How To Keep Your Heart Open In Hell – Ram Dass 

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Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert to a Jewish family in Boston. His landmark 1971 book, Be Here Now, opens with his origin story: He shares the essence of universal teachings pointing to being witnessing awareness and the flow or life, auspicious just as it is..

“We are fascinated by words but where we meet is in the silence behind them”

Ram Dass

This Silence…Witnessing Choiceless Awareness.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience.

Highlights from last week’s gathering

Thich Nhat Hahn on Right Action

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“The basis of Right Action is to do everything in mindfulness.”

— Thich Nhat Hahn

Sadhguru on the Bhagwad Gita

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“It is never what you do which entangles you. It is the expectation of what you should get which entangles you.”

— Sadhguru on the Bhagwad Gita

Antahakarana: Confusion vs Clarity… what witnesses both?

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We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. Not concentration, only awareness of all the arisings…And catch glimpses of a gap…a silent gap between two thoughts. Too many thoughts, the monkey mind, veils the gap. Multiple methods and techniques in various traditions are all aids to “settle the mind” so we get established in steadier glimpses of the “gap”, the sky behind the clouds, the screen behind the movie, our true nature. When we “just sit”. We just BE the witnessing awareness.

Antahakarana: Confusion vs Clarity…what witnesses both?
Antahkarana refers to the whole psychological process, including emotions. levels of the mind, both the intellect (buddhi) and the middle mind or mental body (manas).
According to Vedanta literature, antahkarana consists of four parts:

  1. Manas (mind) – the rational part of the mind that connects with the external world
  2. Chitta (memory) – the consciousness where impressions, memories and experiences are stored
  3. Buddhi (intellect) – the decision-making part of the mind
  4. Ahamkara (ego) – the attachment or identification of the ego, also known as “I am-ness.”

Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience with. How much separation is there between the object and subject? (Sharing an illustration from Ayurveda Institute)

“Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers and the gap between these layers, a glimpse of the background, the ground of awareness, and we rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience.

On the subject of LISTENING from the space of AWARENESS

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On the subject of LISTENING from the space of AWARENESS, witnessing awareness, Sakshi, Shravana, non-judgmental, healing, rejuvenating….SILENCE.

Sue read for us:

The Winter of Listening
David Whyte

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

All this trying
to know
who we are
and all this
wanting to know
exactly
what we must do.

What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
to the lit angel
we desire.

What disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true
to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience. 

The Upanishads on the Ultimate Reality

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“So’ham is a Vedic mantra or chant meaning  “I am That”….”I am what She/He is” — It means identifying oneself with the universe or ultimate reality or awareness.”

— Incl. Max Müller translation of The Upanishads

Vasant Lad on Daily Habits for Healing

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“Thought is time; Prana, breath is time; ingestion of food is time. Any action is bound by time. Dinacharya (Daily Habits for Healing) teaches us how to use time – every action in proper time. This is what makes time a great healer.“

— Vasant Lad

Lifestyle & Daily Practices Anchoring us in Meditation

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We watched: Getting Back to Clarity In 10 seconds | Rupert Spira

When you feel depressed, what is to be done? Simply go back to your essential nature. Trace your way back, disentangle yourself from the content of experience in which you have lost yourself—in your own activity of thinking and perceiving, like an actor who temporarily loses himself in the part he is playing. What is to be done? He just needs to trace his way back to himself. That’s all you need to do right now. Even in the midst of a deep depression, the nature of your mind is clear.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience. 

David Whyte on the Power of Listening

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“All this petty worry while the great cloak of the sky grows dark and intense ‘round every living thing. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence… Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born… All those years listening to those who had nothing to say. All those years forgetting how everything has its own voice to make itself heard. All those years forgetting how easily you can belong to everything simply by listening.”

— David Whyte, The Winter of Listening

Lifestyle & Daily Practices Anchoring us in Meditation

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We watched Your Real Nature | What are You | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Continuing on the subject of: How to we remember our true nature in the midst of daily life? In this talk, Swami Sarvapriyananda reminds us:
You are Awareness. In Awareness you are aware of the thoughts and feelings in the mind. Through the thoughts and feelings in the mind, you are aware of the body with the senses, and through that you are aware of the world.

Antaha Karana is a concept in the Vedic tradition referring to the totality of the mind, including the thinking faculty, the sense of I-ness, and the discriminating faculty. Another description says that antaḥkaraṇa refers to the entire psychological process, including mind and emotions, are composing the mind levels that seem to obscure our true nature, the witness of all experience.

In Vedāntic literature, this antaḥkaraṇa (internal organ) is organised into four parts.

  1. Ahankara (ego)—identifies self with the body as ‘I’. The attachment or identification of the ego, also known as the ‘I-maker’.
  2. Buddhi (intellect)—the decision-making part of the mind. The part that is able to discern truth from falsehood and thereby to make wisdom possible.
  3. Manas (mind)—the lower, rational part of the mind that connects with the external world, and controls sankalpa (will or resolution). It is also the faculty of doubt and volition; seat of desire and governor of sensory and motor organs.
  4. Chitta (memory)—the consciousness where impressions, memories and experiences are stored; the part that deals with remembering and forgetting.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience.