Where is the Self?

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On How Many Hearts?, a commenter asked why some teachers talk about the Self being in the center of the head and others in the heart. I thought the response was worth sharing. I’ve added more.

The Self or Atman aka self-interacting consciousness is universal and thus is located everywhere, infusing everything. It is the essential medium of all we experience, including what is experiencing, the process of experience and what we experience. Form, emotion, thought, or sensation and what is noticing these – it’s all consciousness. And yet, at its highest, we recognize that Atman is aware … Continue Reading… →

The 10th Anniversary

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I launched this blog 10 years ago today. It’s evolved a lot in that time. It started as a simple free blog called In2Deep for sharing various topics broadly related to spirituality. This included notes from talks, videos, and so forth.

As the shift settled in here, I gradually began to write more about it and what followed. I also shifted slowly to my own voice. At first I wrote under the Davidya nickname, only later sharing more of who I was after I’d wound down my tech consulting business.

A few of the milestones:

2008-09
Surge in posting, … Continue Reading… →

Book Update

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Book Cover
Just another short update on the book on higher stages project.

All the parts have finally come in, including entry into the library catalog I didn’t expect as I hadn’t applied (didn’t qualify being self-published). The book is written, edited, cover designed, graphic designed, and formatted. Now I’m compiling the book into the various file formats needed for print and ebook versions. The ebook conversion sure has bugs…

I hope to upload the files soon but they then … Continue Reading… →

Two Kinds of Resistance

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As Yoga describes, there are two basic kinds of resistance to what is.

The first is Grasping. This is trying to hold on to what passes through our lives. We try to hold on to passing experiences, perceptions, possessions (good word), memories, and so forth. We try to keep things we like from changing. When this fails, we experience loss and grief.

Similarly, desires for future possessions can be a grasping at wants, often with an expectation of satisfaction that never lasts. (cue Rolling Stones)

Grasping at the past (memories) and grasping at the future … Continue Reading… →

How Many Hearts??

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I’ve begun to lose track of how may hearts there are to open. (laughs) A few years ago, I wrote about the 4 hearts, then added one to it:

1 – the physical heart in the left chest
2 – Anahata, the heart chakra we meet on the rise of kundalini Shakti
3 – Hrit, the heart sub-chakra above the physical heart.
4 – the “high heart” or “soul thrill” sub-chakra behind the clavicle, between heart and throat.
5 – Hridaya, a higher octave of the heart chakra that opens during the … Continue Reading… →

ParaBrahman, Stage 2

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I’ve talked previously about the ParaBrahman stage and how pure Divinity can only be known by itself. It is beyond the dynamics of consciousness so cannot be experienced in the old sense of it. But as we live it, it can very much be known.

In the first stage, we could say Divinity moves into the physiology to support this unfolding. This happens as a rising up through the body, somewhat akin to the rise of kundalini to support awakening. Only in this case it is more total. Like being filled up with flowing white light but more … Continue Reading… →

The Receptors

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The mind is powered mainly by the 3rd chakra at the solar plexus. And the mind field or mental body is a field that surrounds the entire body to some distance. Why then do we subjectively experience thoughts as being in the head?

Consider where we have our receptors for thinking.

We can describe the brain as a receptor or antenna for the mind. The brain is the physical interface for mental energy. Thus we recognize thinking as happening “in the head.” The movement of thoughts is not restricted to the brain though. Thoughts move through the “space” of … Continue Reading… →

Sustained Awakening

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Sometimes there can be a moment, an opportunity to shift. These can happen at any time but are most rich in places where there is an intensity of alertness. A gathering of the awake on a retreat is an optimum place for intensity of attention and awakeness.

If a recognition happens, the question then becomes – can this be sustained by this physiology out in the world beyond that circumstance? Is there enough sustained clarity to support the shift?

Was the recognition clear enough to know That unmistakably? Mind will grasp any doubt and run with it.

Was the surrender … Continue Reading… →

Fear of Flow

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Stillness is needed for awakening. Not just the deep stillness we notice in meditation, but a stillness even in activity. When alertness and clarity of stillness are at a peak, seeing happens.

As Yoga (1v2-3) puts it:
Yoga is the complete settling of the activity of the mind
Then the observer is established in the Self [in its own nature]

Yet after the shift, if someone doesn’t understand the larger picture, they can cherish the peaceful stillness and try to hold onto it. This impedes further progress. You see people who have been awake for years … Continue Reading… →

Cosmic Stress follow-up

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There is a curious dynamic once you shift into the perspective of the body as cosmic, usually in Refined Unity. The cosmic is beyond the fields of karma and stress. There is nothing there to purify. When you experience your body as cosmic, it is seen as pristine and full of light.

And yet all bodies in our universe are part of the cosmic. It includes all forms in all of time and space. Those bodies are expressed into denser layers and carry unresolved experiences, nodes of resistance, and other kinds of crud.

And thus, when we live … Continue Reading… →

The Heart and The Gut

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While we all have seven primary chakras and various sub-chakras, each of us can have a somewhat difference emphasis. Yet the heart and solar plexus chakras typically have significant roles in the post-awakening process.

We usually grow up around people with poor energy skills and hygiene. We may take on the same patterns to fit in and thus learn anxiety, fear or control. Or we may rebel with anger. None of this serves us well though.

With greater awareness, those unhealthy habits become conscious and can be resolved, freeing us from the massive energy drain that sustaining them takes.

The … Continue Reading… →

More on Stages of Witnessing

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There are many nuances in the approach to awakening and in awakening itself. Self Realization is a watershed moment in the history of our soul. A new birth into a new way of being.

I’ve written many articles on the approach including Gradations of Awakening, What is Witnessing?, and The Stages of Witnessing.

In the later article, I talked about non-abiding witnessing, abiding witnessing and actual Self Realization as 3 possible stages in the approach to awakening. Recently, Lorne Hoff spoke of the steps in another way. I realized this added a fourth possibility.

1) The … Continue Reading… →