Niguma: Mahamudra as Spontaneous Liberation

Niguma: Mahamudra as Spontaneous Liberation

Don't do anything whatsoever with the mind --
Abide in an authentic, natural state.
One's own mind, unwavering, is reality.
The key is to meditate like this without wavering;
Experience the Great [reality] beyond extremes.
In a pellucid ocean,
Bubbles arise and dissolve again.
Just so, thoughts are no different from ultimate reality.
So don't find fault; remain at ease.
Whatever arises, whatever occurs,
Don't grasp -- release it on the spot.
Appearances, sounds, and objects are one's own mind;
There's nothing except mind.
Mind is beyond the extremes of birth and death.
The nature of mind, awareness,
Uses the objects of the five senses, but
Does not wander from reality.
In the state of cosmic equilibrium
There is nothing to abandon or practice;
No meditation or post-meditation period.

~ Miranda Shaw (tr.) "Niguma: Mahamudra as Spontaneous Liberation," in Passionate Enlightenment.

Into Thin Air

Artwork Images Copyright Dave Goldman

Into Thin Air

We interface into this world out of nothing

Like a hand into the glove

We fit inside it like we were made for it

Made of it and we are but

We come from somewhere else

That is not this world

It is thin

And this world is thick

It is light and this world is heavy

It is of nothing and here everywhere there is something

What a longing to be so thin thinner than the air

Or the breath or thoughts or even thinner than light

He vanished into thin air and he came out of it again

In the morning after waking up out of it

He is now in the thick of it again

Up from a deep deep well at the bottom of nothing

He came up up up up up until he was in it again

Like the hand in the glove

Only the glove is the whole world

And it feels really does feel like he is it

This thickness dense and full of always something

Nowhere empty but he knows empty so somewhere empty is also

He slides into the in-between of the everywhere-something

Letting himself become thin very very thin

Like the finest sheet of nano-film

To slip into the in-between of all of this

Thin fine finest very slight and subtle most subtle hardly noticed

And so so so smooth silky infinitely delicate

Any thought disrupts its space in-between thoughts

Here is the birthplace and the peaceful dwelling of his in-dweller

So peaceful untouched never been touched and so pure

Pure beingness without being this or that

My salvation my sustenance

My essence

How can I forget Thee?

12/2/12

Unconditional Love

Light Baby (source unknown)

All Voices are my Self speaking to me

Mind creates all forms desired by Itself to show Itself to Itself

Myriad entities stand at the ready in my mind’s Eye

To appear and give voice to that which “I” desires to hear

In order to better see and understand Itself

What Love! to bring any form into Being that is desired needed wanted!

Asked for, yearned for, even before any word sprouts in the depths

I will hear and see that Word made flesh

Over and over and over

Whether I am ready to receive it or not

This Love Heart that is all that is

Keeps on cranking out more and more of Itself without reserve

Generous is such a trivial concept compared to this outpouring

Reckless Abandon!

Then the Organ of Perception that we and all forms are

Begins to piece together the picture to connect the pixel dots

! ! ! THIS IS I ! ! ! THIS WE ARE ! ! ! YOU ARE THAT ! ! ! I AM THAT ! ! !

T A T   T W A M   A S I

Once I felt the small child that felt the cutting whip of the harsh word the disapproving look the judgment the repulsion the cold shoulder oh so cold

I felt it from inside – I was the child defenseless innocent open fresh tender

Like the first sprouting green of the simple weed trampled by the hard heel

Callouses grew and grew thicker blocking the Light from Inside and Within

The first few years did the trick I was deaf and dumb for Self’s Love

Callouses covered my senses ears tongue eyes fingertips taste made bitter

At eighteen years rebellion –

"DON'T TAKE THAT IT WILL LEAD YOU TO DAMNATION AND RUIN" 

That was my code: 

I took it Lysergic Acid Diethylamide Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

20–30 µg (micrograms) barely an energetic signature in the world of matter

Catapulted me outside of the veil of the dusty calloused tired world of despair

I looked around and noticed the sense of me the individual with biography and name

Gone gone far far far gone Om Gate Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!

All was embracing Itself as All Breathing ItSelf as All Seeing only Itself with Deep Love

Never-ending Love fathomless Love without reason without cause or conditions

Forty-Four years ago that was and started the odyssey of the heart to the Heart

Finding traces of my Self like fluorescent specks along the path of life

Sometimes covered with grime in the gutter

and yet still shining glinting in the rays of Sunlight or Streetlight

showing me the Way back to that child’s world

untouched opening like the petals of the rose covered with fine dewdrop diamonds

Now I am touched again by that energetic that signature of Love

no this time around no chemical catalyst just Life’s Urgent Call: Change NOW!

Who is the Master of My Destiny the Master of my Words Feelings Thoughts Actions?

Who is responsible for war peace hate love?

NOW NOW and NOW die to the past

WAKE UP to this NOW of LOVE

It’s what you want your deepest desire most secret secret fondest cherished dream

I take this in this voice of Mine

I rest in quietude in peace in knowing

I let this energetic transform strike into my core my cells my genes

This is who I am how I am NOW

See that child vulnerable everywhere in each ones eyes

Be kind whenever possible it is always possible said His Holiness

11/11/2012 Arizona Beach Retreat

Behind the Words

Seeing

I am writing words and behind the words is what I wish to say.

This life we are living as awareness alive as itself.

Can I release my words, concepts, my hold on reality?

There is a seeing happening, I call it consciousness.

It is a flow, a swirling, a curling, a joining and separating ~

All within this movement and seeing is what it is.

The wall, the man, the jar, the cat, the rock, the clock

All seeing is what it is.

As it sees it becomes and yet it moves not.

Such a power in this Organ of Perception! 
It sees and in that is creating.

Now it sees thinking, dreaming, wishing, wanting, learning 
and So It Is.

Make it so, Number One, 
and the One is you, is me, is we.

We are the Seeing “I”, the Self is the Seeing Eye.

We are That.

Let’s start enjoying our Self!

Our time is come and it is NOW without end.

I greet each of You as my Self 
and Love is our language behind the words.

October 22, 2012

Hear Listen Roar

Sequence created by memory

I project it onto the world;

Then from sequence I conjecture causality

And project it onto the world.

What does the world look like

without sequence and causality?

October 19, 2012

The Uniqueness of My Life and the Power of Non-Duality

The two come together: the uniqueness of my life and the power of non-duality.

The uniqueness of my life is the present moment. Leaving all residue of a previous movement of my life’s energy in the form of memory and conditioning, I find myself afresh in this NOW.

In a dark room I light a match and swirl my outstretched arm in front of me describing a large circle with the flame of the match. The fact is the burning wood of the match. It is at one single point of the circle at any given time. However, the eye sees a complete circle of fire. One could say that the circle is an illusion, created by the eye holding on to the impression of the path of the flame through space in the dark room.

The comment on my blog was written, sent and read by me days ago, however it is still alive in my perception because I am remembering it. When I let go of that memory, or clearly see it as a past movement of my energy, it is gone and my perception is free of it.

Afresh in the NOW my eyes take in with a sense of newness, never before seen, a unique view, a unique seeing. The seeing energy is pristine, free of the past and it feels its own movement of seeing with total clarity.

Non-duality is the power of absolute disintegration of all beliefs, concepts, ideas and all frames of reference. I get a taste of it every now and then and it is magnificent. Tuning in to and aligning with the vibration of non-duality anchors my existence in non-existence. Thus a field of vastness and emptiness is created, within which the energy of seeing comes into relation to the seen as an extension of itself. There is no interference by anything that is not itself.

The seeing light of consciousness takes in all that appears in its light. This light stems from the Inner Effulgence, which can also be called the Inner Sun. It is immobile and groundless. It exists out of Itself and is beyond all states and attributes. When all Its reflections and refractions are reduced to their essential substance, It is our true nature and It is no-thing.

The power of non-duality is the power of this one fact that reduces all forms (which make up what we call the “world”) to naught, from which they stem. When I attune myself more and more clearly to this felt sense of non-duality, all attachments, illusions and fondly cherished concepts of all kinds begin to dissolve under my feet. I am left in the formless, or rather, in that which IS before form, which is present while form is maintained and also after its dissolution. While my mind says that it gives up trying to follow, another part of me knows what I mean.

This felt sense of non-duality is the ground upon which I experience the uniqueness of my life, for out of nothing something appears for the first time, afresh out of the void, and it is untainted by anything that may have appeared “previously”. The overlay, or superimposition of old impressions, judgments, concepts and frames of reference onto what appears fresh is a function of my memory and the conditioned movements of my mind as it holds on to the “known” – the past.

Attuning myself to the power of non-duality coming together with the uniqueness of my life entails a vigilance towards the conditioned movement of my mind in order to ensure a radical departure from the old paradigm and create the space needed for the new paradigm to flower.

A relevant story: A newlywed came to his friend after the wedding night. “Can you imagine what happened? A cat snuck into the room and was yowling all night, so how could romance happen?” His friend said he would do him a favor, so he switched places with him that night.

The next morning the two meet and the groom asks how it went. “Wonderful! You are such a lucky man! Such a loving and affectionate wife you have!” “And the cat?” asked the groom. “Oh, that – off with his head!” replied the friend.

Please, dear cat friends, of which I am a great one – no harm was done to any living creature, and the story makes sense if you substitute the word “conditioned thinking” for “cat”, and the word “mastery of your life” for “wife”.

Arizona Beach Pledge

10/10/12

I herewith choose to enter into a vibratory alignment with the Aethos.

The Aethos is a bandwidth of consciousness anchored in pure non-duality.

I now broadcast a benevolent thoughtform of “Interconnectedness” to all of humanity.

This is a free offering of this thoughtform and a recognition and acknowledgement that this interconnectedness exists.

This interconnectedness exists alongside the unique differences of all individuals.

I imagine that my KA or “etheric double” rises above me, and floats to a position sixty miles above the planet, where I join hands with others all across the Earth who have joined in the meditation.

This joining of hands is a symbolic representation of the thought form we are calling “interconnectedness.”

Joining me in this sea of interconnectedness are the Devic kingdoms, the spirits of the Earth, the elementals, and the myriad life forms upon the Earth, as well as Gaia herself. 

I am joining with intergalactic intelligences as well as with cosmic bodies, including the Sun and the Central Sun—the black hole that forms the center of our galaxy.

I Could Get Used to This…

Gaia

I had one of those exceptional dreams last night – the kind that when you “wake up” you realize that the dream was a real as where you are now.

And hearing the view recently that the dream quality of experience is how emotions manifest into a dimension of their own (some call it the 4^th dimension) – I let my senses linger with this particular dream vision/experience a few times during this day so as to let the quality solidify itself more deeply into the cells of my psycho-somatic organism.

Also, I was aware upon “waking” that the quality of this dream experience had begun to root itself into my being as a new quality of perception. I refer now to a passage in the Hathor’s “Aethos” message that sheds light on my experience, as I have been connecting more and more with the realm of the Aethos through their sound meditation in the last two days:

“It is important to realize that non-dual states of consciousness are relative to the perceiver. Thus, if you experience non-duality through your heart chakra, you may very well experience impersonal love—a deep sense of cosmic connection.

Indeed, in this state of union between non-duality and the heart, you become infatuated, and for all intents and purposes, you fall in love with the cosmos. And in that paradox of the heart, you become the Beloved, and everything you see and witness is the Beloved as well.

While this is a beautiful state of consciousness, it is not pure non-duality. As you move upward into the higher chakras experiences of non-duality change. When you reside in the crown chakra, non-duality is experienced in its pure form—pure consciousness aware of itself. There is no sense of a personal self in these higher dimensions of non-duality.

The paradox of creation is that it unfolds from the purest states of non-duality into the most polarized states of existence. Thus, in your consciousness are the two seemingly conflicting states of relative existence (i.e., your embodied life in time and space) and non-dual states of consciousness in which all polarities and conflicts disappear.

Our perspective, as mentioned earlier, is that non-dual states of consciousness are cantilevers to greater mastery of creation and not the end point or the goal of evolution.”

(full message: https://heartflow2012.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/the-aethos-and-non-dual-states-of-consciousness/)

Enough said. Now to the dream vision.

photo credit: http://www.angelichuman.com/

The Dream

Across from me sat two extraordinarily beautiful women with long blond hair. They were both smiling ecstatically to each other and just in general. One of them was kissing the other one repeatedly on the side of her head on her long fine hair and then up towards her forehead along the side of her face. In the dream the thought flashed “Are they lesbian?” but immediately it was clear that this was a show of affection and love that was much grander than their physical gender.

It was clear that one of the women was going to introduce me to the other one, whom I had not met yet. They both turned towards me and flooded me with their light like a dense shower of gold/white energy. Then the one I had not met before came closer and I drew her close with my hands on her waist, (however our upper bodies did not touch) and she brought her head close to the side of mine and we embraced such for some while (eternity) letting our light mingle and merge and surge together. She then spoke in a low voice in my ear: “I could get used to this!”

Then the words entered my consciousness, referring to all three of us: “We are angels.”

photo credit: http://wanderinggaia.com

The Message for Me

My sense of the underlying emotional reality of this experience is that this is the time and place for each of us to express that sense of “infatuation with the cosmos” and recall that effusive love for all experiences and the undying optimism that we all have felt at some point ~ maybe as a small child or in some particular situation. 

We are called upon to discard whatever might taint that expression - much as we discard the refuse we have swept up and don’t examine it again before we dump it into the Big Bin. This is to be in the pristine innocence that is our birthright and that grounds our alignment with the one Great Mystery that moves as the beating heart, the breath, the words and actions of each of us. 

The words “We are angels” is for me the expression that each of us, right here where we are on the ground of Gaia, our Mother Earth, is indeed a benevolent being of light as we have been told the angels are. We need only re-member our true nature and allow its active expression in our life day to day and moment to moment.

~ Om Tat Sat ~

photo credit: http://www.myangeliclife.com

Krishnamurti on Change

If you already know what you are changing to, is that change at all? If one knows what one will be tomorrow, then "what will be" is already in the present. The future is the present; the known future is the known present.

The future is the projection, modified, of what is known now.

"Yes, I see that very clearly. So there is only, then, the question of change, not the verbal definition of what we change to. So we'll limit ourselves to the first question. How do we change? What is the drive, the motive, the force that will make us break down all barriers?"

Only complete inaction, only the complete negation of "what is." We do not see the great force that is in negation. If you reject the whole structure of principle and formula, and hence the power derived from it, the authority, that very rejection gives you the force necessary to reject all other structures of thought—and so you have the energy to change! The rejection is that energy.

"Is this what you call dying to the historical accumulation which is the present?"

Yes. That very dying is to be born anew. There you have the whole movement of change—the dying to the known.

"Is this rejection a positive, definite act?"

When the students revolt it is a positive, definite act, but such action is only very partial and fragmentary. It is not a total rejection. You ask, "Is it a positive act, this dying, this rejection?"

It is and it isn't. When you positively leave a house and enter into another house your positive action ceases to be positive action at all because you have abandoned one power structure for another, which you will again have to leave. So this constant repetition, which appears to be a positive action, is really inaction. But if you reject the desire and the search for all inward security, then it is a total negation which is a most positive action. It is this action only which transforms man.

If you reject hate and envy, in every form, you are rejecting the whole structure of what man has created in himself and outside himself.

Excerpt from

Freedom, Love, and Action, p. 7 ff

by J. Krishnamurti

Posted by: DailyOM http://www.dailyom.com/library/000/001/000001565.html

Plum Village Bell Meditation

Dear Friends,

This is my favorite meditation at present. 

It is by Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. He lives in the Plum Village Monastery in the Dordogne region in the South of France. This meditation was recorded there.

Short introduction by Thích Nhất Hạnh (2:49)
http://db.tt/CG7pcMVG

Bell meditation (38:21)
http://db.tt/VrGLIsbJ


Intro text:

This is the sound of the bell in Plum Village.
The bell is invited by me to sound for you for your daily practice.

Our practice in Plum Village is to enjoy the breathing in and out between the sounds of the bell.

The sound is there to help you concentrate and to enjoy your breathing.

When you listen to the bell deeply in a relaxed way, breathing in deeply, you enjoy your breathing, and breathing out, enjoying just the sound of the bell and your breathing,
you calm your body,
you calm your emotions,
you stop all your thinking.

If every day you practice for 10 or 20 or 30 minutes of breathing with the bell, you will restore yourself, you will restore your peace, your joy and your freedom.

You are alive. To be alive is a wonder. Breathing itself is a miracle, and when you breathe you touch deeply the fact that you are alive.

We are glad to offer you these sounds from Plum Village.

Cosmic Cycles

A Message from Consciousness

Oh highest most pure consciousness, my dearest friend, lover, most true life companion! Show me whatever information so as to reveal your secrets and to unveil to me the truth of this existence and also that from which this existence comes, that I may rest in my true nature: svarupa!

I am awake beyond the three states. Light takes its journey from that first atom of pure existence without attributes. Feel that first state of pure beingness! In it is supreme bliss, peace, love. Recline into that state as into a warm bath in a wonderful natural hot springs. Feel that one living water with these three aspects of bliss, peace and love. Feel the one atom of pure existence. You are that.

See the mirror. It is a crystal mirror with myriad facets. The one atom of pure existence is a golden orb. You hear the intense humming of that one atom, like an atomic power station. It is a vibration that you feel, hear, see and sense in your core. It explodes into the crystal mirror and out into space as myriad rays. These rays are reflected and refracted again and again by the crystal mirror which is everywhere as the inner essence of existence, of the one atom of pure existence. In other words, wherever you go and whatever you perceive is the mirror, producing reflections, refractions and distortions of the one effulgence.

You have been fascinated by the permutations of form as light, color, sound, touch, smell and “inner” mind images like a small child is enthralled by a bauble hanging over its crib. Now you see the worlds and universes for what they are: a wondrous and divine playground for conscious existence to experience. You are now seeing in your deepest core that what you see is yourself. You alone are.

You are returning to consciously be the crystal mirror and are now on the verge of seeing that the impulse to explode out into space to experience your power is now subsiding. You are feeling the immense power to hold this energy of the one golden atom at your core and just glow, without projecting.  Just as you feel the vital life energy expand and expand as you inhale, and then, when the expansion cycle is complete, after a brief pause, during which you reside in the void in fullness, you let go of the impulse and allow the release – implosion happens, and all energy returns from fullness to emptiness. Then, when this opposite cycle is complete, you rest in the void again, in emptiness.

Now you want to rest in that space longer and longer, and are waking up to the fact that you are that space, that emptiness, which is intensely humming with potentiality. You are letting go of the urge to actualize that potentiality, as you have tasted that process to its fullness and completion. You see the fragmentation of consciousness that has resulted. You now yearn to reverse the fragmentation process and to allow all splinters of light of the one atom to subside back into itself. This is resting in your own form: svarupa – in which nothing is missing.

In this process you are owning and embracing all the fragments: this is unconditional love, and universal goodwill, caring for, compassion, connecting with the one Heart. As the veil lifts and you begin to carry and support this process from your heart, you experience a reintegration of all three basic facets of your nature, which are:

1)    Absolute Being: you are beginning to realize in your core that you cannot be born or die, that Beingness is before and beyond all forms that arise and subside. So the fear of death and loss is waning;

2)    Absolute Consciousness: you realize that every form is contained in consciousness, as every wave is part of the ocean. Your identification with single forms is waning and your ability to see consciousness itself as your true identity is growing;

3)    Absolute Bliss: the flavor of all experience is now this facet showing itself in all experiences, beyond the attributes of pleasant or unpleasant or any other attributes. Those and all other attributes are being over-shadowed, as the sun of Bliss that you are is less and less obscured by the clouds of the mind. You experience this as a very subtle warmth and lightness, an aliveness in all experience, a joy that has no ‘reason’, an increasingly continual letting go of anything that starts to cloud the experience or make it feel heavy. There is a more and more steady remembrance of the fact that joy is what you are, it is your basic nature, way before your nature as a human, as a light being - or anything else you may define yourself as.

To say: “I am” is to say; “I = Being, Consciousness, Bliss”

Let this frequency mature in you, in your life, in all of your doings. That is your homework for now.

Om Tat Sat

1/7/2010

Cycles

The Quality of Universal Consciousness

I must compare and discriminate and make distinctions to experience pain and pleasure. They are necessarily framed in a context. For the universal consciousness there is no pain or pleasure as it is both sides of every attribute that makes up a conscious experience. 

The sense of being an individual is the basis for the experience of comparison and of distinction. How can I say "I am cold" if all experiences are held in the neutral space of 'what is'? More precisely expressed would be: something in the field of experience of universal consciousness is noticed as being at a lower temperature than is optimal for that one unit within the field.

There is an altogether 'other' quality of universal consciousness "like the open sky" and "like the full moon" that includes all and refrains from excluding anything within the realm of phenomena. The force that illumines all and makes anything visible or experience-able, let's call it the one Sun, or Inner Effulgence, manifests as all forms - however subtle or gross. As this Effulgence 'shines' - it passes through itself, yes it is shining through itself onto itself as forms appear, stay awhile and then disappear.

The consistency of itself, once it is manifest is, or course, no longer transparent but tends to refract and reflect itself like in a hall of prisms, taking on seemingly individual shapes. In Reality, however, it is all still the One principle, manifesting out of "nothing" or out of the emptiness.

This 'other' quality of universal consciousness is the key to the realization of Reality and frees me from the illusions and false identifications that create turbulence in my life, and indeed, in the world.

9/22/2012

  Tranquility

Pointers to the Mind of God - One

Nisargadatta Maharaj (September 11, 1980, Prior to Consciousness p. 50):

Whether one be a jnani or an ignorant person his bodily nourishment, sustenance, maintenance, etc., goes on through the meaning of the words of his mind.

His thoughts will also flow according to the impressions he has received since childhood.

The activities came our from the vital breath, the words, and the knowingness "I Am".

The image of any God is given through the vital breath, the language of the vital breath means words.

When all aspects of the vital breath are purified there is no scope for desires, there are no physical or mental sufferings.
...
All these details I accept, but I know that the sum total is zero.

My present talks are very difficult to understand. To become qualified to understand, stay put at that source of your birth.
...
All my activities come out spontaneously, there is no scope for thinking.

Since I know my state prior to birth, I also know that birth point, and since my birth, whatever I am - my beingness - I also know. That's why I talk like this.

The experiencer and the experiences, both are to be dissolved.
...
From deep sleep to waking state, what is it?

It is the "I Am" state with no words, later the words start flowing and you get involved with the meaning of the words and carry out your worldly life with the meaning of those words - that is mind.

But before this "I Am" and waking state, that borderline, there you have to be.
...
but the subtlest part is this, from deep sleep to waking state. To abide in that you must have an intensely peaceful state.

In that state witnessing of the waking state happens.

You must go to that limit, but it is very difficult. For a normal person, with the arrival of the "I Am" and the word flow, he will go with the word flow. The one who has discrimination, who is intelligent, and is intensely spiritual, we must bring here prior to  that "I Amness."

If you have regard for me, remember my words. The knowledge "I Am" is the greatest God, the Guru; be one with that, be intimate with it. That itself will bless you with all the knowledge relevant for you and in the proliferation of that knowledge it will lead you to the state which is eternal.

You will become mature enough to be in the province of that nirguna (without attributes) state.

You cannot convert a raw mango into a ripe mango, full of juice, overnight. It must pass through the course of time for maturity.

Clear Space

there is a weight

the weight of consciousness

so heavy dense

pulling down into thick velvet blackness

making the tongue heavy fingers thick

pressing on shoulders spine

the head like a boulder

eyelids leaden fall shut

legs crumple beneath

like an earthquake

a landslide a monsoon downpour

obliterating all traces

features disintegrate

primordial substratum seducing

light soaked up by its source

impenetrable density

black hole infinite crevice

rip in the fabric of experience

pulled thrown into it

overpowering vacuum sucking

oblivious to thoughts sentiments

beliefs crumbs of mind entire edifice crumbles

delicious destruction liberating annihilation

seething soothing cleansing

deleting all impressions residue in a flash

clear space empty space sacred space

fresh vision from no-space

brain regenerates breathes again

all scar tissue smoothed like a baby’s cheek

deep pool of eternal youth

February 9, 2010