This is Scott Kiloby’s second book on non-duality or enlightenment. It is a book of daily expressions or pointers to spiritual awakening–one pointer for each day of the year. The clarity is astounding. This demystifies spiritual awakening, strips it of all fundamentalism, and presents it in a clear and easy-to-read way. This is about the timeless presence that you already are.
Each pointer peels away beliefs, positions, and ideas about spirituality, including the idea that you exist as a separate self, only to reveal–in the end–that nothing is excluded. Its central message is that there is only One Life appearing in a myriad of forms. You are that One Life. This is when the distinctions between absolute and relative, form and formlessness, timelessness and time, no self and self, One and many, and all other boundaries collapse into a great and loving mystery that Scott calls ‘This.’
Scott Kiloby – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview
Scott Kiloby is a “Non-Dual” author/teacher from Southern Indiana (USA). He is the author of “Love’s Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search” and “Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment.” He is also the creator of a revolutionary addiction recovery method called Natural Rest. His book, “Natural Rest: Finding Recovery Through Presence,” is scheduled for release in early 2011. In addition to details of his meetings and retreats, there are many essays, quotations and videos which can be viewed on his web site. He also holds frequent meetings all over the world, in person and online via Skype and teleconferencing.
To quote Scott, “We live our lives asleep. Our minds are programmed for self-centeredness. This programming causes us to spend our lives seeking the future for a sense of contentment we can’t seem to find. It causes conflict in our relationships. To say that we live in self-centeredness is not a moral judgment. It’s a statement of fact. The good news is that awakening from this self-centered dream is possible in this lifetime. This awakening reveals a depth of freedom and contentment that no relationship, job, material item, self-improvement plan, or any other accomplishment or attainment in the material world can bring. This level of freedom frees us from our endless seeking towards future. It frees us from conflict so that our real nature as love shines through, affecting every area of our lives.”
Interview recorded 12/4/2010.
Scott Kiloby – 2nd Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview
Scott Kiloby is reaching out to all people who are suffering or seeking or cannot seem to find fulfillment in this life no matter where they go or what they do. He is communicating to them that freedom is available and that it is actually contained in their very presence, yet it is overlooked. The benefits of recognizing presence are living with a mind that is at peace, a heart full of love and compassion for others, and the end of looking for happiness outside ourselves.
Scott is the author of “Love’s Quiet Revolution: The End of the Spiritual Search,” “Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment,” “Living Realization: Your Present Experience As It Is,” and “Living Relationship: Finding Harmony with Others” (this upcoming book was the main focus of this interview).
He is also the creator of a new addiction/recovery method called the Natural Rest Presence Method. His book, by the same name, is scheduled for release in 2012.
Scott’s main websites are www.livingrealization.org and www.kiloby.com. These sites contain writings, videos, and audio interviews with a wide diversity of teachers, authors, scientists, and psychologists as well as information about private sessions with Scott and online interactivity groups.
The Facilitators trained by Scott can be found in the Facebook room “Relationship and the Unfindable Self.”
In Spiritual Partnership, bestselling author Gary Zukav reveals a profound new relationship dynamic that enables us to reach our full potential and create authentic power and a joyful life. Spiritual partnerships are not only for couples in marriage; they can be created anywhere two or more individuals decide to engage as equals for the purpose of spiritual development.
In this extraordinary book, Gary Zukav shares a revolutionary new approach to life, relationship, and evolution. Filled with poignant examples and including specific guidelines, Spiritual Partnership empowers and enables you to explore your emotions, your intentions, your choices, and your intuition and to use them to create profound spiritual growth. Deepen your joy. Begin the journey to authentic power today. Deepen your joy. Begin the journey to authentic power today. The world is changing around you and within you, and Spiritual Partnership is the road map to that change.
A Personal Note from Gary Zukav
I wrote Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, to try to get out of my own cage. I wanted, and needed, to connect with people, not just reach them, but really connect for my own well being and hopefully for theirs as well.
I have learned that the difficult times in my life are not because of other people, they are because of me. They occur because of parts of my personality that are painful to experience. When I am with someone who brings them up in me, that is a painful time, but I know that it is not about the other person when I feel angry or impatient or irritable. It is about me, and so I am intent to use my experiences with others to learn about me so that I can change me because I am really tired of trying to change other people. And not only am I tired of it, I don’t want to. It doesn’t feel good. I know deep in me that it is a wrong path for me to take, and I feel that it is a painful path for anyone to take.
Spiritual partnership is a partnership with another person or other people who feel the same way. It is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. So when my spiritual partners and I have difficult interactions, we do not point fingers at each other, we try our best to respond instead of react, and to support one another in doing that also. Spiritual partnership is a new kind of relationship, a different kind of relationship. We do more than talk about hair styles, life styles, car styles, children, and work. We do all those things too but those conversations take on a different meaning. While I am having them, I am noticing what I am feeling. I’m noticing if anything gets triggered in me and if it does, I pay attention to it, especially if I am becoming upset because those are the experiences that keep me from loving. They keep me apart from people.
“You cannot heal the fear of another and no one can heal yours, but you can inspire others with your emotional awareness, responsible choices, intuition and trust in the Universe.
—Gary Zukav
For a long time I thought that if I could change people enough, and get some that were just right around me, it would be easy to be loving, but it doesn’t work like that because everybody has parts of her or his personality that are loving and also parts that are not loving. I would say the not-loving parts are the frightened parts of the personality, the parts that are angry, jealous, vengeful, feel superior, feel inferior, etc. And when these parts become active, and this always happens sooner or later, that’s when the learning potential begins. Of course, it also begins when the loving parts come out, the parts that are grateful, patient, appreciative, content, etc. Being a spiritual partner means really wanting to support people because you see when they are in pain how they might learn from their pain, too, if they’re open. If they’re open.
My focus is on changing myself because I know that other people can’t change me, but I also know that each of my spiritual partners wants to change himself or herself, too. He wants to find and challenge the painful, destructive parts of his personality and cultivate the constructive, blissful parts of his personality, and so I assist him whenever I think I see that they might be active. I don’t just say, “This is what is happening in you, and this is what you ought to do.” I ask her if she is open to looking at something that I think I might be seeing. For example, some parts of my personality that I have become very familiar with over years feel superior, entitled, impatient, and don’t really care about the needs of others, but not everybody is like that. One of my spiritual partners feels a need to please other people when a frightened part of her personality is active; to see them smile or value her because of what she can do or give. So when I see that part come out in her behaviors and thoughts and attitudes, if she is open I will help her see them. And there are specific ways, very helpful ways that we can assist one another. This book gives them to you.
Once I started this book I kept writing because it felt so good. I love it when creativity begins to flow and I can think of a better way to express something—a story, or a metaphor, or a process. I love that experience of sharing. The more I stretched myself to think, “How can I say this in a way that is not by rote? How can I not take refuge in what I know how to say but really communicate in an even more meaningful way?” the deeper my understanding of spiritual partnership became and the stronger my ability to share it. One idea lead to another, one chapter lead to another, and after a few chapters I began to see an outline for the book, and that outline became WHY, WHAT, HOW, and WHO. That’s how this book unfolded.
There is a saying that people teach what they really need to learn. Doing this in a heart-felt way has worked well for me. I can tell that I am becoming more able to connect with people because to my surprise I have become interested in them. Let me put it this way, I am aware now, much more aware of how important people are to me than I have been in the past. I like hearing their stories. I like hearing what is happening in their lives. For example, Linda Francis, the spiritual partner I live with, and I met a couple on a plane and found them to be wonderful. He told me that he has pancreatic cancer and that he and his wife were going on a cruise to Mexico. When he learned that his illness was terminal, he realized that he could spend his last days in a hospital, but that didn’t sound inviting to him. Or he could spend them really living his life, and that invited him. That is what he is doing. What I really like about him is his aliveness, his interest, his interest in me and his excitement for what I am doing. He is as grounded as he is delightful and vibrant. He said, “I am a little afraid of what it will be like to die. I am not sure about that. I know I am going to get sick. I have done my homework on pancreatic cancer. It is an ugly way to die, but I feel so alive and so grateful for every moment.” In the little time we were together, I learned about myself as well as about him, but mostly I enjoyed myself and I enjoyed him, and I feel that he enjoyed himself and he enjoyed me.
Open Your Heart
So those are the kind of experiences that are coming into my life now. And I also know that when it comes to spirituality, I am not special. If I can create authentic power and spiritual partnerships, you can. If I can make the journey from an angry, drug-using, sex-addicted, motorcycle-riding, angry—did I mention angry?—young man to someone who is now enjoying becoming an elder, anyone can. As I began to open my heart up many wonderful role models came into my life over the years, men and women who have opened their hearts or are opening them, and they are still coming. Perhaps I can be one of those role models for you, and you can be one for someone else. We are all opening our hearts, but it is not a matter of opening your heart and, there, that’s a done deal. It is a matter of continuing to open your heart moment by moment. This book is about that, and how to do it.
Love,
Gary Zukav
Spiritual partners Gary Zukav and Linda Francis invite you to create spiritual partnerships and authentic power. Learn about meaningful relationships, emotional awareness, and responsible choice.
Gary Zukav is a spiritual teacher and author of four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Beginning in 1998, Zukav appeared more than 30 times on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss transformation in human consciousness concepts presented in The Seat of the Soul.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Zukav
Linda Francis has been practicing the creation of authentic power since she read The Seat of the Soul in 1989. In 1993 she met Gary Zukav and they created a spiritual partnership which is in its eighteenth year.
During this time, she co-authored with Gary two New York Times bestsellers, The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness and The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice. They also co-created Thoughts from the Heart of the Soul and Self-Empowerment Journal: A Companion to the Mind of the Soul.
Linda is a co-founder of the Seat of the Soul Institute, the premier organization dedicated to assisting individuals in the alignment of the personality with the soul—the creation of authentic power.
Linda has been in the healing profession for three decades, first as a registered nurse and then as a chiropractor. At the present time, she is involved fully in co-creating curricula and events with Gary. Linda also guides the Authentic Power Program, which is designed to give people the tools to create authentic power and spiritual partnership in their everyday lives. http://seatofthesoul.com/about/linda-francis/
Andrew Harvey believes that the central, fundamental, and most urgent meaning of our world crisis is to call us all to a new way of being and doing in the world.
This is why he has dedicated his life to Sacred Activism. Inspired in part by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, Andrew believes that the birth of a new divine humanity is trying to take place from the depths of our contemporary crisis, and that it depends upon a radical union of all the opposites that have traditionally been kept separate: a radical union of transcendence and immanence, heaven and earth, mind and heart, body and soul, mystical awareness and radical action.
On Mother’s Day, 2011, Andrew Harvey appeared as Terry Patten’s guest on Beyond Awakening. He passionately and eloquently described the devastating crisis of the planet, saying that the reality of impending collapse must break our hearts and transform our consciousness. Out of that “Dark Night”, Andrew said, we must come alive as Sacred Activists.
Terry agreed, praising Andrew’s mystically vision and awakened eloquence. And yet he also challenged Andrew’s seeming certainty about collapse, emphasizing the Mystery, the fact that we don’t and can’t know exactly what is ahead.
Terry spoke to the moral necessity of hope, and also pointed to the positive, emergent dynamism of our current moment in the evolution of consciousness and culture. The discussion soared, ignited, and stirred a great deal of discussion and acclaim among people all over the world.
About Andrew Harvey:
Andrew Harvey is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher. Harvey has published over 20 books including The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism and Heart Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism. Harvey was a Fellow of All Souls College Oxford from 1972 to 1986 and has taught at Oxford University, Cornell University, The California Institute of Integral Studies, and the University of Creation Spirituality, as well as, various spiritual centers throughout the United States. He was the subject of the 1993 BBC film documentary The Making of a Modern Mystic. He is the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism in Oak Park, Illinois, where he lives. His website is www.andrewharvey.net
Introduction to The Awakening Human Being – A Guide to the Power of Mind
by Barbara Berger
Ask yourself what is actually preventing you from being happy right now, right this very moment? If you are honest with yourself, you will probably say it’s because you don’t have what you want. You will probably say that the only thing that is preventing you from being happy right now is wanting something you don’t have. This could be better health, a partner who’s more understanding, more money in the bank, or a nicer apartment, or a million and one other things. But whatever it is, it’s something you don’t have at this very moment in time. And this is what’s making you unhappy right now. Isn’t this true?
Isn’t it true that you’re unhappy right now because you feel there is something you are lacking? What else could possibly make you unhappy at this very moment? It can only be the thought of what you don’t have. Because what else is there? You are sitting here right now, reading this book. And what’s wrong with that? The only thing that can be wrong with this moment is your own dissatisfaction with what is. It has to be this because there is absolutely nothing else is going on.
And this brings us to the crux of the matter which is all our experience – every single experience we are having – is just a thought in our minds. There is reality, in other words what is, and then there are your thoughts about what is going on – and this is your experience. That’s all that is going on. You’re sitting here, reading this book. Nothing else is happening. And you’re either liking what’s going on or you’re not liking it. And that’s always the case and this is always true for all of us. We live and things happen and then we think some experiences are good and other experiences are bad or at least less good. We live and things happen and then we think the experiences, events and people live up to our expectations or they don’t. And that’s what we get to live, that’s our experience. It’s as simple as that. There is nothing else going on.
It’s all just thoughts in our minds. Always. All the time.
Just look at your own experience. Either you are thinking you like something or you are thinking you dislike it. And that’s about it. The situations in themselves, the specific events, circumstances and people are just what they are. In and of themselves, they have no inherent value. We can like them or we don’t but they’re still just what they are. Our preferences don’t really have much to do with it at all. Life is unfolding before us, for us, and everything we see, hear, touch, taste are just the happenings of being alive. It’s our preferences that make us happy or sad.
The truth of the matter is there is reality… and then there’s our thinking. And these are two different things.
Now I know this is very radical stuff but it’s true nevertheless. And this brings us to the startling conclusion that you and I can lead happy lives regardless of our circumstances, regardless of what we have or don’t have. Because when we drop our interpretation of events, we find ourselves living here and now in this present moment. And that’s about it. With no stories, no comparisons, no expectations, life just is and we are just here. And what could possibly be wrong with that? And so we find, to our great and eternal delight, that at this very moment, when we drop our stories and beliefs and stand quietly in the now, we’re quite happy! We find that right this very moment everything is ok. And that strangely enough, happiness is what we are. Happiness is our nature, our natural state.
So now you understand why this whole book and all my other books are about the nature of consciousness and the mechanics of how our minds work. Because it is here you will find the key to your own happiness, the key which will set you free – regardless of your circumstances. So read the material in this book carefully and contemplate it every single day of your life.
If we can see and understand the mechanics of consciousness and the way the mind works and how this shapes our lives, we will find the key we’ve been looking for. And it’s not a mystery. Understanding the way the mind works is a matter of impersonal law. It’s something everyone can observe. And this means it’s something you can observe and test for yourself. So check out the things I write about in this book and see for yourself if they are true or not.
lie Cioara was an enlightened mystic who did not belong to any lineage. He is unique in a way, in the sense that he lived in almost complete isolation, in Eastern Europe in a communist country, completely oblivious of nonduality, zen etc. Originally a Christian mystic, he practiced a mantra for over 20 years.
One day, he felt an intuitive impulse to drop the mantra, and just practice the silence of the mind, by listening to the noises on the street, in the now. After following this practice for a few years, one morning, as he was waking up from his sleep, he suddenly experienced Enlightenment. His description of meditation is fresh and devoid of any tradition and jargon.
His writings in 16 books describe the experience of meditation and enlightenment, as well as the practice of “Self-knowing” using all-encompassing Attention. Like Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Ekhart Tolle, his is a simple message of discovering our inner divine nature through the silence of the mind.
The Silence of the Mind is the first in a tetralogy by Ilie Cioara to be published by Obooks. Soon to follow: The Wondrous Journey into the Depth of Our Being, Life is Eternal Newness and I Am Boundlessness
Petrica Verdes (Deva Daan) A translator and a seeker of truth, he has been practicing meditation and living in various meditation communes in Italy, Germany and the UK. Translating Iie Cioara’s work has been a labour of love and a process of spiritual growth.
NDM: Can you please tell me about how you met Ilie Cioara?
Petrica Verdes: In 2002, I came across one of Ilie Cioara’s books in a bookshop, and I wrote the publisher straight away, asking if they could pass me the address of the author. The book just mesmerized me, I felt an energy around the text and I used to meditate with it and carry it with me. To my surprise, after a month, I received a reply from the editor, with the author’s address and telephone number. I called him the same day and arranged a meeting with him the next morning. Ilie Cioara’s door was always open to whoever was interested in the truth. He did not ask any questions: you were the one who asked the questions, if you needed to.
After a 10 hour train journey, I knocked on his door. The door opened and I was welcomed by the most amazing eyes. I had seen these eyes before, in photos of Ramana Maharshi, Osho, Papaji, Yogananda – yet it was the first time I saw them in real life. In front of me stood a very vital and alive old man, who I thought was around 60 years old. Little did I know at the time that he was 86.
The room was full of an energy which made my mind become silent. He asked me if I had any questions to ask him, but I couldn’t think of anything, my mind was just blank. I just wanted to sit and meditate in his presence, and look into those eyes. He said to me that this had happened to other people as well, and that, if necessary, I needed to write my questions at home, and bring them with me the next time.
There was a strong meditative energy in the room. I just wanted to relax into that energy.
I remember two anecdotes from this encounter. At one point, he told me a woman had come to him, and she had the gift of reading other people’s thoughts. She came to him for recognition, yet his reply was simple: “Aren’t your thoughts enough, now you want to have other people’s thoughts?”
Another thing he told me during our meeting – the famous saying by Descartes; I think, therefore, I am. Ilie Cioara commented this was one of the stupidest things he had ever heard, because, only when I do not think, I truly Am. This was an deeply untrue statement. A correct statement would be “I think, therefore, I am not”
NDM: So did you meet up with him again?
Petrica Verdes: I only met him once while he was in the body. After a few months I left the country to Italy, to live in a meditation commune there, I had other dreams and ideals. By the time I got round to seeing him again, in 2004, he had passed away.
NDM: Can you please tell me how this man and his book impacted you?
Petrica Verdes: I’ve been reading and re-reading this book for many years. Each reading adds a deeper level of understanding.
This is not a book about meditation, or describing meditation. The book is a meditation in itself. Words are used as a device to transport the reader in a state of meditation. Ilie Cioara – The Silence of the Mind
To give you a firsthand example, the poem The Power of Emptiness:
The mind is completely silent, we are attentive – a clear consciousness, / All meanings, boundaries disappear – us and the Infinite are “One”; / Practically we have a new mind, always fresh. / Being in the pause, I become infinite! / It separates two worlds. I leave the limited world / And enter Boundlessness, through total melting; / The whole being is calm – a constant sparkle. / There is no time, no space – just everlasting Eternity; I move in direct contact with life, in a permanent present.
The book is a journey of self-discovery for the reader. Through these mirror-poems, he is able to see the reality of his being as if in a mirror. The approach of the book is very intuitive and practical, rather than descriptive. He does not explain – he gives the reader an experience, using words. All the verses are followed by explanations in prose.
The book is not necessarily meant to be read from beginning to end. One can carry it in his pocket, open it randomly and read a passage: it will help reconnect with the reality of being. Like looking into a mirror, we are reminded of the original face we had before we were born and after we die.
I had been carrying this book in my pocket for a long time. The particular thing about this book is – usually, enlightened people do not write books – they speak to disciples, and the discourses are written. One feels like one is eavesdropping – the master is speaking to the disciple, and we are listening to this as spectators. Some of it may regard us as well, some of it is specifically directed at that disciple.
Because Ilie Cioara was almost alone, during the communist years, he had to communicate this experience in writing. He is using words directly, as a device for awakening. He is addressing the reader directly, but he is not there to provide information, he is there to awaken.
In a way, this setback has created a unique book. It is not a discourse – the reader can use the book as a device to awaken. And Ilie Cioara is the first to remind the reader:”You don’t need anything outside yourself. Forget the author completely and just stay with the experience of being in the moment. Read the words and transcend them.”
NDM: So as a result of reading this book, did you experience some kind of an awakening your self? If so can you please tell me what this is?
Petrica Verdes: One can read a book, close it and forget about it. Or re-read it again and think: this is a wonderful book, and close it again and forget about it.
Rather than merely reading the book, it is the daily practice of what is described in the book, that simple attention to the present moment that changed my life. It is a daily practice, wherever I am, in whatever circumstances, from early morning until late in the night, to just watch the mind and do not buy into its games and most of all, do not give it any energy. Mind exists because we give it energy, because we believe in it. If we disidentify with it, if we detach from it – its energy supply is cut off. It cannot exist without us. And the reverse is also the case – we cannot exist without the mind. When the mind is not – we stop existing as an “ego” entity.
This is why it is in our best interest to keep the mind going. This is how we can also continue to exist, with our dreams, ideals, aspirations – all these are fuel to our “ego” identity.
So the ego pretends – I want to be rid of the mind – but in fact, “ego” and mind are in a deep partnership. You watch the mind, but you don’t want to disappear as an entity. You want the mind to disappear, without realizing that – with the disappearance of the mind, you will also disappear.
So we give the mind energy, because the mind allows us to exist as an individuality. We pretend we meditate, this is a game that every meditator plays with himself. We don’t want to disappear. There is still something unaccomplished, something we long for, something we need to achieve, we have not let go and just be in the present moment. Ilie Cioara – Creation is Eternal Freshness
So this is one thing to be remembered, by not giving energy to the mind, you also cut off the energy invested in the “ego” identity. Accept death as an “ego” because sooner or later this is the end result of meditation. This is what I learned by practicing Ilie Cioara’s teachings.
It’s years of observation of one’s thoughts that finally bring an awakening, without needing to do something in particular, just a simple observation. It is not cheap. The mind is lives upon lives of living in ignorance, a huge deposit of unconscious mechanical impulses which does not go away so easily.
Whenever I read the book, I find a deeper dimension of myself. It’s one of those books that can be re-read, time and again, because it is mystical. It does not give you knowledge, it gives you an experience, using poetry. But the practice is not confined to the book, the book is just an indicator sign.
As translator, reading or translating the book is like a satsang with Ilie Cioara, it is a process of growth, being in the energy of an enlightened being. Each enlightened being that lived on this earth is alive in the infinite dimension, and one can come into contact with that infinite energy. Buddha is present in the Buddha statue. Jesus is present in the communion. Other enlightened masters are present in a photo. So from this point of view, the fact of translating, reading, re-reading the book, day after day, has been an individual process of growth and deepening of meditation that goes beyond knowledge. Reading and re-reading, one goes beyond words. But that has been my individual journey, each person has his own journey, his own enlightened masters that light one’s path.
NDM: Ok, your description daily practice sounds like Buddhist vipassana. Buddha first developed this method 2,500 years ago. Is his method any different from vipassana is what I’m asking?
Petrica Verdes: No, it is not vipassana. Vipassana is still a technique – you follow the breath going in, going out, going in, going out. It is a method.
Ilie Cioara’s practice (and he describes it better in his own words, but I will try sum it up) is not about watching a particular thing. You watch whatever is going on inside of you, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and you also watch what is going on outside of you, whatever “is” in the present. He calls it an “all-encompassing Attention”.
In the end inner-outer become one movement. There is no more inner and outer. It is difficult to describe, it is an experience. In the end the meditator transcends into the infinite dimension, when the “ego” is no more – you become infinite, beyond body, beyond mind, beyond emotions.
Of course it is difficult in the beginning; one starts with watching the mind, or the breath, but as watching deepens, as you go deeper in watching, this watching becomes all-encompassing, spontaneously, no need to force it. Start with watching and this watching will slowly expand. Do not get fixated on an object, such as the breath.
In one sense, vipassana has something in common with it – the act of watching. Watching the breath in this case. But as the experience deepens, watching becomes without object and effortless – you just watch whatever is, in the present, inside and outside. In the end watching dissolves into itself, and with the phenomenon of enlightenment – you disappear as “ego” and you are a pure silent effortless consciousness – who can still use the mind, who can still inhabit a body – but you are infinite, limitless, in the infinite dimension. The barrier or the illusion of the ego has disappeared.
When the body dies, you say good bye to your dwelling, but you continue to exist, nevertheless, nothing is taken away.
However, Ilie Cioara’s practice is not new. It is an old practice, expressed in a new form.
NDM: When you say “When the mind is not – we stop existing as an “ego” entity. “
Ilie Cioara – The Power of Emptiness
Petrica Verdes: Yes. but that happens every night in deep sleep, but let me ask you his question, why is it that when we wake up from deep sleep we are still sleep, sleepwalking during the day and do not know what we are?
NDM: Also how do we wake up exactly? Can you please tell me the process of how this works?
Petrica Verdes: Deep sleep is deep unconsciousness. During deep sleep, we completely lose consciousness of who we are – it is very different from the state of transcending the “ego” entity.
It would be a different matter if we were conscious during deep sleep. The body is asleep, yet you are conscious of it, and awake. This is the experience of turyia, the fourth state of consciousness.
I remember a story about Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido. He used to encourage his students to catch him unaware, whatever time, day or night, and to try to hit him with a staff. No one succeeded.
One of his students recalls waking up in the middle of the night, getting his staff and going to Ueshiba’s room, where he was sleeping. As he was about to hit him, Ueshiba’s eyes opened and he said “You aren’t going to hit your master, are you?”
Morihei Ueshiba was enlightened, and he had the experience of being aware, awake 24 hours a day, even during deep sleep. No one could catch him unaware.
So during the day we are in a state of unconsciousness, and during deep sleep we fall into an even deeper state of unconsciousness.
The experience of ceasing to exist as an ego entity is an oceanic experience. You become the ocean of consciousness, even if you keep living in a body, this is just a temporary abode for you.
Many masters have described the experience of awakening, enlightenment. In fact, descriptions do not help. It is an experience that needs to be experienced. You need to go through it.
In order to learn what love is, you need to go through the experience. No descriptions of love can help. Only after you fall in love with a woman or a man, then you will know what love is.
It is the same with awakening. You put all your energy into awakening. You will discover what it is when you experience it. There is no way to learn it from descriptions.
Transcending the “ego” is a mystery which needs to be experienced. There are many masters who have offered many descriptions of it. Descriptions are a hindrance because you already create an idea about it, so that prior idea becomes an obstacle.
In the Zen tradition nothing is said about enlightenment. People do zazen, and when someone gets it, he packs his meditation mat and goes away to teach. Or maybe he receives a slap from the master, as recognition. They laugh together, because he has got it. Someone else has not got it yet, but it is just a matter of time. He will only find it by himself, through experience.
NDM:Also when you say” We pretend we meditate, this is a game that every meditator plays with himself. We don’t want to disappear.’ Do you feel that traditional meditation doesn’t work? That it’s just a game of sorts?
Petrica Verdes: What I meant is we simply need to be aware of this game. Any meditation works if the person is sincere.
It is natural. In the beginning stages, the ego has a lot of energy, so it is the “ego” who wants to become enlightened, the “ego” meditates, the “ego” wants to be liberated. But it is just a natural stage. Everyone goes through this.
IlieCioara-PerfectlyConscious’
As the ego starts to weaken, as its energies weaken, we become more silent; quiet naturally, a new dimension opens. We realize the “ego” is the very problem, the very obstacle separating us from the ocean of existence. And this separation is just imaginary. We are never really separate. The fish is always in the ocean.
So meditation touches a new dimension – the ego starts to dissolve, there are short moments of union with the whole.
But these are just natural stages in meditation, what I meant is we need to simply become aware of this game, stop chasing one’s tail – and a new dimension opens.
Also when you say “Each enlightened being that lived on this earth is alive in the infinite dimension, and one can come into contact with that infinite energy. Buddha is present in the Buddha statue. Jesus is present in the communion. Other enlightened masters are present in a photo.”
NDM: What do your mean by this exactly? How is Jesus present in communion for example. How can a person who was executed two thousand years ago be in a piece of wafer bread today? Do you mean in an imaginary way of some kind, as a belief? The same applies to Buddha. How is Siddhārtha Gautama who was cremated and turned into ash or someone else like this who was buried and consumed by maggots be in a statue which is made out of stone?
Petrica Verdes: Buddha’s body was cremated, but Buddha was not the body. An enlightened person lives in a dimension beyond time and space. He is the ocean of consciousness, and the ocean itself is timeless and spaceless, it is beyond form.
Yet the enlightened person is very much alive, even after the death of the body, nothing changes. He belongs to the infinite, timeless dimension. Words are too poor to describe this.
Nevertheless, one can feel this. If someone is a devotee, or aware enough, you can feel Osho’s energy in a photo.
Meera, an Indian mystic woman, lived 4.500 years after Krishna’s death, yet she was a devotee of Krishna. She saw him, she danced with him, she felt his energy. Time and space are irrelevant.
An enlightened being lives in the infinite dimension – he is one with the infinity of the cosmos. He is beyond form. Yet, one can feel this person as energy.
Ilie Cioara – Listening and Watching
With modern mystics, if someone focuses on a picture of Ramana Maharshi, or Anandamayi, or Ramakrishna, one can feel an energy enveloping us, as if in an embrace. This has been experienced by many people. The enlightened person who is not in the body is not limited by time and space. It is a satsang.
In the past, when there were no photos, enlightened masters left their disciples certain symbols and rituals by which they could be contacted.
Jesus says – if three gather in my name, I will also be here.
Now this can be interpreted mystically. The three are the body, mind and spirit. When the three are one, I will also be here.
Baptism is one of such rituals. Communion is another. In the last supper, when he gives them the bread and the wine, and says “Eat this bread, this is my body. Drink this wine, this is my blood.” He leaves them a symbol, a means to connect with them when he is no longer in the body, yet he is still present in the infinite dimension.
Each enlightened person of antiquity left a key, a means to contact him. Nowadays, if there is a photo, there is no need for such key.
The same with the Buddha statues. Genuine Buddha statues were created by people who were in a state of meditation – and the statue has a quality of meditation. No one knows what Gautam Buddha looked like, and no one cares. It’s only appearance, form.
When a sculptor, in a deep state of meditation, creates a statue of Buddha, if someone meditates in front of that statue, he will come into contact with Buddha. This does not happen with all Buddha statues, unless they are created from a state of meditation.
Buddha is not in a statue, it does not matter what the statue is made of. Buddha is energy, and the statue is just a trigger, like a telephone, by which you contact the boundless, infinite, ocean of consciousness that is Buddha.
If someone from the middle ages came and saw people speaking on the phone, he would think they are mad. Why are they speaking to this small box? What is the point? This small box made of wires and copper and buttons!? Yet the person is not speaking to the phone, he is speaking to a real person, who is at the other end of the phone.
Similarly, if a person meditates with a Buddha statue, people think he is mad. How is Buddha in a statue made of stone? He is not in the statue – the statue is just a trigger.
Stone is a very primitive material. Nowadays there are photos. The photo is like a cellphone for contacting enlightened beings. Gurdjieff, Ramana Maharshi, Osho, Lahiri Mahasaya, Ramakrishna, Ma Anandamayi. Just sit in meditation, in full awareness, and look at the photo. Ramakrishna will be here, Osho will be here. Not Ramakrishna’s body, which was eaten by maggots. He was never the body. The body was just form, a temporary abode for the universal boundless spirit.
NDM: When you say a photo is for contacting enlightened beings. What do you contact exactly? Do you mean like their spirit, soul or their ghost of some sort?
For example can you contact Buddha’s spirit or his soul? Also what about looking into their eyes. For example if I were to stare at Ramana’s or Papaji or Gangaji or Moojis eyes, could I get direct transmission from them? Is this an esoteric eye method of some kind?
Petrica Verdes: There is nothing esoteric about it. Enlightened people are always available, Krishna is always available, Jesus is always available, Osho is always available.
We are just not aware enough to feel this. The more we grow in awareness, when we wake up, we simply see, that from the picture, an energy envelops us.
They are always available, only we are not available to them. We are in the mind. We live and dream in the mind.
When we get out of the mind, we see that they were always there. In a photo, looking into someone’s eyes.
The key is awareness… the more we are aware, the more we tune into their level of consciousness. The world is full of masters, but everyone has his eyes closed.
They have transcended the ego, they have entered into the infinite, timeless dimension. They exist as infinite energy, boundless, without form. In a dimension beyond space and time. In the eternal now.
There is no technique involved. The more we live in the now, in the same dimension they live in, the more aware we are to their presence.
Time does not make any difference in this dimension. Thousands of years have passed, Krishna is still alive as boundless energy in the timeless dimension.
A thing to be remembered is that we are also the same boundless energy. Only we have identified with a body, with a mind, we have created our own limits, in the form of the “ego” shell. But essentially, we are also boundless energy.
So when our boundless energy meets an enlightened person’s boundless energy, it helps the “ego” to dissolve. You surrender to this boundless energy and you have the courage to let go of limitations, allow this boundless energy to envelop you into boundlessness, like when the ocean flows into a dam and tears it down. This dam is the “ego”.
NDM: When you say” Many masters have described the experience of awakening, enlightenment. In fact, descriptions do not help. It is an experience that needs to be experienced. You need to go through it. ” How can I experience this? Is this something you can give me or transmit to me?
Petrica Verdes: There are many methods and techniques of meditation. The essential ingredient is the sincerity of the person, and the thirst for truth, otherwise one plays with meditation, postponing endlessly: Sometime, in another life, it will happen to me. I am just a poor mortal, not like the great enlightened beings that lived on this planet.
In fact, there is no difference between you and Osho, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi. You have the same potential – only you are under the domination of the mind. The mind creates dreams, and you are daydreaming continuously. Everything they have, you also have. In fact, you are already in It. Only you are daydreaming, you live in a dream. To put it more clearly: you live in the mind. All thoughts are dreams.
So the mind is the only problem that needs to be addressed. When the mind is no more, or better, when the mind is completely silent, and it only comes into action when you want it to come into action – in that moment you see reality as it is and you realize you are already in It.
The only problem are the dreams of the mind. Papaji, the enlightened being who originated the neo-nonduality trend, had only one teaching. Be silent. Let the mind be silent. This is it. Many Papaji disciples forget this. How many non-duality teachers have a truly silent mind?
When the mind is silent all is revealed. Truth is simple intellectually; it is immensely difficult in practice.
Witnessing is the key. Witnessing, watching, you detach from the mind, you give it less and less energy. You are the mind. The mind is an extension of you.
The mind exists because you have so much energy invested in it. Stop investing energy in it and it will wither away. Just watch, constant watchfulness.
There are many teachers who describe witnessing, watchfulness. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now is a good example. Osho has many books on it. Ilie Cioara describes the same. It’s the same thing, explained from every angle.
The important thing is to practice it, to explore it within us. To start with a practice and explore our inner being. It is a space where only we can enter.
Truth is simple, very simple. Most mystics were not intellectuals; they were simple people who walked the path. Practice is all. It is an inner exploration and there are no maps, because all is One, how can you map the One ocean of consciousness?
NDM: Also what do you mean by experience of turiya , the fourth state of consciousness. How can I “experience” this as you say?
Petrica Verdes: Turiya is the end of meditation. When the shell of the ego is broken and you become the infinite ocean of consciousness, beyond time and space, that is turiya.
It is practically the state of enlightenment, liberation etc. A state of permanent awakening, beyond time and space. It is a mysterious state, impossible to describe. It is impossible to understand with the mind because it is a state beyond mind.
It is the end of the road. The beginning of the road is witnessing, watchfulness. When the witness dissolves into itself, and you become limitless, spontaneously, effortlessly conscious, this is turiya. But turyia just happens, it cannot be achieved or attained. If you simply prepare the ground, by giving less and less energy to the mind, witnessing the mind – one day, the mind is so silent that boom, something happens, the witness dissolves into the limitless.
NDM: How would someone know if they were enlightened or not? Is there a test someone would take?
Petrica Verdes: I would say a good test is: when you go to sleep, if you lose consciousness during deep sleep, then you are not enlightened yet.
Who we really are is eternally awake and conscious. If you go to sleep, and the body falls asleep, but there is something in you that continues to be awake and aware of your surroundings, even during deep sleep, 24 hours a day, you are It.
NDM: When you speak about meditation, what kind of meditation are you speaking of?
Petrica Verdes: There are many techniques of meditation. The state of meditation is one.
There are many types of meditation because there are many divisions of the mind. But meditation is beyond mind – so it is beyond types. It just is.
The funny thing is, there are therapists who invent new meditations, CD guided meditations, trademarked meditations, only adding a new division and increasing the confusion.
Meditation is beyond techniques, labels, types, divisions, tradition. It is being one with the ocean of alive consciousness. We begin by having short glimpses of oneness.
Any technique is ultimately a burden, because it belongs to the mind. But some people need techniques. Even when practicing a technique, the important thing to remember is that meditation is beyond techniques and that sooner or later, the technique will need to be dropped.
Ultimately, even witnessing is a technique which will ultimately be dropped.
Adyashanti dares all seekers of peace and freedom to take the possibility of liberation in this life seriously. He began teaching in 1996, at the request of his Zen teacher with whom he had been studying for 14 years. Since then many spiritual seekers have awakened to their true nature while spending time with Adyashanti.
The author of The End of Your World, Emptiness Dancing, and True Meditation, Adyashanti offers spontaneous and direct nondual teachings that have been compared to those of the early Zen masters and Advaita Vedanta sages. However, Adya says, “If you filter my words through any tradition or ‘-ism’, you will miss altogether what I am saying. The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that.”
A native of Northern California, Adyashanti lives with his wife, Mukti, and teaches extensively in the San Francisco Bay Area offering satsangs, weekend intensives, and silent retreats. He also travels to teach in other areas of the United States and Canada.
Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good.
While other authors have touched on the subject, this is the first book fully devoted to spiritual bypassing. In the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa’s landmark Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Spiritual Bypassing provides an in-depth look at the unresolved or ignored psychological issues often masked as spirituality, including self-judgment, excessive niceness, and emotional dissociation.
A longtime psychotherapist with an engaging writing style, Masters furthers the body of psychological insight into how we use (and abuse) religion in often unconscious ways. This book will hold particular appeal for those who grew up with an unstructured new-age spirituality now looking for a more mature spiritual practice, and for anyone seeking increased self-awareness and a more robust relationship with themselves and others.
Questions about Spiritual Bypassing
In this video interview Robert address questions relating to his new book “Spiritual Bypassing”.
The questions answered in this video are:
1) What compelled you to write the book Spiritual Bypassing?
2) Do you think that Spiritual Bypassing will transform everyone who reads it?
Robert Augustus Masters – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview
Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D., is the author of 11 books (including Transformation Through Intimacy and Spiritual Bypassing), a relationship expert, a spiritual teacher, and a highly experienced psychotherapist (and trainer of psychotherapists) with a doctorate in Psychology. His uniquely integral, intuitive work (developed over the past 33 years) dynamically blends the psychological and physical with the spiritual, emphasizing full-blooded embodiment, authenticity, emotional openness and literacy, deep shadow work, and the development of relational maturity.
At essence his work is about becoming more intimate with all that we are, in the service of deep healing, awakening, and integration. In all this he works side-by-side and in very close conjunction with Diane, his wife and partner in all things. His websites are www.robertmasters.com and www.masterscenter.net.
James Twyman travels around the world singing his songs of peace and harmony to people of all races, cultures, and beliefs. Inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi, he has been to every war-torn country in the world, often at great personal risk. But this is the story of a different kind of journey.
One night, while giving a talk in a private home in San Francisco, Twyman met a ten-year-old boy. When the boy touched Twyman’s finger, suddenly Twyman could bend spoons with the power of his mind, could read thoughts, and could transmit images to others. Yet, later, no one who had been in the room could remember seeing the child!
The boy had said his name was Marco, and that other special children like him could be found in a monastery in the mountains of Bulgaria. Without knowing who or where they were, or how he would find them, Jimmy Twyman began an extraordinary journey to find Marco and the psychic children. In the process, he learned that the children had a message for all the world-and learned, too, that he was the one to deliver that message.
This is that message.
“The Indigo Evolution” is a documentary that attempts to answer the question – Are these ‘Indigos’ only the fanciful notions of a few individuals embracing new-age, metaphysical beliefs, or is there real evidence that they truly do exist? Most importantly, why are they here and how can we help them achieve their goal of creating a world based upon the laws of compassion and peace? Interviews with some of the most profound children on the planet today combined with discussions with authorities in the fields of medicine, psychology, education, philosophy, and religion will provide information for the viewer to draw their own conclusions to these questions.
‘The Indigo Evolution‘ is a documentary about the shifting human, evolving beyond the five sensory perceptions into a multi-sensory being of light ! The term Indigo refers to the Indigo color Aura seen around certain individuals who exhibit certain enhanced abilities well beyond their age and learning. Commonly labeled as suffering from some kind of deficit (ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia …) these children clearly have more of something most of us fail to recognize. Their non conformance to authority and the social conditioning sometimes earns them the label of being problem children.
Indigo Evolution, a feature-length documentary by James Twyman, was released Jan. 28, 2006 in more than 350 churches and wellness and spiritual centers around the world. The attendance far exceeded expectations, demonstrating how interest in understanding the “Indigo phenomenon” has grown. Indigo Evolution illuminates the lives of children who are referred to as “Indigos.” The movie describes them as creative, eccentric and independent. Impatient with the status quo, these children possess a high degree of integrity and intuition. Many are both intelligent and gifted, often in the areas of art and technology, and some are said to bring healing gifts.
According to Indigo Evolution, Indigos often sound very wise for their age; however, they are very sensitive physically, emotionally and spiritually, and not always comfortable in their own bodies. They easily experience sensory overload to lights, smells, sounds, touching and toxins, and need help in becoming grounded. Many Indigos have attention and social problems in school and may frequently correct the teacher. While their behaviors vary, their philosophy of life is consistent; they have a high level of social consciousness and desire to make the world a better place. They are here to bring the Dawn of the Golden Age!
Hopi Elders reveal ancient prophecies:
After the premiere test screening of “The Indigo Evolution”, the Hopi nation contacted James Twyman, and told him that they were willing to reveal their ancient and guarded secrets about the children of the planet in this movie. The new section containing interviews with Hopi elders about their ancient prophesies and how they relate to the Indigos was added to the documentary. Their message was astounding, and has now become the central theme for the entire film. The Hopi elders shared that it is not too late to reverse the tide of earth cleansing, but only if we come together, and the children have a critical role to play.
About the Filmmakers:
James Twyman (Producer / Director) is a singer/songwriter and the author of “Emissary of Love-The Psychic Children Speak” and “Messages from Thomas: Raising Psychic Children.” James wrote and was the Executive Producer for the movie INDIGO which premiered in January 2005.
Stephen Simon (Executive Producer) has produced such films as “Somewhere in Time” and “What Dreams May Come” and is the author of “The Force is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives.”
Kent Romney – (Co-Producer / Co-Director) This is Kent’s first feature documentary as a Director and Producer. In recent years, traveling to distant lands and cultures of our world, he worked on production teams that created film and television projects shown on The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, ABC Primetime and other broadcast networks. As a filmmaker, he creates video and film projects reflecting his interests in adventure travel, social topics, cultural issues and spiritual growth.
Doreen Virtue – (Associate Producer) holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in counseling psychology, is the author of more than 20 books about angels, chakras, Crystal Children, Indigo Children, health and diet, and other mind-body-spirit issues. She is recognized as an expert in the area of Indigo Children and her books on the subject include “The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children” and “The Crystal Children.”
We all aspire to live fully and freely in the moment.
In Living Fully, Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche reveals timeless wisdom that can help us fulfill this deepest aspiration. Each succinct teaching is a luminous jewel, an invaluable guide to actualizing our innate potential and breathing with joy and ease.
Today, with so many struggling with financial, relationship, and career challenges, Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath is a timely prescription. Rinpoche offers the tools we need to experience genuine inner freedom, uncorrupted by endless craving for something better. Topics include beginning with a pure motivation, the preciousness of breath, healing oneself and others, the essence of meditation, and spontaneous fulfillment.
Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche has written the book that our troubled age has been yearning for. It is a treasure trove of heartfelt advice on how to seize the moment and live with kindness and understanding. Rinpoche’s teachings gently beckon us home to the purity and simplicity of our true nature. At peace with ourselves and at ease with the world, we can discover what it means to live our lives fully.
His Eminence Shyalpa Rinpoche is a highly accomplished meditation master and learned scholar in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. With dignity and clarity, Rinpoche uncompromisingly transmits the profound teachings of the Buddha for the benefit of all.
His fresh and authentic teaching style provides a framework for using everyday situations to realize our highest potential. With genuine compassion, he manifests in order to meet the needs of each individual. Quite simply, he is a living expression of the precious wish-fulfilling jewel of Buddhadharma. He is one of the greatest living Dzogchen masters and a perfect teacher and guide for these complex times.
Rinpoche is renowned for his sophisticated understanding of Eastern and Western cultures. His students treasure his great compassion and kindness, unyielding loyalty, sense of humor, and skill in stripping away pretense. Rinpoche enjoys an active family life with his wife and three young children.
For over twenty years, His Eminence has tirelessly given teachings, retreats, seminars, and empowerments around the world and has lectured at universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Naropa University. In 1989 he founded Rangrig Yeshe, Inc., a nonprofit organization in the United States to preserve Vajrayana teachings. He also founded the Tibetan Children’s Fund, which has educated over three hundred children in India and Nepal. In Kathmandu, Nepal, he reestablished the Shyalpa Monastery and Retreat Center, and he founded Shyalpa Nunnery. Here, Shyalpa Rinpoche guides over 130 monks and nuns in the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingtig tradition.
His Eminence Shyalpa Rinpoche is in the process of establishing the Center for Enlightenment at Buddhafield in Millerton, New York, which he calls a sanctuary for complete awareness within ourselves, in the center of our hearts. Rinpoche has also established the Dharmachakra Teaching Funds in the United States and Europe. All the revenue generated from Rinpoche’s teachings goes into these funds and is used to organize and sponsor future teachings and retreats.
Rinpoche founded the nonprofit charitable organizations Wencheng Gongzhu International Foundation in Hong Kong in 2009, WGIF Taiwan in 2010, and WGIF Malaysia in 2011, in order to support his compassionate activities throughout Southeast Asia.
Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche, author of Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath
New World Library Publisher Marc Allen talks to renowned Tibetan Buddhist lama, Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche about his book LIVING FULLY: Finding Joy in Every Breath.
In this powerful book, Shakti brings us an exciting message for the new millennium. Questioning the traditional transcendent spiritual path, and challenging many popular New Age beliefs, she describes the journey we must all make in order to heal ourselves and our planet.
Shakti Gawain quotes from her book The Path to Transformation: How Healing Ourselves Can Change the World.
“We are beginning to open up both individually and collectively, to the realization that it is time to create our lives and our world differently.”
“We must never underestimate the potent impact we each have on the collective consciousness, whether we are taking responsibility for it or not.”
“It is no more possible for one of us to change without changing the rest as it is for a single wave to crest in the ocean without affecting the whole.”
“Through lovingly embracing the full range of our experience — human and divine — we can heal the split that has existed between spirit and form, in ourselves individually and in the whole world.”
“Spiritual healing occurs as we begin to consciously reconnect with our essential being — the wise, loving, powerful, creative entity that we are at our core.”
Interview with Shakti Gawain
Best-selling author and a pioneering force in the world consciousness movement
by Dennis and Janice Hughes, Share Guide Publishers
Shakti Gawain is a noted author, public speaker, educator and retreat leader. She has written many books, such as Creative Visualization, Living in the Light, Path of Transformation and Creating True Prosperity. She currently resides in Marin County, California and Kauai, Hawaii.
Share Guide: Can you discuss the differences and similarities between retreats and vacations?
Shakti Gawain: Vacations generally involve taking a break from one’s work and life, going to a different place and just being able to relax and have some fun. This is a great thing and they are needed. A retreat implies taking a break from one’s life and work and going to a different place and relaxing and having some fun, but it also has an extra implication of going inside oneself, perhaps looking for the deeper meaning or purpose of life or how we can improve our life–or just ways that we can grow and develop.
Share Guide: Why do you think some people choose to go on retreat rather than just on a vacation?
Shakti Gawain: I think these are people who are longing for more self-knowledge–looking towards making some change in their life, and perhaps how to get clarity on what direction or how to do that. Some may be people who are having to mull over specific isssues and problems.
Share Guide: I’m sure all of us feel the increased pace of our modern life, and I’m curious if more than half of the people who come to your retreats actually plan ahead for preventive health maintenance to go on retreats, or what percentage actually wait until they are “breaking down”?
Shakti Gawain: I would say that there’s definitely a sizable minority of people who make a regular practice of going to retreats and workshops and that kind of thing. And then there are others who do it more spontaneously, with no feeling of needing to do it at a particular time.
Share Guide: Do you think that minority has been growing over the years?
Shakti Gawain: I definitely do. I think that this is something that people are finding out really helps them in their life. A lot of times you don’t even know exactly what but there’s a feeling that “I need to do this and I need to be there.” I would say that that’s how a majority of people make the decision.
Share Guide: An inner calling?
Shakti Gawain: Yes.
Share Guide: Well it’s good to think that after 25 years of New Age Journal and Yoga Journal that more of us are starting to stay tuned up.
Shakti Gawain: I work a lot with polarity, opposite energies, and how important it is in life to balance the opposites that we have within ourselves. One of those polarities I work with a lot is what I call “Doing Energy and Being Energy”. Our culture is absolutely devoted to and worshipful of the Doing Energy–we’re all encouraged to do as much as possible and accomplish things and to work toward our goals and to produce. Many of us actually feel like we have to be accomplishing and producing something almost all the time.
We don’t have in our culture a healthy understanding and respect for the value of Being, which is simply being present in the moment, not trying to go somewhere, not trying to accomplish anything, but just present. We have so little of that in our busy lives. In some ways life is so wonderful, we have so many opportunities now to do so many things, and study and learn things and go places, but we’re trying to do it all. Most people I know are pretty stressed out by just having too much to do. So we really really need to cultivate the ancient art of Being.
We need to take some time to relax, get quiet and get present with ourselves in the moment and get present with Nature, and with other people. It’s a way of replenishing ourselves. The goal of replenishing the energy is that we can go out and accomplish things and it’s also a way of connecting to the deeper emotional and spiritual realms in us.
Share Guide: I think that’s a very good point, the Being and the Doing.
Shakti Gawain: It’s going to become more and more important and necessary for people to give retreats to cultivate some of that “Being” time that’s so difficult to find in our busy lives.
Share Guide: Because it’s only going to get busier, you’re saying it’s going to be more important to pay attention.
Shakti Gawain: I think there’s going to continue to be a lot of opportunities and attractions and temptations to be doing things all the time.
Share Guide: That makes sense.This is why many people in the West have a little trouble with meditation at first.
Shakti Gawain: Oh yes. Meditation is the art of learning how to be present with your Self. If you’re not used to doing that, if you’re used to focusing outwardly and accomplishing tasks, then it’s difficult to just sit there and learn how to Be. I find that the best way in our fast paced world for most people to learn Being is to just go out in Nature, because Nature vibrates on that level. Getting out and walking or sitting in a natural environment can really help us shift into a more Being energy.
Share Guide: Shakti, tell me a little bit about your own retreat work. How did you get started, what are some of the highlights in your path, and what are you currently doing?
Shakti Gawain: I’ve been leading workshops and retreats of various kinds for about 25 years now. I love working with people, and many of the events I do are evening talks, along with workshops in a more urban environment where there are often several hundred people. This is fine, and I enjoy that, but what I love most is working with a smaller number of people, like just a dozen or 15-20 people in a more long-term way–from several days to a week or more–and in a beautiful, natural rural type of setting. In other words, a Retreat. It’s an opportunity for me to work in depth with people in an intimate way.
Over the years I’ve done many kinds of retreats in many different places. Most recently I’ve done a lot of them on the island of Kauai, where I actually have a home, which I find to be one of the most powerful, healing, nurturing and just generally supportive environments that I’ve ever been. It’s very beautiful as well. I also do retreats in California and in other places.
Share Guide: Isn’t your home base in Marin?
Shakti Gawain: Yes. I do 3 to 4 day retreats and sometimes weekend retreats in California and other places. But my absolute favorite place to work is on Kauai. What I’ve been doing in recent years is weekend retreats. I call them Intensives, but they’re basically retreats. We do a variety of different things. We do meditation and visualization and developing intuition practices, and we do movement, dance, yoga, various physical things, massage… we do excursions on the island, rituals and wonderful things like that. We do a lot of work with the Psychology of Self and Voice Dialogue work, which has come to be a real centerpiece of my work. It’s work that was created by Dr. Hal Stone and his wife Dr. Sidra Stone.
We do one-on-one individual sessions with people as part of the retreat in which we use this Voice Dialogue Work. It’s very powerful. Each person gets two or three individual sessions, and they also watch each other’s individual sessions, so it’s very powerful and very life changing.
Share Guide: Can you explain more about this Voice Dialogue work?
Shakti Gawain: The Psychology of Self is the exploration of the fact that we have within us many different energies, or many different Selves, or you can call them Voices. It’s as if we have a lot of different people living inside us. They each have their own path and their own function and their own purpose, but they sometimes are in conflict with each other. That’s why we feel conflict in our lives. For example, I have a super responsible Self in me–that’s one of my most developed aspects, and that part of me is always taking on responsibility and then shouldering the burden of it. I’m very conscientious about making sure that I do everything that I’m committed to and so forth, which is a very positive quality, but I tend to be too much in that direction. I’m overly responsible.
Share Guide: Does that mean you take on too many things?
Shakti Gawain: Sometimes too many things, and sometimes I take them too seriously. If I let it go a little, somebody else will handle it or it can get handled tomorrow. I drive myself pretty hard to make sure everything gets done perfectly, and exactly when it’s supposed to. Sometimes I’m just too driven in that respect. It’s too much of a burden. So what I have been working on (and am working on still) is cultivating the opposite energy, the opposite Self in me, the one who is a little more light-hearted and carefree and can play and enjoy and have fun. My job is to balance those so that I am responsible, but can also let go and enjoy myself. That’s just one example of the many different kinds of polarities we have within us. Voice Dialogue work helps us become conscious of and get in touch with the different Selves within us. Some of the Selves within us are very highly developed. Those are called Primary Selves. The ones we deny and try to hide or haven’t developed are called Disowned Selves.
Share Guide: Disowned… the ones that take the back seat?
Shakti Gawain: Yes, the ones that don’t have much say in our lives. Oftentimes they are parts of us that we are afraid of or uncomfortable with, or that we think are bad. For example, if we’re very identified with the strength and self-assertion that would be a Primary Self. That’s what we show the world. Deep down inside of us, there’s a part of us that might feel vulnerable, that has emotional needs, but we’re embarassed about that.
If we really identify with being strong, then we may have disowned all vulnerability. So vulnerability becomes a Disowned Self, when in fact we really need that vulnerability to be able to balance our strength, our power. We’re all human and we all have needs, and we all have vulnerable feelings and energies. We have to acknowledge them or they just go underground and become a problem. So the work is really bringing out all parts of our Self…learning to appreciate and acknowledge all aspects of who we are, and bring a greater harmony and balance into our lives.
Part of this whole thing of having all these selves is that they get reflected back to us by the people we are in a relationship with. If we really identify with one polarity, often we’ll attract into our life somebody whose character is an opposite energy. We’re either very attracted to that person or we’re very uncomfortable and judgmental towards that person. Sometimes first attracted, then uncomfortable and judgmental.
Share Guide: Yes, opposites attract.
Shakti Gawain: If you’re a very active kind of person, you may attract someone into your life who is more laid back and relaxed. And you may even initially be very attracted to that person because they carry that opposite quality that you need more of yourself. But then if you’re in an ongoing relationship with them, very often you get really annoyed and frustrated with them for the exact thing that you were initially attracted to.
Share Guide: So what do you do about that?
Shakti Gawain: You have to remember to recognize that this person is there as your mirror or your teacher. You’ve brought them into your life to show you a part of yourself that you need to develop, so that you can be more balanced. The people that are the most annoying and difficult to deal with can actually be mirrors to show us the exact piece of our Disowned side that we need to bring into our lives. It’s a whole art form, and it’s one of the things I teach in my retreat. It’s how to use your relationships as mirrors so you can see what they’re showing you about the work that you need to do.
Share Guide: Haven’t you just finished a new book?
Shakti Gawain: Yes. I just finished a revision of my book The Path of Transformation which was published a few years ago. Now I’ve revised it for the new Millennium, and that’s coming out any minute now. Also, I just completed another book, Developing Intuition, which is coming out in the Fall of 2000. It’s a very simple, practical guide to how to develop your ability to trust and follow your intuition in a real practical way in your daily life.
Share Guide: Do you have any upcoming events in Northern California or in Hawaii that you’d like to mention?
Shakti Gawain: We have a four-day retreat intensive in July at Westerbecke’s Ranch in Sonoma, California and it’s particularly focused on the topic of Awakening your Creativity. Also, I’m doing a week long intensive on Kauai in August, 2000.
Share Guide: I talked to the folks at New Age Journal this morning, and they said they were doing something in Hawaii with you.
Shakti Gawain: Oh yes. They did a special event on Kauai for the Millennium and I was a featured speaker for that, and this year they’re going to do a New Year’s retreat. It should be wonderful, and I again will be a real active part of that.
Share Guide: The last question I have for you is maybe a little off the topic, maybe not. It comes from my currently reading The Legacy of Luna by Julia Butterfly Hill, the environmentalist. I’m wondering if you talk with people about volunteering time in the community and on environmental projects as a step in individual healing?
Shakti Gawain: Absolutely. I think that is very important. What I say to people about that is follow your heart and your passion. If there’s a particular issue that really has a lot of emotion or feeling for you, by all means do that. And also know that by simply discovering your purpose in life, and your creativity, and expressing it in your life, you are making a contribution towards changing and healing the world.
The most important thing of all is working on living more consciously, moment to moment and day to day. A big part of living more consciously is being more aware of how we consume and what we consume and trying to simplify our lives and consume less, not from a place of deprivation but from a place of really caring for the origins of things and bringing our lives into balance.
One of the things I’m especially concerned about is the proliferation of plastic. Even in health food stores, half the food is being sold in plastic containers now instead of cardboard or glass. Try to choose things that are packed within other more biodegradable forms like glass and paper and cardboard and so on.
Share Guide: I certainly believe in this balancing mind, body and spirit, but as we fill up the planet I feel like the awakened individuals need to go further and work in their communities and on a global awareness. It’s not good enough to just take your vitamins and eat your tofu.
Shakti Gawain: Right.
Share Guide: I feel like we’re moving in a direction where that kind of awareness is going to come in the New Age and Holistic Marketplace and consciousness is going to merge more with the environmentalism.
Shakti Gawain: I agree. That’s what my book The Path of Transformation is all about actually.
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