Freedom from Karma

hello everybody nice to see you all so we're going to talk about a difficult topic I'm going to try and talk about a difficult topic which is a topic of Karma and how to relate to Karma if you want to be free if we're interested in Enlightenment some people maybe are still these days so I know when the Buddha was asked a question about Karma how to understand Karma he said don't try to figure it out because it'll drive you crazy and I think he was right I think I think it's a subject that's very difficult to understand because of the comp the multi-dimensional complexity of The evolutionary process of the creative process of the life process of the multiple dimensions of conditioning layer upon layer upon layer upon layer that it's very hard I think for anybody to be able to get a clear sense of exactly how it works but I think uh at least for the last 3,000 years enough human beings enough men and women have been cely sincerely trying to liberate themselves from the bondage to Karma from the past conditioning that I think we have discovered that that there are ways spiritually inspired Ways and Means to transcend our biological psychological and emotional and culturally conditioned programming and all of other karmic habits that we've accumulated consciously and unconsciously over potentially even countless lifetimes so I think that the Buddha was right I think it's impossible to get a clear understanding of exactly how Karma works as a whole but to repeat what I said I think enough human beings enough sincere human beings have been trying to free themselves from the bondage to karmic conditioning over the last 3,000 years that there are ways and means that we can use to actually liberate ourselves from its dastardly clutches now karma of course is the realm of cause and effect Karma the experience of karma positive and negative are these experience of conditioned impulses positive and negative a conditioned impulse is not a freely chosen it's an experience one have one has it's it's attraction or repulsion to towards another sension being or towards a thing or an object or particular kind of behavior or anything else like that so being trapped in karmic conditioning means we have no agency we have no freedom of choice and we're simply victims of our conditioning conscious and unconscious conditioning biological emotional psychological cultural and maybe even Cosmic so the definition of unenlightenment the definition of unfreedom in spiritual context is to be an absolute unconscious victim to our to the multi multi-dimensional layers of conditioning that we are as human beings we are all human beings deeply conditioned on so many different levels all at the same time so the individual who through the ages including this one is aspiring to become conscious is aspiring to become free from being an unconscious victim to condition impulses and it's a tall order most people are so blindly Mo most of us are blindly conditioned to unconscious impulses and uh are not even aware of it or it's kind of like being a robot who's unconscious it's B it's bad enough being a robot but an unconscious robot is even worse but that's what I'm talking about and a big part of the waking up process a big part of the waking up process or the process of beginning to become more conscious which is what happens to a lot of seekers is that they begin to become aware of how unfree they really are we become un we become more and more aware of How Deeply unfree we are the more conscious we become the more aware we become of all the all the big and little ways that we're UNC that we're not free this can be frightening and overwhelming at times so in the in the aspiration to understand what spiritual freedom is all about it means we through spiritual practice we want to try any increase our capacity to for agency or freedom of choice in the midst of being pulled in different direction by conscious and unconscious biological psychological and emotional culturally conditioned impulses that's a tall order it usually requires an an awful lot of spiritual practice over over a very long period of time for people to achieve a a profound measure of freedom in relationship to these deeply conditioned tendencies uh it requires as I always like to remind people a very powerful intention or the desire to become a liberated Soul which few people have it requires the inspiration to do very hard spiritual work and it requires the aspiration not to feel better but to want to be free but to not want to be an unconscious robot anymore for too many of us sadly it's e it becomes much easier to remain an unconscious robot then then a robot that becomes conscious and see to be a robot um the thing about karma is that it's to repeat what I've been saying the thing about it is that it gets what's scary about it is when you begin to look into it all you see is karma everywhere when you begin to look inside your own experience of biological emotional psychological and cultural conditioning you just begin to see layers and layers and layers and layers and layers of conditioning in every direction and the idea of freedom of a measure of Freedom or agency or you have capacity to make free choices in the midst of all that conditioning seems like a a distant possibility but it actually is a possibility that's why when people have powerful experiences temporary experiences of liberation of freedom from conditioning a freedom from Karma freedom from the fears and desires of the unconscious self it's such a relief it's like coming out of prison it's like someone who's been in prison for 10 years 20 years 30 years a whole lifetime and many many many many lifetimes has never known what it's what what it could be like to be afraid to experience Consciousness that's not encumbered and trapped in its own blindness of and conditioning in the blindness of conditioned impulses so when we have that experience of unconditional Freedom which is when we awake into the inherently liberated liberated nature of Consciousness That's What's happen to happens to us when we have that experience is so it changes Our Lives at least temporarily because now we know that it's possible to be free so usually usually these powerful spiritual experiences that serve as an introduction to Enlightenment for most of us become a a starting point a starting place a be a point of beginning we have these these spontaneous episodes of miraculous spiritual freedom and we realize spiritual freedom is actually living possibility that's usually the beginning of the the beginning of the path for us and then sooner or later we find out that's that spiritual freedom is something we need to work for it's expensive something we have to work very hard for because being deeply conditioned is is an inherent part of human nature it's part of the it's part of the nature of being the sensient being an animal a human being also it's inherent in our nature the possibility of the kind of Freedom I'm speaking about is a relatively speaking a new idea new possibility it's only about 3,000 years old which is which is relatively recently so I remember a long time ago I heard I heard that um The Story Goes that I heard someone asked someone a man who confessed to ramman Mahari that he had sexually abused a woman I don't remember how bad it was I don't remember how bad the abuse was but he he he said that he had done a terrible thing he sexually abused a woman and he felt guilty and he felt terrible about he didn't know what to do he didn't know how to Aton for his his sins and his crimes and The Story Goes to R told him stop thinking about it which to my young self-righteous mind felt like insane insane what do what do you mean don't think about it I didn't understand what I didn't understand how an enlightened being like Rahman and Mahari could could give that kind of advice because I thought well the only way to the only appropriate response to committing a sin or a crime or causing suffering to another person is to atone for the crime and the sin and to take responsibility for it but over the last years as I've been thinking more you know as I continue to think more about all these things think more about Karma and how it works I've been thinking about much more thinking much more closely and deeply about what it means to disengage from the karmic Matrix Al together and I think some of the most profound examples of spiritual awakening of spiritual enlightenment of human Liberation would be those rare individuals who seem apparently to have transcended to a large degree the whole Matrix of karmic conditioning they see that they they seem to experience and express and live a kind of a kind of primordial freedom from the mind and from even from biological impulses that seems extraordinary and way above and beyond the capacities of most spiritual Seekers so I've been thinking a lot about those individuals and thinking a lot about the State of Consciousness that they must be in and what their relationship to The Human Experience must be life I'm I've been interested in Enlightenment ever since I was 22 years old I'm 68 now long time and I've always wanted to go all the way so the those individuals who seem to have gone all the way whatever that means are individuals I pay attention to and I'm very curious about their inner experience so so I realized that what Ramen was pointing to was a a kind of freedom the kind of Liberation that that did not dismiss the moral implic dismiss the moral implications of having harm to hurt another person but he was pointing to a kind of disengagement at the most fundamental level from the very part of oneself they would ever even dream of harming another person it's like it's it's a POS it's he's pointing to a position of radical disengagement from the imprisonment of The Human Condition and the aspiration to awaken to Enlighten awareness in a profound way is is exactly that I mean if you if someone is truly free or let's say if we want to take the idea of Liberation all the way to its ultimate possibility it means that the the personal or egoic connection to the karmic context of the karmic prison has been burnt means it's not there anymore ideally it means one has let go so deeply so profoundly so absolutely so unconditionally so totally that the karma cannot ENT trap one any any longer one is simply free uh one is simply free from it because one has let go of the of the of the of the relationship to the individual that would be capable of causing such karma in the first place speak about something very very radical and very profound it's not a new idea but it's a it's a relationship to Freedom that for me is relatively new even though I've been at this for a long time so to to think about this in a more practical or personally relevant way for someone who aspires to be unconditionally free and unconditionally liberated which is very few people do but for those people who do they the the ego is recognized to be a glomeration of habits of of physical habits emotional habits intellectual habits psychological habits cultural condition habits and addictions and the state of Liberation that I'm speaking about would have to be one in which we will experience a Prof degree of freedom and release from these addictions and from these habits it means we were no longer addicted to our biological impulses we were no longer addicted and imprisoned by our psychological and emotional impulses and we were no longer addicted and imprisoned by our culturally conditioned mechanical ways of thinking what I'm speaking about is quite a tall order I understand that but I'm reaching for the Stars you this kind of Freedom has to if if if we if there's any chance that we're ever going to experience a kind of Freedom that is even remotely related to what I'm speaking about our locus of attention intention aspiration needs to change from having getting and becoming in this world having getting and be coming in this world to an unconditional absolute radical aspiration for total Transcendence which is not such a popular idea these days but it still excites me quite a bit it's an aspiration [Music] to unconditionally transcend the all all all the experiences of bondage inherent in The Human Condition not as a form of what's called spiritual bypassing but as a an aspiration to attain the highest level of Enlightenment highest level of inner Freedom that's attainable very few people reach this side so if this is something you're interested in you have to be willing to let go of the all of the conscious and unconscious attachments and addictions to the mind to the body and to history that's all kind of like everything so I've thought a great deal about this and I've come to the conclusion that that um there are fundamentally only two ways in which we can actually accomplish this radical aspiration to obtain freedom from Karma and one is to do exactly what I've been advocating which is to Aspire for the unconditional release of attachment and and identification with body mind and culture so often when I'm teaching people about enlightened awareness I'm teaching people about practice of meditation I explained to them that uh The Awakening to enlightened awareness and the experience of enlightened awareness comes from the total and absolute Transcendence of the mind and time and our attachment to the mind and time and to the endless story that our ego is embedded in our ego or our so-called personal identity is embedded in the story and most of us been most of our a Waking Life and most of the time when we're sleeping also lost in the ego story which is embedded in a cultural and historical context and that's the Human Experience so the experience of unenlightenment or unfreedom than speak about would be being lost being living in a in a movie that was that was just a projection being lost in a movie that wasn't real really it was only relatively real it wasn't absolutely real lost in an experience in in in a living context it's only relatively real it's that's not absolutely real but believing it's absolutely real and and except for maybe maybe some brief moments of transcendental Awakening in in the midst of this long movie called my life being for the most part absolutely radically shockingly and horribly lost in the movie and not even knowing that it's a movie once again to repeat this is believing that that which is merely relatively real is absolutely real more often than not more often than not the movie that we tend to be lost in is usually not a very interesting movie it tends to be very tedious and small minded not very interesting not very liberating for most people for a lot of people so so the in traditional Enlightenment is the solution to this terrible tra this terrible experience of bondage has been the practice of radical disidentification with being in the movie with with the movie itself this is why in in Vidant in the vidan practices and in Buddhist Meditation the highest forms of meditation practice are really focused on the direct contemplation of the nature of Consciousness as it always already is the contemplation of the the empty nature of Consciousness the inconceivable experience of the ultimate of the empty nature of consciousness which we can come upon when we contemplate the number zero which is nothing so traditionally in the Eastern Enlightenment armor when men and women have contemplated the nature of zero or nothingness no thingness non-existence deeply radically seriously and absolutely for a long periods of time sooner or later sooner or later the Mind begins to Fall Away From The Eye Of Consciousness and so when the Mind begins to Fall Away awareness of time begins to fall away at the same time because the mind and time arises along the same line so when both the mind and time disappear the Timeless formless beginning beginningless and endless eternal nature of Consciousness as it always already is reveals itself and inherent in that Revelation it's a transrational mystery that appears that is that is the mysterious experience of a kind of overwhelming positivity that's inconceivable and unimaginable to the mind that's when we experience the radical release from All Things relative and basking in the light of the absolute and it's when we bask in the light of the absolute it's the highest form of Happiness that's possible for human beings to experience and this is when we make the transition from from the experience of that which is relatively real to that which is absolutely real and that which is that when we when we experience the the revelation of that which is absolutely real we know it because in comparison to that everything is SE everything else is seen as being infinitely less than so this is that's this is one solution to the problem of of Karma and conditioning and being trapped and lost in a bad Mo in a bad movie a bad movie called my life in my many lifetimes so so one way out of this mess is to let go of the whole thing which is to seek to seek for transcendental release and relief which is the traditional Eastern method as it's one in which I one that I still very Advocate and practice and I'm very much infatuated with and Drawn to every day every morning but there's another there's there's another way there's another method there's another way to CH to deal with this challenge it takes us in a completely other direction and um that's that's when we that's that's when we learn how to see the reality of our human incarnation of the presence of our body our mind and our personality in this karmic unfolding that's when we learn how to see our presence in this world process as part of the karmic unfolding of the entire evolving universe so this is in this context I encourage people to they take a different vantage point the vantage point of The evolutionary impulse and when we do that we we we we contemplate our true nature at the highest level of incarnation being I am the energy and intelligence that created the universe and it's creating the universe bearing witness to itself and becoming conscious of itself through the body mind personality of in my case Andrew Cohen so this is when we begin to see the body the mind and the personality not just as a as as a massive condition unconscious conscious and unconscious impulses and addictions but um we begin to see we begin to see the body mind and personality as a vehicle through which the creative process can bear witness to itself and consciously cognize itself to which the universe can know itself through the miracle of my existence and in intrical philosophy we are we have we're told that the that the highest level of Consciousness the highest perspective that's possible to attain is What's called cosmocentric the cosmos the cosmocentric perspective is when Evolution becomes conscious of itself when Evolution becomes conscious of itself as I've just been explaining the universe becomes conscious of itself through us and why this is very relevant for this karmic transcending discussion is because if you're going to take seriously your true identity your highest identity your most authentic identity not as an OK individual burn born born in a particular family in a particular tribe in a particular ation in a particular time time in karmic context in human history if you're going to transcend all of those categories but see yourself fundamentally as as as The evolutionary process Awakening to itself and bearing witness to itself through the vehicle of your body mind and personality this gives you a completely liberated vantage point in which to be be who you really are and to engage with the world process and in order to fully embrace the highest perspective of this Karm Karm cosmocentric context you need to we all need to let go of our emotional our lesser identities if we're going to embrace the our true nature as as the as evolutionary ages as as the as the creator of the universe in human form we're going to need to let go of our attachment to our personal identity our tribal identity our national identity our Mythic beliefs even our world Centric Universal human perspectives and begin to see The Human Experience through this through the lens of an evolving Cosmos has become conscious of itself and once again as once again as I'm saying in order to do that we have to be willing to let go of all these lesser aspects of who we are let go of our conscious and unconscious attachments to lesser Notions of who we are and that's not easy because only if we let go only only with if in the context of this Cosmic revolation are we able to let go of these lesser lesser aspects of who we are these lesser identities will will our will the spiritual strength of our Cosmic identity begin to show itself and begin to express itself through our fragile bodies minds and personalities awakened now to this cosmocentric perspective when we awaken to ourselves as The evolutionary impulse in action it's an experience of of incredible dynamism of of inspiration and an ecstatic compulsion to create the to make the universe a better place so what I'm what I'm simply saying is that the there is is possible to experience freedom from Karma because the title of this talk freedom from karma is a very bold statement it's incredibly bold and I'm aware of that but I do think that if we one would take seriously what I'm advocating here none of which are completely new ideas it's possible to experience freedom from conditioning freedom from Karma freedom from unconsciousness freedom from being unconsciously compelled or unconsciously driven unconsciously living this life so the two re the two routes to the experience of the freedom from karma is one is the one of the traditional approach in the Eastern context of Letting Go unconditionally of our attachment to identification with the body the mind and the personality contemplating the nature of zero or emptiness no thingness nothingness and going so deeply into the experience of nothingness emptiness the nature of Consciousness itself the empty nature of Consciousness itself that we awaken to the inherent Freedom that that lies at the at the ground of our own being and it's possible to do that and people have done that R CLE is an example of someone who's taken that route very far and of course if we take it in the other direction we we have an example like the great sindo is someone who had a profound vidonic Awakening in the context of [Music] evolution and described his Awakening to The evolutionary impulse in ways that was so utterly inspiring he was utterly consumed by evolutionary possibility and he saw the The Human Experience in the awaken context in the awaken State as as one as a as a revelation of infinite potential as the ecstatic as the constant ecstatic revelation of infinite potential infused with so much inspiration and aspiration now the thing is if you want to experience freedom from Karma sure a few people do but if you want to experience freedom from Karma either either as either in the in the going in the direction of being or nothingness or the direction of evolution and becoming you have to be a very good practitioner of the Mind Dharma you has to be willing to renounce the temptation to believe in the dream you have to be willing to as few people actually are you have to be willing to let go of the ego's story the ego finds itself in the midst of a story and a story is one about my life my trials and tribulations and my aspirations most of us knowingly or unknowingly consciously or unconsciously are completely trapped in our story our little story our little story becomes a little prison cell and uh because of all the things that have happened for better and for worse in the realm of desires and fears have made it a very emotionally charged place Liv to live so we find ourselves very much compelled because of our historical experience to think about things that cause us to suffer we tend to be a very compelled habit by very negative mind habits and emotional habits they compel us to think about things that cause cause cause our egos to feel terrible and we find ourselves so that we find ourselves often very much drapped in desires for things we don't need and for kind for people that uh don't really want to help us be free if you're trapped in the story of your small self it's like being in hell but hell to the ego is infinitely compelling is infinitely fascinating at an unconscious level we can experience a lust and a Fascination for the ego's fears and Desires in the world that it gives rise to so it's like almost like an itch it's an itch that comes up feel we want to scratch and if we want to be free if our goal is unconditional Freedom absolute freedom we have to stop scratching when the ego's compulsive itch reveals itself what about this and what about that and what about me what about mine what about all the ways I've been hurt wounded and traumatized what about the ways I've been misunderstood and unloved things like that which at a certain point in s in the at a certain point in the process of self- understanding you need to let go of it let go of what let go of attachment to the ego story and everybody know everybody who's interested in spiritual Liberation knows this a few people actually do it and it's hard to let go of the ego story because the ego is a is a very um insistent presence in our psyches what about me what about me and my needs and my wants and my desires and my fears and my pains Etc so the ego is always asking for our attention and so the radical so the radical aspect of their desire for Spiritual Liberation and Enlightenment is is is if we're serious we have to be willing to absolutely transcend the ego's endless needs for attention it's like a full-time it's a full-time job because the ego is never satisfied it's never had enough it always wants more and needs more and at a certain point if you want to be free and it all depends out you want to be free you have to ready to say no which means we stop scratching the itch you feel the itch and if we if we spent a long part of our life scratching we're good scratchers if we've been scratching for a long time it'll be very difficult for us to resist the overwhelming temptation to itch it again but each time we itch the os's fears and the ego's desires the self and the Soul gets more deeply embedded and and trapped in the ego's karmic Matrix so the only way to to be able to exit from that Matrix and get out of the ego's Matrix is to stop having any relationship with it whatsoever which I know is a tall order but it's something at least I want you to think about because this this kind of Freedom I'm speaking about it first first it has to be a a concept in your mind something you begin to think about and Aspire for to the point that when you begin to think about the nature of zero and nothingness when you think about the nature of having nothing and knowing nothing and being no one and being unconditionally free from the mind and ego and small self it's something that set your heart on fire something that makes you feel inherently happy it's not something you're afraid of it's not something you fear something you Aspire for most most people are terrified of emptiness they're terrified of nothingness they're terrified of the true nature they're terrified of God but when you if you're if you're a spiritual ADV if you're spiritually adventurous like I I am like I've been before most of my out of life you want to know you want to know who God is what is the nature of God what is the nature of the absolute what is what is the god principle feel like what does it feel like to be God what is that very vibration all about where does where can I find it where can I experience it more than more than one is afraid of it one is inherent irresistibly curious about it and in the same way in the same way from The evolutionary vantage point of The evolutionary side of the Paradigm here we have to become more interested in a cosmocentric perspective in relationship to to the human dilemma that we are in any lesser levels of levels and perspectives which means we want to transcend the whole all of the we want to transcend the relative nature of The Human Experience Al together and and and only and only in The evolutionary context and only and only make the effort to see The Human Condition from a cosmocentric perspective from the vantage point of what it might look like from outer space from what would what what would it look like if you were a noetic spiritually enlightened alien who had discovered planet Earth and was beginning to study in super intelligence sensitive kind loving compassionate evolutionarily awake and inspired and Brilliant he was studying The Human Condition through the observation of human behavior over long periods of History you would have a very um well you'd not only be compassionate but you you you would be um interested and detached at the same time because you weren't invested in the relative nature of a lot of the disagreements that were going on down [Laughter] here you were interested in helping them to come to a better outcome but you weren't you weren't taking sides anymore so in order not to take sides in this way that divides us against ourselves and divides us against each other we have to work work work to see things from a higher perspective and from a higher perspective and from an even higher perspective and from one that's even higher it takes a lot of spiritually inspired intellectual philosophical work to do that doesn't mean we're trying to avoid problems but we want to see the problems from from a place beyond from a context Beyond which the problem exists unless we can do that we're going to be we're going to be trapped in the problem just like everyone else seems to be knowingly or unknowingly so you can see either the the being Enlightenment The Becoming Enlightenment both demand of us a kind of if we want to be free from Karma we want to experience the freedom of the Awakening to enlightened awareness in both contexts we have to be will to let go of our attachment and identification with anything less than the highest possibility nothing less in the enlightenment context will be enough and it's a big deal it's a big deal it's a big jump it's a big ask [Music] um freedom from karma is some if you if you really want to be free from Karma you have it's gonna have to be something a goal that you're gonna have to really make a priority will never happen any other way and there's another aspect of the being to to attaining freedom from Karma which is that um if you can learn how to practice the kind of disidentification that I'm advocating which is not easy but if you can do so it all it'll also make it possible for you to embra for all of us to embrace levels and dimensions of acceptance of things that we cannot change because there there are certain kinds of karmic consequences and repercussions from our individual or Collective past that cannot be changed which means there certain kinds of consequences that are going to be inevitable over time that'll e either be positive or negative and [Music] um if we've let go at a at a very deep level in the way that I'm speaking about if you let go at these very deep levels it will enable it will enable us to accept things we cannot change with more equinity and and inner freedom because in that way we won't be constantly struggling against what is but we will be able to accept things that need to be accepted when there's no other when there's no other opportunity for change when the only when the only fre the only solution the only option that's going to give us access to the kind of radical inner Freedom I'm speaking that will be one of acceptance even the painful truths becomes easier if we've already let go it becomes a lot easier if you've already let go so the thing is the car the momentum of karma cannot be stopped the momentum of karma cannot be stopped because it is what it is and there's already a a mountain of individual Collective momentum in all of our lives that we have to deal with but [Music] um if you can let go in the ways that I've been advocating in this talk you'll be able to be it because you won't be lost in the story anymore you might have to suff might you might have to still suffer through it if there there's no other option and part of life is just that way but you won't be trapped there anymore not not at the level of your soul so so with this in mind it's good to think about begin to contemplate the nature of Liberation either as the being Liberation or the becoming Liberation in the in the context of the challenges that any of us are facing every single day what what is it that we're struggling with today or tonight or tomorrow tomorrow morning whatever it is can you see these relative struggles that you are being challenged with in the face of the possib in light of the possibility of unconditional fre the experience of unconditional freedom and can you see these personal challenges in the biggest context imaginable either either the ultimate context of radical emptiness or nothingness or emptiness that the Buddhists tell us is the ultimate nature of reality or in light of this creative impulse that's giving rise to the whole evolving universe and you see these personal challenges in light of these biggest deepest and most profound dimensions of reality on a daily basis it requires a a reasonably profound degree of um capacity for contemplation and introspection these speaker contexts can liberate us from getting trapped in the minutia of our own karmic Trails so I'm almost finished to boil this down you want to be free from Karma there's two options one option is no relationship to the content of consciousness the first option is in no relationship to the if you want to be free from Karma and you have to learn how to practice no relationship to the content of Consciousness very difficult I have no relationship to the content of Consciousness no relationship me zero or nothing or in the evolutionary context can I practice what's called a right relationship to the content of Consciousness to the content of reality and the right relationship to the content of Consciousness and the content of reality itself is I am the energy and intelligence that created the universe Awakening to itself and bearing witness to itself through the body mind personality myself that's the biggest context that there is there ain't there isn't one that's any bigger than that so can you hold that perspective for more than a few seconds can you try to Bear witness to the reality of your personal experience through that cosmocentric lens because if you can you're not going to scratch that itch because your your mind will be too big and your heart's going to be too open yourself is going to be too vast so you'll be able to resist the temptation to scratch and and you'll find in terms of the karma when you stop scratching when you stop scratching the the addiction begins to go away so you find let you find yourself over time less tempted to scratch and building up more more spiritual strengths which will enable you to resist to Temptation the more you can resist resist the temptation the stronger spiritual you're going to be as an evolving Soul the more you'll be able to truly be an expression of what liberated Spirit looks like in human form and the Beautiful part about all this is that if you can do what I'm advocating it won't just be Spirit working through you but it's going to it'll it'll become possible because you made the effort to do it yourself you attained the goal through your own efforts you you you've attained spiritual Victory you succeeded in doing what the Buddha did Ram seems to done spontaneously and you know something to feel good about feel great about okay I think that's the what I had in mind to share with all of you today okay ready Andrew yep I'm ready to ride a rock very good so craa is asking is there a method of practice to be free absolutely all kinds of schools and methods the method I the method I teach is called evolutionary Enlightenment and it's very comprehensive and it's a it's a it's a mixture of influenced by Buddha and Buddhism in vant and evolutionary theories [Music] and what would you like to know your oh your mic was open wait I open again okay thank you now you can talk yes yes thanks I guess I just want to know so I I've seen glimp I'm sorry okay let me turn off my earphon can you put your screen on is that possible yes yes thank you yes thanks um so I've had kind of like experiences of um being a weakness but it's like a glimpse that comes and goes and then I'm frustrated because then the ego just takes over the addictions just present themselves so I guess I was just curious in finding out if there's a way that could help in maintaining or sustaining that sense of being present without um the constant distractions well in in evolutionary Enlightenment I the foundation of evolutionary Enlightenment is the cultivation of the unconditional desire the to Liberation as a absolute priority which would mean that more than anything else in this world I want to be spiritually liberated radically absolutely unconditionally totally and completely so it means the idea of spiritual enlightenment whatever that means because nobody knows what enlightenment is anyway but represents the highest form of happiness and the highest form of inner freedom and wisdom and Sanity that's everybody I don't know what enlightenment is but represents wisdom and Sanity and freedom and happiness so it says whatever the enlightenment is that's what I want to attain to achieve to experience more than I want to more than I want anything else more than I want to be a mother or a father a sister or brother famous rich or anything else so so so the desire for enlightenment as I understand it has to become foundational which means it's something that you're kind of always thinking about is Imagine for example that you wanted to win the Olympics imagine you wanted to win a gold medal at the Olympics in whatever field it doesn't matter but just imagine you want to maybe it was ping pong whatever it is but if you want you if you actually seriously intended to win a gold medal at the Olympics and ping pong it'd be something that you were obsessed with you'd be thinking about it you'd be practicing your game all the time and you would be very focused on achieving the highest level of success which was the gold medal if someone's going for gold medal they're not they're not messing around they their their intention to succeed at the highest level is very strong so because their intention to succeed at the highest level so strong strong it's something that they're constantly thinking about talking about reading about reflect ref in upon and practicing so when you when Enlightenment is something that you devote that much time and attention to the mystery of what enlightened it is tends to become more available because you're L because one literally becomes obsessed with it and that's when you begin to lose your friends because the way it works how do you say how do you pronounce your name I'm sorry citria C citria the way it works is if you tell people that you're learning how to meditate they'll God it's very nice but if you tell people you're interested in Enlightenment they get scared so because when people when people really wake up to enlightened awareness they experience the kind of inner Freedom I'm speaking about they usually start to become different people they they become people who who are who are no longer following following the status quo and trying to live up to everybody else's expectations but they want to they begin to live their own life for the wrong reasons the ways it can seem very radical and absolute but that's what the the the when we experience the inherently liberated nature of Consciousness is so thrilling we experience that kind of freedom to change something because when we know if we know what you mean it's possible to be this free yes changes our relationship to The Human Experience in a way that's very profound and [Music] dramatic does that answer your question yes it does thank you I encourage you to do it to to think about to to dare to take yourself seriously enough and to believe in your own inherent worthiness enough to believe that would that it would be possible for you to be that free so then you have to believe in yourself and take yourself very seriously take your own sincerity very seriously take your own a lot of people think when they think about Enlightenment they say well I'm just an ordinary person you know I can't do something like that but the Buddha was an ordinary person be before he became an extraordinary person that we have to we have to we have something we have to take very seriously a lot a lot of people a lot of people are interested in meditation but they're not interested in Enlightenment they're not taking Enlightenment seriously so this is not it's not it's not a practice we can do it's it's it's an aspiration we have to cultivate when we because the aspiration begins to take on its own energy its own enthusiasm it's on one pointedness begins to generates momentum and in momentum when we feel the momentum we feel like we're we're moving okay very good thank you the next question Andre is from krie she is asking in Buddhist Traditions they prescribe purification practices and sou such as vwa to purify the Mind do you have any practice to purify the mind yeah if you uh if you enter into a relationship with a with a an awakened spiritual teacher or Master it starts it starts purifying your mind because it creates a certain kind of spiritual and existential pressure on the ego and the pressure on the ego starts showing starts bringing to the surface all all the places which we are deceitful dishonest corrupt less and pure hearted less less and pure minded so if you if you if you and if you spend time in the company of of spiritual adepts people that are authentically and in sincerely aspiring to develop at the highest level it uh it it shows us all the ways in which in which we fall short and if you have a if your interest is pure you you want us you want to see all the ways you fall short you want to see all of your shortcomings and all of the uh difficult parts of your own psyche and personality because because only when when when we become aware of them can we take responsibility for them and begin to let go of them so we're grateful to learn from from a awakened teacher and awaken adepts we're grateful for their reflection so we can see all the ways in which we need to improve ourselves but only a very serious person wants that kind of engage in that kind of purification because purification specifically is about ego Transcendence and E ego ego Transcendence is not something for for the faint of heart because it's it's serious and it can be terrifying and ultimately spiritually challenging it's not a game so when you talk about uh The evolutionary impa impulse um acting from The evolutionary impulse impulse um connotes speed so if you're doing something in a flow how do you know that you're actually coming from a pure place in your actions you only know after you only know after the fact there's no guarantees you'll you'll only care you'll only find out after the fact you oops Yeah okay unfortunately there's no guarantee so we find out we usually find out when it's too late you can't if you if you're if you're really being you're really experiencing the the the momentum of The evolutionary impulse you find it after the action has taken place but it's a risk we all have to take if we want to be free we have to we have to be willing to risk making mistakes because nobody's perfect we're all imperfect and we're all going to make mistakes and if we want to learn about how we can become more human and more liberated more beautiful we're going to have to be willing to make mistakes in public and if we want to be free we'll be able to Bear the humiliation but if we don't want to be free we will find the humiliation absolutely intolerable and totally unacceptable but if you want to be free you won't care because your interest in Freedom is more important than the emotional discomfort you might feel from time to time when when your imperfections are exposed so you're constantly course correcting it's a exact exactly yeah okay so you shouldn't be afraid of looking like a fool or exactly being embarrassed or something because that's kind of an eego thing too well let me put it this and the answer to your simple question is yes you shouldn't be afraid of looking like a fool now and then but if you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of always looking like a fool it means something's wrong it mean means it means you're not being serious because if someone is serious they learn from their mistakes and then they make progress people who are not serious keep picking the same mistakes over and over and over and don't seem to have the capacity to learn from their mistakes and course correct and that that's not a good situation to be in in other words they're not very self-reflective or inquiring into the yeah it means they're not serious Ser if you're serious you're going to develop you're GNA go the extra mile because you care you care that much right yeah I think too if you haven't been validated a lot in your life especially when you were young the tendency to validate yourself is not easy uh self- validation is not easy uh to to encourage yourself to proceed and to reflect upon what's going on often uh I find that my meditative journey is I'm becoming more friends with my own mind that's very good that's very good yeah being able to sit with it and reflect and to Journey with it into its the imaginary realm especially has opened up for me um I'm on medication so the medication is meant to encapsulate the hippocampus or the tuary and I seem to have cracked it and broken through that iron grip that it has on my my mind and I my imagination is Flowing more beautiful great thank you Carrie thank you the next question Andrew is from Rita it's quite long is it possible to be forced into a spiritual awakening last year something happened that triggered massive upheaval in my life I found myself in a terrifying process that I cannot avoid it permeates the very fabric of my existence in every single arena there is nowhere where I can hide from it and I have become highly aware of my own mind and how it generates thoughts and my perception of reality I have followed a spiritual path for 15 years and have never experienced anything like this cannot stop this process to fight it makes it worse sometimes it is very painful and frightening but I am learning how meditation and Stillness opens a new space I conceptually understood but have not experienced like this as an absolute necessity for my anchor of being I also have physical symptoms that my doctors cannot explain it's like I have either lost my mind or am on the threshold of the truth in an illusion the discomfort comes from not being able to escape it what's the problem I guess my essential question is is it possible to be triggered on this process without consciously or deliberately wanting for it to happen definitely some some people stumble upon it or it stumbles upon them so the the process is the same I just didn't consciously actively want this right that's that seems to be the situation but now that it's happening how do you feel about it I feel I feel better now and it's getting easier for sure uh before it was awful um I felt physical pressure in my body uh it's real it's not just in my head um it's something that I experience on every single level of my existence and that's what's uh can be overwhelming because there's nowhere where I can take a break from it but aside from the physical symptoms are there other other is is there is is the nature of the process that's happening to you aside from the physical symptoms is it positive is it generative is it spiritually compelling yes yes um then you should trust it I'm learning if that's the case then I wouldn't worry too much about the physical symptoms as long as they're bearable because what the because the important thing is that you're you're opening up and that spiritually something very profound is happening to you which is good so then you need to trust that it's all good why is that so hard well the reason that it can be hard is because because the because a big part of Awakening spiritually is because we have intimations of of an infinite context of of a reality that is Limitless so suddenly the small self begins to have glimpses of that which is timeless formless beginningless and endless and eternal and the Eternal nature of the that which is infinite is absolutely terrifying to the small ego after I after I met my own teacher I underwent a three-week uh bio social bio biological and psychological process that was both thrilling and absolutely terrifying at the same time because I realized I jumped out of my former self and I was on a journey that was way beyond anything I could imagine or could have could control and I I at times was scared to death because it was so because it was so big it was so profound and it was so uncontrollable and then I just decided at a certain point I said this is what you this is what you've been dreaming about this is what you've been wanting to happen for so long that I just made up my my mind to trust the process and I'm still in the midst of trusting the process 35 years later I'm trusting the process so the main the main thing is if if you convince that it's the spiritual opening that's fundamentally and inherently positive and profound trust it and don't get too worried about the physical symptoms because they're they're beside the point if you can do that is it is it possible or have you experienced that while this is unfolding and I spend more time in that conscious State I I have visual phenomenon where I see lights color and they're becoming clearer and they last longer now I have always seen lights my whole life but not like this and then my brain gets worried that I've either gone completely nuts I'm creating something that's not there or my retinas are detaching so I have to make an eye appointment so it's this constant negotiation between these realities you see yeah well I I again these are just phenomena so if you're Enlightenment is not it's not it's not a phenomena has a beginning and an end to it it's it's it's the Awakening to to the ultimate nature of reality so don't you seeing flashing lights don't don't just let it be it doesn't matter they're not harming you are they no I actually really enjoy them yeah so so I would just not I wouldn't worry about it and I wouldn't make a big deal about it either because it it doesn't necessarily mean it mean that much it could mean a lot it could mean nothing you don't really know you want to you want to focus on freedom itself the possibility of Freedom itself freedom is not freedom is not a flashing light it's not a it's not a thing with a beginning and an ending it's our Eternal nature so that's what you want to stay focused on and let everything else come and go including the flashing lights and whatever physical symptoms you're experiencing because otherwise your mind start going to town on all these things and making problems out of them where where there isn't any problem just let letting go and trusting the process is what I would fully Advocate you sound sounds very positive to me thank you the next question is from wave not to put the aspiration down to be absolutely free but it does seem impossible to attain and only a few people have in history the question is is there a second tier of higher evolutionary Consciousness to aim for second tier being what that's the question Oh you mean for for the ones that aren't going to be fully enlightened the ones that only gonna give a little Enlightenment yeah that's exactly right second second tier pre-enlightenment stage well they had in in Buddhism they have different levels so the first level is like in th Buddhism just called a stream enter and there's about four or five levels after that so some of these great Traditions have already taken into consideration that there different levels of Awakening different levels of spiritual depth and uh and Consciousness so that these these levels are already already available to us and if you and if and W you spent I'm sure you I know you spent time with different spiritual te teacher so I'm sure you've you're smart enough to know and be you're sensitive enough to be aware of the fact that they're not they're not all at the same place I'm sure some you notice have greater dep than others yes it's there's some kind of pressure to try to even think that reaching this level of pure Liberation it's a pressure that doesn't feel like if it's not going to be possible why pressure yourself who said I'm saying it I I don't see it happening in this lifetime when I observe my egoic responses and uncondition unconscious conditioning unconscious the addictions the habits the patterns and although I've worked on them for 30 years and I do not have attachments to others I still have attachments you know within the patterns that are still there I just I don't I don't I would rather try to go for something that could be more possible but um you know a big part of letting go of the mind is is letting go of the mind's opinions about how we're doing ah of course I forgot about that you always say those things that right okay so that's just another uh distraction of the Mind Right saying okay all right then I'll let that go and see what happens because if you if you if you let that go anything's possible that's true that's a so so the Insight oh my God everything's possible that that's exactly the place you want to concentrate on okay and the other thing wave is remember all human beings are we're all imperfect there's no there's no such thing as a perfect human being we can experience we can we can experience Perfection as a state of consciousness but we can't experience Perfection as a as a human being perfect human beings don't exist and they never have so you can so Perfection can be experienced as a higher state of consciousness as as a state but our humanity is always a work in progress so so because of that e even someone is an imperfect as way or imperfect is Andrew can experience Perfection it doesn't mean Andrew is perfect or W is perfect but it means they know what Perfection is and when we know what Perfection is it it spiritually inspires us to to want to improve ourselves and make our our El a little bit closer to perfect inspires us to want to reach for Perfection that's unreachable and someone who's reaching for a Perfection that's unreachable is a better person than someone who isn't striving to do that isn't letting himself off the hook someone who's trying a little harder to be better versus someone who's given up that's what we want to reach for make sense it does I have never heard anyone say what you just said about that there's a different between a state of um perfection in human consciousness rather than in the human being I've never heard that said before that's interesting that that that that's that's good to hear to allow that level of imperfection that is a process of evolving well just reality a lot of people because it's been falsely believed for thousands of years that this Enlightenment which is a state of consciousness meant anybody who seemed to have attained that state had to be inherently perfected being and we know that it's possible to attain to attain the state of perfection or not being a perfected being that's really important to hear I think that's really good to hear thank you it's it's it's very important it's part of what I I hope will be a more of a a postmodern and a post postmodern interpretive evolving interpretive understanding about the nature of Enlightenment which is important because a lot because a lot of people have thrown out the baby with the bath because they found that oh I thought so and so was perfect but I found out they weren't perfect that means Enlightenment doesn't mean anything say whoa whoa whoa you're going too fast don't throw out the baby with the bath water so what I'm advocating makes it possible for us to not do that and yet continue to work on to work on the evolutionary project and continue to develop and improve ourselves I like it good very thank you thank you open his mic y at the end of your talk you mentioned that if you a person managed to adopt The evolutionary perspective as a passway to Enlightenment you would have done it yourself and you will have something to feel good about but then who is there to feel good about I'm guessing you mean that there will be a sense of reving participation in the evolution of Consciousness not from a personal point of view but more from the experience of impersonal gratitude for being part of the evolutionary project while being conscious of it is that right very very well said I couldn't have I couldn't have done such a good job myself but I want to say that um Michael I'm pretty convinced that um when I speak about ego Transcendence I'm not speaking about the The Disappearance of our Persona there there's a very interesting I live in t Malai in South India this is the this the spiritual the small City the spiritual city where the great rahen Mahari lived for his whole life on on the mount on the mountain Al the runella and in his asham in the in the first room you enter when you enter into zasham there's a there's a big there's a quotation on the wall which is a page from his diary that he wrote I don't know when he was I think before he was 20 when he was still very young and in this p in in this page from his diary he was describing his Awakening he described how his Awakening happened and what happened and how he felt but one one very interesting part of the quote is he is he was is when he was describing what it was like to awaken to the Eternal nature of the self for the first time was very profound but he describes that what was amazing to him that was also still present to to use his exact words with the full force of the personality still present so what I what I would ask you and all of us to be cautious about was this idea of with with profound Awakening the non-existence of our persona personal identity I think the personal identity the Persona continues to exist but the ego the ego becomes like when I asked my Guru I said does the ego die with Enlightenment he said the ego doesn't die he said it becomes saic saic means peaceful it means so it means pure P purified from from small-minded motivations so I I notice in my own case if I become if I become become particularly absorbed in a higher state of consciousness my my frontal self my Persona my frontal self will really Fade Out to be almost completely gone but it doesn't usually last that long it's usually just for a few minutes but it's still available to me never completely disappears altogether um and I think there's something there's something to be said for in the spiritual context to where we can where we can prove to oursel and demonstrate to oursel that we have the capacity to liberate ourselves from fear and ignorance through our own spiritually inspired will because because as you're already well well aware there's only two ways we can do this one is through surrender and letting go the other is through the application of Will and intention so I feel to become fully developed as a spiritual spiritually awake person we want to we want to learn how skillful in both these capacities one is the capacity to let go and to surrender and to release release our control completely with an open heart and trusting mind and the other is you want to learn how to how to how to take control be in control of our mind and control of our emotions and control of our self and resist the temptation to is to scratch the itch as I was speaking at earlier and the more and that that can give us a lot of spiritual self-confidence to know that we're in control of ourselves and we're not just purely victims to our condition mind and emotions that can give rise to a lot of spiritual self-confidence so I in the way that I teach I kind of advocate learning how to become a master of both do that make sense yes he does would would would the remnant of that Persona which sounds like we should just not take it personally anymore um very good does that also explain like the multiple cases where you see beings who are very highly involved with not Enlighten and then you know all the sort of Dramas and stories that you see of people falling from Gray so to speak because they kind of let go of that continuous commitment to stop scratching the itch absolutely absolutely yes absolutely yes thanks thank you thank you everybody thank you very much