A few weeks ago, Lorne Hoff shifted to using YouTube for the Sunday evening webcast.
Among other advantages, the webcast is available for 12 24 hours if you’re not able to watch during. While live is the most potent, if you’re in Europe or work evenings, it gives you an option.
Be sure to bookmark the viewing page when you first visit. Now you get an emailed link to the latest broadcast when you subscribe.
When the calls first became more widely available in 2007, we were using a somewhat flaky Skype daisy-chain. It was easiest to listen in groups and I still recommend that.
I have found YouTube streaming doesn’t work in an LG TV browser. In that case, connecting a portable computer may be simplest.
If you come to the call expecting concepts for the mind, you may be disappointed. Many people have told me they didn’t “get” it. But if instead you try something new and settle into quietness before the call (why he doesn’t talk right away) and listen from presence or being, you can enjoy a conversation of the Self with Itself. It is this difference that causes some, like myself, to awaken listening.
They’ve also migrated to a new YouTube channel. You can subscribe to their channel. Also click the Bell icon to get notified of new videos posted.
They’ve moved many of the old videos and have merged a few of the early series. Some of them go back to 2009. I’ve updated links in articles on this blog to correspond.
Also evolving is the retreats. The needs of people culturing silence to awaken are distinct from the needs of the clearly awake developing aliveness in the stillness. Next year, there will be 2 types of retreats to meet those needs better. Looking forward to that.
You can select the LuciaLorne category on the right to browse articles where I’ve referred to them. They’ve been a profound part of this unfolding and of many I know.
Enjoy!
Davidya
Last Updated on April 26, 2018 by Davidya
Hi David
Wonderful to hear that their webcasts will be available for 12 hours after.
When you say “that the needs of people culturing silence to awaken are distinct from the needs of the clearly awake developing aliveness in the stillness”, does that mean that listening to some of his older videoes might be better? The videoes where he talks about Self realisation?
I thought that the transmission was what mattered and the it therefore was best to listen to the videoes where Lornes had evolved most?
Hi NN
The webcasts are focused on waking up, although he sometimes addresses someone further along. And they’re nice even for the awake due to the quality of Self-conversation. (aka transmission) Many listening are awake, adding to the effect.
The videos and other recordings vary a bit – the topic can give some indication. Some of the early ones are for the newly awake as so many had been shifting then – including the Self Realization one you mention.
So no, you don’t need to try and watch earlier stuff. Or try to work out when he’s more evolved. Just watch.
The needs reference was for retreats where the intensity is ramped up. Not of what is said but of presence. Intensity of silence is the key for the initial shift but intensity of liveliness unfolds further stages.
Intensity of liveliness is a distraction from silence so is less helpful for those waking. By having 2 kinds of retreats, they can cater to the specific needs.
The same steps can also be useful further along, like silence for Brahman.
This is not to say the retreats are intense per se – they’re actually very relaxed. Again – it’s intensity of presence. The silence gets very loud. 🙂
OK, that’s good. Thanks.
I hope to be able to attend a retreat the coming summer.
OK – just be sure to book well in advance. They’re often fully booked 6 months in advance.
Thanks, that is good to know.
Hi David
I have been to only 1 retreat but listen to the calls regularly. One difference that I noticed was that the silence at the retreat was palpable while not so much at home. For someone like myself who is not yet awake, I felt that, to be in the same room as so many who are awake, was of great benefit. Would not a ramped up intensity of presence help “individuals” 🙂 who are not yet awake, to awaken? Just being a bit selfish here.
Hi Richard
Yes, it’s been fascinating to see the retreats evolve. Now, as Lorne and Lucia have joked, they don’t even have to come for the retreats to be potent. Just being together is good, partly why I suggest listening to the calls in a group if possible too. The more, the merrier.
So yes, being around the awake becomes very valuable as we become ripe. Lively awakeness in others enlivens it in ourselves.
I get together with others here who are very awake regularly, including this afternoon. 🙂
To be clear, it’s the intensity of silent presence that can help bring the clarity for awakening. Kind of like transcendence (samadhi) with the eyes open.
An intensity of lively presence may be nice but tends to distract from pure awareness. It more relates to love, fine feelings, and flow. Great for GC but not the clear seeing of pure presence.
This may seem like profound abstractions but it gets very obvious later. The observer that awakens is a silent observer. It then observes the liveliness and flow that gives rise to the world. And then they merge in Unity.
Note that it doesn’t matter if the mind gets this or not. This is well beyond the mind.
It’s also worth mentioning that early on, they cranked the intensity up higher and more people shifted. However, a majority couldn’t sustain it yet and fell back into the mind. Now, they “manage” the intensity more so that shifts are more likely when someone is ready and will be sustained.
Once the shift settles in and is integrated, we don’t fall back.
Thanks David, that does make sense. 🙂
Looking forward to attending another retreat in the Spring.
See you then!
Locally, we usually listen to the webcasts in a group. What we found simplest is to bring up the webcast page on a laptop hooked up to a TV via HDMI cable.
Lorne saying the manifestation is “fake”. They lost me there. Once again, the life-denying , ill-embracing bias of patriarchal spirituality creeping…by comparison, the exquisite, all-embracing love of manifestation of Tantric Kashmir Shaivism
Hi Uli
(laughs) Apparently, the word was a button for you. You might find it useful to explore your reaction to the word.
Lorne talks about the expression in a wide range of ways. He’s used phrases like illusion, fake, never created in the first place, divine play, pure flow, and so on. Each of these are ways it can be experienced at different points in someones journey.
Lorne speaks from the Self to the Self of those listening. Quite often his language will shift to meet the needs of someone on-line. This is more obvious when you see him working with someone in person.
His goal is to try and assist the descent of the divine into our world. This is hardly life-denying or patriarchal. And if Lorne does drift too masculine, Lucia is there to balance it.
From my perspective, the world is not what most people think it is. We might say it is an appearance layered onto divine flows. The appearance is not what is real, hence someone experiencing it as illusory or fake. But the appearance is an effect of the divine, so it’s worth going deeper and discovering this directly. Otherwise, we’re just chasing effects.
Kashmir Shaivism is one of the higher teachings but it does fall short of ParaBrahman. As the saying goes, the guru of Shiva is Mother Divine.
All that said, Lorne & Lucia are not for everyone. We should seek teachers we resonate with as that can help facilitate shifts.
Hi David,
This makes me think, what the purpose of life is. I try to find view where both the absolute and relative life is included, because I would say both need to be included in order for it to make sense. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Is the purpose in life solely enlightenment or is there a wider purpose to life, and what would that be?
Hi N
Yes – this is known as the 2 fullnesses in some texts: Purnamida purnamidum.
I would not say the purpose of life is enlightenment as that implies it’s a goal. Thats like saying the purpose of life is puberty. Both are preparations for life. 🙂
To me, purpose is multilayered.
For one, there is the broader purpose of all these different beings designed to experience life in all these distinct ways, thus allowing That to know itself more thoroughly, in all the details. We are an aspect of the whole, coming to know itself in more detail. (there are various ways of looking at this, depending on the stage)
On another level is dharma, that which sustains. We have a function in supporting the world so the above process can unfold. Dharma itself has several layers. (personal, family, work, etc)
On another level is what might be called personal purpose. That would be what this being is called to accomplish in space and time. We tend to spend much of our life in learning mode, not recognizing the direction it’s taking. Sometimes this is taking place over several lifetimes.
Broadly, we can say that purpose is driven by the laws of nature so we’re often not conscious of these dynamics. But if we can learn to go with where life is taking us, life is smoother and we make better progress.
Hi David,
Thanks. That gives rise to a couple of questions.
– Would you say that Brahman is still a preparation for life?
– Are these different kinds of purposes also relevant for Jesus and Guru Dev?
– How do we know where life is taking us? 🙂 Is it that feeling of following the rivers natural current, instead of fighting it?
I have also felt that Lorne’s talks could seem a bit life-denying sometimes, as Uli puts it, so I was pleasantly surprised that he and Lucia also express the importance of increasing quality of life rather than being too quick to move through the stages of consciousness and beyond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4VmYJNsVBM
And congratulations with the book release, David. I really look forward to reading it.
Hi N
The way I see it currently is that Brahman (stage) is a preparation for ParaBrahman, pure Divinity. And that is a preparation for the greatest fullness of life.
These purposes are relevant to all humans. These are people capable of living it very fully.
It is the mind that wants to know so it can feel in control and claim accomplishments for itself. In many cases, we don’t know where life is taking us. But if we learn to go with the flow (river), the ride becomes much smoother and we can give our energy and attention to enjoyment rather than battling it.
This approach also brings deeper perception of the flow of life and thus a much greater sense of where it’s going. But the ironic thing is that even if you know the future, how events will unfold right here and how you’ll experience that subjectively are still a surprise.
I’ve never found Lorne life-denying. He does speak directly of the illusion of the world appearance, basically as a call to see through it and discover what is beyond it. But this isn’t a monk-ish denial, it’s a call to see the truth of it.
That truth is not an absence but a fullness.
When Clare did her BATGAP interview, she stopped short of talking about the Brahman stage as she was concerned it would scare her students. She later reconsidered and did a second part to the interview a few days later.
Talk about Brahman can sound harsh. It is a step beyond life itself. But it’s also the doorway to the “source of the source” as they put it in the video. And as mentioned at the top of this comment.
As they also mention, there can sometimes be an experience of loss as we step into a new stage. But that is entirely temporary as we put down the old perspective, then integrate everything to the new.
Thanks!
Hi David,
Thanks, that was a great help.
By the way, without knowing him, I don’t consider Lorne life-denying either, but his emphasis and choice of words can nonetheless still bring that feeling up in me sometimes. But I’ve thought to myself that the words are different from the actual experience, so I’ve sort of just let it go.
This article explores more how to listen to Lorne and others awake:
https://davidya.ca/2017/10/04/listening-to-someone-awake/
Thanks 🙂