The first thing to realize is that life, every moment of it, is absolutely perfect. The second thing to realize is that every moment is perfect because everything you experience in every moment is only God. So, you may make mistakes in your life. You may make disastrous choices. But it is impossible for you not to be completely God while it is happening.
But we do not see this. Instead, we see fragmented reality which constantly pits us against ourselves. We ask ourselves why is the disaster happening to us and not to them? We take it personally. Our body/mind persona takes it personally. So, what can change this? God can. God's Grace can change this. And what is Grace? Grace is that quality in Nature that reminds us of who we really are. We are God. This is God. That is God. And that is all.
Who is God? What is God's consciousness like?
God is that gentle power which brings cohesiveness into an otherwise fragmented existence. To experience God, to know her, is to operate from a realm of love and wholeness. What does this mean? It means that an individual's vision has expanded enough to be conscious, moment to moment, of the overall structure and function of all things, at all levels, throughout creation. This includes both manifest and unmanifest creation. Now this might sound absurd or at least overhelming but it is actually the opposite experience. There is a sense of deep silence and calm that pervades one's consciousness. To be in God's consciousness is to be able to act as an individual yet be aware of entire cosmos simultaneously.
Should I favor the inner world over the outer world?
I have said over and over again that the Divine does not end when you open your eyes. The outside world must become Divine because every aspect of life is only God. It is Divine revelation in each moment. Look, listen, God is speaking to you in signs and symbols. The outside world is chanting your name in the language of the Divine. The outside world and the inside world have to become one experience so that "in" and "out" are no longer a distinction.
How does everything relate to everything else?
Whose hand is this? And who owns the pen that is perched in it? Who stitched the cloth that covers this leg? And whose leg does it cover? There are sounds of workers hammering in the distance. Who is listening? Who is creating the sound? Does it matter? Do they hear me listening? To me, it appears that everything creates the other. We all seem so interdependent. Nothing could exist without its relationship to the other. It is a two way street. For me to tap into you means that you must also tap into me with equal measure. Life on Earth is presently a struggle because we do not see the Oneness of our experience. And this Oneness orchestrates everything. There is a single silent actor that is also the stage and the audience.
How is Grace related to manifest creation?
I am telling you that Grace can happen to such an extent that the entirety of creation can be directly experienced. How can this happen? The best way that I can describe it is that all of creation is supported by a singular intelligence which underlies all of existence. When one's awareness becomes conscious of this intelligence, then the manifest creation driven by this intelligence is also made available.
How can I overcome my programming?
I never was, therefore I always am. This is because only the uncreated can last forever. If you are, then you can't really be. If you are, then you become a point. You immediately stand in the way of the Divine. If you are something, then you aren't nothing. If you are nothing, then you have the potential to be everything. If you are nothing, then you are free to pick and choose anything. Being something greatly limits your choices. Our birth, our traumas, our parents, and our culture created the something. Something is the product of pain. Something can be defined as the emotional charges we carry. When they are gone, so are we. All charges are biologically based. The challenge is that the biologically based charges require a dramatic shift in the brain function to be released. This release CANNOT be generated without an external component. And I call this external component Grace.
Does a Yogi have "free will"?
Free will can exist only when the will is free. Then the will becomes a Divine will. A Divine will knows no failure. It always succeeds because it does not have an identity crisis. Identities fail. There is something to lose with an identity. Only when we are God is manifestation easy. God has no need to own the object of desire. God IS the object. Ownership kills manifestation. When we own the object, we actually own failure. We must all move toward Divine identity. There have been individuals from all cultures throughout history who have developed this Divine identity. These blessed souls describe only love for object in this state. The Divine owns it all. The personal relationship between subject and object vanishes in the light of God and failure becomes an utter impossibility.
Should I suppress my desires?
Desire is healthy but addiction is not. Desire is Nature's vehicle to move toward Oneness but it is the identification and ownership of desire that leads us into a desire cycle.
What is the relationship of Oneness to manifest creation?
I want to explain the concept of Oneness. Oneness is creation herself. The terms are inseparable. When we say creation, we are actually saying creation of Oneness. Creation would not be apparent without Oneness to contrast it with. The diversity in creation is only truly apparent with reference to the One. My eyes behold one intelligence containing two poles. At one end is diversity. At the other end is the One. They are the same but at the same time they are different. As creation dissolves so does the One. This is because there is no more need for it. Five elements make up this creation. They are: earth, water, fire, air, and space. These elements link the One to the many. If one were to view these elements in their essential form, their reality would become immediately apparent. Each element gave birth to the other. Man is made up of all of these five elements in such a way that he can bring his nature back to the One. Man is the link between Oneness and creation. So, for Oneness to become apparent in creation, man would need to become the channel for Oneness to flow into diversity. There will come a time when the Oneness will become visible to all mankind along with the diversity. We should all pray for that day.
How can we learn to experience Oneness?
I want to say to you that every object in creation has an archetypal significance. Each object has a form, color, texture, smell, and weight that speaks of the wholeness in a very symbolic manner. To understand the object at this level would be very helpful to us because we would instantly know what it is capable of. All objects sing a song. Grace is that which allows you to hear the song.
How am I sensing this moment?
You are sensing it through your Central Nervous System. You're sensing it through your Sensory Cortex. You're feeling it with your skin. You're smelling smells. You're tasting tastes. It's all around you....this moment. It's information coming into you. There are channels throughout your body which receive this Present Moment and send you the symphony of the Now. There are 60,000 beautiful channels of Presence that send you information up your spine and into your brain. These Channels are all flowing and singing the Now. When you think about it, there is no time for thinking in the Present Moment. It is all happening too quickly. By the time we try to think about our Present experience....it is already in the Past. It is not Present anymore. You see, the Moment is nothing but experience. Thoughts about the Present are always in the Past. But because of the way that the Central Nervous Systems is constructed, it is hard for us to remain in the Present Moment. Naturally, our awareness will go on to the Past and it will try to impose the Past as an explanation. It's just Here! It's just Now! It's very simple!
Where am I? When am I?
You will always be where you are, and it will always be Now. Here and Now are the only items in our life that are stable, because from the moment you are born to the moment you die, you will always be in the present moment. You can't even think about the past except from the present moment. You can't do anything, except from the present moment. You're trapped in the present, whether you realize it or not.
Now, the purpose of all spiritual techniques and all spiritual technologies is to move awareness into this present-moment experience. In psychology and neurophysiology they call it the present moment mind or the "experiential mind". The other mind, which now has taken precedence, is the "reflective mind", which is the part of the mind that makes stories out of the present-moment experience.
What is Karma?
Well, technically speaking, Karma is action. To exist is to create karma, and the first karma is birth. We're born, and respiration begins, and that prana - that respiration - produces karma (action) and action produces an effect in three-dimensional reality.
So where's our first Karma?
Well our first karma is the blueprint our mother and father gave us. This body, this bag - "Stu's bag" - was made by mom and dad and their ancestors. And so there is a karma associated with my dad's parents and my mom's parents. So we have - all of us have - our little thing that comes from the genetic part, the genetic heritage, which goes back a long, long way.
There's also a karma of just being human....so we're going through a process of existing, just existing is a karma unto itself. It's a weight. Because existing means existing in a body, and the body's made of meat, and it's always bothered by one thing or another.
How can we get out of Karma?
Thinking about thinking will not get us out of it, because it's the thinker who got us into it. So the mind's always saying, "Trust me! I'll get you out of it". Well think about it, in all the years you've been alive has your mind got you out? No, it's got you in deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Because the mind is the neural network, the mind is the neural network, the mind is the neural network. Thoughts correlate to those molecules - physiologic substrates in the nervous system. That is our karma.
What is freedom from Karma?
You still have karma to be alive; if I'm breathing, there's karma. What makes the difference between an enlightened person, when they say "no karma", and an ignorant person who says "Life sucks!". What's the difference? The difference is that the same things are happening to both of them, only one owns what's happening and one doesn't own it. It's all about ownership.
What exactly is the experience of Enlightenment?
Enlightenment is not a product of the intellect. What one thinks or what one does in this world has absolutely no reflection on the state itself. So, if an Enlightened One takes a position on one side or other of an issue, it has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is taking a position relative itself; not to the Enlightenment. This is why imitating the Enlightened is such a waste of time. The state of Enlightenment is beyond the intellect. But the intellect gets upset with this idea because intellect believes that nothing exists beyond itself. The truth is that Enlightenment can never be figured out because it is a direct experience; not a thought.
In Enlightenment, there are actually two points of views; the worm's eye view and the bird's eye view. In our normal consciousness, we are usually working only from the worm's eye view. In the worm's eye view we are constantly taking a position on an issue. Conversely, in the bird's eye view, we experience the same issue but in larger context. In the bird's eye view, all positions are seen as co-created, co-existing expressions of the same experience. In the Enlightened, the opposing positions of the worm and the coexisting positions of the bird exist as one.
With the gradual increase of the Presence energy, the noise in the mind goes away. Pardon the pun, but the Presence actually creates absence. The Presence creates an absence of brain activity. The Presence or Grace is inversely proportional to mental activity. That is because the concept of subject and object gradually dissipate in the mind in the presence of the Presence.
What is the ONLY reality?
This moment is the only reality. Think about it. The past and future are both creations of our minds. They are not real. They are not real because nothing at all exists outside of our present moment experience.
Is there ever a death of the mind?
Eventually, the mind dies. Even after its death, the mind is there, but it is there only in service to the Self. The mind is dead only in the sense that it no longer drives the moment. The mind is no longer perceived as the source of our thoughts. Rather, the infinite Self overtakes the mind and now dwells as the doer. Again, the mind is subservient. You might ask, "What is left without the minds' leadership?" I say that everything is there! We think that the minds' leadership is essential for success in life. Not true! Mind is a great problem solver, true, but it is an equally good problem creator. Without mind, what is left is an expansive silence. What is left is a permanent, present moment awareness. What is left is knowingness; intuitive knowingness. In the state of non-mind, the original author is again directing the movie of our lives. Life now goes along very smoothly because misery and the suffering of the mind have simply disappeared. Sublime quiet has replaced the turmoil of the mind. The bliss of the non-mind state is exquisite. The Divine Presence pours through in an unrestricted manner. The need to force a personal outcome has vanished because the "one who needed" has disappeared. If there is no mind in one's awareness, the space that the mind once occupied is then available for more input from the external world. There is no interpreter of reality anymore. The mind used up a vast amount of active memory (ram) because the mind was always so busy judging everything. In the silence of the non-mind, all of this active (ram) memory is now available to experience each moment to the maximum degree.
What are the practical benefits of the non-mind state?
Well, you become a nice person. All of the good qualities that you always wished for yourself actually appear. And no effort is involved in their appearance. Why? To put it simply, there is an ease and sensitivity to the needs of others that spontaneously manifests. You let others into your world. You even begin to do the things they want to do. You come to actually listen to and value their opinions. The sense of anger and defensiveness that was your life does not seem to be part of your makeup anymore. You, the old you, has just vanished. And what has replaced you is a much better version of you. This nice, thoughtful person is a joy to be around and eveybody is naturally attracted to this person.
Is this non-mind state a final stage of development?
No, there is no final stage. Personal evolution is like a never-ending river. There are an infinite number of layers. The non-mind state is of value because, with it, the last "personal" vestige of experience, the personal mind, has now been eliminated. But people have to understand that Enlightenment is always an Enlightenment of degrees. There is no "this is it" experience. There are no clear cut stages. Becoming the Witness is a stage. It is a kind of Enlightenment. Becoming God is a stage. It is also a kind of Enlightenment. It is just a matter of degrees. One is just an enhanced version of the other.
What is your experience?
I just experience Truth. But the sad fact is that if I do not package myself correctly, nobody will ever become aware of this fact. So I am forced to promote an image. I am forced to create this mythical picture of what people want to believe the "real thing" is like. Then, I break their spell. I wake them up and I show them the authentic Sun, not a mere reflection on the water.
The truth of this is that we're all Enlightened; but nobody believes it! And what is, simply is. And what happens to you is just simply what's happening. And there's nothing you can do about it! This simply is! We can negotiate, we can talk about it, we can try to figure out how to get out of it, but the fact of the matter is that this moment is happening. And the terms, "what if....?" or "If only I had..." don't actually exist. Because what is, simply is. That is what's happening.
What you have to understand is that this is all happening for a purpose that is very good and very intelligent. It's brilliant! Think of all the orchestration that has to go on in everything: those trees have to move just right for that little cone to drop to build the next tree to create this energy which produces a shift in our thinking that's very slight but fundamental in shifting us into Enlightenment. Everything is dependent on everything else!
