Do nothing or do something

Woman on top.

To realize the self the mind must become very strong. On the path of knowledge we develop the mind through constant discrimination. Discrimination means inner reflection. We have to look within the self and fathom it. We have to constantly ask ourselves, "Who am I?” We have to remind ourselves that we are not the transitory body, we are not the person who is having experiences, we are not affected by action or inaction. We must constantly remind ourselves that we are eternity, we are infinite, we are beyond birth, we are beyond death. Birth and death are illusions, they are part of the dream. On waking from the dream we see that birth and death, the sense of self, the sense of others, all these things fall away— in the white light of eternity there is only eternity.

Remember, your own attachments will trip you up. In the beginning of your spiritual practice, if you're new to meditation, then you're just trying to get over your unhappy attachments, your attachments to people, places, conditions, money and all this sort of stuff. You become attached to things, you desire things and then when your desires are not fulfilled you're unhappy. When your desires are fulfilled you're happy for a little while, until new desires come and make you unhappy again or until you realize that actually getting what you want is not quite what you thought. Then one day all of it falls away and there's nothing but perfect eternity, perfect being. It is that which each of us really seeks.

The yoga of discrimination is only practiced once you have started to go into samadhi. Until that time, in my opinion, one does not practice the yoga of discrimination. In India and other places there are people who fool themselves. They think they're practicing the yoga of discrimination. They walk around all day saying, "Who am I? Who am I?" and they go through these analytical processes. But it is impossible to know who you are until you enter into samadhi. It is only in samadhi that you'll begin to get an inkling of who you are, and finally, it is only in absorption in nirvana that this perfect truth will become clear.

The way you'll really learn the yoga of discrimination is simply by spending time with someone who has perfected themselves in this yoga. You can sit with them in silence and learn everything there is to learn, because what they really have to teach you about the yoga of discrimination can never be put in words, since the entire yoga exists beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond conditions. All they can do is frustrate your mind by telling you that you exist and don't exist, that you are and are not and things of this nature, which won't really make a lot of sense to your mind. All it can do is to cause you hopefully to rise beyond the mind. Until you can meditate in perfect stillness, until you begin to really enter into salvikalpa samadhi where you can stop all thoughts and become absorbed in eternity, until you've reached that point where you've perfected your lower nature and cleansed your emotional being, jnana yoga will wait. Once you've done all those things and you have eliminated all of your negative karmas and tendencies, and now instead all you do are good things, all you think are good thoughts, all you do is give endlessly and ceaselessly to others, then when you've done that, when you're getting all A's, then we have to take all the A's away, because even though these good karmas are very good, they're still karmas, they're still limitations. Even though the good thoughts are good thoughts, they're still thoughts. Even though the good actions are good actions, they're still actions and there's still a sense of acting and thinking. Now that you've finally made it to the top we've got to take the top away, because while the top may seem wonderful, while getting A's may be wonderful, still, there's a sense of self and that sense of self will trap you. That sense of self is an illusion, it's another dream and that dream must fall away and when that dream falls away, and that full wakefulness, that perfected being of existence, then eternity alone will abide and remain. Then there are no words, there are no descriptions. Only then will you really be what you truly are. So we climb the ladder in a way of speaking. We move from stage to stage, from yoga to yoga, from one journey to another. Yet you will find, in my estimation in daily life, that jnana yoga is actually quite practical. Jnana yoga is discrimination and in life you have to discriminate. You see, we talk about the four paths—I talk about jnana yoga and bhakti and karma and mysticism as if they're all separate. To be honest, though, they're all one. There is only one path, there is only one truth and there is only one reality. Of course, I'm speaking from the point of view of jnana yoga.

lessness, of purposelessness. What is is so good, so perfect, so simple, so exacting, that it's beyond both meaning and lack of meaning. But as I said, jnana yoga is practical. It can help you get through the day. Use discrimination to temper love. While it's good to love, we can be fooled in love or we can be fooled by our own love. Who are we to be fooled, anyway? What are we? Do we exist? Do we not exist? How can you be fooled if you don't exist. Well, let's be practical for a second. When you love without discrimination, then you love blindly. If you love blindly you don't see. If you don't see you smack into things and get hurt. How can you get hurt if you don't exist? How can you feel hurt? What hurt? There's no one to be hurt. There's no one to hurt. It's only with this realization that there is no pain. There is only eternity, eternal perfection, but meanwhile, back in the relative world, if you discriminate, if you use the power of discrimination, then you will see that there is a hidden truth in all things and that you can perceive that truth. Just as all things are not good for us— it's not good for us to eat arsenic, all things are not meant for human beings, while it is good, perhaps, to eat a salad—so all experiences are not good for us. We have to discriminate and determine which experiences are good for us. So if you practice a little jnana yoga in your daily life it will help you tremendously in this sense. You can learn that which is right and useful and that which should be avoided at your current stage of evolution. The way to do this is very easy, absolutely easy. All you have to do is ask yourself one question and if you ask yourself this question whenever you're trying to decide what to do you'll always do exactly what is right. You'll discriminate and cut your way through illusion, and you'll always do that which is right. The question is very, very simple. The question is, "Where is truth? Is there truth in what I am doing now?” That's all you have to ask yourself

As an occultist, as you view the people of the world, they’re just like watching fiveyear-olds playing, and some of them are dangerous, they’re violent, they’re in that phase, Some are nonessential. None of them are helpful, particularly. If what you seek is freedom, the only person who can teach you anything, the only person who can help you is someone who’s already done it, who knows the way. No one else can do a damn thing for you but slow you dowthe little bits of homework each day that allow one to work through the samskaras and through the karmas and gradually just becoming more and more free because they like that. It’s not a better condition. It’s just more real. As an occultist, as you view the people of the world, they’re just like watching fiveyear-olds playing, and some of them are dangerous, they’re violent, they’re in that phase, Some are nonessential. None of them are helpful, particularly. If what you seek is freedom, the only person who can teach you anything, the only person who can help you is someone who’s already done it, who knows the way. No one else can do a damn thing for you but slow you down. Let’s face it. If you knew how to do it, you’d be there now. You’re not. So the only person who can help you at all in the whole wide world, or persons, are individuals who have climbed Mt. Everest inside their own mind and gotten to the top and gotten back down and are different from it. If they just go up and come down and they’re the same—you can go into samadhi but after you come out of samadhi, if you’re still the same old creep, then what good was it? Then it’s just a rush. It's just a brief journey into infinity, but then you come back and if you haven’t changed, if your view of life is not better, if there’s not less self, if you’re not more free, what good was samadhi? You can go to India, and you can see gurus go into samadhi. Yeah, they really do. They can stop thought for half an hour, forty minutes. Bn.

punna

Fork everything

Women are essentially much more powerful than men are. The kundalini flows through them much more readily. The problems are really very few. The primary reason why more women don't attain enlightenment is that they have a misunderstanding of their purpose as women. Women think of themselves as being women, and they're not. Women have a preconceived notion of what it means to be a woman, and this notion is incorrect. This notion has been given to them by our society, history, men and other women. Everything is reversed in this age. Men appear to be more powerful than women, while the opposite is really true. What appears to be light is dark and what appears to be dark is light. For a woman to attain liberation she has to realize that she has everything she needs within herself. Women have become dependent upon men in our society. They feel that they have to draw power from a man. They build their identities around men or around their children, and in doing so they do themselves and all women, and men, a great injustice. In order for a woman to attain enlightenment she must realize that her true aspect is power. If she thinks of herself as being feminine—in the sense of the term that “feminine” means weak, gentle, constantly self-effacing, always cleaning up the house for others—then she's misunderstanding her power and her purpose. This is an image that has nothing to do with what really exists. The time span for a woman to attain enlightenment is a little bit different than that of a man. There are certain times in the life of a man or woman when it's easier to make tremendous transcendences. For most women the best time is from, I would say, around the age of 18 to 35. If a woman hasn't really started on the path to enlightenment before that time it's more difficult. Again, women also develop a great deal of power later in life, but the intermediate stage for most women, from 35 to let's say around 55, is a more difficult time. In other words, if the right wheels haven't been set in motion, it's a much more difficult transit to pick up. For men it's a little bit different. For men, realization occurs very readily from about 18 to 22. In other words, that's a very good time for a man to start on the path. If a man doesn't start during that period of time, it's more difficult. However, for men a very powerful time is from about 35 to around 55, 60. So for women, in other words, the stronger years would run about 17 to 35, 38. Then they'd go through a slack time from about 35 to around 50 or 55, and then from that time forward it would be strong again. Whereas for men, [there is a powerful time] just for a few years from 18 to 21 or 22, then their slack time if they don't pick up the threads of realization would be, let's say, from about 22 to around 34 or 35, maybe even up to 40, and then again a strong time will come for them. Now there are all kinds of exceptions to this, and certainly if you hear me say this and you think, "Well, gosh, I'm a woman and I'm 35 and I've just started meditating, does that mean I can't attain enlightenment?” No, not at all. These are general guidelines. Anyone can attain liberation at any age, but there are times when it will be easier. There are sequences in our life when it's easier to do something. The current is going with us. The wheel of dharma is spinning in our direction. Now, when I say begin [on the path], I mean that for both men and women at around the age of 18, 19, 21, 22, there's an opening, a door opens. A person gains a sense of their spirituality. There's a kind of past life return that occurs when we just remember a little b

So take the time to meditate, to reach within yourself and ask yourself, "What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? It's not what I thought.” Ask eternity to show you and to teach you what it means. Don't be afraid to change. Be open to being something that you haven't been again and again and again—you’ll change, until finally you become everything and nothing.

As a man it is neccessary to become loving and gentle and kind, to be strong as you can be and to be fearless, a fearless warrior, but at the same time to be delicate and to work on your capacity to love purely; to not throw sexual vibrations at someone because of the way they look, not to feel bad because you have desires, but just don't let them be uncontrolled— push them aside; and if you're with someone you love, to be as you are, but simply not to project those energies at everyone just because of the way they look because it's quite harmful to them, and it's quite harmful to you because then you put yourself into a very low plane of consciousness. Desire is neither good nor bad. It's like a river. If you get in the river, you have to go where that river takes you. If you get out of the river, then you can walk someplace else, on dry land. Never feel bad because you have desires, but because you

So as either a man or a woman or as neither or both you need to harmonize yourself with eternity. Whether you're heterosexual or gay or whatever it really doesn't matter a bit. What matters as a man and woman is that you see that you're not a man or a woman, that you're both, and that you create a balance of both sides of your being. It's necessary to do a little work on the side that you've been neglecting. As you do that, you will become stronger and stronger and stronger. Regardless of your age, once you enter into the timeless there is no time and there is no age. The age factor will make a difference, but if you can go to an

tone, a feeling. As a woman you need to feel powerful, to feel strong, to bring the kundalini up from the root chakra, to have it surge up your spine to the crown center, to assert yourself, yet to be inaccessible in a world that doesn't like women and to realize that most men hate women because they're afraid of them. They're afraid of the power of women because they realize that women are much more powerful than men, and there's something in men, in their unenlightened side, that fears that power. It doesn't understand that if it would open itself to that power, that power would enter them and help them in their liberation. So they fear that power and they seek to put it down. And there's something in the unenlightened side of women that allows that to take place, that doesn't want responsibility, that wants someone to make the decisions, but ultimately that's not satisfactory because then a woman will be drained, tired and discouraged and just pass from birth to death, from birth to death, with little or nothing to show for it. As a man it is necessary to become loving and gentle and kind, to be strong as you can be and to be fearless, a fearless warrior, but at the same time to be delicate and to work on your capacity to love purely; to not throw sexual vibrations at someone because of the way they look, not to feel bad because you have desires, but just don't let them be uncontrolled— push them aside; and if you're with someone you love, to be as you are, but simply not to project those energies at everyone just because of the way they look because it's quite harmful to them, and it's quite harmful to you because then you put your

sexual identity. Sex does not matter. It's not important, unless you make it important. People have placed much too great a charge on sexuality. It's not necessary to be celibate to attain enlightenment. It's necessary to be yourself and if you're yourself, who could ask for more? There will come a time though when you will probably be celibate for a while, on the way to enlightenment, in one incarnation or another. That will be a very fun, lovely time, but it won't be forced. There won't be the need to say, "Oh, gosh, I want to have relationships and I can't because I'm not supposed to." That's nonsense, you have to be yourself. Then you'll return to relationships, your sexuality, perhaps, if that's what you want to do, when you have sufficient detachment so that it won't be sex anymore. When you're with someone it will be a giving, a pure self-effacement, a transfer of energy. There won't be any desire. You won't even notice it. There'll be no concerns of the personal self or physical satisfaction or fulfillment or anything like that. That will all just go away. Then it can't be harmful. In other words, your emotions won't get wrapped up. You’ll preserve complete detachment and every action will be service and self-giving. When you have that attitude nothing can hurt you—if it's not just an idea in your mind but it's something that you can actually do in any circumstance. It's a wonderful thought. People try it, but it's difficult. You must meditate and ground yourself in the eternal light and begin to think of yourself in a new way. As a man you must think, "I am not what they taught me. They told me that this is what being a man means and it's not necessarily the case.” Being a man is a very noble thing, a very powerful thing, a very gentle thing. Yo

your emotions won't get wrapped up. You’ll preserve complete detachment and every action will be service and self-giving. When you have that attitude nothing can hurt you—if it's not just an idea in your mind but it's something that you can actually do in any circumstance. It's a wonderful thought. People try it, but it's difficult. You must meditate and ground yourself in the eternal light and begin to think of yourself in a new way. As a man you must think, "I am not what they taught me. They told me that this is what being a man means and it's not necessarily the case.” Being a man is a very noble thing, a very powerful thing, a very gentle thing. You need to dev

The strength of a man character is expressed through gentleness and through love and ultimately through discrimination. You meditate on love, you live in love, love purifies your nature. It removes the stain of selfishness, slowly but surely. Practice meditation and self-giving and work on humility. It's the most important. For women it's self-confidence. Then, after many years of meditating and love, and when your love has become so large that it embraces all of eternity, then you'll practice discrimination. You'll go beyond love as we know it. We'll never leave it, but we'll experience other things, let's say. Then you'll practice discrimination. You'll dissolve the personal self, which experiences a certain type of love. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't have relationships. You have to be yourself. If you need love relationships, have them. Most spiritual teachers don't recommend that people have love relationships because people get wrapped up in their emotions. They identify very heavily with the physical body; it unleashes the passions and the attachments. But you have to be yourself. You can find light in everything. My suggestion is not that you don't have relationships or you don't get married or do whatever you want to, but that you bring light into everything that you do and that you realize, very simply, that as a man you have to learn to do it in a new way. The way you're doing it is not working. You have to be less concerned with yourself and your progress. You know, the old scenario, the guy and lady get married and then she works to support him in school, and he succeeds and drains her power and then leaves her and marries a younger woman and drains her power, and so on and so forth. That's really not so good for the guy either because you can never become what you're capable of being as long as you're going around hurting others. The limited power that you draw from another huma

Ego

Taoism is the way of water. The most frequent element or symbol referred to in Lao Tzu's writings is the symbol of water, and it's the primary symbol that we find throughout The Way of Life. In essence, Lao Tzu suggests that we behave like water. Water, of course, is the symbol of consciousness, pure consciousness. He suggests that we flow like water does. Water always seeks the easiest path, the common level of life. When it reaches a spot where there is a blockage, water finds the easiest path around the blockage. Or, if it can't find a way around the blockage, it continues to assemble. The water gets deeper and deeper until finally the level increases and it flows over the blockage. It uses itself to go beyond whatever it needs to go beyond

Water gradually wears down even the hardest rocks and stones. The Grand Canyon, of course, is living evidence of the power of water over a period of time. The power of water may not manifest immediately. We don't see these effects right away. We see the little stream of water flowing and we say, well, look at this massive mountain, obviously it's much stronger than this water. Then suddenly, over a period of time, the mountain goes away and the water remains. Water can be very powerful, like a tidal wave—the ocean. It takes on so many different forms. Lao Tzu says that the way of life is water, to be fluid. He often uses the analogy of the tree. The old hard tree breaks and falls when the wind blows. It doesn't survive. The young tree bends and therefore need not break. So he advises us to bend and not break. Lao Tzu doesn't seem to hold too much stock with words or phrases or teachings. Rather, he says that the way of life is ancient, timeless. It is existence, which he calls the Tao. It is a mysterious source, beyond understanding, and all of us are a reflection, if not that source of life ourselves. Taoism is the gentle way. It's the way or the path of least resistance.

Lao Tzu was worried that some people would attack him or his philosophy and say that it was the way of nothing—quietism, giving up. His only concern was that this observation was very, very inaccurate. Some people think that Taoism means not doing anything, just going on with your life as if nothing had happened, and that has little or nothing to do with Taoism. Taoism means stretching your being. As Lao Tzu says, it is becoming both a man and a woman and joining within yourself, to be the heavens themselves, to stretch your awareness beyond the breaking point until all opposites are reconciled within yourself. Taoism is Tantra, the reconciliation of opposites, where all things join together in perfect unity and at the same time have beautiful diversity.

Aum

Lakshmi

It's easy to become fixated, to think of ourselves, in other words, in a certain way, as opposed to being the thin air. Sri Ramakrishna always used to use the analogy of the smoke. He would say that when the smoke blows through a building, it leaves soot all over the walls. Similarly, when a person who's not liberated or self-realized or God realized or enlightened passes through this world, it leaves its mark. Their attachments leave a mark, just like the soot, and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper and darker, until it's very hard to see the light of the soul. Whereas with the enlightened person, they're like the thin air. When the smoke passes through the thin air, it leaves nothing. That's enlightenment, to be the thin air, in a way of speaking, or we could just say to be pure light

. Zen doesn't believe in the reconciliation of opposites because from the point of view of Zen, there's no point of view, therefore there's no opposites, therefore there's no Zen. All there is is dishwater. Timeless, eternal, perfect dishwater. Waiting for the dishes that will never come. The Zen mind is mindless, yet it embraces everything. Zen is discipline. The discipline of living life, the discipline of taking a breath, the discipline of not knowing and not trying to know. The enlightenment of Zen is called satori, and it's thought of as a quick enlightenment. But satori is not a final state. There are really two types of satoris. One satori is the satori of instant enlightenment (Rama claps loudly). In a flash, enlightenment comes (he claps again). With the clap of a hand, enlightenment comes (he claps again). With the clap of a hand, this world dissolves (Rama claps loudly). With the clap of a hand there's nothing but eternal consciousness (Rama claps three times). Three times the hands are joined. The threefold world dissolves and disappears (Rama again claps three times). Three times the hands are joined, three times all of existence appears (he claps three more times). Three times the hands are joined, the mind stops, the world dissolves. Everything is as if it’s always been. So satori is a brief flash. After some meditation, while working in the field, while talking with someone, while making love, while meditating up on the mountain having renounced all people, suddenly the light breaks through, and for a short timeless time we experience eternity in its unmanifest form. This is satori. It's comparable to salvikalpa samadhi. There's another satori, though. After one has the Zen awakening, the Zen satori, which does not last, which comes for a period of time, a moment, day, a week, but then fades and we see signs of it for perhaps 28 days or 34 days, then it goes away. Yet we're different. But after this happens again and again and again and again, we reach a point where there's nothing but satori. In other words, it's a different level or a different kind of satori. It doesn't fade, it just is, which is like nirvikalpa samadhi, nirvana.

Kring.

PHAT

An updated version of this topic is now at
https://www.varryhealth.com/stories/Spiritual-Meditation-for-Men-Women-and-Children-in-Nigeria.html

Myanthonyj:
An updated version of this topic is now at
https://www.varryhealth.com/stories/Spiritual-Meditation-for-Men-Women-and-Children-in-Nigeria.html

LoL this is full of shit

Vajrakilaya

Vajrakilaya