- My colleagues and I were 9 to 5 psychologists: we came to work every day and we did our psychology, just like you would do insurance or auto mechanics, and then at 5 we went home and were just as neurotic as we were before we went to work. Somehow, it seemed to me, if all of this theory were right, it should play more intimately into my own life. I understood the requirement of being “objective” for a scientist, but this is a most naive concept in social sciences as we are finding out. - The nature of life was a mystery to me. All the stuff I was teaching was just like little molecular bits of stuff but they didn’t add up to a feeling anything like wisdom. I was just getting more and more knowledgeable. And I was getting very good at bouncing three knowledge balls at once. I could sit in a doctoral exam, ask very sophisticated questions and look terribly wise. It was a hustle. - I realized that although everything by which I knew myself, even my body and this life itself, was gone, still I was fully aware! Not only that, but this aware “I” was watching the entire drama, including the panic, with calm compassion. Instantly, with this recognition, I felt a new kind of calmness—one of a profundity never experienced before. I had just found that “I”, that scanning device—that point—that essence—that place beyond. A place where “I” existed independent of social and physical identity. That which was I was beyond Life and Death. And something else—that “I” Knew—it really Knew. It was wise, rather than just knowledgeable. It was a voice inside that spoke truth. I recognized it, was one with it, and felt as if my entire life of looking to the outside world for reassurance—David Reisman’s other-directed being, was over. Now I need only look within to that place where I Knew. - For example, we had a Negro psychiatrist, Madison Presnell, working with us, and I had been trained to be a very liberal person about Negroes, which meant that you didn’t have feelings. It was a phoney kind of liberal thing. I went out of my way to be liberal. You know, that very self-conscious kind of equality. And <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">Madison and I turned on together and I looked at Madison, and there we were, the same human beings. It was just that he was wearing that skin and I was wearing this skin. And it was no more or less than that. It was that shirt and this shirt and it had no more relevance than that. And I looked at that and suddenly there we were, whereas before I had been so busy with my super-liberal reaction to color of skin, that I couldn’t relax enough to share this unitive place.</mark> - I don’t know how to describe this to you, except that I was deep in my despair; I had gone through game, after game, after game, first being a professor at Harvard, then being a psychedelic spokesman, and still people were constantly looking into my eyes, like “Do you know?” Just that subtle little look, and I was constantly looking into their eyes—“Do you know?” And there we were, “Do you?” “Do you?” “Maybe he . . .” “Do you . . . ?” And there was always that feeling that everybody was very close and we all knew we knew, but nobody quite knew. I don’t know how to describe it, other than that. And I met this guy and there was no doubt in my mind. It was just like meeting a rock. It was just solid, all the way through. Everywhere I pressed, there he was! - there was no conversation. I didn’t know anything about his life. He didn’t know anything about my life. He wasn’t the least bit interested in all of the extraordinary dramas that I had collected . . . He was the first person I couldn’t seduce into being interested in all this. He just didn’t care. And yet, I never felt so profound an intimacy with another being. It was as if he were inside of my heart. And what started to blow my mind was that everywhere we went, he was at home. - You can’t hustle it you can’t make-believe you’re calm when you’re not. It never works everybody knows you know it’s horrible You must center Find that place Inside yourself You’re doing it from that place And: whatever your dance is Always right in here right in your Hridayam - I would really like to do Sadhana, but . . . I’m a teacher now. If I could only finish being a teacher, I could do Sadhana. Baloney! You’re either doing Sadhana or you’re not. Sadhana is a full time thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether you're teaching, or sitting in a monastery. . . Whether you’re lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating, everything is part of waking up Everything is done without attachment. - you’ve got to go at the rate you can go. You wake up at the rate you wake up. You’re finished with your desires at the rate you finish with your desires. The disequilibrium comes into harmony at the rate it comes into harmony. You Can’t Rip The skin off The snake. The snake must moult the skin. That’s the rate it happens. - How do you ask your inner self for something? You are already it. What is it that you could give to yourself? Give yourself presents? It’s all wrong. - If you have ever watched a beautiful Zen monk, a very old monk who is really there, or here, really here, whichever. . . You watch him. . . . . He’s cooking food He’s lifting stones He’s moving You watch him walk and its like nobody’s walking. . . The legs are going, and the whole thing is happening but Nothing is happening No matter What Is happening! And thats what blows your mind when we get out of the kinds of heads we’ve got going that don’t allow us to Really understand How this can be. - I was still western rational man so I went and looked and looked and looked and as long as I looked like a rational man looking I didn’t find anything. I just found my own shadow all the time thats all you ever find: Your self you only read to yourself you only talk to yourself you only ever know yourself thats all there is! - <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">if you don’t have room in your living room for an elephant—don’t make friends with the elephant trainer</mark> . . .”—Sufi mystic This manual contains a wide variety of techniques. Everyone’s needs are different and everyone is at a different stage along the path. But, as with any recipe book, you choose what suits you. If you listen to your own inner voice, it will tell you where you are now, and which method will work best for you - “If he wants to work on himself, he must destroy his peace. To have them both is in no way possible. A man must make a choice. But when choosing the result is very often deceit, that is to say, a man tries to deceive himself. In words he chooses work but in reality he does not want to lose his peace. - “It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways . . . A man . . . if he is a scientist should be disappointed in his science. If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion. If he is a politician he should be disappointed in philosophy. - Relax. You are being guided. In fact, the next message you need in the treasure hunt is exactly where you are when you need it. The message may be in the form of a teacher or a lover or an enemy or a pet or a rock or a chemical or a book or a feeling of great despair or a physical illness or the eyes of a person you pass on the street. - 1. Purification Exercise with Guru Rimpoche Consider a being of pure light and love (whom you can name Padmasambhava, the Lotus-evolved One, if you would like), who is sitting in the midst of a lake on a lotus flower in front of you. He is seen as being in front of you and slightly above you . . . so that you look up to him at about a thirty degree angle. He will come into your heart when you have sufficiently purified yourself. 1. Closing your left nostril, breathe three deep breaths out of your right nostril. Visualize the air being ejected as dark red and consider it to be all of your bodily diseases and attachments. 2. Close your right nostril. Now breathe out three deep breaths through your left nostril. Visualize the air being ejected as a blue-grey and consider it to be all your mental obstacles and anger. 3. Now breathe out three deep breaths through your mouth. Visualize this air as purple and consider it as the sloth that impedes your progress . . . the inertia . . . breathe it out. 4. Now visualize that from the ajna (the point between the eyebrows) of Padmasambhava directly to your ajna there is a piercing beam of white light which, as it burns into you, rids you of bodily sins and wrongs (the sound connected with this is OM). 5. Now visualize a red beam from the throat chakra (point of energy) of Padmasambhava directly to your throat center. This beam rids you of lapses of speech, of untruths (the sound connected with this is AH). 6. Now visualize a blue beam of light coming from the heart of Padmasambhava to your heart. This beam purifies you of wrongs done in ignorance, wrong thoughts (i.e., thoughts which maintain the illusion). (The sound associated with this beam is HUM.) 7. Now allow that blue beam to become a broad blue avenue of light. Then you will see Padmasambhava come down that avenue and come directly into your heart. Here he will sit in your hridayam (spiritual heart). His mantra is: Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum. This means three-in-one (the unmanifest, imminent manifestation, and manifestation) lightning- bolt Guru of unbearable compassion and infinite power who resides in my heart. To say his mantra is to keep Him in your heart . . . until finally you and He become One. 2. The Four Bodhisattva Vows (say three times) 1. I resolve to become enlightened for the sake of all living beings. 2. I will cut the roots of all delusive passions. 3. I will penetrate the farthest gate of Dharma. 4. I will realize the supreme way of Buddha. - You might think of renunciation in terms of some external act like a New Year’s resolution, or leaving family and friends to go off to a cave. But renunciation is much more subtle than that—and much harder—and much much more continuing. On the spiritual journey, renunciation means non-attachment. - To become free of attachment means to break the link identifying you with your desires. The desires continue; they are part of the dance of nature. But a renunciate no longer thinks that he is his desires. - The simplest and most direct type of renunciation would seem to be to just give up the satisfying of one’s desires. That is, if one is preoccupied with eating and oral gratifications, just fast. If one is obsessed with sexual concerns, just give up sex. And so on. This technique is known as tapasya or “straightening by fire.” - 1. Get in the habit of remaining silent for a few hours a day. This is most easily done when one is at home or around people who understand what you are trying to do. (In India if you are silent everyone immediately says, “Ah, Mouna” and honors you. In the West people either interpret silence as a sign of your hostility towards them or as a physical illness about which they feel pity. Either of these reactions makes your work more difficult.) At first you may want to remain by yourself during these few hours. Later you will be able to be around people comfortably without having to speak. Soon you may feel that you are ready to undertake one day of silence a week. Some spiritual communities have incorporated a day of silence into their program for the entire group. Many communities take meals in silence. - “I realized in this place that people feared silence more than anything else, that our tendency to talk arises from self-defense and is always based upon a reluctance to see something, a reluctance to confess something to oneself. - Meditate for a few minutes before lying down to go to sleep. - When you first lie down, relax your body progressively from feet to top of head. Experience the relaxation at each point along the way. Get out of the habit of “thinking about things” when you are going into sleep. Clear your mind. If you work with mantra, it is good to repeat your mantra and let all else fall away. - <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">Most of us have had the experience of being awakened by an alarm clock and being in the middle of a dream. Sometimes we are able to finish the dream without “going back to sleep.” That is, we keep in mind that the alarm has gone off, but we stay in the state of half awake/half asleep in order to finish the dream.</mark> - 1. Don’t eat too much. The traditional way of saying this is that at the conclusion of a meal, a yogi’s stomach should be half full of food, one-quarter full of water and one-quarter full of air. 2. Eat light, healthy, unadulterated foods which are easily digestable. It would be desirable if we could find one agreed-upon diet that would be optimal for sadhana. But it is apparent from the many controversies that rage concerning which foods are “good” and which are “bad,” that no single diet is universally considered desirable. - Daily Exercise Working with one of the books containing the words of a realized being (e.g., the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the words of Jesus in the Gospels, Sayings of Ramana Maharshi or Ramakrishna, the I Ching, etc.), take one passage—perhaps a phrase—certainly no more than a page. Read and re-read and re-re-read it. Then let your thoughts work around it. Paraphrase it. See how it applies to others and to yourself. Note if and how it differs from the way in which you usually think about things . . . different assumptions, etc. What are its implications regarding your own journey? Read it again. What laws of nature is it reflecting? Then, sitting quietly, let your mind associate to the passage. And then be quiet. Certainly a half hour a day is not too long to spend on this exercise. - One of the manifestations of pran, or life force, in the human body is breathing. By working with your breath you are able to tune in to the larger energies of the universe. Furthermore, there is an intimate relationship between thought and breath. When you calm your breath, there is simultaneous calming of the mind. - These breathing exercises can be done anywhere from one to four times in twenty-four hours, depending upon the intensity of your sadhana. They must be done on an empty stomach (at least three hours after taking food and one hour after taking liquid). Most people will find that doing pranayam as part of the early morning purification is ideal. A second suitable time is at sunset before the evening meal. - Exercise 1: SHEETLI (also called sitali) Extend the tongue out of the mouth as far as possible. Form it into a “U” shape with the sides high and middle low (like a trough). If you don’t think you can do this, look into a mirror and get as close to that position as possible. Then breathe in through the mouth as deeply as is comfortable with the abdominal muscles slightly contracted. Then retract the tongue into the mouth and breathe out through the nose. During the inhalation, imagine that you are bringing into your body pure pran or life force or light or consciousness. Throughout the exercise focus on the point between the eyebrows so that you experience bringing the pran to that point. As you breathe out, imagine breathing out impurities of body and mind. Initially do five of these the first day. Increase by one each day until you are doing fifty a day. Continue at that rate. - Exercise 2: BHASTRIKA (also called kapalabhati or bellows) This breathing involves a rhythmic shallow breathing through the nose only. There is no pause between inhalation and exhalation. You start slowly in order to keep the in-breath and out-breath of equal intensity and duration. Once you have equated them, then you can increase the rate and intensity. Ultimately the breath is short and staccato in nature with a definite feeling of impact at the points between the in-breath and the out-breath and in-breath. During this exercise focus on the inside of the tip of the nose at the point where the air hits the nasal passage during exhalation. Do this exercise for about thirty seconds. Stop. Rest. Then do it again for about thirty seconds. Later, if you wish, you can increase the number of these thirty second units to three or four at a sitting. If you are doing it properly, at the end of two to four weeks you will notice that at the end of this exercise you smell a new and pleasantly sweet smell at the tip of your nose at the completion of this exercise. - Exercise 3: NARI SODHAN Place the right hand so that the third finger is resting between the eyebrows, the thumb is by the right nostril, and the fourth finger is by the left nostril. Close the right nostril with the thumb and inhale slowly and evenly through the left nostril (about 4 seconds). Then hold the nose by closing both nostrils for about 2 seconds. Then remove the thumb and exhale slowly and evenly through the right nostril (about 8 seconds). Then after a second or two, inhale through the right nostril (4 seconds), hold (2 seconds) and exhale through the left nostril (8 seconds). In other words, you change nostrils before each exhalation. As you take in the breath through your left nostril, imagine a charge of energy going down the ida (a nerve on the left side of your spine). As you then hold the breath for the two seconds, imagine that charge of energy crossing from the left to the right side at the base of your spine. Then as you exhale through the right nostril, imagine that charge of energy coming up the pingala (a nerve on the right side of the spine). As your total purification program proceeds, these imaginings will be replaced by actual sensations in your spinal column. Start with five of this exercise on the first day and increase to fifty a day and continue at that rate. If you experience hiccoughs or pain from doing these exercises, stop at once and concentrate on other forms of yoga for a year or two before attempting pranayam again. - “Do what you do but dedicate the fruits of your acts to me”—all acts, and the act of sex is no exception. To practice sexual tantra, total truth and total trust are required. You and your partner must both consciously understand that you are working together as an act of purification to burn away all impurities so that you may become ONE. You have agreed to share karma. This has nothing to do with any specific acts either now or later, it only implies that there is no holding back or unwillingness to accept how it is at this moment. It is totally Here and Now. All fantasies are shared and brought to the Here and Now. Thoughts must be openly, fully openly, shared until the paranoia attendant to lust has been replaced by the luxurious warmth of love. The practice starts with meditation together and after perhaps the sharing of a cardamon seed. Slowly the dance evolves . . . the dance in which every breath . . . touch . . . movement . . . even thought . . . is totally savoured (compassionately understood) by the one consciousness that you are sharing. You are both man and you are both woman . . . and there is an act in which two bodies are involved, but the act (like two hands clapping) is a unity experienced by a single consciousness. - Some people when they become aware of having gained a new power justify their use of the power in terms of social good, i.e., the welfare of their fellow man. However, to the extent that they are attached to doing good, their desires affect their perception and they, in fact, cannot truly see what is best for the welfare of their fellow man. Often, in their zeal to do good, they only increase man’s illusion and make perception of the truth more difficult. - A conscious being is capable of making as many discriminations among components of the Universe as anyone else (perhaps even more). However, he is not caught in them. Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code. Keeping it together means keeping conscious at all levels—all planes—with no attachment to any of them. - <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">What about helping suffering people—starving Biafrans and such? Sure. Do it. It’s karma yoga. But do it without attachment. To be attached means that you identify with your role as the GIVER of help. This in turn casts the other person in the role of the RECEIVER of help. Such identification with roles may fill bellies, but it increases human distance. A conscious being knows that there is neither giver nor receiver . . . there are only empty bellies, storehouses of wheat . . . and effort required to move the wheat from the storehouses to the belly. It is OUR wheat, OUR belly, OUR effort. And when all this energy has been transferred, a conscious being realizes that nothing has happened. Thanks are absurd . . . does your left hand thank your right hand?</mark> - Get into a comfortable seat. It should be a position you can remain in for at least thirty minutes without moving or discomfort. It is desirable that the head, neck and chest be in a straight line. (c) At first let your mind wander and just watch it. Just note how your mind works. Don’t think about the thoughts. Just note them. Do this for about thirty minutes a day for a week. (d) Then find a muscle in your abdomen, just below your rib cage, which moves when you breathe such that it (the muscle) rises and falls. Attend to it. Every time the muscle rises, think “Rising,” and every time it falls, think “Falling” . . . rising . . . falling . . . rising . . . falling. Let all other thoughts drift by and keep your attention focused on this muscle. Don’t lose heart. At first the mind will wander frequently. Each time it does, follow it immediately upon becoming conscious of its wandering. Note where it wandered to, and then immediately return to rising . . . falling . . . rising . . . falling. . . Or if you prefer, you can substitute counting for rising and falling. Om (in-breath) . . . 1 (out-breath), Om . . . 2 . . . Om . . . 3 . . . etc. Two or more syllable numbers can be divided into in and out breath, e.g., four . . . teen . . . etc. If you wish, you can set goals for yourself during the initial stages. Start with 250 and increase by 50 each day. Remember . . . your only task is to count that muscle going up and down. All other thoughts don’t belong here. Don’t try to suppress them (for that is just another thought). Rather, note the intruding thought, give it a label, and return to the task at hand. After about a month you will note a great calm and sense of peace from this exercise. (e) After you get in the habit of merely noting each stimuli in the Here and Now without thinking about it, then add additional steps designed to further free you from illusion. - To understand the risk involved in jnana yoga you need to reflect upon the precise limit of the rational mind. The rational mind functions by separating subject from object, that is, the knower from the known. It works with data derived from the senses and the associative processes of the intellect (the memory). It works by analysis, a systematic processing technique that is based on the laws of logic. Its limitations are that it cannot handle paradoxical or illogical information (e.g., that points at the opposite ends of a continuum are the same point, or that something can be “a” and “not a” at the same time) and that it cannot know that which can only be experienced subjectively. - Set alarm clocks or design your day or put up notes on the wall so that a number of times during the day when you are in the midst of various occupations you confront yourself with the questions: (a) Where Am I? and then answer (see answer below) (b) What time is it? and then answer (see answer below) Each time you do this, try to feel the immediacy of the Here and Now. Begin to notice that wherever you go or whatever time it is by the clock . . . it is ALWAYS HERE AND NOW. In fact you will begin to see that you can’t get away from the HERE and NOW. - <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">Sadhana is a bit like a roller coaster. Each new height is usually followed by a new low. Understanding this makes it a bit easier to ride with both phases.</mark> - As you further purify yourself, your impurities will seem grosser and larger. Understand that it’s not that you are getting more caught in the illusion, it’s just that you are seeing it more clearly. The lions guarding the gates of the temples get fiercer as you proceed towards each inner temple. But of course the light is brighter also. It all becomes more intense because of the additional energy involved at each stage of sadhana.