A conversation with God: Life is the gift of God

This event happened during a private meditation session under the guidance of a breath-work / re-birthing teacher. Early on, an old and familiar fear began arising – fear, even paranoia, of losing my mind to outer control. But instead of the typical, “Oh no ...”, sinking feeling that would take the wind out of my sails, I felt the presence of the teacher / guide, and the fear simply found no grip, so it lost its pull, and a powerful natural trust in the inherent goodness of existence arose instead. 

During the breathing meditation, I became aware of a powerful energy throughout my body and a deep clarity of mind. Awareness was absorbed into an inner awakening. Then an inner silent dialogue ensued with a Presence I knew to be Divine by the innate authority of the absolute presence of Love. I knew what was presented to be true but I cannot explain how I knew that I knew. It felt like a primordial truth was being revealed / remembered. It was not an intellectual understanding transmitted, but more a direct awareness of what is irreducibly so.

It was revealed that life is God’s gift. God as the Source of life is infinite potentiality, and I knew without a doubt that there are ways we can master which enable us to experience ourselves in any way we intend. However, I was not given specifics at that point beyond the knowing, “To give is to receive.”

I was sobbing deeply from the heart because I knew the Source of life as the Love of God, and I felt the full gravity of the gift of infinite free experience. 

I was crying, “Thank you, thank you”, in the face of this revelation and the Presence calmly conveyed, “I do not need thanks, because I do not have an ego.”

I asked with true concern, “But how can I ever pay you back?”

And the Presence conveyed, “By accepting the gift (of infinite life).”

With my full being I accepted it over and over, and was crying uncontrollably as I realized the sheer magnitude of Unconditional Love that gives everything and wants nothing in return except that you accept the gift if you so choose. I sobbed with love and gratitude, “How can you be so perfect (selfless) with Your Love?”

And the Presence broke me open deeper when It conveyed, “Because I am you.”

It registered but did not sink in totally. I was stunned, and then I was powerfully instructed, “Just believe.”

It was not ‘believe’ as in ‘mentally accept.’ The acceptance pointed to was much deeper than that. It was ‘believe’ as in ‘know it, feel what is so, feel it all the way to your core.’

As I opened to the acceptance, my inner vision tunneled at my third eye and I felt myself as awareness entering some kind of power-geometric-tunnel, swept within by the power of conviction. I felt-knew an impending direct realization that God and I are one and the same identity. Then an enormous doubt / fear arose, so I repeated with conviction, “I believe,” and the fear-doubt was swept away. Again I felt as if I was heading to the on-setting of unitary realization, and just at that moment, an overpowering “what if …” terror hit me again. This time, I could not overcome the fear, and I opened my eyes and sat upright.

* Then began the discipline to act with constant and universal forgiveness and gentleness, without exception. One has to be compassionate towards everything, including one's own self and thoughts.

The Eye of the I p. 343

* It is necessary that you develop respect for spiritual endeavor. Straight and narrow is the path, waste no time effort. Precision is discipline that is innate to serious commitment. Some students may yet be in a period of exploration, but once one gets the 'fire in the belly', the urge to reach God becomes a drivenness or relentless drive, or even, in the eyes of the world, a 'madness'. From that point on, there is no patience for amusement or diversion. It depends on decision, will and the level of consciousness, and karmic propensities. As it gets more intense, the love for God and of God allows no delay. Discovery of the Presence of God. Devotional Nonduality, topic: "Spiritual Economy", pg. 153

* In highly motivated, spiritually-disciplined groups, approximately half of the people in the group reach the goal of Unconditional Love (e.g. twelve-step groups, spiritual / religious ashram devotees, monastic renunciates, members of spiritual communities, such as Zen monasteries, etc.).

Transcending the Levels of Consciousness

*Three simple requirements for enlightenment

1. An intense desire to experience Pure Awareness.

2. The discipline to act with constant and universal gentleness and forgiveness towards everything, without exception, including towards one's self and one's thoughts.

3. The willingness to hold one's desires in abeyance and surrender one's personal will in every moment.

* A useful decision or choice is to decide to stop mentally talking about everything and refrain from interjecting comments, opinions, preferences, and value statements. It is therefore a discipline to just watch without evaluating, investing worth in, or editorializing, commenting, and having preferences about what is witnessed. One then sees the rising and falling away of phenomena and the transitory nature of appearance which, with ordinary mentation, is conceptualized as a

sequence of cause and effect.

Discovery of the Presence of God. Devotional Nonduality, pg. 88

Limitless being

"You cannot possibly say that you are what you think yourself to be! Your ideas about yourself change from day to day and from moment to moment. Your self-image is the most changeful thing you have. it is utterly vulnerable, at the mercy of a passer-by. A bereavement, the loss of a job, an insult, and your image of yourself, which you call your person, changes deeply.

To know what you are you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what you are not you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with the basic fact: 'I am'. The ideas: I am born at a given place, at a given time, from my partents and now I am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of, employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the sense 'I am'. Our usual attitude is of 'I am this'. Separate consistently and perseveringly the 'I am' from 'this' or 'that', and try to feel what it means to be, just to be, without being 'this' or 'that'. All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a lot.

The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only (not this, not that), the quicker you will come the end of your search and realize limitless being."

-Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT, p. 59-60

A Homage to Ramana Maharshi

To my Friend and to our Friendship:

Ramana I asked for You, and You came. Is there any other proof needed of Your benevolence?

With claws of evil gripping my mind and demons of fearful despair all around, You held me steady in Your all-powerful eyes that communicated - "fear not, Love is Unconditional and Your safe haven".

There and then I recognized unlimited Trust in You. I saw within You God, come in the form of Guru. You, the kindest of all fathers, yet far beyond any limitation of roles. Patient beyond time, wise beyond belief and unrelenting in your commitment to me.

You shook me to the core of my being. You rattled out misaligned influences, you scorched away karmic seeds of suffering and changed fearful symbols I had harbored, showing me great humor and creative thrill instead before fading symbols into the clarity of pure awareness.

It is You who rose that ancient reptile of despise from the swamp of ignorance and broke the spell it had cast, having me believe that I could think or feel anything but love.

It is you who showed me that I, as I am, am not capable in truth of holding a negative thought. Freedom from sin and guilt you revealed with humor and joy.

How can I not Love You...Your eyes, Your smile, my Father, my Friend, my secret Love, my Life, my Everything.

It is You who showed that the ego I feel is not what I am when I bowed the ego's head to your feet, feeling that I, with fear and doubt, am powerless and You, in effortless certainty are everything. You lifted the lowly self-evaluation and revealed my nature as unending mercy, timeless love and joy.

It is You who showed that I am the essence of existence itself, the Consciousness that I am is Your Consciousness. It is You who taught that there is no distance between You and I.

You took me beyond the world of despair. You have proved You are Lord. For only the Lord raises each to Eternal Life in God where they themselves are Lord, where only God is.

And when I descended back to this life, it is You who is still there, helping me to continue to open to a new human experience, a deeper revelation still. Your Grace is Love, my beacon, my goal, my Life.

© Jonathan Kalman 2007

Insights along the path of Self-enquiry

Here are insights I've compiled from my own direct practice of Self-enquiry (as taught by Ramana Maharshi.)

• Each knows themselves as the "I am".
  

• When the mind is absorbed within, it is known directly that "I am", awareness, and existence are synonymous. This is one's true nature and the nature of Reality.
  

• This true "I"/Self is existence-consciousness. That is, it is existence and the knowledge of existence. They are not different (not two).
  

• Existence-consciousness is innately happy, and ever free. It is ever untouched by any experience like a movie screen is unaffected by the images projected upon it. Its happiness is its own awareness of existence and freedom as that which (one) is. It is thus not dependent on any conditions, and is only masked by (false) identification with the non-Self (the ego). The innate happiness of true Self is not other than uncaused love.

• Awareness is aware that it is aware/awareness. In the ultimate sense the knower and the known are one. To know is to be that which is known. Hence Reality knows itself by virtue of being itself. "I am that I am", sums up the knowing.

• The truth of the Self is known through the practice of Self-awareness/attention, where the mind/attention is turned within (away from objects) to its source through investigation of the source and essence of the subjective first person feeling of I-ness (Who/what am I?). This turns the mind within and submerges the mind into its source. With continual practice the mind gains the strength to stay submerged, like a river discharges into the ocean and is then no longer a river.

• Self-enquiry is not the repeating of the phrase "Who am I?" nor the repeating of the phrases, "I am He", "I am That", "I am Brahman", "He and I are one", etc. The true practice of Self-attention/awareness, as taught by Ramana Maharshi, is the focusing of attention keenly and one-pointedly (exclusively) upon our consciousness, "I am".

• By practice the mind gains strength to turn within. The mind (self) lost in its source (Self) is "no-mind" and is still, silent, joyful, desireless, and the essence of wisdom. It is not a sleep nor trance state, but a natural awake Self-effulgent condition.

• Mind will re-emerge due to latent habits (vasanas). Thus glimpses/tastes of Self are had until those habits are destroyed. They are destroyed through the continued practice of Self-attention.

• Sometimes the ego-mind is so caught up and distressed that Self-inquiry seems almost impossible. This is owing to lack of strength. If the mind will not let something go, other spiritual practice for purifying the ego/mind can be used. For example, forgiveness work, energy psychology work, recontextualizing a problem, prayer, etc.

• As one purifies the mind it gains in strength and can be turned inwards to investigate its source.
  

• The mind goes out and associates with the body's senses and mistakes the body and its processes for itself.
  

• However, inspection reveals that the body does not say/know "I". We (existence-consciousness) are not even aware of the body directly. We know only the registering of sensations by the brain. Who/What is aware of the experience of the registering of sensation though? Surely discrimination reveals that one cannot be an object of experience, but is rather the subject!

• Body-consciousness is a shadow like consciousness (ego) that arises between existence-consciousness and the insentient body.
  

• Consciousness/Awareness says/knows "I" as itself.
  

• One is aware of the body (through the senses). One is existence-consciousness (the essence feeling of "I am") yet the body does not say "I" (the body is an object of consciousness and not the subject - which only existence-consciousness is). Thus the body is not existence-consciousness (true Self/I).
  

• Think how many people take themselves to be the body, which has a name, an age, and characteristics. If you are honest with yourself, the "I am" that you are cannot be described. To see that is the beginning of wisdom and freedom! The Self is neither fat nor thin, ugly or old, stupid or learned! Think how people are proud or self-pitying, feeling better or worse than others, yet do not actually know what/who they really are! Mankind has a great need to awaken from the dream of ego/misery (separation from love and the unlimited).

• Are you your hand? Does the hand say "I"? Do you lose part of the direct experience of being (I am) if you cut your fingernails, hair? No. Would part of your direct experience of being (I am), existence-consciousness, change if you lost a hand? An arm? No. Has that feeling of being changed from when you wore the body of a five year old or a twenty year old? No. Isness is isness and is not dependent upon the body which is constantly changing. You are not the body but have a body. You are the direct awareness "I am".
  

• The "I am" is always prior to I am "this", I am "that". Thus the I am is before I am "a man", "a woman", "old", "a husband", "a daughter", "a lawyer", "ugly", "fat", "smart", etc.
  

• To know the essence of the "I am" as that which one is, is discrimination (between the ever present and the ephemeral, the Real and the unreal).
  

• Not being limited by any definition or label ("this" or "that"), the true Self is ever free. When Consciousness/Awareness/Self recognizes itself, this is the supreme happiness.

• Each "this" or "that", each definition, each label, is a limitation and a block to true Self-Awareness which is unlimited, independent, forever free, continuous, and beyond doubt. Hence perfect happiness.

• If you are honest with yourself, the essence of "I am-ness" is not something that can be described. It is beyond labels of the mind because it is prior to the mind.

• Self is like the sky and the labels and definitions are like the clouds. The clouds, although they arise in the sky, never effect the sky.

• You still exist when thoughts quieten down. Existence-consciousness (I am) does not change when thoughts change. Therefore you are not your thoughts (which are objects of consciousness and not the witnessing awareness). Thus to identify oneself with the mind is ignorance arising from non Self-awareness. What do you mean when you say "I" or "me"? Who/What are you?
  

• If a person does not know what s/he really is yet goes around acting as if they were this or that presumed thing (the mind or the body), it is said that they live in a dream, a play, a game, a delusion even. At times this is great fun, but some people feel a call within to know true peace, to know the truth, to know God, to find lasting love, etc. This is the inner Self attracting the self to it, and the beginning of the awakening spiritual journey in earnest.

• Self-inquiry dissects awareness from false and presumed identification. This separation from the false is the same as union with the Real (God). Its just two ways of looking at the same thing. This is the fulfillment of yoga.
  

• All thoughts are dependent upon and built upon the root thought I/me. After all, they are "my" thoughts. As long as this idea of "me" comes from being falsely identified with non-Self (with name, form, definitions, labels, body, subtle body, energy centers, thoughts, mind, breath, prana, etc.) we live in illusion/falsity/ignorance. Every thought from or about a false initial thought/premise is itself false.
  

• If one takes a rope to be a snake in the dim light, and then acts as if there is a snake in the way, all fear and all actions to escape or kill the snake are based on the false and only re-enforce the idea that the false is true! That is the basis of all suffering, and the obscuration of innate happiness, which is the very recognition that one is existence-consciousness and nothing else exists but existence.
  

• The I thought needs to be investigated to reveal its false identity (to see that the snake is actually non-existent, an illusion, projected upon a harmless inert rope). Upon scrutiny the false (I am the body, I am "this" and "that") dissapears just like a shadow disapears when you turn a light upon it. Killing the ego (false self) is simply through revealing the truth, which is done through Self-attention/recognition.
  

• Thoughts are numerous and disturb peace and happiness. It is not however necessary to deal with every thought that arises.
  

• Thoughts are like leaves and twigs on a tree. It is not necessary to chop them all off, one at a time. Just take an axe to the trunk and do it all at once.
  

• The trunk is the I-thought (I am separate, I am this body with a name). When it is seen through investigation that all the thoughts are built upon a false thought (I am separate, I am this body, I am "this" or "that") then thoughts lose value. What is devalued and seen as false finds no grip and fades.

• Separation occurs at the level of form. The Reality is formless and continuous. It includes form at the level of appearance but is not limited by form. Within all form is the formless. Disidentify from the body by thoroughly convincing yourself you are not an object. Once Self is found then see to the world and see if anything is separate or not. Know Self first though.

• Abiding in Self-awareness deepens the ability to abide in Self-awareness, and dissolves the habit of the mind rising again and branching into many thoughts, thus leading to distress.
  

• Practice of Self-abidance should continue until it becomes continuous. It is the natural state. However the habit of straying (lost in thought) must be unlearned. Until then effort to hone in on the essence of the I (the feeling of existence-consciousness) is required.

• There is no end to the depth or ever-present freshness of existence-consciousness, which ever delights in Self-recognition. To turn away from the false, investigate the very nature of the first person feeling of I and release the false identifications.
  

• The thought "I am the body" (ego) is like the string on a necklace. All other thoughts are like beads attached to it. "I" is the root thought. If you cut the necklace all the beads fall away at once.
  

• Thus investigation of the first person feeling/thought "I" is the way of stilling the mind and revealing the Self.
  

• All "others" (you, he/she, it) are dependent on the existence of the first person I. What is this I though? Is there really a separate I/me? Each takes the body as themselves, but is it true? Self-inquiry investigates that which has been assumed but not confirmed to themselves.
  

• Even God is taken as an other (He/She), and thus does not in that form exist unless we believe we are the separate ego. When the identification with the ego is no more, God and Self are known to be one and not different, and one is not other than the Love of God. "The Father and I are one", is a statement of that realization.

© Jonathan Kalman 2008

Devotion and Self-inquiry are the same

"To each person that way is the best which appears easiest or appeals most. All the ways are equally good as they lead to the same goal, which is the merging of the ego in the Self. What the Bhakta (devotee) calls surrender, the man who does Vichara (self-enquiry) calls Jnana (knowledge). Both are trying only to take the ego back to the source from which it sprang and make it merge there."

-Ramana Maharshi

The main characteristics of Ramana Maharshi's teaching

1) He consistently urged people who came to him to practice self-enquiry;

2) He directed people to look inward rather than seeking outside themselves for Realization. ("The true Bhagavan resides in your Heart as your true Self. This is who I truly am," he said.)

3) He viewed all who came to him as the Self rather than as lesser beings. ("The jnani (enlightened one) sees no one as an ajnani. All are only jnanis in his sight," Sri Ramana said.)

4) He charged no money, and was adamant that no one ever ask for money (or anything else) in his name;

5) He never promoted or called attention to himself. Instead, Sri Ramana remained in one place for 55 years, offering spiritual guidance to anyone of any background who came to him, and asking nothing in return;

6) He considered humility to be the highest quality.

7) He said the deep sense of peace one felt around a jnani was the surest indicator of their spiritual state, that equality towards all was a true sign of liberation, and that what a true jnani did was always for others, not for themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi#Teachings