A Spiritual Life 101 – Part 3

Before speaking again I offer my respects to my spiritual teachers, our lineage and to the Supreme Soul.

aum ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah

bhaja sri krishna caitanya prabhu nityananda
sri advaita gadadhara srivasadi gaura bhakta vrnda

he krishna karuna sindho dina bandho jagat pate
gopesa gopika kanta radha kanta namo ‘stu te

aum namo bhagavate vasudevaya

 

Everybody doing okay? Aah? Yeah? I’m not being too disruptive? I kind of I kind of hope I am!

So I had a—I’ll start with answering a question that somebody has asked—and please just give me a second here. I got so much stuff on this phone, you can’t believe it. Wonderful stuff. The vastness of the ancient spiritual texts of the Vedas and the different schools of yoga, just like, it’s really amazing!

[something going on out of view of camera:] Am I on fire? Just checking. So, how long does it go on for? We just keep going, or we wait? Just keep going? Okay.

So I had a question from someone that had heard, at some point, the chanting that we do, and particularly, the use of the Mahamantra has sometimes been referred by some people to the great chant for deliverance, or the great chant for liberation. And the person was asking, “So what does that mean? What does that actually mean?” And I confirmed, yes, it is not common, but sometimes that particular mantra has been referred to in that way.

And when we talk of liberation, it’s sort of, it means actually to become free, but then the question is free from what? A lot of people don’t want to be free from this world or the material condition. Different people—we, at different times in our life and different situations we have different types of consciousness and outlooks, and we often are not aware that we have different states of consciousness.

And it’s kind of like when people so-called “fall in love,” and then you see them like all over each other, and they can’t stay away from each other, and they’re totally enamoured. And then as time goes by they can actually become almost like mortal enemies (Right or not?) and become really shitty with each other and say hurtful and, you know… And what we’re not—and then usually what happens when there’s a breakdown in a relationship like that and things go apart, and they see that there’s no possibility of it coming back together again, then it’s like you’re on the hunt for the next one. And then when you find that next person, then immediately this immersion and this idea that this is going to last forever, and this is just wonderful, and at last I found the right person. And there’s kind of like no reference to what happened a little earlier in life, that one, two, three, four, five, ten times, you’ve already been through this experience. So why exactly are you expecting this next one to be different, just because right at the moment you’re having a certain experience? Why do you think that that’s actually going to last?

And I’m not saying this to sort of hurt people. Some people think I’m such a downer on the love and relationship thing. I’m not! I think people being able to feel affection and to have relationships where people respectfully are like pilgrims on a journey. You’re heading towards some higher spiritual truth or reality, and you’re aiding and assisting each other, and you are being very thoughtful and careful. And that’s actual love, not the thing where we make ourselves the centre of everything. I make the other person, or I make myself, or I make the relationship the centre of my life. That is not going to end very well. It has to mature way beyond that for it to be of something of value and something that will actually last.

And so—but the point I’m making is just, if we reflect on those things, just like yesterday when we talked about sensory perception, and we talked about “How do you see?” and everybody thinks that you see with your eyes. Then we talked about the process of light entering the eye, and then it’s just electrical impulses that just stimulate the visual cortex in the brain. And then when I ask people, where is the picture that you’re seeing?” and everybody’s like, at least quite a few people, had this really intense reaction—which was wonderful, because we’ve never thought about that kind of thing. We’re so—and who is the one seeing the picture? Where is that picture? And who is seeing it? And this is the world of the yogis. They lived very intensely, considering these type of things, and seeking to uncover.

And you’re probably wondering, “What the hell has this got to do with the question?” Well, we’ll get there. I’m sorry. It’s one of these little bit longer answers. I’m gonna read—I’ve read it a couple of times to some different people, and I’m just going to read a little short blog, that I read a couple of years ago and I grabbed it because, oh my God, this person is wonderful, in their honesty.

So this blogger, a woman, she writes:

“I have almost everything people talk about when it comes to happiness. I have a good husband, a great job that I enjoy and pays me well.

“But here I am, feeling all confused, blank and painful. I feel numb, suffocate and lifeless.

“For all the reasons I could think of, I should be grateful for the life I have and be happy about it.”

“Yes, I am grateful. But I am not happy. I feel guilty for not being happy. I cannot talk to anyone. No one can understand. Even I can’t understand.

“Everything is so quiet. All I can hear is my husband’s breath and the sound of the wall clock. I feel so lonely. I feel like I am the only person in the world to have this feeling. This feeling overwhelms me, eats me alive and I find myself lost in it, piece by piece.

“I find myself pushing people away because I think they don’t truly understand me. I try to build a thick wall around me to protect myself and my lonesomeness. Behind the wall, I have the whole world of my own. Except there is nothing in it.

“I know it is not healthy for me to stay in my world forever.

“I know it is time for me to break the wall. But I just don’t know how.

Is anybody not moved by that? Or does that touch all of us, in perhaps slightly different ways, but nonetheless touch all of us? We can relate to it somehow or rather, some way or other. And what we are seeing here is some very intense honesty, some very intense honesty, and we don’t realize—it’s just like I was talking about in the relationship example, that we have these good times or we get all excited and really project, “Oh this is—man this is going to be amazing. This is going to be, whoa! Yeah! Aah!” It’s just like, oh my God!

In the Bhagavat Purana it says that to be on a spiritual path means you should not exaggerate the pleasure that is to be found in this world. It’s there. It can be nice, but it’s temporary, and it goes, and then we must seek something else. And then we find something else that temporarily gives us some happiness, and then that passes, and we’re back to square one. It’s like we’re not really gaining anything except memories. And then I want to just sort of like, “Aah!” you know, look at, on my phone, pictures, and, “I can remember that,” and talk to my friend, “Do you remember when we did that?” It’s like trying to relive it. Try to do that 10 times in a row. It’s not very exciting after the first time of trying to remember it. It suddenly—and then you give it five minutes, and let’s revisit, look at the picture again, and talk about how wonderful it was. And it gets old very quickly.

When we, people may refer to this use of these spiritual sounds, this mantra as the great mantra for deliverance or for liberation, this is what it’s talking about, liberation from the material condition.

Okay, I’m going to talk about another thing that’s probably disturbs people. If you want to see where your life is going, please go and volunteer in an old person’s home, aged home, particularly where people are towards the end of life. Go hold their hand, and sit with them, and talk to them.

I met a guy in Maui once, and he was talking about—he was like in his 40s already, and he would go and visit his dad, who was in an old age home. And he was kind of like—he felt sad at the massive deterioration, physical and mental. And his dad would look at him and go, “You’re looking in a mirror, son.” That’s like, whoa! That’s a powerful thing to say. And it’s not a bummer thing. It’s just a reality that—and we don’t want to go there.

It’s just kind of like with the relationship thing: You get through one relationship, and it was a crap out. And then you just want to put it behind you, and you want to launch into the next one in the hope that this is going to be it. And when it starts happening it’s like, oh, it’s just so exciting, and it’s thrilling. And it’s like we’re living in a detached reality. It’s called an illusion, that this is somehow going to be perfect.

And so, when they speak in spiritual texts about the idea of liberation, it’s actually a little bit shocking to consider it, the very fleeting nature of this life.

And then consider this idea: everything that is dear to you, all the stuff that you get excited by, and you cry over, the intense relationships and all the roller coasters associated with that, and all the things you think are so important, when you die it is terminated. The instant you die it is terminated, and you move on, and you take another body, and you build new relationships. And you think that they are so important, and you cry about it, and heartbreak, and get exhilarated, and go through that whole thing, and then you die again, and everything becomes permanently terminated. And then you just move on to the next one.

And it’s like, my God, how callous are you? All the people that you’d loved and cared about, you don’t remember, from your previous birth, who they were. Who was your mother and father, brothers and sisters, the love of your life, the people that you had intense relationships with? You don’t even think about them. And there’s a reason for that. And I’m not finding a fault. I’m just pointing out this bigger picture.

We have this bad tendency, as part of material conditioning: It’s like if you get a massive roll of film (right? that they used to show in the movie houses), and then I roll that out down the hill, and I walk down a certain distance, and I snip out a few frames of that film. Then I hold it up to the light, and I look at it. Can I tell the whole journey that takes place in that movie? Can I tell where it started, and how it developed, and how it ended? No, I’m just fixated on this a few frames.

And we have this strong tendency to look at what we are going through in this experience of life, whether it’s really good, or really bad, or just dull and boring, we have this tendency to be overwhelmed and think that this is the whole picture. And it’s not. There is much that has come before. There is much that will go after. And even in the greatest crisis in your life, this lifetime, that you can experience, this too shall pass—which is a wonderful way to look at things. It gives you perspective, rather than being overwhelmed.

And so the idea of spiritual liberation, it’s not just to seek freedom, or escape from all of that, but it’s about the underlying issue. The underlying issue is this utter fixation and illusion on this idea that the current body that I have on is me. And we can intellectualize. We can go, “Yeah, okay I understand that. Yeah, I kind of feel that I’m kind of different from my body, and I sort of accept that,” but it’s not like absolutely clear and a realized experience. And so the process of spiritual cultivation is for this.

Quite often in these general sort of retreats we don’t go into these kinds of discussions because some people find it really disturbing. And I’m sorry if it’s disturbing, but really our message is a message of limitless hope, great and transcendental hope, based on this unpacking of the reality of my actual spiritual identity, this reconnecting with my true spiritual being and the experience that comes with that.

And so yesterday I read a couple of verses from the Patanjali Yoga Sutra:

yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

that,

“When the endless mental fluctuations and modifications [or vrttis] which characterize material consciousness are arrested [which means suspended] that is yoga.”

This is his definition of yoga. I just bring up a point because a friend, Ivish, made mention, don’t think that we’re at all putting down the idea of doing asana. I mean we do it here. We practice–people do it, and it’s great, and it’s good, and it’s fantastic. But we’re saying, don’t get lost in thinking that’s the whole picture of what yoga is. Yoga has so much more to offer, limitless transcendental happiness, the experience of enlightenment, of actually becoming awakened to the truth of your spiritual identity, the experience that goes with it.

Then he goes on:

“Upon achieving the condition of yoga [which is also defined as samadhi] the seer [meaning the individual self] abides in their own spiritual nature or form.”

There is this experience that gradually develops and becomes more and more intense, where you experience the reality of your spiritual identity.

And then he says, just to make a contrast,

“At other times, when one is not in the state of yoga, or samadhi, one is falsely identifying with the material covering of the self [that is, the gross physical body and the mind] and is caught up in the fluctuations of the mind.”

And so the mind is just constantly on this rampage. And when one is deeply identifying with that covering, then they are victimized by the mind and its constant fluctuations. And you can get these wonderful—I call it wonderful, the blog I just read out, it’s just like, oh my Gods, I’m so happy that this person actually is having this experience, because it becomes a doorway to permanent relief from that emptiness, that unhappiness, the recognition that my life is not perfect, that it’s not fulfilling, completely fulfilling, there is still a lot of opportunity or potential for something higher. I feel it. I desire it.

For generations, hundreds of years, it’s like in kid’s stories, and it ends with, “and they lived happily ever after. This is not a throwaway line. This is reflective—since time immemorial all human beings have this desire to live happily ever after. But our big problem is we are living in an impermanent world, we are residing within an impermanent body, and we are seeking that which is eternal and that which is impermanent.

Does that resonate, you guys? Is it like you get that? I mean this is like, to actually have that front and centre, or even occasionally to reflect on that, is far out, because if you embrace that it becomes a powerful impetus to seek that which is truly the desire of the our heart of hearts, this spiritual desire. We desire this because we are eternal. The living being is eternal. “For the living being there is neither birth nor death,” it says in the Bhagavad-gita. The body is subject to birth, and death.

And if I intensely identify with the body, then I experience these things in Technicolor. It’s just like “Pwoah!” [mimes head blowing up] Whereas, if I am identifying with the spiritual being, I can pass through these things, even the experience of death, and it is not disturbing, it is not shattering, one can easily and cheerfully embrace this transition.

For one who has come to a platform of spiritual realization, to leave the body behind is no different from when you go into the shower, and you take off your clothing, and you drop it on the floor, and you step into the shower. Are you an anxiety about your clothes? “Oh, what about my clothes?” [Mimes crying] You don’t even think about think about it. It’s just your clothes. No big deal. We can pick it up later. We can wash it, whatever. It’s just, “Aah, my clothes, no big deal.”

And so for one who has become truly a transcendentalist, for them, the departure that we will all face—there is only one thing that you can count on in your life, only one thing: you will die. Nothing else is for real, or what that you can actually, truly count on: that one, that one alone. I mean you can avoid taxes. They say you can’t avoid death and taxes, but actually you can. You might get caught, and you may have to pay the price, but you can. Death you cannot avoid.

I saw, now, the big focus in Silicon Valley is to develop the technology and the pharmacology to make it so people can “live forever.” This is the big focus. And you can’t believe how much money is being spent on this. And of course, it’s a wonderful ambition. If you think you’re the body, then yeah, you do die, and death is a big problem.

If you embrace that I’m an eternal spiritual being, I may leave this body behind, but I continue to exist forever, it’s not really that big of an issue. It’s a little—it’s a bump in the road, but it’s not that big a deal. I’m driving down the road at 60, and then there’s a speed bump, I gotta slow down and get over the bump, otherwise it’s really, you know, I might hit my head on the roof. That’s the experience of death for a transcendentalist, just a speed bump, and we continue on the journey.

And so the idea of liberation, the idea of salvation, is actually, means to become free from the material conception of life, this illusion. And I tell you, this illusion, it is the foundation for all unhappiness. Don’t forget that one. You may not agree with it. If you don’t agree with it, it simply means that you don’t really understand what’s actually being said. But in due course of time, if you consider it thoughtfully, and you’re meditative, you will come to this realization, that this is the single big problem for the living being, for the soul: the material conception of life.

And that material conception, part of it is the idea that somehow I am supreme, that somehow I am the centre of everything, that somehow everything revolves around me. And most people will go, “What? I’m not like that.” No, you’re not aware that you’re like that. Because in your speaking, if we could actually step back a little and observe, we see everything in relation to ourself.

And it’s like, if you were sitting here, and you could be instantly transported to the International Space Station, like you’re sitting here, then suddenly you’re looking out the window down at the earth globe, you’d probably die of a heart attack, but if you survived, you would be looking. And you’re looking at the earth turning, country after country, city after city, night-time you see the light maps, where all the cities are lit up across countries, and you have millions and millions, billions, of human beings, all thinking that it’s about me. It’s all about me.

I see myself as the centre of everything. I am unaware of the intense suffering and pain of most of the people in this world. I’m disconnected from it. And I am really energetically pursuing my happiness, my fulfillment. I’m seeking to come to this point of (I’ve got a little emergency here. Seems like it’s under control)—and it’s kind of like quite extraordinary.

And again, this is another area that yogis reflect and meditate upon. And it has to do with this discovery of: Where do I fit in in relation to the big picture, in relation to all other beings, for instance?

So there is, I’ll just read a couple of verses from different spiritual texts. This first one is from the Bhagavat Purana. It’s also called the Srimad Bhagavatam, and it’s got like 18,000 verses. It’s just like— it’s a massive work. It describes that,

“In this material world every living entity is very much addicted to their material body, struggling to keep the body forever. Everyone tries to protect it by all means, even at the sacrifice of all their possessions.”

I mean, we see this with medical situations where people get a terminal illness, but they can’t—the desire to try and hang on means they will spend everything. They will even mortgage their house. They will spend all the money that they’d put aside for their children or family, just in the attempt to hang on. And there is a reason for it. The reason is because we, by nature, are eternal, and when we’re identifying with the body as being the self, and we’re seeing it come to an end, we will fight, and we will struggle to keep it going, no matter what. We don’t learn to accept and embrace the reality of life, that there are going to be things that that don’t last.

“Actually (and this is from another text) the living entity is transcendental to material existence, but because of their mentality of lording it over the material [nature, his] existential condition does not cease, and just as a dream, one becomes affected by all sorts of disadvantages or suffering.”

And then speaking to this picture, this understanding that we are all spiritual beings—I mean we have entered a time that is just like devastatingly scary and unfortunate, where there is this social movement going on around the world to reinforce the idea of embracing material identities, racial, sexual, gender, political identities. There is this big push to really reinforce people’s desire to intensely identify with that which is material. And this is the foundation, as I said, of all unhappiness. Don’t think, ever, that by embracing a material identity—it’s different to accept the reality of what I’m dealing with and get on with things, it’s another thing entirely to fixate and get totally involved with the outer garment and see it as yourself.

You get all these problems, like on social media, where, particularly with younger women, and they become so overwhelmed because they get the message that your worthiness, your attractiveness, your lovableness, is tied to how this carcass looks. All the person has to do is leave, and you’re left with a carcass. And the idea that how that carcass looks is going to determine how valuable I am, how worthy I am, how lovable I am, oh my God! This is so disastrous, and is such—I was going to use some bad words. It’s such, horrible, horrible ideas that are causing so much pain and suffering, I mean like so much.

Material identities, as we read in relation to the body, material identities come from a place of ignorance that are ignoring the actual spiritual truth that we are all eternal spiritual beings. To become obsessed, fascinated, overly involved, overly fixated on the material exterior garment, the material identity, there is no greater way to experience unhappiness than that. And this is where the world is going at like breakneck speed.

All living beings are wonderful, perfect and pure, but are not all powerful. And because we are not all-powerful, we can become overwhelmed by material conception, and we can buy into it.

They describe in these ancient texts that the living being, the spirit souls, are what is called tatastha sakti. This is like a really deep idea. It’s a form of spiritual energy. This word tatastha, it means like the imaginary demarcation between water and land. I mean, is there really any actual line that separates water and land? Not really. It’s kind of like always somewhat moving. But what it speaks to is this characteristic of the soul: because we are not God, we are not all-powerful, we can be influenced by material consciousness, and completely go into that realm and be overwhelmed, and buy into the idea that we are temporary material beings, the body is us. Or I can become fully self-realized and realize my spiritual identity, and even while existing within the body and within this material world, can be leading a fully transcendental life filled with transcendental experience. I have the capacity to go either way. This is the nature of what’s called the jiva, jiva atma.

How we deal with others should be based upon this deeper understanding. In the Bhagavad-gita is a beautiful verse that says:

“He is a perfect yogi who, by comparison to his own self, sees the true equality of all beings both in their happiness and their distress.”

It’s called empathy, to know what somebody else is going through because I am also in the same situation. Some aspects of it may not be as heavy as another person’s at the time, but we’re all the same, and we’re all on the same journey, and we’re going through the same experience.

In the Bhagavat Purana it says:

“The Supreme Soul is very satisfied with the transcendentalist when they greet other people with tolerance, mercy, friendship and equality.”

This is the indication that a person is quite spiritually situated, when we see all others, and we greet and deal with all others, even those we may consider an enemy, or someone who may think that I am their enemy, still the transcendentalist greets other people with tolerance, with mercy, with friendship and equality. And if we are not living that out in our life, we are distant from a higher spiritual reality, we are distant from the Supreme Soul, we will not be happy in our life. Spiritual practice is like really practical. It involves your life, your everyday life.

In the Upanisads (anybody heard this word before, Upanishads?) You know, the main Vedic texts (and there is like a limitless ocean of spiritual texts, it’s like amazing), you have four main texts that are massive, and then they’re supported by this other group, 108 Upanisads, but they are quite esoteric and difficult to understand. And so it’s often advised to either learn about these things from a spiritual teacher, a qualified spiritual teacher, or to focus a little bit more on the supporting, what’s called smriti (okay, getting technical here), on other texts like Bhagavad-gita, for instance.

So in—but in the Upanisads says, in giving some view, or vision, of the nature of the spiritual being, the souls:

“As tiny sparks fly from a fire, so all the individual souls have come from the Supreme.”

So they give that example.

In another, in the Mundaka Upanisad it says:

“And this is the truth, as sparks of similar form spring forth by the thousands from a strongly blazing fire, so from the Absolute Truth are produced the various living beings, O gentle one.”

But then a person may think, “Okay, well is there any distinction between the spark and the fire? If I am a spark, and my source is the fire, is there any distinction? Is it all the same?” And this deals now with the second principle. I said at the beginning, the two things that I’m going to try and share in this retreat, one is this understanding that we are all eternal spiritual beings. The body is not you. It is something you are temporarily inhabiting. And the second thing that is good to understand: What is my relationship with all other living beings? Is there one unique being that I need to have a different type of relationship or connection with?

And so in the Katha Upanisad and the Svetesvatara Upanisad there is a famous verse:

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam

This is the beginning of it. Nityo means eternal, and that word in the beginning is singular. Nityo nityanam. Nityanam is not just plural, but a vast and limitless ocean of eternals. Nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam, and it basically says,

“Amongst all eternal conscious beings there is one that is unique and different.”

In the Yoga Sutra Patanjali refers to this unique spiritual entity as Isvara, and he describes that in the yoga process—My God, the yoga process is—you think walking end to end in New Zealand, or go climb Mount Everest, or train for five years as an Olympic swimmer, it would be difficult. That’s like nothing compared to the focus, the heroic focus that one needed, and the discipline that one needed, to practice what is called Astanga Yoga. Astanga Yoga is not a form of Hatha Yoga. It means it is the eight limbs of yoga.

So in talking about how one can come to this very elevated, the highest platform of spiritual experience called samadhi, and talking about the method, which is like, Pwoor! mind-blowing, Patanjali then throws out this idea:

isvara-pranidhana-dva

and it means, by complete submissiveness of heart and supplication to Isvara one can certainly attain the highest spiritual state. And then he now begins to define this term Isvara. And he describes first that Isvara is a purusa visesa.

So, you guys mind that Sanskrit terminology? Or it’s kind of interesting or what? Okay. For me it’s mind-blowing. This word purusa is used in different ways, but it literally means the person, and it does not speak to the body, but it speaks to the living being, the soul, where your personhood arises from. And then he uses this term purusa visesa, and he says that Isvara is also a purusa, but he is unlike all other purusas. It says:

“He is unlike other purusas, being untouched by afflictions…”

So, afflictions is a term that’s used: all the tribulations that the soul experiences when they identify with the body, that Iswara doesn’t experience that.

“… nor is Isvara affected by the laws of karma or the fruits of action, nor is Isvara impacted by mental latent Impressions.”

One of the problems with material activity, it always begins with desire. You cultivate a desire, you have an attachment to the idea of doing something, and then you execute. Once you act you become tied to a reaction. It is inescapable. There’s no free ride. You pay for everything. You act with kindness, you will receive kindness. You cause pain, you will experience pain. It is absolutely inescapable. But one of the—so yogis would really try to not engage in material activity, because it just leads to this endless chain of karmic reaction and getting tied into things.

But for the actual yogis that’s not the problem. The biggest problem is that when you desire material things, and you act on it, it plants a seed in your consciousness, a seed which can sprout at any time. It creates—it’s the basis for ongoing and further desire. So you start with material desire, you act, there is a karmic reaction, but there is also this hidden seed that’s been planted, that will give rise to further desire and continually entangle the living beings.

And so he says that Isvara does not suffer from this defect. And he said:

“In Him the seed of omniscience [this total awareness of everything] is unsurpassed. He is also the teacher of all ancient teachers, or rishis, and He is not limited by time.”

And then he says:

“The transcendental sound personifying Him is aum.”

So if—and of course, this is part of the big journey in yoga, to discover not only my spiritual identity and the spiritual identity of others, but if there is some other spiritual source of myself, to whom I am eternally connected, what is the nature of that connection? In another very ancient text, called the Brahma Samhita, it describes that,

“The living being is eternal, and for all eternity and without beginning, joined to the Supreme Soul by a tie of an eternal kinship.”

An eternal kinship. You have an eternal friend. You actually have a true soulmate. It’s not another mundane living being. It is far more higher transcendent reality. And a really important part of the journey of self-realization and God realization is to come to identify that reality and begin to connect and to re-establish this profound connection of spiritual love, that is overwhelmingly ecstatic. That is really what A Spiritual Life 101 is about.

How about that? Too serious or what? And I tell you, my enormous frustration is that we’re only scratching the surface. I am giving you, sort of, some conclusions, but actually what’s underlying it is profound. What’s underlying it is extraordinary. But maybe another time we can unpack some of that.

Is that okay, or what? [Audience responds] You like it!? Oh, that’s wonderful. It blows my mind. You know, this spiritual journey and the ongoing experience, as we come to more deep—as it’s actually revealed to us, it’s shown to us—spiritual realization is not something that you do with muscle power. It is a great gift. Just as it was described here that—it describes that, here we go; one more:

“The Supreme Soul is very satisfied with the transcendentalist when they greet other people with tolerance, mercy, friendship, and equality.”

When one behaves or acts on the transcendental platform, the realizations that you have become deeper and more profound and clearer, and they expand.

When I left New Zealand, when I was 18, I was such an idiot. I still am an idiot, but in spite of the fact that I’m an idiot—I mean, look what happened! And it’s not a result of me achieving anything. These are great spiritual gifts that are presented and shown and revealed to us. And all we have to do is conduct our life in a spiritually directed way, and make the foundation of your spiritual practice the daily meditation upon this spiritual sound. There is nothing more effective, efficient, powerful, to bring about spiritual realization and transformation, than to daily bathe your heart, your mind, in these spiritual sounds.

Automatically, it’s like the sun rising on a very foggy morning, and the sun burns off the fog and gradually it’s not just white, out the window, you begin to see the trees out there, and in the distance you begin gradually seeing the hills. You begin to see things around you. This is what happens. This spiritual process inexplicably–I understand, but it’s kind of like you can’t get your head around, “Why is this happening?” When we become immersed in that which is transcendental our own transcendental or spiritual nature begins to shine forth.

So, okay, if you’ve got any question let me know, and maybe we’ll try to address it later in the afternoon. You like this stuff? Yeah? It’s really nice to see so many people soaking it up. Very cool.

(Someone hands him a guitar) Thank you very much.

So of course, I’m doing my old favourite, the Mahamantra. The more we practice just letting go and immersing our heart, our mind, in this wonderful ocean of spiritual sound, the more deep the experience becomes, the more greater the realization.