Spiritual Work

 I am in the process of dropping a few pounds so besides exercising more I also watch my calories and sugar intake. My wife has a (near) zero sugar diet for medical reasons so I always get her the unsweetened almond milk. I thought I had picked up 3 containers from the grocery store but one turned out to be the regular almond milk, so I use it for my coffee instead. Immediately I felt the difference and don’t like it at all, but I also conjecture that if I made this almond milk my daily coffee additive, there would be a day when it feels normal.

Isn’t that how our mind drowns out Original Mind? Like a frog in the water on the stove the conditioning takes over and we cannot perceive its presence. Unless, that is, we remove the triggers and existing pain bodies so carefully that we become sensitive to the interference. Isn’t our spiritual work just like minding a diet conducive to Original Mind? Clean up the interference to the best of “your” ability and mind the self involvement when the stain proves stubbornly persistent. That’s the spiritual work in a nutshell. 

Spiritual diet

 I have tried losing weight for a few years. It was always the same pattern. The first ten pounds happen quickly with the New Year’s Resolution, but the second ten pounds never happen, and then with the good food over Thanksgiving and Christmas, the old weight is right back. This year was different though. I didn’t like it when in a recent check-up the doctor said my blood pressure is too high, and I also have to fit into an old tuxedo for a function, so I decided to stop eating carbs and go to the gym a second time in a day for cardio exercises. Surprise, surprise, the pounds are dropping as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

The root cause of the refusal to lose the pounds was simple enough, a belief that I can carry the weight, a love for carbs and a dislike of running. The visit to the dr office was the incentive to finally do something about the weight, and that’s a no to carbs and yes to running. Let me use this analogy to discuss going on a spiritual diet. Why would we stand up to the ego when deep down inside it is literally the belief that we are that bunch of psychological programs telling us we like pleasure and we hate pain (as defined by the ego). The masters tell us to question this notion of pleasure and pain, but can we actually?

Observe the agenda at work when you do something or meet someone. Notice the attachments you have and question the desire to escape from your responsibilities. This is not a stoic philosophy of sorts not to enjoy life, it’s an ask to check the self-generated vibrations and contrast them with the universal energies that are always at our disposal. Along the Way there is no agenda, only following the flow of life, and there are no attachments and aversions either. The energies of the Way speak for themselves. But why should we question what we like and dislike? What makes us question this bio-robot?

Changing the belief that we are perfect is the hardest step in embarking on a spiritual diet. In the weight loss example the resistance was the belief that I can carry the weight of 230 pounds with a height of 6’1. Likewise, the ego always adjusts its belief system with the changing realities. With Awakening comes the understanding that again we are perfect as is, just like we were perfect when we were running after name, fame, relationships, or whatever else it was that was meaningful to us. That’s why most of us spiritual travelers are halfway there—mastering the higher energies in some areas while being as human as they come in others.

What can change this core belief that we are already perfect as is? What makes us sit through the pain of the past when it presents itself without running away from it? And what makes us question the attachments when they interfere with the flow of life? You tell us. There are no general answers, no religion and no guru that can help us with this one. The answer has to come from the depth of our being. 

The observer is the observed!

 “You are the one who watches your conditioning!” Ah, how can it be that we listen to the masters—Mooji, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, etc.—and nod enthusiastically because their message sounds so simple and straightforward, but a year later we are back to their seminars to get a refresher course. Why?

“The observer is the observed,” is the powerful teaching J. Krishnamurti left us, which is corroborated by quantum mechanics as well. If you hear, “that’s not a loving thought” in your head, the listener—and judge—is part of the same conditioning that caused the thinking process in the first place. What to do?

Who am I? I am the one who sees the impossibility of getting our arms around conditioning. That’s when the Light comes in. Be still for a moment and feel the energy powering through your heart. Sense the inner and outer energies and stay with them until they start aligning. Outer and inner are One.

#jkrishnamurti #spirituality #awakening 

Clean up, everybody everywhere!

 Clean up, clean up,

everybody, everywhere,

Clean up, clean up,

everybody, do your share!

This was a nursery rhyme the boys learnt at pre-school. I was reminded of it when I came across Rachna Thakur’s:

“One should be conscious of external and internal dirt. As one keeps the body clean, so should be the mind. Free from selfish desires and clinging attachments. Pure and sublime thought entering the intellect; a personality spotless from the stain of vasanas (impressions of the mind/conditioning).”

Only one piece of advice here given that humanity has aimed for ethics and spiritual purity for ages without getting very far—the “should” and “could” originating from the mind need to be inquired into. Let the heart-center call the shots. The messiness of the environment we are in, as well as our inner conflicted attitude, have been given to us to discover the Truth of the moment. The cleaning process not only makes the world a little better; the cleaning erases the thinker and doer.

Warm around the heart

 “Thoughts come and go.

The ‘I’ that claims them is the problem.”

Ramana Maharshi

There is a heart-centered energy flow at work. Activating it while looking through the  mind-centered energy flow is what spiritual living is all about. When we are fully present the mind becomes still while the heart-centered energy flow is fully operational and the outer vibrations align with the inner.. The Germans describe the heart-centered energy as “warm uns Herz”—warm around the heart. We are present when  jnana (wisdom) and bhakti (love) yoga meet. S-E-L-F, that is,

S (tillness) of our mind;

E (nergy) reaches crown;

L (ove) prevails, and the

F (low) of life is uninterrupted.

reigns.

It’s allright to be in-between occasionally, but we can seek the people, environments and activities that warm our heart just as we can turn away from those that are mind-centered and not heart-centered. We are humanity so the lower vibration energies will continue to be present to help us learn transcending them. Meanwhile, we can always remind ourselves that the thought-feeling energies, while present, do not own nor define us. 

In Awareness every moment is fresh

 Questioner: When a spectator who is watching a play is completely absorbed in the play, is that the state of total attention?

J. Krishnamurti: You are watching a play, and the play is so interesting that you are completely absorbed.  There is no `you' for the moment, because the play has absorbed you, with all your worries, anxieties, fears.  Now, what is the difference between your absorption, and that of a child who is absorbed by an amusing toy? The child may have been naughty, mischievous, doing all kinds of restless things, but give that child a toy which is very interesting, and he is completely absorbed in it.  The toy is so interesting that he forgets all about his restlessness.  What is the difference between the two?  A play, a book, a church service, an idea, a belief, a piece of music, a picture, or what you will, absorbs you, and you forget yourself.  So what has become important is the picture, the toy, and not the understanding of yourself.  You may be absorbed for an hour by the play, but when you go back to your home you have your old self again.  So if one is absorbed by anything, by propaganda, by nationalistic demands, or if one identifies oneself with something, which is another form of absorption, in that state there is no learning; therefore there is no freedom, and hence no virtue.  A mind that is absorbed by a toy, however gracious, however beautiful, however supposedly important, is obviously escaping from itself.  Such a mind is always in disorder, and its actions produce further disorder, further confusion in the world.

Question and Answers with J. Krishnamurti 

In Awareness every moment is new and fresh. Be self-aware if there is any attachment to the moment at hand or if there is escape. Inquire into who is attached and who is escaping. That’s meditation, or mindfulness, in a nutshell. 

Be one with the obstacle and Awareness shines through

 You hear that often from the masters, turn your mind inwards and let your heart shine instead. Easier said than done!

I have been a spiritual seeker—on and off—for most of my life. The most intense period was in graduate school, following an amazing church experience just after I graduated in economics in Germany and was headed for a PhD in the US. While advancing my studies in economics in Providence, RI, I stumbled on the Bhagavad Gita, Vivekananda, Ramakrishna and J. Krishnamurti in the library, and did not rest until I had convinced myself that the power of Christ was real and has manifested again and again. Then came work, my family and I lost touch with spirituality until I reached my early 40s when a spontaneous kundalini Awakening experience found me. It was a magical time and I wrote a couple of books in my free time as I wanted to share the magic of the Way. 

The stagnation really happened when I tried practicing spirituality full time. Getting my arms around non-duality, Ramana Maharshi’s self inquiry and Nisargadatta Maharaj’s “I Am” way of living was harder than expected. Even though this had been a fact of life since Awakening started, I suddenly realized that I had one foot in the real world and the other in the magical world of Oneness. I was halfway there so to speak. What to do? I experienced stuck energy until I realized that spiritual searching and the desire to teach was the obstacle. It was the mind trying to keep itself in business wrapped up in spiritual clothes. So what do you do when you find that the quest and the teaching is the obstacle? Do you stop and throw in the towel? It’s actually quite simple. Awareness is, moment by moment—a restless mind, stuck energy, a frozen heart or a perceived obstacle imply that we have gone for a walk while God is at Home. Be one with the obstacle and Awareness shines through. 

#awakening #spirituality #mind #quest