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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 11 2013 : 10:50:03 PM
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I've attended Gnan Vidhi twice now, once per year.
quote:
Gnan Vidhi is a scientific process to attain Self-Realization. It is a divine gift from Gnani Purush (Enlightened One) Param Pujya Dadashri (Shri Ambalal M. Patel, also fondly known as "Dada Bhagwan").
Self realization is the awakening of your Soul or true 'Self.’ If we ask you, what is your name? You will answer “David.” You do not have to remember that your name is 'David,' and if someone says anything bad or wrong about David, then you may experience suffering, wondering 'why is this person abusing me?’ This happens as you have a strong belief that 'I am David.'
When you attain Self realization, your belief that 'I am David' is broken with the Divine grace of the Gnani Purush Dada Bhagwan and the right belief that 'I am Pure Soul' is established within 2 hours. This scientific process to achieve Self-realization is called Gnan Vidhi. Nothing gets changed externally, just the internal awareness that David is separate and 'I am a Pure Soul' starts from within.
From the Gnan Vidhi website. http://www.dadabhagwan.org
I love it very much. For me there's a deep feeling of integrity about this teaching. Deepakbhai travels all over the world giving the 2 hour Gnan Vidhi self-realization ceremony, completely free of charge, with not even a vague hint of trying to solicit a donation. I've heard before they accept a donation from anyone, they check it with the whole family of that person to make sure everyone thinks its ok, and they will return the donation if anyone says "no".
There's a considerable cultural barrier for Westerners, as a lot of discussion takes place in Gujurati, and there are a lot of Indian words. Furthermore there's also some Hindu religious related stuff attached.
The relative self, Josh, is somewhat impatient with cultural/religious stuff, he just wants the truth, distilled into a concise science, and given straight, stripped of belief systems.
But I've learned that this is often just ego and impatience, attachment to a Western way of thinking, and having become more patient and learned about Gnan Vidhi, I'm starting to understand how it's probably one of the most direct and powerful spiritual paths around today.
It's hard to say what the impact of Gnan has been on my life. Spiritual practices + Awakening: There isn't always an obvious cause and effect relationship. Spiritual practices often lay the groundwork, but awakening has an element of grace.
I can say that in the weeks following Gnan, there have always been strong non-dual experiences during out-of-meditation, every day life.
The specific things I like about Gnan's follow up spiritual practices:
Daily prayers really help charge the grace effect
Pratikraman is a very powerful way to target & release specific karmic issues and repent.
Repentance is a powerful spiritual practice missing from many spiritual teachings as it's a little unfashionable in West, perhaps due to hangovers from Christianity where people were encouraged to feel guilty about everything the whole time. It's not that kind of repentance, it's really about acknowledging how flawed the relative self is, how often the relative self has made mistakes, been unkind or caused harm, noticing these mistakes, then deeply repenting and asking for forgiveness. Finally one takes the firm intention never to repeat such mistakes. There's no guilt associated, just recognizing that we go wrong so often.
It's a very powerful cure for egotism, and cultivator of humility. While in truth you are the Self, not the relative self (your body-mind), the karma of the body-mind and its related soul does need to be discharged (in my experience) to progress on the spiritual path. First becoming established in the Self via Gnan, and then from this perspective repenting to aid clearing karma of the relative self, is very useful. Has lead to many heart-felt experiences.
Take the Gnan if it comes to your neighborhood (they travel america annually), Deepakbhai will be in Atlanta this weekend, then in Florida next week, then back to India until next year I think. I'm very moved by the kindness and integrity of Deepakbhai, all the volunteers at the temples in Flushing and NC, and all the people I met who attended that helped me and took care of me. In my first time I found out about the Gnan and took an 8 hour night bus from NYC, arrived in NC the morning, attended satsang and Gnan Vidhi in the day, then took the night bus back to NY that same evening. I was very tired, spending two nights on the bus with an insanely dangerous driver from a somewhat dubious chinatown bus company (who reversed into traffic on a highway) was not fun. I think I was perhaps the only white person in the 250+ person attendance, and having never been to a Hindu temple and so forth, I felt acutely shy and embarrassed, but everyone went out of their way to be kind to me and make me feel at home. The experience was well worth it.
I'll say it again, but I intuitively feel there's a deep resonance of authenticity about this guru and his teaching (despite what initially seems a slightly wild claim of 2 hour self realization), when most gurus send me running for hills. The same sort of resonance one gets about AYP and Yogani - they don't want anything from you, they're just giving. I could be wrong, but that's my sense.
Love,
Josh |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Jul 11 2013 10:56:05 PM |
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jeff
USA
971 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2013 : 3:39:28 PM
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Hi Josh,
Thanks for your post. If you don't mind a few questions...
With you Gnan Vidhi, practices... Who are you daily praying to? Do you feel a connection to that divine being?
Since, you have daily prayers and practices, do you consider Deepakbhai to be your guru?
How do you relate the practices to AYP? Do you do both?
Thanks again,
Jeff
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jul 12 2013 : 4:17:38 PM
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Hi Jeff,
You are praying to, to use several terms, The Self, Awareness, Pure Soul, The founder of Gnan Vidhi(Ambalal Muljibhai Patel, his body has now passed and he is affectionately known as dada bhagwan) who is seen as just an embodiment of your inner guru (the prayer says 'to dada bhagwan, the lord within me'). There's no prayer to Deepakbhai, the current living Guru. The overall sense of Gnan Vidhi is that they aren't too caught up in Guru worship: It's about firstly knowing you are the Self, and then working out the Karmas of the relative self (in this case Josh) who is simply an appearance in what you truly are.
I've never felt a connection with any "personalized aspect" of God. I prefer terms like Truth, Reality, Awareness, That, The Self, The Absolute and so on, because terms like God, Allah, Krishna and so on have religious connotations and are (in my personal mind) linked to belief systems which I don't believe in. Recently I've been feeling a connection with the Goddess Kali, which is weird for me and slightly invalidates the last statement. But moving on...
I consider awareness, the Self, to be my Guru. Deepakbhai is one of many beloved teachers including Yogani, Rupert Spira, Adyashanti, Jed McKenna and so on. Everything that can be conceived of, or perceived, such as a personalized or manifest aspect of God, or a Guru, or a teacher, to me is secondary to Awareness, that which is prior to conception or perception.
That's not to preclude a devotional relationship if one arises for me, but I just find that as Yogani says, "The Guru is in You". That is the truth, as far as I am concerned. Plenty of people hung around Nisargadatta and Ramana and never got enlightened and I can only assume its because they'd rather worship something external than actually seek for the truth inside themselves. Nisargadatta often used to say "If you'd really understood what I said, you'd stop coming back here!"
The guru is in you, but also, everyone and everything is your Guru. Some obnoxious guy who cuts in front of me in a line, causing anger to arise, and showing where I'm still asleep in identification with form/separateness is my Guru. A financial disaster which strips away all illusions of security is my Guru. The prospect that at any second I could die, and at every second my cells are ageing and dying, my body is ageing and dying is my guru. And so on, you get the message.
I'm generally of the view that you're the only one who has what it takes to wake yourself up, if you want it badly enough. Having said that, obviously the other 'enlightened guys' are invaluable helpers on the path and their wisdom is to be embraced. But I feel you only gain real wisdom yourself when you find the lesson that the guru of each and every present moment is teaching you.
At the moment I'm back to breath meditation, because AYP is causing overload. My primary practice is just recognizing that I, formless consciousness, am That to which all appearances arise. When knowing resting as this, not the ego, every moment I'm letting go of the egoic conditioning, grasping, reacting, self-interest and way of living, and that "turn the other cheek" mode of living that Jesus talked about, without concern for or identification with a separate self, comes through a bit more. A little bit. The channels are still hardly clear.
"If you observe awareness steadily, this awareness itself as Guru will reveal the Truth.” - Sri Muruganar
Best,
Josh |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Jul 12 2013 4:26:50 PM |
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Gnan Vidhi / Deepakbhai
