The Three Faces of Spirit is one of the most important insights that Integral theory offers to the field of spirituality. All human approaches to spiritual practice and mystical realization can be seen to fall into three broad categories — First-Person Spirituality, Second-Person Spirituality, and Third-Person Spirituality.
The Mystery of existence, the matter of ultimate concern, is the ultimate profundity. No perspective can possibly capture it. By its very nature, Spirit itself, the great Mystery, transcends all perspectives.
But human nervous systems are perspective-making machines. We can’t help taking perspectives. And thus, since the most ancient times, our spirituality, and our descriptions of it, always make use of our fundamental perspectives. The structure of language gives us a hint to the deep structure of our perspectives and our spirituality — we organize our speech in three broad categories.
The first-person. There is “I” or “me” the first-person perspective; from this vantage-point I can explore the rich depths of interior experience, of what it’s like inside me, of my consciousness, my intuitions, my thoughts, my experiences, and my feelings. In language, the first-person is the one speaking.
The second-person. When I am able to connect with someone, that one goes from being (for me) an “it” to becoming “you.” We connect. There is at least the most basic kind of communion. We are able to understand each other, reach mutual agreements, and a culture can arise. And in any kind of inter-subjective connection, a “we” arises. In language, the second-person is the one spoken to.
The third-person. When I contemplate anything or anyone, or when I act upon anything or anyone in my world, whatever I contemplate or act upon is the object of my attention or action. I can see it, observe it, examine it, sense it, and affect it. This is the domain of objective information and experience. Herein lies all objective knowledge, including all our sciences. In language, the third-person is the one spoken about.
Based on the distinctions between the first, second, and third person perspectives, we can see three distinct “families” of spiritual experience and practice. We’ll consider third-person spirituality first, then first-person spirituality, and finally second-person spirituality.
Third-person spirituality often involves contemplating the mystery of existence (“looking at it.”) This can take a wide variety of forms; two of the most important and familiar expressions of third-person spirituality are (1) nature mysticism, and (2) philosophy or theology. Nature mysticism is found in all spiritual traditions, and it is important in the lives of most post-postmodern practitioners. It involves contemplating the natural landscape, light, sky, sun, moon, stars, and creatures, seeing them, in a sense, as the body of the Mystery of existence. In reading, writing, or discussing philosophy, we contemplate existence, noticing the abstract patterns that connect and underlie our world and experience. Philosophy and nature mysticism are entirely different undertakings, but they both involve “contemplating it,” looking at aspects of the Mystery, and letting that process transform us. In Integral Life Practice, the core third-person spiritual practice is called Kosmic Contemplation.
First-person spirituality involves awakening to the unchanging IAMness that is always present as the still and silent Witness of experience. This IAMness is the pure consciousness that is present during every experience, every sound, sight, smell, taste, sensation, thought, or feeling, however pleasant or unpleasant. Such pure consciousness is often described as the ultimate realization, the goal of Eastern mystical paths. It is experienced when eyes open after meditation, and there is an experience of Oneness with all existence, of Union, of non-separation. And long before we achieve any ultimate nirvana, we can experience a glimpse of IAMness (also called Suchness) via meditation, inspiring conversation with a spiritual teacher, or spontaneously, as a graceful accident. The paths that focus on first-person spirituality usually focus on meditation, on transcending our “monkey mind” tendency to be absorbed in our constant stream of thoughts, and on the open field of consciousness that naturally arises when the mind relaxes. In Integral Life Practice, the core first-person spiritual practice is called Integral Inquiry or Integral Awakening.
Educated post-postmodern Westerners tend to feel a natural openness to both of these forms of spirituality. Modern science questions the idea of personal identity and validates the inherent oneness of the cosmos. Both first-person and third-person spirituality make sense to a contemporary worldview. The Western discovery of Eastern spirituality has primarily sparked trans-rational explorations of first-person, and to a lesser degree, third-person spirituality.
Second-person spirituality involves communion with the Mystery of existence as one’s universal beloved intimate. It is a direct relationship between the individual “I” with the “you” of Spirit, turning directly into feeling-contact with the universal beloved. It can be expressed through prayer, and through a devotional life of worship, service, and celebration. Second-person paths usually begin with insight, the acknowledgment that the heart tends to close, cutting us off from others and life. On that basis, there is practice, the intention to open the heart, loving surrender to the source of grace, and devotional enjoyment of intimacy with Spirit.
Second-person spirituality is a difficult sticking-point for many Westerners. One reason is that Western culture was long dominated by Christian second-person religion with a dogmatic mythic conception of God. When Western cultures made their transition into modernity, they (rightly!) rejected mythic religious conceptions of God. But they threw out the baby (second-person spirituality altogether) along with the bathwater (a mythic version of God.) It can be especially difficult for Westerners to accept trans-rational prayer, since they often imagine that communing with the Mystery must inherently presume a metaphysical conception of God. (“First, tell me exactly who I would be praying to?”) But that dogmatic skepticism fails to notice that we can relate to Spirit trans-rationally, as the graceful nature of reality, the universal “other-ness” implied by the experience of “me-ness.”
But second-person spirituality is essential—and it’s one of the most transformational opportunities opened up by an Integral view. Human brains and nervous systems evolved in hunter-gatherer bands, and therefore we are mentally and emotionally structured for relating to others. Those relational capacities are not engaged by first-person awakening to IAMness or third-person contemplation of nature or philosophy.
A love relationship with existence is the essence of second-person spirituality—and love enables us to access tremendous power and energy. Second-person spirituality implicates us personally, revealing our closed hearts and contraction for what they are—a violation of our inherent love-relationship with the Mystery of existence. The universal drama of a love-relationship with the universal Beloved quickens our blood and brings us alive. Love is what unleashes the power of our whole being. And what is spirituality without love? In Integral Life Practice, the core second-person spiritual practice is called Integral Communion.
Terry Patten – The Three Faces of Spirit
Join Integral coach Terry Patten as he discusses the evolution of spiritual practice, the essential modules of Integral Life Practice and the role of the spiritual teacher in modern society, with host Craig Hamilton.
Free Spirit is speaking as freedom, which is our Consciousness, the sweet essence of our lives. The freedom spoken here is an inner knowing. We cannot realize this liberation by catering to our bodies, emotions or minds. No, this freedom is spiritual; an altitude of perception that only arises when we are lighter than our surroundings. We can realize this lightness of being if we are willing to abide as Awareness and let go of the ego, the one who suffers mind. For this enlightenment to happen, a quiet mind is all we need. Why do anything for this, when only our stillness will suffice. Be silent, be still, be free.
Within this book you will find answered and unanswered questions, humor, poetic prose, experimentation with consciousness and passages that illuminate the sense that we are more than our thoughts, emotions, senses, body, and energy. The entire venture is directed to our essence, that we might realize our Free Spirit.
Sundance demonstrates the light-hearted wisdom and spontaneous creativity that is the energy signature of liberated Consciousness. Every word in this book is sourced by the power of silent Truth. Without contradicting this source, the writing inspires our active participation in the realization of Spirit, as only our direct experience is of any value to awakening.
For those of us who desire to be free, Sundance takes us by the hand and walks with us through the entire landscape of the egoic mind, until we reach its outer boundary. Here, he invites us to take a leap of Self-faith into simply being awareness. Will we survive?
Sundance says: “Who you think you are will not survive and who you are is never threatened. However, only by the leap can this be realized. Truly, all you surrender is your suffering and Now is the time.”
Sundance Burke was born in Seattle, Washington under the given name, Donald Russell Burke III. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Gonzaga School of Law. While traveling for business in 1982, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening that fundamentally dissolved his concept of self. In 1988, he met his future wife, Katie Davis, who had similarly experienced the miracle of Self-liberation. They immediately recognized their meeting as sacred and committed their lives to deepening in Loving Presence. Now an inseparable Spirit, they adventured the awakening in private until 1999 and then began to share the Truth of Being from their home. Soon, they were traveling up and down the West Coast of North America to meet with others. In 2004, Sundance and Katie moved to Maui to marry and write the realization of Beloved Being. Side by side their books took form and expression. Currently, they are traveling throughout the world to share the realization of Free Spirit and Awake Joy.
Sundance Burke – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview
SUNDANCE BURKE, Spiritual Teacher and Author, was born in Seattle, Washington under the given name, Donald Russell Burke III. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Gonzaga School of Law. Sundance is a former lawyer and businessman. He is the father of two children and the grandfather of three.
Sundance Burke is the author of Free Spirit: A Guide to Enlightened Being, published in 2008. He offers public talks, meditation gatherings, video recordings, private meetings, intensive workshops and retreats for those who long to awaken from the fearful dream of human separation and suffering.
While traveling for law business in 1982, Sundance was graced with the profound spiritual experience of being the loving witness to the mind’s dream of personal existence. This awareness of impersonal being completely shattered his former understanding of self-identity and the nature of his world. In the years that followed, he found himself undertaking an intense inward journey into the heart of this realization.
In 1988, he met his future wife and teaching partner, Katie Davis, who had similarly experienced the miracle of Self-liberation. Recognizing their meeting as sacred, Sundance and Katie committed their lives to deepening in loving presence. An inseparable spirit, they adventured the awakening in private until 1999 and then began to share the Truth of Being from their home. Soon, they were accepting invitations to travel throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
In 2004, Sundance and Katie moved to Maui to marry and write the realization of Beloved Being. Sitting side by side, their books took form and expression. Currently, they are again residing in the Seattle area and they continue to point to our True Presence, as conscious freedom and causeless joy. Katie Davis is the author of Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment. Interviews with Sundance and Katie about awakening are included in the recently published book, Conversations on Non-Duality; Twenty-six Awakenings.
Sundance says, “Your being is not a personal or temporary existence. You are the very consciousness manifesting this life. Thus, you naturally love and embrace every perceived experience without fear. Unborn…you are timelessly awake for all the comings and goings within your conscious presence. Just by the mere turning of your attention to its source and foundation, you can awaken unto the truth of who you really are.”
The AWAKE SPIRIT TEACHINGS of Sundance and Katie have helped many people throughout the world to find inner peace, wise love and greater fulfillment in their lives. At the core of this teaching is a spiritual awakening that transcends the ego-based state of consciousness into the harmony and unity of pure awareness, a field of infinite possibility and the sacred heart of all Being.
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.
We’re used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain—an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is “a virtual self in a virtual reality.”
But if the self is not “real,” why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct it? Do we still have souls, free will, personal autonomy, or moral accountability? In a time when the science of cognition is becoming as controversial as evolution, The Ego Tunnel provides a stunningly original take on the mystery of the mind.
TEDxRheinMain – Prof. Dr. Thomas Metzinger – The Ego Tunnel
Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a “self” — that a “self” is simply the content of a model created by our brain – part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves.
But if the self is not “real,” he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called “out-of-body experiences” in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body — and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior.
In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the “rubber-hand illusion” demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the “self” in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains.
Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At TEDxRheinMain 2011 he will share his thoughts on consciousness and the self and talk about the concept of the Ego-Tunnel.
Pro. Dr. Thomas Metzinger:
(*1958 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is currently Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg‐Universität Mainz and an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study.
In 2009 he returned from a prestigious one‐year Fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Berlin Institute for Advanced Study), is past president of the German Cognitive Science Society and currently president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. His focus of research lies in analytical philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophical aspects of the neuro- and cognitive sciences as well as connections between ethics, philosophy of mind and anthropology.
He has edited and published extensively in German and English, e.g. one major scientific monograph developing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary theory about consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first‐person perspective (“Being No One — The Self‐Model Theory of Subjectivity”, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). In 2009, he published a popular book, which addresses a wider audience and also discusses the ethical, cultural and social consequences of consciousness research (“The Ego Tunnel — The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self”, New York: Basic Books)
Antinatalists Already Know what Modern Psychology Will Reveal
”Why bother to succeed as individuals or to progress as societies once we have identified ourselves as only a crisscrossing mesh of stuttering memories, sensations, and impulses?”
”I am like a puppet sitting here. It’s not just I; all of us are puppets. Nature is
pulling the strings, but we believe that we are acting. If you function that way [as puppets], then the problems are simple. But we have superimposed on that [the idea of] a “person” who is pulling those strings.”
It offers a direct path to knowing God in your own being. Through this series of conversations between himself and God within, Nick Gancitano leads you in the process of Self-inquiry, enabling you to shed the layers of conditioning concealing from you the fact that you are One with God to bring about authentic spiritual awakening.
Chapters Include: The All-Important Introduction, I AM, Religion, Ego, Death and Desire, Money, The Body, Conspiracy Theory, Humanity, Faith and Free Will, The Illusion, Surrender,
I AM THAT I AM
An Interview with the God Within – by Nick Gancitano
“You can talk to God and listen to what She says back to you. Everyone has the innate ability to do this, even if they aren’t aware of it, and in times gone by it was a much more common practice, which is why those ancient spiritual texts in the form of dialogues between a deity and a mortal were written.You’ll find many in Be Still and Know I Am God, which Cygnus has just published.” Ann Napier
How can I be certain I’m communicating with God?
Does this feel like Love or resonate as Truth?
Yes. Yet how can I be sure?
When your mind is still, your heart opens and the indescribable fills you.
So if it doesn’t feel like Love, then it’s not God?
Not what you would call the highest expression of God; I AM appearing to you in every conceivable way; even now I AM being perceived as a mere thought.
So You really are God?
As you would have Me Be.
Why do I see so many people leaving organized religion?
Religions are training wheels for spiritual seekers, so they are falling off because people’s intelligence has evolved beyond the need for them. They are realizing the Truth without the dependency on outside organizations that preach borrowed beliefs rather than encourage one to trust one’s own experience when Truth can never be discovered in the former way.
What is all the repression about?
When feelings of guilt and being judged become too painful they are repressed, and the fear of being exposed manifests as rage, which when further repressed becomes depression. This is how depression has recently become pandemic in the world, because most religions have persuaded people that anger is wrong. This suppression has become a disease, and the prescribing of anti-depressants is likewise ignorant and founded in greed.
How is this related to religion?
Religious morality promotes shame and therefore repression, which consequently becomes depression. Preaching morality is unconscious arrogance. This arrogance implies I cannot express directly through those who are looking for direction. So, one need not use drugs or attempt to guide others; offer your loving presence instead.
If people felt they were being guided by You, maybe they wouldn’t need to look for guidance elsewhere.
This is the ego’s standard response, yet realize that one only turns to another for advice when one refuses to surrender. For if one surrenders, where is the need for guidance once it is realized there is no other?
It is best to forget about organized religions and the scriptures of the past. What I prescribe for you now is on a private basis. True-life spirituality is living life, not congregating like cattle to listen to pontification. So release yourself: play, dance, sing, make love, experience nature, laugh, cry, or even go for naked walks in the park with your dog.
Whatsoever, be creative and enthusiastic in all aspects of life. Live passionately – without holding back. Allow for emotional eruptions and sensual expression. Then feel the contrast of a new world untainted by fear or restrictions. Stop learning about morality from your preachers and go experience life.
Do you think people try to come to You through organized religion, rather than turning directly within, because they are intimidated by You?
Yes, religions have made it so. How can someone surrender if they are frightened? And why are you afraid? Because what is being shared in religions is not love at all, but behaviour control. Many even attend temples of worship to appear righteous, believing that I do not know the difference.
Why do You require my surrender if You’re egoless?
Who are you surrendering to but your Self? I AM You and You are All That Is. I AM that inner Presence within, felt as ‘I’. By loving Me, you love All That Is, including everyone and everything. Many have even been taught by religions to fear Me, yet I AM the mirror of one’s own Image and Likeness, so what one sees in one’s self, one will also see in Me. By loving All of one’s Self, surrender happens naturally.
Should one bypass God and go directly to this ‘I’?
They are the same, so whatever suits one is best.
The Bible says You are vengeful. Is this true?
Yes, I AM, yet you should understand the meaning of the word if you are to use it. To be vengeful is to respond with equal measure; it is the law of karma. When you hit something, do you not hurt your hand? So you learn not to hit. The hard surface is teaching you: Will you listen to its message or continue to inflict suffering upon your self? It is compassionate to respond, so you learn to love and not be aggressive. Would you expect anything different? How can you learn if I do not reflect behaviour? How will you experience Your Self if I AM not a mirror for You? I have said ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Why? Because they are You. One attacks others only when one expects attack from others, even if the other is really one’s Self.
Once I felt that I was one with the entire universe, like I was enlightened, but after six months it disappeared. Why is that?
It was precisely as you imagined enlightenment would Be, correct?
That’s right.
If one is expecting enlightenment to be a phenomenal experience, then that is precisely what one will receive. This demonstrates how powerful intention is, and that one receives exactly what one imagines. This degree of knowingness without a shred of doubt, which is Faith, is what it is to Be God.
Would You explain?
Enlightenment is not an experience and there are no ‘enlightened masters’. No person can ever get enlightened because enlightenment is an Impersonal Happening that incorrectly gets labelled as a personal accomplishment when it is actually the meeting of consciousness with consciousness – God realizing it is God through the body. Love Thy Self and be free of worshiping ‘others’.
Isn’t loving my Self vanity or selfishness?
There is nothing wrong with loving Your Self. What leads to suffering is one’s self concept, yet if your sense of self extends to include all existence, then it is joyous to love one’s Self.
So what is the highest spiritual path?
All spiritual paths ultimately fail, thereby throwing one back upon oneself, so one may know the futility of seeking happiness elsewhere. The greatest obstacle to Self-realization is arrogance, which is the absence of humility. Your greatest failure humbly becomes your greatest victory, whereby You surrender to find out Who You Are and All divisions blur in the Light of Eternal Love.
So all paths are a waste of time?
There is no time and there are no paths ultimately. You are already what you are looking for.
Author and spiritual teacher at The Self-Inquiry Center, Nick Gancitano graduated from Coral Springs High School in Florida, where he was an All-American Soccer Player and earned a football scholarship to Penn State University. He was the place-kicker for the Penn State Nittany Lions under the legendary coach Joe Paterno, where his team won the National Championship in 1983. Nick graduated in 1986 with his degree in Biomechanics, and played briefly with the Detroit Lions before a knee injury retired him to the business world as a regional vice-president for A.L. Williams. Four years later, Nick entered the public school system to teach science and coach wrestling, soccer and football. Nick has privately mentored nearly 50 place-kickers who received Division 1 collegiate scholarships, emphasizing the significance of yoga and meditation to assist athletes with finding The Zone. He then transitioned into teaching yoga and then meditation to the general public. After discovering Self-inquiry, he experienced a profound shift and sought the direction of various conscious teachers, including Ramana Maharshi, who then guided Nick to share the Self-Inquiry in the West.
In 2002, several of his students formed the South Florida-based Atma-Vichara Ashram, where he was the acting spiritual director known as I Am for five years before teaching abroad from 2007 to 2010 and writing his first Be Still and Know I AM God. In early 2010 he established The Self-Inquiry Center in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida. When he is not traveling to share the Self-Inquiry or Be Still and Know I AM God, Nick resides at the Center and disseminates the teaching with humor and lucid precision.
Nick Gancitano – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview
Nick Gancitano has spent most of his adult life delving into the mysteries of the ancient spiritual teachings and has undergone a conscious transformation that has made him a specialist in the field. Nick studied under some of its most respected sages and has traveled extensively around the world to deliver this teaching. In addition, Nick himself has been recognized for his simplification of the often complicated spiritual system of advaita (wisdom through direct insight).
After returning from his journey, Nick became committed to disseminating these teachings among friends and associates who became students and soon erected The Self-Inquiry Center for Conscious Living, where Nick now provides his lighthearted works to a growing population of devoted spiritual seekers.
During the premiere episode of Oprah’s Lifeclass, Oprah opened up about one of her biggest regrets: wheeling out a wagon filled with fat after losing weight. During the live webcast that followed the show, Oprah was joined by author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle to discuss the false power of ego with viewers and members of the studio audience. Watch the complete conversation now. The-Complete-Webcast-of-Oprahs-Lifeclass-with-Eckhart-Tolle-Video
This book is a clarion call for an expanded vision of human possibilities. In it, many of the best thinkers of our day ask us to renew the perennial search for self-knowledge and to discover the deeper meaning of our lives.
For this, they offer the transpersonal perspective—which extends beyond conventional psychology and science to include the study of consciousness in its myriad forms, including altered states, yoga, dreams, and contemplation. This marriage of psychology and science with the spiritual traditions has borne ripe fruit: the transpersonal vision, which offers a uniquely generous and encompassing view of human nature.
The fifty essays that make up Paths Beyond Ego apply transpersonal thinking to individual growth, psychotherapy, meditation, dreams, psychedelics, science, ethics, philosophy, ecology, and service. The result is an integrated and comprehensive overview of the many dimensions of human experience.
In clear, accessible writing, the contributors suggest that our potential for enhancing human abilities is much greater than previously suspected and that our tools for this grand undertaking are widely available today. The transpersonal vision offers great hope for the future—and links us to the timeless wisdom of the ages.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION ONE
The Riddle of Consciousness
1. Psychology, Reality, and Consciousness
2. Psychologia Perennis: The Spectrum of Consciousness (Ken Wilber)
3. The Systems Approach to Consciousness (Charles Tart)
4. Mapping and Comparing States (Roger Walsh)
SECTION TWO
Meditation: Royal Road to the Transpersonal
5. The Seven Factors of Enlightenment (Jack Kornfield)
6. Meditation Research: The State of the Art (Roger Walsh)
7. Even the Best Meditators Have Old Wounds to Heal: Combining Meditation and Psychotherapy (Jack Kornfield)
SECTION THREE
Lucid Dreaming
8. Benefits of Lucid Dreaming (Judith Malamud)
9. Learning Lucid Dreaming (Stephen LaBerge)
10. Beyond Lucidity: Moving Toward Pure Consciousness (Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld)
11 Continuous Consciousness (Sri Aurobindo)
12. From Lucidity to Enlightenment: Tibetan Dream Yoga (Stephen LaBerge)
SECTION FOUR
The Mind Manifesters: Implications of Psychedelics
13. Do Drugs Have Religious Import? (Huston Smith)
14. The Varieties of Consciousness: Observations from Nitrous Oxide (William James)
15. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research (Stanislav Grof)
PART II
THE FARTHER REACHES OF DEVELOPMENT
SECTION FIVE
Transpersonal dimensions of development
16. The Spectrum of Transpersonal Development (Ken Wilber)
17. Becoming Somebody and Nobody: Psychoanalysis and Buddhism (John H. Engler)
18. The Varieties of Egolessness (Mark Epstein)
19. The Pre/Trans Fallacy (Ken Wilber)
SECTION SIX
Problems on the Path: Clinical Concerns
20. Spiritual Emergency: The Understanding and Treatment of Transpersonal Crises
(Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof)
21. Addiction as Spiritual Emergency (Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof)
22. The Shadow of the Enlightened Guru (Georg Feurestein)
23. The Spectrum of Pathologies (Ken Wilber)
SECTION SEVEN
The Quest for Wholeness: Transpersonal Therapies
24. The Spectrum of Therapies (Ken Wilber)
25. Healing and Wholeness: Transpersonal Psychotherapy (Frances Vaughan)
26. Assumptions of Transpersonal Psychotherapy (Bryan Wittine)
27. Integral Practices: Body, Heart and Mind (Michael Murphy)
PART III
FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS
SECTION EIGHT
Science, Technology, and Transcendence
28. Different Views from Different States (Gordon Globus)
29. Eye to Eye: Science and Transpersonal Psychology (Ken Wilber)
30. Science and Mysticism (Fritjof Capra)
31. Transpersonal Anthropology (Charles D. Laughlin, Jr., John McManus, and Jon Shearer)
32. The Near-Death Experience (Kenneth Ring)
SECTION NINE
The Philosophy of Transcendence
33. Transpersonal Worldviews: Historical and Philosophical reflections (Robert A. McDermott)
34. The Perennial Philosophy (Aldous Huxley)
35. The Great Chain of Being (Ken Wilber)
36. Hidden Wisdom (Roger Walsh)
SECTION TEN
Minding Our World: Service and Sustainability
37. The Nobel Peace Lecture: A Call for Universal Responsibility (The Dalai Lama)
38. Compassion: The Delicate Balance (Ram Dass)
39. Conscious Love (John Welwood)
40. Transpersonal Ecology (Warwick Fox)
41. Deep Ecology: Living as If Nature Mattered (Bill Devall and George Sessions)
42. The Tao of Personal and Social Transformation (Duane Elgin)
43. Transpersonal Experience and the Global Crisis (Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof)
44. An Inner Manhattan Project (Peter Russell)
SECTION ELEVEN
Envisioning the Future
45. Paths Beyond Ego in the Coming Decades
46. The Adventure of Consciousness (Roger Walsh and Frances Vaughan) Ph.D.Frances Vaughan: Spirituality and Psychology (excerpt) — Thinking Allowed
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a 30-minute DVD.
http://www.thinkingallowed.com/2fvaughan.html
True psychology is incomplete without an understanding of the spiritual yearnings of human beings. Frances Vaughan, Ph.D., is a transpersonal psychotherapist and president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. She is author of Awakening Intuition and The Inward Arc. Dr. Vaughan stresses that all spiritual traditions ultimately offer a means toward transcendence of the limited self.
“The goal of the Exodus journey is not to bolster a belief in God, but to come to know Him firsthand, to approach Him with open minds and open arms, to encounter Him and experience His Love, and to engage Him in a direct dialogue through Spirit. When we achieve this, we will find that the Promised Land is indeed ours.”
“Wherever you find yourself in life, whatever challenges you may be facing, the transformational journey of Moses and the Hebrews is your journey too. The path to freedom calls out. Why wait? And what better time to begin than now?”
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
In From Plagues to Miracles, psychiatrist Robert Rosenthal takes a fresh and bold new look at the story of Exodus in which the figures of Moses and Pharaoh represent dueling aspects of the human mind. Pharaoh is the ego-mind: arrogant, capricious, and cut off from God and Spirit. Moses represents the part of the mind that is and has always been in full, direct connection with God. And the Hebrews represent us—all of us, regardless of religious affiliation. Their trials are a mirror of our own spiritual dilemma as we’re tossed back and forth between ego and Spirit— Pharaoh and Moses—all the while trying to find our way to the Promised Land of inner peace and freedom.
The plagues brought on by Pharaoh’s stubborn resistance to freeing the Hebrews are our plagues. They afflict us whenever we bow to the Pharaoh-like ego and accept its fears and desires as our own. Likewise, the miracles performed by Moses are our miracles. They arrive the moment we make the decision to free ourselves from ego and follow instead the guidance of Spirit and the Moses-mind. Viewed in this way, Exodus becomes a travel guide for the spiritual seeker: a powerful roadmap for navigating the different stages of the spiritual journey.
Although remaining faithful to the original Bible text, Dr. Rosenthal borrows generously from spiritual teachers and traditions as diverse as the Roman philosopher Seneca, Zen Buddhism and A Course in Miracles. He spices his accounts of transformation and miracles with personal anecdotes and real-life examples from his psychotherapy patients. If you’ve always felt that there must be more to the Old Testament, but could never sift the spiritual wheat from the thou-shalt-not chaff, then this book is for you. But even if you have little interest in the Bible, the insights offered by From Plagues to Miracles on the nature of the spiritual path and the how-to of miracles would alone make it an invaluable companion for any serious spiritual seeker.
From Plagues to Miracles: The Transformational Journey of Exodus by Robert S.
We have all known bondage in one form or another, we have all suffered plagues, and we all want to be free. In this sense, the biblical book of Exodus is not just the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt 3,000 years ago. . . . It is very much our story, too. The conflict between Moses and Pharaoh is our conflict—an inner struggle played out every day in our own hearts and minds. In From Plagues to Miracles, psychiatrist Robert Rosenthal offers a remarkable new understanding of Exodus in which Moses and Pharaoh represent dueling aspects of the human mind. Forget what you learned in Sunday school. Under Dr. Rosenthal’s keen interpretive lens, Exodus reveals itself as a travel guide for the spiritual seeker; and a road map for navigating the different stages of the spiritual journey—the rough terrain that stands between us and a direct, abiding relationship with Spirit.
Robert Rosenthal, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice in the Princeton, New Jersey, area. He has been a student and teacher of A Course in Miracles since 1975 and has served on the board of the Foundation for Inner Peace since 1992. From Plagues to Miracles is his first work of nonfiction.
*trailer produced by Book Candy Studios ;-)
Bob Rosenthal – psychiatrist, psychotherapist, screenwriter, Board Member of the Foundation for Inner Peace and Author of “From Plagues to Miracles: The Transformational Journey of Exodus from the Slavery of ego to the Promised Land of Spirit”.
Is enlightenment an accident or is it something I can choose? What role does choice and free will have in waking up?
2.How Do I Know if I’m Enlightened?
A seemingly simple question was posed to Jun Po Roshi: How do I know when I’m Awake? Is it self-evident? Is there a danger I may think I’m awake, when in fact I’m actually still tightly bound to my ego?
3. Does Enlightenment mean no fear of death?
When we Awaken, does our fear of death disappear? As temporal, finite beings, can we ever be truly at peace with our mortality?
4.How does Enlightenment effect the Environmental Movement?
[Jun Po Denis] Kelly was born to a military family in northern Wisconsin on April 14, 1942. A troubled youth and an early spiritual hunger led him west to California in 1963, where he was quickly taken up in the exploratory ferment of the counterculture. He became a first-generation psychonaut and self-described “urban shaman,” a friend of Alan Watts and the Grateful Dead, a contemporary of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, and one of the freewheeling inventors of the legendary Clear Light “Windowpane” LSD. He also began a dedicated study of Buddhist meditation, spending time with both Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche before finally meeting the man who would become his teacher, Rinzai Master Eido Shimano Roshi of the Zen Studies Society in New York.
Free Spirit is speaking as freedom, which is our Consciousness, the sweet essence of our lives. The freedom spoken here is an inner knowing. We cannot realize this liberation by catering to our bodies, emotions or minds. No, this freedom is spiritual; an altitude of perception that only arises when we are lighter than our surroundings. We can realize this lightness of being if we are willing to abide as Awareness and let go of the ego, the one who suffers mind. For this enlightenment to happen, a quiet mind is all we need. Why do anything for this, when only our stillness will suffice. Be silent, be still, be free. 
Sundance Burke was born in Seattle, Washington under the given name, Donald Russell Burke III. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and the Gonzaga School of Law. While traveling for business in 1982, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening that fundamentally dissolved his concept of self. In 1988, he met his future wife, Katie Davis, who had similarly experienced the miracle of Self-liberation. They immediately recognized their meeting as sacred and committed their lives to deepening in Loving Presence. Now an inseparable Spirit, they adventured the awakening in private until 1999 and then began to share the Truth of Being from their home. Soon, they were traveling up and down the West Coast of North America to meet with others. In 2004, Sundance and Katie moved to Maui to marry and write the realization of Beloved Being. Side by side their books took form and expression. Currently, they are traveling throughout the world to share the realization of Free Spirit and Awake Joy. 
We’re used to thinking about the self as an independent entity, something that we either have or are. In The Ego Tunnel, philosopher Thomas Metzinger claims otherwise: No such thing as a self exists. The conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain—an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is “a virtual self in a virtual reality.”
It offers a direct path to knowing God in your own being. Through this series of conversations between himself and God within, Nick Gancitano leads you in the process of Self-inquiry, enabling you to shed the layers of conditioning concealing from you the fact that you are One with God to bring about authentic spiritual awakening.
“The goal of the Exodus journey is not to bolster a belief in God, but to come to know Him firsthand, to approach Him with open minds and open arms, to encounter Him and experience His Love, and to engage Him in a direct dialogue through Spirit. When we achieve this, we will find that the Promised Land is indeed ours.”
