The Dead-end Up Here

Great spiritual masters like Buddha or Christ didn't write a prescription for elite scholars and bourgeois  Yet millions of pages fill interpretation of their work through the centuries. Followers struggle to understand and follow the paths pointed by the Buddha. Perhaps a better way to follow him is to use your heart and place yourself in his heart. Something happens when you do. Become a privileged young man with all pleasures of a principality, castles and servants. Or become a privileged child today with no financial worries, a good job, seemingly good life. Then cast your heart onto billions who suffer. Do you feel their pain? That's the feeling that caused Buddha to abandon it all, like doctor without borders or volunteer workers in war torn parts of world even today. Just like you, Buddha searched for an explanation of why all this suffering in a world that is apparently protected by an almighty benevolent kind God. He followed priest...

Yoga is an adopted name originally from the word yog which is still in use by languages derived from Sanskrit. Yog simply means a way, a method, a process. Some say it comes from the word Yoke but I can't find any reference to this. Yoga as it is practiced in our neighborhoods today is just one (asanas) or may be two (pranayama) of the eight limbs of Ashtanga as taught by Patanjali in his book of sutras which is the most esteemed reference book used by yoga schools. The eight limbs of yoga are Yama, niyama, asanas, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. The first four of these are practice of yoga but normally we find asanas (often in Hatha yoga)and  pranayama taught in most studios. The first two, Yama and niyama are codes of living as recommended by Patanajali and also by Buddha in vipassana. Practices like vegetarianism, noble silence are part of Yama and niyama practice. Pratyahara is withdrawal from five senses which is a result of yoga practice of the fi...

Loving kindness is not a charitable act or a meditation prescribed by the Buddha as a way to rid the world of evil and suffering. IT IS A SELFISH ACT. You or I can not be anything but selfish. You and I are not capable of charity. Self can not be selfless. To recommend a self to be unselfish and charitable to all sentient beings is ridiculous, an oxymoron. It is impossible. Every cell in my body, every thought, every act is aimed at the self. Buddha, the wisdom personified could not make such a mistake asking you to do a selfless act. His words have not been properly understood. LOVING KINDNESS IS NOT A PRAYER BUT AN ERNEST DESIRE. By practicing loving kindness, you are not trying to end suffering of others, of all sentient beings even though you may say so in your meditation. YOU ARE TRYING TO END YOUR SUFFERING. A self can not cease suffering unless it feels only love and kindness to ALL beings and perhaps beyond. To feel anything but love and kindness towards all means r...

I am very tired of me looking for that blissful state many arrived gurus and pretenders talk about. Kundalini masters wax and wane on the drug less highs. I am tired because I want it too, just like the only thing I ever wanted as a teenager was sex. Then I started questioning how do these experienced masters describe this wow feeling. First of all I do not have any reference of this bliss by Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Nisargdatta or Ramana. Unless you want to reinterpret their words and see what isn't there. I am not being disrespectful to those who report of wild orgy like states, I call the feeling, spiritual  orgasm. But I have only two choices at this point either keep pining for this like a prepubescent boy or try to explain why some get it others do not. Do you recall any of your childhood ecstasies? Like the first time your bike and you actually stayed up, or the first time your hand brushed against a girl, any body part, or some exotic food you had for the fir...

I have heard this word and read about this reality for ages. I still don't understand it and probably never will since all my understanding is based on some knowledge acquired from other people, things, books and media. Nothing I am is original. I function by building concepts. So here is an experiment I did and encourage you to do as well to define your own concept of reality. This is inspired by Rupert Spira's works but I am a total fake anyway, everything I am is from someone else including my genes. There is a poem on this in the book, "the dead-end (up) here". Close your eyes and try to shut everything down. What is really there? Really there? I (an instrument I seem to know) find something that is named touch, something vague named smell, another sensation which is called sound. Even though the eyes are closed, there is a hue of something called light and completely invisible stuff going on called thoughts and imagination. Important ...

Did you see the star trek episode when the computer blows up screaming; error, error, error! when capt Kirk inputs an unanswerable koan? The real question now is who is planning to blow my mind up? Ramana is long gone and as far as I can tell my mind doesn't have a death wish? Perhaps it still carries the underlying desire to transcend the pain and suffering by blowing itself up. But we know better, as Bart Marshall said it once, "you can't game this, believe me I tried for decades". And check out gary's poem below, when he says " Lack of effort opens the gate for a flood of insights. * That which is changeless knows nothing." We really need to convince us not to ask this irreconcilable question.... Musings by Gary Harmon Emptiness filled with clanging, And dogs that bark in the distance. Winds that gently blow, Trees that sway to and fro, Are all connected. As am I joined to them. Nothing causing anything; All in agreement with all. * Turning eart...

Perhaps the most misunderstood meditation technique is also the oldest. Known as TANTRA or Tantric meditation, it literally means "technique". Because of its ubiquitous character, I couldn't fit it into my  classification of three types of mediation (see an earlier blog below); practical, analytic and energy. You can practice Tantra to do any of the three. Shiva detailed these techniques to his young princess wife, Parvati who fell in love with this nearly naked fakir (forest dweller) and married Him (that story some other time). Some say, you will never get the full gist of this unless you too are deeply in love. Let me hasten to add that it has nothing to do with Carnal science, to which many in California have attached Tantra. But love to the wise has little to do with that (that too for another time). There are altogether 110 practices. We will do the first one this weekend. This one is also the most powerful, best know and eas...