Moderator: David, a viewer in Atlanta asks, “Does pure awareness have likes and dislikes? Or is that just a mind/body phenomenon?”
David: The latter. Pure Consciousness has the essence of light in it, the essence of feeling and it has illimitable energy. There is an aspect of pure Consciousness, which is transcendental, which means it has no quality at all. But the desire-body…. Desires do have preferences and that is all based on mind and body as you said.
Moderator: A viewer in Stinson Beach asks, “Could you define Prana-shakti? I’ve had an experience of being breathed before but more and more it feels like this is becoming an integrated experience.”
David: The prana aspect is that area where light is transformed into breath. Light itself, as I just alluded to in the previous answer, is rooted in the Absolute, in the transcendental. So, when that sheath, the Absolute sheath of awareness, of unconditional awareness, strikes the grosser sheath of the breathing process, there’s a transformation of light into breath, that’s the prana. And the Shakti is the biological current that is keeping your body alive. In its dispersed form it enters the body-mind and runs the organs. In its undispersed form it is a solid current of energy, a vibrational current. When those two things meet, then the Kundalini-shakti both descends and ascends, it heads back toward the Absolute in its ascension mode and its descension mode fills the body-mind with great energy and Bliss. So, the Prana-shakti sheath contains both light and current, and that’s what you experience with me. Of course more can be said about it, but that’s really a solid answer. We could go on for hours on this topic.
Moderator: A viewer in Canada says, “For the last two weeks I’ve not been able to feel as strongly as before. I’m not worried, but can you assist me?”
David: In order to stabilize this you go back and forth between feeling it very strong and then having it dissipate, losing it completely. So, what you said about not caring is very important. It’s also very intelligent. To “not care” means that you are detached, that you are not reacting to your spiritual states, attaching to them, possessing a demand that they remain. That is very crucial to a mature spiritual process.
So, just let these states come and go. If you dwell on the past and what you received from me in the past, even if it’s as recent as one or two weeks ago, you’re blocking the newness from dawning in this moment. And always there’s something more to be given to you. You’ll always be given something more in the present that you haven’t been given before. So, it’s most intelligent not to look back and mourn for loss of something. Because once a spiritual state has had its effect on you, you are ready for more, you’re ready to move on, to absorb the most, that which is beyond all accumulated value. You go beyond quantitative jumps of the evolutionary process, the mini-enlightenments and gradually are ushered into a major state of radicalized enlightened Consciousness. Obviously, that does not happen over night. The leaps and the breakthroughs happen over night, they will happen immediately. But the true, lasting stabilization may take some time, and that will vary from person to person.
Moderator: A viewer in Los Angeles says, “I would like to stay in the experience of connectedness with the divine, but it makes me feel that I would lose all motivation to achieve in the world.”
David: Yes. You renounce that detachment and you have to act. However, you should also culture time to enjoy that detachment and go beyond the world. It’s just that you need to do it in steps or stages so that you don’t end up on the street. Ideally that would be not welcome. Hopefully you can maintain your job and your external life along with great transcendence. And so for that a kind of balance must be struck. If you really pay attention to what’s happening here, you might see that everything is being given to you in this instant, in this moment. And there’s no need to worry about what’s ahead. You have to let go of control, of self-control, of your own self-willed destiny and enter into this ecstatic, gradually diminishing sense of self, until you come to know Self. Until you understand that you are beyond the world, beyond all worlds. And that, coupled with a body-mind that still exists in the world, is enlightenment. When you have the body-mind functioning in the relative and then the awareness of having transcended it all, the permanent sense of release that transcendence produces.
That, along with being in the body-mind is liberation. It’s a higher state of liberation if we are talking in terms of degrees of awakening. To be living in an active mode with awareness of the Absolute than merely being in the Absolute. It’s actually a higher state because it is more all encompassing. The Absolute is now allowing the play of the relative, which means the play of the relative happens within the Absolute. So, the Absolute then, is holding the world. That’s where we want to go with this. Not merely toward the Absolute, although there will be moments and perhaps even long durations of time when this inner aspect is emphasized in your experience. That is, you may really be quite detached, quite aloof, quite silent, to the point where the world is eradicated by that Absolute Consciousness. Then you learn all about this, this is the process of awakening, this is what you go through.
Moderator: A viewer in New Orleans says, “Last week you discussed the tendency of Western culture to mentalize everything, for example enlightenment. You said the Western mind wants to make the spiritual practical.”
David: That’s correct.
Moderator: “This is what you’re talking about again?”
David: Not again. For the first time we’re talking about it now. We’re looking at it in the freshness of this evening’s unique presence. So, we’re just re-looking at it, we’re re-examining it in this moment. Not analyzing, but just considering what this is all about. You can’t do away with the mind either, even though we are Westerners. Even though we are taught to favor the mental over the feeling nature, you still can’t strike away the mental. You need to learn to incorporate it within the whole field of Consciousness that you are and have it function in such a way that it does not block out your heart energy, your heart Consciousness, which is just an expansion of total feeling. That’s really the balance that must be struck if one is to live in this world and also transcend it.
Moderator: Our Los Angeles viewer follows up, “I would like to carry this experience into my everyday life. I want to bring the divine into the humdrum of life.”
David: You can’t really, you can’t bring it because it’s not a process that is subject to your intentions. It is not something that’s going to follow the lead of your will or your desires. It’s about transcending directly into that desireless condition and then simply functioning. That’s the way in which it follows you. But you need to be very careful about romanticizing enlightenment. That’s the only phrase I can think of right now that applies to your question, at least the way it was phrased. Be very careful about romanticizing, brooding over descriptions, holding onto images, or trying to fulfill images of what you think enlightenment is going to be like or what it should be like. The key is to surrender to the unknown, to be absorbed into the unconditioned, where there’s no causality. Whatever it is that lives enlightenment in the world is not causally produced nor is it controlled by the mind. Nor does it fulfill any kind of image that you think is right. It will transcend every image and you will feel more like you’re floundering than succeeding.
There’s a lot of doubt even, that comes about through great awakening. It’s not like you begin to feel comfortable with everything, there’s still a great amount of trial and error. You learn, you’re always learning with a human body-mind. It’s not given the key to open every door, solving every problem behind every door. It’s about being released of your consciousness, the consciousness that believes it was born and will die. That’s what we focus in on with an enlightenment teaching. The core, the mind that resists, the mind that anticipates, the mind that insists, demands, even the mind that is enlightened, even that mind must go. Because there will arise an enlightened mind. There most certainly is someone who is awakening during the process of awakening. But the fulfillment of that process is the total dissolution even of the one who is awakening. So, that what remains is truly expansive, unconfined, Absolute, but you won’t know what that is. You’ll only have a feeling intuition of it. It will never be made an object of the mind, only things can be made objects of. Only perception can organize understanding and within that organization there will be things to organize. But here we’re talking about the disorganization of the organizing mind so that it’s released into its ecstatic freedom.
Moderator: The viewer responds, “Yes, I think I have some heroic image of making a huge difference in the world with the divine flowing through me. Should I let go of that? I want to feel useful.”
David: Let go of that when we are engaging this yoga together. Then later on, when you’re performing action, that resolution is valuable, because a desire, the fulfillment of desire and desires is based on having a resolution for something. You need to have a topic in order to perform action. You don’t just go willy-nilly and do things, you have to have an idea. You have to know how to get to work and follow that route before you get to work in the morning. So, action needs a subject, action needs an object, and it’s okay to have this resolve that you want to do good in the world, that you want to make the world better, that you want to evolve in the world. But just recognize that that’s in the field of desire, it’s not where it’s going to happen. It’s only the description of what you want to happen. Here we’re going to taste what that is, what that’s all about. Try not to be so involved with the “figuring out mind” that you miss the innocence of this moment, right now. Look and try to see where it is that you are succeeding spiritually in this instant. Look for the signs of Grace, for the signs of Grace’s impact on your life, right now. And then fall into that, begin to become fascinated with that, dwell upon that.
Moderator: The viewer says, “Thank you, when I am with you I stop worrying about doing good.”
David: Good. When you’re completely yourself you can only do good. There’s no bad left. “Bad” comes from non-realization of yourself. All ideas of bad, if there is such a thing as something that’s bad, then that too belongs to the field where there’s no knowledge of who you are. All that stuff about good and bad belongs in that narrow category that the mind creates to understand life, but in very limited terms.
I want you to tune into your Bliss nature now, the nature of your Consciousness that is eternally happy, that is beyond dilemma and that is inherently free. Not free from anything, not even free from everything, just innocently free, free floating, not held by anything, diffuse. Remember, we’re coming together here as a family, you’re not a stranger in this gathering. There are no others, there are no persons. There’s a singular Consciousness that is holding us all and also unfolding in and through us. That Consciousness is the Bliss of Being, it’s the Bliss that exudes from relaxing into Being and that sense of released Consciousness is capable of filling every fiber of your being, gross and subtle. Your consciousness, your mind your body, all of it can be appreciated in that expanded feeling.
And so, what that describes is something that glues us all together, does not separate us, and that’s why I used the term “family,” because we’re really being held together in a oneness, in a tangible, powerful cohesion of oneness. And that oneness both transcends your individuality and the collective, the family, but at the same time ultimately creates a bond in the relative, it does not divide there. Only thought divides. Expanded Consciousness unites and it unites in that place where we are all common, where we all share a common denominator or foundation, which is awareness itself. There’s no other deep commonality among human beings. Nationality divides, religion divides, culture divides, societies divide. But awareness is always awareness. When a person in China suffers, for lack of food or lack of love and a person in the United States suffers for lack of food and lack of love it’s the same exact feeling, there’s nothing different about it.
So, awareness is that which is universalized and capable of being stimulated and then once it’s stimulated it can take over, and in that taking over you get to feel one, a oneness, a real oneness, not imagined, not based on thoughts of oneness, but on actual awareness itself.
Moderator: A Marin viewer asks, “Does transcendental Consciousness invade the body?”
David: If the realization is deep enough it will make the body disappear in meditation. Body will just be forgotten as the mind enters the eternal. I’m talking specifically about meditation here.
Moderator: A Los Angeles viewer says, “I wonder how I could worry less while I am mediating. What should I do?”
David: You shouldn’t be worried about solving any problem right now, this is not a time for problem solving, it’s a time to give your attention over to your inner state. As I said earlier, see if you can detect your success in this moment, the way in which the power of the Absolute is impacting on your life. There could be a very clear sign but you might be missing it because you’re thinking about how to solve this problem in the future. All of your problems can be solved right now, so I don’t know why you’re worried about one.
Moderator: A viewer in Santa Rosa comments, “Aching in chest. Expansion or attachment?”
David: Don’t worry about it. Just relax and breathe and feel your whole body, be one with your body and this experience will pass, hopefully. If this is only your first, second or third time on this webcast you might not really have gotten into the flow yet. So, I suggest give yourself some more sessions. It’s a free program, there’s no condition attached to me inviting you to continue here. And give more of your attention in a very delicate way each time you come. Don’t worry about anything specific. If there’s something specific that needs help in you, the energy that is present will migrate to that area and help you. I don’t even need to know the content of what needs help. This is quite a spontaneous and organic manifestation of divine Grace. The most important thing is to relax, just relax.
If you go to a doctor and you sit in the waiting room, you don’t go over, in your mind the thought, “Well, what if the doctor isn’t here and what if the doctor can’t see me?” You’re in the office, the doctor’s seeing other patients, so, just wait your turn and you’ll be called and then you can see the doctor. That metaphor, that analogy is offered to you here too. Once you’ve come into this setting, then relax. Relax and then know that this is a setting geared toward the manifestation of divine Grace in the divine Consciousness. It’s the total god-force that’s operating here, total Absolute god and beyond that. Beyond all ideas and understandings of spiritual things. So, that you have come here is enough. Just pay attention in a loving way. Bring love into your heart when you’re here. Bring feeling and appreciation and gratitude because that itself will be like a relaxing force on your entire being. As soon as you begin to know that you’ve done the right thing, you’ve gotten to the right place, relaxation should occur and in that relaxation the essence of surrender is present. And when the essence of surrender is located then all can be understood and felt.
Moderator: The Los Angeles viewer comments, “I’m aware of how much I enjoy and need being here with you.”
A viewer in the East Bay says, “Thank you for articulating this. I tend to favor just the meditation in silence, but I found your words help me integrate and clarify.”
David: Great. I think that not only is there a clarifying effect as you just mentioned, but also meditation in a different form, the transmission of pure meditation continues to occur even after the silent meditation. So, it’s not as though we really cease meditating, it’s just that we begin meditating along with the use of the mind. And so your mind is lovingly invited into that process as well. Sometimes you might not want to listen, you might be so absorbed in Bliss, the Bliss of pure meditation, that you find my words just floating by and you can’t really even get to them. And that’s to be allowed, because you’re enjoying what is beyond thought, which is much more valuable than even the act of understanding. But there will come those moments too when understanding too, needs to be fed. And when understanding gets fed the knowledge that it’s really craving, meditation is accentuated, meditation is climaxes in itself. It’s quite beautiful. We’re talking here, not about the addition of one thing onto another, but the combustion of knowledge within the inherently liberated condition. We’re talking about knowledge then that becomes fire, it carries the force of spiritual fire, which is also compassion. At that point, fire and compassion can’t be separated. The fire of knowledge and the river of compassion merge and then there’s only one reality. It’s mental, it’s emotional, it’s physical it’s heart-radiated, it’s heart-felt, it’s the Bliss of the heart.
Moderator: There are several thank-yous David. One comment, “Pure enjoyment tonight.”
Another, “Bliss of the heart is felt.”
David: I would like to conclude tonight’s program by thanking you for being here, for making this possible and continue to meditate in the days to come. Put some time aside to relax and see if this new found Bliss lingers and let it dissolve the doubting mind, the doubt that you are separated from the divine Consciousness, the inherent reality of the Self. If you do that, you will increase your knowledge and experience of Consciousness and it will begin to linger. But don’t attach to it, just let it go when it finally goes and be happy that it goes. Just be innocent. The innocence is what must remain. When you lose that, you lose everything.
