Advaita Post #12-18 -- In the great space of your being-awareness...

Volume 12 No 18 (November 11)

--- In the great space of your being-awareness cramped energies dissolve by themselves ---

Daydreaming is positive through its relaxation;

if only it can proceed towards universally lucid relaxation.

Being-experience of non-duality

In the previous Advaita Post descriptions of personal experiences of non-duality were requested. These descriptions can bring awareness to others who have had similar experiences. They can inspire and point towards an approach through which these experiences are very natural.

Therefore it's important to understand the nature of these experiences. These "experiences" are more than experiences of yourself as a person whom you remember. As long as it's about memories, you're positioned on psychological ground and the "experiences" exist between your ears. No, they are experiences of your own actual way of being, of your own reality that is not dual. They go far beyond the psychological perspective. In that reality you don't reduce everything to a psychological phenomenon.

Every time you have the tendency to interpret your non-dual experience as a memory, it's good to realize that the contents reveal the enduring nature of your reality, the fundamental character of reality itself. Stay with it, until the non-dual reality becomes the most natural and stable reality.

Here below are two descriptions. They are now on the website under Participant's Texts.

If you also want to write something connection with this it would be great. Please send in your text to (secretariaat@advaitacentreum.nl) and in this way also make it useful to others.

In connection with meditation

At the end of the last meditation on Schiermonnikoog (Friday morning) I found that I really and literally was everyone that I saw.

This 'state' remained the whole time I was in the chapel and also on the back way to my room. Back in my room it began to gradually fade. When I was on the boat, it was only a memory.

Now, I can barely imagine how it was. It seems like only a memory of a dream. But I know for sure that it is real and concrete.

It was very soft, very natural, and yet also incredibly unusual.

Nothing spectacular.

Very pleasant, because I felt liberated from the prison that my body had been in until then (and has now become again, even though I don't feel that way right now).

However, this feeling of being liberated was actually more of a thought than a confirmation. It was like a continuing conclusion.

In the feeling itself, there was, I believe, something of a pleasant, gentle wonder.

Softness.

Reality.

Meditating outside

When I was on a retreat a few years ago on Schier, I had my most tangible experience of non-duality. I was sitting in the dunes in the morning meditation and the sun came up. Suddenly the sun was in my stomach, as tangible as anything. It was warm and good and peaceful.

Since that time I have often longed for it, but it has not yet returned. It has just remained with me as a real, tactile experience.

Text Satsang

From a talk with Douwe Tiemersma in Bruges, October 29, 2011

Notes from Danny

The stress disappears and the quiet clarity of being-awareness returns. Go along with that transition consciously. Then you can always easily return to that sphere of still presence being. You experience the various forms of limitation, but you certainly know how to return to yourself. It's about the transition from unknowingness to knowingness. That is knowledge. To the extent that you remain unknowing everything is determined. To the extent that you know you are free.

For knowledge you'll need to have a more spacious field of view. Increase therefore the space behind you, sideways and in front. Take in a wider perspective, so that you can see your life. That viewpoint is much higher than the flat plain on which you live. If you want to have clarity about your situation, you need to take in a higher, more expansive view. See the horizon like a whole circle and increase your view even beyond that horizon. The 'I' that functions in the world is the center of the circle. As observer you climb into the sky and see yourself sitting there down below.

Initially it is an exercise for the imagination. But it's about the ultimate realization of your unlimited origin. For you to realize it, it will have to become your reality. For it to become a reality you will have to experience it very concretely. Can you concretely experience your bodily feeling sphere? The self-being is initially a bodily feeling self-being. It is a whole gamut of energetic phenomena such as tingling, radiating, the ongoing breath cycle, and so on. These are feeling-sense energies. Let these energetic phenomena be very concrete. Notice that you easily experience these energies as images within the form of your body. Stay observing everything very concretely from the viewpoint of being-awareness. You are registering it as passively as possible. In this way the mental bodily image blurs by itself. The cognitive image that you have of yourself disappears. Then the energies receive space.

When you remain just quietly recording everything, very soft and open, the expansion of your energetic being goes on into infinity. You can be very aware of this process. When the artificial tension falls away, the natural state appears. This natural state is infinite being. That sensitive being extends itself on all sides and can be experienced very concretely. Your body becomes infinitely large. There is talk of a clear being-experience of endless being-awareness.

The starting point is the daily situation. You have a material body, but there is a more expansive sphere of feeling and consciousness present. You are not your physical body, you are more spacious than your physicality. As observer you can internally experience your physical situation. But what about yourself as observer? You become aware of an even greater consciousness space. The observer still has a body, even though it is very refined. You still have a limited perspective. There is still a localization of yourself in the viewpoint of the witness. Experience that very concretely, otherwise the development stops. When the subtle situation is especially vague, nothing happens. This realization has to happen in a very concrete way. It's about very specific energetic phenomena. You are aware of your situation as observer, in other words, you experience yourself in the infinite space as observer. From there you become free as being-awareness in an infinite sense. Then you can confirm very concretely that you are infinite. Through that it becomes reality. You realize: this is it. When you experience it so concretely, the experience of infinite unity always remains present.

Remain in the non-dual sphere. It is infinite being. All phenomena are absorbed within it. Experience the different levels of reality very clearly. There is a loving absorption of everything. There is no resistance. All phenomena arise in the infinite self-being. In that sphere of infinitely loving self-being everything is allowed to exist and it is no different from yourself. That infinity of being-awareness is everywhere. Life lives itself in the infinity that you are. That is bliss.

Continue resting in the infinite being. It harmonizes everything. Everything is lovingly absorbed in the great space. Everything is included. Therefore the energies expand. The form holding the energies together relaxes; through this the energies become free. Most people experience resistance against a total release. Therefore you shouldn't rush through the different levels of reality. Be aware of your wider self-sphere and accept every contraction. After a while you notice that the contraction dissolves by itself, if you stay with it long enough. Whenever a contraction arises remain in your more expansive self until the contraction dissolves. Take your time. After a certain period of time the cramped energies dissolve by themselves in space.

When you feel tension, always turn back to yourself so that the relaxation can arise once again. At a certain moment, all the heavy energies are gone, but there are still tensions present on subtler levels. Go into them in the same way until everything is dissolved even on the subtlest levels. Continually stay with it, internally aware and open. The limited, no matter how refined, cannot continue within a great space, it dissolves within it. In clarity you see how it works through on all levels up to the absolute. It is a total event. If you still hold on to one thing, you remain imprisoned. If there is something that you still hold on to, you will need to be aware of it, so that you can let it go. That release is a release in the great whole that you are. That letting go is a letting go of your own limitations. It is a liberation of yourself and your world. Then your whole world is freed.

To what extent did you remain in the openness during the pause? Breakthrough the constriction by continually returning to your open being-sphere. Use tools as necessary. Are you distracted, then turn back, again and again. It requires a clear and awake state of consciousness. It requires such subtle tuning, such dedication, such clarity. When it happens in this way, it's a quick and direct path.

The discovery of the depth in yourself is the mystical path towards the openness without forms. This openness is the most natural state that there is. So you are free. You are beyond and in all forms. Return to your own being-experience, however it is. You find it there. It is essential to remain there. You are aware of yourself in the situation. Forms dissolve, separations fall away. Everything else is distraction. When distractions occur they occur because you are not open and alert enough. There can be an impulse, for example, to go along with a sound, but if you're alert enough you don't do that. Stay aware of your own clarity. Then there is an increased awareness of yourself as an even more spacious consciousness. That is the motor by which the spiritual process proceeds.

With confusion, worry and doubt, return to the open and more expansive being-sphere. Then clarity arises by itself and it's clear what needs to happen without thinking about it. There is no longer an 'I' who makes a choice. The result which others experience as a choice occurs directly through insight. There is no choice, because there is no 'I'-person.

In your depths you are free from all conditions. During his illness, Nisargadatta, was free from pain. The pain was certainly there, but it did not dominate him. Pain is not a problem because it is present in the open space of your self. It surely is a problem when you connect yourself to a form (the body). It is the limiting identification that causes the problems.

When consciousness is fully open, it is a blank consciousness such as in the deep dreamless sleep, but now it is aware of itself. That is your own sphere and you can recognize it.