The Seer

A significant sub-tradition of our Primordial Wisdom Tradition is known in Latin as Philosophia Perennis, or in English as the Perennial Philosophy. In the way the ancients used the word, philosophy was a practical rather than a purely theoretical pursuit. So, in this sense too, timeless wisdom can be thought of as applied rather than abstract philosophy.

The Greek word from which we get the English philosophy, as most people know, simply means love (philo) of wisdom (sophia). When this love of wisdom is strong enough, it inspires and leads one to the pursuit of truth above all other things.

For the ancients, philosophy was not a speculative exercise, largely the province of specialists, as it is today. Instead, philosophy signified for them a practical way of life grounded in the highest ideals and values, and one which is available for all to follow. Anyone who was dedicated unreservedly to this pursuit, and acted on it, was said to be a philosopher, or “lover of wisdom”.

According to the ancients, love of wisdom as a way of life leads to the progressive unfolding of true knowledge. Love of the Infinite leads one ultimately to the experience of infinite love.

Infinite love is love of wisdom fully requited in the complete and abiding fulfillment of realization, which according to the wise is ultimate truth, the apex of awakened consciousness.

According to the ancients, the aim of philosophy is “to live the good life.” For them, the good life didn’t signify a life of ease and pleasure, as it does today. Rather, it meant a life ordered or attuned to the summum bonum — the highest good.

The sages are generally in agreement that this supreme good is found, ultimately, in realization of absolute reality, in mystical experience that transcends limited mind. According to the universal teaching, the aim of practicing timeless wisdom as applied philosophy is ultimate truth, and the way to it is the spiritual path.

~ Thomas Hickey

In all the world, there’s nothing in existence more important and more sacred than “The Knowledge.” This Knowledge of the true Self, to which I refer, is the crowning glory, It is “The Knowledge” that makes all knowing, perception and life itself meaningful and most worthwhile.

Without this Knowledge, the average person is lost in any number of roles and never learns to differentiate between him or herself and these roles.

Today we find ourselves in a world full of recorded thoughts left for us by the preceding generations. Every child begins from the beginning but progress in thinking depends upon the ways he or she is exposed to the collective thoughts of humanity.

We all begin with an alphabet slate and story books, but our level of thinking usually depends upon the depth of the thoughts or ideas we are exposed to. We begin with tiny footsteps but whether those feet touch the earth, shoes, cycle pedals, motor cycles, cars, luxury cars, ship or plane, depends largely on the thoughts we gather and understand.

There are two different levels on which mental investigation can be undertaken. One is in the familiar ‘concrete’ world of things and the other is in the inner immaterial world of the thinker, the “I”. The investigation into the objective world can be never-ending due to its vast number of forms. The investigation into the nature of “I”, the subject, ends in the discovery of the Self, which is ever the same — eternal, changeless, all-pervasive and never subject to any growth or loss.

Today people enjoy unprecedented comfort and prosperity because of discoveries made in the objective world. We can also gain enormously by discovering the full potential of our inner subjective world. When the levels of gross and subtle consciousness are recognized, we are then able to discern “That” within us which is beyond all imagining and description.

When we remain at the level of the physical world, we become almost like a helpless animal — more exploited than really living. Even if we function up to the level of conditioned thoughts and emotions, without wisdom and spiritual insight, we still tend to live far below the level of happiness and fulfillment that was intended for us.

Hence we must never stop at the level of conditioned thinking which binds the “I” to different notions, including religious dogma and secular expediency. While travelling from the known to the (knowable) unknown, we have to progress through the gross physical level of consciousness, past our misconception of the mind-made self, past all our false beliefs and concepts to the highest consciousness of all which is the true Self or infinite “I”.

Hence Self-knowledge, the Knowledge of the “I”, the ultimate absolute meaning, becomes the crowning glory as the “I” is released from the hold of conditioned thinking and ignorance whch melts in silent, sacred Awareness.

The younger generation students will be inclined to learn, only if the teachers and elders understand this — the most important thing of all is to find “ultimate meaning” in their own being. When this happens, they willl be able to see everything as it truly is in its own place and not be afraid of anything.

So let us determine by all means to see ourselves as we really are — in our own “Self” or “Being” or “Truth” — as that nameless, formless, invisible expanse that fills up and embraces all names and forms. Let us see It, and be It — here and now!

~ by Swamiji. Abridged from: Self Knowledge Magazine Sep. 2003.

This week in Libya, another decades-old strongman, has his authority challenged by protestors. Part of Libya has declared itself free of Gaddafi and has organized itself in a democratic manner despite being forbidden to even assemble for over 40 years. How can these people know how to cooperate and self-govern with no prior experience?

The ability to be free is directly proportional to how identified you are with the pain body. When regimes are toppled there is a tendency for the victors to punish the vanquished. This simply perpetuates the pain body, as most clearly illustrated when Germany had to pay war reparations after World War I and the rise of Nazism in Germany was helped by the resentment Germans felt for being punished for losing. The United States learned that lesson and instead rebuilt Germany after WW II with the Marshall Plan.

Now in the eastern parts of Libya, towns have organized themselves peacefully with new ad hoc local governments despite continuing attacks from pro-Gaddafi forces. On the surface it looks like this part of Africa has broken free from a dictator, but on a deeper, spiritual level they also have the potential to break free of the pain-body itself – the root cause of all human suffering.

Once we understand that it is identification with the suffering one inflicts on oneself and others that causes us to identify with the pain body, then the next question is how long will it take to be free of that identification?

Remarkably, it can take no time at all since the resolution is in the Present Moment. Knowing that the Present Moment is always available to break the trance of self-hatred that is the pain body is the real secret tool to the ability to be free.

Old negative emotions may still dwell inside of you that can get reactivated. But once you experience the power of the present moment you can no longer be tricked into identifying with your personal or global pain body for very long. Every living human has this potential for transformation and freedom whether it’s Wall Street or on the Arab Street.

~ Eckhart Tolle www.tolleteachings.com

Opponents and detractors of the deeper or secret teachings of Jesus love to quote John 18:20 to prove their case that there is nothing more or other than what Christian ‘orthodoxy’ offers. Here’s the verse …

“I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. (NIV) or as another version has it: “I have spoken publicly for everyone to hear. I have always taught in synagogues or in the temple courtyard, where all the Jews gather. I haven’t said anything in secret. (GWT)

Here, Jesus is speaking to the temple authorities who were trying to accuse him of plotting and sedition. On the face of it, his words in defense of his modus operandi seem to contradict his own statements in other places and much of what we have presented above, but is this really the case?

Clearly Jesus did teach often, even regularly, in synagogue and in the temple, but not only in these places. He also taught, as we are told, on hillsides, in a boat by the sea shore, and in private houses and so on. And yes, he did teach publicly to large crowds in public places, but again, not only so.

He obviously had ‘private’ conversations with his inner circle which are well recorded and so also are some of his ’secret’ teachings to those ready to receive what he was revealing. e.g. “He (Jesus) told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But (not yet) to those on the outside …’” (Mark 4:11)

When Jesus declared: “… in secret have I said nothing,” he obviously meant, nothing that was any different in his public teaching to what he taught in his private communications with the Twelve or with individuals such as the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. What he taught privately was simply an explanation and further development of his public teaching.

So, we should be very clear that Jesus’ private or secret teachings were not distinctly different or other than what he taught publicly, but were much, much deeper.

To the crowds, he could only give the dual dimension of what he had received from the ‘Father’, hence, “Our Father which art in heaven …” etc. But to the few who were more spiritually mature, he always strove to impart the deeper nondual dimension of that reveloation, i.e. “I (you) and the Father are One.”

~ From: The Inner Light or ‘Christ’, by Pete Sumner

If God is truly infinite, then there is not the smallest place, nor the shortest moment where God is absent. God, to be truly infinite, must (by definition) be everywhere, all times, with all life.

There can be nothing that is not God, nothing that is not made of God, because in the beginning there was only God and nothing else — pure creativity. God already filled all of existence. There couldn’t have been any room left over because if there was, then God wasn’t infinite.

Thus, God only had Itself out of which to make everything God created and thus, despite the illusion of separateness, we can not actually be separate from God because there is nowhere else to be separate from God.

All of God is right where you are now and nowhere else. I AM is one. There is no second I AM to stand in your light, to put up the feeblest opposition. All is as you would have it because you are Who you are. Here is no spark of that Fire, but the blazing Furnace itself.

~ by Douglas Harding. See: Who or What is God?

The real search isn’t a search into tomorrow, or to anywhere other than now. It’s starting to look into the very nature of this moment. In order to do that, you have to “stand in your own two shoes,” as my teacher used to say. What she meant by “standing in your own two shoes” is you have to look clearly into your own experience. Stop trying to have someone else’s experience. Stop chasing freedom or happiness, or even spiritual enlightenment.

Stand in your own shoes, and examine closely: What’s happening right here and right now? Is it possible to let go of trying to make anything happen? Even in this moment, there may be some suffering, there may be some unhappiness, but even if there is, is it possible to no longer push against it, to try to get rid of it, to try to get somewhere else?

I understand that our instinct is to move away from what’s not comfortable, to try to get somewhere better, but as my teacher used to say, “You need to take the backward step, not the forward step.” The forward step is always moving ahead, always trying to attain what you want, whether it’s a material possession or inner peace.

The forward step is very familiar: seeking and more seeking, striving and more striving, always looking for peace, always looking for happiness, looking for love. To take the backward step means to just turn around, reverse the whole process of looking for satisfaction on the outside, and look at precisely the place where you are standing. See if what you are looking for isn’t already present in your experience.

So, again, to lay the groundwork for awakening, we must first let go of struggling. You let go by acknowledging that the end of struggle is actually present in your experience now. The end of struggle is peace. Even if your ego is struggling, even if you’re trying to figure this out and “do it right,” if you really look, you might just see that struggle is happening within a greater context of peace, within an inner stillness. But if you try to make stillness happen, you’ll miss it. If you try to make peace happen, you’ll miss it. This is more like a process of recognition, giving recognition to a stillness that is naturally present.

We’re not bringing struggle to an end. We’re not trying to not struggle anymore. We’re just noticing that there is a whole other dimension to consciousness that, in this very moment, isn’t struggling, isn’t resentful, isn’t trying to get somewhere. You can literally feel it in your body. You can’t think your way to not struggling. There isn’t a three-point plan of how not to struggle. It’s really a one-point plan: Notice that the peace, this end of struggling, is actually already present.

The process is therefore one of recognition. We recognize that there is peace now, even if your mind is confused. You may see that even when you touch upon peace now, the mind is so conditioned to move away from it that it will try to argue with the basic fact of peace’s existence within you: “I can’t be at peace yet because I have to do this, or that, or this question hasn’t been answered, or that question hasn’t been answered, or so-and-so hasn’t apologized to me.”

There are all sorts of ways that the egoic mind can insist that something needs to happen, something needs to change, in order for you to be at peace. But this is part of the dream of the mind. We’re all taught that something needs to change for us to experience true peace and freedom.

Just imagine for a moment that this isn’t true. Even though you may believe that it’s true, just imagine for a moment: What would it be like if you didn’t need to struggle, if you didn’t need to make an effort to find peace and happiness? What would that feel like now? And just take a moment to be quiet and see if peace or stillness is with you in this moment.

~ From: Falling Into Grace: Insights on the End of Suffering, by Adyashanti.

How Integral Dynamic Monotheism can transform and renew our entire Christian experience

I would like to suggest a different kind of monotheism that I believe Jesus modelled or exemplified and which can bring full freedom to each of us if we embrace it. I’m calling it ‘Integral Dynamic Monotheism’ and describe it as follows …

In this monotheism, God alone is. God alone is eternal. God cannot be put into any human categories. He/She/It is absolutely independent, creative, timeless, peace and love. God is personal, impersonal, and, at the same time, beyond these and all other opposites.

God isn’t an object or form but rather formless, like an infinite space. Our concepts of God are like houses that we build within the space. The infinite space allows the building of houses according to the needs and capacities of human minds, but the space always transcends them.

Our finite human mind can never build an adequate house to fill or accommodate the infinite space. God is the unconditioned space and systems (especially belief systems) are like conditioned space, within walls, as it were. Systems can never satisfy our deepest needs.

Creation (names and forms) is nothing less than a manifestation of God, and as such, is not illusory. It is, however, unreal in the sense that it isn’t eternal and infinite. Creation, like all the forms that constitute it, had/have a beginning and an inevitable end. All forms are temporal.

The universe is essentially one with God, but functionally different, like water and ice, energy and matter etc. Water and ice are essentially one, but functionally different. Likewise, energy and matter are essentially one, but functionally different. We too, it could be said, are essentially one with God, but functionally different.

Names and forms are like mirrors in which ‘God’ reflects. When the reflection identifies with the names and the forms, it feels that it is finite amd no more. However, when it looks to its source, it realizes its oneness with God.

We each have the opportunity in this life to evolve or move beyond our present spiritual capacity and experience more deeply our essential nature. The mystery we call ‘God’ undoubtedly has many different aspects for us to explore and experience if we will but drop our narrow concepts and go forward with an open heart and mind.

~ to read the complete article: >>>Click Here

~ by Br. John Martin More Details

The Old Testament (Ex. Ch. 16) tells how the fleeing Jewish slaves, led by Moses, were sustained in the desert by the miraculous daily provision of “manna.” This was a small, white, flaky substance which was reported to have tasted like wafers made with honey.

Interestingly, it’s said the manna only lasted for one day and after that it went bad. So manna could not be accumulated and stored, it had to be gathered and eaten fresh every day.

Like all good stories, the providing of daily manna in the desert has lessons for spiritual ’sojourners’ today. One of those lessons is that Truth or Reality cannot be stored, cannot be amassed — it does not accumulate.

The value of any insight, understanding, or realisation can only be in the ever-fresh presence of the moment.

Yesterday’s realisation is not a bit of good. Now it is dead. Now it has lost it’s vitality.

It is useless to try and cling to or hold onto an insight, an understanding, or a realisation, for only in its movement can there be the enabling of ever-fresh and new insights of Truth or Reality to appear.

The idea of enlightenment or self-realisation as a onetime event or a lasting and permanent state or experience is an erroneous concept.

Understand-ING or know-ING is alive in the immediacy which can never be negated. The emphasis is on the activity of know-ING which is going on as the immediacy now — not the dead concept ‘I understand’ or ‘I know’.

~ by Bob Adamson (Sydney)

Although Deepak Chopra’s novel: Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment is a speculative re-imagining of the “lost years” between about ages 12 and 30 of Jesus’ life, his introductory comments about Jesus’ evident unitive realization are germane to the view of many of us today who are familiar with the Eastern teachings. Chopra surmises that:

Jesus wanted his followers – and us – to reach the same unity with God that he had reached… Jesus was a teacher of higher consciousness, not just a shining example of it.

He told his disciples that they would do everything he could do and more.

He called them the ‘light of the world’, the same term he applied to himself.

He pointed toward the Kingdom of Heaven as an eternal state of grace, not a faraway place, hidden above the clouds.

In short, the Jesus who is left out of the New Testament turns out to be, in many ways, the most important Jesus for modern times.

This Jesus is, in Chopra’s view, “intensely absorbed in the question ‘Who am I?’”

Chopra’s Jesus and the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas spoke the same language of nondual awareness. That is the discovery that gives foundations to Chopra’s envisioning of Jesus.

As former theology professor, Micael Ledwith, has said of Chopra’s 2008 narrative, “If you think that all that could be said about Jesus has already been said, then this book will be an eye-opener in the best sense of those words.”

~ by Robert Wolfe