DHRMK RECLUSE X SENSE OF A QUIET

What personal experience has led you to consider the possibility that we do in fact reincarnate?

Our son’s first sentence:

“Dad, I was a monk in Nepal.”

I had yet to begin my research into the flipside, I was aware of Carol Bowman’s book “Children’s Past lives” (and the subsequent books by Dr. Jim Tucker with ample evidence of reincarnation studies) but this was way before that… this was while I was home in Chicago and my son was on the phone saying goodnight.

He was 2. It was his first sentence to me. As if he’d been waiting two years to say it.

I said “Put your mom on the phone.” We went over “why did he say that?” Asked if they were watching a tv show, reading a book - no, no, and more no. She didn’t know. I let it go. Until he was 3.

One day riding around in the car I said “Son, where did you meet me?” I’m looking in the rear view mirror at his little face in the child safety seat. He looked up at me and said “Tibet.” Stunned, I said “Where in Tibet?” He said “On the path.”

Trying not to react, or over react, I thought about all the paths in Tibet I’d traversed when going there with Robert Thurman filming a documentary for Tibet House in NYC. (“Journey into Tibet with Robert Thurman” on youtube) Then I remembered when we were on the sacred mt. Kailash, Professor Thurman had offered “If you make a wish on this spot, Tibetans say it will come true.” I thought of an appropriate wish… “Hmmm. A million dollars… No, wait, a three picture movie deal.” I couldn’t make up my mind so determined I would count down from ten and whatever came out of my mouth would be my wish.”

“I want a son.” I said. I froze. What? Why did I say that? I had no clue. It wasn’t one of the two options. We had a daughter back home in Santa Monica… but it was the last thing from my conscious mind. I thought “Wow, why did I say that? Is that like a genetic thing that happens at altitude?” I let it go.

But now I was in the car with that 3 year old son. “On the path?” He nodded. “Wait, was it on Mt. Kailash?”

He shook his head “no.” I thought… wow, I was on a lot of paths in Tibet…but then remembered a name… “Was it on Kangra?”

He nodded. “Yes, it was Kangra.”

Kangra is the name of the path that goes around Mt. Kailash. It’s technically more precise, as that is where I made the wish. He was correcting me BUT IN TIBETAN.

But I said “Kangra” and he repeated it. And he was 3. So I let it go. A year later, I was working on the film “Salt” in Manhattan, had sublet an apt, when I got a call from my wife while I was on set. “Did you show him this book?” “What book?” I asked. She said our son had gone to the library of the apt’s owner, pulled two books out, threw one in the trash. My wife said “What are you doing?” He said “That book is worthless. This is the important one.” It was Robert Thurman’s book “Circling the Sacred Mountain” (written with Tad Wise) about his trip around Mt. Kailash.

Our son opened the book, pointed to a photograph of the place where I made the wish, and said “That’s where I FOUND DADDY.”

He was 4. He could not read yet. I told my wife “I’ve never said the word Kailash to him other than that one time in the car a year ago.”

But wait… there’s more.

When he was 5, we were in a Tibetan shop in LA and he disappeared. I mean my wife came and said “He’s disappeared! I can’t find him!” I looked around. Not a big shop. I said “He’s got to be here somewhere.” She came back 5 minutes later with a look of shock on her face. She said “I found him in the back room. He was in front of a mirror. DOING FULL PROSTRATIONS. (The way Monks stand up, hands over head, to lips, to heart, then go all the way to the ground.) She watched him for 3 minutes before he caught her in the mirror.

He said “Oh mom. You need to meditate more and this is how you do it.” He pulled her to the ground. He looked at her and said “Can you hear the bells in the music?” (A CD of Tibetan music “Traditional Chants of Tibet” by the Nechung Monks) was on the player. He said “Whenever there’s the ringing of a bell; that means peace comes into the world.”

I listened to her and later asked a Tibetan friend what it meant “during Tibetan music, when you hear a bell - does that represent something, like wisdom?” He shook his head. “It means peace comes into the world.”

Not something I knew or was aware of. And finally, since he no longer remembers these conversations, I’ll end with this last one. (This is cribbed from a chapter in “Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife” - “My son the monk.”) I got a phone call five years ago that my mom was dying. My friend the nurse called to say she wouldn’t make the weekend.

I sat the kids down and said “Now look, the next time you see grandma, she’s going to be wearing heavy makeup and will be in a casket.” I was trying to prepare them for my own experience of seeing dead relatives when I was a kid. I thought it was weird they had on heavy makeup and were in a box.

Our son laughed. “Dad, it’s okay.” He picked up a half empty bottle of water. He said “Spirit is like water. Watch.” He threw the bottle on the ground then stomped on it. He started jumping up and down on it gleefully. I can remember looking at my wife like “what is he doing?” He stopped, then picked up the crushed, broken bottle - but it still had the cap on. He showed us the bottle of half empty water and said, “See? The water is okay.”

Easily the most profound teaching I’ve heard about the nature of spirit. Our bodies grow old, they get stomped on a squished, fall apart …but the water is always okay. It may transform into mist, turn into clouds, turn into rain.. but our spirit… is always okay.

One last comment - lest anyone think that only former monks have this kind of ability to “remember their past.” When he was four, we were watching TV and on came a sexy ad for Victoria’s Secret. It was a pretty young model wearing giant white wings, wearing a bathing suit and dancing provocatively. He jumped off the couch, pointed at the TV and said “I want that!”

I laughed, not really knowing what part of the image he meant. But then I remembered what he’d said to me on the phone years earlier. I said “Wait a second, I thought you said you were a monk in Nepal.”

“Not anymore!” he said, happily. “Not anymore.”

What I suggest parents of toddlers do is to ask questions they don’t know the answer to. Ask kids this non denominational question; “Did mommy and daddy choose you? Or did you choose us?” And see what the answer is. The trick is not to judge or react to whatever the answer is. But in about half of the accounts I’ve heard,the answers have been nothing short of amazing.

How did Swami Vivekananda come to the conclusion that Vedanta can take a person to unimaginable heights?

There could be many answers. But, if Swami Vivekananda himself were to answer, I believe that his answer would then be,

By the Grace of my Guru Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa!

Now, in his own words-

One cannot understand the Vedas, the Vedanta, the Incarnations, and so forth, without understanding his (Shri Ramakrishna’s) life. For he was the explanation.
-Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume VI Epistle LXXV

Does free will exist or is the course of our lives already predetermined?

There is no ‘free will.’

Not because the course of “our” lives is pre-determined. But because there is no “our.”

There are no separate entities, only The One Self, Life, Being or whatever is your favorite term for The Whole.

A reductionist scientist or break-down analyst may go down to the shore and say the Ocean is made up of billions of separate ‘drops.’

But ‘drop’ is merely a concept. It’s all just One Water.

That which the scientist calls ‘drops’ undulate and move at the behest (will) of the One Ocean. They have no independent ‘free will.’

If any ‘drops’ thought of themselves as ‘separate identities,’ they might mind this. But they don’t.

When the illusion of separateness dissolves in any ‘human,’ Life simply dissolves back into all Life.

And the ‘human’ location never again asks about the question of free will…nor minds.

TURN YOUR WORKS INTO WORSHIP.

—All your works will turn righteous

SIRDI SAI BABA

How do autistics answer the Müller-Lyer illusion?

Before you read on answer these 2 questions about the image below:

Which line looks longer?
Which line is longer?

So when you ask autistic which line LOOKS longer, they say the bottom one. And when you ask them which line IS longer? They will tell you they are equal length.

This is consistent with our recent research that shows that individuals with autism succumb to visual illusions (for example the Muller– Lyer illusion) when asked which line looks longer but do not succumb when asked which line is longer.[1]

Neurotypicals will tell you that the bottom line is and looks longer.

One of our enhanced perception superpowers is:

Higher-order processing is optional in autism and mandatory in non-autistics.[2][3]

Autistics can perceive the world and its contents accurately(lower-order processing) as well as the way the world appears to be (higher-order processing). How long the line is as opposed to how long the line looks.

Research suggested that we are equally susceptible to or more susceptible to visual illusions than neurotypicals[4] . But in fact, we are NOT more susceptible.

What is true is that we answer the question you ask.

Which line looks longer? Well, the bottom one of course.

Which line is longer? Neither we tend to say.

We use our brains to process the question asked.

Autistics have access to physically accurate or psychologically distorted representations dependent upon the cue in the question.[5]

And one of our superpowers is that we can either take a shortcut (which is the only option for neurotypicals) or actually go and measure it via our brain. I think that is awesome!

RKM

What is the significance of silence?

I remember a story.

Alexander came to meet Diogenes.

During the conversation, Alexander said I am on the journey to conquer this whole world.

Diogenes said, “Ok, after conquering this world, what will you do? “

Alexander said, “I will take rest then.”

Diogenes said, “If you have to rest later, then why to bother for this journey. Take rest from now onwards, I am staying here alone, I have enough space for two person, you can stay here.”

Alexander came in puzzle, he said, “Your words are making sense and even I didn't think about this. But, I am sorry I will leave. “

Alexander moved from there.

You are relaxed and out of the race, competition like others. Silence means you can live the life to it's fullest.

ADI PURUSH

PI TO PYTHAGORAS IN BAUDHAYANA SULBASUTRA

Baudhāyana Sulbasūtra[edit

Pythagorean theorem[edit]

The Baudhāyana Sulba Sūtra states the rule referred to today in most of the world as the Pythagorean Theorem. The rule was known to a number of ancient civilizations, including also the Greek and the Chinese, and was recorded in Mesopotamia as far back as 1800 BCE.^[7] For the most part, the Sulbasūtra-s do not contain proofs of the rules which they describe. The rule stated in the Baudhāyana Sulba Sūtra is:

दीर्घचतुरश्रस्याक्ष्णया रज्जुः पार्श्वमानी तिर्यग् मानी च यत् पृथग् भूते कुरूतस्तदुभयं करोति ॥

dīrghachatursrasyākṣaṇayā rajjuḥ pārśvamānī, tiryagmānī,
cha yatpṛthagbhūte kurutastadubhayāṅ karoti.
A rope stretched along the length of the diagonal produces an area which the vertical and horizontal sides make together.^[8]

The diagonal and sides referred to are those of a rectangle, and the areas are those of the squares having these line segments as their sides. Since the diagonal of a rectangle is the hypotenuse of the right triangle formed by two adjacent sides, the statement is seen to be equivalent to the Pythagorean theorem.

Baudhāyana also provides a statement using a rope measure of the reduced form of the Pythagorean theorem for an isosceles right triangle:

The cord which is stretched across a square produces an area double the size of the original square.

Circling the square[edit]

Another problem tackled by Baudhāyana is that of finding a circle whose area is the same as that of a square (the reverse of squaring the circle). His sūtra i.58 gives this construction:

Draw half its diagonal about the centre towards the East–West line; then describe a circle together with a third part of that which lies outside the square.

Explanation:

Draw the half-diagonal of the square, which is larger than the half-side by $x={a \over 2}{\sqrt {2}}-{a \over 2}$ .
Then draw a circle with radius ${a \over 2}+{x \over 3}$ , or ${a \over 2}+{a \over 6}({\sqrt {2}}-1)$ , which equals ${a \over 6}(2+{\sqrt {2}})$ .
Now $(2+{\sqrt {2}})^{2}\approx 11.66\approx {36.6 \over \pi }$ , so the area ${\pi }r^{2}\approx \pi \times {a^{2} \over 6^{2}}\times {36.6 \over \pi }\approx a^{2}$ .

Square root of 2[edit]

Baudhāyana i.61-2 (elaborated in Āpastamba Sulbasūtra i.6) gives the length of the diagonal of a square in terms of its sides, which is equivalent to a formula for the square root of 2:

samasya dvikaraṇī. pramāṇaṃ tṛtīyena vardhayet
tac caturthenātmacatustriṃśonena saviśeṣaḥ

The diagonal [lit. "doubler"] of a square. The measure is to be increased by a third and by a fourth decreased by the 34th. That is its diagonal approximately.^{[citation needed]}

That is,

{\sqrt {2}}\approx 1+{\frac {1}{3}}+{\frac {1}{3\cdot 4}}-{\frac {1}{3\cdot 4\cdot 34}}={\frac {577}{408}}\approx 1.414216,

which is correct to five decimals.^[9]

Other theorems include: diagonals of rectangle bisect each other, diagonals of rhombus bisect at right angles, area of a square formed by joining the middle points of a square is half of original, the midpoints of a rectangle joined forms a rhombus whose area is half the rectangle, etc.

Note the emphasis on rectangles and squares; this arises from the need to specify yajña bhūmikās—i.e. the altar on which rituals were conducted, including fire offerings (yajña). This is an aspect of Vaastu Shastras and Shilpa Shastras. These theorems are derived from those texts.^[ci

What is the number one obstacle to enlightenment?

The belief that there are people.

There are no people, only characters in a dream/show/play, lived by Consciousness alone, which is the true essential nature of every character. That means there is no such thing as a volitional independent doer or entity. The play is one (interconnected) whole, dreamt by The Whole.

Nothing is personal. There is no one to be more or less special. Specialness is one of the strongest tactics the ego employs in its defense of the lie of personhood, as specialness is personal. When there is a perception of another as special, there has to be the false sense ‘I am a person, and s/he is a person.’ By its very nature it maintains the belief in many. It maintains the belief in relationship; the characters believe they are the roles they play in relationships.
The Alone cannot be special, when there is nothing beside it.

All there is, is the Alone, appearing as many.

~~~

“Blaming a man for what he ‘does’ is in accordance with the same process of logic as blaming a door when it bangs or an object when it falls on your foot.”
― Wei Wu Wei

KS-

“As we penetrate in to the teachings, we will in turn be penetrated by the essence of who we are most fundamentally”

KS-

Centering, Equilibrium, Madhyama, equipose, point of repose – There are the words that come to our mind when studying Abhinavagupta’s contribution to Indian thought, music and Natya sastra (Abhinavabharati). While being a master in propounding the dynamism of the observable and unobservable universe, he constantly comes back to the mystic core of repose. The “Hrydam” he often refers to, balances the otherwise seemingly fleeting fluctuations of the opposites of manifestation and involution

What is the awakening process?

You are you, a human, living life, and then suddenly you become reality. You are not a human, you aware awareness, you are existence, you are presence. You are a boundless, limitless expanse of beingness. And then it stops, and you are back to being a human, a self, a person.

This is a spiritual awakening: an experience of awareness expanding to such an extent that you are no longer a mind, a person, a human, who is aware, but you become awareness itself. This is why it is called an awakening: because you awake to your true nature, you awake to the true nature of reality.

And then you are back to being a mind, self, ego, perceiving reality as a mind, self, ego.

What is the process? There is no process. This happens. There is no way to make it happen, there is no way to predict it happening. It happens, or it doesn’t.

The Spandakarikas are a number of verses that serve as a sort of commentary on the Siva-sutras. According to Saivagama, the Divine Consciousness is not simply cold, inert intellection. It is rather spanda, active, dynamic, throbbing with life, creative pulsation. In Siva-sutras, it is the prakasa aspect of the Divine that is emphasized; in Spandakarikas, it is the vimarsa aspect that is emphasized, giving an integral view of Saiva philosophy.

At the background is prakasa or illumination, in the foreground is vimarsa or vibration of prakasa as the sense of 'I'. Prakasa can be taken to be Siva, placid and transcendent, vimarsa or Sakti as dynamic and immanent.

While vimarsa is taken to be the cause of the manifestation and dissolution of the universe. Or, in other words, while everything is a manifestation out of vimarsa, everything does not have vimarsa. A jar or a pot has no vimarsa, no sense of 'I', no self-awareness; that is why it is material.

The individual self is of the nature of consciousness and has self-consciousness also. So, we can say prakasa, for an individual, is the shining intelligence and vimarsa is the individual's awareness that 'those are mine'

Verse1

Yasyonmesanimesabhyaip jagatah pralayodayau/

Tam Sakticakravibhavaprabhavani Sankaraip stumah//

We laud that Sankara by whose mere opening and shutting of the eye-lids there is the appearance and dissolution of the world and who is the source of the glorious powers of the collective whole of the saktis (the divine energy in various forms).

Now the great lord who is the great God of the nature of Light has absolute Freedom (svatantrya), of the nature of Parasakti (the Highest Power) that displays Herself in the two poles of arani (I) and visarga (creation or idam i.e. the objective world) and is always full of the flash of a compact mass of bliss and whose essence consists in Full I-consciousness which is the supreme import of the multitude of letters.

Therefore the Svatantrya Sakti (the Power of Absolute Freedom) of the Lord is called spanda. This power though nondistinct from the Lord goes on presenting the entire cycle of manifestation and withdrawal on its own background like the reflection of a city in a mirror.

This sakti of the lord who is non-moving, being of the nature of consciousness is known as spanda in accordance with the root meaning of the word signifying slight movement. Thus the essential nature of the Lord is perpetual spanda (creative pulsation). He is never without spanda. Some hold that the Highest Reality is without any activity whatsoever. But in such a case the Highest Reality being devoid of activity, all this (i.e. the universe) will be without a lord or Creative Power. The great teacher has written this sastra (sacred book) in order to explain the fact that our nature is identical with that of Sahkara who is full of spanda sakti, the essence of which consists in quivering light. Thus this sastra has been appropriately named spanda.

Svatantrya—Freedom or Iccha Will i.e. of Siva which brings about both manifestation and absorption. Unmesa and nimesa denote succession. Succession means Time, but Siva is above Time. Therefore, unmesa and nimesa have not to be taken in the order of succession. They are simply two expressions of Iccha sakti of the Divine. In Spandasandoha, Ksemaraja says that there are many names of this Iccha Sakti (power of will) in this system. Spanda, sphuratta Crmi, Bala, Udyoga, Hrdaya, sara, MalinU Para etc. are synonyms of this Iccha sakti. In Spanda-nir^aya also he says : It is only spanda-sakti which is simultaneously unmesa and nimesa.

Ksemaraja concludes-

"In reality nothing arises, and nothing subsides, only the divine Spanda-sakti which, though free of succession, appears in different aspects as if arising, and as if subsiding."

Ksemaraja has pointed out that nimesa and unmesa refer to another significant concept of Saiva philosophy. This is a philosophy of Evolution. Evolution has two aspects—the arc of descent or avarohakrama (nimesa) from the Divine upto the empirical individual, from Consciousness upto the matter and the arc of ascent or aroha-krama (unmesa) from the empirical individual upto Siva-pramata and from inconscient matter upto samvid or the divine consciousness. The purpose of all the scriptures including Spandakarika is to show how the empirical individual can mount to the stage of Siva-pramata. Siva-consciousness is the upeya or the goal, the methods recommended in the book are the means (upayas) for reaching the goal (upeya).

"When there is unmesa or revelation of the essential nature of the Divine, there is the pralaya or disappearance of the world. When there is nimesa or concealment of the essential nature of the Divine, there is the udaya or appearance of the world."

As Ksemaraja puts it beautifully "Kalpitapramatrpada-nimajjanena samavisamah, tatsamavesa eva hi jivanmuktiphala iha prakarana upadesyah."

"We are united with Him by obliterating our state of assumed agency. This treatise is going to teach that identification with Him is the real reward of liberation in life."

Verse 1- (Mark D) Ksemaraja writes:

Thus whenever extroverted being rests in one's

own nature, all outer things are withdrawn and

one is established in the state of inner tranquility.

This is the Fourth State (turiya) which is creation

(persistence and destruction as well as their) union

(melana) (within universal consciousness).

It is the Goddess of Consciousness who vomits forth

and withdraws every single thing in the moments

of creation and the rest. She is always full (purna)

and lean (krsa), both and (yet) neither, pulsingly

radiantly (sphuranti) and free of succession.

When the Supreme Lord Who is consciousness,

out of His own free will submerges the pervasive

(awareness) of unity and assumes the pervasive

(awareness) of diversity, then the powers of His

will, etc., although uncontracted, manifest as contracted. It is then that this transmigrating soul,

obscured by impurity, comes into being.

Although the fettered soul is obscured by the

impurity of individuality (anavamala) brought

about by the contracted condition of his powers, he is nonetheless the agent of these five

functions, at least in the limited sphere of his

operation. Ignorant of this, he is deluded by his

own powers; conversely when he realizes this,

consciousness which had, through its own

power of self-limitation, assumed the condition

of the individual mind agitated by its own

thought forms, turns in on itself and so rises to

the level of pure awareness, to resume its original pristine condition.

Cessation (vilapana):- All things forcibly (hathatah) consigned to the fire which burns in the stomach of one's own consciousness, abandon the division of difference and so serve to fuel it by their power. By this process of

forced digestion, the duality of things is destroyed

and the universe is turned to nectar upon which

the deities of consciousness then feed and, satisfied, repose at one with Lord Bhairava, the Sky of Consciousness Who, full and perfect (purna), resides solitary in the Heart.

SLJ- By whose unmeṣa and nimeṣa, by whose twinkling of the eyes (unmeṣa is “the opening of [His] eyes”, nimeṣa is “closing His eyes”), you find jagataḥ pralayodayau, the rise and the dissolution of one hundred and eighteen worlds.

One hundred and eighteen worlds rise when He opens His eyes, one hundred and eighteen worlds are destroyed when He closes His eyes. He is Śaṅkara.

And He is the śakti cakra vibhava prabhavaṁ, He is the master of all the gathering of all the cycle of His energies, all the cycle of His numberless energies (śakticakra is, the wheel of energies). The glory of the wheel of energies, He is holding, He is handling.

RBR

JNISM

Do people usually reincarnate in the same regions where they lived in their past lives?

Originally Answered: Do People usually Reincarnate in the same region, where they lived in their Past Life?

I am answering this question as per Jain philosophy.

Theoretically it is possible for a person to reincarnate in the same region, but in reality there is very little chance.

Reincarnation happens according to one’s karma. Depending on karma, a living-being can reincarnate as a human, a tiryanch (animal, bird, insect etc.), a celestial being or a hellish being.

Celestial beings do not reincarnate as celestial beings in their immediate next birth. Same is the case with hellish beings. So it is only humans and tiryanch who can possibly reincarnate in the same region.

The total geographical area where a human or tiryanch can reincarnate is so vast that it is difficult to imagine. Therefore, though you cannot rule out the possibility of a person reincarnating in the same region, it does not usually happen.

Is my ego so strong? Is it like once it was behind worldly things and now it engages itself with spiritual readings and thoughts? What do I do? Does the Divine see my struggle?

There is only the Divine. There is no separate “you.”

The Divine doesn’t see “your” struggle…it is “your” struggle. And “your” ease. And “your” joy. And “your” sorrow.

It’s already All There Is, This Whole Reality, and It’s ‘playing’ with Itself.

There never was a separate “you” or “ego” that ever factored into the equation.

Relax and enjoy the movie!

Shiva’s 112 Meditation Techniques (Vigyan Bhairav Tantra)

Following are the 112 meditation techniques, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, that Shiva gave to his partner Devi (Shakti).

These techniques are the basis for Osho’s The Book of Secrets.

I have numbered them in the order that Osho gave them. The entire discourse series contains 80 discourses. The even number discourses were answers to questions. The techniques were given in odd numbered discourses after the first which was an introduction. Usually more than one technique was described in each of the discourses.

On the following list, the numbers in brackets at the end of the technique, for example (#3-1), signify the discourse number and which technique in that discourse. Some of them have links to posts of the discourses in which Osho describes the techniques.

Radiant one, this experience may dawn between two breaths. After breath comes in (down) and just before turning up (out)—the beneficence. (#3-1)
As breath turns down from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down—through both these turns, realize. (#3-2)
Or, whenever in-breath and out-breath fuse, at this instant touch the energy-less, energy-filled center. (#3-3)
Or, when breath is all out (up) and stopped of itself, or all in (down) and stopped – in such universal pause, one’s small self vanishes. This is difficult only for the impure. (#3-4)
Attention between eyebrows, let mind be before thought. Let form fill with breath essence to the top of the head and there shower as light. (#5-1)
When in worldly activity, keep attention between two breaths, and so practicing, in a few days be born anew. (#5-2)
With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams and over death itself. (#5-3)
With utmost devotion, center on the two junctions of breath and know the knower. (#5-4)
Lie down as dead. Enraged in wrath, stay so. Or stare without moving an eyelash. Or suck something and become the sucking. (#5-5)
While being caressed, sweet princess, enter the caress as everlasting life. (#7-1)
Stop the doors of the senses when feeling the creeping of an ant. Then. (#7-2)
When on a bed or a seat, let yourself become weightless, beyond mind. (#7-3)
Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall—until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true. (#9-1)
Place your whole attention in the nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, in the center of your spinal column. In such be transformed. (#9-2)
Closing the seven openings of the head with your hands, a space between your eyes becomes all-inclusive. (#11-1)
Blessed one, as senses are absorbed in the heart, reach the center of the lotus. (#11-2)
Unminding mind, keep in the middle—until. (#11-3)
Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object—the blessing. (#13-1)
Without support for feet or hands, sit only on the buttocks. Suddenly, the centering. (#13-2)
In a moving vehicle, by rhythmically swaying, experience. Or in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in slowing invisible circles. (#13-3)
Pierce some part of your nectar-filled form with a pin, and gently enter the piercing and attain to the inner purity. (#13-1)
Let attention be at a place where you are seeing some past happening, and even your form, having lost its present characteristics, is transformed. (#15-1)
Feel an object before you. Feel the absence of all other objects but this one. Then, leaving aside the object-feeling and the absence-feeling, realize. (#15-2)
When a mood against someone or for someone arises, do not place it on the person in question, but remain centered. (#15-3)
Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop. (#17-1)
When some desire comes, consider it. Then suddenly, quit it. (#17-2)
Roam about until exhausted and then, dropping to the ground, in this dropping be whole. (#17-3)
Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength or of knowledge. At the instant of deprivation, transcend. (#19-1)
Devotion frees. (#19-2)
Eyes closed, see your inner being in detail. Thus see your true nature. (#21-1)
Look upon a bowl without seeing the sides or the material. In a few moments become aware. (#21-2)
See as if for the first time a beauteous person or an ordinary object. (#21-3)
Simply by looking into the blue sky beyond clouds, the serenity. (#23-1)
Listen while the ultimate mystical teaching is imparted. Eyes still, without blinking, at once become absolutely free. (#23-2)
At the edge of a deep well look steadily into its depths until – the wondrousness. (#23-3)
Look upon some object, then slowly withdraw your sight from it, then slowly withdraw your thought from it. Then. (#23-4)
Devi, imagine the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters, then more subtly as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free. (#25-1)
Bathe in the center of sound, as in the continuous sound of a waterfall. Or by putting the fingers in the ears, hear the sound of sounds. (#25-2)
Intone a sound, as a-u-m, slowly. As sound enters soundfulness, so do you. (#27-1)
In the beginning and gradual refinement of the sound of any letter, awake. (#27-2)
While listening to stringed instruments, hear their composite central sound; thus omnipresence. (#27-3)
Intone a sound audibly, then less and less audibly as feeling deepens into this silent harmony. (#29-1)
With mouth slightly open, keep mind in the middle of the tongue. Or, as breath comes silently in, feel the sound HH. (#29-2)
Center on the sound a-u-m without any a or m. (#29-3)
Silently intone a word ending in AH. Then in the HH, effortlessly, the spontaneity. (#31-1)
Stopping ears by pressing and the rectum by contracting, enter the sound. (#31-2)
Enter the sound of your name and, through this sound, all sounds. (#31-3)
At the start of sexual union keep attentive on the fire in the beginning, and so continuing, avoid the embers in the end. (#33-1)
When in such embrace your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking. (#33-2)
Even remembering union, without the embrace, transformation. (#33-3)
On joyously seeing a long absent friend, permeate this joy. (#33-4)
When eating or drinking, become the taste of food or drink, and be filled. (#33-5)
O lotus-eyed one, sweet of touch, when singing, seeing, tasting, be aware you are and discover the ever-living. (#35-1)
Wherever satisfaction is found, in whatever act, actualize this. (#35-2)
At the point of sleep, when the sleep has not yet come and the external wakefulness vanishes, at this point being is revealed. (#35-3)
Illusions deceive, colors circumscribe, even divisibles are indivisible. (#35-4)
In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed. (#37-1)
This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so. (#37-2)
O beloved, put attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between these. (#37-3)
Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed. (#37-4)
As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us. (#39-1)
Wherever your mind is wandering, internally or externally, at this very place, this. (#39-2)
When vividly aware through some particular sense, keep in the awareness. (#39-3)
At the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety, above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware. (#41-1)
The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us. In reality, know nothing as pure or impure. (#42-1)
Be the unsame same to friend as to stranger, in honor and dishonor. (#43-1)
Here is the sphere of change, change, change. Through change consume change. (#43-2)
As a hen mothers her chicks, mother particular knowings, particular doings, in reality. (#45-1)
Since, in truth, bondage and freedom are relative, these words are only for those terrified with the universe. This universe is a reflection of minds. As you see many suns in water from one sun, so see bondage and liberation. (#45-2)
Consider your essence as light rays from center to center up the vertebrae, and so rises livingness in you. (#47-1)
Or in the spaces between, feel this as lightning. (#47-2)
Feel the cosmos as a translucent ever-living presence. (#47-3)
In summer when you see the entire sky endlessly clear, enter such clarity. (#49-1)
Shakti, see all space as if already absorbed in your own head in the brilliance. (#49-2)
Waking, sleeping, dreaming, know you as light. (#49-3)
In rain during a black night, enter that blackness as the form of forms. (#51-1)
When a moonless rainy night is not present, close eyes and find blackness before you. Opening eyes see blackness. So faults disappear forever. (#51-2)
Wherever your attention alights, at this very point, experience. (#51-3)
Focus on fire rising through your form from the toes up until the body burns to ashes but not you. (#53-1)
Meditate on the make-believe world as burning to ashes, and become being above human. (#53-2)
As, subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find at last these converging in our being. (#53-3)
Feel: my thought, I-ness, internal organs – me. (#55-1)
Before desire and before knowing, how can I say I am? Consider. Dissolve in the beauty. (#55-2)
Toss attachment for body aside, realizing I am everywhere. One who is everywhere is joyous. (#57-1)
Thinking no thing will limited-self unlimit. (#57-2)
Suppose you contemplate something beyond perception, beyond grasping, beyond not being – you. (#59-1)
I am existing. This is mine. This is this. O beloved, even in such know illimitably. (#59-2)
Each thing is perceived through knowing. The self shines in space through knowing. Perceive one being as knower and known. (#61-1)
Beloved, at this moment let mind, knowing, breath, form, be included. (#61-2)
Touching eyeballs as a feather, lightness between them opens into heart and there permeates the cosmos. (#63-1)
Kind Devi, enter etheric presence pervading far above and below your form. (#63-2)
Put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness above, below and in your heart. (#65-1)
Consider any area of your present form as limitlessly spacious. (#65-2)
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence. (#67-1)
Feel the fine qualities of creativity permeating your breasts and assuming delicate configurations. (#67-2)
Abide in some place endlessly spacious, clear of trees, hills, habitations. Thence comes the end of mind pressures. (#69-1)
Consider the plenum to be your own body of bliss. (#69-2)
In any easy position gradually pervade an area between the armpits into great peace. (#71-1)
Feel yourself as pervading all directions, far, near. (#71-2)
The appreciation of objects and subjects is the same for an enlightened as for an unenlightened person. The former has one greatness: he remains in the subjective mood, not lost in things. (#73-1)
Believe omniscient, omnipotent, pervading. (#73-2)
Imagine spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes. (#75-1)
With your entire consciousness in the very start of desire, of knowing, know. (#75-2)
O Shakti, each particular perception is limited, disappearing in omnipotence. (#75-3)
In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness. (#75-4)
Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being. (#77-1)
This consciousness exists as each being, and nothing else exists. (#77-2)
This consciousness is the spirit of guidance of each one. Be this one. (#77-3)
Suppose your passive form to be an empty room with walls of skin—empty. (#79-1)
Gracious one, play. The universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely. (#79-2)
Sweet hearted one, meditate on knowing and not-knowing, existing and not-existing. Then leave both aside that you may be. (#79-3)
Enter space, supportless, eternal, still. (#79-4)

No, most people aren't in severe pain when they die

Many people fear death partly because of the perception they might suffer increasing pain and other awful symptoms the nearer it gets. There’s often the belief palliative care may not alleviate such pain, leaving many people to die excruciating deaths.

But an excruciating death is extremely rare. The evidence about palliative care is that pain and other symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia and breathing issues, actually improve as people move closer to death. More than 85% of palliative care patients have no severe symptoms by the time they die.

Evidence from the Australian Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) shows that there has been a statistically significant improvement over the last decade in pain and other end-of-life symptoms. Several factors linked to more effective palliative care are responsible.

These include more thorough assessments of patient needs, better medications and improved multidisciplinary care (not just doctors and nurses but also allied health workers such as therapists, counsellors and spiritual support).

But not everyone receives the same standard of clinical care at the end of life. Each year in Australia, about 160,000 people die and we estimate 100,000 of these deaths are predictable. Yet, the PCOC estimates only about 40,000 people receive specialist palliative care per year. Symptoms at the end of life

For the greater majority of those who do receive palliative care, the evidence shows it is highly effective.

The most common symptom that causes people distress towards the end of life is fatigue. In 2016, 13.3% of patients reported feeling severe distress due to fatigue at the start of their palliative care. This was followed by pain (7.4%) and appetite (7.1%) problems.

Distress from fatigue and appetite is not surprising as a loss of energy and appetite is common as death approaches, while most pain can be effectively managed. Other problems such as breathing, insomnia, nausea and bowel issues are experienced less often and typically improve as death approaches.

Contrary to popular perceptions, people in their final days and hours experience less pain and other problems than earlier in their illness. In 2016, about a quarter of all palliative care patients (26%) reported having one or more severe symptoms when they started palliative care. This decreased to 13.9% as death approached.

The most common problem at the start was fatigue, which remained the most common problem at the end. Pain is much less common than fatigue. In total, 7.4% of patients reported severe pain at the beginning of their palliative care and only 2.5% reported severe pain in the last few days. Breathing difficulties cause more distress than pain in the final days of life.

These figures must be considered in relation to a person’s wishes. It’s true for a small number of patients that existing medications and other interventions do not adequately relieve pain and other symptoms.

But some patients who report problematic pain and symptoms elect to have little or no pain relief. This might be because of family, personal or religious reasons. For some patients, this includes a fear opioids (the active ingredient in drugs like codeine) and sedating medications will shorten their life. For others, being as alert as possible at the point of death is essential for spiritual reasons.

Sources: https://theconversation.com/amp/no-most-people-arent-in-severe-pain-when-they-die-86835

yaksha parva in Mahabharata!

what is most wonderful or surprising!?

Day after day countless creatures leave for abode of yama ( god of death). yet who live behind think and act as if they are immortal. those that carry a dead man to the cremation ground think they would live for ever!

this is most surprising and wonderful!

SLJ- The rise of the tanmātras is the distraction- the tanmātras (śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, and gandha). Don’t be attentive to these: any sound (śabda), any sparśa (touch), rūpa (form), rasa (taste), and gandha (smell)–these tanmātras–and the mind, the ego, and buddhi (intellect). So they are eight: śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, gandha (the five tanmātras), the mind, the intellect, and the ego. And this is puryaṣṭaka, this is the body of the subtle body. This is the subtle body, this is the substance(Eight-fold) of the subtle body.

This is the only cycle which makes you travel in unlimited repeated births and deaths of this world. [But] if you hold these tanmātras [and the inner organs] in your own nature, if you fix them with focus, in your own God-consciousness, then there is no fear.

Tadbhāvāt, by this puryaṣṭaka, by the functioning of this eight[-fold] cycle of puryaṣṭaka, he goes in saṁsāra– he comes, goes, he dies, he gets birth. So this happens without any stoppage.

Next verse- how to stop the cycle of travelling in the cycle of repeated births and deaths.

Mark D- The power of action is the supreme energy of consciousness, Spanda itself, which is so-called because it is by virtue of His inner dynamism that Siva, the one universal consciousness and innate nature of every perceiving and acting subject, creates all things and acts through them. At the same time, it is through this, His universal energy, that Maya - the world of duality is generated. Thus it has two aspects.

Mark D- The main point this Stanza aims to make is that all perceptions, thoughts, and sensations, along with the entire range of our experience should be gathered together and united in the oneness of consciousness. The dichotomizing activity of thought cannot continue to break up the unity of consciousness when it is all brought together in one place. When this happens, the yogi attains liberation by becoming the master of the energies of consciousness that have been brought together into the unity of his dominion (final Stanza)

This 'one place' is, as Kallata says, consciousness. A state of awareness which is constantly alert recognizes this to be the one light of consciousness which uniformly illumines all things, even as they are perceived in their diversity.

Ksemaraja understands this Stanza as following on directly from the previous one which taught, as he says, how the yogi 'submerges embodied subjectivity in his own nature, which is the expansion of consciousness and attains the supreme subjectivity which is of that very form (i.e., expansion).'

Thus the previous Stanza taught how to develop consciousness expansion (unmesa) and this one how to consolidate it by merging all differentiation into this expansion, which he identifies with the universal pulsation of consciousness.

Thus, the yogi, who manages to remain alert in all the states of consciousness and in all the phases of perception, maintains the awakened state of enlightenment, lays hold of the pulsation of consciousness, which has expanded out, and does not allow it to contract back again. In this way all things are brought together into the yogi's true nature equally in both states of introverted and extroverted contemplation.

NON DISCUSRSIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Definition of nondiscursive

: not of or relating to language or discourse : not discursive Making music, while it fulfills many emotional needs, is a nondiscursive enterprise; it doesn't take place within language.— Randall Butler.

Mark D- Abhinavagupta quotes this Stanza in his commentary on the Paratrisika about non-discursive consciousness and the manner in which the yogi can penetrate into it.

Bhairava's light illumines all things by its expansion (vikasa) from the highest undifferentiated level down to the grossest physical object, in such a way that every stage of this descent contains all the preceding ones as their culmination, while all the successive ones abide within it as a potential.

In this way consciousness contains in its entirety every part of this sequence in a state of perpetual expansion. In order to realize this intrinsically free and universal nature of consciousness, Abhinava prescribes a spiritual discipline which frees the aspirant of the particularized thought constructs and individualized cognitions which seemingly obscure this, his essential conscious nature. He must find a place where his vision can range freely without obstruction in order to experience a pure state of awareness which, uncluttered by individual objects and hence undivided, contains within the fullness of its expansion the infinite variety of things.

Once the yogi is well practiced in this way, he can achieve this same intuitive awareness whenever he perceives any single thing. In order to do this, the yogi must be able to elevate his consciousness from the grossest perception to its sublest source. In this way he rises progressively through the gross elements, sensations, the senses, mind, individuality, the principles which obscure consciousness, and up through the principles representing aspects of the inner state of non-objectivized consciousness, until he reaches the state of pure cognitive intent. This is the 'desire to see' to which this Stanza refers. At one with this pervasive, empowered state of consciousness he realizes his authentic conscious nature in its fullness and unconditioned expansion.

The first step in this process is to make the entire cosmic order a single object of knowledge. This is possible because it is in fact the yogi's own nature which illumines itself in this form. Then the yogi must realize his identity with it by perceiving the inherent unity of this, the macrocosm, with the microcosm which is the psycho-physical vehicle of his consciousness. In this way the consciousness which, through ignorance, once appeared to be limited and individualized is now realized to be universal and full of the entire sphere of bjectivity that it itself makes manifest.

At the end of this sensation the power of awareness (samvitti), which is the pure Sky of Consciousness, (becomes manifest). He who is established in this attains the supreme self-illuminating (state of consciousness).

KS VBT

Mark D- The practice taught here, that the attention be fixed in the center between one thought and the next. It is there that the pure consciousness of the perceiver resides. In the Center, the yogi can lay hold of the intuitive consciousness which contains all things within itself in their latent form as energy.

Perceptions arise out of this pure intuitive awareness, gradually assuming clearer and more specific forms to ultimately form a part of the variety of manifestation. Then this same intuitive consciousness grasps them all together in the undivided span of its vision - just as a person on a mountain views a town in the valley below him.

Abhinava identifies this intuitive consciousness with the goddess who embodies the energy of universal consciousness of which he writes:

This intuitive consciousness that manifests in each interval between the two perceptions, one that precedes it and the other that follows after it, encompasses all things. The one who is immersed in this and identifies himself with it, can find the supreme power.

The way the Center can be found is taught in the Vijnanabhairava. There, the yogi is taught that he must first be conscious of the flow of perceptions as they follow each other one after the other. Then, once he has clearly distinguished between prior and subsequent perceptions, he must try to rest between them in such a way that the interval between them increases until he can finally abandon both, and the reality of consciousness alone remains, shining in the center.

He may also practice checking his consciousness from moving on to a second perception. If he is successful, the contemplative absorption (bhavana) of higher levels of consciousness will expand spontaneously from the

Center he has managed to penetrate.

These two methods can analogously be applied to the volitional aspect of the activity of consciousness, just as it is to the cognitive, as Sivopadhyaya explains in his commentary on the following verse from the same Tantra:

Once observed the desire that has just arisen, (the yogi) should immediately pacify it. Thus it dissolves away there in that very place from whence it has arisen.

MILES TO READ B4 I SLEEP

Sunday 31 July 2022

DTR CRSS X FINTECH 4YRS X DHRMK RECLUSE