go on stage, to act, to perform.

There is a place for action and there is a place for inaction and there is a place for timelessness—which is everyplace and no place. It's not necessary to become anything to become enlightened. You don't have to build up to some marvelous pinnacle. You don't have to fulfill someone's expectations of what you should do or be. It really doesn't matter what type of work you do. It doesn't really matter where you live or even why—to meditate that is—because everything is meditation.

Meditation is the cessation of thought. No thought, no mind. No mind, no body. No body, no time. No time, no life or death. It's simply letting go. For people who try to hold on to life, who try and push away from death, it's very difficult. The formula approach was quite popular for a while, fostered by certain groups. They decided that the way to introduce meditation to people in the West was to tell them what to do, to give them a schematic drawing. If you do this and this and this, you'll be meditating. Chant the mantra, say the right words, sit for a specific period of time—this doesn't have anything to do with meditation. It's a doing. It may get you used to sitting down; it may focus your attention in a new way. It may prepare you for meditation, but it's certainly not meditation.

Meditation just is. You don't have to do anything. You don't even have to undo anything. Meditation exists with you constantly. The universe is meditation. That awareness is everywhere, just as the air is everywhere.

You don't have to go to the air; you're breathing it already. You may be unaware that you're breathing; your attention is elsewhere. Well, of course, your attention is on things other than the air. But you can easily become aware of the air. So you can easily meditate. Now, when you've been conditioned all of your life to do things, to accomplish things or to avoid things, it's difficult just to breathe. Of course, it's not just breathing, this meditation, because it's endless. Life is endless. Eternity is endless. The universe is endless.

To meditate, then, we need not do anything. We need simply be. But for a mind that is habituated to thought, to action, that's enslaved to ways of seeing, this meditation will not come naturally. No, rather it's necessary in such a case to do remedial work, to uncondition ourselves. Therefore, we learn gazing. We practice focusing our attention on something other than our usual doings. This is another type of doing. But as Sri Ramakrishna always used to say, you take one thorn to remove the other thorn, then you throw both away. So we use one doing to remove another doing, and then we let go of both.

We practice methods and forms. You've all been living one way. You're so fixated in living in one way, whatever the way may be, that we present other ways for you to live. Each way that we present is less demanding than the previous way. You have one self, one personality. In self-discovery we dissolve that self and we go to another personality that's not as structured, that's freer, more evolved. Then we dissolve that self, and we have a thinner self and a thinner self, until finally the self is so thin that it barely exists.

We use doing to undo what's been done. But each doing must be more universal and less finite. Then one can get attached to doing also, even the higher doing. One can get attached to practice. But first, one must practice. After practicing, if you get attached to practice it will be easier to undo that doing because it's more universal.

The self is a perpetual mystery. Why do we think? Why do we feel? Why are we here? Only because we think that we are. Well, who is it that thinks these thoughts? Where do they come from? Why is life the way it is? It isn't. You only think that it is.

There is no one listening. There are no thoughts in meditation. Meditation is white noise. We know that we can listen to individual sounds, but if we blend all the sounds together, all the tones, it's called white noise. No distinct sounds—all of them at once. Meditation is listening to all of existence, not listening as a doing, but in the sense that one arrives at a point of departure that one had left sometime before without knowing that one has arrived. Or one goes forward to a point of return, not realizing that one has gone forward.

The doings of meditation, those formless forms that we use to go beyond our arrival, which is yet to occur in some future existence, are many. Love, discipline, shock, awareness, self-giving, joy and exuberance, dance, pain—anything can be used as a doing to undo what's been done. Each one of us will find, if we don't look too hard, exactly the right way to meditate. If we look too hard, we'll overlook that which is in front of us.

To meditate, you need to feel, and feeling is a lost art. You need to feel the stillness of existence and also the sound of existence. You need to feel that which lies beyond your awareness field, and that which is within it. Essentially one day you'll see that they're not particularly different. But first we have to extend ourselves. Because within the pattern of our experience and our doings we haven't found the air that we breathe.

Meditation is perfect peace. Well, what else could there be without a self but perfect peace? It's only the self, the personality, the sense of individuality that causes turbulence. When you're sitting in deep meditation and there's no thought, no image of the world, no idea, no sense of self—you're not doing something, you're not even experiencing something because there's no self. How can there be upset? How can there be torment? How can there be pain or frustration? To say that you've gone above it all implies that someone has arrived. But all of these things were only a dream—all the doings. These are the ways we prop ourselves up in the universe and support ourselves. We give life a shape and meaning, which it does not necessarily have. We create it with our thoughts, our feelings, our memories, descriptions of the world, frameworks that are meant to help us go through life. But unfortunately they bind us. They limit us. The creation takes over the creator.

Those of you who seek to meditate, you must be aware of a strange duality. That duality is that you have to try very hard; you have to do. There are many things to be done. You have to deal with your lifestyle, your diet, your habits, your thoughts, your feelings, your memories—but only for a while. Only so that you can become still, which is not something that you will do. It just is. It's always been and it will always be.

One day you will arrive at a station on the train of existence that you've always known has been there. You'll find yourself there with no train in sight, with no sense of arrival. You will have always been there because in fact you always have been there. There was no journey. There was only a perpetual arrival, a timeless condition of infinite awareness. To say that you realized the self is absurd. Who realizes what? What is there to realize? These are useful terms, at some point.

So on the one hand, we have a hand, on the other hand there's no hand at all. Until that point at which there is no point, there is a point; to say that there is not is absurd. And to try and implement a point or a way when the way has become wayless is equally absurd. So know that one day you will go beyond duality. You will find that you're at the station.

We say that everyone is self-realized, everyone is enlightened. But we know, obviously, that we're not; we can look at the condition of people in the world. By that we mean that in another theater, the one down the street, not the one we're in tonight, everyone is enlightened. We're all sitting there enlightened. But here, perhaps not. That's existence. Different theaters of the imagination, of life, of death. To become conscious of that universality, to be in the finite awareness of the moment and to experience, and yet at the same time to not be as we know being and doing and structure, is nirvana.

When you meditate, know that one day you will arrive. But you didn't go anyplace to arrive. We can say that you're always there, but not yet, it wouldn't be true. Because you’re not there yet. But once you've arrived, you will have always been there. In other words, the self that exists now, that you're living with and sharing your moments with, will not be for all time. Rather, you will find that there's something else. And once that something else is, there has never been anything else. There is no other possible condition. I would suggest to you that at this moment you are the only self that you have ever had, that you've never had a childhood, that there wasn't a five-minute-ago time.

You may say, "Well, I remember."
I'll say, "Well, show it to me. Does it really exist?"
“Well,” you say, "here's the scar I got when I was a little kid. It's on my hand here. Now that proves— "
So I'd say, "Well, it proves that you've got a scar on your hand. That's all it proves. It doesn't prove that it came from anywhere."
You say, "But I have photographs. Here, I'll show you. This is me when I was a little girl. This is me when I was graduating from high school."
I'll say, "Interesting pictures, who's that?"
And you'll say, "Well, it's me!"

I'll say, "Who? Well, you don't look like that, you're right in front of me. Obviously, it's someone else. Listen, I don't know what you're trying to pull here, but you're not going to fool me. I know I've got the genuine item in front of me. Interesting person, though. I admit there is a slight facial resemblance, but this is obviously you. You're trying to tell me that you're here and you're someplace else at the same time? It sounds interestingly metaphysical, but I don't believe it for a second. No, you're here now, that's all we know."

Then you might say, "A moment has gone by, and now I'm here, and of course we were both there a moment ago, so there is a past, and what I am now is an outgrowth of that past, you see?"
And I'll say, "What? What past? What moment ago? What are you talking about? This is all there's ever been."
"History books,” you'll say, "look at the history books."
I'll say, "Yes, they all exist right now. I see them. Here they are. Wonderful histories. We can read them. As we read them, history will exist—for that moment in our imagination. Where else can it exist?"
You'll say, "Look at this tree. Now, let's cut the tree down. It's got fifty rings. That means it's fifty years old."
I'll say, "Well, it has fifty rings now, of course it has, how could it be any other way? It's always been this way. It couldn't be any other way. Not now."
There is no future and there is no past. There never has been. There never will be, you just think there is. It's not life that moves, it's awareness. Imagine a number of stage sets. They're all set up. You go and run into one. You run into another—adolescence. You run into another—maturity. You run into another—old age. You run behind the curtain—death. Now, you think it's all changing. You probably think the earth is round. How do you know? Have you been on the other side? Once you were on the other side, was there this side? These are ridiculous questions. But they are to bring you to a point, and that's to undo your doing. In other words, the framework you've set up, to view time, space, experience, and so on, is just a framework. It's arbitrary. It's like writing a computer program. We're going to create a program, and it'll be an interesting way to process information. But then to suggest that the universe must conform to the patterns of the program, when it is the program that has come forth from the universe, is ridiculous. But that's what everyone does.

Meditation then, is simple awareness. But simple awareness is eternity. It's endless, but it's not in time. Meditation is not in time. It doesn't take place here because in meditation “this” isn't here—the "this" that you are familiar with. The program dissolves. The information floods away, and it's impossible to say what there is or what there isn't. White noise. Completion.

Why do we meditate? Doesn't it seem rather self-destructive to try and take everything we've worked so hard for, this awareness that we've amassed, this knowledge, this sense of self that we've gradually put together over the years –as a bulwark against that awful vastness out there, that incomprehensible infinity? Why would we want to do that? It's because the comprehensible, the understandable, the awareness that we have now in this world is only a dream. It may be a nice dream, but it's just one of many. And then there's dreamless sleep—nirvana.

The dream that we live in is very limited. There is not much happiness in it. Travel the world and try and find someone who's always happy; it's very difficult to find one because everything in this world is transitory. Everything changes. A moment ago I said everything always is. Now I say it changes. There's no difference. There's only difference in the mind. Meditation is no difference. Change is one state of being, it's one idea. Permanence is another. But they're both just ideas. They're little equations that we've written on a blackboard, but that's all they are, just little chalk lines.

What is existence itself? Meditate and find out. When you meditate you are free. Meditation is perfect freedom. In the beginning when we start to meditate, we think that meditation means mastering our environment. Putting our life into a certain order, saying the mantram, and everything will be all right. That has nothing to do with it.

But we need to think that in the beginning, and we need to do those things. But eventually you'll find out that all of the battles, the Napoleonic wars of existence, occur within yourself. You don't have to conquer the world, you don't have to change or transform anyone else. The mat is inside yourself. Your opponent is circling you; you're circling each other on the mat of existence. And each one of you is looking for a grip. Who throws whom? What's the difference?

We fight the self with the self. It's ridiculous. I watch spiritual seekers do it all the time. We try and throw ourselves to the mat. It’s like this marvelous Monty Python skit I saw, where this fellow comes out to a boxing match and he's going to fight with himself. They introduce him as the challenger and the defending champion. He bows for both. Then the commentator, one of the Monty Python fellows, comes on and he says, "All right, now, Joe throws a right to his face," and the guy hits himself. "A crushing blow to the chest," and he hits himself in the chest, and this goes on, and he fights himself for about ten minutes. Finally he wins and loses. And that's what I watch spiritual seekers do. That's what selfdiscovery seems to mean to most people. You're going to beat yourself up. You’re going to reduce what you're supposed to be and do to a set of rules so you can defy them, or so you can perform them and feel smug. Either way you're beating yourself up. You're missing meditation, which had nothing to do with any of that

Yet I have the nerve to say that all your battles are within and that you have to fight, even though I know that you can't possibly win and you can't possibly lose. It seems pointless and I agree that it is, but I know that until you've done it for a long time you won't be convinced. After you've beaten yourself up a few times and you've won, you'll begin to see things my way. My way is the easy way, is the way of enlightenment. Complete selfsacrifice. There can be nothing less.

You have to give everything to eternity. As Krishna tells us in the Bhagavad Gita, offer everything, whether you win or lose or draw, to God, to eternity, give everything. Don't worry about whether you should be fighting with yourself or not. You don't really have much choice at this point. The point is not whether you're winning or losing, or in the heat of battle or licking your wounds. The point is to realize that you have to give it all away. That’s a doing that is a lesser doing than the doing of ownership, of selfhood—it’s the doing of selfsacrifice, the sense that there's something higher and purer and immortal, and that you can give your entire being to that which is high, pure and immortal. True, that's an objectification, but it's a lesser doing. It's less harmful to you than the others. It's part of the way out.

Again, there is no way out. Yet one day you will find that you've always been at the station, and you didn't need a train to get there even though you were on a train trying to get there. When you meditate, it's important to remember not to think. I would venture that most of you spend the majority of your meditation in thought. You think about how well you're going to meditate, next time you meditate. You get wonderful ideas and inspirations for projects and plans. You think about extraneous things, but rarely do you stop thought.

I would suggest that the reason you don't stop thought is because you're trying too hard. In other words, you have made the stoppage of thought into a doing. You feel that it's something that you have to accomplish. I will tell you that no one has the power to stop thought. It's like the Colorado River, it just flows. And you're out there on your raft, and sometimes the flow's smooth, and sometimes it's white water, but it just flows on and on and on. That's why they say in Zen, "The bridge is flowing but the river is not."

Don't try and stop thought. Or try, if you want to fight yourself to the mat, like my Monty Python friend. Ride the river, and then at some point watch yourself bring the boat ashore and get off and go for a walk and disappear. Then you'll find yourself someplace else. The self that you find someplace else will be a different self because the same self never returns, not if you meditate, if you stop thought. This self can never be again. The dream fades, but another dream comes, a higher dream, a happier dream, a more evolved self.

In meditation we return to the source. The source is God. God is Godless. God is an idea that we have, another construct, a prop, which doesn't suggest that God doesn't exist— God is existence. But your idea of God and existence are two different things at the moment.

So when you meditate, observe. Observe the emotions that pass through you. Observe the thoughts. Observe when they stop. When the observer goes away, you will have arrived at the station, and you'll see that you have always been there. Then suddenly you'll be on the train again, and you'll say, "Well, my God, how can I be on the train again? I was just sitting in luminous perfection. My thoughts stopped, the world went away, time stopped, self stopped, and here I am again. How did it happen? I thought it would last forever.” It was forever.

Be neither attracted nor repulsed to all these images that you see flowing through you and around you. This is the bardo. When you find yourself at the station without the train there—that's nice. When you're not—then you're in the world. You're in time and space again. However, you will notice something, which is that after a while you'll be in both. There'll be an awareness of being and nonbeing simultaneously.

In the beginning, we go up and down. We meditate, we're down in the world; we meditate, we're down in the world. There's a seesaw. But after a while we move to the fulcrum in the middle, and while we're in the world, we're not of it. This is enlightenment, or some stage of it—the sense that I'm walking around. I'm at work, I'm with my friends, but I'm not here at all. I'm in another plane, another world.

Now, all planes and worlds are transitory. None of them last. But there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes the nicest things don't last. That's why they're nice; we value them. That's what makes beauty, the transitory. Beauty is just value, a value we assign because it doesn't last, because it's different. Segmentation. There's a personal self that appreciates beauty.

Those who scorn and hate the world and hate themselves miss the point. The point was that there wasn't one. There was no place to go to. All there was was this. This was everything; it was perfect. That's how you should feel about meditation. Don't worry about whether anything comes forth from it. Don't be concerned if you don't seem to be making progress. These are just ideas.

Life is a wonderful mystery. You sit and meditate, and it's beautiful. It's beautiful when you're meditating, it's beautiful when you struggle. When you go away, we can't say anything. Then if you find yourself or another self, what's the difference? It's all light. It's all life. And death is not the end. Because you die when you meditate and you see that it's not the end. You go away and you come back. But is it you who comes back?

Who are you? You are eternity. You're God—in shifting patterns of awareness, in shifting fields of attention, and in nirvana, silence—beyond comprehension, beyond knowing. Beauty beyond description. Perfection. It awaits everyone. Silence.

You don't have to be special to realize God. The point is, people who realize God aren't special. They don't think they're special because that sense of being special is what separates you. That's the ego. But you have to fight yourself, for a time. It's a stage in growth, one backdrop you walk behind for a moment. It isn't really even taking place, it's just a dream. But dreams have their reality too, you know. So watch each stage, and don't be concerned. If you succeed, if you're the hero, if you're the villain, if you fail—don't be concerned.

Meditate. Just meditate. Meditate when you're by yourself, when you sit in formal meditation and fight with yourself to still your thoughts. Meditate when they stop by themselves. Meditate when you're in the office, with friends, when you're in love, when you're out of love, when you're in a crowd, when you're alone. By meditate, I mean be conscious of that which is eternal, eternity in the finite and beyond—within your framework and description and that which you experience. Try and reach out and feel that which is beyond your framework. Then you will know the mystery of existence, which is incarnation, being here without being here.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence The Sorcerers Explanation by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Some of you are paying too much attention to your life, to the physicalness of it. You're all winning and losing battles all the time when there's really no such thing. These are just ideas in your mind, "I won today. I lost today. I had a good week. I had a bad week." You're just consciousness moving through eternity. You're consciousness wearing yourself out, in a sense, because you're putting yourself through all these strivings and little battles and everybody's so achievement oriented, you see.

The battle of the self, which is not exactly a battle in my opinion, but if we were to phrase it that way, is not exactly won or lost in a week or a month or a year. It's a continuous journey that we make. People who enjoy it and are committed to it grow into it as time goes on. Everybody's on the journey, whether they're studying formally or not. I mean, everybody out there is alive and growing and part of life. This [self-discovery] is just a different phase of that; it's no more special than anything else.

That's why, when people go through this big deal about, "I'm leaving Lakshmi. Oh, it's such a traumatic event!" Not really. It's just another part of life. This is like going to school. It's not a traumatic event when you leave school. You go to school, then you go someplace else. It's not a big deal unless you supercharge it yourself because that lends to your own selfimportance. Then you can feel that everything in your life is a major event because you're so important. But when you don't feel you're so important all the time, then you can have a little more even attitude towards things.

Certain things demand willpower and you can't be exactly mellow about everything, you have to be exacting and precise. But there are times when you just have to accept something. If you accept, once you decide—and you may renegotiate your contract from time to time—but if you decide that you're engaged in this process of self-discovery, it’s for the rest of your life. Whether you have a teacher, whether you're on your own, it's just what you'll always be doing. As long as you're alive you'll be looking into the self, into the mirror of the self, and seeing its many forms, because you're a seeker. Everybody's doing that in one form or another as they live their lives. But that's just what you do. Then you watch your life change, you watch it reorder.

Now, most people's lives don't reorder exactly the way yours do. In other words, for most people the reordering of a life is a marriage, moving, graduating from school, the death of a loved one, what one author called “passages.” Gail Sheehy wrote a book called Passages. The passages are transits that people go through in human life. And it's interesting because everybody thinks they're so unique and everybody is, I suppose, in a way. But yet these passages that we go through are—it's an interesting book, I read it years ago—very similar. At the age of 15 you're forming the identity and going through the identity crises. At the age of 30, at the age of 40—there'll be some variance, of course, but it's amazing, particularly after you've had a little bit of age to go through so you can compare notes, how standard the experiences that people have are.

Well, here we're in a different perspective, naturally. Here you've all elected to pursue the study of meditation and self-discovery in a variety of different ways, working with a teacher. It's like being in any school. It's like studying computers or language or whatever. We deal with two things. We deal with the world of your life, what don Juan would call the “tonal;” and we deal with the unknown, what he would call the “nagual,” what we'd call the “superconscious,” if we were speaking more in spiritual terminology of a different type.

You will find that the transits that you go through are a little different than the transits that most people go through in the world. Or perhaps you just go through them much faster. But you will find that just as Gail Sheehy could write her little book, and it’s pretty accurate—in other words, if you weren't here meditating, if you were just sort of out there living, you would be amazed at how, if you were 50 and reading that book, you would find yourself in those various transits that she's outlined. But when you're in this process, of course, it changes. The reason those transits occur is because a person is a construction of luminosity, of awarenesses that come together and join at a certain time which we call birth. They will therefore go through certain changes until death and they separate again. Now, at the moment we're not dealing with before birth and after death. In mysticism you really just deal with one life.

In your case, what we're doing is reordering your parts; we're rearranging the furniture in the house. Now, somebody will buy a home, they'll set up the furniture and it'll stay that way for the rest of their lives. Maybe they'll take down a picture, put up a picture, maybe eventually they'll get a new carpet. Or even more directly, the rooms will stay the same size in the house. The living room will always be one size, the kitchen another, even if they change their furniture—let me zoom the analogy around. Maybe you can change the furniture but the room sizes will always be the same. The kitchen is 40’ by 25.’ The bedroom is 30’ by 20,’ you see? The yard is a certain size.

What we do in this process—I say "we" because it's done together—is change the size of your rooms. We change the dimension of your house, which most people will never experience in their lifetime. They'll have one order; they'll change the furniture within that house, within that structure and it will always stay the same. The furniture will change but nothing structural will until they die, and at death, everything will, of course, go into a very different type of condition.

In self-discovery what we do is go inside someone and actually change their structure many, many, many times. It depends on the individual, it depends on the will of eternity, you might say, or the will of power. Consequently those little passages that we'd find in Ms. Sheehy's book won't apply to you. But we could write a book about passages that take place in this process, and you'd find yourself in that one. They're very standard, you heard them tonight. [Rama is referring to experiences his students shared aloud earlier in the evening.] "Well, this week it was this and that." "Well, I'm excited." "Well, I'm frustrated." "Well, I'm— ." These are all the passages that you'll go through in this process. We're creating selves, enjoying them for a while and letting them go, and then you actually change completely. Your luminosity reorders.

A person is made up of awarenesses. These awarenesses all exist in the unknown. Now, of course, we're moving to what don Juan calls “the sorcerer's explanation,” or it's the explanation of life. All of the awarenesses that have ever been or will ever be exist, he says, like barges floating in the ocean. It's a nice analogy. They're all just floating out there, the only difference is they're not solid barges, and as they're floating in that ocean out there they can actually pass through each other. So you can have 20 barges and they're floating along, but they're so light and so fluid that they can actually go through each other. They are [doing this] all the time, but they're not in any fixed order. There is no order, it just is, and that's what reality is. It's just infinite awareness, infinite consciousness.

At the time of birth, an ordering takes place. Those awarenesses come together. They join and they become specific. At that time, we could say in our analogy, a house is formed and room sizes are worked out. They will stay that way until the person dies, at which point all those awarenesses, all the things that you've ever been or will ever be will go back again into that great unknown. The difference is that what we do is reorder those awarenesses in self-discovery. It is possible to combine and recombine in an endless order all of those awarenesses, and you can reassemble them so you can experience aspects of the universe that most people will never know, not only the human aspects but the extra-human aspects. You can assemble your perception in any world as any type of being on any level. This is the play of life for an advanced perceiver—to dissemble and reassemble themselves in alternate realities, of which this is one, in alternate forms, always seeking to improve that form, to have a better arrangement of the luminous fibers of the cluster that is yourself.

We think we're unique because we need to think that sometimes. We think we matter because we need to feel that. In order to move through the world, in order to move through time and awareness, we have to have a sense of self. It's essential. If you simply dismantle someone's sense of self they will not be able to operate in this or any other world. People who are like that are people who are in mental institutions. They have lost their sense of self, their continuity as a luminous being. Their fibers and structure have reordered in a way that doesn't work with this particular universe. We say they're crazy, and we lock them away. They're not crazy at all. They're insane! No, I'm sorry, but—they're not crazy at all, it's just that their structures have reordered in such a way that they can't function. They do not have a good functional self. What has happened to them is they have stepped—this is insanity, by the way—they stepped too far into the unknown and they were not able to come back. That's all insanity is, in any of its forms. One foot went in too far and their being was not strong enough to withstand it.

In other words, all of you are surrounded by the unknown all of the time. That's all there really is. I mean, what is life? We invent life as we go along. We decide life is one thing and not another. We create order and form. But let's face it, this galaxy, this universe and all the universes don't have a particular order or form. There's something that we like to give it that we call order because then we feel better because we feel that we're in touch. You see, we like to have a sense of self, of measurement. In other words, "I am here. I am on this planet. This planet is in a certain section of the galaxy. This galaxy is in the middle of 500 other galaxies." But you know and I know that this is ridiculous because the galaxies stretch on endlessly, and there is no sense of proportion. Proportion is something that we create because we're uptight.

You like to feel that you are in a particular place. In the Middle Ages they believed in the “Great Chain of Being.” Everybody had a place. There was the sense that God was at the top of the Great Chain of Being, and I don't know, maybe the rocks or something were at the bottom. Every life form, every type of plant, animal, angels, archangels, there was a complete hierarchy where everyone had a place and human beings had a place within that structure. Then, of course, during the feudal era, which was really the epitome of order, there was the king, the merchant, the landowner, the servant—everybody had their place. The church had its place, the state had its place, everything had order. Now, within that order, there was change. But you always knew where you were. There was a caste system in India where everyone was a member of a certain caste. In other words, you'll find from culture to culture, from place to place, human beings are always trying to define life so they can find a place.

A great problem with the modern age has been that that place has kind of dissolved a little bit. Not too much, though, it just takes root in other forms. But as the family unit has changed, as the churches have lost some of their hold or their power, the place that everyone had, the sense of security has faded. But it's been replaced by other things— “I drive a certain type of car, therefore I'm a certain type of person. I wear a certain type of clothes, I make so many dollars a year.” People will define themselves another way. In other words, if there's no class structure, if the economic system is fairly fluid where you can move up and down the ladder, you're not restricted, then after a while people will find some way to figure out who they are. Who they are means what their place is, and each person has to have a sense of their place.

A person who is insane has no sense of their place. They've lost that ability, which our friend don Juan describes as the tonal. The tonal is the sense of place. It is order and reason in a world of chaos. The world is always chaos, but we pretend that it's not because it makes us feel better. And in doing so we're able to go through it in a specific manner and form. That's the tonal.

Now, the nagual, as we know, as defined in these Carlos Castaneda books that we're studying, is the unknown. It cannot be talked about, it can only be witnessed. That's its definition. These are the unspeakable acts of power that occur beyond the comprehension of the mind or the tonal, and they're endless and limitless. The tonal is also endless and limitless. We like to think of it as being finite so we feel better. Don Juan speaks of the island of the tonal, something that's in the middle of an ocean, which is the nagual. It gives Carlos the sense that it's small and defined. The island of the tonal is this little thing, and you can get to know your island pretty well, but that ocean is big and expansive and it goes on forever.

But that's not exactly true, as Carlos finds out, of course. In the sorcerer's explanation, Carlos discovers that the tonal is also infinite, as is the nagual. But for a while he needed to think that the tonal was finite. And this is why—all of you are seeking enlightenment, seeking knowledge, power. We have different names for it. You're seeking the totality of yourselves, to experience what you are, absolutely, because it seems to you that that's what's most important in life because everything else in life is only a transitory, temporary reflection of that.

The tonal leads the way. You have to have a methodology, a sense of how you are going to go about doing this. Even though it's incomprehensible, still, you need to comprehend it. In the training process, then, the teacher or teachers address two sides of your being. One is the tonal and one is the nagual. Now, in the case of Carlos Castaneda, he had two teachers, don Juan and don Genaro. Don Juan worked with his tonal, with his logical sense. He helped him develop and strengthen his logical self so that it could withstand the encounters with the unknown, with the nagual.

Don Genaro, on the other hand, was what they call his benefactor. He gave him a variety of experiences in the nagual. He taught his body countless views of reality, views beyond this world. He presented absolute proof that there was something beyond.

In your case, you have one teacher who is two. Quite ordinarily in the study of mysticism one does have two teachers, and they address the two different aspects of your being. But in your case I address both aspects of your being. When we meet here, when we talk, answer questions, I'm addressing your tonal. I'm teaching you a way or a series of ways of dealing with the world. It's very physically oriented. We spend a great deal of time talking about careers, relationships, economics, in other words the structure, the nitty-gritty of your life and what you do with your time, because it's necessary for you to work out a way of living that's very strong and very tight and very powerful, otherwise you will not be able to deal with the unknown.

Coming back to our mentally ill person—a person who is mentally ill, crazy, insane, whatever you'd like to call it, is not really crazy at all. That's a definition that we like to give to explain away something that we don't want to deal with. That way we can lock them away and relegate them to doctors without having to think about what's going on in their minds. Well, what's going on in their minds, and this is very simple—they have stepped beyond the known. They have moved into other realities. Why that happened? It would be different for each person. But what didn't happen was the survival of their tonal. In other words, something in them was weak. And that part of their being gave out when they encountered the unknown and they were no longer able to hold onto what we would call sanity, which is, as you know, a particular description of the world that human beings have agreed on.

When they ran into the unknown, or, if you'd like to think of it in another way, when the unknown ran into them—imagine the little country of Holland, and they have all the dikes around it; it's below sea level. Now if one of those dikes gives out, the water will rush in and flood the land. So they had to give great attention to those dikes. Well, in the same way, each of you has created a sense of self, and it keeps the water out, it keeps that vast ocean from sweeping over you and swallowing you up and engulfing you. That's what the tonal does. That's what it is. It's that system of maintenance, and each one of you is taught that system of maintenance that has been developed by humankind from your birth till your death. Everyone is always teaching you in one way or the other how to deal with the world.

But a person who's insane, who is mentally ill, what has happened is that one of the dikes wasn't strong enough, it wasn't made well, and when that wave came by, instead of bouncing it off, the wave knocked it down. Now they're in a country of half land and half water. That's neurosis. They can't really distinguish too well between the world that they're in and the description of the worlds that human beings have. Psychosis, on the other hand, is when the land is completely flooded. They are completely in the nagual, unable to deal with it, with no sense of what we would call reality. They're not able to connect at all.

Everyone is always on the verge of insanity, insanity meaning on the verge of the unknown. Now, naturally we've characterized the words "insanity” and “crazy" with very negative connotations because we're so uptight as a world, as a society, the global culture; we're so afraid of the unknown that we characterize these very words as something abominable, horrible, hideous, not to be dealt with. If a family member becomes what we would call mentally ill, it's considered a shame. It’s an aberration. Well, what did they do that was so wrong? They couldn't deal with the world the way it was. But the reason there's such a rigid repression of the mentally ill—drug 'em out, lock 'em up, whatever it is—the reason for many years they used to just lock the mentally ill away in horrible institutions—they're still not so nice—is because the psyche of humanity senses something. It senses that it doesn't want to deal with that unknown because if it starts to deal with that, if it starts to deal with the possibility that people who we would say are crazy or mentally ill have simply experienced other levels of reality, which, granted, they can't integrate--of course, I'm not suggesting theirs is a happy state. But if we begin to think along those lines, we have to begin to question within ourselves certain fundamental thoughts and ideas that we accept about the world and our lives. If we question those thoughts, if we question those ideas, then our concepts of sanity, insanity, what makes the world, what makes us, will begin to break down and fall away.

So you might say it's actually, in a way, been very healthy for people to have the attitude that they have had towards mental illness. They needed that attitude to defend themselves so they could live on their little island and pretend that the ocean all around them wasn't there. I agree it sounds ridiculous. But whenever there's an aberration in someone's psyche, whenever they haven't worked it out, you will find that that is where they will put down someone else. In other words, when humanity as a race/culture labels insanity as something awful, the very word has a negative connotation. Whereas if [one says], "Gee, I had a cold last week," the word "cold" doesn't suggest anything horrible. Well, why should “insanity” suggest something more horrible than “cold”? Both are a disorder—you're not feeling too well, you're not functioning too well. But the reason this has happened is because the collective psyche of humanity is so upset and so afraid of what lies beyond their little tiny world that they have to repress that. They have to lock them away, they have to relegate them to doctors and drugs so we don't have to deal with it.

We've done the same thing with death, now, haven't we? For years, people died at home. But now death is something that's no longer in the description of the world we have. Death was natural. You grew up, you'd see your uncle die, your grandparents. There was no fear of it. You'd observe it; it would happen. They were there one day and gone the next. But now death is shrouded in a complete mystery. We send somebody away to the hospital to die, in unusual surroundings, where they're usually not too happy. We sustain their life as long as we can clinically, and then they die. We never see it; they cover them with a sheet. Children never see death. So of course people are afraid of death. They push it away.

These are the hot spots on the psyche of humanity. But you have to understand why people do this. Why was a divorced person, particularly a divorced woman, obviously, considered to be evil and bad and something wrong about them in the 1950's, which is not so long ago? Because divorce threatened the family structure, and the family structure is the island of the tonal. If what you're trying to do is create an order and structure on this little planet in the middle of this infinite cosmos that stretches out forever and contains things that we have no idea about, and we're on this tiny little planet and we're trying to create order and deal with the world, well, we have to push aside anything that shakes us up.

Why do you think human beings thought for thousands of years that the Earth was the center of the universe? It's only in the last few hundred years since Galileo that we've really begun to consider that ours is a planet that revolves around a sun, which is part of a cluster of solar systems and nebulae. But it was just a couple of hundred years ago that we were the center of all of creation. It's this tremendous need in human consciousness to defend the psyche. That's why this exists. That's why there's the need to defend the family.

So “divorce,” which could be like the word "cold"—I had a cold, I got divorced— suddenly was an evil word. First there was no divorce for a long time. But even when it became possible, it was something that threatened the order of the island of the tonal, of a person's reason, which was the family structure. You got married, it was for the rest of your life. You could count on it unless somebody died. But now, suddenly, somebody's married for six months and then they're divorced. You see, human beings have trouble dealing with that, a certain part of themselves. Now, that's a social condition that changed. You might say, well, is humanity progressing towards a wider view? Is the psyche getting healthier because now there's divorce? Now we can even deal with insanity a little more openly. We can deal with alcoholism a little more openly. In other words, the liberal trends that we've seen in the last hundred or two hundred years, does this suggest that we don't need a sense of order as much? I would say no, not at all.

There's just as much need of order, only what has happened is people have rearranged, because of social changes, what they order and define their lives by. So maybe now divorce is a standard issue. But still, now that the family unit has dissolved a little bit, people will find something else to order their lives around. Again, it may be status, it may be vacations, it may be where you live, it may be the restaurants you eat at. It will be different for each person. But each person has constructed a bulwark. Each one of you has constructed ways of keeping yourself within bounds so you can deal with the world.

Now, I haven't suggested that there's anything wrong with this. What we're doing now is looking at why we do it. It's been necessary because people have had to go on with the business of living. The only problem is that the point of that order was to give you enough order to live, and no more. The island of the tonal, the way we see life, is there so that we can get through our life. It was never intended to become a dictator that would usurp all other views of the world and banish them. Banish them—that's what a dictator does. A dictator comes on and says, "Any other way that you think but the way I think doesn't exist anymore." That's what the island of the tonal does.

In other words, we have many parts within ourselves. But there's one part of ourselves that has asserted itself—the need for order, logic and reason, the empirical sciences—and it's become so strong that it will deny the obvious, which is God. God is the unexplainable mystery. Always has been, always will be. Science denies God. Science is the perfect example of the tonal.

Now, religion can become the tonal, too, of course. Jesus Christ lived a couple thousand years ago. He was a simple man, walked around, did a few miracles, said a few things and died. Lived 33 years, gave a few talks on a couple of mountains. Didn't even have to sell tickets or book an auditorium; those were simple days. But look at the tremendous order and structure that has grown out of this simple man. In other words, he didn't need order and structure. It was enough for him to walk around, say what he felt and glow with the light of eternity, and that was enough. But look at the Catholic Church with all of its layers, look at the Protestant churches. All of the structure that has come out of what this one man said, and what he said basically was that we're all free and we can be free if we pursue spirit. That's all he said. He didn't say, "Let's set up a Vatican Council." He didn't say, "Martin Luther, you need to appear and put your demands on the door and start the reform church." He had nothing to do with any of that.

But it's so great—in other words, Christ was crucified because he threatened the tonal of the time. He was killed because he threatened the established order of the political regime because you just couldn't have somebody going around saying you can believe in whatever you want to, which is what he was saying. The Romans, who of course were the tonal incarnate, complete order—let's build roads, septic systems, codify the laws, language; again, these things aren't necessarily bad, unless they get carried away and want to eliminate everything else, the mystery of life—the Romans had to kill him because he was threatening the order, because he had a great deal of personal power. People would start to follow him and they'd say, "Well, why should I follow the Romans? Why should I do what they say? This man says I can be free and do what I want." So he had to be put out of the way quickly because he was a revolutionary. The Jews didn't like him because he threatened their religion. He was saying things that didn't go with the order.

A revolutionary, therefore, threatens the island of the tonal. Now, all revolutions aren't good. Some revolutions lead to greater repression. A good revolution leads to liberation. The problem then is that part of a human being, or if we put them all together, the consciousness of their race, has gotten to the point now where order, structure and logic have become paramount. Things go in cycles. For a while we'll have a time of great mysticism, a time when people are engaged in spirit. Then things reverse, and then it's order, logic, systems, science and we go beyond that which is mystical for a while. It goes back and forth.

The problem is that the dictator of the tonal wants to eliminate the mystery of life. It wants to live on its little island and pretend that there is no ocean, which is ridiculous. The problem is, a person who gets so caught up in their tonal, in this logical way of thinking, misses almost all of life because the tonal is only one small side of it, and the tonal itself is a mystery. It just thinks it knows how it works, but actually, it’s infinite too. So reason, which has its points, can become so empirical that it elevates itself to the status of God, banishes the real God and all mysteries and anything that can't be explained.

Now, the function of reason is necessary. It is necessary to deal with the world. So in this process that we are engaged in, I have spent and continue to spend and will spend about half my time developing your reason, helping you reorder your island and making it strong, making those dikes very, very strong. At the same time I spend half of my time doing something quite different, and that's exposing you to the nagual. When we go to the desert together, sometimes when we sit here at meditations, sometimes when we're not together physically, I will present you with views of alternate realities that will shatter your reason, beyond any hope of reconstruction.

On the one hand I'm making you stronger and more reasonable and more logical. I'm helping you become more empirical all the time. The careers that I suggest are extremely empirical and logical. What could be more of a mindset than computers? Computers is the mind. The computer is a reflection of the mind, only without the magic. It's complete order and structure—so it appears to the tonal. What better way to reinforce someone's mind than to teach them how to cause a computer to think? Complete logical analysis without any emotion or mystery at all. It’s wonderful. What it [computer science] does, and these related fields, it causes you to, as don Juan would say, bring all of your attention to one side of the bubble of your luminosity.

Don Juan says that we're all bubbles of luminosity, and he's right. The bubble has two sides—one side is the tonal, one side is the nagual. What the teacher does is sweep all of the logic and order and reason onto one side and make that side very strong. That's what the teacher of the tonal does. That's what I do for you. In your case, I am both teachers. I am also the benefactor, in mystical language, the teacher of the nagual. What I also do, then, is open up the bubble of your luminosity and allow the luminous being to take short excursions into the unknown. But this is done in a very buffered way.

It's a precise art, so that each of your excursions is balanced by the strengthening of the tonal. As we slam you with more and more devastating blows of the nagual, at the same time we strengthen and clear the tonal so that it can easily withstand them, so that there's no loss in continuity of consciousness. Actually, the continuity of consciousness increases. You become the most sane person on earth, the most rational, the most orderly, the most capable and the most logical. At the same time, you have excursions into the unknown that would defy the imaginations of the most imaginative thinkers on earth.

In doing so you are prepared to one day experience the totality of yourself. The totality of yourself is not the self as you know it. The totality of the self is nirvana. Nirvana is another word to describe it that Buddha used. Samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, is a term that someone else used. Satori is a term that someone else used. These are all words that point to something that is beyond the description of even the tonal and the nagual.

In this process, then, we go through a series of passages or stages that are quite defined. What we do is go about reordering your world. We reorder it in two ways. One, through the suggestions that I make to you, either as a group [with suggestions] that are for everyone, or if necessary or when necessary, to you as an individual. At the same time, I'm constantly exposing your second attention, which you might say is your nagual, your other side, to other views. I’m exposing the luminous being that is within you to other views of the world. Naturally, that occurs most powerfully in the desert, but it could occur here too. The desert is useful because you're not familiar with it. Since you're not familiar with the desert, there's less of a description for the desert, therefore it's more difficult for you to fight the onslaughts of knowledge of the nagual.

You've sat in auditoriums before. You went to schools that had auditoriums. You have a certain mindset for being in an auditorium. You have a certain mindset for a conversational dialogue where we're talking back and forth or where you're listening to a speaker. But out in the desert, particularly at night, when the sun has set, you're in a world of mystery that you are not sure of. Nothing happens there that doesn't happen here. The difference is you have less to hold onto; your tonal has less to hold onto. All you have is your backpack, the little cushion that you're going to sit on. And as the night progresses, you won't even be sure of those items because out there, it's a world of mystery and magic. Out there, I expose you to view after view of alternate realities. You see things that are impossible.

I also do that here. The experiences here are just as strong as those in the desert. That's why I never have too much sympathy for a person who can't come on a desert trip because the distance is too long or they can't hike or whatever, who feels they're missing something— because these experiences [in the auditorium] are just as strong. The difference is that you block it out of your mind here. You're not quite prepared to deal with it; the tonal needs to be stronger here. But the alternate views that I teach you of reality are just as strong here as they are there, and whether you block it out or not, I teach your body.

In other words, I've done a great trick. I've convinced you that the important moments are in the desert, when actually most of them are here, so that you don't fight the process. Spiritual teachers use many tricks. They're not tricks in the sense that you're tricking someone or fooling them in a negative way. But let us say that people will resist what's very good for them. So it's necessary to have at your command a great knowledge of the psyche, of psychology, so that you can help people from hurting themselves.

I have focused and will continue to focus a great deal of your attention on the desert trips. And that way you don't pay too much attention to these meetings, which you consider casual because we have them on a regular basis and we go to the desert only once in a while. Therefore, at these meetings you don't resist me as much as you do in the desert. Or, let us say, resist knowledge. You felt, "I've sat in thousands of auditoriums all my life, classroom situations, conferences at work. I'm used to this, what can happen here?" Which is precisely what I want you to think because what I'm teaching you is not on a tonal level. In other words, at times I address your mind, the tonal, the reasoning part of your being, the physical, but often as we sit here and as I talk, I am using the nagual, my second attention, to address the second attention of each one of you. That's most of what takes place, but it's always both because one needs both.

When we go out to the desert, of course, it's pure nagual. I don't deal at all with reason there. There you witness stupendous and incredible acts of power that your reason cannot possibly deal with. The reason I suggest that you keep a journal and write these experiences down is because it's a gradual and gentle way of bringing the acceptance by the tonal of alternate views of existence into itself.

If you just go out to the desert and you watch me send thousands of luminous lines through the sky, dissolve the mountains, disappear, grow to huge size, slip through alternate worlds and do other things that I do to you out there, not just what I do as the cosmic performer but the various states and changes that I bring you through, if you just see that in the desert, as you know and I know, it's entirely possible for you then to come back into what we would call civilization and drop it, like it never happened. You've just had an experience that should have changed you forever—your views of the world. But so strong is the command of the tonal that you can then come back into the world of what you call reason, order and logic and actually explain away and push away the nagual.

To some extent this is necessary. You can't be floating around in the nagual at this point in your development when you're in the office working. You've got to keep the two separate. But if your tonal is so authoritarian, such a dictator that it completely blocks out the view of the nagual, then you won't progress, you won't become aware of your own luminosity. So I have devised an in-between way, which I call keeping a journal. The idea is that you write down your experiences. Well, obviously you're writing them down when you're at home in the world of order and structure. In doing so, you recapitulate them, and of course, recapitulation is a very important aspect of storing power. Whenever you recapitulate, you store power.

What you do is you write down these little stories. You jot down the events, the things you saw and experienced. As you do, you are creating a new space, a new room in the house that wasn't there before and that's called experiences in the unknown. Before we met, there was no such room. You had all your rooms laid out, and they were all furnished. Love, work, play, self-importance, death, sex—everything in your life was assigned a room of value, but there was no room for the unknown. There might have actually just been a spot where in one room you had one drawer that you rarely went into and which was probably very cluttered called the unknown. That was where you filed all the experiences that you couldn't explain in your life, which you would call coincidence, chance—you put them all in this one little drawer and you didn't even put them in order. The nerve! You just threw them in that drawer and you closed it as quickly as you could. But one day the drawer opened by itself, and it began to talk to you and you realized you had to deal with it in some way.

That's when you became interested in self-discovery. You meditated, you might have had different teachers, whatever happened, until one day we ran into each other. Now, some of you of course, used drugs. As we know, drugs provide you with alternate views of reality. You used LSD, psycillacybin, mescaline, all those things. These drugs plunge you into the nagual. The problem is that in plunging you into the nagual, while they do show you the unknown and give you direct views of alternate realities, they shatter the island of the tonal sometimes beyond recognition and reconstruction. Remember, you need your reason to pass through the world and also to experience the nagual, because if you become all nagual, we'll have to lock you away in an institution at this stage in your development. In other words, if the tonal collapses completely, then you're crazy; functionally, you're psychotic. Then you just have to be put away. But if we can walk between both, since we have two centers of our being, reason and will, and develop both those centers, which is what we are, we create a balance within the self.

When one side or the other predominates, there's an imbalance and there's unhappiness. That can be reflected also in the world order. If the nagual dominates and not the tonal, then we'll live in times of fear, superstition, where religion will become dominant, but not in a good way—the fear of the unknown, the fear of the dark, on a most basic level. In other words, reason cannot defend itself—people hovering in caves, perhaps the dawn of history, afraid of what was out there, not knowing. That's not good. If the nagual predominates completely, then we can't exist. If the tonal predominates, which we see now more in the world, there's no mystery, there's no understanding of consciousness or awareness. What we want are both to be in place, and that's why this process is quite complex.

Naturally, as we know, the description that you have of the world is an aberrant one, aberrant in that it does not accept and give proper place to the nagual, to the mysterious unknown that is our true heritage. The process is not simply of constructing a new tonal from scratch, which would be a lot easier, but reordering the one you have. So the teacher gives structured advice that will enable you to do so, and if you follow that advice, you'll find that you will be able, over a period of years, to reorder the island of your tonal so that it's in good shape—logical, orderly, neat, well-defined. Your tonal will enable you to deal with the world well, to do well in a career, interact with others. All of the values that our world espouses, you will be successful in.

At the same time, as we gradually open that bubble and allow the luminous being inside to come out a little bit through our journeys into the nagual, into the unknown, your second attention will develop and you will begin to be ready to one day see, deal with, become the totality of your self. Now, that's a much longer journey. The first journey was much easier, to order the tonal and to give you alternate descriptions of the universe through the nagual.

Many of you have difficulty with one side or the other. Most of you are predominately nagual, to use this again—this is Castanadian terminology. Most of you tend in that direction. Not all, but most, which is why a great many of you have trouble with your careers and with relating to others. In other words, you have trouble with the physical life because you have devoted more of your attention to the mysterious side of your being, and that side of your being has predominated. So it’s a great surprise to many students who come in when I spend so much time talking about learning to type, learning to fill out an application to get a job, learning to progress in a career. The reason I'm doing that is because you've overbalanced yourself with your excursions into the unknown. In other words, you have pushed yourself beyond your limits, either through your use of drugs or other means. And you have, in a way, damaged your psyches. You've gone too far. So what I have to do is cool you out, pull you back out of the fire a little bit, and therefore, what I do is show you how to deal with the world in a very empirical and successful sense. We use the model, which is traditionally used in mysticism, of the warrior. The idea is that you need to approach the world like a warrior. The warrior is a fighter, a successful fighter, a winner. The warrior is able to do great things, to deal with things.

So then, it’s necessary for me to show you how to deal with the world. As long as you continue to run away from the world, I will not be able to show you your luminosity. As long as you continue to fight the system, as you call it, to fight success in a career, to fight making money, to fight ordering your house, your car, your insurance policies, all of the things that are part of the tonal of the times, of our world—as long as you fight this, then you will be imbalanced and you will not do well in the other levels of attention. I won't be able to take you very far because a strong onslaught of the nagual would upset your balance completely, and I would never give you that exposure.

Occasionally in my travels I meet people who have pushed too far into the nagual. Last week I gave a talk in Phoenix and a gentleman came up to me, and you might have regarded this person as what we would call a “flake,” someone who wasn't too balanced. Sometimes, I know, some of you are a bit askance because I spend a great deal of time after these public meditations talking to people whom you perhaps would think, in your reasoning, that I shouldn't waste my time on. These individuals are people who are not too balanced but they have made great journeys into the unknown. Their only problem was that no one ever taught them how to arrange their tonal.

So a fellow came up to me, and he's had many spiritual experiences, what we call spiritual experiences. He told me about times he had been up on top of mountains when he had seen and experienced other realities and different things. When he said this, of course, I—since I can see, I can see inside whether something's true or not—I saw that everything he told me was the truth. He also told me he'd spent some time in some different mental institutions, which was also obvious when one looked at him. One can see—you can see these things. That was because he had not strengthened himself. He had pushed too far.

The danger with mysticism that I always warn you about, is obsession. What I mean by obsession is that you push yourself too far into the nagual, too soon. That is obsession. It's an over-focus on the nagual and not enough focus on reason or virtue, the world. That's what this fellow had done. Therefore, he went into states of consciousness that were too powerful for him to handle. Those states of consciousness are not too powerful; I walk through those worlds all the time. Every day I go through thousands of realities. But my tonal is so strong that it is not a problem. But I did this very gradually. He rushed ahead and he pushed himself too far and injured his tonal. Now, logically, I cannot work with him as a student, not because I didn't like the fellow, I liked him a lot. But what I do has a great deal of strength in it. In other words, this education that I give is very powerful, both on the tonal and the nagual side. And if I were to take him on a desert trip or even sit in some of these meetings that we have, when they're very strong, it would be too much for his tonal, it's too weak now. He's too nagual, he's too developed on that side. So, with regard for his own life and his consciousness and his sanity, I couldn't expose him to all of this power. For someone who's at all balanced, it's not a problem at all. But for an imbalanced person, it wouldn't work well.

That's why I examine each student carefully, to determine how balanced they are. Not their mind, but their being. In other words, is there a balance between their tonal and their nagual? When I turn a student down, it's usually because they're either too tonal or too nagual. Either their reason and their worldliness is too developed, to the point where they will fight constantly against exposure to the nagual which I have to give them, or they've gone too much in the other direction—they've had too many visions, too many experiences, and they've become one-sided. They don't want to develop the tonal, they don't want to go out and get a job. They just want to float around and have mystical experiences all the time. They want to be high all the time. But you never go very far with that attitude, you only go a certain distance, as far as they've gone, and they won't get any further because their being will automatically stop them. If they do push themselves beyond their limits, they'll simply go crazy. They'll absorb too many exposures to the unknown, to the nagual. Their tonal will be crushed and they will not be able to operate, which is a great loss for them.

But when such a person comes up to me, I respect them. I understand them, because I'm nagual, I'm all nagual. I'm completely absorbed on the other side, and so I can sit with them and I can see what they see and feel what they feel. I understand them. But at the same time, I'm all tonal. I can sit down with a business executive, I can program a computer, design a system and forget all about this nonsense, this mystical nonsense. I can work with tax structures, databases, run an organization—vast and complex things. I've learned to disassociate the two, and this is what you need to do.

Someone recently said to me, "Well, after a desert trip, I didn't want to go to work. I quit my job because it just didn't feel good, I was so sensitive." I would say that person is not doing their self-discovery as I taught them. I taught you that in one world, you're one thing, and in another, you're another. Don't get them confused. If you start speaking French in the United States and English in France, you're going to have a problem. Therefore you use one language in one place, and one in another. When you're in the desert or at other times, you witness these acts of power. When you're in the world of the tonal, you drop all that nonsense and you become logical and orderly and have fun with that. It's fun to work in that mode too. Those of you who persist in avoiding ordering your island of the tonal will only prevent me from taking you exactly where you want to go—further into the nagual. I can't do it. I won't do it, because you're not prepared. So I will wait patiently until you reorder your island.

Now, the excursions into the nagual, of course, are quite different. Everything I've just described has been from a very tonal point of view. Even this description is tonal—of the tonal and the nagual. Naturally. That's why I won't speak about the totality of oneself, for the same reason that I never speak about God or nirvana because any speaking I do on these subjects will be part of a logical, syntactical order and will defuse the mystery and the reality. In other words, you'll be able to assign a logical place; you'll work out a little drawer for God and keep God in there. That's what most people have done. When you say the word “God,” everyone knows God or has a concept for God. But no one deals with God at all, everyone just deals with their idea. They pray to their idea, they talk to their idea. They think their idea has a certain way of viewing them.

Everyone has relegated God to the island of the tonal. So when Carlos, in Tales of Power, is talking to don Juan and they're having that neat little meeting in the restaurant, and Carlos says, "Well, don Juan, is God on the island of the tonal?" and don Juan says, "Yes, of course," Carlos might think that God is part of the island. That isn't what don Juan was saying at all. Don Juan is saying that the concept of God, God as Carlos or anyone else would use the word, belongs to the island of the tonal because God is now just a concept. God is part of the island. God has a room on the island, whereas God properly is the unknown. But we're so clever, the tonal is so strong, that it even arranges a syntactical place for God and thus kills the mystery, the reality, paralyzes the being.

So I teach you to order the island of the tonal. And if you listen to the tapes that I've made, which is what I largely discuss there, and the discussions we have here, that's what I teach you. But the other subject, of course, that I deal with is the nagual. The way I deal with that, which is very difficult to explain since that would relegate us to the island of the tonal, is by reordering your luminosity. Someone might say, "Well, why talk about it at all? Because anything you say right now is going to be a description, is going to be part of the island of the tonal proper." But I think that it's important to create a place on the island of the tonal for the nagual, even if it's a small place, because it's necessary for the tonal to begin to accept that there is such a thing. So as I mentioned before, when you write your experience in the desert down, what you've done is created a place on the island of your tonal. Oh, granted, you'll limit the experience, you'll quantify it, but still, you've created a place and there was none before. That's progress.

When I talk to you about the nagual, even though we all know it's just for witnessing, it can't be explained, and any explanation I give you is going to be tonal, still, the reason I do it is to create a place, to create a gap, an opening, a hole in your tonal that will lead to the nagual. The same paradox, of course, comes up in Zen. "Don't talk about enlightenment," Buddha would say. He was saying, don't talk about the nagual, but then, of course, he would talk about it. He'd talk about how to get to it, actually. The Buddha spent all of his time talking about what? The eightfold path. Well what's the eightfold path if not ordering the island of the tonal completely? But he would never speak about enlightenment when anyone asked him because to speak about it was to relegate it to the island of the tonal. The way he taught people about enlightenment was they sat around with him. They meditated with him. He exposed them to countless views of the nagual, which we would call enlightenment, although even enlightenment eventually finds a place on the island of the tonal.

The reason I now address this subject in words is because it's pointing in a direction, nothing more. In no way, shape, manner or form can this possibly convey the nagual. But it opens us up to the possibility. It allows an admission on the island of the tonal. It creates a little, tiny hole on the tonal, which is necessary and healthy, because your tonal must accept the nagual exists and that it's beneficial and healthy.

When we take our journeys into the unknown, which occur here and in the desert and sometimes when we're not physically together, what I'm doing is reordering your luminosity. I began our talk this evening by explaining that each one of you is composed of many different selves or awarenesses. You're a conglomerate, a corporation. These awarenesses, at the time of your birth, fix. That's what astrology is all about. Astrology is the chart of the awarenesses that are fixed in your being at the time of birth. Once they're fixed, if they stay the same throughout your life, it's possible to chart, astrologically, all the changes that a person will go through. It's like buying a piece of property, and now the property will go through various changes during the year to come and all the years to come. Astrology simply charts the formation of a luminous being from their birth to their death, from the time those fibers wind together, those awarenesses gel and fixate till one day they dissolve.

But in this process we do something different. You experience death while you're alive, and that's what this study is, which is of course what The Tibetan Book of the Dead is for. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a guide to dying while you're alive, to experiencing what most people would call death while you're alive, and then rearranging the cluster of your being and having it reorder in this life. In order to do that, you have to have a tremendous amount of personal power. If you had a great amount of personal power, if you could meditate impeccably and go into samadhi, the entrance into samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, is the dissolution of the self. In other words, once you go into nirvikalpa samadhi, nirvana, whatever you want to call it, the unknown, all those fibers shift. And each time you come out of samadhi, you are literally a different person.

Now, you can go into some of the lesser samadhis that Pantanjali talks about and you won't experience that. You will experience some shifting, a few of the fibers, a few of the awarenesses will shift around. But when you go over the top completely, at that point everything inside you lets go—tonal, nagual, everything goes, and all of your fibers shift. The most important part, of course, is the reordering process. You jump into the unknown, but then you have to come back out of the unknown and reintegrate all of those awarenesses, selves and strands of luminosity in such a way that you are more balanced, that you have created more of a balance between the tonal and the nagual, between the two sides of the self. This is the art of self-discovery and this is what I teach.

The way you teach someone is by showing them. It cannot be explained in words. Each time we go on a journey into the unknown, I show a part of your self how to do this. You are not capable of going into nirvikalpa samadhi yourself. You're not capable of stepping into nirvana, of plunging into the unknown. Even if you were, at this time if you did, it would be disastrous. Your tonal would be swamped. To some extent, as I said before, this is what the psychedelic drugs do. They plunge you into no thought. They flood you with so much information that the mind stops. When thought stops, samadhi begins. When thought stops for protracted periods of time, including subconscious thoughts and desires, your journey into the nagual escalates. So what the drugs do is they stop thought. They push you into the other awareness.

Thought is the ultimate tonal. Thought is the absolute personification, the raison d'etre of reason. Each thought is a dike that blocks out the nagual. When you don't think, all the walls come down and the ocean of eternity sweeps in and through you. That is, of course, meditation. What I'm teaching you to do is to stop thought. But in order to stop thought, you have to do many other things. It's not just will. You have to, at the same time, eliminate the things that cause thought, which is why we deal with all the aspects of the tonal—desire, attachment, subconscious fantasies, all kinds of things have to be dealt with and put away.

The reason you think is not just habitual, it's not just habit. It's because you're being pushed and pulled by attachments. Only when they are gone will your mind know peace and will you be able to stop thought. Teaching a person to stop thought does not simply involve practice. I know many people who have practiced meditation diligently for 30 or 40 years who can't go into samadhi. That is because they have not let go of their attachments. They have not gone through the training necessary in self-discovery to let go of everything that one must let go of. Only then will thought stop completely. Only after you've overcome jealousy, fear, anxiety, hatred—all of these things, at least for a time, can be set aside—only then will thought stop, along of course, with using will to stop thought.

At this time you cannot do that, so you could take the next 20 or 30 years and gradually order your life and go through your psyche and clean it out and continue meditating and perhaps, perhaps in 30 or 40 years, reach the point of stopping your thought for a protracted period of time, not just conscious thought but thoughts that go down many layers. You don't have the time for that. You may be dead by then. You'll miss all the wonder of life. So since I have a great deal of personal power, enough not only for myself but for others, I can stop your thoughts. I can plunge you into the unknown, and that's what I do all of the time. Whenever we're together physically, of course, it's the easiest. Not because it's any harder when you're farther away, but your description of the world is so tight that you won't admit the possibility of that happening.

In other words, when you sit here you've put a place on the island of your tonal for the possibility of your thoughts stopping for a short period of time while you're with Rama. There's a little room; we've established that now. But the idea of that occurring when we’re not together physically is frightening for most of you. Here you feel it's in a controlled environment, which is complete nonsense. There is no such thing as a controlled environment, or we could say all of life is [a controlled environment], if it made you feel better. I can do the same thing if you're 10,000 miles away, but you fight so hard, you're so scared at that time that it doesn't work too well. Still, I teach your body alternate views of reality when we're separated, when we're not physically together.

Your reason is not an enemy. There are teachers who tell you to destroy your reason. I am not one of them. Your reason is your friend. It defends the island of your awareness, which needs defending. But you don't want your reason to rule everything. You need it for the reasonable parts of your life and no more. Some teachers, who are not very versed in the ways of reality, have told their students that what they need to do is throw away reason, forever. If a person is capable of that, they'll go stark raving mad. They will not be able to function in the world. Very often you see these people in flaky spiritual communities. These are the people who just can't handle life because they've thrown away too much of their reason. But if you look at them, they haven't gone that far into the nagual either. They haven't progressed in their self-realization all that far. They're not enlightened. They're incapable of working in either world successfully. So it's important, then, to address both sides of your being.

When I meditate with you, I take a great deal of personal power, what we call the kundalini, or let’s just say I become the nagual. I leave my tonal completely—I can do that— and the nagual just pours through me. I can direct it towards you or it can specifically just do what it does. It doesn't really matter since, if I'm the nagual, it's exactly the same. At that time, I lift you into a state of awareness whereby we can reorganize your selves, your fibers, and put them into a more unified order than they are in now, which means you will then be able to transact more clearly with life. You'll see more of what's really there. That's what I do for you, essentially. At the same time as I do that for you, I teach you how to do it for yourself. Each time we go through it and you reorder into another self, you've learned how to do it. Your body has stored that memory.

One day I will not be with you. We will not be together. If I've done a good job, that won't mean a thing because you will have learned how to do this yourself. As you sat at all these countless meditations, went on desert trips, went to Disneyland, whatever we did while we were together, I was teaching you how to range, rearrange and arrange your luminous cluster of fibers. Also, I was teaching you how to strengthen your tonal to deal with that. So when our time has ended together, if I've done a good job and if you've paid some attention, you will be prepared to continue your journey into the unknown. True, it will not be at the same rate because I'm not lifting you up. But you will be far enough along to continue it at a proper rate.

Some teachers have the power to push a person into the second attention, into the nagual, but do not know how to reorder them. They're halfway there. They're like the karate teacher who can knock somebody down, but they'll injure them. They haven't learned how to throw somebody but not hurt them. My judo instructor always used to tell us, "Try and fight the most advanced fighters." I always thought that would be terrible. I thought, "My God, why would I want to fight a fourth-degree black belt? He'll wipe me all over the mat. I'll go for the first-degree black belt." And he explained that the first-degree black belt, when he throws you, may break your shoulder. The fifth-degree black belt is such an expert, he can easily assess your level of competence and he will put you down in exactly the right place so you will not be injured.

There are some teachers who you can go and see who have enough personal power to flip you into the unknown. They can push you into the second attention, and then you're on your own, and you will never reorder properly. It's a terrible experience. Some people have done it themselves by pushing their kundalini too hard, by meditating in certain ways, and they’ve pushed themselves too far into the unknown. But once they got there, they didn't know what to do. The reordering of the luminous fibers is a very sophisticated art. It's not something anyone should ever undertake without supervision. You can make all the changes on the island of the tonal you want, you can take little excursions into the nagual, but to push yourself to the reordering process is absolutely foolish. If a person gradually pursues these arts, they will be assigned a teacher.

Your power will draw a teacher. That happens to everyone when they're ready. If their power no longer requires a teacher, the teacher will go away either because they've completed the course entirely or because they have reached a point where the teacher can't teach them anymore—they're not progressing or their power drops to such a low level that they reject the process entirely.

I reorder your clusters from time to time. It's different for each one of you. How can I be aware of each one of you when there are hundreds of you in the room? My tonal can't possibly. The tonal can't possibly be aware of all of you. But my nagual easily can, because it's not limited by time, space and the conditions of this world. The nagual can easily deal with each one individually, not only here but when we're not physically together. That's what makes all this possible.

That's why you and I can be having a transaction on one level when you're at home, and I can be in San Francisco meeting with my students there and be having a transaction with them. Now my tonal, as all good tonals are, is only aware of what's going on in the tonal. In other words, if I'm sitting in San Francisco, I am not at all aware of our transaction that may be taking place somewhere else. But my nagual is completely [aware], and if necessary, if I need to know about it, then the nagual will make itself known. Suddenly I'll shift into that attention. My attention will drop away, and I'll become aware of it. Or what happens is in the use of the double, all the information comes back to you later.

The double, of course, is using the second attention to do something while the first attention is doing something else. Don't think of the double as manifesting a second body. That's not exactly correct. The double is sending a second awareness, dissembling and reassembling that awareness in another locale, time, space, condition, planet, universe, dimension.

A very advanced individual, a person of knowledge, is capable of having their attention fixed in one locale and, at the same time, being someplace else at the same time or dozens of places at the same time. The question arises, will they know that they're in all those places? There's no exact answer for that, but let me just give you a little example that might help you understand it. Carlos is with don Juan and don Genaro and they're trying to teach him about the double. Carlos keeps thinking that the double is a person. So what they do is, they take him out of his body and they take him down into a ravine. In other words, his body is up on the top of the ravine. He's sitting up there on the hill. But suddenly he loses all awareness of the hill and he finds himself down in this ravine, and he's able to actually see what's down there and remember it. And later he could go down there and find all of that.

Now, after that experience was over, of course, he thought that was all that happened. But don Juan reminds him about what they did with the hat. What happened was, he and don Genaro and Carlos were changing hats. Carlos had entirely forgotten about it. Suddenly he realized that he remembered that too. In other words, two individual actions were taking place at the same time. Carlos, a part of him, was down in the gully looking around and perceiving. At the same time he was up on the hill having an entirely different experience—it is possible to be in two places at the same time—but the two separate selves did not remember what the other self was doing. That's the rule.

You can't know what your other self is doing, except when you're in neither of them. At that time you can become aware of both, when you're in neither world, which is what happened to Carlos and is precisely what don Juan and don Genaro were trying to do. Carlos wants to get stuck in one description of the world or the other, either in the second attention or the first. The point is not to get stuck in either but to move between both. So for a moment he was able to recollect both, meaning, for that moment he was neither.

The point of the exercise, Carlos thought, was to go down into the gully several hundred feet below with his second attention, while his body was on the hill, and suddenly say, "My God, I can experience what's down here even though my body's up there, as if I were down here walking around." He didn't understand, once again, that don Juan marvelously tricks him, that the point was not to do that—that's a simple exercise in the second attention. The point was, afterwards, to be able to experience both experiences simultaneously, which means that you're in neither world. But of course don Juan didn't say that because otherwise Carlos would have fought it, because Carlos always fought whatever don Juan said he should do.

So don Juan absorbs him in relatively meaningless tasks—they're not meaningless, but they're not as meaningful—and places importance on them so Carlos then will let the most important thing happen and not fight it, because he thought the other things were important. It's an old teacher's trick; I use it all the time. At this point you're not sure whether the desert trips are more important or whether these meetings are more important because I could say either to divert your attention, and I do. Therefore, maybe it was something else all along. Maybe it was when attendance was taken when you came in the room. That was the crux of the whole experience, and you didn't fight it at all. Who knows? I'll never say. I never lay all my cards on the table, ever. And even if I do, there's always another [card] someplace, which is for your benefit. One must be inaccessible, even to oneself.

To wrap all this up, then, you're engaged in a fantastic process. It's an absolute challenge. You are developing the totality of your self, both sides. When both sides are developed, you will become the totality of your self, something I can't even describe to you, which will happen to you one day when that's done. It's necessary for you to pay attention to both sides and not go overboard in either direction. That's what we refer to as the middle path in self-discovery.

The middle path means not to become too obsessed with your physical life and reason—to have a good life, live well, be reasonable and prudent, but not to go overboard and let reason rule everything, or to go too far and become obsessed with your experiences in the nagual. A problem I've had with a number of my students has been that they're too obsessed with the desert experiences. They're too obsessed with what we call the occult—it's the same thing, the nagual. The reason I warn against that is, a person who is too obsessed with that will wrap themselves in it too much and will lose their balance, and then they attract all kinds of beings and allies to themselves. The reason they're so obsessed with it, of course, is they want power.

You see, when you can command the nagual you have a great deal of power, and people know that intuitively. They feel if they can get to the nagual, plunge themselves in it, they will become powerful, then they can get anything they want in the tonal. It's a very tricky game that the self sets up. A person, then, who directs too much of their attention to the nagual, the reason they're doing that is they're obsessed with power, not understanding that power actually, properly, does not belong to the nagual but to the tonal—the kind of power that they're interested in. What they should really do, if they want supreme power of that type, is develop the tonal to perfection. The nagual doesn't give you the kind of personal power they think. The nagual gives you the nagual. It gives you the unknown, it gives you reality. It is reality. It leads you to the totality of your self, but it doesn't give you the kind of power that people think. That kind of power is developed through the tonal.

The siddhas are developed through the tonal, not the nagual. The nagual is the superconscious. It's nirvana. It's the unknown, that which cannot be explained or reasoned. Fantastic things happen in it. But it doesn't give you the ability to get what you want in the tonal. That's different. If you want that, develop a strong tonal, not the nagual. But people don't know that. They feel this infinite power and they chase after it and of course, it destroys them ultimately. That's why it's so important to be funny and to have humor in your life because humor, having fun, being happy and being progressive balances the unknown. The two always go together.

Humor is the balance of the tonal. Within the tonal you've got reason and humor. Reason is logical order and seriousness. Humor is the opposite side of the tonal and the two balance each other so that the tonal can accept and understand the journeys into the nagual in a balanced way. Otherwise, you'll become afraid of them because they threaten your reason. But with your humor, you can accept that not everything is reasonable and some things are very beneficial in life that aren't reasonable at all.
Good.
Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence The Truth by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Tonight I would like to talk to you a little bit about spiritual metamorphosis or transformation. Self-discovery is a process of dissolution and creation. We're dissolving what we know to create what we don't know. Dissolution means envelopment in eternity. Creation is bringing into focus new awareness.

In self-discovery, as in life itself, we believe that we know who we are. This knowledge changes as we change and develop. One day we think that we're one type of person with certain tendencies, feelings, very emotional perhaps. Another day we feel that we're very cold and aloof. But as we meditate and we go within and still the mind, stop the subterfuge of thought, we become aware of awareness. We see that we're really not one component being, but we're really composed of bodies of awareness, distinct selves. The surface personality, in other words, is only the beginning of what we are. So as we meditate and we still that surface personality, we can see beyond it, and we see that we encompass multitudes.

Initially we'll see different selves, perhaps selves that we've had in past lives. Then later we'll see aspects of consciousness that these selves are made from. Just as there are primary colors from which all of the other colors come forth when they're combined, so there are primary vibratory qualities of energy and light within us and these combine and recombine to produce a picturesque variety of selves. We adopt these selves in different situations, in different lifetimes. We come to see, in other words, that we embody everything that there is. Everything that's good is within us. Everything that's bad is within us. Everything that's helpful is within us. Everything that's harmful is within us. There is nothing that we're not.

As we trace our spirit further down, we pass beyond duality. Remember, we label things through value systems that we've developed through learning, through cultural indoctrination. But nothing is or is not unless we feel it is that way. We give ground to reality by creating it. Not in the sense that reality will not exist without us. It does. Or, to look at it another way, we can't separate ourselves from reality. Reality can't exist without us, since we are reality. The premise is false; we can never be separated from reality in life or in death. We are eternal awareness in variant forms.

We believe that we decide, and in a surface sense we do and we don't. We do make decisions. But the deeper decisions come from another part of our being that we're not particularly aware of yet. The surface personality thinks, "Ah, I'm deciding. I'm deciding to buy the bananas because they look good today in the supermarket. I'm deciding to go to this school because it offers the courses I want, I like its physical location. I'm deciding to study with this teacher of meditation because I feel comfortable or challenged. I'm deciding to marry this person because I love them. I'm deciding to follow this career because it seems fulfilling or it will take care of my economic needs"—never realizing that we don't decide these things at all. You might say they're all decided for us by that great unknown. When we wake up in the morning and we make decisions, these decisions came from the night, the night of eternity, our other side.

Most people are fragile. They're fragile in the sense that they're afraid of the unknown, so they cling to each other. They cling to families, traditions, ways of seeing life that protect them from the immensity of the unknown. Very few individuals have the tenacity and the love to propel them beyond everything that they know and can trust and to face the unknown, let alone to be absorbed in it. The process of self-discovery is learning to turn your back on everything and everyone and to face that immensity. Only after you've done that can you then turn around and face everyone again with new, clear eyes.

There are so many traps. There are so many opportunities. Life is a river and we take our boat and we go down it. It's a journey or a series of journeys into the self. The self exists in everything. But sometimes we can get stuck in the journey. We enter into a lagoon and we stay there, sometimes for a while, sometimes for a lifetime, sometimes for many lifetimes. Then some agency beyond our knowledge releases us without us knowing why, so that we can go forward again.

Why is it that one person will approach the inner life with depth, sincerity and humility and another won't, when both ostensibly want to? Why is it one will get caught up in relationships, temporal experiences, and another will just see far beyond that, will see the limitations of such things? Is one better than another? No. Each is a journey, a journey within a journey, and life consists of countless journeys within journeys. No one knows why. Enlightened people don't know why. They don't ask anymore. Enlightenment simply means that you've run out of questions, and that the answers don't matter anymore.

Before enlightenment, you feel that if you can only have the answers to the questions, “Who is God? Why am I alive? What happens after death? What can I do to be complete and happy? What is the meaning of all of this? Why is it? How did it get started? Will it ever end? Do I reincarnate? Is death really awful? Should I cling to life? Should I not be concerned about it? Do I have control over my destiny or is it all out of my hands? Is life chaos, or is there a supreme order? If there is a supreme order, why does it seem to be so screwed up? Why is there so much pain and suffering if there's a God?” These questions plague us. In enlightenment, there are really no answers to these questions. Let's say that the questions simply become no longer important because you're so absorbed in the light of eternity that you see that it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all.

All the things that once mattered to you no longer do. Not because they don't matter to the person who you were, but because you change in this process of self-discovery. You become something else. You go beyond what we know as the human condition, which wants answers, which demands them, and lives in unhappiness. If you are the universe itself, if you become the meaning of life, you don't have to ask what it is, you are it. You become that. The answers to these questions will only bring about more questions, “Well, if this is so, if this is the answer, then what about this? What about that? How do I know?”

Self-discovery does not seek to bring you answers about what to do with your personal life; it doesn't try and philosophically comfort you about life or death. What it does is bring you into reality, not as a perceiver, but if anything, as perception itself.

If you were wondering what water is like, you can ask someone questions, you'll just hear answers. If you get into the water and swim or taste it, that's more direct. That's meditation. But if you became the water itself, if you became all the water that has ever been or will ever be, you would know water. You are water. You are the consciousness of water. That's absorption in nirvana, that's samadhi.

Self-discovery tries to take you beyond reason. A reason is a terrible trap—because you will be satisfied with answers. And if you're satisfied with answers, you'll never come to know what life really is. Life can only be known through direct experience—direct experience in meditation, where you're tasting the water or feeling it, which is far removed from simply talking about it or hearing someone else's experiences. The next step, of course, is to become it.

When we read the Arthurian legends of King Arthur, of his training, his teacher was Merlin, the magician. And the way Merlin taught Arthur, the way he prepared him to be king, was to give him experiences. He would transform Arthur into a bird, and for a night Arthur would be an owl among the owls. Then he would transform him into a fish in a pond, and he would swim and see the other fish and converse with them. Gradually he was able to teach him about the universe, not by simply saying, "A fish is thus and such, a bird is thus and such, a woman is thus and such, a man is thus and such." But rather, he would bring him that, he would become that.

Nothing else gives you awareness but awareness. There is the form and the formless. The world of the form we call life. That's a world of transposition where there's time and place and change. Beyond this world, beyond other worlds, be they interdimensional worlds or physical worlds, there is something else, which is that vast unknown that we call eternity. It is where we have come from. It is that which is within us, and it is where we will eventually return. I can't tell you what that is like. I have meditated and experienced that. I have tasted it and felt it. Then I went beyond that to become it. Therefore I know that, I am that.

We have the possibility of being far removed from what we are, of beginning to taste it and feel it, and finally becoming that. That is direct knowledge. That is the truth. Anything else is mere words.

A great deal of humility is necessary in the process of self-discovery. Humility is the ability to accept what and who you are at this moment. Humility does not imply that you will stay this way. It's impossible to stay any way since change is the law of the universe in the relative. Rather than being unhappy that you are not something that you feel you should be, you have the equanimity and the inner poise and balance to accept your lot in life and to be happy therein.

When you meditate, each time you meditate, you must accept the meditation as it has been given to you by eternity. It is extremely vain to feel that you meditate. Life meditates you. You are a meditation of existence. You are a passing dream. And the question that you should ask yourself, if you seek to become that, is, "Who is dreaming this dream? If I am but a dream, then perhaps I am also that which has the dream."

Most people are content with explanations, with rituals, with dogma, and they find this in religion, philosophy, in the world. If you are content with that, then you have to have the equanimity to accept that. When the time comes for you to experience eternity in higher forms, you can't stop it because it is not up to us.

It is vain to think that we choose, that our own energy, our own intellect will create the possibility of us experiencing the higher order of existence. Liberation is to know that you are That—not knowing in the sense of mind, as we know mind to be, but in the sense that you have merged so irrevocably and completely with all there is, that there is nothing else, not even That, since the perception of That can only exist as long as you are still in the relative world.

The force that drives the green fuse, as Dylan Thomas said, cannot be understood. So equanimity and self-discovery is to accept your daily meditation—to meditate, to observe yourself meditating and to not be concerned with the results. Results will bind you.

The want of gain and the fear of loss come about through attachment to the body. You feel that you are the body and your welfare is dependent upon the body. But I can tell you that if you are the body, you're in terrible trouble because your body is extremely mortal and will not last. One small microbe will destroy it one day, if not an accident of some type. You have but a short time to live in this world. As you age, you will experience the pains of aging. And if your hopes and joys rest upon the body and its abilities, then you will suffer greatly.

The world is futile when viewed through the persona of the body. The body, of course, is not simply the physical body but it's the body of knowledge of this world. All of the great accomplishments that have ever been will be washed away by eternity. All of the emotions, the caring, the fear, the hate, will be washed away by the river of eternity. Nothing you can do can prevent your death. Nothing you can do can prevent your rebirth. But to become aware of that marvelous cosmic process that you are caught up in, to step beyond time, to step beyond life and death is self-discovery.

Why you have elected to follow this path you do not know. You may have reasons implanted in your mind, but I assure you that they are ego-bound and have nothing to do with what is or what is not. You have elected to follow the path because eternity has elected you. You will follow it as long as eternity holds you to it. And when it's time for another journey within a journey, you will find either through your own choice, or through the movement of life, that that will occur and you cannot stop it.

All in this world pass away. None remain. If you retain that knowledge you will be able to become immortal. Immortality is to be that. Immortality is to be God, if we use the word “God” as representative of that which is timeless, immortal and infinite, that which produces order, which holds the nucleus of an atom together, which gives us life and death and rebirth and yet is, while inextricably bound up in the process of existence, very far removed from it and does not suffer its growing pains. That then is God—neither masculine nor feminine, not a person, beyond any comprehension. We refer to God as that.

In Sanskrit they say, "Tat twam asi." Thou art That. You are God. The bubble of your awareness bursts and you're flooded with immortality. Until that happens, death is inevitable, as is life inevitable. There's nothing to be afraid of.

You should never fear that which is inevitable because it is good. We fear it if we think of ourselves as the body. The body fears its extinction as you fear to go to the dentist. But when you see that you are not the body, that the body comprises only a small fraction of the aggregate of your awareness, then death is no fear, life is no fear, there is no fear.

Timeless awareness occurs to very few in this world, to step beyond the cycle of fear. The body has created a magnificent arena of fears, and to combat those fears, which are based upon ignorance, a lack of true seeing, the body has manifested order. We have developed ways of seeing life that exclude us from seeing life. It's as if we're dealing with a psychotic individual who has manifested a separate reality that has nothing to do with what is. The person lives in a series of hallucinations because they can't deal with truth, not knowing that if they dealt with truth they would be happy and free. But because they fear what is, through illusion they create a paranoid body of hallucinations.

When the lights are out, if you're in a dark room, you could hear a noise. You could conjure up terrible images in your mind, and you could turn the lights on and perhaps nothing is there. So the light of knowledge dispels all fear and all misery. The fears that you have now are illusory. They exist because you are in a condition of maya. You are caught up in the samsara, the world. Maya is the illusion of duality. It's a sense of having life or death. Neither is the case. These are relative conditions that you pass through.

In meditation, in selfless giving, in anything that lends nobility to the soul, we rise beyond the limitations of our self-created illusions and we become perfectly what we are. Otherwise we placate ourselves with fear. We're afraid to be alone so we have a relationship with someone. And the more afraid we are, the more we cling to them. People have children for the same reason. They sense their imminent death and they want to leave something of themselves in this world, thinking it provides them with some form of immortality.

People will pray to gods and goddesses, thinking it will bring them some form of immortality. They'll go through all kinds of untold suffering when they watch a relative pass away, when they lose a child, when they lose a husband or a wife, when someone in a relationship leaves them. They will go through untold suffering. All of these attachments are hostages to fortune. Whenever you become attached to something, you have created a hostage to fortune. Sooner or later, it is inevitable that you will be parted from everything and everyone in this world. It's only a question of when. The more you affix and attach yourself to these things, the more you will suffer at the time of parting or suffer in anticipation of that parting.

None of this is real. All of this is an illusion, and your acceptance of that fact is the beginning of the pathway to self-knowledge. It is only when you have the strength to stand alone in the light of eternity that you will begin to learn a new way. It is only when you have the perseverance to meditate beyond thought that you will begin to feel and sense a new way. Only beyond all of our control, when all of the selves have been dissolved, when all of your karma is dissolved, will you enter into the superconscious awareness, will you become that. Then you are free. Then there is no suffering. Then there is no attachment. There is only liberation. Then one plays with life because life becomes your friend, death becomes your friend, enemies become your friend. Because there is only love at that point—love, and at the same time the basic street awareness of how the world works and the ability to deal with the relative while being immortal.

The condition of humankind is not good, in the sense that the illusory prisons we create for ourselves through our desires and our frustrations are unhappy. Life is so beautiful, but we fail to see it because we're so busy looking at our illusions. The way out, then, is self-knowledge. Self-knowledge can only come through practice and discrimination.

It's necessary to determine that which is real and that which is passing. It's necessary to meditate, to become humble, but to realize that you are not the savior, that there is no savior. This is only another illusion. That nothing is real in this world in the sense that nothing here lasts. To affix yourself to immortality. To think of immortality. To focus on it. To live in it, and to not settle for anything else. To be absorbed in the knowledge of truth. To associate only with persons who seek that knowledge, and to befriend all those who cross your path because you will see that all seek that knowledge whether they are conscious of that fact or not.

It's necessary to take a road, as Robert Frost said, less traveled by—if you want an uncommon destiny. To do that you have to push aside your illusions. You have to push aside, one by one, your fears, which are all false, and you have to accept perfection. You have to accept immortal awareness, that you are That. There is no time, there is no space, there is no condition. There is only awareness, awareness of these ideas.

The things that prevent you from being free are few—ego, attachment and illusion. There are only three things. Your ego tells you that everything in life is a certain way. Your attachment tells you that you must have, that you need, certain things, feelings, people, experiences, ideations. Your illusions dance before you, drawing you forward and threatening you at the same time. Your illusions ultimately make you very unhappy—the illusion that you are the body, the illusion that you control your destiny, the illusion that you don't control your destiny.

Anything that you can think of or imagine is an illusion. No matter how right it may seem at the time, it's still an illusion, in the sense that you are in duality, that you are thinking, that you are perceiving, that there's a sense of separativity. All thoughts, all ideas, are illusions—even the highest, most noble are illusions. All are partialities.

You have to use your sword of discrimination and cut all illusions aside. It's done in a succession. We begin by eliminating our illusions that are dark and unhappy—that we're not capable, that we're not lovable, that we're not worthwhile. These are very unhappy illusions—that we're not eternal, that we are subject to death and rebirth. These are unhappy illusions. Then, after we eliminate all the unhappy illusions through meditative practice, selfless giving, kindness to others and humility, we have to work away at our happy illusions that seem to be happy but still bind us. Our sense of being worthwhile, our sense of being good, our sense of being anything or “being” itself—all must go. Final clearance sale.

The sense that one has the knowledge of these perceptions is egotism. The sense that you are in any way superior because you can move to a higher level of attention, the sense that you can even do that, that it is even worthwhile—these are the higher truths that are illusions and must go, until there is nothing, not even the concept of nothing, and without a sense that this has even a purpose or a direction. When all has gone away, all remains. The circle is broken, yet perfect, and there is no circle. At that point you move into the superconscious, which you've never left, since there was never anything else. Upon waking from the dream of life and death and rebirth, there is no memory of that dream in the superconscious.

Success and failure are terrible traps. Each is potent. When we have failure, we look within because we feel a need for something greater. But yet, in failure, we become so frustrated that we feel we're not worthwhile. We don't feel that we're worthy of immortality, of perfect consciousness, so we develop a very poor self-image and we stop short of success, because we feel we can't—we're failures, we always fail.

A person enters into the inner life with this attitude and after they've meditated for some time, they begin to see that this isn't true. A new power and force is leant to their life. They become more successful in their meditation, in their own state of happiness, in their career. Then they become complacent and attached to these things and they no longer strive to go within because the pain has been removed. But there's a deeper pain, and that's the pain of an unfulfilled spirit.

While the comforts of modern civilization and technological success or economic success or friendship or having others love you may seem at the moment to be quite fulfilling, I can assure you that all of these things are transitory and will fall away. The more you affix yourself to them, the greater your unhappiness will be at the time of separation. Running away from success doesn't help either. All you can do is accept with equanimity and humility what life gives you and not feel that you are the cause of these events because in your egotism you will delude yourself and become attached and suffer greatly. You should only remember that you are on a journey, and the journey is a journey within a journey. Life is not planned. There is no destiny. Destiny is just another illusion.

Accept whatever comes in the dream of life. If it's success, don't feel successful and don't feel that it had anything to do with your own self-worth. If it's failure, don't feel that it's failure, and don't feel that it had anything to do with your own lack of self-worth. Success and failure are the traps of egotism. You are not the doer. You are not this person. You are not this body. You are not the history within your mind of experiences that you think you've had. You are not the possible futures you can conceive of or experience. You are none of these things and yet you pass through them all.

Just as images rest upon a screen in a movie theater and appear to be solid—and for a while the blank, empty screen comes to life and the images move very quickly and solidify and we see people, we hear conversations, we watch experiences, but all the while, were you to go up there and touch it, you would find that it is not real, they're just images, the screen is empty—so life is composed of images of light that refract and reflect over the awareness field of your consciousness. None of the things that appear to be solid are solid.

To hate the movie is a mistake. To try and take it apart will only leave you with an empty feeling. To walk around, as some people do when they practice jnana yoga, and say, "Nothing is real, nothing is real," is not liberation. It's unhappiness because you lack the beauty of life. You lack the joy in objects. You lack the ecstasy of love. You lack the embrace of friends.

What you need to remember, as you pass through the samsara, as you go down the river of life, is that you can enjoy but not own. You can enjoy everything that comes to you. With a happy sense of humor, you can greet success and failure. But for heaven’s sakes, don't get caught up in them or believe for a second that they matter. Don't think that your career matters, your wife matters, your husband, your friends, your possessions. If you do, you will suffer greatly. You will suffer greatly because they are all transitory and upon parting with them your attachment will cause you much pain. But even more you will suffer because your fixation to these things will prevent you from enjoying the immortality of conscious awareness, the pure bliss and ecstasy of the liberated consciousness.

Enjoy all things that come to you in life. But remember always to bring your sword of discrimination with you. In the midst of success, while everyone at the party is celebrating you, is having a wonderful time, don't celebrate, observe. Enjoy the party, don't hate it. Don't feel badly about those who are in illusion. Don't feel that you are superior because I assure you, you are not. But observe quietly and remain empty, empty in the sense that you are filled with light and knowledge, and empty and void of attachment.

In the midst of failure, do not be upset. When people say terrible things about you, when your body ages and doesn't work the way it used to, do not be upset. In illness, in fatigue, when your spirits are down, remember—observe. Do not attach yourself to these conditions. Simply observe the turn the movie is taking as it's being projected on the screen, but know that these events and these experiences that you call life are but phantoms and will one day pass away and you will remain because you are That. You are immortal consciousness. You are free and perfect. And even though at this time you are not fully aware of that, if you remember these words at the time of your death, at the time of your birth, in the midst of any experience of success, failure, pleasure, pain, depression, elation, if you remember this, you will be free.

Observe, don't run away. Be neither attracted nor repulsed. Do not think that it is your power that creates success, your nobility, your wonderful qualities. Nor should you feel that you've created your failures. Instead, draw back from success and failure. Put forth your best effort in whatever life has directed you towards. If you're washing dishes at home, if you're acting on the stage, if you're running a corporation, if you're driving your car, if you're by yourself in a secluded place meditating, whatever it is that you find yourself doing, without any sense of doing, do that with everything that you have and everything that you are, without a sense of strain but with perfect balance. And when the emotional turmoil of life whirls around you, when the flame of knowledge seems to be extinguished by your moods, by the kindness of others which still does not fulfill you and leaves you empty, by the unkindness of others which appears to hurt you, do not be affected by these things. They don't matter.

You are immortality in a body. You are bliss and love, and if you will only reflect upon your inner state, your absolute good fortune to be alive, to be a perceiver of knowledge, then it doesn't matter where you are, who you're with, what you have or what you do not have— you will be free. You will be awake in the dream. Thus you can enjoy the dream, but you must remember it's a dream. You must remember that at midnight the horse will turn back into a mouse, the carriage into a pumpkin, and that's a different kind of magic. That all of life is magic and that you are a magical being.

What you settle for is what you get. The dreams that you've created for yourself of what you call success, the dreams that you've created for yourself of what you call failure, are what you get. I can tell you that there is no success and that there is no failure because it is impossible to stop immortal consciousness, which is all there really is.

Your mantram, then, is awareness of the dream—to enjoy and appreciate and to have gratitude for all, to not be fooled by any; neither to condemn nor to liberate, but to observe— to observe the experiences, the essence and the substance. And if you attain liberation, to not feel that it matters or it's important because you had nothing to do with it. If you are bound by the samsara, by maya, by ignorance, to not feel bad because you had nothing to do with it, but to enjoy the diversity of the infinite creation in whatever way life directs you. As soon as it really begins to matter, remember that it doesn't. It doesn't matter in the sense that we might like to think it does.

What matters is eternal awareness. To the great pharaohs it mattered a great deal to bury their treasures in the pyramids, which they thought they would bring to the other worlds. They spent half their lives having those built. But obviously it doesn't matter to them now. They went, the goods stayed.

So don't become a slave to success or failure, family, friends, possessions. If these things come to you in life, enjoy them, but fix your consciousness on that which does not change. Enjoy all human beings but be careful. The motives of all are not pure. Don't condemn, just observe. Observe where life places you. There's something to learn at every moment, and something to unlearn. Beyond learning and unlearning is awareness, and beyond awareness is consciousness, and beyond consciousness is immortality, and beyond immortality is dharma and beyond dharma is nirvana. There is nothing beyond nirvana, which is beyond all-encompassing awareness, yet it contains and houses all things. That you are; you are That.

Avoid those things which hurt you. Enjoy those things which help you. Discriminate in every situation, in every association, in every choice, and ask yourself, "Is this right? Am I chasing after success, am I afraid of failure?" Don't avoid an endeavor because you think you will fail, if the endeavor is right. Don't choose only the things that you know you will succeed at because you will be bound by success, failure and unhappiness. Instead, open yourself up to the possibility. Ask yourself, "Will this lead to liberation? Is this right?" And if it's not right, if it doesn't lead to liberation, don't do it because you will bind yourself. If something inside you tells you it will, no matter how it seems to the surface mind, even if it seems not to be a so-called "pious act," engage in it.

The things that lend to liberation are not necessarily sensible nor are they insensible. There are certain guidelines which we follow—kindness, the avoidance of attached relationships, self-giving, humility, meditation—but occasionally an action or an occurrence in our life will cause us to seemingly go against these things. But perhaps we're not going against them, we're going with them on another level.

Again, beware of the delusion of desire. The heat of desire is a powerful thing. You can convince yourself, you can lie to yourself and fool yourself and rationalize that the choice you're making is what is right and what is true and what leads to liberation, when it's actually only the fulfillment of a desire, which will lead to pain later. Desires are neither good nor bad. What's important is to do what's right. If what you desire is in line with that which is right, which cannot be reasoned but felt, then follow what is right and what you desire. But if what you desire is not right, then avoid that desire, stand back from it because it is not your friend. It will enslave you in the trap of success, failure and self, and you will be miserable and you will miss the promise of life, at least in this lifetime, and you will grow old and die and be reborn.

I offer you the possibilities of immortality, a pathway that leads beyond the known and the unknown. Few follow it. Those who do, do not return as they were, but they become immortal. They surpass the gods and the goddesses themselves who are also bound by the three worlds. It is the pathway that leads to enlightenment. But you must know that every step on the path is important and that every moment you have to always choose what is right. Only your heart can tell you what is right.

Eventually you can go beyond the knowledge of the heart, which is not an impeccable perceiver. It's a good way to start, to follow your heart. But the heart can be fooled, so then you have to be able to discriminate. The only way you can do that is by meditating deeply, because desire is such a powerful force, it can so persuade you with promises of sweetness. Or desire, working in its opposition, will tell you to avoid something painful, how miserable it will be. If you listen to these voices, I assure you, you will live in the land of illusion and be miserable.

But when you meditate you can stand back from your desire. When you silence the mind and there is stillness, at that time you can stand back and only then can you tell if a desire is dharma, if it's true, if you should follow it. That's why meditation is indispensable. To meditate well you need to practice several times a day. But even more you must lead a meditative life, a life of silence, enthusiasm, awareness. A creative life where you're living fully at every moment and never settling, in any situation, for that which is easy and comfortable, nor feeling the necessity of seeking that which is difficult and uncomfortable. But rather living completely—leading an impeccable life.

In the process of self-discovery you will learn to be kind when you could be harsh. You will learn to forgive, mostly yourself. You will learn to be patient because you may have to wait for quite a while to become that which you will eventually be. But patience is complete strength, and that strength will see you through. You have to develop a noble character, diligently, every day. Whenever you see something in the garden of the self that is unwanted you must weed it out. When you see propensities that are not beautiful, you must weed them out, and you must add propensities that are hopeful.

You must live the life of a saint. You have no choice because to do anything else is to enter into the human kingdom, which is a land of unfulfilled opportunity, of promises that when they're fulfilled are as empty as when they are not. If you choose to turn back on the path, you will be forgiven. The path is all-forgiving. But you will be unhappy. If you choose to go forward and be a warrior and become noble and pure of heart and kind and efficient and selfless and dedicated and loyal, then you will flourish. You will become the path itself. So first, you must build a noble character.

One day you must dissolve that noble character. You must go through a succession of selves leading to that which is most noble, that which is the kindest, that which is the purest. Faithfulness, faith, all of the words that so few people live, you must live. Only then are you worthy of immortality. Until then, if you choose not to do this, you must have the humility to accept the samsara, the transitory joys and pains, and the greatest pain of all, which is to be separate from that which you are, and to wait for another chance and next time not to forget, not to turn back on the path where you turned back the last time.

If the doorway of life is opening for you and you are fortunate enough to go forward, then forward you must go. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or says. The judgments of others are irrelevant because all of them will die and pass away and they don't know anything anyhow. Only listen to the observations of the enlightened because everyone else is self-centered, egocentric and bound by the net of desire. Yet listen to everything everyone says because truth can speak through anyone at any time.

If you want to learn to make a lot of money, you don't go and ask a poor person. You find a wealthy person and you ask them to teach you. If you wish to learn how to be free, then you must find someone who is free and happy and complete, who is beyond the binds of this world, even though they live in the world. Those who reject the world and run away from it may appear to be liberated, but we don't know what they would do in the world. It's only one who lives in the world and partakes in it and willingly accepts the transitory joys and pains of the world, yet at the same time is so far beyond it and removed from it in their complete absorption in the infinite—it is only such a one who can show you the way to liberation. All others will promise, but the roads will be dead ends.

Some can take you further along the path. Anyone who knows something more than you do can aid you, and life itself is the great teacher working through all of us. But you must discriminate between those who claim to help you and only want to manipulate you and those who are free, who never manipulate, who only open doorways and possibilities of enlightenment for others. Those you should cleave to and the others you must avoid.

On a daily, practical, pragmatic basis you have to participate in the actions of selfdiscovery. You must be kind to others. You must foster a caretaker personality of gentleness and perseverance, even in the midst of adversity. No matter how many times you have failed, you must keep going forward. Only when you have become humble and kind and pure and efficient and loyal, loyal to those who would aid you, who are the servants of eternity, will you begin to grasp the meaning of life, will the binds begin to snap and fall away, and will you be free.

Happiness, remember, is not freedom. You may become happy tomorrow; you'll get everything you want. But I assure you your happiness will not last, a month from now it will be something else. And even your happiness will be smashed by the pains of your body as you age, by the all-encompassing death that swallows up everything and everyone in this world.

Only one who has achieved immortality of awareness can laugh with life and laugh with death. Only one who has that impeccable spirit is free in all the three worlds. You must always feel that, that one day it may be you.

Do not feel that you are destined to enlightenment in this life. You have no idea. This is an illusion of selfhood. It's gross ignorance and egotism. Do not feel that you are destined not to make that final liberation in this life. This is egotism in a reverse form. Don't be concerned one way or the other. Advance yourself by advancing others. Do not judge others. Be of service to them, but realize that you are not necessarily the instrument of perfecting and immortalizing others. Be of service when you can, but when your inner voice tells you to withdraw, not because you fear adversity or fear hardship or hard work, but because your inner voice says, "This is not the time," then withdraw.

Many people excuse themselves but only go deeper into illusion and pain and misery by claiming that they don't have to do work anymore, that they don't have to do service because they're beyond it. They're simply afraid of getting their hands dirty, and they don't understand getting your hands dirty washes your being.

Even in action, even in self-giving, you must be so careful of egotism, you must be so careful when you're aiding others in their liberation, not to have a sense of self. To do what you must do impeccably, but with the sense of being a servant of existence or of being nothingness—that nothing is done through you. To observe your actions but to be so busy in them, that you never contemplate their possible effects. It is only this consciousness that leads to liberation. Everything else is illusion.

The path to enlightenment is joyful. It may sound harsh, it may sound that there's great adversity in it. I suggest just the opposite, that it's rather easy compared to the possibilities of staying in pain and illusion, and that it is a great adventure. But yet, you must know what's what. It will not simply happen. You must do these things and you must avoid the things that will hurt you and drain your power and your energy. You have to free yourself from your mental conditioning through association with the holy, through doing good works, through meditating, through laughter and through love and through solitude.

It is most important to have time alone. To be alone is not to be alone. It is only possible to truly feel immortality when we are by ourselves, unless you are a very advanced soul. If you are very advanced, if you are liberated, then you can be in the crowd and there is no crowd. You can be surrounded by the world and there is no world. You have shattered the prism of illusion. But for most this is impossible. So it is necessary to be a recluse to a certain extent.

You must have time each day by yourself. Not necessarily hours and hours, but some time when there's no one else around you because only then can you feel what you are and know with humility how far along the path you are. There's no one to distract you, no one to praise you, no one to blame you, there's just you and the procession of your thoughts and feelings and emotions and your awareness. You can see clearly where your awareness is.

It is only when we are by ourselves that we can know others. When we are with other human beings, we are distracted by their bodies, by the dreams that they have, the energy vortexes that they project, of success and failure. People try and dream us into their dreams. They have pure and impure motivations, depending upon the evolution of their soul and their awareness of that evolution. It is only when we are by ourselves that we can come to know others and not be distracted by the pictures on the screen.

It's necessary to be alone, to learn to love oneself and to accept. So for every seeker a certain amount of time must be by oneself. Only when you are by yourself can you realize how wonderful you are, can you feel your immensity, can you feel your finiteness, can you feel your unlimited spiritual consciousness, can you feel the body which is transitory—and revel in all these things and delight in them.

We hide from ourselves by being with others, and all we manage to do is to be miserable. In order to meditate, we must meditate alone. There are times when we meditate with others and gain much from that, particularly if they're advanced. But to truly meditate we must have no one there and in the silence of our own mind we must do discipline. This discipline is joyous and it frees us. Only when there's no one else there, no thoughts, no impressions of others clouding our mind, can we sit and practice the glorious practice of meditation, can we experience the depth of eternity.

There are worlds beyond anything you can imagine. There are joys beyond anything you have experienced. There are ecstasies that are undreamed of, I assure you. In your meditation you will traverse those worlds. You will experience those joys; you will become those ecstasies. What you have known of this life so far is only a dream, a slim dream at that. As one who has traveled greatly in the worlds, I can assure you there is much to see and much to become. You have only begun to tap the source, which is endless life.

In the silence of your meditation, as you will struggle with your mind to quiet it, as you will open your heart to feel its depth, as you will move into the soul, the superconscious, as you travel through the worlds of awareness, the planes of being, and go beyond being and becoming to eternal awareness itself, you will grow, you will change, you will become that. You will be free and complete. Only then can you enter into the world arena and be of service to others because you have something to offer. Otherwise the little you bring will soon be lost in the veil of maya, of illusion.

The stillness of God is perfect. Nothing has to be added to it, nothing can be taken away. None of us can add to it or take away from it. We are fortunate in that. It's for everyone who wants it, and it's really not so difficult. It just takes a smile and commitment to that which is right. Then your life blossoms. To not have these things is to be human—to be frustrated, to always be looking, the insatiable craving that the next person, the next relationship, the next experience will free you—foolish thoughts of foolish people who are bound again and again to birth, death and rebirth. Thousands and thousands of incarnations, and nothing to show for it. So you must choose whether to follow the path of love or the path of attachment. They are not the same. The immortal silence is there—always waiting for you. The spirit is deathless and courageous; you need only avail yourself.

Remember, many have trod the path that you are walking on and succeeded and they were no better than you, they were no wiser. They had the same fears that you had, the same aggressive tendencies, the same attachments. But they were freed in time because they believed. It is the power of faith that frees us. Not faith in our own ability—it's good to believe in that—but the faith that a higher power, a higher agency, that which is truth, will liberate us and show us the way if we're eager to follow.

When you live this type of life, devoid of ritual, devoid of convention, with honesty and self-effacement, then you are free, on the road to freedom. Then everything that follows will be beauty. Even the so-called suffering will be beauty because you will understand and see beyond. And one day, liberation will come, and it won't be a day, it won't be a year, it won't be a time, a place or a condition. It will be immortality reflecting through you.
What will you do then?
Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrine by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

When you meditate, always try and be hopeful, it's very important. It's necessary to realize the infinite possibilities that life offers you at any moment. Most people are engaged in a limited dharma. They are traversing in a given lifetime through a sequence of possible events, but the events are not too widely chartered in the sense that the possible variations within that sequence are limited. Meditation offers us the prospect of changing that. The suggestion is that instead of staying with the destiny that you have now, that you've incurred through previous karmas, actions in this life, and other lives, family, social position, economic or religious background, racial background, it's possible to transcend all of that and within the structure of a lifetime to be born again many times.

The Tibetan doctrines are far reaching. They are really very similar in essence, I think, to the doctrines of yoga, Buddhism of different types, Taoism, the very early American Indian religions. There seems to be a common thread that unites them all which is the perception of that which is truth. The Tibetan versions, with an 's' [?] of paradise are many. Tibetan mysticism is a mixture of many forms -- of tantra, of the Bon religion, of Buddhism, of course, as brought by Padmasambhava. Naturally, there've been some very well known Tibetan teachers and gurus, of course, the Dalai Lamas, and Tibet's most famous teacher, Milarepa and his guru Marpa, the translator. The texts that have been brought to light in the West, particularly since the Chinese occupation of Tibet, are rather obscure. These are ancient books, the tantras, which were written thousands of years ago depicting ways of attaining super powers, realizing truth, ascending into higher spheres of consciousness and things like that.

The knowledge of what occurred in Tibet was very limited in a spiritual sense in the West, primarily to Evans-Wentz who went to Tibet and began writing his books, and a few other adventurous souls who journeyed into an unknown land and studied its religion and culture as foreigners as best they could. Naturally, it was impossible for them to penetrate the deeper inner circles of Tibetan mysticism. In many cases fortune brought them to a distinguished teacher or lama, someone perhaps who was somewhat enlightened. But the true secret teachings had been handed down orally, meaning not so much that they had been transmitted in words, but they had been transmitted from teacher to student in an unbroken chain for thousands of years. And of course, tradition is not totally necessary. Any individual is capable of realizing the truth at any time, and when they do that, no tradition is necessary, no chain, no lineage.

Once you have realized the truth, once you become consciousness itself, then you go beyond all such distinctions as lineage and teachers and things like that. That happens infrequently. Most people seem to have a teacher or a series of teachers who impart to them not so much a verbal message, an explanation -- although that's done, certainly -- but the essence of existence, the truth, which is transmitted through the kundalini from teacher to student and the very rigorous training process that anyone must go through either with a teacher or on their own in order to develop the super powers and enter in the superconscious states of samadhi. The teacher, the guru would, of course, oversee this training process.

The essence of the Tibetan knowledge, then, as it’s come out, which it has only partially, has come either through the texts, the tantras, or things like The Tibetan Book of the Dead, or through a very small number of Tibetans who left Tibet with the Chinese occupation and decided to present some of the teachings to the world.

The idea inherent in much, but not all of Tibetan Buddhism, is that the teachings are secret, not in the sense that you can't tell someone, but in the sense that they won't understand. We find a parallel to this in the stories of Carlos Castaneda and his teacher Don Juan, where Don Juan, in Tales of Power, presents Carlos with a piece of wisdom called the sorcerer's explanation, which is an understanding of how consciousness and reality works. And he holds off for many years. It's only about a six-line explanation, at most a paragraph or two, and he doesn't tell Carlos for many years, not because there was anything secret that needed to be withheld but because Carlos wasn't at a sufficiently high enough level of evolutionary consciousness to understand the import of what was being expressed.

You can hear the words, but that doesn't mean you understand them. You understand what the words mean in conventional usage, as they would be defined in a dictionary, as you've been taught by culture, the meanings associated with them, the ideas and the themes. But when you deal with explanations of consciousness, it's necessary to have much more, otherwise, it's like trying to explain the mixing of various colors to a person that's blind. If they haven't perceived the colors initially, certainly the refined mixing of them to produce various shades and hues is going to be impossible to comprehend, only because of their lack of sight. So if a person doesn't have a developed inner sight, or inner vision, then it would be literally impossible for them to understand what on the surface seems like a very simple explanation of the way life works.

The secret doctrines essentially are that. They're not necessarily secret in the sense that they're not told, although that was the way for thousands of years, but rather the idea was that simply they could only be understood by a class of evolved beings. And as in the Bible they say, don't cast your pearls before swine -- the Bible is always graphic -- in the same sense, the idea was, it's silly to waste knowledge on people who will not benefit from it.

Now the danger of this idea, of course, is elitism, which really runs counter to everything in self-discovery. And quite a lot of that evolved in the Tibetan practices. A sense of superiority. That somehow because you had developed a certain power, you had knowledge of a certain secret book, you had reached a certain plateau of consciousness, that you were in some way better than someone else. And of course, this has nothing to do with advanced self-discovery or the advanced practices of mysticism.

Mysticism is an eclectic mixture of various forms of self-discovery that's primarily experiential. So when we speak of mysticism, rather than a philosophical understanding of a higher truth, we're speaking of someone who is more involved with direct meditative experience, with perceiving truth or having visions. moving into other stratas of awareness. And the way that is done is rather specific, and that's what we'll be talking a little bit about tonight. I suppose the sub-titles for the evening might be, "How to Have a Mystical Experience or to Realize That All Experiences Are."

The Tibetan forms move in many directions. The overlying theme is enlightenment. But there are many variations, things that are perhaps outlawed in certain forms of selfdiscovery, and in certain forms of Tibetan Buddhism are embraced. It's a very eclectic method of self-discovery. Yet it has it's own etiquette as do all branches of self-discovery, it's own special language. And certainly in one evening it's not my intention to delve all that heavily into the language. There are many books now available on Tibetan Buddhism. In the beginning there was just Alexander David Neal and W. Y. Evans-Wentz's books, but now there are many, many written by the lamas themselves. Of course, it's important to note that because someone is a lama [not sure if lama should be capitalized] or is part of a monastic order or claims to be part of a succession, that doesn't really mean they know anything, any more than someone who is perhaps a minister or a priest or whatever, doesn't necessarily claim to have an absolute knowledge. You have to always examine the individual's consciousness, their ability to transmit light. In the higher spheres, that's the only criteria. And, of course, I always feel that all spiritual knowledge can be understood very easily, that is to say, it's easy to understand if someone possesses it, by how they treat others. Because it has to reflect not simply in gestures in front of the public or one's students, but in every aspect of your life -- if it's genuine, if it's an integrated realization.

Our theme then, is kind of the wit and wisdom of Tibet -- and there was quite a bit wit
-- but not so much in a backward glance, but in the sense that the same truths are operable now, the same realities still exist. So we'll be talking about death, in other words, essentially, tonight. Iit should be a good night. (Audience laughs.) At least from my point of view.

The following is the truth. Within silence all things are contained. What appears to our eyes to be life is but a thin curtain, a gauze penumbra, which stultifies our vision, which prevents us from seeing the truth. The truth is that life is eternal, that eternity is life. What we call life is an acknowledgment of a succession of births of awareness. Time does not really exist as we know it, rather, it's a transfiguration of a concept in which mortality or mutability is conditioned. The mind is empty. Nothing really is as it appears to be. So the essence of timelessness is the center of things. To reach the center of things, that place which is, while not geographically located anywhere or perhaps is everywhere and yet is timeless, which we call nirvana. –

Nirvana is limitless awareness without a field, without a knower. A body of light. To sense that we are not physical nor mental. That we do not really have a history, or a place that we're going to. That all of the universes are but phantoms, mirages, and while they have their own essence, their own pantomime, like the dumb shows, the pantomimes in the 18th century in England and, of course, in the mystery plays -- they pass, forgotten.

Nothing is as it appears to be. We open our eyes, we look at life, the world, the seasons, the earth, the peoples. And everything seems to be solid. Everything seems to have its own eternality. Or we see that it's mutable, that everything changes and transforms, everything goes through the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, decay and death. But all this is an illusion. Everything we see is an illusion. Even our perceptions of truth are illusory, illusory in the sense that they're not complete.

When we silence the mind in meditation, when there's no thought, no image, no pictures, no memories, no desires, no sense of a self that is in any way participating in an experiential ongoing life, we reach a plateau of awareness that is beyond creation, transformation and destruction. It's beyond birth and death. That awareness is within all things. It is all things.

Everyone is at the movies. You walk through the streets of a town. There's no one there. No matter where you look, the streets are empty. All the theaters are full. Houses empty, cars. Yet somehow the town seems to go on by itself. The lights come on at night, just the wind blowing some old newspapers down the street. No one is there. You venture into one of the theaters all along the main street, and everyone is watching a movie. They're all happily watching a comedy, they're laughing and having a wonderful time eating popcorn, sharing Raisinettes with a friend. You walk inside and no one sees you, no matter where you go. You even for a while get frustrated because you try and talk to people. You walk up and say, "Excuse me sir" -- no reaction. "Ma'am, uh-" -- nothing. So you walk up on the little stage in front of the screen for a minute just to try and get someone's attention because you don't understand why there's no one on the streets. And you stand there, and still nothing. But if you jump and shout long enough and get in the way of the film, somebody will throw something at you. (Audience laughs.). Then it's wise to leave quickly and try another theater.

So you leave the theater and go to another one, the next theater. It's a love story. All the couples are sitting there, or as in this age, the triples (general laughter) arm in arm, or foot in mouth, whatever it may be (more laughter) - and they're looking at this wonderful love story, and they're all in love with love, and you walk up to one of them, and you say, "Excuse me, I hate to disturb you -" nothing, absolutely nothing. Everybody's in the rhapsody of the movie. So you leave that theater and you go down to the next theater.

There's a war movie on. John Wayne is still fighting out there. Everybody is engaged. Things are blowing up, bodies flying everywherem and no one hears you. Well, all that's left is a tragedy of another kind, and so you walk into that -- the drama, suspense, sadness. And again no one hears you. Well, you've seen it. You've been to the comedies, everyone laughs, the love stories, the wars and the tragedies. And no one saw you, so you go back out to the street and you just walk and there's no one there.

Everyone in this world is watching the movie, and the movie is their life. And if you have reached a state of vacancy, of awareness, you walk as if through deserted streets. You really have no choice in this. It's predestined. And when the hour comes, you become aware, you become conscious. Until then you've been watching a movie, until suddenly you find yourself out in the street walking or going from theater to theater trying to have contacts. But everyone is so engrossed with the film of their life, whether it's a comedy, a romance, a tragedy, a war. Everyone's so caught up that they've forgotten that they're watching a film. It's just a movie, it's just a show.
Awareness is wakefulness. Wakefulness is consciousness. Consciousness is limitless awareness, not being caught up. Oh, you yourself as you're walking down the street might sit down for a few minutes and watch the show with everybody, it might be a good show. But you won't stay. You can get up from the show and leave. They all stay there. They see the same film over and over and over, life after life. Oh, in some lifetimes it changes. It's a war film, it's a romance, it's a tragedy. Political drama. But you notice after a while that the people, if you look at them, they seem very worn. Their expressions, they're not happy. Now, in their mind, of course, they're having a wonderful time. You see the expressions, the facial changes. Sadness, when something sad is happening in the film, happiness, depression, grief at the death of a loved one. But the awareness is so limited -- so it seems to one who has begun the journey beyond illusion. Now, of course, for one who is enlightened, the streets are always full and the movie theaters are always empty. That's why enlightened people go to the movies. The streets are packed. Everywhere you go, you see people.

The development of mystical powers. Mystical powers develop primarily through the raising of the kundalini. The kundalini, as you probably know, is a type of energy that exists within all things. And it's possible to pull that energy, to mass it, to transmit it. The kundalini is the operable energy in anything that occurs. Whether it's the movement of the hand, driving the car, the function of memory, creating ideas, activating emotions, it's the energy behind all things. It exists not in this physical plane but in a plane of consciousness that is next to the physical, which we call the subtle physical, which you can see when you've developed your subtle physical vision, or it's also known as the astral plane.

The kundalini energy passes through the shushumna, which is a Sanskrit name for an astral nerve channel that runs along the spinal column. Just as we have a physical body, so we have an etheric body or an etheric double and the etheric body is made up of energy, of light. But it has a structure, in the same sense that our physical body has a structure.

The kundalini is raised, or brought down. It can be done in several different ways, and as it moves to the different chakras or energy centers in the subtle physical body, it endows one with various powers. There are many powers. The most notable, of course, are healing, levitation, the ability to see the future or the past at will, be it the immediate future or past, or the distant future or past, to project the etheric double. The second body can be sent to pick up your dry cleaning, shop for you, things like that, if you're very advanced.

The development of the tumo, or the heat -- many of the great Tibetan yogis, of course, could generate tremendous heat which saved terrifically on heating bills, and it's still quite useful in the Sierras. It is! When I go out to the desert all my friends freeze and I walk around in a tshirt. When you use the tumo, you just produce a tremendous amount of heat and you simply don't feel cold. You can even project that heat to others The ability to do a kind of a gait of power -- there's a walk that many of the Tibetan yogis developed whereby they could travel at tremendous speeds for long periods of time, cover hundreds and hundreds of miles in a day. And many other powers, of course. The usage of the powers is something that fascinates us. I suppose simply because it seems novel or maybe some of us remember having done it before. Naturally, the traditional advice on the subject is don't cultivate powers, go after money instead.

The feeling is that the powers interfere with enlightenment, in the sense that in order to utilize a power -- let's say for example you develop the ability to make parking meters disappear so that if you came up to one and you were going to park your car next to it, you could just make it go away and you wouldn't get a ticket. It's probably easier to put a quarter in. That would be the wisdom on the subject.

Now the problem with powers is not that they're bad -- of course there's this school of thought that says the usage of all mystical and occult powers is bad. I find that that thought is usually propounded by people who don't have any powers. It's kind of a sour grapes attitude. The problem with the powers is not whether they're good or bad, they're neither. They're just powers, like the power to do anything, to walk, to write a book. The problem is that whenever you use one of the powers, you're using it. And from the point of view of enlightenment, or the way to enlightenment, in order to achieve enlightenment, of course, we have to dissolve the ego, the sense of self. And if there's a sense of self present, it interferes with enlightenment.

In order to cultivate the powers, in other words -- if you're going to set out on a serious journey, which many people have, to develop mystical powers, to impress your friends and do other things to your enemies, if that's what you want to do, the difficulty with it is that while you were engaging in the development of those powers, you will not be moving towards enlightenment. Now naturally, if you're not interested in enlightenment, you can develop all the powers you want and it really doesn't matter how you evolve. But there's a sequence to enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that just happens at random. And if you understand that sequence, the whole process becomes somewhat cloudier (audience laughs).

Normally, if you had not attained liberation in a previous lifetime, the best time to begin the study is around age -- probably 17 through 19. If you're younger than that, usually an individual will not be serious enough. Sometimes we see a great deal of spiritual energy manifested in young children between the ages of five and 12. There seem to be quite attune? in them, they might be interested in meditation, self-discovery, things like them. Some of them even have very good past life recall. They can remember their past lives, particularly at age three, four, five, six and seven, before the ego becomes functional. When the ego becomes very functional, it tends to block those memories, but children don't know that they shouldn't think that way, so very often they recall quite well.

Usually, of course, when adolescence comes along and the hormones have their way, the attention wanders, and for that period of age 12 to 19 -- adolescence, terrible time in one's life, regardless of what people who try and remember how it was say. It's interesting that people, when they get older, always remember that that was the best part of their life. Illusion is a funny thing. But in any case, during that period of time, most people have their attention in other areas, which is exactly correct and proper. Naturally, if you're dealing with an individual who was very advanced in a past lifetime, sometimes they show signs very early on and they continue to exhibit them throughout their life. But for most individuals, even if they have had incarnations where they've meditated and practiced various forms of self-discovery, they tend to lose it around that time.

The subtle body isn't really tenacious enough. The subtle body develops, just as the physical body does. And in the primary years, the subtle physical body is very soft, very luminescent. Young children have this glow about them. But it has to go through this embryonic journey, which it does in those years from about, as I said 12 to about 19, where it solidifies and the fibers become stronger. The subtle physical body is made up of fibers of light. And when those fibers are stronger, then one can begin the journey to enlightenment. The journey to enlightenment is very arduous. It's fun, certainly, and it's a happy journey, but it takes a great deal of temerity, of strength. Not necessarily physical strength, but an inner strength, a determination, the ability to believe.

So most people start, if they were fairly advanced in another lifetime, usually around age 17 to 19. You'll notice that most men who attain enlightenment usually do so between the ages of 30 and 33 for some unknown reason. But statistically, that's true. As you know, very few women have attained enlightenment, and that's an unfortunate fact which we have discussed before and hopefully this is the age of women and that will be ending. And there are many reasons for it, which we need not go into this evening.

The ideal time to start then, is around age 17 to 19 because the subtle physical body is in superb condition. It's similar to being an athlete. While it's possible to become a great athlete at any age, I suppose, for most individuals there has to be a training process and the body will reach a peak at a certain time, but even for it to reach that peak, there has to be conditioning at a certain age.

Now this doesn't mean that if you didn't start to meditate at that time that you can't attain enlightenment in this life. You can, but it will be more difficult. Because after that age -- it seems that the ages from 19 to 25 are critical years. In those years a great deal of conditioning, mental conditioning, occurs to an individual. And after that time, one has to erase that conditioning. It continues on, but those are very powerful years in an individual's life. What I'm suggesting is, is that there are sequences in your life. There's a marvelous book written awhile back by Gail Sheehy, Passages, that suggested that there are time periods in our life where we're capable of doing certain things, that we really can't do as well at other times of our life, and if we understand those passages, it's much easier to deal with life. It's sort of the Tao of living. And in the same sense, while she was discussing, perhaps, more psychological phenomena, it's also true in the inner sense. There's a sequence to enlightenment. It doesn't just happen. There's a chemistry that's extremely precise.

Of course in Tibet, in the very large monasteries but even more importantly in the caves above 10,000 feet, where most of the really advanced teachers were, they would normally begin to work with individuals at around that age. While many young children were brought into the monastery, that was more for educational purposes. And while they may have studied the scriptures and become very learned, that didn't mean that they were at all enlightened.

The sequence of enlightenment, then, is important. Now, if I can move aside from this ideal situation in which a person begins to meditate at 17, 18 or 19, finds a teacher who's enlightened and begins the journey and continues on that journey throughout the course of their life, if I can digress for a moment, that doesn't happen to too many people. In most cases, you begin whenever you do. There's a sequence, though, that's operable for each of you. That is to say, when you first encounter meditation and even more importantly, if and when you in a given lifetime find an enlightened teacher and begin to study with them, from that moment forward, a sequence opens to you. It's kind of like going to medical school. You have to take your courses in a certain sequence. If you don't, it upsets the balance. You don't have forever. Some people are under the idea, of course, that you have all the time in the world, and in a sense, we all do, since we are the world, and there is no time. But in a sense we don't.

Karma is operable in all situations in the relative world. Karma, as you know, is the law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect means, of course, that for every action there's a reaction of a type. But the law of karma is much deeper than that, and that's part of the secret oral teachings of Tibet -- and that is that most karma is not physical. The sense that karma means that I was kind to somebody and someone will be kind to me is a very limited understanding of karma. Or that for five lives I was a kind person and now in this life I'll be wealthy. This is a very limited understanding of karma.

Karma has to do with planes of attention. Now we move into the secret teachings. The idea is that each one of us is watching a movie, a film of some type. And that film that we're watching, which may be happy, sad, pleasant, unpleasant, whatever, the reason we're watching it is because of what we've done. Not done so much with action -- action is a very low physical reflection of awareness -- but rather the way that we thought. There are many fields of attention, planes of consciousness, the way you see things. We're in a particular field of attention because of how we think. A person who thinks happy thoughts, progressive thoughts, thoughts of aiding others, of observing the beauty of life, things like that, moves into a higher level of attention. They're in a more pleasant state of awareness. A person who's angry, frustrated, jealous, filled with a lot of different desires and doesn't come to the center of life, moves into a very low level of attention.

Think of the levels of attention just as the ocean. The ocean has many different levels. You can go down to 50 fathoms, the current runs one way. Another 50 fathoms, it runs another way, and so on. And as you know, different types of fish and creatures live in the different levels, and there's a different amount of light present. For the first 50 fathoms, there's more light, then there's less and less and less. Existence is an ocean. It's an ocean of consciousness. And we oscillate, usually within a given lifetime, within a certain range. A person will be born, depending upon their karmic patterns, with a certain potentiality and possibility. That is to say, they'll be born within a certain level of that giant cosmic ocean, maybe a thousand fathoms down. Then, within a given lifetime, they will oscillate. Maybe they're a thousand fathoms down, but maybe on their good days they'll go up 20 fathoms higher and on their bad days they'll go down 20 fathoms lower. The idea is that through a very, very long process called reincarnation, we cycle slightly higher and slightly higher in each lifetime. Sometimes we go backwards, sometimes we go forward. But there is movement, there is a progression. And eventually, after many, many lifetimes, we move into higher levels of attention, of awareness.

Without looking so much at the karmic patterns of rebirth at the moment, but rather considering a given lifetime, I would suggest that your awareness is karma. How you feel generates your level of attention. Simple example. You wake up, you're in a bad mood. You get angry. When you get angry, you're going to lose your ability to discriminate. When you lose your ability to discriminate, you forget the lessons of experience, and what you're going to do is smack your toe on a door, catch your coat in the car door when you close it. The day will progress from that point and get rapidly worse. The reason these things are happening is because you're not in a very high level of attention. If you're in a high level of attention, there's a flow to whatever you do. You can perceive what will be before it is, before it manifests in the physical. You can choose your realities. You don't have to simply allow life to happen to you, you can happen to life. It's a different way of doing it, a more advanced operating system.

So then, what determines that, what determines everything, is your level of attention, your awareness. The more conscious you are, not simply conscious in the sense that I see more colors, I'm more aware of what's physically going on, I can hear more sounds, not simply conscious in the sensory modalities, but conscious in the sense of being conscious of consciousness, of these different planes of attention. This allows us to do kind of a mental judo and step beyond harm's way. Harm denoted as negative feelings, unhappiness, the loss of awareness.

What I'm suggesting is that most people simply go through life, and they're not particularly aware of what's happening to them or why. They move from day to day, from year to year, from lifetime to lifetime, shuffled back and forth by the winds of karma. They feel that they're making choices in their lives that cause destiny to move in certain ways. But I would suggest that they have no control of their lives whatsoever, that all their choices are really made for them. In other words, it doesn't seem to me that you have a lot of choice if you go to a school where they give you a choice of whether you want to be in Mr. Brown's homeroom or Ms. Green's homeroom and both are tyrants. You have the choice of Tyrant A or the choice of Tyrant B. This to me is not a heck of a lot of choice. If you are born in a country that is very poor and that's all there is is poverty, you have the choice to live in the southern part of the country and be poor or the northern part and be poor. And this is how life is for most people.

Life is a series of dreams, and you can consciously choose which dream you are experiencing. This is the Tibetan rebirth process. The idea is that you don't have a personality or a self. The only self you have is the one that you think you have. As they say in the comic strip Pogo, we have met the enemy and it am us. [actual quote is “We have met the enemy and he is us,” therefore have removed quotes.] All heavens and hells are created within ourselves. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a map, a tryptik, a AAA Guide to existence. It doesn't tell you how to get anywhere, since essentially the idea is there's nowhere to go. Rather, it points out things of interest along the way and tells you how not to get into trouble in certain countries where the water is drinkable, where it's not drinkable. It's a map to existence.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is thought by many to be a very archaic book that describes what happens to you after you die. The idea is that at the time of death, the soul leaves the body and passes through an intermediate state which ceases to exist upon rebirth into a physical body. The soul passes through a series of etheric worlds, non-physical worlds. In each of these worlds, you will see visions, have experiences, quite unlike the experiences and visions you have in the physical world. A thought behind it all is that it is possible to attain enlightenment, not only while you are in the physical body but during this intermediate passage. And if you can recognize what they call the clear light of reality, the dharmakaya, at any point in this process, liberation will ensue. This is the popular understanding of the book.

Naturally, in many cases they feel that the soul of the departed one doesn't leave the earth right away. It stays, it has a certain tie after death and is drawn to stay in the world for a little while and visits familiar places. It travels a little bit. But eventually it is pulled on into other levels of attention, into other planes of existence, other dimensions. And then, of course, eventually, after a period of time resting in the subtle physical worlds of light and luminosity, or passing through the hell worlds or whatever it may be doing, the soul will be drawn back. There's still a propensity to be drawn back to physical rebirth. It wants more experience so it comes back, it's attracted back.

The real use of the book, though, the esoteric use of the book and the secret teachings has nothing to do with that at all. The idea that death changes anything is laughed at by the enlightened teachers. This is death. Life is the bardo. The bardo is not something that you experience after death. It's that too -- everything that's present after death is present now. All of the dimensions, worlds, planes of existence, and of course nirvana exist now, and one does not have to wait for death to die and to experience the alternate realities or to grow towards enlightenment or to be absorbed into nirvana. All of that is now, since there is not time, and there is not dimension. These are just movies that people are watching.

So The Tibetan Book of the Dead is not correctly named, rather it's a book of the living or a book of life. It's a book that teaches you about inner states of awareness. Now, in it's current form, the best translation being the Evans-Wentz translation, in my opinion, it's incomprehensible to most people. They can't make heads or tails out of it. But what the book does, or the same teachings which are received through a teacher, is it gives you a map for dealing with existence, and the map is simple. The theme of the map is be neither attracted nor repulsed. that you right now are a voyager. You are passing through a series of experiences. You have amnesia. You're not who you think you are. And in your life and in your death and in your succeeding rebirths and deaths, you will be presented with a series of visions, and if you can recognize that these are only visions, if you can remember for a moment that you are watching a movie, then you are able to extricate yourself from the movie. You can watch the movie if you like, you can wander the empty streets, or if you reach enlightenment, you can go to the empty theaters and avoid the crowded streets.

To take charge of destiny means to play a very convoluted chess game on multiple levels of consciousness and existence. The Tibetan rebirth process involves the choosing of the caretaker personality. Now as you know, the personality in most cases is formed early on in life -- the initial experiences that we have with our parents, particularly in the teaching of language, language being a set of loaded dice. Our experiences in the world with friends, family, and so on, and the propensities of the soul and karmas cause us to create a personality, a sense of self. I am an individual. I am special. I am different from Bob because I like the color red, and he likes the color blue. I'm different from Jim because I'm a woman and he's a man. We begin with a very basic sense of self which is determined by likes and dislikes, by a sense of sex and what that means, and by what we're taught we are.

You're taught that you're a human being. Human beings don't fly, so therefore you can't fly. We're told a lot of things, but also, just in the process of living, we develop this thing we call a personality. And most people are stuck to the same personality all their lives. In the process of self-discovery, it's not only possible but necessary to dissolve your personality. The idea is that through a series of, let's say, a thousand lifetimes, you will go through a thousand personality structures. Each personality structure would be slightly more advanced than the preceding personality structure. Each would be more fluid. As you're moving from a hundred fathoms upward, there'll be more light, and if in each lifetime you're going up a little higher, there'll be more light. The soul progresses. It grows spiritually as it moves toward enlightenment.

But the secret teachings of the oral traditions suggest that it's possible to take the thousand lifetimes it would have taken to become conscious of consciousness and to compress it into one lifetime. And with the aid of the benign forces and God and an enlightened teacher, and with proper motivation and proper evolution, you can do that. Therefore, what you will do is create a series of personalities. This is where it gets fun. It's kind of like choosing lots of different outfits to wear. One night you could wear Western clothes, one night you could wear a sari, one night you could wear safari gear -- you don't have to be limited and just always dress the same way.

As we go within the self, we discover that all the voices of our past lives are still there. They still exist. As we peel ourselves, which is a process very much like peeling an onion -- it's very often compared to that -- we'll discover that there are many selves within the self. We think of ourselves as an individual self -- I'm a person. But everyone you've always been is in there somewhere, and the voices grow louder as we advance. Particularly if you've had a series of advanced incarnations, if you've perhaps been a monk in one lifetime, a seeker, a saddhu, whatever, you meditated and so on. These are stronger selves. And you will find, as you progress, that these selves will begin to come out. You can have little coming out parties for them, invite your friends, things like that. So when your Japanese lifetime is coming out, you see, you can all drink saki that night. Have a little bash. When the Tibetan life is coming out, of course, you can all go up into the hills for a while or go to the graveyard

So the selves come out, and we see that we're not one self -- it's fascinating. Jung was moving a little bit in this direction in his research with his archetypes, although he just scratched the surface. We are many, many selves. We're not just a finite being. These selves don't necessarily speak in words, it's not like channeling or bringing some force through you. But they are you. You just become more conscious that you're much more complex than you realized. It's necessary then, to design new personalities as you progress. Of course what makes this possible is the kundalini. The kundalini is the force, the energy, the power that dissolves or raises you above the cycle that you're in now. That is to say, in this lifetime, right now you have a specific destiny. It's all worked out. There's not a thing you can do about it. You're destined to die at a certain time, you're destined to be healthy certain days, to be ill certain days, to make a certain amount of money, to have certain associations and friendships. You may think you have free choice. But your choices are really very limited. They're limited by your level of awareness.

If you can change awareness radically, then you change your destiny. If you're at 150 fathoms, no matter where you go, there will only be a certain amount of light and a certain species of fish, you see. If you can go up 50 fathoms, everything changes. More importantly, not only does everything change around you but what really changes is you change. You become a different self. While its the same underlying reality, the same you is present in all things, a more evolved you comes out, a more aware you. It's as if you were born with a body that simply couldn't compete athletically, and suddenly you changed and you woke up the next day and you were set to be an Olympic athlete. The self changes even more radically in this process. The way that is done is by generating enough kundalini.

Kundalini is generated through cultivating humility, purity, through meditation, selfless giving, and by studying with an advanced teacher on a personal level who is able to generate tremendous fields of kundalini through your being and to aid you in awakening and then guiding your kundalini. That's the tricky part of course -- to take you through these many births and deaths in one lifetime, to teach you about the other fields of attention.

I first became interested in Tibet many years ago. I found myself reading Tibetan sacred texts and I didn't understand a word of it, to be honest with you, when I was younger, 60 or 70-- I was about 12, and I found myself just drawn to these books, and I kept reading them and I don't know if I understand them today, but after meditating for a number of years, I began to recall my past lives. I don't know if recall is the right word in a sense because that almost implies that you were looking for something, and I was just meditating. But the selves reassert themselves. It's not so much a question of where you were when. It's not really like looking through a scrapbook or a photo album. Sometimes it's like that. Sometimes they're images, you can see because all of it still exists somewhere.

But rather those selves, as I went through the enlightenment process, began to reemerge and assert themselves in a way. Nirvana seems cold to most people, the idea of it. The word God-realization works for a lot of people in the West. It sounds more positive somehow. Even samadhi has a warmer sound to it than nirvana. I think it's the N. That's it, at the beginning of the word. N's are much colder than G's or S's I think. God-realization, of course, you get a GR combination. But no, many people don't explore the pathway to nirvana because they don't like the way the word sounds. It's true! It's true! I watch! Words make a difference. If we called it Wonderful Land, they'd be signing up in droves. But nirvana, just the idea of emptiness, nothingness, a desert without cactus and sand. No rocks, no gila monsters, no heat, no cold, no spirits, no wind -- not much of a desert, if you ask me. Sort of, un-desert.

Nirvana's not like that. Nirvana's not like anything you've ever known or experienced because it can't be known or experienced. I can't say the end product of self-discovery is nirvana because that would imply that there was a beginning and an ending, and there isn't really. In other words, is there life after nirvana? No. Nor is there death.

Upon being absorbed in nirvana, there will be no memory of anything else. Not because you'll forget, not even because you'll go away. Perhaps I can present an alternate view. The warm side of nirvana, this is Southern Nirvana. Imagine that you can see a certain amount of light through the retina of your eye. And let's say that light is ecstasy. Let's say that there's a beautiful, wondrous light, more wonderful than anything. And to see that light is to experience ecstasy, joy, beyond comprehension. And let's say that in our life occasionally, we get a glimpse of that light when we do something noble for someone else, if we have a mystical experience of some type where we go beyond the body and experience that ecstasy, even in the dream yoga. If we use the etheric double and go beyond the confines of the physical, even into the etheric planes, it's very ecstatic. But the kind of ecstasy that we experience in this world, or in the subtle physical worlds, the astral worlds, in any worlds, is limited. But if you could imagine going into the sun, or perhaps a sun a thousand billion times brighter than the sun that we see, and if you could go right into it and if that light was ecstasy, unfathomable, endless, there would be so much of it that you would forget after a while that you were even seeing it, you would be so dazzled by its splendor, that all the pain of life would go away. That ecstasy would not be a narcotic ecstasy in the sense that it's simply a forgetting, but rather your awareness would merge with that endless vortex of light which is existence itself. In other words, completion would be so complete that it would go beyond itself. This is Southern Nirvana.

Northern Nirvana, of course, is different. It snows all the time. It's so white that you can't tell if it's white anymore. It's absolute silence and stillness, but not a sense of silence as absence, but a silence filled with sound. Kind of like white noise. So many sounds are present that you can't distinguish them. If we could trace all of life back to a primeval source, to its essence, which is God, and if God is endless and infinite and assumes all forms yet remains formless, that's nirvana.

But still, you see, we have an idea We always have ideas of God and nirvana or truth or enlightenment. And these ideas will go away in nirvana because the suffusion is so complete and intense that nothing can be remembered.

For example, at the border of nirvana, OK, there's a gate, there's a crossing. When you reach the border of nirvana, at that point, someone will walk up to you and inform you that if you enter into nirvana, everything that you've ever loved will be lost. You will be alone. There will be the most terrible aloneness that you can imagine. You will be alienated from everything, including yourself. Forever. A sense of drifting in a cold, irresolute space forever. At that moment, oh nobly born, all the images from all of your lives will come forward, not necessarily individually but as feelings, and they will demand your attention. They will say, don't cross over there, you will lose us and you will be sorrowful and empty and void.

Now, if you listen to what that individual tells you, what that fellow tells you at the border, of course, then you won't cross over. You'll go back to all of the things that you've always loved and all of the things that have bound you and limited you alsoyou'll have both, because in the world of duality you have the pairs of opposites. Now, if you listen to me, which no one does, fortunately, I would suggest that it's not like that at all. That when that fellow comes up to you and presents that information, you'll say, "Listen, several lifetimes ago I went to one of Rama's talks and you know, while he very rarely says anything of any value whatsoever, there was one point he made which I put on a three-by-five file card which I happen to have in my back pocket, and I was going to review it when I ran into you because he said I would run into you. I didn't necessarily believe him at the time, but now that it's actually happened, I just happen to have this file card tucked away here, and I'd like to examine it for a moment, if you don't mind." And he'll say, "Well, listen, you really don't have time. The worlds are turning, existence is manifesting and…" And you say, "Just, just, just a minute! Just a minute. I mean, it's my death. I'll do it the way I want." So you'll take out your kind-of faded three-by-five, you know, a few lifetimes ago, a three-by-five file card, but if you get a plastic one, as we all know, plastic is forever. So you take this plastic three-by-five file card which you had laser engraved, and it says, "Don't listen."

In The Odyssey, of course, we see Odysseus -- he's going by the island with all the sirens on it, and they're all singing and luring men to their death on the rocks. They had a lot of sexual hangups in those days. But, anyway, we'll let that go by. But what Odysseus did was he sealed up his ears with wax and he didn't listen to what they had to say. No, that wasn't Odysseus, who was that? That was his friend. No, he was just tied to the mast and he listened. But all the guys on the ship didn't get to listen. They put the wax in their ears and they kept rowing. That's what we call class distinction. (audience laughs). Odysseus got to listen. But not his friends, no, because they were of lower births. You see, it's always that way, the upper class gets everything. What can you do?

They had a terrible class structure system in Tibet. Awful. mean, don't believe that Tibet is some wonderful paradise. It's cold! And a terrible, terrible, system there, particularly regarding women -- awful, suppression. That isn't necessarily how a few of the yogis felt, but by and large -- people in the West sometimes have these marvelous visions of India and Tibet and they just assume that there's all these saddhus walking around and everybody is breathing enlightenment. Forget it. Certainly not. There have been wondrous luminous beings who have lived there and in the Himalayas, of course, there are many non-physical beings that exist that are very advanced -- Babaji and others. But don't look at it through rosecolored glasses.

Anyway, when you get to the border of nirvana and you take out your little plastic card, hopefully it will be in the right languageDon't Listen, because that's not what it's like. In other words, when you're sitting there in meditation some day, and you're just on the edge of moving into samadhi, that's the difficult time. That's when most people lose it, if you get to that point to begin with. Because all of your attachments and aversions -- this is what The Tibetan Book of the Dead is for -- will present themselves to you. And in the Book of the Dead, it explains that when this happens, don't run away from anything you see, don't run towards it. Be neutral. Just observe. Be neither attracted nor repulsed. Because otherwise you'll get pulled into another plane of consciousness as opposed to passing beyond them all, or through them all.

Because in nirvana -- we speak of it as if it is a physical thing , of course it is and it isn't
-- it's not like that. It's not empty or cold or barren. You don't remember the ecstasy and the completion of absorption in God is so fantastic that you can't possibly have lost anything because all of the things that you've always loved and always experienced came forth from there and exist there and are always there.

In other words, they say that this world and all worlds, everything other than nirvana is the samsara, it's the illusory worlds, the shadow planes. And then there's nirvana. But that's not true. I mean, it is and it isn't, like all good things. Nirvana and samsara are one. This is nirvana. This is Eastern Nirvana. This is nirvana without realizing where you are. This is everyone sitting in the theater watching the movie, not realizing that there is more than the particular movie that they're watching -- there are endless movies. You can watch one after another. You can watch them all simultaneously., or you can just go walking in the streets for a while or in the fields. You can become nonexistence. You can become existence.

Existence is a playground when you're enlightened. You play with it. It's all yourself. You love everything. You have an amorous relationship with eternity. But to reach that point, to cross over the border is, of course, what the teachings are for. They aid you and guide you in preparing you as you have to let go of your idea of self, your frustrations, your fears, all the things that inhibit you. It's really just the socratic parable, you know, the platonic parable of the cave is the same thing. There's this cave and all humanity is in it and there's this terribly bright light at the other end, and everybody's afraid of it. But what you have to do is just walk into it, walk into the light, and then you find that it doesn't burn, and it's not particularly frightening -- it's yourself, it's your own body, it was just an idea that told you that there was anything else because that's all there ever was, was eternity, timeless, infinite eternity. And eternity manifests itself in endless ways on endless planes of existence that they call lokas, other dimensions, worlds within worlds.

Within an atom there can be a billion kingdoms, endless. But all of them are bound by the cycle of birth and death. They all come into being for a while and then vanish. That's mutability. And transmigration is the process of shifting awareness within all of that. But it is possible to go beyond that, which doesn't mean you won't be passing through it, but it will not affect you. That's the essence of the secret teachings. And to do that one follows whatever path you prefer. The short path, of course, is the path -- it's not actually shorter, it's just that you do it faster -- but since there's no time, there's no sense of fast or slow. It's rather what's correct for yourself. And that's passing through thousands of incarnations or lifetimes in one.

The essential principle, the guiding principle to remember in all of this is love. You see, a better name for nirvana might be endless love. Love not even in the sense that we see it if we're watching the romantic movie, but love in a sense of no absence. So if you want to, you can view what will eventually happen, I suppose, at enlightenment ,as a final completion. But that doesn't imply an end to existence, it just is a change in direction. After enlightenment, that doesn't mean you don't reincarnate.

There's a myth that many people feel that once they attain Enlightenment, "Well why should I do that? I won't live anymore." That's not true. You don't live now. There is no “after enlightenment.” There's only enlightenment. In the enlightened states of consciousness, when you've reached that point after much meditation and so on, then you're just at the beginning again but in a different way, I suppose Life streams through you constantly, every aspect of it. You can't die at that point. Oh, the body comes and goes.

I received a letter the other day, it was kind of funny. I get mail from people who have come to meditations or they just see the ads sometimes, and I get interesting things, letters from people asking -- they want to be helped so they can sleep at night. I got one of those today, and I don't quite know what I'm supposed to do. I'll think of something. And, you know, I take all my mail very seriously. But I receive -- sometimes of course you receive nasty mail from people who amazingly have never met you, but they have decided they don't like you. And there's this one character who writes me occasionally and I love his audacity. He wrote me a letter informing me that truly enlightened people never die, their bodies, see? And he was writing me and every other spiritual teacher he could think of -- it's one of these things where they tell you who the other letters are going to, informing us that unless we were at the point of physical immortality, that it was impossible to be enlightened. Of course I read it, took it in. It's always good to consider anything anybody says because it might be true. You never know. I mean, one should never assume anything. I think it's worth listening to what anyone says. Even if it seems ridiculous on the surface, there may be some truth in there to learn from. And the truth was that he didn't know what he was talking about

Now he does have a point in that it is possible, there is a siddha by which you can preserve the body. But that has nothing to do with enlightenment. Enlightenment has nothing to do with the physical body particularly. But you can do that -- there is a power whereby you can preserve the body. There are people in the Himalayas who are thousands of years old. But that's just a power, you see. It would seem to me that would suggest a tremendous aversion to the experience of death. Someone who wants to keep the body going, in other words, sort of - why? I mean it's not that great here!

You see, enlightenment doesn't have anything to do with the body particularly. Naturally, after enlightenment your body changes tremendously, it's very molecular structure changes just ‘cause the kundalini is always streaming through you. Enlightenment is nothing. Enlightenment means exactly what it says, it means that you are always in light. It doesn't mean that you are affixed to any particular level of consciousness. In other words, there are very high states of awareness, like the turief[?] consciousness, which is a superconscious state of samadhi, that, if you're a very powerful meditator, you've meditated for a long time, and eaten the right foods and stuff like that you can go into this consciousness, if you've let go of all your attachments and things like that. Let go of your pet poodle Sam who you had a multi-incarnation relationship with. And you can go into this wonderful sahaja samadhi. But to be fixated on sahaja samadhi is to be fixated. To be fixated on the idea of being not fixated is fixation too. That's why all these ideas and definitions about enlightenment become silly. Because that's all they are.

Enlightenment is absorption. not only in some nebulous state of awareness but in everything. It's the ability to talk to a four-year-old and have a comprehensive conversation about whatever. It's the ability to meditate and dissolve in light and be absorbed in nirvana. And the self dissolves, life dissolves, time goes away, the world goes away and you become perpetual being without any sense of being perpetual being. And then a few minutes later to be picking up a phone and talking with someone. In other words, you're not fixated in any state of consciousness. You've become consciousness itself. All of its aspects manifest through you. There's no sense of self, unless there's a sense of self, sometimes, which does not preclude enlightenment. That's just another passing mirage. The difference is you're neither attracted nor repulsed.

True, the being has become completely refined. There's no longer hatred or fear or any of those things. Those things went away long, long, before. You went through the shifting of thousands of selves, countless lifetimes and within lifetimes. But finally it simply means you can be funny because there's nothing to be afraid of anymore. The only people who aren't funny are people who are afraid. They're afraid of what others think of them, what others will write about them, what others will read about them. What they themselves will think of themselves. And you can't really be funny if you think about those things. You only become funny when you have a complete reverence for life and you realize that life is ecstasy, limitless ecstasy. And then, since there's no attraction or aversion, you can open yourself up to everything.

In other words, I don't think it's possible to be funny if there's anything you still want or anything that you're afraid of. Your humor will be incomplete. I'm using humor in a slightly different sense than it's usually used. Humor very often is derived at the painful expense of another, we laugh at someone's misfortune. That's not what I mean. But as long as there's still attraction or aversion, you can't be funny.

In other words, it's only when you realize that you are mortal and yet immortal simultaneously, that you begin to realize the beautiful incongruities of existence aren't incongruous at all but rather perfect. Now I realize that this is a very refined discussion on matters that probably are of no interest to anyone. But it's nice to be funny. Particularly not in the sense of making people laugh, but as you pass through your journey to or from enlightenment or wherever you happen to be in between, there's a sense of the joyous humorousness of existence.

Self-discovery is not as some would have us think -- this heavy, awesome, moral process where everyone sits around and frowns. As you progress towards enlightenment, after enlightenment, you become funny. Serious of course, but being serious, one can still be humorous and light because you're living in a state of infinite awareness with infinite possibilities all the time.

Nirvana, in other words, I'm suggesting, is very funny. It's not sincere particularly. It's rather frivolous, actually. Well, why not? Why should it be the way you want it to be -- unhappy, miserable and cold or trapped in etheric colors and robes. Why? It's beyond anything. But the realization, what I'm suggesting about humor here, is that if you were to sit down and be absorbed in nirvana, poof, gone, and experience the limitless ecstasy of existence -- this is just a silly way of talking because there's no way to describe it -- as soon as you get into this you get into persona, and duality and all this nonsense and then find yourself back here again, that's pretty funny!
And having to worry about the heat guy coming out or the electricity goes out, after you've just been infinite, endless reality and you find yourself here and true, I mean it's not exactly the same, everything moves and changes and there's nothing stable, particularly yourself, but there is some sense of duality since that's not contrary to nirvana, that's just another idea. These are the secret teachings. Now you understand why I kept them secret, no one would take them seriously.

In other words, the secret teachings suggest that everything they tell you on the way up is not untrue, but it's not necessarily so. All the things that the spiritual teachers taught you to get to the top were good for you to hear at the time, but once you get up a ways it all changes. The rules -- there are no rules anymore. Anything is possible and usually occurs because you go beyond mind and form, and mind and form dictate rules and regulations and commandments and do's and don'ts. But it just doesn't matter, that has nothing to do with God-realization. But yet it's very necessary to tell that to beginners because they have to progress, and it does help. Because without that they won't get to the point where they can forget it. It seems silly, I know. It is, but that's how it works. It's not logical, self-realization. If it was, everybody would be self-realized because everybody is logical. It defies everything that you can imagine and yet incorporates it. In other words, there are no opposites. That's just what your mind says. There are no complements, that's what you mind says. Nothing is or is not unless you happen to think it so. That's what Shakespeare said, and he knew.

So you go beyond all that. Once you're beyond all that, you aren't beyond it. You can still be in it, since beyond was just another idea. That's why you have to meditate because otherwise you'd drive yourself crazy thinking like this. I think that's part of it. What they do is they teach you on the way up all these convoluted ways of thinking about reality and immortality, and it finally gets to you and you can't stand it, and you have to stop your thoughts just to get away from it. And that, of course, causes enlightenment.

Now, if you're trying to aid people in the process of self-discovery, what you have to do is confound them with so many concepts that are contradictory, yet each makes complete sense in its own right, that it begins to drive them absolutely nuts, and the only way they'll find any peace of mind is if they meditate deeply. That's the job of the spiritual teacher, to show you there's absolutely no way out, except the way in, you see. That's the essence of the secret teachings. That there is no essence, and there are no teachings. (It's not such a bad job. It has its moments.

So many Tibetan masters were, then, I suppose what we would call nontraditional. Of course from their point of view they weren't nontraditional since they didn't realize there was a tradition because they didn't believe in tradition. Now, of course there are those who are extremely traditional, who propound tradition, which is not antithetical to dharma, since that's dharma in another form. But the nontraditional teachers -- in other words there are Tibetan teachers who smoked a cigar. You know, that sort of thing. You go see the enlightened teacher and he's (Rama sounds as if he is blowing a puff of imaginary smoke) -- Havana's finest, that sort of thing. And Havana hadn't even been discovered yet. That's when you knew you had a powerful teacher.

And then of course, there were some Tibetan teachers who were quite famous for their
-- they got around. Which caused great consternation to some. Because according, of coursem to traditional theory, that's not the sort of thing that spiritually minded people do. But since no one ever told them that, after they attained enlightenment, what was the difference?

In other words, there's no prescribed way to attain enlightenment, except the ways they've prescribed. And if you follow them, they work. To a point. But then you'll reach the point where they won't work anymore because they'll take you to a certain point, but then you can't go beyond the point. Or even if you get to the point it's still a point, and if it's a point it's in the samsara, because it's in the relative world and planes of opposites. And there's no point to that at all. Because that's not liberation, it's a point. So how do you get beyond the point, since that's another point? And if you just go towards no point, then that's the point of no point. You see? It's discouraging! Enough to make you want to cry!

Well, that's the secret teachings. It's not what you know, it's who. It's true, you don't think so? That's the truth. That's why there arespiritual teachers -- to confuse you with the facts. Because the way you bring a person to those higher levels of attention is a very refined art, is what I'm suggesting, in that it involves so many things, most of which are nonphysical. In other words, when you work with a student, when I work with a student, we may be having a conversation, we may be in a lecture situation, off in the desert -- but almost all of what you're doing as a teacher is nothing that you say It's all done with fields of energy that you project at specific times, through other levels of attention. That causes that person to spin, to change, to go through an inner revolution.

The secret teachings, in other words, are that enlightenment is -- I wouldn't say transmitted because that implies that there's a giver, but let us say that it's transmitted. Only because there's no other way to say it. But if we realize that we can say it, but not mean it, it's OK to say it. See, that's how you get out, you see, that's the secret. You live without living, you die without dying, you breathe without breathing. That's the idea. That in the physical level of attention, there's only that.

The physical is no longer physical when you go beyond it. It still is extant, but it changes because your understanding changes. Because after merging with the transcendental light or returning to the source or whatever you'd like to call it, nothing is as it appears to be. The movie theaters are empty and the streets are full. And the bridge is flowing but the river is not.

In other words, there's no way to describe it. Which does not prohibit description. Yet there are defined ways to approach that realization. What I'm suggesting is that there are very traditional methods to attain liberation. There's Zen, Tibetan forms, yogic forms, many. And you follow those ways to a certain point. You have to go through purification and basically become a saint. But saints aren't enlightened. They're on the verge. But then the next stage in spiritual evolution, which is sort of graduate school in self-discovery, has nothing to do with that. You have to do that to get to that point. You have to practice and play the piano and learn the scales and read music and become very good. But then you have to get to a point where you improvise. But you wouldn't get to that point without the discipline, which was half the fun, and all those transmutations of the self and the non-self and so on. Once you go through all those traditional forms you reach a point where you have to then get creative with God-realization, and that's the essence of the secret teachings. And that there are certain things that can be said -- very few -- but even they will only be understood when you've reached that level of attention. And they won't even necessarily be said verbally, although they can be echoed that way. They'll be said through psychic communication.

In other words, as a teacher you just look at someone and you transmit to them what they need to know. Not simply a thought form, but you transmit an awareness level.You take them from 100 fathoms up to 25 (Rama snaps his fingers) like that. But you can only do that of, course, if it's their dharma, and if they're prepared. You see, otherwise if you take them up they'll become fearful, they'll see so much light they'll get scared and go back down. They'll be attracted back to the murky levels So you have to prepare them, gradually. It's like training an athlete for those higher dissolutions which happen faster and faster, as you go further, since there's not as much time, since time goes away. But even still, you cannot take them over the border into nirvana. Oh you can bring someone into samadhi with a touch if they're prepared, as Ramakrishna did with Vivekananda. But even so, for that person to retain that endless luminosity, to go beyond the grade B movie of existence, it's necessary to be able to deal with the guy you meet when you get to the border of nirvana. Which is why you have the plastic card.

What a spiritual teacher does is they teach you things you don't need to know now. That's what the Tibetan secret teachings are -- the things you don't need to know but might prove useful at some point. So you learn them anyway without realizing it, and those are the things that are transmitted from teacher to student. The teacher will teach you things that you won't even realize you're learning until some day you find when you get there -- you didn't even know that you had the plastic card and you'll find yourself pulling it out of your wallet, and it's in your hand. You have no idea -- well, he put it there! You think he was going to wait for you to do it? You didn't even know that you needed it, you see? And it'll come up.

But then again, what's a teacher, anyway? Nothing. So nothing helps nothing into nothing. Which is really something. Well, I didn't think it was such a bad line myself. Anyway, what do you want for five bucks, huh? (Loud laughter)

In other words, my essential feeling as I meditate with you tonight and have this wonderful opportunity to waste time with you, since that's all we're doing together, which is very constructive, from my point of view anyway, there's no better way to spend your time, since there is no time -- is the realization that you're all very straight in your approach to selfdiscovery, which is admirable. I respect your sincerity and intensity and your intensive religious belief systems that one should be very serious in approaching self-discovery. And I agree in the sense that it's necessary to have total commitment or as much as you can muster to pass through the bardo. That's true. And a reverence for life. But I disagree with your moralistic interpretations of life.

You know, I'll be the first to pat you on the back and congratulate you, but that doesn't mean that I agree. I agree in the sense that maybe it's right for you at the moment. But for you to believe for a second that it's universal is ridiculous. In other words, you're not funny enough to get by the guy because you've got to make him laugh. Because he's just gonna look and say, "Look, there's no way I'm lettin' you in there." And then you say, "Well, did you hear the one about --." If you get him laughing enough, you can just fshweeet right by him, into nirvana.

So you have to begin to develop a repertory of jokes. But they can't be the usual ones because they know all of those. They have to be these subtle, multiple plane spiritual jokes, the sort of things the Zen masters tell each other when they're asleep. Those are the secret teachings. They're a lot of jokes. "Life has no meaning," you know, stuff like that -- "ha, ha, ha."

The guy climbs the mountain and the guru's up on top, and he finally get there after searching -- you know, one of those endless shaggy dog jokes -- he finally gets there after all these experiences and hundreds of lifetimes and he gets to the illumined one and he says, "Oh guru, what is the truth?"

And the guru says, "I forget. I had it, I know it will come back." Well, what would you do if you were enlightened? I mean, if you're not already. Well, what would you do? I mean, what's left but fast cars and films, I mean, all that's left is life. I mean now that you've done it and it's done and not done and it changes all the time and yet it's always the same, you've got to fill up your time with something. Those are the secret teachings. They saw that there would be fast cars someday. I'm pushing my luck, I can tell.
Try it again. Enlightenment. Take three. Roll 'em!
What I'm suggesting is that if you really think this whole process out too much, you will get stuck in it. And that you need to stretch your awareness and consider the limitless possibilities of existence in all things and not be quite so narrow-minded in your selfdiscovery. To assume that there is a way to do it and not to do it is narrow-minded, in my opinion. While there may be a way for you at this time, you will change. If you don't, it means you're not progressing. But for others there are many ways. So what one develops is compassion. And compassion allows us to accept everything.

That's why there's always a tear in the eye of the Buddha, you see, that no one sees, for the pain and suffering of others. Because without a requisite knowledge of that pain and suffering, you're mortal. You only become immortal when you feel the suffering of others and are one with it, as you feel the joy of others and are one with it, yet step beyond both into immortality itself and dissolve in eternity. And yet that tear remains, even after enlightenment, even though it's invisible. It's only visible to those who know. And there's no way to will that, it will come when it will, through the grace of God.

Therefore to be so absurd or knowledgeable or even, as a teacher, autocratic to assume anything at almost any time seems to me to forget that there's a tear in the eye of the Buddha, and we are all the Buddha and we all have that tear but we don't see it because we're so caught up in our illusions of self-realization that we forget that our self-realization and our enlightenment is of little importance. That what matters is the welfare of others. And that when you forget that, you forget what matters, and only when you remember that will enlightenment occur, when you become totally concerned with the welfare of others, without any sense of self-importance. It's only with that complete commitment and simplicity and humility and humor that is engendered by taking on the impossible task of selfless giving and doing it anyway, perfectly, without any sense of self, that real progress begins to occur. That's the preparation for the higher enlightenment. 'Tis a noble endeavor.

And all the rest is just the fun of the process. The craziness, the idiosyncrasies of the enlightenment process, the development of the relationship with the teacher, being in a spiritual community, going off on your own, mystical visions, developing powers -- all these things are irrelevant, don't you understand? Enlightenment, in other words, is not the point. That's only the point for those who don't understand yet. And for them it's a complete point, and we must identify with it and congratulate them and agree with them because they're right. But in the secret teachings, it has nothing to do with that. The secret teaching was the Boddhisattva ideal -- to live for others, for the welfare of all beings. That's enlightenment. Not some flashy state of luminosity. That's just another samsaric experience.

Samadhi is another samsaric experience. Samadhi is not enlightenment. It's a jump into a larger ocean. Enlightenment is commitment to life, in any form life chooses. It's complete surrender to eternity, without a sense of giving up since it would have taken someone to give up. And if that someone is there, there's an acceptance of that self.

It's accepting, embracing existence, and every manifold aspect. That's enlightenment. It's not a fixated state of awareness, a samadhi, an attainment. There's nothing to attain. Oh sure, there are things to attain if that's what still interests you. But those are sort of adolescent notions in self-discovery. Eventually you get down to the point where you've got to wash the dishes, you know. That's the fun in life, is being behind the scenes and doing things for others, for their welfare. Being an instrument of that cause, which you can do at any evolutionary level. That is the secret teaching. And such a person is fit for enlightenment because they've understood that the secret of life is humility.

In humility you disappear. You're absorbed in eternity. You can do lots of things for others and still be very egotistical. Better to be egotistical and do things for others than to do nothing at all, I suppose. But humility is folding in on yourself till you're gone. One can be humble and be active and in front of the world. It doesn't matter, it's the spirit, which no one has to know. You keep it tucked inside yourself since it doesn't need to shine. That's perpetual enlightenment, is perpetual humility. Living, of course, in the undifferentiated nirvana. No zip code.

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence Why Don't More Women Attain Enlightenment by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

The subject that I would like to discuss with you tonight is important. It's important because it reflects our world and the understanding that our world has. We live in a world that is very, very out of balance. I don't feel that any of us will necessarily correct that. I do believe, though, that if we sincerely want to, we can bring about a balance in our own lives. When we do that, we inspire others to do the same.

Integrity begins with oneself. To some this might seem a slow process. They feel that it is better to run off into the world and proclaim new ideas and philosophies to the multitudes. I would remind them of a Mister Ghandi, who managed to bring about sweeping changes in a nation and a world and still serves as an example of such, whose primary focus was himself, believing that integrity begins with oneself and that when your home is in order and your life is in balance, that balance will reflect and radiate to others. Whereas to attempt to put the world in balance while you yourself are in a state of imbalance will produce results that ultimately will not be lasting.

The imbalance I speak of in the world, which we see manifested in wars, violence, poverty and other depressed social conditions, stems from a lack of knowledge. We call this lack of knowledge “maya” or “illusion,” meaning that we don't see the truth as clearly as we should. We speak of enlightenment, meaning that we see the truth. We live it, breathe it and understand it. The process of moving from maya, a condition of partial knowledge, to illumination, enlightenment, a condition of endless knowledge, is the pathway to enlightenment that we call self-discovery.

In addressing this particular topic tonight, you might say I'm addressing all topics because I feel that all topics are found in any singular topic. Once you've learned the art of problem solving, for example, you can solve any problem. The method is transferable. So I feel if we can correctly understand this one subject, we will understand all subjects, whereas if we fail to understand this one subject, we will fail to understand any subject because I feel all subjects in our world are predicated upon this subject. I feel it is that important.

Why don't more women attain enlightenment? Why don't more men attain enlightenment? More men than women attain enlightenment. This suggests an imbalance. I would like to address the question—why don't more women attain enlightenment—this evening. But in addressing that question, I'm also addressing the question, why don't more men attain enlightenment? Why don't we live in an enlightened and happy world? Because I feel one is wrapped up in the other and one cannot be separated from the other, but there is a greater imbalance reflected on one side of the question than on the other. I'd like to look at that side. Why don't more women attain enlightenment?

There are many, many reasons why more women don't attain enlightenment. In presenting my theory to you, I would like to first look historically at a few important items or consolidated histories. because without an understanding of what has been, it will be very difficult to understand what is.

It is equally easy, initially, for either a man or woman to attain enlightenment, what we call liberation or self-realization. Ultimately there is no sex. The jiva or soul, the principle within us that is existence, is neither masculine nor feminine. It composes both. Structurally we know there are obvious differences between the male and the female body. There are also differences between the subtle physical body, the luminous body, of a man and woman. But beyond the physical and the subtle physical bodies, what we see is that all of us are androgynous. All of us really contain both sides, or it's even incorrect to say that there are two sides because that implies that there is a difference, and there is no difference. We are one integrated reality, but we live in a diurnal world, a world of duality where there's dark and light, good and bad, heat and cold, relative pairs of opposites. That's how a fragmented consciousness sees reality, in pairs.

Historically, men have suppressed women quite effectively. They have suppressed women since the beginning of our history. We must ask ourselves why this is so, and in doing so, not assign blame. We're looking at a historical principle. But there's no sense of judgment involved in our examination, only detached observation so we can understand cause and effect.

Women exemplify, from a spiritual point of view, power. The power of the kundalini energy, the energy of life, flows through them in a very different way than it does through a man, innately. In a fallen world, in a world of fear and darkness, men have reacted very negatively to the power that is inherent in women. Rather than realizing that that power is also indigenous to themselves, that they have the same power, only it manifests in other ways, they have rejected that power and sought to convince women of the exact opposite, that they are powerless. They have done this through sexual repression, economic repression, political repression, social repression, ideological repression and spiritual repression. Women have been given a description of the world that they are taught from childhood, which they believe is true, as are men. We are taught by our societies, by our parents, by the examples of those we see.

There is really no such thing as a woman or a man. There is a physical body, a subtle physical body, a soul. But there is no such thing as a woman or a man. What we consider to be a woman is an idea. This idea has been formed through history, culture, politics, art, religion—the same is true of a man. These ideas are out of balance. They are not true or accurate. Women have been taught that they are not powerful, as a matter of fact, they've been given an opposite description—that they are, in fact, weak. The word “effeminate” implies weakness, stemming from feminine. Women have been taught that they are not particularly sexual. Who has taught them this? Men.

Men have taught them so in a world of darkness because they were afraid, because the thing they wanted the most they feared the most—power. When you wish to subjugate a people, you have to convince them of their own inherent weakness. If they believe that they are weak, they will not rebel. If they believe that they are strong and intelligent, they will rebel. So the social repression and ideological repression of women began with depriving them of education, political decisiveness, mobility and essentially [creating] sexual slavery— in marriage, through childbirth and in many other ways.

In order to survive, women developed their second attention, which men have not evolved. They use that second attention, and have used it most effectively, to manipulate men. And while we can say that their manipulation is certainly justified—it's a justifiable reaction that has been necessary for survival—unfortunately, it has caused women to enter into a state of consciousness in which enlightenment is not possible. The only way women can hope to attain enlightenment is by rising beyond the consciousness of sexual manipulation.

Each one of us has a second attention. That is to say, there is another part of our being which is nonphysical, which is extremely powerful, which is capable of doing incredible things. This side of our being evolves through meditation, sometimes accidentally, through shock. There have been cases where a person has gone through a trauma of some type and it's caused them to develop extrasensory powers, occult powers, powers of prophesy. Some people have developed these powers, developed the second attention, through meditation, which is the safe way. Some have developed these powers, to an extent, through the use of drugs. Some have found these powers have developed innately, it seems. They developed them in prior lifetimes and prior incarnations, and they've resurfaced at a certain time in their life.

Most people do not develop the second attention unless they're forced to. The second attention is developed when we find ourselves in a situation for which we have no solution. So, for example, if we're confronted with the death of someone we love and we can't reconcile that loss, we reach to God. We reach to the spirit world, perhaps. We enter into it with our feelings, and we find consolation because we know that there is no death.

In the case of the brujos, the sorcerers in Mexico, the Spanish Conquest forced them to develop their second attention. They had developed it to an extent, but the conquest caused them to develop their second attention completely so they would not be destroyed. Many people develop the second attention when confronted with the pain of life, realizing that in the samsara, in the world existence, there is nothing but pain and pleasure. They grow tired of the limitations of the world and the physical body and the physical mind and seek peace through joy or happiness. They pursue the spirit, which is the endless world of light.

We stand on a plateau that is endless. Above us is the sky, and it stretches on forever. But few people become aware of that sky, of what lies beyond death, or even what exists in life. Women have developed the second attention because they were repressed, because they were manipulated, because they were used as property, as chattel, historically, for thousands of years and still today, in many countries and even in our own society. They were forced to develop their second attention to survive. The second attention is the occult side of the being. It is the ability to manipulate others, be it for good or ill intent.

What women have done is developed a survival mechanism, and it's a fascinating one and it's been effective and justified, in my opinion. And that is the ability to manipulate men sexually. Men are really not all that interested in sex. For most men, sex is a very simple experience; their sexual capacity isn't that great. They don't like to hear it, but it's true. Women, on the other hand, have a much greater sexual capacity, and are much more interested in sex. Masters and Johnson, in the laboratory, have asserted this truth. It's a scientific fact. Yet, it's a curious thing that men feel that they're much more sexual than women. They're not.

Women have used sexuality as a method of survival. Now, we live in the liberated, modern twentieth century, and still it's a man's world. No matter what the law says—the law may say one thing, society says another. And while we've seen wonderful progress in the last 50 or 100 years in one or two countries, or three or four countries, still, throughout the world, sexual repression is the way. There's no thought even that it's repression, it's so accepted.

Women have been dependent upon men for their survival, for the survival of their children. So what they have done over the centuries is evolve the fine use of sexual power. By that I mean that a woman's place, her entire experience in life, has been and in many places still is dependent upon the man she marries. If the man she marries is wealthy, she'll have money; if he's poor, she won't. What will determine whom she ends up with or has ended up with is her sexual attractiveness, in most cases. So women have developed their second attention to manipulate men. And part of that manipulation has been to convince men that they're much more interested in sex than they really are.

A young girl is taught through the example of other women how to manipulate a man. If she looks at her mother, her older sisters and the women of the world, she will observe and learn, not necessarily through explanation, but just through observation—her body reads it, how to do this. She may have developed this attention in other lifetimes.

What she can do, or what she discovers, is that there's a tremendous difference in her effect upon men according to how she dresses, how she walks, how she speaks, how she wears her hair, how she moves her eyes, and as she grows up, she strives to perfect her ability to control. She practices, even unconsciously. She's not thinking, "Oh, I'm practicing," but she is. And she's absolutely correct in doing so because the job she will get, the man she will marry, the experiences she will have, are very much dictated by her ability to do so. But this is not simply a physical attention.

Let us say that it is possible, it's everyday, for a woman to project a very strong wave of sexual energy through her second attention into a man, for him to assume that that energy he feels is his own. And he will feel that he is independently attracted to her, never realizing that she's using him. Or let us say she's trying to compensate for the political freedom, religious freedom, economic freedom, cultural and social freedom that she's been denied. She's using the only method available to her when all others have been denied. She's been forced into developing her second attention and using it. And while certainly women are historically justified in doing so, there's a problem.

The problem is for the woman who seeks enlightenment. Because whenever you are involved in the consciousness of manipulation—you're involved in the consciousness of manipulation. When you seek to manipulate and control someone, you cannot be absorbed in the superconscious, even if it's an unconscious action. And if 99 percent of your attention is directed to dressing, walking, talking, speaking and acting in a million ways, which are more than socially acceptable, then your attention isn't on enlightenment.

In other words, we had a bad situation for women, and it still is very bad. Men, fearing their innate power, pushed them back into slavery. Women, knowing this was not right but not knowing what else to do, developed the only means to fight for their survival that they had, since their survival was dependent upon men, and that was to use sexuality to survive. However, in doing so, they locked themselves into the plane of sexual manipulation, which precludes enlightenment. That's why more women don't attain enlightenment.

In order for a woman to attain enlightenment, she has to undo and dispose of the very things that have helped her to survive. But we live in a society today where for the first time, historically, this is possible—where it is possible for a woman now to put aside these devices and to use her second attention, which she has developed to project these energies and feelings and thoughts, for enlightenment.

It is my belief that it is easier now for most women to attain enlightenment than it is for men. The reason that it's easier is because women have already developed the second attention for sexuality. If they transfer that second attention to the process of enlightenment, enlightenment will become very easy. Whereas men have not had to develop their second attention. They've developed instead the physical mind and the physical body.

The subtle physical body of a man and woman is different. The subtle physical body is a body of light, and like the physical body it's composed of parts. Just as we have veins, arteries and organs in the physical body, so the subtle physical body is composed of luminous fibers, of chakras, energy centers. The subtle physical body of a man is not stronger than that of a woman, but it reacts to different factors very differently than the subtle physical body of a woman. The subtle physical body of a woman is easily damaged by exposure to certain types of energy. This energy is primarily a violent energy that is often linked with sex.

When a woman uses her second attention to receive attention—not simply through her physical actions but also through her innate ability to be sexy, which is actually operating in another plane of consciousness—and stimulate a man, she is bringing success to herself on one level but damage to herself on another. Because the sexual energies that are returned to her, when they're not evolved—meaning that they're still linked with violence and the fear of power, the fear of woman, the hatred that exists in so many men, the need to rape and to subjugate and to control—these energies when directed towards her subtle physical body cause the subtle physical body to break down, to lose its luminosity. It makes it very difficult for her to meditate well, even to be healthy.

The subtle physical body of a woman is quite strong, and for most women there will be very little deterioration for many years—dependent, of course, upon how much of this energy she's been subjected to. A woman will not necessarily notice the deterioration of her subtle physical body, but this deterioration is taking place. You may have a disease, you may have cancer, and you show no signs of the disease until one day it becomes manifest. When it becomes manifest, it happens all at once, but the disease may have existed and have been getting stronger and growing for a long, long time. Early detection, we know, with cancer, saves lives. The same is true of the subtle physical body. All disease and aging occurs as the subtle physical body breaks down.

There are certain energies that exist in this world that wear the subtle physical body, which is why physical death occurs. Physical death occurs because of the breakdown of the subtle physical body. But the subtle physical will not necessarily show this wear right away. Many women will develop the second attention, attract a great deal of sexual attention in order to help them survive in a man's world, and for many, many years will appear to be very vibrant and strong. Then there will come a period of time where very quickly a woman will lose what some call her beauty. She'll find a rapid deterioration, which is particularly noticeable in the skin, and this is the sign that the subtle physical is weakening.

The subtle physical is made strong by meditation, by a balanced lifestyle, by love and selfless giving. Damage that is done to the subtle physical can, to a certain extent, dependent upon the amount of the damage, be repaired through these things. In order to attain enlightenment, one must have a perfect subtle physical body.

Sexual energy itself does not necessarily hurt the subtle physical body. So the fact that a woman has sexual intercourse does not preclude her ability to attain enlightenment. The problem is in the type of energy that is directed towards her, either in the act of sexual intercourse or simply as she's walking down the street, sitting in an office or talking to someone. If the attention and energy that is directed to her is mixed with violence and hatred and fear, if it's not true love, then that energy will gradually wear the subtle physical down.

Now this information is not necessarily of interest to a woman who's not interested in attaining enlightenment. She's going about her life and she's using her second attention very effectively, just to survive. Because of the opportunities that have been denied to her, because of the cultural indoctrination that has convinced her that she's inferior, weak, limited, and not simply as good as a man, she uses her second attention to survive. But a woman who seeks enlightenment must become conscious. To be conscious is to be aware. And this awareness engenders change and a solution.

The subtle physical body of a man endures in this world in a different way than that of a woman. The energy that we associate with violence doesn't hurt it as much. However, the subtle physical body of a woman is a better conductor of light. It seems strange, in other words, that since the aspect of a woman is power and that her subtle physical body conducts light very, very well, that more women don't attain enlightenment than men, and I would suggest that the reason this is so, is cultural.

As a woman, you should consider and reflect upon your childhood, adolescence and adult life and consider the millions of ways you've been taught manipulation, and how it's probably become an unconscious process for you. You're not even aware of it. Because in your description of the world, you see that a woman is someone who uses energy, power, beauty, and other qualities to become desirable. And if you review very carefully, you will find that you have developed your second attention; that you know, without knowing consciously, how to use your second attention to bring about results in a sexual plane. The more powerful the woman is, the greater these results are. So I would suggest that if you're a woman who's interested in enlightenment to begin with, this indicates that you have a great deal of spiritual evolution. Therefore, you are more powerful than you realize. But to use your power to enslave or entrap others, even when you are socially and historically justified in doing so, will prevent you from attaining liberation. Yours is the situation of a prisoner who has found a means of escape, but that very means of escape will set you into another prison.

Men must also consider the karmic effect that they're reaping. Because they have and continue to uphold the repression, women have used the only means that they have, or one of them certainly, to defend themselves. I would suggest that the majority of times when a man thinks he has been the instigator, which men like to think, in sexual and romantic experiences, that has not been the case. Women have allowed you to think that, which is part of their inaccessibility in using their second attention. In other words, what I'm suggesting is that men are dominated by women in a way that most men could never conceive of, or because of the size of their egos, possibly accept.

There's this absurd, innate need in most men to feel that they're more powerful than women are, which is ridiculous. One is not more powerful than the other, although power and other qualities manifest differently through them. But again, this is part of the description of the world that a man has received. He's been taught the need to feel superior, which is very far from the truth. There's no need to feel superior or inferior. All there is is the need to be.

As a man, if you allow yourself to fall into that description of the world, that is, to be a man as the world has defined man, then you open yourself up to a type of manipulation that will prevent you from attaining enlightenment. In other words, you won't be able to determine whether your interest in a woman is actually your interest or whether that's been implanted through the skillful use of the second attention. I would ask you to review in your mind the relationships you've had throughout your life, or the interests you have felt, and to honestly evaluate with some humility whether that was actually your interest or whether that interest was generated through the skillful use of the second attention. I think you'll be rather surprised, if you're at all honest, by what you discover.

The situation, then, is bad. It's bad for men and it's bad for women. What we find is, men are suppressing women and women are suppressing men. Men are suppressing women politically, philosophically, socially, through denying them education, equal rights, equal employment, and just by setting up a description of the world in which a woman views herself as a vessel, as someone who's only there to have children, as someone who can't succeed, even spiritually—and that deprives them of liberation. That consciousness engenders weakness and responding with the second attention as the only way to at least ensure survival.

Men have fallen into a description of the world where they consider themselves to be something that they're not. The karmic retribution for this oppression of women is to find themselves enwrapped in emotions and feelings that are not indigenous to them. So instead of directing their attention towards enlightenment, they direct their attention towards sexuality, feeling that they're extremely sexual when in fact they're not. Consequently, no enlightenment. But the pain has been greater for women because some men are able to draw back when they recognize that level of manipulation. Even though they may not know what to call it, you might say it registers on their second attention and they resist it. Thus many spiritual teachers, who have mostly taught men, have said, "Stay away from women." The reason they say, "Stay away from women," is because they see the ability of women to use the second attention and realize that if a man becomes overly involved in relationships, enlightenment is not possible because he's directing too much of his attention to duality and not to unity.

Women have also been systematically pushed out of spirituality by men. This must also be considered in our view of why don't more women attain enlightenment. Even in the Bhagavad-Gita, a book that I revere and respect, it's indicated that even women, along with animals, are capable of attaining enlightenment. The idea is that to be a woman is a lower birth, but still, all can attain enlightenment if they truly aspire. Even in a very high spiritual and philosophical book we see the concept, which is quite ridiculous, that a woman is in a lower birth, that to be a woman is innately wrong, in other words. You made a mistake somewhere and that's why you were born in the body of a woman. Traditionally, in most spiritual organizations, women are not allowed to become priests, in many cases ministers, monks. Or if they are, they have special sets of rules and are denied power in the spiritual organization. So women, again, are cast into an image. And that image is inferiority.

What is the solution? The solution is not easy, either for men or for women. We have two people, a man and a woman, who are fighting each other. They are so busy fighting each other that they don't realize that they could be inspiring each other or giving each other strength or learning from each other. Or if they can't do that, at least leaving each other alone, and each growing without interference from the other.

What is necessary for a woman to attain enlightenment is for her to undo everything that's been done. She will have to completely reexamine her life, her priorities and specifically her use of the second attention, along with the physical attention, for sexual manipulation. She will have to realize that while everyone else in the world may do this, and it may have even brought her to the point at which she is now, it will bring her no further. That she has to take that second attention, which she's already developed, and use it for spiritual pursuits.

What a man must do is realize that his continued belief in the inferiority of women is going to produce a type of karma that is going to hold him back, and already has. And he must be honest enough, and have enough integrity, to change his description of the world, even though everyone else in the world may not feel that way. By doing this, a man or woman will not necessarily change the world, but they will change themselves. They will enter into a state of balance. It's not an easy task, but it's a necessary task if one seeks enlightenment.

You have to become both a man and a woman to be enlightened. Simply meditating is not enough. If you meditate and go into a high state of consciousness but then return after that meditation to your old description of the world that has been engendered by society, you'll still be stuck. Selfless giving is not enough. If you give to others but still hold those ideas, even in your subconscious, about the inferiority or superiority of women or men, you will still be stuck. You must accept what is real and what is true. To do that you must examine yourself, your history and simply start to observe.

I don't ask that you believe what I say. I don't think most people will, even if they're interested in the subject to begin with, which is very questionable in this world. But if you are interested in enlightenment, all I ask is that you observe—just become an observer, do a scientific experiment. Observe people, and observe yourself. Observe how they interact. If you can see and feel at all, if you've developed the ability to see on other levels of attention through your meditation, observe what happens when you watch a couple or you watch people of the opposite sex engaging. Watch or feel how women use their second attention to control men. And watch how men, through the ideas they have, project a field of attention that limits women. Because they dream so strongly in themselves, their superiority and women's inferiority, they project an image that a woman finds very, very difficult to fight against.

Observe how women defeat each other. When a woman is using her second attention to sexually manipulate because she seeks control for her survival, which is justifiable, still that puts her at odds with every other woman. The product that is necessary for survival, the commodity, has become man. Whether it's simply for a promotion, for a husband, for survival, so she won't be beaten up in a relationship, whatever it may be—because of that physical strength of man and his lack of humanity, she must sometimes for her very life use that attention. But she has to now fear every other woman because every woman represents a threat to her. If her security rests upon her alliance with a man, another woman may take that man away, therefore threatening her security; therefore women have no unity between themselves.

Men have learned the secret of unity. While very often one band or tribe of men may fight another tribe, or one nation another, within that tribe the men have communion, they have a community. Consequently they have a group strength. Therefore they help each other attain enlightenment. Women do not help each other attain enlightenment because in the description of the world they've been given, unlike that of men, it's every woman for herself in order to survive. Because your very own sister may take your husband away. And if your husband is the ticket for economic survival, if your boss may give the raise or the step up the corporate ladder to the woman next to you because she used her second attention to make him interested in her, or in what she has to offer, you see, you have to respond in kind.

So what we have is a world in which men can come together and be friends and make each other stronger, because they're not concerned. They feel that it's not worthwhile to compete for women, particularly. They're not worth it, in men's description of the world. And there's always someone else—because they have social mobility, economic mobility and confidence. A woman, on the other hand, feels that she always needs a man, but I assure you a man doesn't feel that way about a woman. That's not an innate need. That's something that's been culturally presented to us, which we've accepted.

When a woman reaches the point where she no longer feels the necessity to use her second attention to sexually manipulate men for survival, she therefore has reached the point where she can now accept the friendship of other women without fear. Consequently, sisterhood is powerful. Women can support each other as women, in their pursuit for enlightenment or anything else, without fear. But as long as she's still in the commodities exchange market, buying and selling, she must fear the competition.

Now, of course, for the first time, we live in a society that shows any sign of the possibility of women changing this condition. Up until now, although we may forget in our current enlightened age, women have depended completely upon men for their survival. We get very used to living in America, in the modern age, where now a woman can own a car, a house and even sue in court because she was denied a job. This has all happened in the last 50 years. Let's go back simply a hundred years ago. Let's look at the history of the human race or what still goes on in many countries today or even within our own “enlightened” country, and you'll discover that while in our generation some of us may have been brought up with these changes and accept them, they're all new. You're dealing with thousands of years of history, where sexual slavery was the condition. While suddenly the laws may change, to some extent, the conditioning doesn't go away that fast.

In meditation you can erase the conditioning. Meditation is a powerful ally. But still, you have to fight the description of the world that everyone else is carrying around. And even though you may be able to procure certain advantages by using your second attention as a woman, you must be willing to forsake these advantages and take another route and perhaps even gain a lesser success in the material world but a complete success in the spiritual world. However, since certain changes have occurred in our society, it is encouraging to believe that a woman can now, without using sexual manipulation, succeed and choose a lifestyle that suits her. While again she may see others rising more rapidly who use their second attention, if her interest is enlightenment, the enlightenment will more than compensate.

For men, its absolutely essential to stop believing that they're superior to women because that very belief engenders ego, which sets them off balance. Therefore, they don't realize that they're being manipulated by the second attention of a woman because their ego won't permit them. It's a perfect setup for women to manipulate. It's sort of like the emperor's new clothes. No one's going to say what's true because they're all afraid to lose face. Men can't possibly accept the idea that most of their sexuality is not their own. No one wants to say what they see, that the emperor isn't wearing clothes, until the little child—the voice of the enlightened person—comes up and says, "Look, mom, the emperor is naked!" Suddenly everybody sees what's apparent.

So as a woman, experiment and observe. Observe yourself as you go through a day. Consider the creature that you are. What have you made yourself into? How do you walk, how do you speak, how do you dress? You will be amazed to discover the number and variety of things you do just on the physical level to control, or at least to pass without being hassled.

On the other hand, consider your second attention as a spiritual perceiver—you have a very developed second attention. Women, in other words, have developed the occult side of their being to survive. Consider how you use it. You may plead innocence. You may say, "Well gosh, I don't know what I'm doing." But a part of you does, I assure you. You're not doing anything wrong. Don't feel that you've sinned. You haven't. You've done what you had to do to survive, as did your mother, as did your grandmother. You learned from them without realizing it. They were your examples, growing up. The eyes of that little child took in everything, and you modeled your responses after your example.

But you won't attain enlightenment. You'll only attain enlightenment when you examine yourself and what you do and examine what other women do. Examine the dreams that men hold of you and how they force you into a corner, literally and figuratively. You have to understand the needs of your physical body and the needs of your subtle physical body.

In my estimation, sexuality is not precluded. You will reach a stage in your enlightenment process where you'll probably pass beyond it for a while, simply so you don't identify with yourself as a sexual being and you can see yourself as an androgynous whole. But you must understand that the attention that you gain when it's not a pure attention, in terms of sexual energy, that's being projected by men who simply watch you walking down the street, in the office, or in bed, in most cases, unless they're extremely evolved and somewhat balanced, in other words, is going to be very destructive to your subtle physical body. Fact. And that your very success is what's going to destroy you. The survival mechanism that you've developed is the very thing which will cause the downfall of your subtle physical body. While it does allow you at least to survive, it doesn't allow you to attain enlightenment.

It's necessary to accept the conditions of the world. We can't wish the world away; it is the way it is. It does evolve and change, but in this lifetime, it's unlikely that the views of the world are going to radically alter—the dreams that men have of themselves and the dreams that women have of themselves are likely to stay in place. But what you can do is see what's what yourself. Through a process of examination, meditation, a little creative thought—you need not accept what I say, but you can simply look around.

Consider what you've done and how you've achieved it in terms of relationships, or what you've avoided and how you've achieved it. Realize that you're much more powerful than you know, but it is only until you rise above the use of the second attention for manipulation that you can enter into a consciousness in which there is enlightenment. One precludes the other.

You can't be in a consciousness of manipulation and attain enlightenment because you're still in a self-oriented consciousness where there's “I” and “you,” where there's something to fear and something to gain. And if it means that you have to change the way you are, then that's what you'll have to do. But you'll find that every step you take in bringing about a real synergistic balance within yourself towards androgyny will free you. You'll be happier, complete. Don't expect to be understood by the world. It's not necessary. You're understood by eternity, by God.

For men, it's necessary to push aside that marvelous ego that tells you that you are all knowing and all capable, and see that you are not. It's only when you accept that, that you will be able to see that much of the time when your attention is directed towards the world of sexuality as you've been brought up with it, it's done so through the second attention of a woman, who can be manipulating your attention, by the way, not simply in your physical presence but from thousands of miles away. You will be unable to do anything about it as long as you don't see that it's there. As in the story of the emperor's new clothes, the two fellows who claimed to weave his clothes out of jewels were able to leave town with all the jewels because no one would say what they saw [that the emperor was naked], because they were too caught up in saving face.

At the same time you have to accept, as a man, your feminine side. Some men go to the opposite extreme in an attempt to be liberal. They decide to throw away their description of the world and they accept some kind of nouveau-liberal-feminism whereby they become the exact opposite of what they've been, which they find they're not very happy with either. In other words, they think they've become what we'll call a “sensitive” man, which in many cases smacks of ego of a more subtle kind, but even if it doesn't, even if it's genuine, usually they discover they're not particularly happy.

What I'm suggesting is, don't go to one extreme or another—follow the middle path. The middle path is not to try and make yourself into anything as a man or woman but to actually, simply go back to the very beginning—past cultural conditioning, years of history, incarnations of experience, and to look at the truth and to model yourself after the truth, not after human beings who are not satisfied and who are unhappy.

You'll find this truth in your meditation. You'll find this truth through your continued observation and experimentation, and you'll find this truth in enlightened people. If one has attained enlightenment, obviously they've had to deal with this problem and have succeeded in doing it, so this indicates that you can do the same thing.

A little bit of affirmative action is necessary for both men and women. And as a woman, the need is even greater. You must unite with other women for a while and perhaps even reject the world of men, just to balance yourself. Sometimes when we've been on one extreme, we have to go to the opposite extreme before we can come back to the middle. Then we do come back to the middle.

So it's necessary, sometimes, for women to embrace the company of other women even more than might seem normal. But there is no normal in this world. Radical change is necessary to counterbalance what's occurred. Not violent change but radical change, indicating a strong forceful movement—a peaceful movement, a correct movement, towards light. If women have grown up with a sense of competition between themselves and are unable to form friendships because they're all deathly afraid of each other because they realize the power of the second attention and because the commodity is the man—and even if you don't think you're that way, believe me, it's engendered in your subconscious by the world you live in—it's in there, this belief. Then you have to reverse that and perhaps work harder at becoming friends with other spiritual women who are interested in throwing away the false description of the world that they have. To be around women who are still locked into that description, who are using their second attention and physical self for sexual manipulation for survival, will make it very difficult for you to do the opposite.

Now, I'm not speaking of in the workplace or in the world, but in terms of your own private time. You must band together with other women of like mind and for the first time find fellowship—womanship—without the need to compete, without a sense of insecurity or insincerity, without having to climb to the top over each other. There's no need to; there's no place to get to. It's only when you realize that, that you will be able to do this. That all the things you seek won't give you that which you want, which is fulfillment, which will only come through enlightenment.

Because today for the first time, at least in this country, you don't have to use those powers to survive. Our laws, imperfect as they may be, and our societal structure now provides for the first time in the history of the human race, with very minor historical exceptions, the possibility for you to survive without using sexual manipulation. While you may be frustrated occasionally when you are passed by or ignored or put down because you don't use those methods, you will be more than compensated by your spiritual progression, which will give you another type of power that makes the power of the manipulation of the second attention on a sexual level seem infantile. But you will only use that power for good, never for manipulation.

In other words, winning the race is not the point. That's the point for people who are involved in the world of winning and losing. What matters is balance and truth. And now history has given us a moment—it may not last—where you can, for the first time as a woman, step back from the very things that have given you your success and obtain a much greater success in your life—if you are interested in the world of enlightenment.

But you must undo what's been done. And you can easily do that because you have developed the second attention much more than you realize, and you use it more than you realize as a woman. That's why I feel that women can obtain enlightenment more easily than men. But they won't, and more men will continue to obtain enlightenment than women, unless women change their use of the second attention. Even though they have a stronger and faster vehicle, it's being used to take them in the opposite direction, and it has been necessary, but it no longer is.

So, if you will, examine a few of these thoughts in your spare time and ponder them and watch what you do during the course of a day, not only physically when you're in the presence of men, but even at a distance. Watch what you do with your thoughts and your energy, who you direct it to, how you direct it when you think of a particular man. Watch what you do in the presence of other women. Watch how you undermine each other. Watch how you present your power to each other. And consider that as long as you continue to do this, you will never have what you truly want—completion.

Review your description of the world, what it is to be a woman, and see how inadequate it is. See how it's a philosophy that's been handed to you by a bunch of men who were afraid. They were afraid, not of your power, but actually their own power. But they saw the power in you, so they rejected it. What they fear, what men fear, are not women. What they fear is themselves. So they instead overcompensate with hatred and violence and repression. It's Socrates’ and Plato's parable of the cave. We're in the cave of darkness. We've been in the darkness so long that although the light is outside, and even though it's good for us, it's so blinding that we run away from it. So men and women equally have the inner light. But this inner light is within us, and if we fear it in ourselves, believe me, we'll fear it in others because if we have to deal with it in others, we have to deal with it in ourselves.

I mean, consider, even on a most basic level, how men react to the bodies of women. Consider a very natural process, menstruation, and how the association has been created in which this process is dirty, degrading. Well, did that come from women or men? I would suggest that there are many religions that have over the years or at different points in history even suggested that when a woman is menstruating, not only should the man not have sexual relations with her because she's dirty, but she should be avoided and not touched. But there's no such time period for men.

In other words, in their confusion and delusion, men hate the womb that gives them birth. Not all men, certainly, but enough men to run the world. While women have counterbalanced as best they can, and that counterbalance has ensured their survival in a limited way, it has also ensured their inability to attain liberation.

Why don't more women attain enlightenment? Because of men and because of women. Because of themselves. Because of ideas. For many, many reasons. There is no blame. I'm not blaming men, I'm not blaming women. What's gone by has already gone by. It's history. It's done. There is no right or wrong in higher spirituality. I don't feel that men have been wrong, I don't feel that women are wrong for using their second attention to combat sexual repression. That's just how it's been. But if you seek to change your life and attain enlightenment, you must deal with these questions.

You must ask yourself if you're using part of your attention for manipulation. It precludes enlightenment; it’s impossible if you do. You must ask yourself if you're allowing yourself to be manipulated. It precludes enlightenment. You can't attain enlightenment if you believe the thoughts and desires you have and the reactions that occur from them are yours, and they're not. Ask yourself these questions, and just observe.

Observe what others do. Not simply on the physical plane but on the other levels of attention. And if you see that this is true, if there's any truth in this, then change it for yourself. If there's no truth in this, then ignore these silly words.