Metaphysical Group 5:19:2024

The speaker discusses the importance of connecting with the divine and affirming our true selves. They emphasize the power of gathering together and being seen and heard. The speaker also mentions the benefits of meditation and controlling the mind and senses. They discuss the concept of desire and how it can be selfish but also selfless. The speaker shares a physical exercise involving imagining the earth's energy flowing through the body. They also touch on the idea of the "I-consciousness" and its role in suffering. The speaker suggests adopting a mindset of seeing oneself as a servant of God. You may wish to place your attention on your heart space, that symbolic seat of connection and communion with all that we call God, and it is only a symbol because every cell of our body, every fiber of our being is always in the oneness with divinity. So as we affirm the truth of who each and every one of us is, we affirm as well that by gathering in this format today, we will be inspired, lifted up, we will be challenged, and we will be seen and heard. And from this experience, we will more fully be able to be the light of God expressing in the world. We give thanks for our facilitator and the wisdom he brings to us all. And for this time, we say thank you. Thank you, God. Amen. Is everybody here and present? Here we are. Rob is present, I can tell. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, good morning. Shall we begin with our three aums and let us raise our heads and straighten our spine. Raise your head a little more and straighten your spine a little more. Rise up. And with a deep in-breath. Shanti, shanti, shanti. Are there any questions or anything that came up that anyone wishes to share before we get started? I was watching, reading the Washington Post recently and this picture that you see up at the front here, in the little yellow box, it says, you are here. And I was thinking and reflecting on what do I have, what do I possess, and if I look at that, I kind of question it all. Say, well, I'm not so sure what I have and possess. I mean, that's okay. We're just here in the universe. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Matt, for sharing. I thought we would begin with a little review of last week's work. So we'll just go over the last several verses from last week. This is the scripture, a man or a woman unattached to sensations. Remember last week we did the sensations exercise? Unattached to sensations. We got it. We're just unattached. Who finds fulfillment in the Self, capital S Self, whose mind has become pure freedom, attains an imperishable joy, whose mind has become pure freedom. We'll talk some more about that. Can you tell us where you are in the text? I don't know. Page 85. Right. It's the end of chapter 5, towards the end. When I prepared these, I just took verses and I didn't put down where I got them from. She or he who controls his mind. Now remember, we experienced that the mind sort of has a control of itself most of the time, but not all the time. We're going to do a little exercise to experience the mind not being in control. But we can always step back from our mind, can't we? And the more we step back, and step back, and step back, we might notice afterwards that the mind was not very active. As we step back from our own minds. He who controls his mind and has cut off desire and anger. Selfish desires and anger. Anger should come from not having our desires fulfilled. Cut off desire and anger. The desires are there, but we just notice them. We don't necessarily act on them. He who controls his mind and has cut off desire and anger realizes the capitalist self. He or she knows that God's bliss is nearer than near. God's bliss. And now a preview for what we're going to be studying today. Meditation. The scripture says, closing her eyes, closing his eyes. Is her vision focused between the eyebrows? Making the in-breath and the out-breath equal as they pass through her nostrils or his nostrils. He controls his senses and his mind intent upon liberation. Resolute or liberation. And when desire, fear, and anger have left him or her, that person is forever free. Free from what? Desire. Anger. Yes. What desires are we talking about? Selfish desires. Selfish desires. Selfish desires. Like when that hot fudge sundae presses in front of your eyes that you really like and you wonder if you want to allow yourself to satisfy that desire or not. Or if you give your husband a big kiss and desire that he give you a hug in return and he does or doesn't, you're not attached to that desire. You're not attached to desire. So it's not that desires don't come up, but you have them. They don't possess you. Desires come up all the time. That's why we studied in the beginning, the verse, you have a right to your actions, but never to your actions fruit. Desire certain outcomes. Act for the actions sake. Give him a kiss because you want to. Act for the actions sake and do not be attached to inaction. Don't hold back because you think he's grouchy today. Capitalist, self-possessed, self-possessed, resolute act with no thought of results, no attachment to results, open to success, he liked it, or failure, well he's grouchy today. This equanimity is yoga, is peace, is yoga. Being a related question, so as I understand your response to Ellie's question, then the use of the word selfish isn't the way we use it corporeally, meaning I choose me over you or I'm greedy, but rather that it's self-sourced, that whatever the desire is, is coming from me. It's a good point you made. If we just called it desire, some people might say, I've resolved to spiritually reorganize, revamp my life, that's my desire. So that's rather a selfless desire, a selfless desire. So even though all the scriptures just use the unadorned word desire, I often put selfish desire in front of it. We have to take into account that the word desire is a translation of a word which I don't know, so I don't know the original meaning that everyone understood, but I'm thinking the original meaning would be selfish desire, even though the scriptures just say desire. Thank you. So now I would like to repeat something I read to you before, which is apropos. Why does a seeker keep an attitude of love towards God? My Sri Ramakrishna, why does a seeker keep an attitude of love towards God? Our scriptures say thou shalt love by God with all thy strength, all thy spirit, all thy soul. So why? Ramakrishna said the answer is that the I-consciousness persists. All of this teaching we're getting is to help us deal with that I-consciousness. The I-consciousness persists. It disappears in the state of total love of God, God-consciousness, unity with the divine, which is called samadhi in the Hindu tradition, deep God-aware meditation. It disappears in the state of samadhi, no doubt, but it comes back. It comes back. This is not a permanent state. When it enters, things change. In the case of ordinary people, the I never disappears, like us. You may cut down the precipia plant, but the next day new sprouts shoot up. Even after the attainment of capital K knowledge, this I-consciousness comes up. Nobody knows from where. You dream of a tiger, then you awake, but your heart keeps on palpitating. That tiger is attacking the I. All our suffering is due to this I. We can talk the rest of the hour about all of the suffering is due to this I, this I-consciousness. Now there are many spiritual practices, and we're going to a couple of them today, different ones, that we might choose to use to lighten up our attachment to this I-consciousness. Ramakrishna says one we should do, in addition to others, is the relationship of master and servant is the proper one. Master and servant. This thing that I consider I is the servant, and the master is loved by God, heart, mind, and soul. Since this I must remain, let the rascal be God's servant. Let the rascal be God's servant. I and mine, these constitute ignorance. That's a big lump to swallow, because we use I and mine all the time. But he asserts I and mine, these constitute ignorance. My house, my wealth, my learning, my possessions. Remember we don't, we have them, but we don't possess them. One way of looking at it. This attitude prompts one to say, such things come of ignorance, my house, my learning. On the contrary, thou, the divine, or the master, all these things belong to thee. Not my possessions. House, family, children, attendants, friends, even my thoughts are thine. So the practices we're learning help us to lighten up on this I consciousness. Most of the practices we've talked about so far are intellectual ones, ways to think. Ways to hold things. Now I have an exercise which I'm going to propose, which is a physical exercise. And it's another way of lightening up our attachment to I. It's a physical exercise. So since it's a physical exercise, we have two choices. We can either stand or sit. I prefer to stand. You may sit or stand as spirit holds you. All right. So we're all standing now. Now how does that feel when we're standing versus when we're sitting? Just notice how that feels. A little different feeling, isn't there, when we're standing than when we're sitting. So we experience our standing. Now we're going to use our imagination. So hold your eyes open while I demonstrate for you, and then we'll do the exercise with our eyes closed. I am going to imagine that the whole earth beneath me is filled with energy. The earth is filled with energy. And I am able, with my breath, to suck that energy up through the soles of my feet, through my body, up my spine, and out through my head and fill the universe with earth's energy. That's all going to be in an in-breath. Then I hold it, get the universe filled with earth's energy. Then I slowly exhale and let earth's energy go back through me, back through my spine, down through my feet, and fill earth up again and pause while earth gets filled with this energy. So I'll do that now and demonstrate it, and then we'll do it together. Breathing in, filling my spine, up to the top of my head, filling the universe, holding it till it's fully filled, and slowly breathing out, down through my body, up to the soles of my feet, filling mother earth and holding it until mother earth is full. I regain forth. Let's begin. Breathing in mother earth's energy through our spine, out to the top of the head, filling the universe, holding it till the universe is full, slowly breathing out energy of mother earth down through our spine, through our feet, filling mother earth and holding it till it's full. Breathing in mother earth's energy through our spine, the top of our head, filling the universe, holding it, universe full, breathing out slowly, down through our spine, down through our feet, filling mother earth and holding it. Breathing in, spine, universe, holding it, breathing out, spine, feet, mother earth, holding it. Breathing in, feet, spine, universe, holding it, breathing out, spine, feet, mother earth, on your own. So, one more time. So, normal breathing. So, how did this exercise make you feel? Conscious. So, I took two breaths before I got stable. I'm not, I was going to fall over my eyes. By the time we got into the second breath, I really did feel anchored in the earth. You felt what? Felt anchored in the earth. Anchored. So, so I went down, I felt, oh, I'm really stable now. And so when the energy came up, I didn't feel like I had any concern about either my balance. I really didn't focus. It just allowed the energy to move up and down. But that was interesting to notice that. Anyone else like to share anything? I felt at one, at the beginning I was doing the breathing, and then later on I wasn't doing the breathing, but I was breathing. So, yes, Gail said she wasn't doing the breathing, but she was. So, did anyone happen to notice their eye consciousness jumping around and talking to you and making trouble, commenting on things? Just notice that. Was your eye consciousness saying, what the hell's going on here? Do you think I want to sit down? When will this be over? Possibly or possibly not. So there's another exercise that you can use to still the eye consciousness. We can sit down now. All right. This is a very nice way of thinking if you like to go for walks in the morning or in the afternoon. As you walk, bring in that Mother Earth energy through your feet, fill the universe. If you're in a place where you can close your eyes, at least for a few moments, that's helpful, too. This exercise is also useful if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night and your eye consciousness starts talking to you and complaining about some problem or maybe wants to eat something because you didn't have enough food at night. You can use that exercise. I did it last night about three o'clock, woke up and my mind was upset because I hadn't fed my body enough last night. So, I was thinking about my tummy. So, I used that exercise and sure enough, I went back to sleep. Then I woke up again and had to start the exercise again. So, that's the way things are. Okay, any other comments or questions before we press on to the yoga of meditation? By the way, that was a meditation, wasn't it? That was a meditation. So, there are various kinds of meditation. And I like that meditation because it's non-denominational. Anybody can do it. So, yes, Jeff, question. What was the technique for quieting the mind? I thought you said you were going to tell us. That was one of them, the breathing exercise for quieting the mind. Now, we're going to go into another one. The more of these spiritual practices you incorporate into your life, you check it out. The more you might experience the equanimity of yoga, the equanimity of peace. By practicing not being attached to things, our desires, and so on, all these, the more we adopt these various practices, the more we can experience our true inner peace, which is always there. We're just not always in touch with it. Got that? Okay, good. Okay, good. So, chapter six, I believe it is, has five topics, and we're going to study the first three. A recapitulation of the previous chapters, we've already done a little bit of that. How to meditate, one way of meditating, and what to expect along the path. Of course, we already know we shouldn't have any expectations, should we? So, these aren't expectations we're attached to, this is just what we may notice, and we may not, but we're not attached to. That's what I love about these scriptures, you know, you just have to be sure and take them lightly, because to use human language and use words, it's never going to be quite exactly so. Our minds are going to be able to pick holes in things. It's one reason I like poetry, because poetry, for me, is a way of hearing the truth, with a capital T. Anyway, what have we got? We've got our scriptures, let's go for it. All right, here's Krishna talking, the Blessed Lord said, he who performs his duty with no concern for results, repeating again, is the true man of yoga, not he or she who refrains from action. It's important we know what our duty is. It's important we know what our duty is, and be able to distinguish between our duty and our desires. Desires come mostly from our senses. Body feels like eating, wants to sleep, this and that, whereas our duty comes from a different place, a different place. And we can learn to recognize that when what's ours to do comes from that true place, and just go for it without arguing with it, then one performs one's duty, and is not bound to one's sensations. So, for example, one might get up in the morning and have a pattern of walking in the morning, some do, or whatever you do in the morning, and the thought may occur to you, you know, I stayed up late last night, I think I'm going to turn over and go back to sleep. So that's your sensations talking. But perhaps your duty is they're reminding you, no, you promised yourself you're going to go for a walk every morning, it's good for you, go for it. So rather than arguing with yourself, you just go, go. He who performs this duty of no concern for results is the true man of yoga, not he who refrains from action. Know the right action itself is renunciation, arjuna. Renunciation of what? Those senses, you know, those rascals that eye consciousness. Right action itself is renunciation, arjuna. In the yoga of action, you first renounce your own selfish will. So here the translator put the word selfish in front of will, not all will is to be avoided. Renounce your selfish will. It's not that you don't have it, and every now and then you give yourself a treat, perhaps. But that's just to remind you so that the next time the situation occurs, well, I gave into my will that time, and, you know, it wasn't... Thank you, God, because I'm remembering now by that, getting into it, that that's not the way I want to be. Renounce your selfish will. He or she should lift up the self, or a self, by the capital S self. So allow that inner knowing to lift ourselves up, or a self by the capital L self, and not sink into the selfish. For the self, the ego self, is the only friend of the capital S self, and the only foe. The ego self, the self is a friend for him who masters himself by the capital S self, but for him who is not self mastered, the self, ego self, is the cruelest foe. When a person, a man, a woman, has mastered herself or himself, she or he is perfectly at ease in cold, in heat, in pleasure or pain, in honor or disgrace. So when a person has mastered themselves, can we be at ease, at peace, in all situations? Having our pleasure, or having some pain, oh, something got broken and it hurts, in honor. In other words, we feel respected and loved, or in disgrace, we feel disrespected. Disrespected. Maybe none of us have felt disgraced or disrespected. I don't know. Maybe some of us have. But perhaps you can imagine some people you've seen, either experienced or seen in TV, who have experienced disgrace or disrespect. And you can see what a tough time they might have being perfectly at ease in a state of disrespect. And those who have superseded being disgraced or disrespected or called names, what a peace they have. I think of Martin Luther King, for example, who, from hearing about his life, experienced some disrespect and much more. And yet he seemed to be perfectly at ease with himself. Mostly. At ease. The mature man or woman fulfilled in wisdom, resolute, looks with equal detachment at a lump of dirt, a rock, or a piece of pure gold. We might throw that lump of dirt aside, but we don't throw that piece of gold aside, do we? No, we hang on to that. And we have certain associations with the gold that please us. It's worth something, or it may have some sentimental value. Whereas, when does a lump of dirt have a sentimental value? A rock might. Equal detachment. We can value our gold trinkets and not toss them aside. They might be useful for someone else someday. And yet, if we lose that golden thing, can we be perfectly at ease and think to ourself, ah, I wasn't really possessing that golden thing. I had it for a while. I was having it. Now I'm not having it. And now someone else is having it. Maybe a person or maybe Mother Earth. Maybe a person or maybe Mother Earth. And I'm perfectly at ease. It's where it is. I'm where I am. It's at ease. I'm at ease. I don't have to have it to be at ease. She looks or he looks impartially on all those who love her or hate her or him. I don't know about you, but I've had an experience in my life, not in this room, but there have been occasions when I was younger and I walked into a party, a big room full of people. And as I looked around, I got sensations. And I noticed some people that somehow energetically I just felt attached to and wanted to go up to and talk. And I noticed sometimes there were people that I felt And I noticed sometimes there were people that I felt unattached to or I felt some barrier. And I felt, well, they may not like me. That was an energy that I experienced. Not so much anymore, but I experienced that. Was I able to look impartially on everyone, those who might love me or might not love me? Well, it's taken some years for me to get closer to that. She looks, he looks impartially on all his kinfolk, his enemies, his friends, his friends, the good and also the wicked. Doesn't it say in the scripture that the fruit gives its tree to the good and the bad? Rain rains on the sinners and the good people. So who are we to lay our judgments on others, both good and bad? So if we can be impartial, even towards the good, impartial towards the good, that will help us also be impartial towards the wicked. Because perhaps in some larger sense, that good and wicked exist just in here and maybe our circle, but not everywhere. Maybe those men up on Mars who are looking down on Earth and see the ones we call good and the ones we call bad, just see things happening, things happening, things are happening. Questions? The man of yoga should practice the following. Now we're going to get some instruction on how to meditate. There are various ways of meditating. This is one, a traditional way of meditating. Our practice, our breathing. By the way, in the Hindu tradition, that breathing exercise was called pranayama. Pranayama. And there are a whole set of breathing exercises one can learn in the practice of pranayama to make oneself healthy and enrich oneself. That was one we did today. So in this traditional meditation, the man of yoga, the woman of yoga should practice concentration alone. Concentration. Mastering the mind and body. So we've seen how a physical practice can help master the mind and the body. Just detaching ourselves from our desires. They're there. We have them. Sitting down, having chosen a spot that is neither too high nor too low, that is clean and covered with three things. A grass mat, a deerskin, and a cloth. We can see when this was written. Back when deerskins were more prevalent as well as grass mats. So in our modern day, we can just purchase a meditation cushion if we choose. I purchased one of those years ago. It worked just fine. I didn't need a grass mat or a deerskin or a cloth. But we pick something on which to sit, which is special for us. And we hold as special. He should concentrate with his whole mind. She should concentrate on a single object. If he practices in this way, his mind will soon become pure. Often it's useful to pick as an object. This is not exactly a mind, but some kind of mandala. This is not a mandala. This is something that draws one's eyes to the center of the fissure. One can use that to concentrate on. One can also light a candle. I recommend not a candle because candles go up and down and melt. I recommend a little oil lamp which tends to be steady. Concentrate with whole mind on a single object. If he or she practices in this way, her mind, his mind, will soon become pure. So there's the promise. There's the promise. If you do this, here's what to expect. Purity of mind. So we're not attached to that expectation. So if we don't achieve purity of mind, what do we say? Thank you God. Thank you God. I haven't achieved purity of mind yet, but the scripture says I could or I might or I will. So I'm going to come right back here and do this again tomorrow morning. Of course, the scripture says his mind will soon become pure. Maybe soon is three or four years. Who knows? Not attached to results, but we are resolute that we will concentrate on a single object. With torso and head held straight, just as we do here, with posture steady and unmoving, unmoving, gazing at the tip of the nose, not letting his eyes look elsewhere. I have a little problem with this. Because if I were to keep my eyes open, and I were to gaze at the tip of my nose, as I'm doing now, well, the last time I tried this, I felt a little eye strain. But as I'm doing it now, oh, there it comes. Yeah. So now I'm feeling a little eye strain. So it's perfectly okay to close your eyes and concentrate with your eyes closed on the tip of the nose. And in that way, you won't introduce any eye strain. Dave, was that E-Y-E or letter I? Which sort of eye strain were you talking about? I'm talking about my eyeballs straining. So if I move my eyeballs down the tip of my nose, it's sort of like cross-eyed. Is that what it is? After a while, I just feel a little eyeball strain. Yeah. You're walking around cross-eyed. Walking around cross-eyed. I might train my eyes to walk around cross-eyed. So thanks, Russ, for bringing that up. So I choose to focus my eyes, my tip of my nose, with my eyes closed. And I find there's no strain there. I don't want to be distracted by any sensation of my eyeballs overworking themselves. See, something else occurs to me as you were talking about you might reach pure mind today or soon, whatever soon is relative. And the idea we covered earlier that no effort is ever wasted. So putting all that in a cohesive whole for me, it says maintain your daily practice, and you are more likely to maintain peace of mind, living life on life's terms. I just hear like all of it coming together as, you know, we're desiring or moving towards a goal, we're not attached to the goal, and we maintain our practice, doing the best we can today, and it helps us to maintain equanimity just throughout the course of our day and the course of our lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would add to that, if you go into meditation with the expectation of having your mind soon become pure, and then you notice it doesn't, maybe at the point when you can give up the expectation, and oh, okay, not going to worry about it, I'm going to go for it, your mind is then becoming pure in the giving up of the desiring of it. And you might notice, just as you did perhaps notice when we did this breathing exercise, standing up, and then I asked you, was your eye consciousness talking to you, complaining, commenting? I didn't hear anyone say yes, so I'm guessing it wasn't. So the eye consciousness just wasn't there for a little bit. Same way in meditation, you give up trying for results, and just going with the flow, you might notice later that, hmm, the scripture was right. I have noticed something like that showing up from time to time. Maybe not all the time, but from time to time. Thank you, Russ. He should sit there calm, fearless. So can we sit in a meditative state without fear? Without fear, fearless. Can we sit there firm in his vow to be chaste? Chaste. I don't think this means sexually chaste. Remember, this is a translation. I think chaste means our vow, promise to ourselves to be head towards pureness, to have pure thoughts. His whole mind controlled by the practice of stepping back, directed to that one object, focused and absorbed in me, the divine, in me. And we focus on the divine, absorbed in me, through that focus, on this mandala or the flame. So we want to give our eyes and our minds something to do, so that through giving them something to do, we can find ourselves absorbed. I want to read something else to you now, before we do a little exercise. We talked earlier about doing our duty, doing what's ours to do. And we have also talked about gaining knowledge and having it, but not have the knowledge possess us. Not having a knowledge possesses. What was it? Certainty is the enemy of change and we need change to grow. Rumi has a lovely poem that talks about the intelligences that we have and we can draw upon. I'd like to share that with you now. Rumi said there are two kinds of intelligence. Two kinds of intelligence. One acquired as a child in school, memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences, as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence, you rise in the world, you get ranked ahead or behind others. Remember those grade cards you got in school? Some got A's and B's, some of us got C's. With that intelligence, we get ranked ahead or behind others. In regard to your competence in retaining information, what is our competence in retaining information? You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, always getting more marks on your preserving tablets. Attaboy. How did it feel when you took your report card home and said, I didn't because there was a D. You showed it to your parents and there was a B or an A and they said, attagirl. Attaboy. In and out of fields of knowledge, always getting more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet. One already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its spring box. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid and doesn't move from outside to inside through conduits of plumbing learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you moving out. This is how Rumi describes two kinds of intelligences. And through our spiritual practices and through our meditation, we strive to increase our reliance on our inner intelligence. How are we doing on time, Mr. Russ? Five minutes. Five more minutes. I think we have time for a quick exercise and then we're going to close. So let's do a little meditation exercise together just for a few moments. So everyone please pair up with someone making eye contact and those on Zoom, you can imagine someone in your life and make imaginary eye contact with them. Has everyone got an eye contact partner? All right, we've all got eye contact with our physical partner, our virtual partner. Now, let's take a deep breath. Now gaze quietly at the space between your partner's eyes. Take a deep breath. Gaze quietly between your partner's eyes. Another deep breath. While gazing with no judgment at your partner's eyes. Take a deep breath and gazing at your partner's eyes, witness your mind. Another deep breath, gazing at your partner's eyes, witness your mind. Witness your mind. With a deep in-breath, gazing at your partner's eyes, let your mind go. Step back. With a deep in-breath, gazing between your partner's eyes, let your mind go and relax. With a deep in-breath, gazing between your partner's eyes, let your mind go and relax. Gently allow your eyelids to close. Witness your mind. Let your mind go. Step back. Step back. Step back. That completes the exercise. I will now read the last passage of scripture to end our time today. Constantly mastering his mind or her mind, just as we were doing just now. The man of yoga, the woman of yoga, grows peaceful, just as we experienced peace, attains supreme liberation, and vanishes into my bliss. Into my bliss. Comments or questions before we close? Love that exercise. Gail loved the exercise. How are we all experiencing the equanimity of yoga? Let's close then with three beautiful, deep-releasing ohms. So with deep in-breath and hold it. Aum. Aum. Shanti, shanti, shanti. Go in peace.