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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 29 2007 : 01:00:12 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by david_obsidian
[purple]
How do you feel when J. Krishnamurti pooh-poohs yogic techniques and practices (including mantras specifically)? I feel like I would feel if I see a teacher, entrusted with thousands of students, putting 1+1=3 on the board and having all the loving, pious students, take it down with love and devotion.
This discomfort has nothing to do with wanting to find fault. If you think it generally does, you should examine that because it could be the reason why teacher-watching bugs you. Anyone who takes a high place needs to be scrutinized highly. It's our social duty.
Very good points, David - thanks.
And that's why I've found myself head-scratching with much of the dialog surrounding Adya:
I have yet to see "1+1=3" out of him (not saying it can't happen; enlightenment doesn't necessarily mean "perfected articulation of all teachings", imo -- though I imagine people largely expect that).
If anyone can point to a teaching that is "1+1-3" (i.e. "in error") from Adya, I'd like to be aware of it, and/or explore it together.
As far as Krishnamurti, I'm honestly not familiar enough with his teachings to really comments, other than to say: a lot of advaitic, or advaita-like teachers, pooh-pooh practices on purpose ... because practices can be almost as likely to involve sadhana-derailing misunderstandings, as they are to facilitate enlightenment.
Enlightened teachers known this, and often articulate it.
Others articulate the need for unquestioning devotion to practices.
Neither, in my awareness, are wrong.
Both approaches (and all others, from truly enlightened teachers - thinking of Nisargadatta, Ramana, etc.) are designed to give the highest number of students the best shot at Realization -- knowing full well that the vast majority are highly unlikely to make it, no matter what you (the teacher) do or say.
Like the Bhagavad Gita says, "... only one in a thousand".
Most people just don't want it badly enough, or don't understand the importance, or will allow themselves to be distracted by day-to-day life.
And, in my experience, most people blindly scribbling "1+1=3" will do so for whatever reasons they may have ... and are fairly unlikely to alter the inclination, due to anyone else's saying so.
That's one of the reasons that focusing on our own sadhana seems to be the biggest "favor" we can do for anyone else; pointing things out, or trying to directly help / change / influence anyone else - especially in terms of their spiritual path and practices ... doesn't seem to be effective, to put it mildly.
Peace & Namaste,
Kirtanman |
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2007 : 01:11:38 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
quote:
Originally posted by Kirtanman
Adya: I understand. Open all the way.
Kirtanman: But that's crazy, it's too bi ...
Adya: Open. All. The. Way.
Been meaning to address this. I'd like to check a couple of things to see if I'm in synch with what you're describing. I'll phrase it as questions, just 'cuz I can't think of another way. I'm not trying to lead the witness! I certainly won't be disappointed if you don't agree on any/all points:
You experienced, I'm guessing, that what "got" you to the all-the-wayness was bhakti? And this vastly improved your realization of what bhakti is? And what you experienced on the other side of this (so to speak) was a kundalini opening? And that what got you there wasn't a pushing, but, rather, a courage to cease a lifelong habit of pushing THE OTHER WAY?
If not, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Hey, i'm interested regardless! :)
Kinda-sorta .... (same "flavah", slightly different specifics, maybe ...)
It was more: most of us are very unconscious of how much resistance we have, and how "close in" we hold that resistance.
If we're willing (and possibly, in a group-consciousness / enlightened-teacher environment ... I don't know how big a part that plays, but at times ... per my comments which you're referencing, it plays some part) .... the experience of a significantly more open consciousness is (possibly) much closer ... and much more vast ... yet much more "able to be handled and enjoyed" - than many of us may realize.
In the spirit of "de-myth-ing" enlightenment (per the other thread, of that title) ... we have drawn lines in some very arbitrary places ("my" consciousness stops "here", yours starts "there" - when, in reality ... at the atomic and/or sub-atomic levels ... it's all 99%+ (apparently) empty space, anyway).
Expansion of consciousness is a much more gradual, and far more available thing, than many of us realize.
It's like: we keep it "close in", awaiting the day when the "enlightenment angel" will descend, and bonk us on the crown chakra, with the HEB - Holy Enlightenment Bonker - and we will live happily ever after."
Adya just helped me to become aware that much expansion is available, simply by become aware ... and opening (with attendant willingness to allow the opening, without restraint) ... without thinking about it, and (again) with no resistance, or as little as possible.
I experience Kundalini as much more on the "Ecstatic Conductivity" side of the "house" --- this was much more on the Inner Silence side of the house (per the Reality that we're pointing toward Realization that it's all Inner .....)
Peace & Namaste,
Kirtanman |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2007 : 10:40:07 AM
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Kirtanman said:
.. a lot of advaitic, or advaita-like teachers, pooh-pooh practices on purpose ... because practices can be almost as likely to involve sadhana-derailing misunderstandings, as they are to facilitate enlightenment.
Kirtanman, I believe the reason they pooh-pooh mantras is usually just ordinary ignorance -- prejudice even. They just don't know enough -- they don't know the phenomenon of enlightenment (and the cause-and-effect relationships that can catalyze it) well enough, and with sufficient nuance and depth to give a better answer.
Sometimes it's no better than a 19th-century British medical doctor arriving in India and saying 'That can't possibly work, that's native medicine'.
If someone is asked if mantras are effective, let's simplify his possible answers to two: (a) "Yes, the are an effective cause of the enlightenment process in some people" and (b) "Bah! They are nonsense!".
The answer (a) is correct; the answer (b) is wrong, a mistake, ignorance. I think in general, people say (b) because they do not know (a), and for no better reason than that. No need to mythologize them. They aren't perfect all-knowers and their teachings usually have significant inadequacies, which is to be expected. It's no different or better to when in the Medical field, doctors prescribe a regimen of treatment that is discovered in future years to be very inadequate or even negative in its effects. There's nothing holy about it, nothing terrible about it, they just didn't know better. C'est la vie.
If anyone can point to a teaching that is "1+1-3" (i.e. "in error") from Adya, I'd like to be aware of it, and/or explore it together.
BTW, I'm not suggesting that I see mistakes like that in Adyashanti.
I recognize your points. In this case, we are probably both right, just emphasizing different angles. Nice to thrash the ideas out.
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Edited by - david_obsidian on Mar 29 2007 10:45:39 AM |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4514 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2007 : 7:42:34 PM
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Hi Meg,
quote:
I'm sure that I sound like a guru- and ascension-basher, but honest, it's not my intention to sully the characters of those for whom I have great respect, Adyashanti being one of them.
Just to clear up a (possible) misunderstanding... I wasn't calling you a guru (or anything else) basher, I was addressing a point you raised, and merely mentioned it as an aside in reference to the way the thread in general seemed to be heading to me (partly tounge-in-cheek... sorry, I left the tongue-in-cheek smiley out by mistake, but I think I did put the wink-a-dink smiley in  ).
Hi David,
quote:
Christi said:
Is it a problem if enlightened beings say that they are enlightened? Wouldn't they be doing the world a great disservice if they didn't and just kept quiet about it?
No, I don't think that would in itself be a problem.
However, words do not have pre-given meaning. The English word "Enlightened" is no exception to that. It does in fact carry all sorts of connotations in so many minds that are not necessarily rightly applicable to the person who says that they are enlightened. Rightly or wrongly, so many people receive the claim as though it indicates some sort of perfection, extreme purity or genius -- a superhero sort of thing.
Just to mention, to their credit, nearly all the people that I have heard of who have said they are enlightened, or strongly alluded to their true nature being the enlightened condition, have then spent an incredible amount of time and energy trying to explain to people what it is all about. They don't (in my experience) just say, "I'm enlightened" and then sit there, lapping up the praise. I am thinking of people like Adyashanti, Ammachi (the hugging mother) and Krishnamurti. Interestingly, if you count the number of people that someone talks directly (in person) to, Krishnamurti spoke to more people in his lifetime than anyone else who has ever lived. So he certainly can't be accused of not trying to explain what he was talking about!
And he didn't just shoot the breaze, he only talked about one thing, although he did have a few words for it like love, freedom, truth etc. But as far as I can tell, these terms were absolutes for him, and synonymous.
quote:
Rightly or wrongly, so many people receive the claim as though it indicates some sort of perfection, extreme purity or genius -- a superhero sort of thing. Your own posts Christi suggest to me that you conceive of enlightenment in that way.
Yes... for me enlightenment is related to our Divine nature. We understand words because of the way that people use them. If people start using a word in a different way, to mean something different, then the word itself changes meaning. If we look at the way that people who claim to know about enlightenment use the word, they don't seem to be saying "As we progress on the spiritual path we get happier and happier, and more and more loving and its really great". In fact, they never seem to say that. They talk a lot about a realization, about dissolution and about an awakening. They also talk a lot about identification, the identification of the self. They talk about illusion, conditioning and about higher and lower natures. They say that our higher (true) self is Divine, and that the realization of this, is enlightenment. And they very often talk about this process as a remembering of something forgotten, and of the time-span of this forgetting being in the region of thousands of years.
The higher self is described in an amazingly similar way by all of them. It seems to be the one thing they all agree on, apart from the personal/ impersonal nature of it, and the question of whether it is empty or full.
So yes, for me, divine nature means divine nature. Unsullied, pure, transcendent, eternal, uncreated. Not a superhero thing, because superheros need to have someone (else) to save, and that's one of the things that is left behind (that's part of the illusion too). But certainly a supernal consciousness, which is in fact our birthright.
So I hope that explains a bit why I talk the way I do about enlightenment. It isn't (just) pure ignorance, but actually a theory based on a great deal of study of the way the word is used by spiritual teachers. I don't think there is any lack of science in my reasoning and I believe my method is pretty much what any semanticist would use.
Of course on the path we are occasionally blessed with glimpses of the Divine state. Personally, I think if I hadn't had such glimpses of what the enlightened are talking about, I wouldn't have believed a word of it. I certainly wouldn't have the confidence that I do have that what they are talking about is true.
Christi
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Christi
United Kingdom
4514 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2007 : 02:38:42 AM
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SAID I
"To whom belongs Thy Beauty?"
HE replied
"Since I alone exist to Me
Lover, Beloved and Love am I in one,
Beauty and Mirror and the eyes which See"
Abu Sa'id Bin Abi'L Khair
Ad 967- 1049 |
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Eddy
USA
92 Posts |
Posted - Apr 09 2007 : 9:08:25 PM
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| i'm most likely going to an adyashanti retreat this summer.. should be good.. he's the best i've seen so far |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2007 : 11:04:24 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Kirtanman
Expansion of consciousness is a much more gradual, and far more available thing, than many of us realize.
It's like: we keep it "close in", awaiting the day when the "enlightenment angel" will descend, and bonk us on the crown chakra, with the HEB - Holy Enlightenment Bonker - and we will live happily ever after."
Adya just helped me to become aware that much expansion is available, simply by become aware ... and opening (with attendant willingness to allow the opening, without restraint) ... without thinking about it, and (again) with no resistance, or as little as possible.
I can't stop constantly thinking back (this will date me) to the Palmolive dishwashing liquid tv commercial, where the person touting the product notes that her friend has had her hand "soaking in it" the whole time.
Over and over that echoes for me.... |
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2007 : 08:46:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
I can't stop constantly thinking back (this will date me) to the Palmolive dishwashing liquid tv commercial, where the person touting the product notes that her friend has had her hand "soaking in it" the whole time.
Good ol' Madge. |
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Mike
United Kingdom
77 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2007 : 06:31:50 AM
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I just watched this one today... and as we have all managed by now over half a dozen pages talking about some fellow without seeing him in action thought I would clip it here.
Its a real nice and inspiring talk 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELTiD7L_nU8
Enjoy!
Mike |
Edited by - Mike on Apr 12 2007 07:12:51 AM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2007 : 7:20:10 PM
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I'll be attending an Adyashanti retreat in New York July 22 to 27, I got lucky and got in despite being on the waitlist. Looking forward to it, even though it's a silent retreat, seems to have a lot of meditation, yoga, Tai Chi etc. I understand there will be 260 people or so attending which is about the number Katie drew in Washington DC.
I really enjoy attending events like these with realized teachers, I find it can really accelerate our progress and ability to remain present. Also looking forward to seeing how his retreats compare with those of Ruiz and Katie.
The plan is to be very prudent in the self-pacing department before arriving and during the retreat, will post some details in the forum when I get back.
Any other AYPers going?
A |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 28 2007 : 2:22:54 PM
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Hi Anthem,
How was the retreat,did you enjoy it,tell us your feelings on it please
thanks |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 28 2007 : 2:23:57 PM
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double post deleted
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Edited by - snake on Jul 28 2007 2:53:16 PM |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jul 28 2007 : 8:37:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by snake
Hi Anthem,
How was the retreat,did you enjoy it,tell us your feelings on it please
thanks
Hi Snake,
In short, I loved the experience of the retreat and it was extremely positive for me though I have to admit to being pretty ecstatic when it was over and to restraining a slight impulse to run to my car in order to head home! Five days of non-stop silence and spirituality and with little else can get you feeling a little "cooped-up" to say the least!
It was my first time to a Zen-style retreat though it wasn't hard-core Zen (from what I understand), but since Adya comes from this tradition there were many Zen underpinnings. It was extremely well organized and everything ran seamlessly, if you were 1 minute late for either satsang or any sitting session, the doors were closed and you would miss out, no exceptions. Somehow despite my challenges with time, I remarkably made all the cut-offs though admittedly there were some close calls which required some very brisk walking!(ok I admit to running a couple of times, lol)
First important thing to say is that the location where it was held, the Omega Institute, is a truly incredible space. Not just beautiful out in nature, but I was struck by the deep silence the moment I arrived. It is the perfect location for such an event with great facilities and food (though not fancy) and would recommend it highly as a great escape for anyone, formal retreat or not.
In any event, there were 5 meditation sittings per day, starting at 7:15am sharp, with two, 2-hour "Satsangs", one in the morning and one in the evening. Being very careful in the department of self-pacing, I quickly decided to opt-out the 2 middle sitting sessions and certainly not do the full 40 minutes which was set aside. I was definitely in the vast minority here where well-over 90% seemed to stick to all sitting sessions.
I did AYP sitting practices in the morning and early evening, as I am accustomed to, instead of the Zen style meditating that was recommended. I did the “sit with awareness meditation” style that Adya endorsed for the late evening session as I wanted to try it out. This seemed to work well enough and I didn’t go over. I did enjoy the Adya style meditation though I didn’t feel it is as effective for me as AYP. My only concern with doing AYP was that someone would open there eyes and catch me doing Yoni Mudra khumbaka and wonder what the hell I was doing!!! All joking aside, people at the retreat were of such an open-minded and sincere nature that I doubt anyone would have given it a second thought.
A couple of fascinating things (at least to me), first the meditations with the group were very rich and deep. There were 300 or so people there, some with up to 40 years of experience with meditating, so the inner-silence was palpable and just pulled you deep within. Amazingly, my biological dynamics which had been incredibly consistent for almost a year and a half completely changed in the retreat setting. First the fact that I could do 3 sitting sessions a day was remarkable as the last time I tried it I went over for a week. Secondly, during the last year and a half, I have only been able to do 4 minutes of pranayama, with 1 minute of Yoni Mudra Kumbhaka and 9 to 10 minutes of meditation and 5 minutes of Samayama . Throughout the retreat I surpassed these numbers by a huge margin and stayed remarkably ok. One point I noticed I had meditated for 21 minutes and thought I would fry for sure as in the past, a deviation of just 1 minute, would have required self-pacing but I was fine.
The other interesting thing for me was the energy dynamics. The first day of meditating, it was like kundalini had turned off. It is usually there quietly in the background for me overall these days but there was hardly any awareness of inner energies at all. By day 3, it was the opposite, lot’s of energy, ecstasy and bliss not just in sitting sessions but throughout the day, I have no idea why.
Anyway, there is more to tell but I am out of time, I’ll post the rest tomorrow.
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 29 2007 : 06:57:06 AM
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That's Great Anthem ,thanks for sharing and Im sure we are all waiting eargerly for your next post.
RE the sitting med,was it just sitting and being aware?
thanks again |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jul 29 2007 : 11:56:38 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by snake
That's Great Anthem ,thanks for sharing and Im sure we are all waiting eargerly for your next post.
RE the sitting med,was it just sitting and being aware?
thanks again
Hi Snake,
They gave out a sheet with Adya’s suggestions for meditation which sums it up nicely, I will type it out in the next post for me in this thread, since it is a bit long.
In regards to the retreat, I want to say that Adya himself is a wonderful soul, very open, clear, sincere and extremely present. His talks during the “satsangs” were really great, filled with excellent pointers, deep wisdom and truth and I saw most things as he did with few exceptions.
The “satsangs” were the venue for people to ask questions directly to Adya in front of everyone. This was used by people to “air” their most troubling issues, beliefs and thoughts and Adya was very patient and open with people helping them to find their truths. He talked at one point about having read Katie and I could here her “work” in action sometimes when he helped people. I was amazed at the depth of pain that people carried with them and was impressed with their openness and willing to share almost any issue. I think great healing for all came from this kind of sharing and hope people here at the AYP forums take advantage to do the same.
For my personal experience, it’s funny, all I did was sleep, eat, sitting sessions, satsangs yet I was exhausted by the end of the 5 days despite having lots of rest. My system was making such deep changes and since I was pushing the envelope practice-wise, it really wiped me out on some physical levels.
I was blessed with some wonderful realizations that have changed my life forever. The most important that people on this planet desperately need to know, is that there is a profound and loving divine gentleness that permeates all of us and every aspect of creation. We are so loved and cared for by an intelligence that is so vast that we can not comprehend with our minds but only with our hearts. God wants us to know this for ourselves but our direct experience of it is blocked by our minds. Consistent practice with all the tools available to us is the way to set ourselves free and we need to know that if we are sincere, realization will happen despite us, we are being guided every step of the way, we can let go and just trust.
I have developed an even deeper appreciation for the incredible wisdom of the AYP way from attending this retreat. There were people there who had been meditating for 40 years and yet felt very stuck and frustrated. I could see how people like Adya, from spending so many years in the Zen setting could believe that meditation isn’t necessarily going to lead to awakening from some of the reports of its practitioners. Yogani’s wisdom and experience are so deep and insightful, I can’t put it into words. Suffice to say, the AYP system has powerful safe-guards like self-pacing, not getting caught up in experiences and clear milestones like 24/7 witnessing, ecstasy and bliss to help sincere practitioners not get stuck or caught on things like thinking they have made it etc. The AYP practices themselves are so powerful compared to what many people there have been using, mantra meditation takes us so deep and helps to avoid many mental trappings and pitfalls. We are so blessed here, people here need to know and trust that we have an incredible system that will speed us the quickest way to freedom.
Deepest gratitude to Yogani for his sharing. |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 29 2007 : 12:35:28 PM
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| Thanks again Anthem,I bet it will be a few days before the energies stirred in you settle,take it easy with yourself for a day or 2. |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Jul 29 2007 : 1:50:13 PM
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Hi Andrew
Thanks for the great accounts of your retreat.
quote:
I have developed an even deeper appreciation for the incredible wisdom of the AYP way from attending this retreat. There were people there who had been meditating for 40 years and yet felt very stuck and frustrated. I could see how people like Adya, from spending so many years in the Zen setting could believe that meditation isn’t necessarily going to lead to awakening from some of the reports of its practitioners. Yogani’s wisdom and experience are so deep and insightful, I can’t put it into words. Suffice to say, the AYP system has powerful safe-guards like self-pacing, not getting caught up in experiences and clear milestones like 24/7 witnessing, ecstasy and bliss to help sincere practitioners not get stuck or caught on things like thinking they have made it etc. The AYP practices themselves are so powerful compared to what many people there have been using, mantra meditation takes us so deep and helps to avoid many mental trappings and pitfalls. We are so blessed here, people here need to know and trust that we have an incredible system that will speed us the quickest way to freedom.
Having practiced Zen meditation for years and still practice and do mindfulness retreats with friends, I would agree with everything you say about this.
We are blessed to have the AYP system, much gratitude to Yogani.
Cheers
Louis |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 30 2007 : 12:29:20 PM
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Hi Anthem,
Thanks again.If one was incorporating Adya's style of med then I guess doing it after deep med would be the ideal time.
What do you think having had the experience of both?
thanks |
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Anthem
1608 Posts |
Posted - Jul 30 2007 : 2:40:46 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by snake
Hi Anthem,
Thanks again. If one was incorporating Adya's style of med then I guess doing it after deep med would be the ideal time.
What do you think having had the experience of both?
thanks
Hi Snake,
I wouldn't recommend incorporating it into an AYP session, but rather if you were to do an extra 3rd or more session in one day, that would be the time to try it. Though from my perspective, if you can handle a 3rd session, it may as well be AYP style.
I personally wouldn't add it into AYP because although you won't go consistently as deep with it as you do with deep mantra meditation, it still would be an additive and put you at risk of going over and needing to self-pace.
First I haven’t spent any dedicated long term time with Zen style meditation so can’t really make a fair comparison. Overall though, I do like it because there is an innate freedom to it, but I don't think it lends itself very well to having a differentiable focal point to bring the mind to once it has fallen into thoughts or experiences. I think it would be very difficult for most practitioners to find awareness and to not confuse it with other things or experiences going in. Therefore, from my perspective you aren't spending as much time really freeing the mind from its conditioning so it is not as efficient as mantra meditation. This also doesn't take into consideration the benefits of the vibratory quality of the mantra either which is certainly additive.
Just musings from my current perspective,
A
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Jul 30 2007 : 4:07:31 PM
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Hi Anthem.
Thanks again for your well thought out reply.
I will give it some consideration before I decide wether to include a session,but I do understand what you mean by "Overall though, I do like it because there is an innate freedom to it",it;s certainly an interesting look at the practice.
Snake |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 09:33:34 AM
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Thanks for sharing that Andrew. Very good posts.
...and thanks for asking Snake. |
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Sep 24 2009 : 4:38:03 PM
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makemerry
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - Feb 25 2011 : 02:42:26 AM
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I had a personal meeting with Adyashanti a number of years ago when I was in a state of deep despair, confusion, pain ... dealing with the fallout of previously repressed, violent incest memories that exploded into awareness and left me in such intense pain that I could think of little but suicide initially. The experience shook me to the core. In the course of a counselling session about 4 years after the incest memories started to surface, a counsellor's comment triggered an awakening in me that lasted 3 months ... a state of presence and clarity that was everything I had ever wanted from life. I was unaware of the literature of awakening at that time, but I knew something extraordinary had happened. Three months into this awake state, a trauma very much like the original trauma blindsided me, and I plummeted back into the hell I had lived with all my life. I was again living in kind of a frozen state of terror.
I went to ask Adyashanti about the awakening ... how I had lost it, how I could get it back. I didn't bring up the incest. Giving him information which I hoped he could use to help me, I told him that the suffering and fear I felt on a regular basis was intense. Adyashanti gave me some of his standard advice on truth being the most important thing, more important than feeling good. I asked him which of his CDs I might buy to hear more about what he had to say on that topic. he replied in a tone that felt scornful, something like "I don't know. I don't listen to my own CDs.," and told me t ask one of his secretaries. As I was getting ready to go, I felt uncomfortable said something kind of awkward and innocuous that people often say, like "I hope you have a good evening." I don't remember Adya's exact words but I experienced his response as cutting and sarcastic, as if he felt that he needed to expose my inauthenticity.
These next day I went to his satsang. Adya looked through the audience and said something like, "I need to see who is here so I know what to talk about." he looked at me and then he launched into a diatribe about suffering being an utter and complete waste of time ... and "what are you going to do when you feel afraid ... run to your mommie?" he continued in the vein of "you want awakening to feel good, but sometimes awakening is noisy" ... as if he were sick of hearing from all the weaklings in the audience who didn't have the courage to face reality like he had. It was his "I'm going to burn your house down" speech that he puts at the beginning of his dvd course(s) on awakening.
I was in shock after the satsang, and sent a message to Adya's secretary asking to see him again, to which I got no reply. In the days following, the hell that I was already living in deepened ... the sense of shame and unworthiness that is an inherent part of incest recovery increased and unbidden thoughts of suicide began arising again.
I'd already had my house burned down and didn't come through the other side enlightened like Adya apparently thought be had, and the message that in order to heal I was going to have to go through something like that again, was frightening and paralyzing.
I went to a number of Adya satsangs that winter and the message I internalized in my depressed and confused state was that Adya was the ultimate teacher, more enlightened than other teachers, the ultimate honest and authentic person, a person who didn't care for all the acclaim that was coming to him, a uncommonly courageous person who had made truth more imporant than anything else. And I was the opposite ... I was a phony and a coward who was afraid of the truth and deserved the hell that I lived in because I was not brave enough to do whatever Adya had done to become enlightened. Adya's humor felt sarcastic and contemptuous and I often felt ashamed. Adya often said in his sarcastic tone that those of us who showed up in satsang without being "serious" were wasting his time. here, he was parroting Nisargadatta, without making any attribution.
In the ten or so years since those satsangs, I have continuted to try and put the puzzle pieces together to understand what happened to me and have compared notes with other people who've had similar experiences.
The behavior of Adya and a number of other spiritual teachers I encountered along the way increasingly strikes me as arrogant, emotionally abusive, ignorant about the nature of trauma, especially PTSD, and curiously unempathic. Out of a desperation to heal, many people turn to spiritual teachers and submit to this abuse. In addition to declaring that he will "burn your house down," Adya tells people that they have to be "willing to be crucified." This self-elevating bit of drama isn't helpful to someone who lives in a state of frozen terror ... it just adds to the trauma they already live with everyday ... and leads to confused thinking that can actually lead to self-injury. In his interviews and writings Adya often refers to the thousands of people he has counseled, and it's hard to imagine that he has burned through so many encounters without seeming to know anything about trauma. Professionals who treat PTSD say that healing from trauma requires an environment of safety, and that is my experience also.
A few years ago I encountered a student of Adya's who spoke highly of him, and I also shared with him my experience with Adya. The student asked me how many years prior my encounters with Adya had been and I told him 3 or 4. he said, "Adya has grown up a lot since then." Perhaps that is true. The whole satsang experience, and especially my time around Adya, feels like a very depressing, discouraging and counterproductive part of my journey. |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Feb 25 2011 : 08:08:02 AM
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Hi Makemerry,
Heartfelt (((((HUG)))) to you.
That was really touching and I thank you for your honest sharing.
As you said, Adya and many advaita teachers are not everyone's cup of tea. It does not make the teachers bad nor does it make the student bad. It's like eating a tomato to get the Lycopene... if you hate the taste of tomatoes and it makes you sick when you eat it, it is not your fault for not liking the taste, and it's not the fruit's fault for tasting the way it tastes. But people say that that tomatoes are good for you and will help you with your health problems, so you try and eat it every day, but eating it makes you more and more sick in the stomach. So the best thing to do is to not eat the tomato, instead find another source of Lycopene that will help you feel better. That fruit helps many others so it must be good for them, but it does not help me, so I will just find something that will work for me.
There are many paths to the same truth. AYP is one such path. Here we do deep meditation http://www.aypsite.org/13.html and spinal breathing http://www.aypsite.org/41.html and various other practices to help purify our nervous system through with the divine heals us and then heals the world around us.
When the healing happens from within, all the talks from the advaita teachers becomes our experience and are not just experienced as words to be understood. It is a personal knowing and no longer a knowledge that has to be understood and retained and practiced.
I am sorry your experience on this path has been the way it has been, but there is nothing ever wrong or wasted. It was that experience that lead you to write what you have written here, and things said here will help you move further along your path. Not saying you should practice what is taught here, but every bit of energy in form of words or thoughts or prayers you pick up along the way will help you heal and become more open.
Why anything happens to us, only the mind wants to know, but when there is suffering like you feel now, your inner being (the stillness inside of you) wants to experience freedom, and hence you were not happy with what was told to you, your inner being did not want you to be happy at the mind level, you want to experience this for yourself... this freedom, this peace. :).
Childhood abuse is very hard to get over. But it is our best teacher. I have talked about it here: Abuse, Guilt and Letting go...
If you are not already in a structured practice, I would recommend you get into one. We at AYP have a very well rounded set of practices that works on purifying our nervous system of the blocks and at the same time cultivate stillness and then help bring this stillness out into this world. Once this happens, self inquiry will happen naturally and the things the advaita teachers talk about, you will verify for yourself through experience and not with the mind.
If you'd be interested, do read the AYP lessons from here: http://www.aypsite.org/10.html
I wish you all the best.
PS: I would also recommend reading "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie and, "Real Love" by Greg Baer. |
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American Guru Tradition, Non-Guru - Adyashanti
