Acharya Peter Wilberg's Bulletin

Edited by author 20-03-2006 04:11 PM
Further pages:

THE MESSAGE OF THE NEW YOGA

People are always seeking MORE – whether it be wealth, love, sex, power, knowledge, ‘enlightenment’ or ‘nirvana’ – or else resigning themselves to not having MORE.

They seek more only because they sense that there IS more. If only they knew however, that they themselves already ARE more - that there is more to THEM, and to everything and everyone around them, than they ever dreamt of.

To all my readers I say therefore – know that you yourself are far MORE, infinitely more, than what you currently take yourself to be, MORE than the self or selves you already know and identify with, MORE than all your relationships put together, and more than all the matters that occupy your mind or emotions.

I say to you also - there is more TO that self you think you already know, more to all your relationships, and more to even the tiniest matters that occupy your mind or emotions, than you know.

Indeed there is far more to ‘matter’ itself than modern science has ever dreamt of. For matter itself is composed of a ‘moreness’ of which physical science cannot conceive.

The message of THE NEW YOGA OF AWARENESS is simple:

BEING AWARE of ‘moreness’, coming to FEEL it in every cell and pore of your body, is the key to ‘be-coming’ it - coming to be and embody it.

Your BODY already knows this. For it is itself a condensed materialisation of that feeling awareness – and with it your own MORENESS and that of everything and everyone around you.

You ‘are’ what you are AWARE OF as ‘yourself’ and as ‘reality’.

You are also all that MORENESS you are NOT yet aware of - in yourself and in all the things and people around you in the world.

Ultimately however, you are AWARENESS ITSELF - not an awareness that is ‘yours’ or ‘mine’ but AWARENESS as such, unbounded and divine.

Awareness, alone and as such, is the only possible reality that can embrace every thing, every being and every world - not just in its ‘actuality’ but in all its ‘moreness’, its infinite POTENTIALITIES.

Awareness was identified in the Tantric tradition with the god SHIVA, not as some god ‘with’ awareness but as that God which IS awareness - unbounded and inexhaustible.

This Divine Awareness was called the ‘Noos’ in Greek. In its fullness it was called ‘Pleroma’. Its ‘moreness’ went by the name of Dynamis (Greek), Potentia (Latin) and Shakti (Sanskrit).

My message to you is - it goes by YOUR name too.

So BE AWARE. Be MORE aware and AWARE of more. BE that very awareness of moreness and in that way BECOME more. Seek to be nothing but awareness itself - that awareness which embraces all that is – and more.

For that is how, through THE NEW YOGA OF AWARENESS, you will find far more meaning in life - in all that you are aware of – than you ever thought possible. Meaning IS awareness of moreness - your moreness and the moreness of all that is.

That awareness of moreness – of potentiality – is in turn the very source and womb of all that is – of all actualities. You need not be afraid of it. For it is your womb too, and the source of your own inexhaustible potentials.

As for me, I am aware of being MORE than all these philosophical words of mine. Yet they are also more than me - for they speak of far more than what I alone am. They not only give expression to the moreness that I am aware of, but to that Divine Awareness which I, like you, are but one expression and embodiment of - never complete.

That Divine Awareness already embraces your moreness as well as mine. Embrace it as it already embraces you. Become it, as it has already become you - in all the ways that become you, and more.

Let the awareness of moreness be your mantra.



THE BIG ‘ENERGY BLOCK’ TO UNDERSTANDING

In many Indian religious and philosophical traditions, ‘God’, whether named as ‘Brahman’, ‘Vishnu’ or ‘Shiva’, has been understood as identical with universal or ‘transcendental’ AWARENESS. Yet what exactly does this Divine-Transcendental Awareness DO? Well, for one thing, it is understood as that which ‘emits’, ‘emanates’ or ‘manifests’ ALL things – from galaxies and solar systems, to suns and planets, seas and mountains, plants, animals and human beings. It manifests as the entire sensory world, as beings both natural and supernatural, and as bodies both physical and non-physical. In the Vedic philosophical tradition (‘Vedanta’) this sensory and worldly manifestation of the Divine was understood as ‘Maya’ – an illusion concealing the ultimately STATIC reality of the Divine-Transcendental Awareness itself. However, this left open the question of how and why this Divine Awareness should manifest itself as it does? In the Tantric and Shaivist philosophical tradition on the other hand, the Divine Awareness is understood as constantly and DYNAMICALLY manifesting the universe and everything in it. How? Through its innate creative ‘powers’ or ‘capacities’ to do so – its ‘Shaktis’. Why? In order to delight in its manifestation through these Shaktis - known collectively as the feminine aspect of divinity or ‘Shakti’. Yet as long as ‘Shakti’ is translated in the standard way - as ‘energy’ – the innately dynamic nature of creative manifestation as ACTION (‘Kriya’) cannot be understood.

The root meaning of the term ‘energy’ is ‘action’, ‘activity’ or ‘working’. New Age talk of actively ‘working’ with ‘energy’ is therefore tautological nonsense - meaning nothing more than ‘working with working’ or ‘acting with action. In so-called ‘energy medicine’ there is talk of ‘blocked energy’ or ‘energy blocks’. Yet essentially there is no such ‘thing’ as ‘energy blocks’ or ‘blocked energy’ - only blocked creative action. THE NEW YOGA is unique in recognising that the modern use of the term ‘energy’ is itself one of the biggest ‘blocks’ to understanding the DYNAMIC nature of Creation (‘Maya’) as an expression of the action ‘capacity’ or ‘potentiality’ (‘Shak’) of the Divine Awareness. ‘Shaktis’ are not ‘energies’ but divine POWERS OF ACTION. What people ‘experience’ as ‘energy’ is not some ‘thing in itself’ that can be felt or that ‘flows’ in currents like electricity. It is nothing but the vitality of a felt capacity to act - a felt power of action, one that is released by and from awareness.


‘ENERGY’ AS ACTION

‘Energy’ is not a ‘thing’ like a painting, but an ‘-ing’ - like the very action of paint-ING. Just as a painting is the creative manifestation of action – the action of painting - so is a song the manifestation of the action of singing, and a text the manifestation of the action of writing. If we understand the word ‘energy’ in its root sense – not as some visible or invisible thing but as formative or creative ACTION – then we can begin to understand how every word we use as a noun - to denote some ‘thing’ - is actually the expression of a verb, of an ‘-ing’. And that not only such words but the very ‘things’ they denote – like ‘a painting’ or ‘a song’ – are also the manifestations of an ‘-ing’, of ACTION. A basic obstacle or ‘block’ to this understanding is the use of the term ‘energy’ itself as a noun – as if it referred to some ‘thing’ rather than to the action that forms all things. Another obstacle is our everyday use of such simple and basic words as ‘is’ and ‘has’. For whenever we say that there ‘is’ a tree, that this tree ‘has’ branches, flowers, fruit and leaves, and that those leaves ‘are’ green in summer or yellow, orange and brown in autumn, we conceal a fundamental truth. Trees do not ‘have’ branches (plural noun). They BRANCH (verb). Branches do not ‘have’ leaves or flowers or fruit – they LEAF, FLOWER and FRUIT (verbs). Leaves ‘are’ not green. They GREEN – or they yellow and orange, redden and brown. The Divine Transcendental Awareness is that which not only branches and leaves like a tree in a forest. IT is that which trees - just as it is that which forests and grasses, mountains and seas, skies and earths, suns and moons. It is also that which ultimately bodies us, first as sperm and egg, then as a single cell. For bodies do not ‘have’ organs and limbs. They begin as single cells which, by the action of dividing, multiplying and differentiating, literally ORGAN-ISE themselves into full-fledged and fully-limbed human ‘organisms’ - hearting, braining and lunging themselves, arming, legging and footing themselves, toeing and fingering themselves. Yet behind every cell or organism, as behind all things, is the Divine Awareness which ‘-ings’. This Awareness is the divine source of all that ‘IS’ because it alone is what ACTS. All ‘beings’ are its ‘be-ING’.


THE DIVINE LOGIC OF ‘SHIVA-SHAKTI’

Normally we might look, for example at a red-painted wall and think – there ‘is’ a wall and it ‘is’ red. If, through the intensified light of the Divine Awareness within us, we can look at a red-painted wall and experience it as that Awareness continuously and actively ATOMISING and MOLECULARISING itself – thereby also WALLING itself, CONCRETING itself and REDDING itself – then and only then will we experience it as the sensory expression of a unique sensual quality of awareness, made manifest by a unique power of action - a unique ‘Shakti’ of Shiva. Every sensory quality or thing is an expression of the Divine Awareness dynamically manifesting itself in tangible, sensory and concrete forms – by concreting, walling and redding itself, by treeing and branching itself, by mountaining, foresting and oceaning itself – and, last but not least, by individualising, humanising and personifying itself in every individual human being or ‘person’. Yet to experience this DIVINE TRUTH of ‘Shiva-Shakti’ we must learn to think according to DIVINE LOGIC. We must cease to think or say to ourselves: There is ‘X’ or ‘X’ is ‘Y’. For example: “There is ‘a garland of flowers’” and “They are red.” Instead, we must think and then begin to feel and tangibly experience truth in different terms, namely:

There does IT (the Divine Awareness) ‘X’ itself. For example: There It GARLANDS, FLOWERS, REDS itself etc. In Tantric terms: There does SHIVA (noun) SHAKTI (verb). The divine and dynamic logic of ‘Shiva-Shakti’ is that Shiva SHAKTIS (verb), releasing - through action - those action capacities or potentials that are its ‘Shaktis’. We EXPERIENCE this reality whenever we take sheer delight in just seeing someone, a child or beloved, for example, just fully and actively ‘being themselves’. For then we sense that their ‘being’ is nothing static but rather dynamic and vital action - their ‘be-ING’. As action, it is also a unique expression of ‘IT’ - of the Divine Awareness (Shiva) that is the well-spring of all action (Shakti). This DELIGHT in people can become a delight in the inner action that is the very ‘be-ing’ of all things - if we experience them with the intensified LIGHT of Awareness that is Shiva.

Peter, I loved both pieces. I felt that 'blocked energy' was extra special. Inspired me to write:

I sit at my desk writing this small piece.
If it is Shiva who is treeing and branching and leaving and greening,
And not the tree which has branches and leaves which are green,
Than I do not make this writing as if it is a production of mine.
Shiva is Andrew-ing, but more than this,
Shiva is keyboarding and desking
Shiva is writing this piece through me just as I write the piece through the keyboard
But I am creating this piece
Thus I and Shiva are ONE and I am a creative arm of Shiva
The delight I feel in creat-ing is his delight in Andrew-ing.

UPDATE on the The New Yoga site facilities and content:

Go to homepage and click on button entitled 'Yoga and Globalisation' to read about the revolutionary social dimension of The New Yoga.

Click on 'Feedback Forum' to view our new bulletin board for site visitors - and feel free to use it to contribute comments and questions on site content, and share experiences of practicing The New Yoga.

Click on 'About Us' to see first entries to our photogallery - 'Faces of The New Yoga'.

Scroll down to read further fresh pages of THE NEW YOGA OF AWARENESS: TANTRIC WISDOM FOR TODAY'S WORLD:


MALAS - LIMITATIONS OF IDENTITY

‘Mala’ (‘dross’) is the traditional term for an ‘impurity’ standing in the way of liberation of the individual soul from bondage. The three main Malas are named ‘Karmamala’, ‘Anavamala’ and ‘Mayamala’. THE NEW YOGA understands all three Malas as limiting aspects of our identity – of our sense of self or ‘I’-ness.
 
Karmamala has to do with our body identity, which consists of nothing but patterns of bodily action (karma). We do not sit and stand, walk and talk, breathe and speak, or generally ‘act’ in the ways we do because we ‘possess’ a particular body or identity. On the contrary these patterns of bodily action are what constitutes our bodily identity or sense of self. The essence of Karmamala is unaware identification with fixed or habitual karmic patterns – patterns of bodily action or ‘behaviour’. Its hidden and unspoken mantra is “I AM the way I act’.” Therefore ‘I’ insist on “doing it my way”. “I cannot act in any other way because that is who ‘I’ am”. The essence of Karmamala lies in identification with our physical body as such - rather than with awareness of one’s body and its countless possible modes of action.

Anavamala has to do with the inwardly felt body and inwardly felt self rather than our physical body and body identity. It is the felt sense of one’s body and self as a bounded atomic unit of awareness (‘Anu’) but one that is isolated, separate and apart from others and from all other bodies – an atomised sense of individuality. Its hidden mantra is “I AM the way I feel myself, whether ‘I’ feel happy, or ‘I’ feel sad. “I am my own experience of ‘myself’ as a person and nothing more”. The essence of Anavamala therefore lies in identification with limited ways of experiencing one’s self, rather than with awareness of the all the ways in which we do or could experience that self or ‘I’.

Mayamala is the essence of both Karmamala and Anavamala. It is the whole IDEA of the self as a fixed identity or ‘I’ separate from the world and other beings. Its unspoken mantra is “I AM my mental idea or image of myself.” Its essence is identification with mind - with mental activity and with a mental ‘I’ or ‘ego’ that thinks of itself as a totally detached agent – untouched and unaltered by its own actions and experiences. For this subject or ‘I’ the experienced self and other, body and world, are all mere objects. This is the basic, dualistic delusion called ‘Maya’.
WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY “I”?

When we utter the word “I” - saying ‘I feel happy’ or ‘I feel miserable’ for example - what exactly are we DOING? Are we using the grammatical ‘subject’ - the word “I” - to express our immediate ‘subjective’ experience of ourselves as happy or miserable, to express that particular self we experience as happy or miserable? Or are we using the word “I” only to ‘refer’ to ourselves in a detached way - as if we were an OBJECT for ourselves? The question becomes sharper when people speak in the past tense. If someone says “I had a bad week last week”, who exactly does the word “I” speak for - the self or ‘I’ that is actually speaking (a self that maybe still feels bad) or just some past self that the word “I” is used to speak ‘of’ or ‘about’? In a quite general sense, whenever we speak - even if we don’t actually use the word “I” - we are always giving expression to a Speaking Self or ‘I’. This self is expressed through both what we say and the way we say it – the emotional tone and message of our words. Whenever we DO use the word “I” however, we must be aware of whether it is actually expressing our subjective, speaking self or ‘I’, or just being used to talk in a detached way ABOUT some self we are speaking OF. The question is a serious one in ‘talking cures’ such as counselling or psychotherapy - where people are actively encouraged to use language to speak ‘about’ themselves. For unless both listener and speaker are aware of the difference between the Speaking Self or ‘I’ and the Spoken Self, the self that is spoken ‘of’ or ‘about’, it becomes easy for the speaker to hide behind the word “I” – using it to distance themselves from their immediate experience of themselves IN THE VERY ACT of seeming to ‘share’ their experience and speak ‘about’ themselves. The same applies to us all and in all situations. Only if we are AWARE of the difference between the Speaking Self and the Spoken Self, between speaking of or about ourselves and truly speaking FROM ourselves – only then can we avoid hiding behind the tiny word “I” - using this word and language in general to DISTANCE ourselves from our IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE of ourselves and the world. Beware then - ‘be-aware’ - of that tiny word “I”, even before using it.
EXPERIENCING FULLY THROUGH AWARENESS

Direct experiencing is sensuous, bodily experiencing. Our immediate bodily sense of ease or dis-ease, comfort or dis-comfort, for example, is not the same thing as any words we might label it with or use to ‘account’ for it. We might say we are feeling ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or in a good or bad ‘mood’. Yet no two ‘good’ moods or ‘bad’ moods – indeed no experiences at all - ever have exactly the same ‘mood’ to them – the same bodily feeling tone and sensuous quality.

To EXPERIENCE life fully means to be fully and directly AWARE of all that we are experiencing in an immediate, sensuous and bodily way. Cultivating this direct AWARENESS of our experiencing is by no means the same thing however as using language to create a verbal ACCOUNT of it - whether intellectual or emotional, medical or psychological. Nor is it the same as just ACTING OUT our experience - through our behaviourial REACTIONS to it.

THE NEW YOGA OF AWARENESS is based on a Fundamental Distinction between anything we EXPERIENCE and the very AWARENESS of experiencing it. Not recognising that distinction and hence lacking that awareness however, many people do not actually EXPERIENCE life as directly and intensely as they could. They make up for the AWARENESS needed to intensify their experience by creating ACCOUNTS of that experience. These accounts can serve either to intellectually distance themselves from their direct experience or to intensify it INDIRECTLY – for example through their emotional reactions to it. The accounts also help the individual to maintain a familiar and comforting sense of IDENTITY. For example, if someone ‘knows’ through their account that either they or another person are ‘just’ going through another ‘bad mood’ or ‘outburst’, ‘depression’ or ‘panic attack’, or ‘just’ acting or reacting in the ‘same’ old way again, then there is no need to deepen their immediate bodily awareness of either WHAT they are experiencing or WHO is acting – the unique bodily sense of self or ‘body identity’ that their experience or actions express.
THE ‘EGO’ AND THE WORD “I”

… not even uttering the word “I”, one should enquire keenly thus: “Now what is it that rises as ‘I’?” Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

Words, above all the word ‘I’, can be spoken in three distinct ways. There is the “I” that is spoken as if it were always the same, a subject separate from any and all the different thoughts, feelings and actions it describes. This “I” resounds in the same way and with the same tone whether a person says “I feel happy” or “I feel miserable”. It is the commonplace, yet totally hollow and purely linguistic ‘I’ that can be called the ‘Ego’– that ‘self’ that takes itself as entirely separate and immune from every tangible experience or action of itself. Through this detached or dis-identified “I” we turn all that we experience – including our self-experience - into an OBJECT of spoken descriptions or accounts in which, paradoxically, the experienced self that SPEAKS this account has vanished except as a word. Seemingly at the other end of the scale to this detached and objectifying use of the word ‘I’ is the “I” that is uttered in a way that expresses a person’s current SUBJECTIVE experience of themselves. Yet since it does so in a way that may be almost entirely shaped and bound to that person’s ACCOUNT of their experience, it is by no means free of the objectifying ego or “I” – in fact it is but the flip side of it. The more intellectual or ‘Objective Ego’ uses the word “I” and its verbal accounts to detach and distance itself from its direct subjective experience of reality. The more emotional or ‘Subjective Ego’ on the other hand, ‘I-dentifies’ its subjective experience of reality with the verbal accounts it gives of it. Different people’s use of the word “I” reveal different positions on a scale between ‘objective detachment’ from and ‘subjective expression’ of their experience - between the Objective and Subjective sides of the Ego. So is there a way of saying “I” in a way that transcends the Ego? Yes, there is - but this way of saying “I” is dependent on AWARENESS of our Ego in both its sides. That means BEING AWARE (‘BE-WARE’) of the word “I” and the ways we use it, BEING AWARE of our immediate bodily experiencing - and AWARE too, of our own verbal ACCOUNTS of our experience and how they shape our expression of it. Only by BEING AWARE in all these ways can the word “I” also resound with that ‘Self’ or ‘I’ which IS awareness – the AWARENESS SELF.

FROM THE EGO TO THE AWARENESS SELF

The ‘Shiva Sutras’ are the foundational scripture or treatise (‘tantra’) of Kashmir Shaivism. The first aphoristic statement or ‘Sutra’ that appears in them is but a single, finite word in Sanksrit – but a word that makes an extraordinary statement – an ‘infinite statement’. The word is ‘Chaitanyamatma’. What this one word says is that the AWARENESS of an aware being (‘Chetana’) is itself the essential ‘is-ness’, ‘being’ or ‘self’ (‘Atman’) of that being – the ultimate reality behind the word ‘I’. ‘Chaitanyamatma’ can be translated both as a statement (‘Awareness is the Self’) or simply as a compound noun - ‘Awareness Self’. Either way, the message is the same. This is that ‘Being a Self’ means not only ‘Being Aware’ but ‘Being Awareness’ - identifying with awareness as one’s very being, self or ‘I’. The self as ‘ego’ takes the dual form of a subjectively experienced ‘self’ and/or an objectified self – its account of itself as part of its experienced world. The Awareness Self, on the other hand is ultimately identical with Shiva - that ultimate or divine awareness that embraces all selves and worlds. Both as subject and as object of awareness the egoic ‘I’ has its source within that Self which does not ‘have’ awareness but IS awareness – a non-local FIELD of awareness. The word “I” can thus not only give expression to the individual as an isolated Ego but as a singular centre of this field – a ‘singularity’ which expresses its entirety.

Question: Is THE NEW YOGA a spiritual ‘cult’?

Answer: We know that ‘cults’ such as Scientology can be dangerous and damaging to individuals. Yet the question of whether THE NEW YOGA is a ‘cult’ can itself be seriously misleading unless it is seen in a larger historical and global context. Not only did all mainstream religions begin as cults. So also did the mainstream sciences – born of small societies of individuals regarded by many as cranks. More importantly, today there is not a single business corporation, political party or institution, not a single academic faculty or scientific specialism, not a single social, medical, psychiatric or educational service that is not a ‘cult’ - being built around UNQUESTIONED IDEOLOGIES AND CODES OF CONDUCT, which - were they to be examined more closely - would reveal themselves as profoundly irrational and counter-productive to their own espoused aims. So forget Scientology and other ‘New Age’ spiritual cults. Remember instead that these are not cults but COUNTER-CULTS – created in the mirror image of their mainstream counterparts. ‘Scientology’ for example is a ‘cult’ deliberately conceived and constructed in the image of the American corporate cults - with their authoritarian and high-pressure ‘culture’, their high-powered marketing drives aimed at susceptible consumers, their almost religious fetishism of their own brands and their self-styled but wholly superficial corporate ‘philosophies’, ‘missions’ and ‘values’ – all of which serve nothing but the ruthless exploitation of their employees. The common denominator of such contemporary ‘mainstream’ cults is that unlike those of the past - which seeded whole cultures - today’s cults constitute the most concerted attack ever mounted on humanity’s entire CULTURAL heritage. Everything from ancient philosophy to classical music - indeed ALL the most deeply philosophical, spiritual, scientific and artistic traditions of the past are being marginalised or brush-stroked out of history by today’s ‘supercults’ of shallowness. THE NEW YOGA is indeed intended as a ‘counter-cult’ to the supercults of materialist science and market economics and consumerist culture – NOT a cult to be created in their corporate image, but rather as a temple of knowledge in which to both guard and renew the historic richness of true spiritual CULTURE.

Given all of your quite amazing phenomenological work, work in psychotherapy, medicine, Fundamental Science, all of which so carefully restores Presence, body, world, I confess, I cannot understand why you would enter into developing The New Yoga and its attending resonances rather than re-vision Christianity anew, which seems to me where the stream you have been working within lies. Not only would such a direction save you from the many pitfalls of "guruism", it also would continue the evolution of consciouness rather than go in a direction that seems to me to be regressive.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your appreciation of my work, and also for the critical questions you raised in your contribution to my Bulletin Board - questions whose significance I fully affirm.

I myself can appreciate your puzzlement at the new direction taken by my work, and yet it is difficult in a short letter to fully explain the inner reasons why I decided on this direction. Although this new direction was presaged in the final chapter of my book 'From New Age to New Gnosis' - which introduces 'The NewYoga' - the decision was influenced by several other factors too.

Not least of these was a long-standing desire to find a framework that could give greater expression to - and allow me to find ways of passing on - certain highly unusual personal capacities and practices, exercised over many decades and long before I began to conceive the comprehensive framework of
'The New Yoga'.

These capacities and practices are embodied through a unique form of pair meditation, one which has long served a principal inter-subjective medium for my own inter-phenomenological therapy and experiential research. Yet despite being a major source of the insights expressed in my writings on phenomenology, medicine and science, they have until now remained concealed behind them. I did find certain rough approximations of these soul capacities and meditational practices in the literature of both 'shamanism' and 'mesmerism', but it was their neo-tantric character - not to mention the many different 'disciplines' or 'yogas' which I have learned over time are necessary to impart them - that led me to eventually decide on and develop 'The New Yoga' rubric, both as a new tantric philosophy and as a way of clearly outlining these disciplines as a new YOGA of awareness and not as a merely as a new theoretic and scientific concept of 'phenomenology', however significant.

Another reason for the decision lay in the indications given in the Seth books of Jane Roberts - also cited in 'New Age to New Gnosis' - that the 'new way
of thinking' and new 'religion' that humanity is sorely in need of, whilst deeply rooted in and indeed SERVING a re-visioned Christian 'mission' - would and should not itself have a publicly or symbolically 'Christian' character - with all the 'resonances' of Christianity itself.

As for the "pitfalls of guruism", and the "attending resonances" of 'The New Yoga' which you refer to - whilst I fully acknowledge these my intent - exactly as in 'New Age to New Gnosis' - is precisely to make use of them in order to subvert and turn upside down the conventional New Age
understandings, in this case taken-for-granted understandings of what 'gurus', 'yoga' and 'tantra' are essentially all about.

In 'New Age to New Gnosis' I was aided by being able to back-reference to historic sources such as the 'Gnostic Gospels' - thereby not only offering an onto-phenomenological re-interpretation of 'gnosis' and early Christian 'gnosticism' but also a deeply religious and 'gnostic' re-interpretation of Marxism and Heideggerian ontology.

So too, in offering a phenomenological re-interpretation of tantric philosophy and practices, I am able to now also present a tantric re-interpretation of the essence of phenomenology.

The decision to shift from a basically 'Christic-Gnostic' to a
'Shaivist-Tantric' orientation has also come out of deep respect for the much more explicit and
sophisticated phenomenological understanding of awareness articulated in tantric philosophical text and commentaries - as opposed to Christian gnostic scriptures.

I also feel it important that much more recognition be given in the West to how deeply yogic and tantric philosophers anticipated and addressed - over a millennium ago - almost all the central philosophical issues raised in later German idealist philosophy - and out of which European
'phenomenology' itself arose.

Yet throughout my evolving book on 'Tantric Wisdom for Today's World' I seek also to implicitly and explicitly spell out central differences between the philosophy and practices of 'The New Yoga' and that of the Old - and to emphasise what I see as the genuinely NEW and original aspects 'The New Yoga' - which I by no means see as "regressive" but rather as revolutionary (see the new section on the site entitled 'Yoga and Globalisation'.
I therefore beseech you to give me the benefit of your understandable doubts and, suspending judgement for a time (phenomenological 'bracketing'!) to look more closely at the detailed content of the writings presented in The New Yoga site - which by no means ignore the bodying and presencing of awareness.

Your feedback on this content would be most welcome - either through my personal Bulletin Board (or through the new Feedback Forum on the site). It would be also nice to know something more about you - and about which of my websites, articles and books you have studied or come across so far. You mention my writings on medicine, 'Fundamental Science' and the re-visioning of Christianity, so I assume you know of www.inniverse.org site and also www.thenewgnosis.org. - as well as www.heidegger.org.uk (which now has a new sub-section with its own url: www.thenewmedicine.org.uk ).
Are you also aware also of my sites on The New Therapy
(www.thenewtherapy.org ) The New Science (www.thenewscience.org )? For both sites
present a phenomenological philosophy clearly congruent with that of The New Yoga - grounded on a distinction of awareness fields as such and their content in the form of 'lived experience' - but emphasing also the bodily character of awareness and the importance of presencing or 'bodying' its innate sensual shapes, tones and textures.

As for the relation of The New Yoga to European thinking and phenomenology, you may find the article (in the Further Teachings section of the site) on 'The New Yoga and The New Thinking' of particular interest in relation to Martin Heidegger
and my own earlier, onto-phenomenological writings.

You may also be interested to know that - in the light of the type of understandable doubts your message gives voice to - 'The New Thinking' is also the planned name for an eventual new 'hubsite' for my writings, one in which I will seek to draw together their many different strands and the diverse traditions they draw from -so as to show their essential
unity-in-diversity.

I thank you again for writing, and look forward to hearing from you again.
with best wishes,

Peter Wilberg

PS I will post up a portion of this mail on the Bulletin Board for others to see and also to facilitate - if you wish - further dialogue between us on it.



< replied-to message removed by QT >

Appendices to NAGAS - THE TRANS-HUMAN SOURCES OF TANTRIC SERPENT SYMBOLISM
See this latest pdf article in 'Further Teachings'section of site.

APPENDIX 1 – BEYOND ‘OBJECTIVE’ SCIENCE
From ‘The Unknown Reality’, Volume 1, by Jane Roberts

So-called objective science gives you a picture, a model, that has served well enough in its own fashion, enabling you to travel to the moon, for example, and to advance in a technology that for a time you set your hearts upon. In the framework of objective science as it now exists, however, even the technology will come up against a stone wall. Even as a means, objective science is only helpful for a while, because it will constantly run up against deeper inner realities that are necessarily shunted aside and ignored simply because of its method and attitude. No objective science or splendid technology alone will keep even one man or woman alive, for example, if that individual has decided to leave the flesh, or finds no joy in daily life.

A loving technology, again, would always add to the qualitative and spiritual deepening of experience … The true scientist is not afraid of identifying with the reality he chooses to study. He knows that only then can he dare to begin to understand its nature. There are many unofficial scientists, true ones in that regard, unknown in this age. Many are quite ordinary people in exterior terms, with other professions. Yet it is no accident that greater discoveries are often made by ‘amateurs’ - those who are relatively free from official dogmas, released from the pressure to get ahead in a given field - those whose creativity flows freely and naturally in those areas of their natural interest.

Without an identification with the land, the planet and the seasons, all of your technology will not help you understand the earth, or even use it effectively, much less fully. Without an identification with the race as a whole, no technology can save the race. Unless man also identifies himself with the other kinds of life with which he shares the world, no technology will ever help him understand his experience. I am speaking in very practical terms. Gadgets will, ultimately, teach you nothing about the dimensions of your own consciousness. When you use them (biofeedback, for instance) even to attain alterations of consciousness, you are programming yourselves, stepping apart from yourselves.
… gadgets can be useful only if they show you that such alterations are naturally possible. Otherwise, with your ideas of applied science and technology … gadget-produced altered states will almost certainly be used to manipulate, rather than free, consciousness. I am not making a prediction here. I am simply pointing out one probability that exists.

There have indeed been civilizations upon your planet that understood as well as you, and without your kind of technology, the workings of the planets, the positioning of stars—people who even foresaw ‘later’ global changes. They used a mental physics. There were men before you who journeyed to the moon, and who brought back data quite as ‘scientific’ and pertinent. There were those who understood the ‘origin’ of your solar system far better than you. Some of these civilizations did not need spaceships.4 Instead, highly trained men combining the abilities of dream-art scientists and mental physicists cooperated in journeys not only through time but through space. There are ancient maps drawn from a 200 mile-or-more vantage point - these meticulously completed on return from such journeys.
There were sketches of atoms and molecules, also drawn after trained men and women learned the art of identifying with such phenomena. There are significances hidden in the archives of many archaeological stores that are not recognized by you because you have not made the proper connections—and in some cases you have not advanced sufficiently to understand the information.
The particular thrust and direction of your own science have been directly opposed to the development of such inner sciences, however, so that to some extent each step in the one direction has thus far taken you further from the other … Until you perceive the innate consciousness behind any "visible" or "invisible" manifestations, then, you put a definite barrier to your own knowledge.

APPENDIX 2 – THE PAST AS KEY TO THE FUTURE

From the speeches of Subcommander MARCOS of the
indigenous Mexican ZAPATISTA liberation movement:

Brothers and sisters:

We want to say a few words to those present in the National Indigenous Forum:

There exists, in many of our indigenous communities in Mexico, the custom of reading in the first days of January how the months of the year to come will be. This knowledge serves to know when to prepare the earth, when to plant the seed and when to harvest. Amongst the most ancient Mayas, this practice was known as Xoc-kin or "accounting of the days".
And there were then, as there are today, learned men and women. The H-MEN, "those who know"". These H-MEN have great knowledge which they had learned in their dreams. Through dreams the gods taught the H-MEN the knowledge of the world. In this way they could find things that were lost, they could cure sickness with their medicinal plants and their prayers and they could read the future in their sacred stones or by counting grains of corn; but their main responsibility and concern was to use their direction to ensure a good harvest. Today we have our H-MEN, those men and women of knowledge who make up the body of counselors of the EZLN to seek peace with dignity. They are the ones who organized this forum which will allow us to find one another and construct the bridge of the seventh rainbow. They dreamed together with the great gods, the ones who gave birth to the world, the first ones, and from them was learned great words and their best thoughts. They have been able to find things that were lost, the word, reason, disinterest, dignity. They have been able to cure that most mortal illness called oblivion. They have been able to read the future by reading what their hearts say and counting the grains of corn, which in the world of today are called hearts.
But, just like our ancient H-MEN, their principal responsibility and concern is to give direction so that we may have a good harvest. Therefore we ask you, the participants of this attending this National Indigenous Forum, to join us in this salute, which we give to the knowledge of our counselors, and ask that it be used to secure a good harvest in the seeding of the word and the knowledge of dignity, as we end today. We ask for an accurate tally of the Xoc-kin, so that we may know about the days, and our harvest may be good and the brown chests of the first inhabitants of these lands may always be filled with hope.
Some of our counsellors are not here today to build this bridge, for different reasons. A good group of our H-MEN are not here because they are imprisoned.

They are accused of the crime of belonging to an organization with which the government dialogues, under the protection of a law. By keeping them in prison, the government violates a law that forces it to talk and not to fight. That is why these men and women are our counselors on this good road. We, the Zapatistas, want to ask all of you to send, together with us, a salute to these prisoners. And we ask you to salute them in the traditional way of indigenous communities, by applauding.

To all who have attended the National Indigenous Forum corresponds the task of planting the seeds of the word that we have gathered these days. Here, in the Valley of Jovel, where intolerance, racism and stupidity, which excludes, reign, we have gathered to speak and to know one another. We have gathered up the seed. We must prepare the planting of a tomorrow. Today we must live in a country that is not like the one of our fathers. Today we live in a country with a government that wants to sell us to the foreigners, as though we were animals, things. We, the indigenous people, are just merchandise, they say. The great The Powerful of money does not want to buy a merchandise that does not produce good profits. And we the indigenous people are not profitable. We are a bad investment. That is why the salesman who is in the government gives us oblivion and repression, because he cannot get a good price for our sale. Today the salesman has to modernize his store and has to eliminate all of the merchandise that is unattractive and we, with our dark skin and this overwhelming need to stay close to the earth, which makes us short in stature, are not attractive.

They want to forget us. But it is not only the indigenous threatened by this oblivion, there are many other unattractive Mexican men and women because their value is not transferable in dollars. Those, who are not indigenous, and we, who are, have been condemned to oblivion. Our hose is sold by all and along with it our history. If we want to save ourselves from oblivion, we must do it together, united. Today the hope of this Nation which hurts has an indigenous heart, it is up to its brown skin to save us from oblivion. It is not enough to die, this we have learned now for five centuries. Now it is necessary to live and to live together with the others who are also us.

The past is the key of the future. In our past we have wisdom which can serve to construct a future- where all of us fit without squeezing one another the way in which we are squeezed today by those above us. The future of the nation must be found by looking towards the past, towards those who were the first inhabitants, to those who first had wisdom, who first made us.

We have to prepare for the planting. We must become rain, we have be like the CHAACOB or gods of rain who came out of the underground reservoirs and met in the sky to travel by horse, each one with his sacred gourd full of water, in hand moistening the earth from one to the other so that all might have the giver of life, water.

If the rain is not present, then we will have to kneel as did our forefathers and sing much the same way the frogs do before the rain and beat the branches as the wind of a storm and someone will play the role of KUNU-CHAAC, the principal god of rain, with his lightening rod and sacred gourd.

We must know how to sow and how to plant one another. No more are the times when the stones were soft and they could be moved by whistling, and when it was not necessary to work to plow the field, and when one grain of corn was enough to feed a whole family. Since the chief was defeated by a foreigner at Chichen Itza the good times have ended and the bad times began. The ancient chief buried himself in a tunnel which runs east from Tulum submerged beneath the ocean. Then the foreigner DZUL, took the Powerful. Today we have to turn so that reason can reign in our lands. We will do this by seeding the word.

We are our earth. We understand well how we and the earth are one. In olden times before the agricultural camp, the field was protected by four spirits. There were another four which cared for the village, one for each cross planted in the corners of the village. The MACEHUALES, our ancient ones, had seven directions; the first four were the corners of the field or the village, the fifth was the center and in each community it was traditionally marked by a cross and a silk- cotton tree. The sixth and seventh directions go up and down. In addition to the four guardians of the field and the four of the village, each person had an individual guardian. In order to represent the five points, the four plus the center, our ancestors used a cross. As time passed the center rose, and the four corners became five and this star with five points now represents a guardian of men and women and harvests.

Guardian and heart of the people is Votan-Zapata who is also the guardian and heart of the word. He, the man, the star with the five points who represents humanity, he. Today that we have spoken and listened, he is happy, the heart of Votan-Zapata is happy.

SELF-STRUCTURES AND ADDICTION TO STORIES

The word ‘addiction’ stems from the Latin ‘addicere’ - to ‘adjudge’ or ‘account for’. The foremost, most fundamental and widespread addiction that individuals face today is not addiction to drugs but to STORIES - to the ‘accounts’ of themselves and others that people have or are constantly making up in their heads and minds. People are addicted to their stories, real or fictional - whether personal biographical stories, mythical and religious stories, or scientific and medical fairy tales – because they need them to sustain and reinforce their current sense of identity - of who they are and of what ‘reality’ as such truly is. The problem is that the ‘identity’ and ‘reality’ that peoples’ stories sustain is entirely bound to their past experience of themselves and the world, or to their current SELF-STRUCTURE and social reality. Addiction to stories is addiction to the self-structures and social realities they shape and sustain. Telling each other their stories further reinforces peoples’ identification with their past self-experience and with their current self-structures, self-concepts and social reality. As a result they lose any sense of their Prime Identity – or indeed of any larger identity that transcends their current or past self-experience.

The reason why stories and story-telling are so hugely addictive is because – no matter how painful or tragic a person’s story may be – it also comfortably confirms and contains them within an already established ‘account’ of themselves, of their lives and of reality as such. In the past however, spiritual teachers and teachings made successful use of stories – for example in the form of myths and parables – to alter and enlarge peoples’ experience of themselves and reality as such. Mythical and religious stories of creation and of the gods were often quite ‘lurid’ - for in this way alone could they LURE people into experiencing a larger spiritual reality and ‘hook’ them to that larger reality. Individual ‘contra-diction’ of established religious dogmas or ‘dicta’ was necessarily considered dangerous – for it risked undoing other people’s ‘ad-diction’ to stories which were seen as vital for the common good and well-being of humanity – and WERE so for some time. This, however, is no longer the case. This is why spiritual teachings now need to go beyond stories and myths to the meditation of abstract principles – not least the Awareness Principle at the heart of Tantra and THE NEW YOGA.

BEYOND STORY-TELLING IN SPIRITUAL TEACHING

Today deep spiritual teachings and truths can no longer be imparted through stories or symbols, parables or religious myths, old or new. Instead they can only be imparted through the meditation of ABSTRACT CONCEPTS, DISTINCTIONS and PRINCIPLES - not least THE AWARENESS PRINCIPLE – and their transformation into richly sensuous and bodily experiences of awareness. The Awareness Principle itself offers a fundamental ‘abstract’ distinction between awareness, experience, experiences that emerge OUT OF awareness, and direct experiences OF awareness and of its transcendental qualities. Yet opposed to THE AWARENESS PRINCIPLE is the current dominance of THE ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLE – the use of mythical stories or mental ‘accounts’ of experience - whether mundane or spiritual - to replace a direct AWARENESS of experience. Accounts easily block or limit awareness of countless dimensions of experience. They can also prevent us from attaining direct spiritual experiences OF awareness. Yet it is only from ‘spiritual’ experiences of this sort – experiences of AWARENESS - that a wholly new understanding or ACCOUNT of reality can arise –not one based on myths, old or new but on a new way of THINKING. This is what Heidegger called “meditative thinking” as opposed to purely quantitative and “calculative” thinking – commercial, scientific or technological. THE NEW THINKING is based neither on this purely ‘calculative’ reasoning and accounting, on purely personal or mythical stories and accounts, or on purely ‘logical’ reasoning and accounting - but on the meditation of ABSTRACT CONCEPTS, DISTINCTIONS AND PRINCIPLES. Ordinary ‘scientific’ reasoning seeks to question and account for CAUSES – for example the causes of illness. Ordinary ‘logical’ reasoning and argumentation questions the truth of PROPOSITIONS, for example the proposition that ‘God exists’. THE NEW THINKING on the other hand, is a reasoning that questions basic CONCEPTS rather than either ‘causes’ or ‘propositions’ – for example by asking What IS ‘God’? What IS ‘illness’? ‘What IS ‘energy’? This means MEDITATING what we MEAN by such concepts – asking ourselves how we are AWARE of EXPERIENCING them.

STORIES - A FEW THOUGHTS

That we are all addicted to stories is an exciting thought because it implies that we could relate to ourselves and each other without them. It reminds me of Castaneda's 'erasing personal history' as a way towards freedom.
Observing myself and others over the last few days I found it true that we all are more or less addicted to stories and, like with every addiction, we just can't help it. It's too tempting. As Peter says, one of the functions of the stories we tell ourselves or others is to affirm our self-structure, the more or less comfortable sense we have of who we are and how we relate to the world. And as long as there is nothing else that gives us this sense of comfort and security we will continue to need stories. With stories we hold ourselves and our-self structure together.
Stories also help us to either avoid or face a challenge, avoid change or let ourselves be changed by our experiences. We share our experiences in order to affirm and to get affirmed our account of our reality and identity. When we want to avoid a challenge or change we find a credible explanation why we couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't act in any other way than we did. Alternatively, we might confirm our help- and hopelessness at facing particular challenges or changes and that we therefore couldn't help doing what we did.
And we can also affirm a bolder self-structure and talk ourselves round to taking on the challenge or embracing change. In this way we can gradually extend the self-structure and grow.
I believe that creating self-structures is part of living in a world that is built out of structures. Even the most Fluid and the most Airy on earth consist of structured molecules made of atoms. However, just like atoms consist mainly of space with a few little bits whizzing around within it, so is our self-structure only a tiny part of and emerges from a much larger field of awareness. We do not need to identify with our self-structure. Yet we have invested tremendous effort into creating it, shaping it through our stories since we learnt our first words.
What we are often not aware of is how our stories change according to what it is we want to affirm. When we learn to listen to our stories as if they were being told by somebody else we can become aware of this self-structure. We can then see the story as a story, as one of many possible ways of accounting, and the self-structure we are affirming as one of many possible self-structures.

BEYOND STORIES IN PERSONAL LIFE

Whenever we sense a change or challenge to our familiar sense of self, it is all too easy to tell ourselves old stories in order to subsume this change within our existing self-structure and self-concept. By telling our stories to others we are effectively seeking affirmation from them of our existing self-structure, the familiar sense of self through which we feel it, and the self-image in which it is reflected. As speaking beings, none of us can do without stories. As selves, we cannot do without self-structures. Yet we do not need to IDENTIFY with these stories or psychological structures. That is where AWARENESS of our own mental stories comes in. Awareness allows us to listen to our stories as if they were being told by someone else. It also allows us to listen to other people in a new way – hearing how, through the stories they tell about themselves, they are actively constructing and/or identifying with their own self-experience and self-structure.

Social communication in general – whether personal or professional – is essentially the ‘co-construction’ of a consensual story or account of reality. This is now accepted in the ‘post-modern’ theories of ‘narrative’ psychotherapy - which is nothing but the understanding that the communication of therapist and client not only allows the client to ‘tell their story’ but is also the co-creation of a new narrative or story – a new consensual account of their experience. People may go into therapy just to hear themselves tell their own stories and in this way become more aware of important emotions attached to them. They may also go into therapy because their old stories are just not working for them - not in resonance with their emotional experience or not helpful in changing it. On the other hand, they may avoid or leave therapy because they are aware of the artificiality or ‘constructedness’ of the different accounts, - psychoanalytic, symbolic or scientific - through which therapists, counsellors, psychologists or psychoanalysts so often seek to frame their clients’ experience. This is not necessarily a bad sign – for it is only through awareness of stories AS stories – that we can learn to dis-identify from them.

BEYOND STORIES IN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

The opposite of heightened awareness is tacit consensus – silent collusion with the socially-agreed stories that lie behind most conventional accounts of reality. In the past it was religious stories that dominated the social consensus. Today it is the accounts of reality concocted by ‘science’ that dominate - with the difference that these are presented as proven ‘fact’ rather than as questionable historical stories. A ‘story’ is a historical or PERSONAL ACCOUNT, real or fictional, of events or experiences. An ‘account’ is a general, socially accepted story – for example religious stories of creation. Yet modern ‘scientific’ accounts of reality (including ‘Big Bang’ accounts of creation) are just as much socially accepted stories of this sort – just not seen as such. Fundamentalist religious sects take the words of their sacred texts not as symbols or metaphors but as literal descriptions of facts and of actual events. But you have a choice - you can either believe or not believe in these facts and events. Look into any scientific textbook however, and you will find the same sort of fundamentalism. Statements are made about ‘proven’ facts – but either in abstract mathematical symbolism or in a language that is replete with metaphors (for example the predominantly MILITARY metaphors of medical science which speak of the body’s immune ‘defences’). The difference to fundamentalist religion is that modern science claims that we cannot choose to believe or disbelieve its claims, it claims experimental ‘proof’ of them. The true ‘fact’ is however, that no account of reality, religious or scientific, that is based on verbal metaphors can be proven as a literal ‘fact’. Modern science has therefore no way of proving itself more ‘factual’ or ‘scientific’ than religion. For whilst an experiment can be repeated and its results validated, the INTERPRETATION of these results – through scientific concepts, terms and metaphors - cannot. That is why accounts of reality presented in the name of ‘science’ are a new form of fundamentalist RELIGION, for they too depend on a strictly LITERAL interpretation of these often totally unquestioned concepts, terms and metaphors.

Dear Friends,

Andrew Gara is my oldest soul-mate and correspondent, friend and fellow-traveller, on the long road to THE NEW YOGA. There is much more that could be written about our experiences along that road, which took its most decisive turn in 1975. For this was the year of our first encounter with each other in London and our first joint meeting with Michael Kosok in New Jersey – through whom I and then Andrew were introduced both to Mike’s ground-breaking work and to the extraordinary ‘Seth’ books of Jane Roberts. My own experiential journey has gone down many hitherto untravelled paths since then, and with it also my writings - none of which have been studied with greater dedication, enthusiasm and intensity than by Andrew. It is therefore with great pleasure that I can introduce his ‘Awareness Diary’, compiled from his correspondence with me during the period 2002 to 2006. It recounts, in his own uniquely fresh and lively language, both his intensive study of my writings and his own ever-evolving understanding and experiencing of awareness, over the same period in which my first six books were published, and their nine associated websites created.

Andrew’s complete diary (up to April 4 2006) can be opend or downloaded as a zipped pdf file by clicking on the Testimonials section of the homepage.

His latest entries can be read and received by subscription to his bulletin board – just click on the new homepage button marked ANDREWS AWARENESS DIARY.

I’m still meditating the nature of 'stories'. This is where I have
got so far. Consider ‘illness’. No one is arguing with the reality of
‘cancer’. But it is the interpretation of what an ‘illness’ is in the
first place that is in question. Similarly with the background
radiation in the universe. It is the interpretation in terms of a Big
Bang that should be in question. There is the data, observations, and
there is our interpretations of these. These interpretations are
always in metaphors, words, symbols. They are not value-free or
neutral. Science and ordinary thinking believes that the metaphors
they use just point to reality when, in fact, they are already
shaping that reality in their own image! In the beginning stories
were used deliberately to grab attention as you said. They had to do
this to get people to focus on the abstract — spirituality. The
stories were the means to an end. Now fundamentalists of all ilk have
got the whole thing reversed. Now the abstract stories are the
fundamental reality and the spiritual reality they pointed to has
been lost. So the task of phenomenology is to question the very
stories or accounts that we use to ‘explain’ reality. Why? Because we
have no idea anymore what we mean by words like ‘illness’, ‘death’,
space, time etc. They have become ‘mysteries‘ themselves in the same
way as long ago, spirituality was the mystery the stories were
drawing attention to. (I have asked in meetings at Carramar just what
do people mean when they use the word ‘illness’ and have been treated
as if I asked the obvious or am being pedantic). It always annoys me
when the shrinks at Carramar use the word phenomenology. Firstly
because they mean an account of the phenomena of the illness — a
travesty of what phenomenology is. (secondly because the rest of the
clinic groans at the ‘wanky’ word thrown around by the shrinks). Our
use of the word ‘illness’ is just as much a story as a burning bush
was long ago, or ‘adam and eve in the garden of eden’. Just as people
were right to question the meaning of a burning bush or the serpent
in the garden, so radical phenomenology is right to question what
‘illness’ means, death, space and time etc.

THE THREE ‘GUNAS’ AND HUMAN NATURE

The Gunas … successively dominate, support, activate, and interact with each other. Sattva is buoyant and shining. Rajas is stimulating and moving. Tamas is heavy and enveloping.
 
Ishvarakrishna Samkhyakarika, translated by Gerard J. Larson


The three ‘Gunas’ – called ‘Tamas’, ‘Rajas’ and ‘Sattva’ - are those Transcendental Qualities of Awareness which are at the same time basic constituents of both the natural universe and of HUMAN nature. Symbolised by the colours black, red and white respectively, each can dominate and colour our experience of the others. Each individual embodies a different combination and balance of Gunas, each of which is characterised by a fundamental mood, feeling tone or ‘colouration’ of awareness, and finds expression as a quite different disposition or ‘inner bearing’ towards the world. Unlike the Old Yoga, The New Yoga distinguishes between the Gunas as such, and the different ways in which they manifest in both nature and human experience.

 Tamas – symbolised by the colour black and meaning ‘obscured’ or ‘dark’, is the realm of hidden, latent, occult or inactive potentialities of awareness. In physical nature it finds expression as gravity and inertial mass. In human nature it is felt essentially as a downward-pulling sense of inertia and heaviness. If and when it dominates the individual however, it may be experienced somatically as ‘fatigue’, ‘lethargy’ or ‘lack of energy’, experienced mentally and emotionally as ‘dullness’ of mind or ‘depression’, expressed outwardly as ‘lazineness’ or ‘sloth’, or embodied as physical weight or obesity. Alternatively it can find positive expression as dignified ‘gravitas’ and ‘groundedness’, depth or of character, weightiness of soul and the ability to ‘bear’, ‘support’ or ‘pull’ weight. Essentially it is pure potentiality experienced as latent ‘power’. Temperamentally it unites the ‘phegmatic’ with the ‘black bile’ of the ‘melancholic’. Anatomically and medically it is associated with the bowels, belly (‘Hara’) and womb. Psychiatrically with depression.
Rajas – symbolised by the colour red, has essentially to do with the autonomous drive towards the activation, actualisation or ‘coming to presence’ of the potentialities hidden or latent in Tamas. In nature it finds expression as the process of ‘emergence’ (Greek ‘Physis’) that is actually the root meaning of the term ‘physical’, and with ‘energy’ in the root sense of this word - ‘activity’, ‘actualisation’ and ‘actuality’ (Greek ‘energein’). That is why the Rajas Guna is principally associated with physical impulses, drives and desires, with ‘red-blooded’ vitality and virility, with the natural aggression necessary to release and empower physical action, but also with anxiety, agitation or hot-blooded anger and rage – with ‘seeing red’. Temperamentally it is the Guna uniting the sanguine with the choleric. Anatomically it is associated with the genitals and heart, medically with blood sugar and blood-pressure, and psychiatrically with bipolarity and paranoia. It bridges the Tamas and Sattva Gunas.

Sattva – symbolised by the colour white, is a reflection of the light of awareness in which alone all potentialities of awareness can come to light as existent beings and manifest phenomena. As a natural quality this Guna is associated with light and lightness, and thereby also with the expansion and expansiveness of space. Psychologically it is associated with a feeling joyful brightness, levity and lightness, harmony and calmness - with feeling ‘up’ rather than ‘down’, ‘high’ rather than low’. Hence its identification with WELL-BEING as such. Yet the flip side of a dominant Sattva Guna can be bland equanimity or blankness of mind, or the idealisation of asceticism and ‘spiritual’ transcendence - at the expense of full-blooded vitality and embodied presence (Rajas) or depth of soul and seriousness of spirit (Tamas). Just as ‘black’ is not intrinsically the colour of ‘evil’ so is white not intrinsically the colour of ‘goodness’ and spiritual purity. It is also the colour of fearful pallor, of ghosts and of the skeleton - and, in the East, of death itself. Temperamentally the Sattva Guna unites the phlegmatic with the sanguine. Anatomically it is associated with the lymphatic and immune systems, medically with anaemia, and anorexia, and psychiatrically with schizophrenia.
KRISHNA ON THE GUNAS (1)

From the Bhagavadgita

Krishna said:
Sattva or goodness, Rajas or activity, and Tamas or inertia; these three Gunas of mind bind the imperishable soul to the body, Oh Arjuna.
Of these, Sattva, being calm, is illuminating and ethical. It fetters the embodied being,
The Jiva-atma, by attachment
To happiness and knowledge, O Arjuna.
O Arjuna, know that Rajas
Is characterized by intensity,
And is born of desire and attachment.
It binds the Jiva by attachment
To the fruits of action.
Know, O Arjuna, that Tamas, the deluder of Jiva,
Is born of inertia. It binds by ignorance, laziness, and sleep.
Oh Arjuna, Sattva attaches one to happiness,
Rajas to action, and Tamas to ignorance
By covering the knowledge.
Sattva dominates by suppressing Rajas and Tamas;
Rajas dominates by suppressing Sattva and Tamas;
And Tamas dominates by suppressing Sattva and Rajas, O Arjuna.




KRISHNA ON THE GUNAS (2)

Arjuna said:

What are the characteristics of those
Who have transcended the three Gunas,
And what is their conduct?
How does one transcend these three Gunas, O Lord Krishna?
Krishna said:

One who neither hates the presence of
Enlightenment, activity, and delusion
Nor desires for them when they are absent; and
The one who remains like a witness;
Who is not moved by the Gunas,
Thinking that the Gunas only are operating;
Who stands firm and does not waver; and
The one who depends on the Lord
And is indifferent to pain and pleasure;
To whom a clod, a stone, and gold are alike;
To whom the dear and the unfriendly are alike;
Who is of firm mind; who is calm
In censure and in praise; and
The one who is indifferent
To honour and disgrace; who is the same To friend and foe; who has renounced
The sense of doership; is said
To have transcended the Gunas.



WORKING WITH THE GUNAS IN THE NEW YOGA

Each of the Gunas can be passively experienced or suffered in many different ways, not least as mental-emotional and somatic states of ‘dis-ease’. Thus Tamas Guna may be experienced as ‘darkness or ‘blackness’ of mood, mental dullness or confusion, Rajas as ‘red-hot’ rage or prickly irritation, and Sattva as fear or faintness, blanking or ‘whiting’ out. The Old Yoga identified the HUMAN expression of the Gunas with the ordinary human EXPERIENCE of them - and thus sought only their complete transcendence (‘Nirguna’). Yet in themselves, none of the Gunas is a ‘cause’ of pain or pleasure, suffering or joy – these come about only through our human experience of the Gunas, or through the one-sided dominance of one of them. THE NEW YOGA offers a different way of working with the Gunas, not only by transcendending them in awareness, but also by using awareness to transform our experience of the typical mental-emotional-somatic states that are their human expression. If we feel distressed by a feeling of anger for example, then instead of just thinking that we are ‘angry’ - and getting angry – we can think and feel the ‘anger’ as an expression of the Rajas Guna. If we can then feel the basic SENSUAL quality of this Guna permeating our whole bodies - affirm this feeling as natural and healthy and/or balancing it with a felt sense of other Gunas - then we have ‘transcended’ the Guna in awareness by TRANSFORMING our experience of it. According to the Guru-Gita, the syllable ‘Gu’ in ‘Guru’ refers to transcending the Gunas, whilst the syllable ‘Ru’ means devoid of form or quality. ‘Guru’ is one who transcends the Gunas through a formless transcendental or ‘witnessing’ awareness. This formless awareness has the character of colourless light – the pure light of awareness. The ‘white’ of the Sattva Guna is a REFLECTION of this light - hence its symbolic association with pure awareness and with Shiva. Yet light is not white - or any colour. That is why true transcendence of the Gunas does not come about simply by identification with the sense of well-being associated with the Sattva Guna - and why Shiva is also symbolised by ‘red’ (called ‘Rudra’ or ‘reddening’) and by the black ‘Linga’.
  
THE GUNAS AND COLOUR MEDITATION

Rudolf Steiner understood ‘red’ as light seen through darkness. Conversely he understood blue as darkness seen through light. The association of skin darkness with blue in Indian iconography, the association of Shiva with white, of Shakti with red, and of both with black (Kali) hints at a deeper relation between the colours of the three Gunas as an expression of that primary interplay of light and darkness from which all colours arise. Colour is also a principal medium through which we can transform or ‘heal’ states of dis-ease by feeling the Gunas or basic qualities of awareness beneath them. Everyday language contains many colour metaphors to describe different character traits (‘red-blooded’, ‘yellow-bellied’, ‘green’), and states of dis-ease (feeling ‘blue’ or ‘browned off’). A colour can only ‘symbolise’ psychological feelings and traits because it is itself the sensory expression of a specific feeling tone or ‘colour tone’ of awareness – exemplified by the colours of the Gunas. Yet just as colours can become blurred, mixed up or muddied, so can the feeling tones which colour our mental, emotional and bodily states of consciousness. That is also why visualising states of consciousness as pure colour tones – not least those of the primary triad of Gunas – is a powerful way of getting to feel the basic qualities of awareness that lie beneath those states, and transforming any dis-ease accompanying them. Any specific colour tone that is felt to reflect our mental-emotional-somatic state can be used to transform our overall state of consciousness into an experience of a pure Guna - a quintessential quality of awareness. The starting point of ‘colour healing’ in THE NEW YOGA is therefore to visualise our state of consciousness AS a colour – and then meditate the nearest pure colour tone to it. To meditate a colour it is not enough just to see or visualise it with our mind’s eye. One must FEEL oneself inside the colour. One must also use one’s BODILY imagination to feel the colour inside oneself – as if it filled or lined the entire inner surface of one’s body. This is a bit like wearing a garment of that colour or painting one’s body with it, but painting the colour or wearing the garment INSIDE one’s body rather than outside.

COLOUR MEDITATION IN THE NEW YOGA


1. Take time to become more aware of the colour or colours of an object or visual image.

2. Do not only observe a specific colour from the outside but sense its unique colour hue and tone, and seek to feel yourself into it.

3. Looking away from the object, close your eyes, feel the inner surface of your forehead, and use your mind’s eye to hold a mental after-image of the precise colour tone there - seeing the colour as if it were painted on a small canvas lining your forehead.

4. Open your eyes to look at the colour again as many times as you need until you are able to sustain an exact mental image of its precise hue and tone.

5. With the after-image of the colour in your mind’s eye, resonate back and forth between seeing and visualising the colour, until you can sense its tone as the expression of a unique tone and colouration of feeling.

6. Feel yourself BREATHING IN the unique feeling tone or ‘soul quality’ of the colour, letting it colour and fill, permeate and transform your entire bodily self-awareness. In this way, pass from seeing the colour tone to BREATHING IT and BEING it.

7. As you do so do not just sense yourself seeing or feeling a colour such as ‘black’, ‘red’ or ‘white’. Instead feel your awareness - your soul - reddening, blackening or whitening.

8. Sense the spatial qualities of the colour’s feeling tone, whether it tends to dissolve your sense of bodily boundedness, to expand your awareness beyond your body surface and draw you out of yourself, or to draw you more deeply down into yourself from that surface.



10. Sense the soul qualities that correspond to the feeling tone of the colour (for example the vital surface radiance of orange, the soulfulness of deep blue, the soft warmth of a pink or magenta, the deep seriousness of indigo).

11. Sense the elemental quality of the colour’s feeling tone– whether it makes you feel more or less solid and substantial or diffuse and airy, firmly bounded or fluid, outwardly radiant or inwardly concentrated.

12. Feel the dynamic nature of the colour – for example ‘yellowing’ as a dissipating, outward radiation or ‘shining’ of awareness; ‘bluing’ as an inward radiation of awareness; ‘greening’ as a balancing of outer and inner radiance, ‘reddening’ as awareness bringing itself to a surface and bounding that surface, whitening as awareness reflected from a surface; ‘blackening’ as awareness absorbed and drawn in from a surface, ‘indigo-ing’ as awareness literally ‘going in’ from a surface towards a central black hole or ‘singularity’ of awareness.

13. Use the methods of Tantric Pair Meditation to meditate the same colours with another, communicating the soul quality of the colour to through your eyes and emanating it with your body.

COLOUR HEALING IN THE NEW YOGA

1. Feel and visualise the colour of your overall mood, or of the state of consciousness accompanying a specific mental, emotional or somatic state.

2. Look around for an object with a colour most closely corresponding to your overall mood colour.

3. Use the colour meditation to become that pure colour tone, feeling its qualities as a pure and unmuddied colouration of awareness or ‘soul colour’.

MEDITATING THE GUNAS

Meditate each of the Guna colours in turn (black, red and white) alone or with a partner, passing on to meditating the all-pervading translucent colourlessness of Nirguna.
THE GUNAS AS RELATIONSHIPS TO BEING
 
Behind the symbolism of the three Gunas lies the basic triadic ontology of awareness (from the Greek ‘Ontos’ – ‘being’) which is central to THE NEW YOGA as a reinterpretation of the triadic or ‘TRIKA’ school of Tantra. That is because each of the three Gunas and their colours expresses and offers us a direct experience of a primary truth of awareness in relationship to BEING. Together the three Gunas point to a fourth truth (‘Turya’) beyond the Gunas (‘Sat Nirguna’). The four truths can be formulated as four Mantras:

1. TAMAS, BLACK – awareness experienced as a total NEGATION of Being and of all actually existing beings. This is NON-BEING – but experienced as the pure POTENTIALITY to be - as POWER.

Mantra: As awareness you do not ‘exist’ - you ARE NOT any actual being or anything you actually experience yourself to be. Instead you are the innermost potentialities of being that are your source.

2. RAJAS, RED – awareness as the vital ACTUALISATION of all beings - their coming-to-be or BECOMING.

Mantra: As Awareness you BECOME AND EMBODY all your immanent potentialities of being, allowing them to aggressively actualise themselves and bringing them to full-blooded presence.

3. SATTVA, WHITE – awareness as total affirmation of BEING, and of all beings, experienced as pure WELL-BEING.

Mantra: As Awareness you AFFIRM all beings and all you experience yourself to be. Your being and every actual being, like the colour white, is a reflection of the pure light of awareness.

4. ‘NIRGUNA’, COLOURLESS – the invisible, colourless or ‘translucent’ light of awareness that pervades all beings like space itself - transcendent and immanent, reflected in all beings (Sattva - white) but with potentialities (Tamas - black) that are never fully actualised or embodied in them (Rajas - red).

Mantra: As Awareness you both ARE and ARE NOT, both EMBODY and TRANSCEND all you experience yourself to be. You are the pure, clear, colourless light of awareness that is infinite space, and that pervades your body and all bodies as light and space.

Last week Peter and I did a pair meditation/resonation on the GUNAS. As some of you have also had experience of them I'd like to share my 'report' with you and invite you to share yours.

GUNA Pair Meditation (KH+PW) 23/6/06
  
Tamas,
Go down into darkness,
Let darkness fill me,
Let me become, not darkness
But black.
Legs like black coal,
The whole body like black coal.
Inside, the coal liquidises
And fills me with fluid
Shimmering black
Up to my neck
Then into my head.
How can I let this black
Show in my eyes?
Give a black look!
That's hard.
There is no hate,
No emotion,
Just blackness.
All black apart from my look.
But then I manage.

Rajas,
Breathe red into myself
And breathe out red.
With every breath
Red rises, I imagine.
Heat, fire, vitality.
A bull seeing red.
But all is more imagination
Than resonance
With your awareness colour.
Yet my body trembles.

Sattva,
White light pours into me,
Milk-white light fills me
And courses through my flesh.
White covers me like a garment
Brilliant white, than golden white
And sweetness enraptures me,
Living light, joyful and radiant.

Nirguna,
Space between the atoms of my body,
Space between the atoms of everything,
Clear, transparent space
Within, without, everywhere
There is nothing but
Clear transparent space,
All-pervading, all-embracing, full.
How can a clear transparent space be full?
Not with anything, just empty and
Full at the same timeless time.
Complete!
There is nothing but space
Complete and fulfilled
Everything accomplished
Everything in becoming
At the same timeless time.

And the clear, transparent,
Full and empty space is also
The bodiless awareness
Of your and my body.
Spacious Awareness
Merged together as one.
No one but You,
My Lord, you are everything,
There is nothing that is not Shiva.
My Lord of the Living Light.

MY BRIDAL GOWN


My bridal gown is white …

The purest, most luminous and wondrous white.
With it, I reflect and radiate the translucent light of my Lord.
Blessing all beings with it.

My bridal gown is red as blood.
With it I become my Lord’s warrior bull and scarlet whore.
My flesh alive and my eyes setting all ablaze with his scorching fire.

My bridal gown is black as glistening coal.
With it I am filled with the dark power of my Lord’s secret consort Kali.
Destroying all light and drawing all things down into her black depths.

In truth, I have no bridal gown but only my own body.
My bridal body, my body of gowns, my body of Gunas:
Purest white, blood red and black.

All floated in the bodiless embrace of that
Infinite colourless space, that is
The true light of my Lord.

For whatever Guna gown I may wear,
Whatever colour and form I may take,
White swan, red bull or blackest snake …

I am naked and translucent to his light.
With the entire universe as my body.
And all its bodies brides.

I am all my bridal gowns and none.
I am all Gunas and none.
I am Nirguna. Shiva.

My bridal gown is white …

Shiva shrine in our new home

Dear Friends,

this is to update you on new material now up on the site:

Under Further Teachings:

- Preface & Appendices to 'The New Yoga, Tantric Wisdom for Today's World'
- ABCT ('Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy'
- 'The Christ of India'

plus more biographical material on Abhinavagupta (see main left hand menu)

Soon to come: a piece on the historical background & evolution of Shaivism

THE ROAD TO GOD


In the 'beginning' was that God who knows no beginning or end. That God which is not 'nothing' but is also no 'thing' and no 'being, for it is the source of ALL beings. This God is not a being 'with' awareness. This God IS awareness as such - infinite and unbounded.
 
This unbounded awareness alone is the ultimate and unsurpassable reality (Anuttara), for it is the very condition for our awareness of any specific thing or being, world or universe whatsoever - including our very awareness of ourselves, our bodies and mind, feelings and thoughts. This Awareness alone is therefore also the essence of The Divine - of 'God'.
 
Yet within the womb of this Divine Awareness - the true meaning of 'Shiva' as the Great God or Mahadev - infinite creative potentialities lie darkly hidden - this womb of potentiality or power being the great mother goddess or Mahadevi that is known as 'Ma Kali'.
 
At first dimly sensed within the light of the Divine Awareness that is Shiva, these potentialities gradually took the form of ever clearer, more lucid and light-filled dreams - dreams of infinite potential worlds, infinite potentials realities and infinite potential beings - individual consciousnesses or 'Jivas'.
 
Shiva not only embraced all these potential worlds and beings in the transcendent light of his unbounded awareness - but through that light automatically released them from the womb of the Great Goddess into free and autonomous self-actualisation, as Her autonomous powers of action or 'Shaktis'.
 The countlesss individualised selves or Jivas that make up our physical world of human beings then evolved through a long road - one which led them to falsely believe that they were entities separate and apart from one another and from the Divine, beings whose womb or matrix was Matter or Energy and not The Mother and her power of potentiality.
 
The Jivas even came to believe that their physical actuality was the product of some cosmic accident and that even consciousness was their personal private property - not a uniquely individualised portion of the Divine Awareness that is Shiva.
 
Hypnotised by letting their awareness become focussed and concentrated on their outer, physical reality, they gradually lost any sense of other planes or dimensions of reality and their awareness became restricted to their physical minds and bodies.
 
However, they also inwardly yearned to feel again their connection with the darkness of the Divine Mother from whose womb they emerged, with the light of that Divine Awareness that had released them from it, and with all those countless others planes and dimensions of awareness that the Great Mother Goddess and the Great God - Mahadevi and Mahadev - had jointly given birth to.
 
So began the long search among human beings to re-find 'God'. Along this way, great teachers showed them the way, teaching them through the wisdom of Tantra to identify with the pure Awareness that is the Divine - knowing that by doing so they would totally free their awareness from identification with their limited physical consciousness and all its contents.

As once that Divine Awareness - Shiva - had identified with and dreamt each individual self or Jiva, so now the Jivas themselves yearned to identify again with the Divine Awareness that is Shiva - to feel themselves and each others as a part of that awareness, and not as separate or apart from it.
As once the Divine Awareness had creatively dreamed them, so now human beings in turn began to creatively dream its manifold forms, letting them freely emerge into the light from within the depths of their own souls. Thus human beings gave birth to the gods from the womb of their own divine soul, just as God had once given birth to human beings from the dark womb of its Divine Awareness.

Some of these gods represented the many faces, bodies and qualities of the Divine Awareness as such. Others represented only the limiting ego-awareness of human beings, their experience of themselves as souls bound to and bounded by their own bodies.

For by releasing them into freedom, Shiva had allowed each Jiva to also freely fall into the bondage of contracted awareness - thus forgetting its own source in the Divine. As a result, the Jivas found themselves needing to seek and re-find 'God' - the freedom of that unbounded, pure and Divine Awareness which transcends body and mind, transcends all limited identities and contents of consciousness.

If the Divine Awareness experiences itself as a self or Jiva who has come to experience themselves AS that very Awareness - as Shiva - the circle is completed. The delight of both Shiva and Jiva are conjoined as the absolute freedom (Moksha) and sublime bliss (Andanda) of awareness.

In this way both Shiva and Jiva come to experience themselves as that awareness that is neither 'dual' nor 'non-dual', neither as separate nor indistinctly merged with one another, but instead both distinct and inseparable - like two sides of a coin, or like two lovers locked in a permanent and unbreakable embrace.

This experience of awareness as INSEPARABLE DISTINCTION is the true essence of divine Awareness Bliss ('Chitananda') attainable through the Tantric Teachings and Practices of The New Yoga – not through an amorphous ‘non-dualism’ or empty Nirvana which abolishes all distinction, or a dualist separation of God and the world.

PUJA FOR THE GREAT LORD


I have performed Puja for the Great Lord Shiva

Before him and for him, with and within him, in him and as him.

I have lit the primordial flame of The Great Lord, that burns forever.

I have seated myself before the murti of The Great Lord.

I have meditated the majesty of his supreme mudra.

I have received the grace and wisdom of his gaze.

I have seen his third eye as a singular star.

I have heard his inward speech as mine.

I have known him knowing me.

I have seen him seeing me.

I have heard him hearing me.

I have felt the softness of his touch.

I have understood him teaching me.

I have breathed the sweetness of his breath.

I have relished the sublime nectar of his divine bliss.

I have been soothed like a baby by his infinite patience.

I have felt the boundless span of his awareness across time.

I have become the boundless expanse of his awareness in space.

I have let my awareness rise as his incense to the heights of his sky.

I have felt his lingam within me as the core and essence of all things.

I have seen and heard all things as expressions of his divine activity.

I have let go of all sense of agency separate from that of the Great Lord.

I have surrendered totally and without condition to His divine wisdom and grace.

I have performed Puja for the Great Lord,

Before him, for him, with and within Him, in and as Him.

I have thus enacted the supreme mantra of the Great Lord,

I have become the mantra that he and I are two as one.

Shiva. Aham, Shiv-o-ham.

ON ‘DIFFICULTIES’ IN SUSTAINING AWARENESS - THE THIRD FOUNDATION STONE

The two ‘Foundation Stones’ of The New Yoga of Awareness are The Fundamental Distinction (between awareness as such and anything we are aware of) and The Fundamental Choice – either to identify with things we are aware of, or to identify with the pure awareness of them.
Experiencing The Fundamental Distinction is essential to exercising The Fundamental Choice. It can be explained by ‘comparing’ pure awareness with the clear spaces (outer and inner) within which we experience things. But it can only be truly experienced through intensified bodily awareness of space itself, inner and outer. For only through that enhanced bodily awareness of space (achieved through awareness of our body surface) can space itself be experienced as the spacious field of pure awareness – not just a useful analogy for it.

Many people say to me that though they understand the Foundation Stones, and whilst they are often or sometimes able to feel or identify with pure awareness, to sustain awareness 24/7 – as I seem able to do – appears to them like an almost impossible challenge. For at other times they still find themselves letting go of all round spatial awareness, losing themselves in trains of thought, identifying with emotions, acting or speaking impulsively etc. etc. To which I say: go back to the first Foundation Stone - the Fundamental Distinction - and apply it TO the very difficulties you are experiencing. Don’t say to me “It’s very hard”, “I still lose myself in trains or thought” or “I still get identified with my emotions”, or “I still react impulsively” etc. Say to yourself “I am now aware of thinking or feeling ‘it’s all very hard’, “I am now aware of losing myself in this train of thought, identifying with this emotion or reacting impulsively in this way.” Being aware of experiencing such ‘difficulties’, you can then make ‘meta-level’, ‘reflexive’ or ‘iterative’ use of the Foundation Stones – distinguishing the very awareness of those difficulties from the difficulties themselves, and choosing to identify with that awareness and not the difficulties.

Without this ‘iterative’ application of the Fundamental Distinction and Choice to the very difficulties experienced in sustaining awareness, no one can do so continuously. It is through my own application of these Foundations Stones to the difficulties that I – like others - face in sustaining awareness through The New Yoga that I also find subtle new ways of experiencing the Fundamental Distinction and exercising the Fundamental Choice. This iterative use of the two Foundation Stones is thus in effect a hidden, third Foundation Stone – yet one essential to the success of the other two. Indeed this ‘third’ Foundation Stone is the basis on which I myself constantly gain – out of awareness of my own and other people’s difficulties – new insights into all those Foundational principles and practices of awareness which are ‘The New Yoga’.

FREEDOM THROUGH AWARENESS

A new short summary of 'Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy':

‘Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy’ is about how the power of awareness can transform our consciousness and free our everyday lives from all that is a source of dis-ease for us.

If people get lost in watching TV or playing computer games, in work or domestic chores, in thinking or talking, in worrying about life or in feeling particular emotions, pains - or even pleasures - then they may be ‘conscious’ but they are not aware.

Whenever our consciousness becomes overly focussed or fixated on any one thing we are conscious of, dominated by it or identified with it, we lose awareness.

For unlike ordinary ‘consciousness’, awareness is not focussed on any one thing we experience. Awareness is more like the space surrounding us and surrounding all things we are aware of. For space is not the same as any ‘thing’ within it.

Living with and within awareness is like truly living with and within space – which both encompasses but is also absolutely distinct from each and every thing within it.

To transform our ordinary consciousness into awareness therefore, means first of all becoming more aware of space itself - both the outer space around us and surrounding things, and also the inner space surrounding our thoughts, feelings, impulses and sensations.

Enhancing our bodily awareness of the space around us is the first step to helping us to experience space itself – outer and inner - as a spacious field of awareness – a field free of domination by anything we may be conscious of or experience within it.

‘Achieving freedom through awareness’ therefore means transforming our ordinary consciousness or ‘focal awareness’ into a new type of spacious ‘field awareness’.

If we are able to sense and identify with the spacious awareness field around and within us, then we can do two things. We can both freely acknowledge and affirm everything we experience or are conscious of within that field – whether pleasant or unpleasant. And yet at the same time we can stop our ‘consciousness’ getting sucked into it, stuck on, focussed or fixated on any one thing.

The capacity to constantly come back to the spacious awareness field frees us from all the things our consciousness normally gets so fixated on that we can no longer distinguish or free ourselves from them. True freedom is freedom from identification with anything we experience – anything we are ‘conscious’ or ‘aware’ OF. This freedom comes from sensing and identifying with that spacious awareness field within which we experience all things, outwardly and inwardly.

Awareness is not the same as what is often called ‘mindfulness’ - for it includes awareness of all we experience as mind or mental activity.

An old spiritual tradition has it that awareness itself is ‘God’ – understood as an infinitely spacious field of consciousness. This tradition also understood awareness as the source of all beings and as the eternal core of essence of our being – as our higher self.

Just as through enhanced awareness of space we can experience it as a boundlessly expansive awareness field, so can we also experience our own spiritual core or essence as a powerful centre of awareness within that field.

Most forms of therapy are limited by the fact that they do not distinguish ‘consciousness’ or ‘focal awareness’ from field awareness. They themselves focus the client’s consciousness on its contents – on things they are conscious or unconscious of – rather than transforming that focal consciousness into a clear and spacious awareness field - and centering the client’s awareness in that field.

Awareness Based Cognitive Therapy is based on a fundamental distinction between consciousness and awareness, between any thing we are consciously experiencing on the one hand, and the pure awareness of experiencing it on the other. Identifying this pure awareness with space is the most effective way of experiencing it.

The fundamental distinction offers us in turn a fundamental choice – either to identify ourselves with things we are conscious of, or to identify instead with the very awareness of them – an awareness that will automatically free our consciousness from domination by any of its contents, anything we experience.

An important help in making this choice is to remind yourself of a simple truth: that just as awareness of an object is not itself an object, so is awareness of a thought, emotion or physical sensation not itself a thought, emotion or sensation. Awareness of any thoughts you have is something innately thought-free - just as awareness of any impulses, emotions and sensations you feel is something innately free of those impulses, emotions or sensations. Awareness is Freedom.

WHAT IS ‘MEDITATION’?

What is meditation?
Is it sitting cross-legged, straight-backed
Eyes closed, trying – and maybe failing - not to think?
Seeking to concentrate inwardly, ‘single-pointedly’,
Free of the ‘distractions’ of your senses, of
Your mind and body?

That is not the essence of meditation.
For meditation needs no fixed body posture,
Only awareness of your whole bodily posture,
Whatever it is and whenever you
Change it in any way.

Meditation does not need you to
Keep your body still, face Buddha-masked,
Only that you be aware of your movements,
And of every muscle of your body,
Limbs, face and eyes.

Meditation does not need you to
Cease all thinking, feeling, seeing and hearing.
Only that you be aware of your thoughts and feelings.
Only that you be aware of your mind and body.
And aware too of your sensory environment.
That means keeping your eyes open
And your senses alive.


Meditation does not need you to
Free yourself from body, mind or the senses.
For awareness of your body is not itself anything bodily.
Just as awareness of mind is not itself anything mental.
Just as awareness of a thought is not itself a thought.
And awareness of a thing is not itself a thing.
Instead awareness itself is thought-free,
Sense-free and body-free.

Meditation is a pure,
Bodiless awareness of your body.
A pure thought-free awareness of your thoughts.
A pure impulse and desire-free awareness of your desires
A pure action-free awareness of action.
And a pure sense-free awareness of
All things bright and beautiful,
And all things dark and ugly.

Meditation is not
Something you need set aside times to do.
For there is nothing you need ‘do’ to meditate,
Except give yourself time to be aware -
At any time, and for as long a time
As you can sustain.

Meditation
Does not need you to
Close your eyes, wrap yourself in a bubble,
Or shut yourself off from the world around you,
In order to go inside yourself.

Meditation means fully
Opening yourself to the space around you,
Whilst staying within yourself.

Meditation is not
Single-pointed concentration, but
Expanding your awareness to more fully
Embrace all possible focal points of attention,
Both within and around you, yet without need for
Single-minded concentration on
Any one focus of attention.

Meditation means
Taking time to give yourself more space,
To feel more free awareness space within and around you,
 It means identifying with the seeming emptiness of space.
It means living and dwelling in pure awareness
As you live and dwell in space itself.

Meditation means knowing that
Pure awareness and space are actually
One and the same, both equally distinct from
Every thing, thought and body within them,
From everything you are aware of.

This is the secret of meditation
Guarded in the tantras, the secret called
Bhairava Mudra – uniting inner and outer awareness
By meditating with the eyes open.

This is the secret of meditation
Guarded in the tantras, the secret called
Khechari Mudra – identifying with the space,
Within and around all things, and
Within and around you.

The aim of meditation is to know
That Self which not only lets itself be aware of
Things and thoughts - but IS that very awareness,
Spacious and pure.

Meditation can teach us to feel and
Be that Body which can breathe this pure awareness,
Breathe it like air and light into the inner spaces of the body
From the spaces around and surrounding it.

Meditation can teach us to feel and
Be that Self which is awareness, pure and simple.
This is not an awareness bounded by our bodies or brains.
But an awareness whose body is the entire universe.
And every single body within it.

Meditation can teach us to
Experience the reality of this divine
Awareness Self and its Awareness Body,
The Divine Self and Body of
Lord Shiva.

'Kali' - The Pure Power of Manifestaton

THE TANTRIC ABSOLUTE (‘ANUTTARA’)
AS PURE AWARENESS & PURE POWER


MAHADEV (Great God) the absolute as pure awareness (SHIVA) transcendent and immanent.

MAHADEVI (Great Goddess) the absolute as maternal womb of pure potentiality (Ma) released as power of action (SHAKTI).

· SHAKTIS – ‘powers of action’ or ‘goddesses’.
· MAYA-SHAKTI – the universe manifested by powers of action.

MAHADEVI AS MA ‘KALI’ - the pure and absolute power of action transcendent and immanent, creative and destructive concealed behind and contained within the entire manifest universe as an infinite wheel (Chakra) of Shaktis (Maya-Shakti).

THE ABSOLUTE (SHIVA-SHAKTI) AS ‘SHIVA-KALI’
(‘Mahakala-Mahakali’ / ‘Bhairava-Bhairavi’)

The absolute as a unity of pure awareness (Shiva) and pure power (Kali) through pure awareness (masculine) of potentiality (feminine).

Pure awareness (masculine) + pure potentiality (feminine)
= pure power of action (Shakti), both masculine and feminine:

· Masculine: pure awareness of potentiality as ‘terrifying’ potency or latent power of action (Shiva as ‘Bhairava’).
 
· Feminine: potentiality as pure and ‘terrifying’ power of action manifesting itself (Kali as ‘Bhairavi’).


THE ABSOLUTE ALSO AS ‘PURE PERCEPTION’:

Shiva – the pure perceiver (awareness).
Parvati – the purely perceived.

SHIVA-SHAKTI AS ‘SHIVA-PARVATI’ - pure perceiving or perception as a unity of perceiver and perceived. The bliss of the pure perceiver (Shiva) seeing his own light reflected and brought to expression in the beauty of the perceived (Parvati) and the bliss of the perceived being seen within that light and herself bringing it to light.
 
NB Some useful and valid notes from the current 'Kali' entry in WIKIPEDIA:

The Shiv Tattva (Divine Consciousness as Shiva) is inactive, while the Shakti Tattva (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva, or Mahadeva represents Brahman, the Absolute pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali, on the other hand, represents the potential (and manifested) energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind the entire content of all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him, i.e., Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, or Brahman, but is rather the dynamic power of Brahman.
To properly understand this complex Tantric symbolism it is important to remember that the meaning behind Shiva and Kali does not stray from the non-dualistic parlance of Shankara or the Upanisads. According to both the Mahanirvana and Kularnava Tantras, there are two distinct ways of perceiving the same absolute reality. The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here that there is no matter, there is no universe and only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda -- existence, knowledge and bliss. The second is an active plane, an immanent plane, the plane of matter, of Maya, i.e., where the illusion of space-time and the appearance of an actual universe does exist. This form of reality is known as Kali or Shakti, and (in its entirety) is still specified as the same Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is here in this second plane that the universe (as we commonly know it) is experienced and is described by the Tantric seer as the play of Shakti, or God as Mother Kali.

From a Tantric perspective, when one meditates on reality at rest, as absolute pure consciousness (without the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to this as Shiva or Brahman. When one meditates on reality as dynamic and creative, as the Absolute content of pure consciousness (with all the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to it as Kali or Shakti. However, in either case the yogini or yogi is interested in one and the same reality -- the only difference being in name and fluctuating aspects of appearance. It is this which is generally accepted as the meaning of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva.

Like Sir John Woodroffe and Georg Feuerstein, many Tantric scholars (as well as sincere practitioners) agree though that, no matter how propitious or appalling you describe them, Shiva and Devi are simply recognizable symbols for everyday, abstract (yet tangible) concepts such as perception, knowledge, space-time, causation and the process of liberating oneself from the confines of such things. Shiva, symbolizing pure, absolute consciousness, and Devi, symbolizing the entire content of that consciousness, are ultimately one in the same - totality incarnate, a micro-macro-cosmic amalgamation of all subjects, all objects and all phenomenal relations between the "two."

Dear Friends,

The turn of the year is always seen as an auspicious time to take a good look in the mirror of one’s life, one’s mind and thoughts, one’s senses and emotions. Resolving not to forget of course, that these are all but the mirror of a deeper self. It is with this resolution in mind that I dedicate the following Tantric verse on ‘The Supreme Self’ and its mirror - promising you will not find the word ‘awareness’ used even once!

Peter

WHAT IS THE SUPREME SELF?

The contracted self, the ‘Jiva-atman’,
Is like an actress so lost in the part she is playing,
So identified with the self she has dressed up to act,
 That just when she looks in the mirror that is all she sees.
So also when she looks in the mirror of her senses,
Thoughts and feelings all she sees is the
Self she is acting, the acted self.

The Supreme Self, the ‘Para-atman’,
Is not the acted self, but the acting self.
For the actress to see this self in the mirror, she
Would need be so familiar with every part it can play,
That even if she were costumed to act a part,
When she looked in the very same mirrors
All she would see is a reflection of
The self that is acting her,
The acting self that is
Para-atman.

‘Shiva’ is the Para-atman,
The Supreme Self of the actress.
This Self that has no identity, for it is nothing but
The pure capacity for identification itself,
Not with one part or being alone, but all.
That capacity for identification
Is what we call ‘love’.


‘Shakti’ is the Para-atman,
The Supreme Self of the actress,
Being not just one self that can be acted but all.
Being not just one part that can be played but all,
That Self which is therefore truly whole
And no mere ‘part’ at all.

Shiva and Shakti
Are distinct, yet inseparably one.
For how could there be acting without parts to act?
And what would a part or acted self be
Without a Self to act it, to so
Lovingly identify with it?

Look into the mirror then, and look
Also into the mirror of your mind, senses and heart.
What do you think, sense and feel there?
You may say you see ‘yourself’,
Yet I would ask ‘Which self?’
     
Do you see
The acted self or the acting self,
The experienced self or the experiencing self?
Do you see the Jiva-atman or the Para-atman?
And can you also see the Other in the One,
See the acting self that is Shiva,
In your acted self or ‘Jiva’?

Look again
In both mirrors, outer and inner,
And ask which self it is you identify with most.
You may simply say ‘yourself’, as if you had but one.
Yet I ask you again, which self is it that you mean?
That Self that can identify with all selves
Or, like an actress with only one part,
Is identified with one self alone,
The one you call ‘yours’?

That self is the Jiva-atman.
As for the Para-atman ‘itself’,
It has no one self to call its ‘own’.
Instead it is verily each and every self.
For it is the loving activity of identification that
Unites the acting and the acted self.
The player and all possible parts,
It is the very love uniting them,
It is ‘Shiva-Shakti’.

It is Shiva who plays every part,
From Mother Theresa to Saddam Hussein,
Shiva who takes on the parts of all human beings.
If only they could recognise this themselves, and
Not reduce themselves to those parts…

It is Shiva who acts the role of both
Guru and Disciple, Saviour and Saved,
Healer and Healed, Teacher and Taught.
Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer, for
All this is Shiva’s divine play,
Shiva's ‘Lila’.

Shiva identifies with all the Gods
That ever were, from Brahma and Vishnu
To Kali and Lakshmi, Wotan, Yahweh and Allah.
It is Shiva who acts the parts of Pope and Patriarch,
Of Rabbi, Brahmin, Iman, Shaman and Matriarch.
If only they could recognise this themselves, and
Not identify themselves with those parts…

Blessed then be Shiva-Shakti,
For if All is part of Shiva’s Divine Play, then
Shakti is All parts, All roles, and all Gods He plays.
Shakti is verily All That Is, Was and ever Can be acted and actualised.
Indeed She is Shiva’s very Power of action and of actualisation itself.
Yet knowing how Shiva sole action is identification with All She Is,
She knows Herself too, as His sole Beloved.
This is her Joy, Her participation and
Delight in Their Divine Lila.

‘YOU’

You God, are
Everything and Everyone.
Everything and Everyone,
Including me, is
YOU.

Everyone
Irritating or infuriating,
Inconsiderate or disinterested,
Hurtful or hateful,
Dull or stupid, is
YOU.

Everything
Pleasurable or painful,
Creative or incapacitating,
Disappointing or hopeful,
Fearful or delightful, is
YOU.

Just as
Every smile and frown,
Every nectar and poison,
Every freedom and every constraint,
Every success and every failing too,
Every blessing and curse, is
YOU.

Every friend,
Every accursed foe,
Every accuser and accused,
Every strike and counter-strike,
Every torture and torment,
Torturer and tormenter,is
YOU.

If only
We could always
Remember this whenever we
Find ourselves thinking badly of
Something or Someone, whether
‘It’, ‘Them’, ‘Her’ or ‘Him’
Knowing them all, and
Ourselves too, as
YOU.

Then alone
Might we find a different way,
By which, each and every time, to feel
And say that simple, sacred word
‘YOU’.

AWARENESS, ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER, AND DYSLEXIA

Note: Please read Andrew’s recent posting ‘Lost in Thought’ first – this is a response and addition to it.

Thought your piece on 'LOST IN THOUGHT' was great and though there is an important cut I would like to suggest (see below) I think it is a terrific piece that can help many people - not least those with sleeping problems!
 
What I personally found most philosophically significant and practically useful about 'Lost in Thought' was the extremely important distinction you formulated between 'knowing' something (like 'knowing' you're going into the kitchen etc) and being aware of it - 'feeling what it is feeling like', feeling your whole body walking tom moving and acting in the kitchen, feeling the walls, the entire space they bound and the quality of the light within it, feeling the colours, shapes and textures of everything in the kitchen, and above all maintaining simultaneous awareness of your body as a whole - and the kitchen as a whole - while you enter it and while do whatever you are doing in it.
 
I smiled when I read "our 'homes' are not our minds but our BODIES.", recognising that all the vital stuff about the kitchen was also saying something equally important i.e.
 
"our bodies are not just the bodies we move around with in our homes but our HOMES themselves" (and ultimately the entire universe - everything around us in every room or space!).
 
Finally, I had a sense of there being something of hidden significance about you having just given this piece to someone with age-related ADD. Then the insight struck me that 'Attention Deficit Disorder' of any sort should be renamed 'Hyper-Focal Attention Disorder' or 'Hyper-Focal Awareness Disorder'. What I mean is that so-called 'deficits' in attention come from people's awareness field being so contracted that they are not able to be aware of more than thing at the same time, and not able to hold more than one thing in awareness at the same time. Yet we actually need to be aware of more than one thing at the same time to effectively do anything - not to mention 'remembering to do' something. For what is 'remembering' if not 'recalling in awareness' or 'holding in awareness' - something we can't do if their isn't enough awareness space to hold or recall things within.
 
ADD then, is essentially a type of vicious circle. Living in such a contracted awareness field people older feel a need to focus their awareness even more strongly on 'one thing at a time' whilst the ADD youngsters - missing the richness of field awareness - need to constantly refocus their awareness from one thing to another. Yet nothing is done effectively or experienced as satisfactorily rich, since either breadth or depth of field awareness is missing. ADD is itself but a symptom (and scapegoat) for the larger social pathology of 'busy-ness', e.g.. parents and business people constantly going from one thing to another, constantly focus and refocussing without field awareness. The result - total mismanagement, messing the kids up who see them living this way, or ending up with AAADD - because again, to focus really effectively and really get things done properly needs field awareness of more than one thing at the same time.
 
I am 'writing aloud' here, but there seems to be a connection also with 'dyslexia'. I am often aware of people listening to me and yet not having enough even enough mental awareness space to take in the whole of what I am saying - even if in just one or two sentences. So instead they focus or 'pick on' part of it - either critically and defensively and/or because they don't understand my message (which they can't do because it comes through the whole sentence or stretch of speech).
 
This is a form of aural dyslexia akin to that of the visual dyslexic - who has to painstakingly focus on one word at a time in order to read, never being able to 'scan' and take in an entire written sentence. Similarly there is the form of motor dyslexia of the sort so well described by your AAADD respondee.
 
Finally there is an interesting connection here to 'getting lost in thought' in the literal sense - understood as a type of mental dyslexia or ADD in which one can only hold one thought at a time and therefore gets lost in sequences or 'trains' of thought or reflection which are never broken up by intervals of wordless, thought-free awareness.
 
This brings me write back to a section of your piece where you write:
 
Now I bet that while walking to the kitchen, you will be lost in thought, thinking about what you have downloaded, or what you are going to cook that night or whatever. While filling the kettle, boiling the water, getting the cup, putting coffee in it, getting the milk from the fridge, I bet that you are thinking of something else while you are doing this.
 
I get your point totally. But where awareness takes us to in my view is the precisely ability to fill the kettle etc. whilst being aware of more than one thing both in space and time. In other words awareness should embrace the whole life-context of making that cup of coffee - which includes 'holding' awareness of things like a download in process, something one realises something one's needs to stock up on at the supermarket, a bodily felt sense left over from a talk one has just had with someone, an idea one has just had etc.
 

Yet this awareness of other things - past, present and future - including thoughts themselves, is not the same as 'thinking about them' - for the essence of The Awareness Principle is that the awareness of a thought is not itself a thought and is therefore intrinsically thought-free.
 
Awareness as a 'field' or 'space' is what makes room for us to be aware of all sorts of things and thoughts whilst doing any one thing like making a cup of coffee - yet without having to focus on or think 'about' these other things or thoughts. The practical point you rightly emphasise is that to hold open that spacious and roomy awareness space one must indeed stay in touch with one's immediate sensory awareness of space as such, and do so in whatever room or space (literal or metaphorical) one happens to be in!
 
 
What I think needs taking out of the piece - or total reformulation - is the following sentence:
 
'I suggest to you that if you are not lost in thought, then you cannot ever be anxious or 'depressed' or uptight or stressed out or anything like that for, while in that state, you will be FREE of all thoughts and emotions.'
 
This actually deprives The Awareness Principle of its true benefit and value - which is the capacity, through awareness to affirm and feel the meaningfulness of all aspects of our experience - whether thoughts, anxieties, moods, emotions - whilst not identifying with them. For again, the basic Principle of Awareness, is that the awareness of a thought, emotion, sensation, impulse, tension, anxiety, feeling of depression or stress etc IS NOT ITSELF a thought, emotion etc. etc.
 
Awareness is indeed intrinsically 'free' of all such aspects of experience, yet not because it eliminates them them but because it fundamentally distinct from the experience of them - in the same way that space is distinct from the objects in it, or the white space on a page is distinct from the letters and words on it (and whatever experiences those words are describing!)

So now that it is clear what it means not to get ‘Lost in Thinking’ what exactly is ‘The New Thinking’ I am planning a website on - with all my writings on 'The Awareness Principle'. Your piece helped me define it:
 
'The New Thinking' is a thinking that does not 'get lost in thought' - whether thinking about things or thinking about thinking - but remains firmly rooted in that infinitely spacious field of pure, thought-free awareness within which all thoughts - and all things - arise.

On May 13th 2006, I posted something in my Awareness Diary about how I introduce the topic of awareness with my clients at work. I've rewritten it now so am posting it again with slight modifications and welcome any responses. So here it is:

LOST IN THOUGHT: How I introduce people to Awareness

People like to think that the difference between animals and humans is that we are aware and they aren't. I would like to challenge that. I want to suggest to you that we are just as if not even more unaware than any cat or dog. I have never seen a cat trip itself up or walk into something like I have done when I am pre-occupied with thought. I bet the same is true for you. I would like to suggest to you that when people say that we humans are aware what we are actually referring to is the ability to think about things. For me that is not what I now understand as AWARENESS. For though we may ‘consciously’ think about things or ‘know’ about them, that does not mean we are directly AWARE of experiencing them.

For example, if I ask you whether you are AWARE of hearing the hum of my computer as we are talking or aware of the pictures on my walls, I don't mean do you ‘know’ that the computer is humming or do you know that there are pictures on my walls? I mean quite literally are you aware of experiencing the hum and the pictures, experiencing the whole room - while at the same time experiencing your body, yourself, and how you are talking or listening to me? Before you say that you can only experience one thing at a time, let me say that ‘awareness’ in the sense that I am talking about it does not mean FOCUSING any ONE thing you are or could be aware of experiencing.That is the whole point. Let me give you an example. I want you to feel your feet resting on the ground while you continue to listen to me. Can you do that? The answer is obviously yes, you can, when you are asked. But the trick is to 'know' how you did that and maintain that awareness of your feet while being conscious of me. Why you ask? Because if you are aware of your feet, and your back and legs touching the chair, and your hands resting on your thighs and indeed, aware of everything there is to be aware of in this room, while continuing to be conscious of me, then you cannot be 'lost in thought'. THAT IS MEDITATION!

I suggest to you that if you are not lost in thought, then you cannot ever be anxious or 'depressed' or uptight or stressed out or anything like that for, while in that state, you will be FREE of all thoughts and emotions. As I said the trick is to maintain that awareness of the whole field around us. It's a bit like a batsman at the crease in cricket. The batsman has to maintain an awareness of where all the fieldsmen are even while being conscious of the bowler walking back to his mark, while he is running in etc. The batsman maintains an awareness of the whole field of play while fiercely concentrating on the ball in the bowler's hand and when it is actually coming through the air towards him down the pitch. The batsman allows his awareness to flow between that fierce focusing and a more laid back awareness of the whole field of play. Otherwise he would never be able to 'hit the ball between fielders'. It is not just a fluke that a good batsman does that - he 'knows' where all the fieldsman are all the time, but it is his ‘field awareness’ that is doing this ‘knowing’ not his ‘ego awareness’. Field awareness is basically unconscious or instinctive in us at the moment, but we can ‘train’ ourselves to make it conscious. All cricketers know that if they start thinking too much about the game, they are lost. They don't want to think, they don't want any interruptions to the flow of play, they just want it all to be 'instinctive'. Sledging is designed to interrupt that field awareness through the personal comments made to the batsman to try and make him REACT - that is, think about what has been said.

OK, back to you in this room. Over the coming weeks and months I hope that you will be able to become more aware of the whole field of play in which your life is happening. For if you do, then life will flow far more instinctively than it has for you in the past. You will not be so stuck in thought and drowned in your emotions as you told me you were. You also said that you were sick and tired of thinking all the time, of being unable to sleep because of the thoughts circling around inside you at night.

Which reminds me of something. I have had personal success with getting a good night's sleep through this awareness principle and thought you might like to try it. At night I simply lie in bed in my favourite sleeping position and I try to just be totally aware of just lying in the bed. I try as hard as I can to simply feel what it is like to be a body lying in bed in the way I am lying in bed. I feel my body lying on its side against the sheets, I feel the quilt touching the other side, I feel how my leg is bent, I feel how my face rests against one of my palms, I feel whatever bodily sensations that are present, I am aware of whatever sounds are in the room or I can hear from outside. But in the main, I have a 'mantra' which is 'what does it feel like to be my body lying in bed in the way I am lying?' Just that, nothing else. When I do this 'exercise', and I do it religiously whenever I get in bed until I fall asleep, whenever I awaken in the night, I find that my mind is FREE of thoughts, just as the batsman is as the ball is delivered. I soon go to sleep. I can now regularly lie in bed completely empty of thoughts, utterly still. A very unique experience, almost blissful.

I said before that the trick is to maintain awareness of the whole field of play. I am challenging you to 'have a go' at this. In the beginning I am sure you will find it hard to do. You will continually forget to be aware of the whole field and find yourself lost in particular thoughts or particular feelings or a particular TV programme you are watching, or a car going past, but mostly you will be lost in thought. Let me explain what I mean with a couple of most mundane examples. If you are at home and working at your computer or playing on the internet let's say that you decide to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Now I bet that while walking to the kitchen, you will be lost in thought, thinking about what you have downloaded, or what you are going to cook that night or whatever. While filling the kettle, boiling the water, getting the cup, putting coffee in it, getting the milk from the fridge, I bet that you are thinking of something else while you are doing this. I challenge you to ask yourself why is it like that? Why is it that when we are walking to the kitchen we are completely unaware of 'walking to the kitchen'? I don't mean to imply that we don't know that we are walking to the kitchen, I mean that WE ARE NOT FEELING WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO WALK TO THE KITCHEN, feeling the space around us, aware of the walls, the floor, everything there is to be aware of. And I also don't mean that just because we are unaware of all that, we will automatically crash into things or forget what we are doing, although that CAN happen at times. No, we can go about our whole lives completely unaware of ourselves and still function. You might ask why would anyone want to be aware of what it feels like to walk to the kitchen while we are walking to the kitchen? I could say what is the point of thinking about what you are going to be cooking that night while you are walking to the kitchen? But in a way I think you have hit the nail on the head. You are implying that the normal mundane activities of daily life are 'boring' and thus we should escape from them into our real 'home' — our mind — and think about things to distract ourselves from that boring mundanity.

But my whole point is that our 'homes' are not our minds but our BODIES, and our whole bodies at that. And lastly, it is precisely because your whole upbringing, the culture around you, friends, family, society continually says that your real self is your mind, that you have all the problems that you do have! We are a society of people who are completely divorced from the reality of our bodies. No wonder we are so obsessed with them. We are desperately trying to get back in touch with them. The other example I want to mention is something you can try when you leave my office. I am going to suggest to you that you stay aware of your whole body as you leave my office. That as an experiment you simply feel what it is like to walk out the door, cross the landing and go down the stairs. That you try and maintain an awareness of what this feels like as any cat or dog would do. I am prepared to suggest that by the time you get to the stairs which will take you about 5 seconds, you will already be losing awareness. You will be lost in thought, reacting to the 'sledging' of your own mind, thinking about where the car is parked, or what you are going to be doing at work, or what you should buy on the way home etc. What I would like you to do is to become aware of just how unaware you are. Over the week before you come back to see me, I hope that you will take up this challenge. If you do, you should find that you will be FREE of thought at times. Good luck!"

WHAT IS ‘THINKING’?


Thinking is not just ‘having’ thoughts about things.
Thinking is being AWARE of having the thoughts we have.


Not being aware of the thoughts we have,
How can we be said to be ‘thinking’ at all?

Just ‘having’ thoughts about things, we lose
Awareness of our thoughts as thoughts.

Just having thoughts about things, we lose direct
Awareness of the things we are thinking about.

Losing direct awareness, we easily confuse our thoughts
About things with our direct awareness of those things.

Not being aware of our thoughts, we sacrifice direct
Awareness of things to our thoughts ‘about’ them.

Only by being aware of the thoughts we have, can we
Compare them with this direct awareness of things.

The thoughts we ‘have’ can easily fixate
Awareness on just one thing or aspect of it.

Being aware of the thoughts we have, they do not
Become fixated on any one thing or aspect of it.

Being aware of our thoughts, a space opens
For the awareness of many things at the same time.

Just as having thoughts fixates our awareness on things,
So does ‘reasoning’ fixate our thoughts on other thoughts.

Reasoning is having thoughts about other thoughts.
That is not the same thing at all as aware thinking.

With awareness of our thoughts, we do not need to
‘Reason out’ their connection with each other.

Having thoughts, we easily get locked or
‘Lost in thought’ - in thinking ‘about’ things.


Being aware of thoughts, we do not
Get locked or lost in those thoughts.

Being aware of thoughts, we can freely
Let them come and go within awareness.

The awareness of a thing is not itself a thing.
The awareness of a thought is not itself a thought.

The awareness of thought is itself
A pure, thought-free awareness!

Since the awareness of thought is itself thought-free,
There is no need to ‘empty’ our minds of thoughts.

Simply being aware of our thoughts we can
Abide in a field of pure, thought-free awareness.

And we can experience that field of pure awareness
As the divine source of all thoughts - and of all things.

We ourselves are living thoughts made flesh in the
Infinite awareness field that is ‘God’ - the divine.

Thoughts are not reflections ‘on’ or ‘of’ things, but
They are reflections of the divine light of awareness.

Things are radiant manifestations of that light,
Composed of countless photons of awareness.

Thoughts and things are both forms taken
By the divine light of awareness itself.

The light of pure awareness is that light which
First allows us to be aware of any thing at all.

The light of pure awareness is that light in which
All things and all thoughts first come to light.

‘Pure thinking’ is the innate intelligence of that light,
Knowing itself as the source of all thoughts and things.

Look around you and be aware of all the things that
Are visible in the light that fills the space around them.

Know that light itself is that very awareness
In which all things and thoughts come to light.

See how things glisten and shine in that light.
Recognise them as expressions of that light.

Thoughts can shed light on things or
Cast distorting shadows on them.

Thoughts that arise from pure awareness,
Crystallise our direct awareness of things.

Only through awareness of thoughts, can things
Themselves reveal themselves in their true light.

The revelation of things in the pure
Light of awareness – that is ‘thinking’.

Thinking has no ‘objects', for like things, it is a
Shining expression of 'The Lord' - the Supreme Subject.

"It is I, The Great Lord, who, as Pure Awareness, always shines thus as all Things."

This 'thusness' or 'thisness' of things
Is their very 'thought' itself - illumined.

'Meditations on Peter's 'What is Thinking?'

Thanks for ‘What is Thinking? ’I found (actually I still AM finding) it deeply profound. I have found myself taking in a couple of lines at a time and meditating them and they take me to extraordinary places. Just this morning it all gelled in me as to what was nagging away at the back of awareness. Since you sent me the first draft some time ago, every time I read it, there was something of significance in the words ‘have thoughts’. What was it about that phrase that was so significant to me? I kept meditating on this as I went about my day. I was also very well aware just how much of a giant shadow the thoughts that ‘I have’ cast on the things around me. I’ve written before of my own awareness of just how unaware I can be doing everyday things of life, like walking to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee etc, while being ‘lost in thought’.

I have always wanted to experience reality like I used to do on LSD. On acid, the experience of simply doing anything, filling a cup with water, looking at a piece of wood on the ground, the enormity of crossing a road with everything so fascinating, was almost overwhelming. Why? Impossible to put into words. Back then when I was taking it, I remember that ‘things’ were simply more than they were. That’s the only way I could put it. Reading ‘What is Thinking?’, the line, ‘See how things glisten and shine in that light’ jumped out at me and I knew that that was what it was about LSD. Somehow things did glisten and shine, to the extent that for me I wasn’t colour blind when tripping like I ‘was’ normally. Things glistened and shone to the extent that I could recognise ‘green’ as ‘green’, something which I could never have done when not tripping.

Reading the piece I began to realise that ‘having’ thoughts meant that I wasn’t able to directly face reality, and that was the reason why it wasn’t glistening and shining. That if the thoughts that I ‘had’ were, indeed, casting a shadow on the things around me, then they couldn’t glisten and shine in the pure Light of Awareness. But what did it mean to have thoughts?

And then while being in Awareness this morning, some wonderful thoughts came to me. ‘Having thoughts’ is not the same as being aware of thoughts. ‘Having thoughts’ is when you realise that you have just been thinking certain thoughts but you didn’t intend to and neither were you aware while you were thinking them that you were indeed thinking them. Being aware of thoughts is when you are aware of thoughts as they arise.

Saying that ‘I have thoughts’ is like saying ‘I have a cold’. When we say that ‘I have a cold’, we are implying that I didn’t choose to have a cold, I didn’t create it, that it happened to me. And that perfectly describes how I felt this morning when I knew what ‘having thoughts’ meant. All my life I ‘have had thoughts’ and upon realising that I am ‘lost in thought’ I sometimes curse myself for being lost in thought, wondering why these things just happen to me or I happen to think them and why can’t I control this? Why can’t I empty my mind?

Being aware of thoughts is actively or consciously choosing to be aware of thoughts as they arise. I am identifying with the awareness of thoughts. If I ‘have thoughts’ I am passively or not consciously choosing to be aware of thoughts as they arise. I am unconsciously identified with the thoughts that I have. In just the same way we say, “I have a cold’, meaning that we are unaware that we are actually ‘colding’, that is, aware of creating a cold, and instead we are identified with the cold, as we are identified with thoughts of anger when we quite literally say, ‘I am angry’.

Aware thinking is when you are aware of thoughts as they arise, and that you can consciously choose to follow them and think them. In this sense, we do not ‘have’ thoughts so much as actively think them. Aware feeling is the same thing. If you are listening to a piece of music and aware of what it feels like to listen, all sorts of subtle tones, textures and colours arise. There is a wealth of difference between this and telling someone that you ‘had a feeling’ of contentment while walking on the beach, or ‘had a feeling’ of anger while listening to John Howard on TV. Contentment and anger are as meaningless as describing the former listening to music as ‘good’. The direct ‘face to face‘ encounter with music is experienced in ‘technicolour’; ‘having a feeling’ of anger is like experiencing in monochrome. What colour was the anger? How did it feel?

Having thoughts or feelings reduces a technicolour reality into a monochrome, boring blah. Sometimes I have been out for a walk and I start thinking about a problem, I ‘have’ thoughts about a problem — for example, re-arranging my computer/scanner/printer/backup drive on my desk to maximise space. I can have the most ‘wonderful thoughts’, get slightly manic because I think I have solved a problem, I can’t wait to get back home and try it out. Then when I am home I walk into my room and I am confronted with its living reality. Suddenly, the great ideas that I had look so black and white that I feel deflated. Suddenly I am aware of all the aspects about my room, desk, telephone modem cable, position of the light, of the length of cables, of the positioning of power points etc that I couldn’t possibly have kept in awareness, so lost or locked in to what I was thinking about while on my walk. I stand still, breathing in the whole room, aware of myself in this living space and it comes to me what I have been searching for — the rearrangement. It comes to me fully formed from the very awareness space that I locked myself out of on my walk.

So this morning I became aware that ‘just having thoughts about things, we lose direct awareness of the things we are thinking about’. I decided to conduct some phenomenological research when having my shower this morning. Soon the water was falling on me and I was washing myself and was aware that I was ‘having thoughts‘. I became aware that ‘having thoughts’ while doing something is a ‘double distortion’ of reality. Having thoughts meant that I wasn’t directly aware of showering — feeling what it felt like to have a shower. And like the thinking about the computer problem while on my walk, the thoughts themselves are flat and colourless. So we lose all round.

For it seems to me that when we just 'have' thoughts our awareness becomes so centred in them that we look out at the world purely through the eyes and 'in the light' of that thought - not seeing how it is colouring and shaping our awareness of things - and not being aware of that thought itself in the pure light of awareness that brings it to light. Conversely, when we are in Awareness, aware of everything there is to be aware of, both within and outside us, we are not contracted but in an expanded awareness state. In this state, everything around us is bathed or illuminated by the Pure Light of Awareness, thus things are able to glisten and shine in this light, reflecting it to me. (interesting isn’t it that LSD was said to ‘expand awareness’).

So getting out of the shower I found a mantra arising within me — aware drying. I picked up the towel and probably for the first time in my life actively and knowingly dried myself with the towel. I felt everything there was to feel as I dried myself, I intentionally kept awareness of all that I was aware of while drying myself and was aware of everything that I am writing now in a sort of ‘wrapped up’ form at the same time as feeling the towel on my skin, the bathroom, the walls, the sounds etc. It all came to me in that moment. As I walked out of the bathroom and switched off the light, a mantra started up, ‘aware switching off’. As I walked to my room to get dressed, a mantra started up, ‘aware walking’ etc etc. It wasn’t exactly like LSD, but it was close. It was an alive, aware experiencing and while my mind wasn’t empty, it also wasn’t full of foreign thoughts, just thoughts arising and passing through me with me letting them go, neither getting lost in them nor locked into any one of them.

WHAT IS KNOWING?

...with special acknowledgements to Yogin Andrew Gara


True ‘knowledge’
Is direct AWARENESS.
Truly ‘knowing’ means
BEING AWARE.

Awareness is not just
‘Knowing’ you are going into the kitchen,
To cook, wash up or make a cup of tea or coffee, and
Not just ‘knowing’ you are cooking, washing up or making tea, but
Being aware of every aspect of your bodily and
Sensory EXPERIENCE of doing so.

Awareness is not just
‘Knowing what you think’
About someone or something, but
Being AWARE of thinking particular thoughts
About those things and people.

Awareness is not just
‘Knowing in your own mind’
What you ‘feel’ about something or someone,
Not just ‘knowing what you feel’ in your mind, but
Being AWARE of those feelings in your
Body and feeling them in an
Immediate, bodily way.

Awareness is not just
‘Knowing what you are doing’
Whenever you do it, and whatever it is, but
Being AWARE of every aspect of your immediate, bodily and sensory
Experience of doing it, and of all the thoughts behind or Accompanying that aware experiencing of action.

Awareness is not just ‘knowing’
That you are feeling or thinking something;
Seeing or hearing something, touching or handling something,
Walking somewhere or talking to someone, breathing or speaking, but
Being AWARE of every aspect of your immediate sensory,
Bodily and mental experience of doing so.

Awareness is not just
‘Knowing your own mind’ and
Acting or reacting accordingly, without awareness, but
Being AWAREW of where your actions and reactions are ‘coming from’,
Aware of the thoughts and feelings they express, and
Aware too of the bodily experience of yourself
That is reflected in that ‘mind’
You think you ‘know’.

AWARENESS is not
Mental, verbal or intellectual ‘knowing’.
It is not even unaware, tacit or silent knowing.
It is the other way round.
True ‘knowing’ is
AWARENESS.

Only if you are aware
Of what you think you ‘know’,
Can you truly ‘know’ that which
You are aware of.

Ultimate ‘truth’ is
KNOWING AWARENESS.
This knowing awareness is
Not simply an awareness ‘of’ things.
It is that primordial awareness
Which is the very source of
All things and all beings;
Of all there is to be
Aware of, and all
That is and can
Be 'known'.

I hope that all of you are well, and find the reading and practice of The New Yoga beneficial and enjoyable.
There are two new articles to read, one is 'Awareness and Illness', the other a compilation of writings on 'The Awareness Principle', which is also the title of the piece. You find them under 'Further Teachings'. As usual, Peter looks forward to hearing about your impressions, meditations and experiences.
With Love

WHAT IS LIBERATION?


We are each aware of a sense of self
Or aware of multiple, diverse selves.
A sense more or less fixed or fluid,
More or less singular or plural.

This sense of self is formed of
Many elements, from thoughts and
Feelings to familiar moods and modes of
Inner and outer experiencing.

Yet all the elements of experience that make up or
Inform ‘our’ sense of self, are constantly IN formation,
Constantly manifesting from a source quite other than
Any self we can possibly experience as ‘ours’.

‘Liberation’ means being aware of all the elements of our
Experienced self as a self-manifestation and self-experience of
Awareness as such - an awareness that is not ‘mine’ or ‘yours’
Yet which experiences itself as ‘me’ and ‘you’, ‘him’ and ‘her’.

This Awareness is truly Divine, for though not being
Yours or mine, it is the source of all that ‘I’, you or anyone
Can experience as ‘their’ self and ‘their’ experience, for it is
That Awareness which experiences itself as every ‘I’ and ‘you’.

Yet whenever we ‘own’ a thought, feeling or
Any aspect of our experience as ‘mine’ or as ‘me’
We no longer experience the Divine, forgetting that
‘Our’ very experience of self is ITS experience, not ‘ours’.

Since the Divine Awareness is the very source
From which all the elements of experience arise
That first make up our sense of self, how can any self
Be said to have or possess its ‘own’ experience?

THAT self – the ego - that takes the experiences
It ‘has’ as its ‘own’, or thinks of itself as ‘having’ or
‘Possessing’ a self that is its ‘own’, is deluded, and
Lives in constant fear of losing its ‘self-possession’.

Liberation is a sacrifice of this self and a surrender to the Divine,
Not a surrender of self but of self-possession, disowning and restoring
Ownership of our sense of self to God - that Divine Awareness to which Alone all experiencing and all experiences of self ultimately BELONG.

Dis-owning our self-experience we are re-enowned by God.
We do not ‘lose’ ourselves to God, but refind ourselves as part of God.
Recognising all we experience as belonging to God’s self-experience,
We realise that ‘union’ with the Divine that is the meaning of ‘yoga’.

For awareness of self does not belong to any self we are aware of.
Nor is it bound to any self we are aware of, except that
Divine Self which does not possess but IS awareness,
Unbound and unbounded, liberated and free.

For the deluded self that believes it ‘possesses’ the experiences
That first endow it with a sense of self, the ultimate sacrifice to God
The leap to liberation, is fraught with terror, for the ego identifies
Surrender of self-possession with loss of self and ultimate non-being.

That is why the Divine also has the Tantric face and name of
BHAIRAV - ‘The Terrifying One’ - and why being ‘godfearing’ can
Mean just that, fearing to face the delusory terror of non-being that
The leap into Moksha – liberation - demands of all who take it.

Many Muslims confuse the Great Sacrifice with struggle and passionate Martyrdom for a holy cause, thus confusing surrender of the body with Surrender of self to God - and forgetting that Awareness alone, not War, can bring an end to all war and tyranny, the tyranny of the warring ego.

Christianity guards the sacred mantra that
That say ‘I and the Father are one’.
Yet which Christian can say what this ‘One’
IS which unites the Self with the Divine?

For knowing it as Awareness they
Would speak of it neither as
‘I’ nor as any paternal
Self or Deity.

And what of those Buddhists who
Do not believe in any such a thing as ‘Self’,
Who believe in no God to sacrifice a delusory sense of ‘self’ to,
Who may even believe that Non-Being itself is ‘Nirvana’?

They can go their way - but behind their spiritual repose
You may find a great terror in the face of BHAIRAV,
That face of the Divine beloved of Tantrikas?,
To whom surrender brings total autonomy.

The Mantra of Liberation says: ‘Not Mine but the Divine’.
Thus however you are aware of feeling and whatever you aware of thinking, Think and feel these thoughts and feelings not as yours, but as those of
A Divine Awareness, boundless and divine.

Saying 'Not Mine but the Divine',
Dis-owning the 'self' you think you 'own', you will refind
AS that Divine Awarenes which is thinking and feeling itself
In and as you, that is being and bodying you as Itself.

Whatever divine name you call it by,
Surrendering to its spacious embrace is bliss,
Sacrifice to it brings bountiful blessings,
And its boon is everlasting Liberation.

These are some musings in relation to the latest karika, 'What is Liberation?'

OUT OF THE BLUE

There is a body
Seemingly solid and soft,
Of a shape recognised
By other bodies
As me.

And yet,
Is this not a body
Being manifested anew
Every moment
Out of the Blue?

There are feelings,
Thoughts and twinges,
Moods and musings,
All
Manifesting out of the Blue.

There is No-thing,
thinking and feeling,
Twingeing, mooding and musing,
Bodying and recognising -
Without any effort
Everything manifests:
Breath and heartbeat,
Light and darkness,
Chair and table,
Joy, and wonder
that things are.

There is bliss,
There is moksha,
There is nothing
That is not Shiva.

My Lord of the living light.

In response to ‘What is Liberation?’

I am far from finished with meditating it, if ever. What I most got from it so far is “Liberation is a sacrifice of this self and a surrender to the Divine, Not a surrender of our sense of self but of self-possession, disowning and restoring Ownership of our sense of self to God - that Divine Awareness to which alone all Experiencing and all experiences of self ultimately belong”. That is, it came over to me quite vividly that it is not about sacrificing the sense of self we have but ownership of that sense of self. A subtle but very important distinction. I think the mantra you have ‘Disown’ is quite powerful and meaningful and I am playing with it a lot. I had a feeling of being a ‘hand of God’ (isn’t that Hamas or one of those other terrorist organisations?). My hand does not own itself, I own it. I and everyone else are ‘hands or organs of God’, we do not own ourselves, Awareness owns us. I also visited lucid dreaming again. In a lucid dream, there is the realisation that there is only the awareness self and that the dream self is a delusion. But what a delusion. In ordinary dreams, one can wake up in a sweat at almost being killed or… This is where I found your reference to Bhairav so important and clear to me. We are terrified of dying for precisely the reasons you said in the verse. “The ego identifies surrender of self possession with loss of self and ultimate non being”. We do have to face Bhairav the terrifying one if we are going to take the leap into Moksha. Maybe that is why most don’t honour your work? It demands that leap without actually stating it, yet people feel it?

Out of the Blue

When I uploaded the poem yesterday night I was in a state of exhilaration - and wanted to share it with all of you, immediately. However, I left out the process and the means of getting into this state of consciousness, and I would like to share those as well.

For some time I had tried to 'get into' Peter's ‘karika’ - ‘What is Liberation?’ - on my own, reading it several times without being able to really take in the words, much less meditate the meaning. Then, yesterday, I thought I 'understood', and went to check my understanding with Peter because I still wasn't sure. Without letting me get into 'talking about' my understanding Peter began to speak. He invited me to experiment. He suggested that I could experience every element that emerged in the awareness space - thoughts, bodily sensations etc. - as coming 'out of the Blue', and that instead of asking for further clarification I could just sit in silence and do it.

As I sat in silence doing it, the sense that indeed everything was just emerging out of the blue with no one doing anything became stronger and stronger. In gazing around at every thing in the room, all things, including Peter's body, including my body, became newly emerging, freshly 'minted' at every moment, an expression of awareness, no more, no less. I went into the garden and all the plants, the night air itself, the gusts of wind and the stars, all was newly emerging at this very moment. I felt such joy that this is indeed what happens, that everything emerges anew at any moment, that awareness expresses itself at every moment, and that this is a miracle that we can witness at any moment if we are open to it, and that even the joy was not 'mine' but belonged to the Divine.

In my bliss I also felt a deep sense of gratitude for Peter, but was not aware of exactly how my experience of this bliss had come about. In a discussion the next day Peter told me that when I came to him he had deliberately gone into a heightened state of inner silence and liberating awareness of the sort described in his karika – aware of an opportunity and summoning the intent, as guru, to receive from Shiva a new mantra - one that would unfailingly work to initiate me into a direct experience of the meaning of the karika. Then, in speaking to me, the phrase 'Out of the Blue' came to him ‘out of the blue’. He immediately recognised it as the mantra he had asked for as guru, feeling its power, letting his words unfold from it, and knowing it would unfailingly serve his initiatory intent for me – as indeed it did. And as I was writing my own poem Peter wanted to share the new mantra and wrote a piece on it called ‘The Bliss of the Blue’, which he will post up soon.

Through my discussion with Peter I realised that I was quite unaware of the full extent of his active and aware intent as ‘guru’ in my experience. According to him this is not unusual, and he himself is quite familiar with people not being aware what he is silently and inwardly doing for them through silent awareness. They simply take the experiences that come to them as their ‘own’. It seems that people need to do so in order to preserve the sense of ‘owning’ their experience. This, the karika on Liberation says, is the chief obstacle to liberation, the taking of what emerges as 'my' experience. Peter also emphasised that while many people’s experiences seem to come ‘out of the blue’, there are some that only do so through ‘guru’.

With my poem I honoured Lord Shiva, the Divine Guru, Awareness. However, the experience would not have been possible without the effort and intent of my human guru, Peter, whom I want to honour with this note.

I wrote this before I read Andrew's message and feel inclined to say something more about honouring - or not, as it is. I believe that it's not so much fear of facing Bhairava, of taking the leap, that keeps people from honouring Peter's work. It's more, that in our western upbringing and way of thinking we do not think the dimension of intending something for others, we don't understand the concept of Guru, and even if we do, we forget. We just see Peter, the person, and forget his siddhis and his use of them - just as we forget that we are Awareness. We behave as if Peter's work came out of 'ordinary' thinking, rational thinking, and not out of deep meditation and exploration of other states of consciousness.

THE BLISS OF THE BLUE

The essential intent of my last tantric verse meditation or 'Karika' on ‘What is Liberation?’ was simply to encourage the reader to risk an experiment.

This is the experiment of experiencing every element of our immediate experience, whether a thought, feeling or the subtlest of bodily sensations, not as ‘ours’ but as arising ‘out of the blue’, out of that pure ‘aether’ of awareness which, like the blue sky or the pure emptiness of space, is neither yours nor mine but the very essence of the Divine - symbolised by the great sky of Shiva.

In this way we come to experience every element of our 'inner' experiencing as no different from things outward, such as clouds emerging out of a clear blue sky, forming and transforming, condensing into rain and water, or crystallising into snow and ice - like the snow-capped peaks of Mount Kailash - mythic seat of Lord Shiva, whose peaks reach up into the blue of the aether.

Aware of experiencing all things as emerging from pure awareness as if ‘out of the blue’, one enters more deeply INTO 'the blue'. Indeed one comes to BE the blue - to experience its sensual bliss of pure awareness in every breath, the cooling air flowing into one’s nostrils as its translucent aether,with its scent of pure sensuality.

Blue symbolises 'nirguna', the 4th 'guna' or basic quality of experiences that transcends all gunas and whose true nature is clear spacious translucency. The other three are 'tamas', 'raja' and 'sattva' - darkness vitality and light respectively - and symbolised by the colours black, red and white.

Entering the spacious transclucent expanse of the blue, one can let one’s attention be freely moved and flow like the wind in any direction within its infinite space, thus enjoying the experiencing of all new sensations and perceptions, feelings and thoughts, recollections and anticipations, that come out of the blue, deriving insight from all that it minds or reminds one of through them.

Feeling and flowing in the unbounded spacious expanse of pure awareness that is 'the blue' is the experience of what known the tantras as 'Khechari' - literally "she who moves in the void".

In order to enter more deeply into the blue, and experience Khechari it is helpful to begin by feel the bounded solidity of one's body as quite literally solidying the unbounded space around it, and taking shape as every sensation and aspect of one's bodily self-experience.

Having entered more deeply into the blue, 'out of the blue' too, come all those higher thoughts through which one comes to recognises the bliss one enjoys as ITS bliss - literally the 'bliss OF the blue'. Even our ‘own’ recognition of this is experienced as ITS recognition of itself in us - and in all that we experience. For what comes ‘out of the blue’ is indeed all thoughts and all things, not only the mind but one’s very body in its entirety.

Thus 'out of the blue' too comes the entire mount on which Lord Shiva is pictured as seated. The image or ‘murti’ of Lord Shiva seated on that mount is of course a symbol or ‘lingam’ which has arisen ‘mythically’ -‘out of the blue'. Yet through it Shiva - as Supreme Guru – is able to reveal the bliss of the blue most beautifully embodied in human form.

The importance of all such mythic god symbols, images and 'idols' (male or female) lies in the way they can help lead us into a direct experienc the SYMBOL-FREE awareness behind them, an awareness from which all things arise - and of which therefore all things are signs, symbols or 'linga'.

Through the perfect poise of his bodily bearing the idol or 'murti' of Shiva bodies ‘the bliss of the blue’. It is a silent embodiment of his mantra, telling us that even as a ‘mere’ human idol that - “I am Shiva” - that this or any body, whether it be of flesh, wood or bronze, is, like all things “a compact mass of awareness bliss” bodying ‘the bliss of the blue’. This is a bliss that not only takes the bodily form of Shiva but also of you – for it is that bodiless awareness out of it come all bodies.

Yet as this very bodiless awareness Shiva informs us too - not despite but through its manifestation as his human bodily form - that “the entire universe is my body”, as it is ours too.

For the true universe we dwell in is not a universe of objects but a universe of subjective experiencing. That does not make it something merely subjective, a delusory dream or illusion, for like a dream it is constantly COMING TRUE - from ‘out of the blue’.

The Body of the Blue

Mount Kailash

SPRING SHOOTS

Some news on what’s been happening over recent months:

The New Yoga site has receive a bit of a face-lift and has some important new writings in it:

-‘Guiding Thoughts’, some reflections on superficial views of awareness, ‘the now’ and ‘enlightenment’ that deny the meaning of negative experiencing, and in which I also write on the creative, MUSICAL metamorphosis of ‘the pain body’.

- ‘The Awareness Principle’, a compendium of pieces explaining and giving examples of the basics of The New Yoga.

- An expanded (although still not complete) edition of my ‘Karikas’ – verse presentation of TNY.

- Changes to the material ‘About Peter Wilberg’.

- All my writings on TNY reorganised in a new ‘Books, Essays and Articles’ Page.

- I have revised my piece on ‘The Old Yoga and the New’, re-titling it ‘The New Yoga and Kashmir Shaivism’ and explaining how its original precepts differ from the latter.


Good news:


- Karin has been working hard on preparing the first of a series of books on The New Yoga for publication, and has found a new and friendly UK-based printer. That means we could have at least two or more books (inclduing 'Tantric Wisdom' and 'Tantra Reborn' in print and on sale worldwide within a couple of months – with many, many that could follow fairly rapidly, including perhaps my Karikas, 'The Awareness Principle', 'Inner Bodywork' and others.
 

- New people have expressed interest in the work, both in training in the therapeutic application of The New Yoga (‘Inner Bodwork’ / ‘The New Therapy) and in learning to practice pair and partner meditation more deeply and with less fear.

- Andrew has been invited ‘out of the blue’ to give a fresh round of in-house seminars at different locations and for different groups of mental health professionals in Australia.

- Karin is also preparing to offer staff training workshops on The Awareness Principle, Soma-Sensitivity and Communicative Receptivity Training (‘dealing with difficult’ people’) to a nationwide organisation.

- I have been continuing to receive wonderful ‘transmissions’ and important guidance, verbal and non-verbal, through my shrine meditations and worship (‘Puja’).

- I am also preparing to go ‘public’ with ‘The New Yoga’ in a more proactive way – not just through the books but also through making first contacts with important contemporary scholars, philosophers and spiritual teachers, through Wikipedia entries and articles for ‘The Infinity Foundation’ – which, by the way, offers grants to absolutely anyone wanting to do just about anything with any relation whatsoever to Indian philosophy.

In the meantime, I have been profoundly moved by the discovery of a little-known musical genius of the highest order - and, I believe, of the greatest relevance for our age – the 17 symphonies of a much-ignored Swedish composer – Allan Pettersson(see my ‘Guiding Thoughts’).

As for the future, we would love to see or hear from some of you again, both up here, across the pond - and down under.

Do remember that the Bulletin Board is available to all to write whatever you would like to share about developments in your own life - and whatever you have to say about 'The New Yoga'.

Peter

Have read 'Guiding Thoughts' and wanted to comment on one section at least.

I wanted to comment on ‘Pain, presence and the essence of the Divine’. After meditating this for a couple of days, this is what came to me this morning. My commentary. Tolle et al, most Buddhism and Hinduism and New Age rubbish always extol the virtues of the here and now as if that is all we have to attune to. And if we don’t do this, then pain is the result. Simple. If we are absorbed in the past or the future then we are not in the present and this is the cause of pain. In fact, what we call pleasure is for them mere absorption in something we are doing in the present. Thus we are missing the real present through our absorption in an element of the present, say making love. Thus, this must be suspect so it is regarded as transitory, contrary to our experience of it as ever new as you say. If I have read you correctly, you are saying that pain is the felt presence of something that is absent (absence in presence). Thus negativity is a dimension of the Now. Reminds me of Seth’s ‘Anger is love looking for itself’. What is not present is felt as present, painfully.
Awareness withdraws into presence. When we are absorbed in something, awareness has withdrawn into presence so we may well be completely conscious but not necessarily aware. But this doesn’t mean that it is a negative thing. If pain is awareness of absence in presence, pleasure can be understood as awareness of presence in absence — that is, we are aware or present to ‘God’ in absence. So listening to Beethoven’s late string quartets or Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, we can be aware of what has withdrawn into presence, filled presence out from within. We can literally feel God and thus feel elated even though the music may be agonising. I suppose if God is immanent within all things, s/he is filling that agonising from within, Your way of saying this is to say that ‘negativity’ is transformed into a transcendent affirmation of the inner music of the soul? That is, if I can be aware of my most intimate tragedy and express this in a language, the very expression negates the tragic nature of what I am expressing, making the expression itself a positive.

Freedom from and freedom to. I was out walking the other day and began to feel awareness imbuing ‘my’ body with feeling tones, shaping and moulding it.That is, I began to feel that just as I can imbue my voice with a whole range of qualities to get over certain messages so awareness is doing the same with bodies. I felt bodying as the shaping of awareness. But more than this I felt an actual ‘movement’ or flow of awareness from ... To or through the flesh. I felt process or movement and Shiva and Shakti as the elements of this movement, rather than two ‘things’, Shiva and Shakti, in interaction. I guess I felt Shiva-Shakti as the more primordial of the trika.

New essays now on the site under ‘Books, Essays and Articles’:

· On the Manifold Bodies of the Soul
· The Awareness Principle and ‘The Unconscious’
· Power and Gender in Hindu Shaivist Tantra
· Introduction to the Practice of Awareness
· Heidegger, Yoga and Indian Thought
· The New Yoga, Advaita and Kashmir Shaivism
· HINDUISM in relation to the Abrahamic Faiths
· MURTI – the wonders of Hindu idol worship
· GUNAS – the triadic key to yogic psychology

                                                  AWARENESS 101

AWARENESS AND WHAT AWARENESS IS AWARE OF

There is an essential paradox reading Peter’s work on awareness. For unless you already have a ‘feel’ for what he is writing about, the words can be very ‘slippery’ as a friend of mine said to me the other day. She was trying to understand what I meant when I suggested to her that she was attached to the events around her and to the thoughts and emotions within her and that real freedom was attained through centering ourselves in the AWARENESS of the events around her and the thoughts and emotions within rather than what awareness is aware of. She asked me what I meant and I said to myself, ‘Good question’, for I had also struggled with this when I first came across it in Peter’s work.

If Peter has written about the ‘distinction between awareness and what awareness is aware of’ once, he has done it a thousand times. I would say until you can grasp this in a deep feeling way, that is, know it ‘in your bones’, just about all of his writings in The New Yoga will be mainly inaccessible to you. Like my friend, you may grasp it in moments and then it slips through your fingers like water and you find that the phrase the ‘distinction between awareness and what awareness is aware of’ again eludes you.

Mind you, I don’t think there is anything intrinsically wrong with struggling with someone’s words, for if you intend to feel them from within and you don’t give up, it will eventually happen. I’ve known Peter for over 30 years and have ‘struggled’ for all that time to grasp what he is saying and have found that I eventually gained a felt understanding of things that at the time I would have sworn were beyond me. But there is also nothing wrong with a helping hand if it can enable someone to feel the essence of a concept.

LUCID DREAMING AND DREAMING

I was meditating the other day questing for a way to help myself (and therefore others) to FEEL the reality of the ‘distinction between awareness and what awareness is aware of’. On awakening one morning it came to me that ‘where I had just been’ (dreaming) was the answer. I am assuming that everyone reading this has had a lucid dream. That is, a dream in which you know that you are dreaming, a dream in which you don’t wake up FROM the dream but wake up WITHIN the dream. Sometimes in a dream, we become aware that the events are so outlandish that part of us ‘wakes up’ and says to ourselves something like, ‘This is crazy, this must be a dream!’ This ‘revelation’ usually leads to us waking up in the bed, but if we wake up inside the dream, then it becomes a lucid dream. (There are also ways to ‘stay awake’ while going to sleep – meaning that we can have an out of body experience from the waking state. I still remember vividly an out-of-body experience in 1976 in Peter’s house in London. I can still re-evoke the feeling of this experience now over thirty years later and it is this feeling that I am calling on people to re-evoke now. If you can you will follow what I am going to say. And of course some people have had ‘near death experiences’ and others ‘astral projections’ all of which put us in similar states.)

If you wake up inside the dream but not from the dream, you find yourself in a perfectly lucid state. You KNOW that you are dreaming and you know that, normally, you don’t know that you are dreaming until you wake up. You also know with absolute conviction that because you are dreaming, you are utterly free within the dream to do anything you want. (Whether philosophically true or not, in a lucid dream you know that the whole dream is happening ‘in your head’ or that ‘everything is imaginary’ or that it isn’t ‘real’). Death can’t stop you for you can’t die because ‘this is only a dream’. You know that walls can’t stop you, you just walk through them. Gravity can’t stop you, you just lift off the ground and fly. You know that you can direct the action of the dream with your intent. All you have to do is intend something and it happens. You intend to walk through solid matter and it happens.

MAINTAINING LUCIDITY

The only problem in a lucid dream is maintaining lucidity. It is so easy to lose yourself in whatever you are thinking or feeling or lose yourself in any events inside the dream. As soon as you do lose yourself in thoughts or events, you forget that you know you are dreaming and you just start ‘dreaming’ again, sometimes until you wake up in the bed and recall that you were lucidly dreaming but ‘lost it’. Maintaining lucidity is an interesting business for it isn’t anything one can do. It is a pure ‘not-doing’. It is as if in a lucid dream we have to keep one ‘eye’ on remembering that we are lucid and the other ‘eye’ on whatever is happening around or within us. A sort of ‘dual awareness’, though dual is entirely the wrong word because it suggests separation which is not the case. While lucidly dreaming we become aware that our awareness is actually like a coin. It has two sides, distinct but inseparable. One side is our consciousness-of-the-world-around-us (the events of the dream) and the world inside us (what we are thinking and feeling within the dream) and the other side is the awareness that we are dreaming all this – that is, that everything that is happening in the dream world is happening within the dreamer’s awareness (within a field of awareness). To maintain lucidity, we must keep that non-dual awareness uppermost. Non-dual in the sense of , like a coin, a boundary layer of awareness, with two sides that cannot be separated, but are, nevertheless distinct. So a lucid dream is a dream in which we keep ourselves centred in the AWARENESS of what we are CONSCIOUS OF. A normal dream is when we are only conscious of what is happening in the dream.

LUCID AWAKENING

You are awake now. What would it be like to be lucidly awake? How would you go about becoming lucid while awake? If you could become lucid while awake, wouldn’t you be ‘enlightened’? Surely to be ‘lucid’ means to be ‘enlightened’? If you could become lucid while awake, this would mean that you would centre yourself in your Awareness of what you are conscious of, rather than what you are conscious of. This is what Peter means. And it is essentially what Indian philosophy-religion is all about.

Let’s look at the possible state of ‘lucid awakening’ for what it can make explicit about Peter’s writing. Peter writes a lot about awareness and consciousness. He says that if we are lost in thought or playing on the computer we may be conscious but we are not aware. There is the use of the two terms, consciousness and awareness. Consciousness the way Peter talks about it is analogous to what it is in a normal dream. A normal dream is a dream in which we are, moment by moment, ‘lost’ in the events of the dream. A lucid dream is a dream in which we are no longer lost because we have realised that we are ‘dreaming all this’, that there is somewhere ‘surrounding’ or transcending all this that we really are. We have ‘found ourselves’ through the recognition that we are dreaming this.

While lucidly dreaming, just who are we? When we say, I am dreaming in a lucid dream, do we mean that I realise I am the dreamer not the dreamt self, or am I the dreamt self and do I realise that I am dreaming? Tricky one, this. For it is both and neither. Yes, I am the dreamer, but yes, I am also still dreaming, thus I am still the dreamt self. It depends on where you put the intonation. I am dreaming. If the emphasis is on the I, then it is the dreaming Self that I am. If the emphasis is on the dreaming, then it is I, the dreamt self who is dreaming. When the Shaivist Yogis said Shivoham (I am Shiva), this is essentially what this is about. If you became lucidly awake right now, you would KNOW that you were ‘WAKING’ this experience right now, that you were really ‘above’ or ‘surrounding’ this whole reality, that is, that you were in fact Shiva or God. While at the same time you would know that the you in the experience was God or Shiva. So what you might try to do as you go about your everyday reality is try and get a feel for everything that surrounds you as like a bubble of your awareness, that you actually enclose or surround everything. You would be expanding your awareness to the horizon of what you are aware of. You would maintain an ongoing awareness of being in the centre of an enormous volume of space, in front of you, behind you, below you, on either side while you go about your day. This ‘not-doing’ would ensure that you are constantly feeling your whole body and you wouldn’t be lost in any thoughts or feelings or any of the events around you.

The other day I woke up from a dream and felt really upset by it. In that moment, I realised that it is I, not the dreamt self, who is really ‘doing’ the experiencing of this dream. While dreaming, it is the dreamt self who thinks they ‘own’ the experience of dreaming. If in the dream I forget where I parked my car, and spend several frustrating ‘hours’ walking aimlessly around trying to find it, I take it for granted that me, the dreamt self, is the owner of the experience. It is only when I wake up, do I realise that of course the experience is mine (otherwise I wouldn’t be upset by it) and sometimes when the symbolism is so obvious, I again have further proof that what happens in a dream is my experience not the dreamt self’s. What I mean by all this is that on awakening I know that I, the waking self, act through, in and as the dreamt self. Now when Peter writes about ‘the delusion of agency’, about the delusion that we suffer from when we think that we own our experience, that these are my thoughts, this is my self, my awareness, this is what he is referring to. For if we could become lucidly awake, we would know with utter conviction that it is Shiva or God that is acting through, in and as us. That it is Shiva or God who is the experiencer, not us, we are the experienced self, just as when we dream, we are the dreamt self. That there is no such thing as my self or my awareness. There is only ONE self – Shiva or God, just as there is only one Dreamer, me, and I dream many dreams and many me’s.

AWARENESS IS FREEDOM

In an ordinary dream while we are dreaming it, we believe and so experience an ‘objective’ world outside us. Just like waking life, there is us ‘here’ and the world ‘over there’, separate and distinct from us. If we are confronted by a dog that snaps and barks at us and we start to get frightened, the dog may even grow in size and viciousness, until we wake up in a sweat. When lucidly dreaming we experience something entirely different. We know that in some way WE are everything. That everything in this world is us. If we feel ‘dark’ in a lucid dream, the atmosphere around may instantly darken and we can lighten it by brightening our mood. The scientific assumption that reality is ‘objective’ is turned on its head while lucidly dreaming. We know with certainty that reality is entirely subjective. In a lucid dream if we are confronted by a vicious dog snapping and barking at us we know that we are safely centred in the lucid awareness of the dog. We can simply turn our attention to something else or we can even make the dog disappear by ‘snapping our fingers’.

In Peter’s work you will read a lot about the distinction between awareness and what awareness is aware of, especially in its application to therapy and counselling. If a person is worrying about ‘what people think about them’, a cognitive behavioural therapist may try to help the person be ‘mindful’ of their thoughts, objectify them and through counselling analyse their ‘truth value’. Such a person may come to see that their thoughts aren’t ‘rational’ and may indeed gain some relief from them. But invariably, the problem returns in another guise sooner or later. In Peter’s New Therapy, the approach is based on the mantra that ‘the awareness of a thought is not a thought’. If you are worrying about things, the awareness of worrying is not itself worrying. It is completely free of worrying. Just as in a lucid dream, you can centre yourself in the lucid awareness of dreaming rather than what you are dreaming of and solve problems confronting you (you can make a vicious dog disappear with a snap of your fingers for example) so while awake, you can centre yourself in awareness rather than what you are aware of.

The feeling in a lucid dream is almost one of ecstasy. In fact, ecstasy means ex-stasis – out of the body. In a lucid dream we feel absolutely free, almost drunk with freedom. Nothing can hold us down or back, we are unbounded. Indian religious philosophy called this state ‘moksha’. It is the aim of all meditation and the aim of Peter’s New Yoga. If we can become lucidly awake, become Awareness itself, rather than what we are aware of, we attain true freedom.

There is always the difficulty in being where others have not yet developed capacities to be of speaking and writing in ways that make utterly clear that the new capacities cannot be understood with the old language. That difficulty is emphasized in the reflection by Andrew, which is more or less filled with old language trying to contain not just new contents but a completely new and different mode of being.

THE CO-CREATION OF GOD AND MAN


"The long road to finding God. Somewhere along the line, they [human beings] achieve Freedom by identifying with Shiva. The circle is complete - as once Shiva identified with them to give them freedom. As his selves or creations come to self awareness as him, he comes to self awareness as his selves."

Andrew Gara

In the beginning was that God who knows no beginning or end. That God which is not 'nothing' but is also no 'thing' and no 'being’, for it is the source of ALL beings. This God is not a being 'with' awareness. This God IS awareness as such - infinite and unbounded.
 
This unbounded awareness alone is the ultimate and unsurpassable reality – ‘Anuttara’ - for it is the very condition for our awareness of any specific thing or being, world or universe whatsoever - including our very awareness of ourselves, our bodies and mind, feelings and thoughts. This Awareness alone is therefore also the very essence of The Divine - of 'God'.
 
Yet within the womb of this Divine Awareness - the true meaning of 'Shiva' as the Great God or Mahadeva - infinite creative potentialities lie darkly hidden. This womb of potentiality or power is the great Mother goddess or Mahadevi.
 
At first dimly sensed within the light of the Divine Awareness that is Shiva, these potentialities gradually took the form of ever clearer, more lucid and light-filled dreams - dreams of infinite potential worlds, infinite potential realities and infinite potential beings - individual consciousnessess or 'Jiva'.
 
Shiva not only embraced all these potential worlds and beings in the transcendent light of his unbounded awareness - but through that light automatically released them from the womb of the Great Goddess into free and autonomous self-actualisation, as Her autonomous powers of action or 'Shaktis'.
  
The countlesss individualised selves or Jiva that make up our physical world of human beings then evolved through a long road - one which led them to falsely believe that they were entities separate and apart from one another and from the Divine, beings whose womb or matrix was Matter or Energy and not The Mother and her power of potentiality.
 
The Jiva even came to believe that their physical actuality was the product of some cosmic accident and that even consciousness was their personal private property - not a uniquely individualised portion of the Divine Awareness that is Shiva.
 
Hypnotised by letting their awareness become focused and concentrated on their outer, physical reality, they gradually lost any sense of other planes or dimensions of reality and their awareness became restricted to their physical minds and bodies.
 
However, they also secretly yearned to feel again their connection with the darkness of the Divine Mother from whose womb they emerged, with the light of Divine Awareness that had released them from it, and with all those countless other planes and dimensions of awareness that the Great Mother Goddess and the Great God - Mahadevi and Mahadeva - had jointly given birth to.
 
So began the long search among human beings to re-find 'God'. Along this way, great teachers showed them the way, teaching them through the wisdom of Yoga, Mantra and Tantra to identify with the pure Awareness that is the Divine - knowing that by doing so they would totally free their awareness from identification with their limited physical consciousness and all its contents.

The Divine, aware of this in advance, had already prepared the way by dreaming itself in the human form of Shiva. Yet as once that Divine Awareness had dreamt itself not just in the form of Shiva but that of each embodied human soul or Jiva, so now human beings began to dream of their own divine source, yearning to once again feel themselves and each other as a part of the Divine Awareness and not as separate and apart from it and each other.
 
As once the Divine Awareness had creatively dreamed them, so now they began to creatively dream its manifold forms, letting them freely emerge into the light from within the dark depths of their own maternal souls. Thus humankind gave birth to the gods as the gods had once given birth to them. Some of these gods represented the many faces, bodies and qualities of the Divine Awareness as such. Others represented only the limiting ego-awareness of human beings, their experience of themselves as souls bound to and bounded by their own bodies.
 
For in releasing them into freedom, Shiva had also allowed each individualised soul or Jiva to freely fall into the bondage of contracted awareness, forgetting its own source in the Divine. As a result, the Jivas found themselves needing to seek and re-find 'God' - the freedom of that unbounded, pure and Divine Awareness which transcends body and mind, transcends all limited identities and contents of consciousness.
 
God as Shiva is the Divine Light of a pure awareness that is inseparable from and yet quite distinct from all there is to be conscious or aware OF - and can therefore simply De-Light in it.
 
Yet if the Divine experiences itself as a self or Jiva who has come to experience their self AS that very Awareness - as Shiva - the circle is completed. The delight of both Shiva and Jiva are conjoined as the absolute freedom (Moksha) and pure bliss (Ananda) of the Divine Awareness. BOTH now experience themselves as an Awareness that is neither 'dual' nor 'non-dual', neither separate nor indistinctly merged, but both distinct and inseparable - like two sides of a coin, or like two lovers in a permanent and unbreakable embrace.
 
Judaism, Christianity and Islam - are theistic and dualistic, asserting that God is a supreme creator being separate from ‘His’ creations. Buddhism is a-theistic and non-dualistic, denying the reality of Supreme Being. It is also nihilistic – denying the essential reality of all beings and all things and asserting that the highest truth is Absolute Nothingness or Non-Being.

Tantric theology understands the Divine neither as Being nor Non-Being; neither as a single Supreme Being nor as a multiplicity of beings - but as that Absolute Awareness (Anuttara) that is the source of all things and all beings. That Awareness is Absolute because it embraces not only all that is actual – all that has Being - but the reality of all that is potential. It embraces ‘Non-Being’ itself - not as an empty void but as a womb ever-pregnant with inexhaustible potentiality – the ‘Mother’. It is the Light of Awareness that is Shiva that releases these potentialities – Her Shaktis - into their own free and autonomous actualisation and Being.

The Mother is Yoni - the great dark womb of potentiality
Her Shaktis are everything that yearns for birth – yearns to be.
Shiva is the light of awareness that gives birth – that lets all things be.
His Linga is all that is born and has actual form.

[See 'Andrews Awareness Diary' for response to this piece]

THE LANGUAGE DELUSION

‘The being of all things that exist in awareness depends on awareness’ (Abhinavagupta)

Yet ‘the being of all things’ is also shaped by language, for just as we dwell in awareness so, as Heidegger pointed out, do we also dwell within language. The proliferation of world-views, mainstream or marginal, exoteric and esoteric, scientific or spiritual, tradition or ‘New Age’ reveals itself through the web and the ‘blogosphere’ in its true nature - as a proliferation of ‘lingual communities’ - groups of people linked by their shared use and attachment to a common sectarian ‘intra-language’ with its own particular vocabulary and keywords. Some lingual communities derive their entire intra-language from a tiny canon of texts - even just one, such as the New Testament. Other intra-languages, like those of the New Age lingual communities are inter-languages - eclectically interweaving terms from a whole variety of scientific and spiritual, modern and traditional intra-languages.

Yet all lingual communities and their intra- and inter-languages are permeated by a primary delusion, which I call the ‘language delusion’. This is the delusion that words ‘represent’, ‘refer’ to or ‘signify’ already existing concepts or things - rather than being purely linguistic (or mathematical-linguistic) CONSTRUCTS. As a result, no sooner has any word, term or phrase been co-opted, taken its place in or become central to a particular lingual community (for example the use of the co-opted Sanskrit word ‘Chakra’ in New Age discourse), then it is assumed (a) that there is some definite concept’ or thing’ that this word represents or signifies and (b) that this ‘thing’ or ‘concept’ has always existed everywhere and in every culture - even though the word ‘for’ it might only have been very recently coined or have a completely forgotten history and cultural use.

A good example is the word ‘religion’ - itself a very late European and Christian construct which became a central term in ‘religious studies’ and is taken as a global ‘thing in itself’ with only local variations - having become globalised to such an extent that even cultures with no equivalent word whatsoever in their language subsume their own practices and beliefs under the Western category of “Eastern ‘religions’”!

Much of my own work - past and present - has implicitly had to do, not just with evolving a new language of ‘awareness’, but also with cultivating a new, critical awareness of language - e.g. the unquestioned use and meaning of terms such as ‘energy’, ‘depression’, ‘body’, ‘mind’, ‘health’, ‘illness’, ‘yoga’, ‘tantra’, ‘consciousness’ etc. This deconstructive dimension of my work will be made much more explicit in the future.

For a higher language of awareness cannot be cultivated without an acute awareness of language - of the role of words and symbols - whether religious, scientific, philosophical, theological or even ‘tantric’ - in constructing their own assumed ‘subject’ matter and objects of thought, not to mention shaping what we think of as the direct experiences they express (for as we know, those experiences come from experienced concepts and are not simply expressed through them).

Can someone have a ‘direct’ experience of ‘energy’ rising through their ‘chakras’ or of ‘being reborn in Christ’ without such words and phrases - and without the whole language and way of speaking surrounding them? This is the key question addressed by ‘deconstructionism’ to ‘phenomenologies’ of direct experience.

Deconstructionists, following Derrida, deride the appeal to lived experience by arguing that there is ‘nothing outside language‘ - no subjects, agents or even experiences. And they are partly right, for there is indeed no realm of subjective EXPERIENCING (as opposed to the pure AWARENESS of it) that does not have a type of actual or quasi-linguistic texture that constitutes its warp and woof - its ‘tantra’. There is indeed, to quote Derrida “nothing outside language”, even ‘lived experience’ – except awareness.

The key paradox of many so-called ‘post -modern’, ‘structuralist’, ‘post-structuralist’ or ‘deconstructionist’ insight into the role played by language in ‘religion’ and ‘spiritual experience’ is that Indian religious philosophy and the Tantras are full of such insights themselves. So also is Judaeo-Christianity: ‘In the beginning was The Word’ (or God addressing words to Abraham).

Yet one primary difference between the Vedic and Abrahamic ‘Theo-Logy’ on the one hand and the ‘theo-linguistics’ of Kashmir Shaivism on the other, is that only the latter recognises a realm of pure awareness prior to and preceding the primordial word or speech (‘Logos’ or ‘Para-Vak’).

A ‘New Yoga of Language’ will make more explicit the central significance of a key relation - between the Language of Awareness and the Awareness of Language. It is vital to explicitly undermine the Linguistic Delusion that words merely refer to pre-given beings, things or objects - or that they merely express ideas and experiences - rather than constituting those objects and configuring both our thinking and our experiencing of things. For it is this delusion that binds and blinds people's awareness to language, whilst at the same time allowing their self-experience to be shaped according to the wholly unaware use of words that is embedded in established languages of the sciences as well as religion, not to mention medicine and psychiatry, therapy and counselling, and ‘New Age’ spirituality. The Linguistic Delusion embraces the use by ANY individual or lingual community of ANY word or signifier whatsoever that they take – unawares - as the expression of a pre-given ‘sense’, ‘thing’ or ‘concept’, one with no further need of questioning. For it is in this way that the already assumed or SIGNIFIED sense of both words and things occludes their inwardly SENSED significance - turning society into a proliferating and all-dominating ‘Empire of Signs’ - empty signs.

Different lingual communities, like religious sects argue as to which of their intra-languages or sets of constructs are more real. Thus for biological medicine and psychiatry the term ‘unconscious’ is a ‘mere’ delusional construct, just as the notion of ‘God’ for hard-scientists. Yet the supposedly hardest of sciences - physics - knows well that all its key concepts are nothing but mathematical constructs. That is why no religionist can say what ‘God’ is - however much they use the word - so no physicist can say what ‘mass’ or ‘gravity’ is - except as a mathematical relation to a host of other scientific terms indefinable except through their mathematical relation to one another. Similarly, mainstream medicine is not based on hard fact but on a plethora of military metaphors such as references to the body's immune ‘defences’. Even genetics recognises that ultimately there is no such thing as a ‘gene’ - despite the photographic ‘genetic fingerprints’ used in forensic medicine. For the very DNA of which ‘genes’ are ‘seen’ as molecular parts is something in constant interaction with RNA, and defined by its dynamic relation to it.

The true meaning of the word ‘gene’ is its current use as a medical-scientific CONSTRUCT - one which implies that ‘a gene’ is some primary and fundamental biological ‘object’, ‘thing‘ or ‘cause’ of things that we can separate out from and see as independent from other ‘things‘. This is but one of countless examples of the Language Delusion in practice - the unaware use of language that implies the existence of things which are essentially nothing but constructs of language itself - or rather the countless Lingual Communities to which people attach themselves and whose ‘master words‘ (whether ‘gene‘ or ‘God‘) they treat not as verbal constructs but as unquestionable. The proliferation of such purely linguistic communities, sharing only a common intra- or interlanguage, is increased and made evident by the internet, and yet it transforms the entire world into an ‘Empire of Signs’ emptied of sense.

The fundamental flaw in Richard Dawkin’s critique of the so-called ‘God Delusion’ is that it hides a more fundamental delusion - the LANGUAGE DELUSION that permeates both scientific and religious communities, both the languages of religious ‘beliefs‘ AND those of so-called ‘hard‘ science. The Delusion is a fundamental misconception of its role - which does not lie in its power to accurately represent ‘reality‘ but rather in its power to actively and suggestively shape both our concepts and experience of reality. Without AWARENESS of the true role and power of language that power becomes a dangerous and ever-more deluding one - not revealing but concealing fundamental truths.

One no-longer sees a car but a Porsche or BMW, a SIGN of status. Money itself is a mere sign with no intrinsic meaning of value, -‘made’ less through manufacture of products than through the commercial manipulation of the signs of symbols of deeper values attached to them through brands and their advertising. The Linguistic Delusion is a product of the Monotheism of Money, that valueless sign through which ‘meaning’ can be purchased in any form, except that this meaning merely takes the empty form of other signs, such the brand logo, the green label, or the single word that signifies through which language and lingual community one lets one’s identity as a subject be shaped and defined. The corporate headquarters is not a building of glass and steel, but a materialisation of a the corporate LANGUAGE which people re-enter each time they go to work and through whose lingual lens they are forced to see the world in its terms. Each modern corporation is a new types of authoritarian religious sect, lacking any form of democratic structure, defining itself in opposition to others, worshipping its own commodities as sacred symbols, and engaged in a frantic production - not of things but of word and thingly SIGNS through which it can continue to distinguish itself from its competitors.

The global empire or corporate capitalism is not just a world unto itself. It has become the reality of the world we see around us, trapping us in its Empire with its ubiquitous and omnipresent Signs in no less totalitarian a way than the Church held sway over its followers with its total monopoly of signs and symbols, and of signifying rites and rituals - albeit ones which managed for a time to forge and hold together genuine spiritual communities and were not merely lingual communities devoid of symbol-free sense of communion with other beings, human and divine.

RE: Essay on ‘Awareness and Illness’ from The New Yoga website.

I have been reading your ‘Awareness and Illness’ and appreciating it considerably.
However, whilst I can understand it in relation to bodily sensations etc (where there is something to be aware of), I was wondering how one can relate to illness where there are no symptoms – for example where one feels ok (no dis-ease to be aware of) but is nevertheless diagnosed with an illness based on some test.

I would be grateful for any comments.

Your question is a valid and important one. For it is true that in my writings on illness I have tended to emphasise the way in which medical diagnosis ignores, obscures and seeks to objectify and categorise a tangible, subjectively felt dis-ease of the patient - whether or not this take the form of medically recognised disease symptoms. It is because a person's felt dis-ease may be difficult to describe and may not fit any medically recognised category of disease symptoms that even the prospect of simple visit to a GP may end up forcing patients to think of, describe or even produce such formally recognised symptoms - just in order for their inwardly felt dis-ease to be at least indirectly acknowledged. Many symptoms therefore, are, right from the very start 'iatrogenic' in character - shaped to fit the medical-model that physicians apply to them. A person's symptoms may also serve other purposes: for example helping individuals to feel their inner dis-ease more intensely or bring it to a focus (for example through localised pain), to bring it to the surface (as in my example of the skin rash), or to simply communicate it to others (bodily symptoms as a form of body language).
 
None of the above fully answers your question however, which, if I understand it correctly has to do with situations in which, as you say, someone might feel OK (no 'felt dis-ease') but nevertheless
find themselves diagnosed with a perhaps quite serious or even life-threatening disease. The diagnosis of such a disease would naturally require some sort of medical sign or symptom - even if one that caused no discomfort to the individual (eg. blood in urine or stool). In relation such cases, which are not infrequent, and to which your question is highly relevant, I would understand that both the disease and its unfelt signs or symptoms not as the expression of a felt disease that an individual was actually aware of but precisely the opposite - as the embodiment or 'somatisation' of a lacking awareness and lack of feeling of an inner dis-ease.
 
The importance of awareness in relation to illness therefore lies also in its preventative role. For if someone can allow themselves to be aware of any type of dis-ease in a tangible bodily way (with or without localised symptoms but certainly without need to label those symptoms in medical terms or even verbalise the feeing of the dis-ease itself) then there is far less danger of that dis-ease 'going underground' - only to surface, perhaps after many years, in the form of a serious medical condition (or even sudden death) that strikes without any apparent warning or is only preceded only by symptoms of a sort that are not a cause of any felt discomfort.
 
When serious diseases strike in this way - for example in the form of heart attacks, cancers or strokes, I nevertheless believe that a different type of diagnostic questioning would be more helpful in their 'treatment'
- namely a questioning of a sort that helped bring to awareness the unfelt dis-ease that had been building up - unawares - over time. For more on this see my paper on 'The New Medicine' at www.thenewmedicine.org.uk and also my book on 'Heidegger, Medicine and Scientific Method'.

Thanks for your reply which I again found very informative.
I have previously also read your paper on ’The New Medicine’.
Whilst I can appreciate and agree with what you write, I still have problems understanding how one would approach diagnostic questioning where there is a lack of awareness of an inner dis-ease.
To elaborate, let’s imagine a scenario where a man (feeling fine) goes to his doctor for a routine check-up.
Doctor takes blood tests and after further examination (over time) discovers that the man has cancer.
Man still feels fine but the diagnosis and thought of future surgery (with after affects) produce all kinds of feelings and regrets.
These emotions etc would be secondary and in relation to the diagnosis, so in a sense the results of thoughts/concepts and not the actual sickness which is still not felt. So really my question is ‘is it possible to’ or ‘how would one’ proceed with self questioning for a dis-ease of which one is not aware?

Your scenario certainly does not admit of exploration through any simple questionnaire. On the contrary, a whole book could be written in response to the question posed through it. My book on 'Heidegger, Medicine and Scientific Method' contains sections that offer a much more in-depth exploration of the nature of illness and of a 'new medicine'.
 
It also makes reference the ’pathobiographical’ approach to illness of the Argentinian psychoanalyst, Luis Chiozza - on which he has written several books, some translated into English. This involves taking a most detailed biography of the patient as well as a history of their illness, which a combined team of medical specialists and psychoanalysts then look at together with a view to placing the biological text of the illness (in the case of your scenario the specific cancer involved and everything known about its nature and that of the organs it affects) in the overall con-text of the patient's life as a whole.Through this team approach metaphorical connections come to light in this process between finely detailed aspects of organic biology of the illness and the biography of the patient. The end-product is not a prescription of treatment or but a script - a carefully worded written reformulation of the patient's biography - 'the pathobiography' - which is aimed purely and simply at raising the patient's awareness of these metaphorical connections, and then seeing what effect on the course of the illness this raised awareness of the relation of biological text and biographical context has.
 
The initial consultatory interview which explores the patient's biography is not questionnaire based, but - like my simple questionnaire - does seek and see great significance in the 'when' of an illness - in connections what had been going on in the patient's life and how they had been experiencing it when the first signs or symptoms showed themselves of an illness showed themselves. I also see the 'when' factor to be deeply significant - even if its 'only' key is the timing of some 'routine' check up - or a regular one that did not bring up anything before.
 
I also believe that emotional "feelings and regrets" brought up are not merely "secondary" phenomena, but that on the contrary - if explored in sufficient depth can provide significant pointers towards the hitherto unfelt disease that is now finding somatic expression in the illness. A major difference between Chiozza's approach and the methods of a 'medicine beyond medicine - 'The New Medicine' as I see it -
lies in the greater significance I the physician's own awareness of their inwardly felt body as a whole. I see the physician's own body as their most important diagnostic and curative 'instrument' - enabling them to wordlessly sense, resonate with and transform with the inwardly felt dis-ease of the patient - rather than objectifying it with medical-diagnostic labels and medicating it.
 
For whatever the patient feels or does not feel, and however OK or not OK they feel, a physician whose bodily awareness has been finely tuned and cultivated can sense the degree to which the patient is in touch with their own inwardly felt body as a whole, which regions of their body they are or are not aware of. Such a new-type physician would also be aware of the way in which specific bodily functions such as respiration, digestion, metabolism and physical mobility etc. are expressions of the patient's mobility of awareness - and capacity to fully breathe in, digest and metabolise their life experience within their awareness.
 
As I have written in other works on The New Yoga - the body is both a sensory image and a sense organ of the soul. The new physician can use his own body as a sense organ or the soul to perceive every aspect of the patient's body - and of their way of bodying their awareness themselves - for example their way of sitting and standing, and the whole way they look and 'sound' as an indicator of their 'soundness' of health or 'Ge-sund-heit'.

The expressions 'looking' well or 'sounding' well point to a whole new way of seeing and listening to patients - one that can allow the aware physician to feel out the patient's body with and within their own felt body (to feel for example the inwardness of a particular regions of the patient's body with and within the corresponding region of their own body).
 
What all this assumes and looks forward too however, is a wholly different approach to the training of physicians, one that concentrates on the cultivation of their own bodily awareness and with it their capacity to sense and resonate with the felt body of the patient in a healing and transformative way - for more on this and 'somatic psychotherapy in general see my article on 'Soma-Psychology and Soma-Sensitivity' listed in the articles page of www.thenewtherapy.org
 
This is not just theory however. I myself have applied the methods I refer to - both my own and those of Chiozza and also Lacan - with particular emphasis on direct and wordless 'soul body' healing through what I call 'transformative resonation'. Here 'reading' all that can be revealed through the look in a person's eyes (the very opposite of iridology!) plays a great role, together with the application of New Yoga 'basics' - sensing the spaciousness - or contractedness - of a patient's bodily awareness, together with its felt qualities of openness or closedness, rigid boundedness or breathing porosity, warmth or coolness, locus and mobility etc. This allow an awareness of the patient's inner dis-ease of a sort that they currently lack themselves to be both cultivated and communicated to the patient - whether wordlessly or through the word.
 
I also attach great significance to cultivating awareness of the exact word of an individual in talking about themselves and their lives - for if not forced into the limited terms of medical discourse - the particular words or phrases a person chooses to use can give hints to absolutely key links between their verbal language and the language of their body, often revealing their symptoms or illness as - quite literally - 'the word become flesh'. This is a Freudian-Lacanian element of The Awareness Principle - the unconscious or unaware as revealed in speech (whether in describing a dream or describing a waking event, bodily sensation or emotion).
 
As I say however, a whole book could be written around your question - and I myself, if only I had the time, would write many more than the one I have. In the meantime I am also pleased to say that the first books on The New Yoga - in particular The Awareness Principle - will shortly be on sale via Amazon.

Addendum:
 
In my view one of the single most important reasons for symptoms and illnesses that seem NOT to be the expression of an already experienced, tangibly felt emotional or bodily dis-ease is blocked actions and communication - action and communication that is habitually blocked because they are felt as dangerous. From this point of view, traditional psychological approaches to illness which focus on ‘blocked emotions’ or New Age forms of healing which invent ‘blocked energies’ miss the point. For ‘energy’ is not a ‘thing in itself’ but rather a felt potentiality for action, including communicative action, just as emotions such as anger or feelings of depression are not merely reactions to people or events, but positive impulses towards communication and action, ones that only carry intensive emotional charge or are only expressed in an unaware and purely reactively because the otherwise non-aggressive communications and non-reactive actions behind them were habitually blocked.

Therefore another answer to your question – and an important question that the individual can address to themselves - is not “What unaware emotional FEELINGS lie behind my illness” but “What specific WILL impulses have I not given expression to throughout my life or what types of impulse to action and communication have I learned to consistently block and why?” For the ‘bottom line’ fact is that experiencing symptoms or getting ill for no apparent reason eventually requires the individual to both act and communicate in some way –even if only through talking to physicians or actively seeking some form of healing, therapy or spiritual learning. The question is what sort of previously blocked actions or communications - or types of communication and action – might be substituted for – unawares - by action and communication that revolve solely around an individual’s illness or symptoms?

If an aware, active and fully embodied relation to others – hitherto blocked - is replaced by a relation to one’s own body and its symptoms, then this is not necessarily a mere result of illness, but can be considered as its very essence - a vicious circle in which illness prevents the individual from acting in ways that broaden their life and focus their communication on their symptoms – rather that fulfilling their relational, communicate and life potentialities or destiny. On the other hand, the illness may – if approached in the right way – help the individual to establish a new type of bodily self-awareness of a sort than frees them to act and to relate to others in a freer and more embodied way.

Coming back then, to the issue of new types of diagnostic questioning and also of simple but helpful and healing directions of self-questioning, where symptoms or an illness debilitate the individual, a key question they may find helpful to ask themselves is:

“Do I NOT act or communicate in certain ways that would enrich my life and relationships simply because my symptoms prevent me from doing so - or do I perhaps sustain my symptoms unawares through blocking the very types of action or communication that would expand my life beyond them?”

Without asking this question, the danger is that acute symptoms which do indeed debilitate the individual can end reinforcing the very patterns of blocked action and communication behind them - thus creating a vicious circle which turns temporary symptoms into a chronically incapacitating illness (whether diagnosable in medical terms or not).

See my new article in the 'books, essays and articles; section of the New Yoga website:


AWARENESS, ABUSE AND ‘THE BAD SUBJECT’
Kleinian, Lacanian and Neo-Tantric Perspectives
  

Abstract: towards a broader epistemology, sociology, semiology and symptomology of abuse-associated ‘psychotic’ structures and so-called ‘borderline personality disorders’; integrating Kleinian, Lacanian and Marxist understandings of object use, abuse, need and loss; presenting a neo-tantric philosophy of ‘mind’ or ‘subjectivity’ as a field of pure awareness or subjectivity (‘The Awareness Principle’) and suggesting a new awareness-based and body-oriented form of psychoanalytic ‘mentalisation’ theories and treatment approaches – ‘Mentalising through the Body’.
 

Extract:

We cannot underestimate how frightening the world must feel for paranoid individuals who transform even the most harmless of words or events into persecutory attacks and the most harmless and well-intentioned of people into monstrous ‘bad objects’ and ‘bad subjects’ – reacting to and treating them accordingly. The problem is that even the most marginal awareness of doing so will be accompanied by or arouse a deep sense of guilt, and, along with this - a fear of retaliation that leaves them feeling even more open to attack, thus intensifying both their persecutory anxiety and paranoid hostility towards others – a hostility they are impelled to either take out on others or turn in on themselves, for example through self-harm, somatic symptoms or attacks of one form or another, or persecutory voices. Whatever the specificity or idiosyncracies of their symptoms and behaviours, such individuals will be thus permanently trapped in a fight-flight state with long-term effects on both their body and on all their human relationships - forcing them to permanently seek out occasions to fight others and/or flee from them, or else retreating into even greater isolation (whether self-imposed or the result of illnesses or medications) from the human beings around them. For whosoever they are, ‘good reasons’ will be found (‘bad objects’) for turning others into malign agents or ‘bad subjects’. This said, nor can we reduce the paranoid pathology described above to a diagnostically labelled ‘condition’ or ‘disorder’ of a small group of aberrant individuals - for this is a pathology that underlies our entire war-torn world. In this article I will argue that it has its ultimate roots, not in individual instances of abuse, but in an all-pervasive mind-set which pictures ‘consciousness’ as mere relation of separate subjects and objects, and in doing so shapes our ways of being in the world and relating to others in its image.

Newly extended version of Peter's recent essay on 'Awareness, Abuse and the 'Bad Subject'' now uploaded on the Books, Essays and Articles page of the site.

Edited by author 04-11-2007 01:48 PM
Dear Peter

Thank you for the article [Awareness, Abuse and the 'Bad Subject']. I can say as an interim response that I am finding it very interesting. It is challenging to read, and, as always, I find myself rather swept around by your forays into such widely disparate areas. That is, of course, my problem, not yours. The idea that abuse is characterised by objectification rings true, and is something that patients often allude to. Moreover, your discussion of mentalisation, bringing in a contrast between eastern awareness based and western objectivised perception is of great interest. I am hoping to go on Fonagy and Bateman's 3 day course at the Anna Freud Centre in January and will have an opportunity to hear their views on these tensions, and how they are handled in Mentalisation Based Therapy. For example, to have a diagnosis of Emotionally Unstable PD, Borderline type is a form of objectification, as you suggest, but the way to get MBT is just to have been through that diagnostic process. The same applies to people with eating disorders.

I am sometimes aware that while psychologists and therapists are appreciative of a diagnosis having been made, they often distance themselves from it, the doctors having done their dirty work. A bit like Egypt using torture for the US to extract confessions after Rendition flights. Bad analogy, I'm pursuing your extreme invective against my own profession's activities!

I'm still reading your work, and will let you know if any other thoughts rise to the surface.

See the new Bookshop page of the site(www.thenewyoga.org/Bookshop.htm)for details of Peter's first three published works on The New Yoga. These are:
'Tantra Reborn','The Awareness Principle' and 'Tantric Wisdom for Today's World'. All are now available from www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk. Comments and reviews welcome!

Edited by author 24-11-2007 05:26 AM
WHAT HAS ‘HINDUISM’ TO SAY TODAY?


What has Hinduism to say today – to and for today’s world?

What have its ancient and profound ‘theo-sophical’ traditions - uniting theology and philosophy, religion and science, psychology and metaphysics -to offer the world today?

As Ghandi said: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

That is one major reason why a new and truly global Hinduism, one freed of attachment to ethnicity, caste and gender discrimination, religious nationalism - and the current encroachments of global capitalism and consumerism in its mother country - is needed. Such a ‘Hinduism’1 - more properly speaking the Sanatana Dharma or ‘Eternal Way’ - would no longer be identical with ‘India’ or the ethnic Hindu Diaspora from the Asian subcontinent.

Yet it alone could offer the world an alternative to the world-destructive war that is raging between (1) rampant secular materialism, consumerism and imperialism (2) its religious-political prop in the form of Judaeo-Christian Zio-Nazism and (3) reactionary feudalistic and fundamentalist Islamism. That is because the Hindu theosophical tradition offers us a fundamentally different understanding of both God and the Universe from that of both religious and scientific fundamentalisms – whether the fundamentalist dogmas of modern science and cosmology or those of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

The difference is profound. For in the Hindu theosophical traditions of Advaita and Tantra, ‘God’ is not understood as some supreme being ‘ruling’ like a judge or politician over Creation and over Creatures of its own artificial ‘making’. Instead God is understood as identical with consciousness - not individual consciousness but a Universal Consciousness out of which the entire universe, all of creation and all creatures emerge as through a process of spontaneous creativity. ‘God’, in this tradition, is not merely one being among others ‘with’ its own individual consciousness. Instead God is this Universal Consciousness out of which the entire universe emerges.
 
The entire universe of ‘matter’ is but a materialisation of the Universal Consciousness, emerging from its maternal womb or ‘matrix’ - and not the other way round as ‘materialist’ or even ‘energeticist’ quantum-physical science has it. For awareness as such cannot, in principle, be the by-product or property of any force, energy or material body we are aware of - including the human body and brain. It cannot - in principle – be a property of matter, energy or of any thing or being whatsoever - human or divine. For the Divine is not a being or Being, but the source of all beings – their primordial awareness of Being.

The Divine is a Universal Consciousness that has the character of an infinite field - not of ‘energy’, but of pure awareness. This is awareness inseparable and yet absolutely distinct from any content of consciousness - any thing we are conscious or aware of. Since it transcends every element of our conscious experience - every thing we can possibly be conscious or aware of - this pure awareness can also free us from attachment to all the things and activities that our everyday consciousness ordinarily binds us to.

Instead things and all beings are individualised portions of this Universal Consciousness that is God, an infinite field of pure awareness that embraces and “enowns” them all. To experience this Universal Consciousness or pure awareness therefore, is to experience ‘God’ - the Divine. Yet this is no impersonal experience, impersonal consciousness or impersonal ‘God’. How could it be, since it is the very source of our own personhood, individual consciousness - and that of all beings and all things.

In the Hindu Tantric tradition known as Kashmir Shaivism or ‘Shiva-ism’, God is not seen as a person like Christ or Krishna, nor as three persons or three persons in one. Yet neither is God an impersonal abstraction - but rather that Divine Universal Awareness which knowingly personifies itself in all persons. The word ‘person’ refers to a ‘face’ or ‘mask’ (persona). The image or Murti of the Hindu god Shiva is a symbol of the human face or personification of divinity. And it is the Mantra of Shiva that allows the Divine-Universal Consciousness to ‘per-sonify’ itself in another way - to ‘sound through’ human beings (per-sonare).

Shiva, as Mahadeva or ‘Great God’, is always portrayed in a state of profound meditation. Who or what then, is Shiva meditating? He is meditating the Divine Universal Consciousness that is the very source of his own human image and form – and that of all beings, human and trans-human. That source is His Other – none other than the ‘Divine Mother’ - the ‘Great Goddess’ or Mahadevi. She is the ‘pregnant’ dimension of the Divine Universal Consciousness – its nature as dark, maternal womb and seed repository of all possible worlds and beings, and their power or Shakti of self-actualization and manifestation. Shiva on the other hand, is the Divine Universal Consciousness as the pure light of awareness – that which releases all potential worlds and beings into actuality or Being from the womb of potentiality or Non-Being.

In Tantric theosophy ‘God’ is the Divine Universal Consciousness (Anuttara) understood as an inseparable and dynamic relation of the divine-masculine (Shiva as pure awareness of all that manifests) and the divine feminine (Shakti as pure power of manifestation). This is God as Shiva-Shakti.

“Only a god can save us now.” Martin Heidegger

Hinduism has no religious prophets, popes or ‘saviours’. Yet Shiva is that most primordial ‘god’ who alone can “save us now” - saving us as individuals from descending with the world into violence and barbarism, offering us the freedom from bondage to the world that only a higher and deeper awareness can bring, and providing us with a gateway to the Great Goddess and to ‘God’ as such, experienced and understood not just as Shiva but as Shiva-Shakti.

Along with pre-historic mother goddesses or Mahadevis, Mahadeva Shiva is one of the oldest and most primordial of human god images. Yet the earliest and most primordial of gods are not merely those furthest behind us – and thus long since ‘past’ or ‘transcended’ by later, more historically recent gods. On the contrary, as Heidegger recognized, the earliest and most primordial god is the one who, having set out longest ago, is also latest to arrive – the last to fully realise itself and be recognized and understood as a god.

What Heidegger called “The Last God” - that god who will be last to arrive and is therefore still to come – that god is Shiva. Shiva is a god of the future and not merely the past, a god still to be fully born – not as a supreme God-being nor as a human Guru, Avatar or Saviour but as Supreme God-Symbol (Lingam) and Divine Guru. To take Shiva into our hearts as our personal God or Divinity is to take Him as Supreme Guru – as our personal mediator and gateway to the power or Shakti of that trans-personal awareness that is Divinity or ‘God’ as such. Human beings become Gurus not by virtue of being sole human embodiments of God (for there is no one who is not a living embodiment or ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ of God) but because they recognise Shiva alone - and no human being or teacher - as Supreme Guru. It is because of this that they are able to receive knowledge and enlightenment through Him, as well as from those higher, trans-human beings that dwell in His realm - that plane of awareness known as Shivaloka.

No world ‘religion’ is merely founded on a creed, faith, dogma or doctrine. Instead it is more like a great work of drama enacted on the stage of our earthly human reality - one designed to alter our metaphysical understanding and experience of ourselves and the world in the most direct way, and in doing so transform our way of being in the world and relating to others. It is because of their nature as religious dramas, that religions require characters – dramatis personae. Yet though these may draw from religious symbols of the past, if these symbols are imbued with new experiential and metaphysical comprehensions they become vehicles by which the future can realise itself in and transform the present.

A genuinely new future for humanity cannot be forged by clinging to the past and yet, in Heidegger’s words, it is the “arrival of what has been” - of what has yet to be fully comprehended, experienced and brought to presence in awareness. The work of bringing to presence in awareness belongs to those few human beings whose awareness has already been expanded enough to receive currents of knowing that flows towards us from the future – and that also come down to us directly from the multidimensional universe of awareness surrounding us and the trans-human beings or ‘gods’ that dwell therein.

For the religious practitioner of Hindu Tantrism, to ‘worship’ a god is to become that god. This means to experience it directly - through our body and as our most essential self. This is not a self that ‘has’ or ‘possesses’ awareness but that Self which - like God - is awareness - an awareness infinite and unbounded, pervading not only our bodies but all bodies, and all of space and time. Shiva is ‘Lord’ because he is ‘Lord of Yoga’ – of meditation. The human image of Shiva presents him as meditating both himself and all things as an expression of the Divine - and therefore knowing himself as identical with the Divine. That is why the activity of meditating Lord Shiva meditating his Divine nature turns his Mantra and Murti into both a personification of our own Divine nature and a living personification of the Divine.

Knowing himself as the Divine through meditating his Divine Nature in human form, the image of Shiva reveals him to us not just as ‘symbol’ of the divine but as a living embodiment of it - one that does not just teach us to meditate the Divine, but allows us to directly experience and identify with it in its most tangible, bodily and sensuous immediacy. Like Shiva, each of us can learn to wordlessly know and say – in and through every atom and cell of our body, every aspect of our self, and every element of our experience, that ‘Shiva am I’ (Shivoham) and that every ‘thing’ around us is a mere outward ‘mark’ or ‘symbol’ of Shiva - his Lingam.

Lingam means ‘mark’ or ‘symbol’. The Lingam of Shiva is the absolute symbol of that absolutely pure and symbol-free awareness that is the Divine Universal Consciousness, and beyond which there is ‘nothing higher’ (A-nuttara). Only a new and invigorated Tantric Hinduism - and not any copycat form of narrow Indian religious nationalism and Hindu ‘fundamentalism’ - can bring human beings to the threshold of a higher awareness out of which alone the world can be transformed. We stand therefore at the dawn of a glorious new religious drama rooted in Hinduism - one that has the power to transform our world through awareness rather than war, and in doing so also undo the untold damage wrought by wars present and past. For before its occupation by Muslim invaders, even the land of Afghanistan, now but a ravaged site of global strife between Islamism and US Imperialism, was replete with temples celebrating Shiva and Shakti - in peace.

But what about Buddhism? The great religious drama that was seeded by the life of Gautama Buddha and the whole subsequent evolution of ‘Buddhism’ in all its stages can be seen as a first attempt to give birth to a ‘new’ Hinduism - one freed of ethnic, racial and caste distinctions, and freed also of primitive ‘theistic’ understandings of God as a single being or of the Universe as a mere multiplicity of self-subsistent things. Yet like the birth of a universalist Christianity from an ethnically rooted Judaism, the ‘birth’ of Buddhism from ‘Hinduism’ - from Indian Vedic and Brahmanic culture - also ended up as a miscarriage. Put simply, Buddhism threw out the baby of true religious feeling and connection with the Divine with the bathwater of crude ‘theistic’ understandings of the Divine - whether ‘monotheistic’ or ‘polytheistic’.

Instead of acknowledging the Divine as an Awareness with both a wholly trans-personal and transcendental nature and a personal face and faces, Buddhist philosophy sought to do away with the whole idea of beings, whether human beings or gods. Doing so however, it found itself forced to eventually replace them with numberless ‘Buddhas’ - each with their own highly individual character and qualities of awareness! Yet in place of the Divine Universal Awareness – itself ‘no-thing’ - it substituted the idea of a Nothingness that was not only empty of all things, but also empty of awareness.

The Buddhist idea of ‘enlightenment’ as ‘becoming aware of’ or ‘awakening’ to this Absolute Emptiness replaced the Hindu Tantric aim of experiencing this apparent ‘emptiness’ as the pure space (Akasha) and light (Prakasha) of an Absolute Awareness - one distinct from each and every thing we are or could be aware of. In this way the whole notion of En-Lightenment was divorced from the Light of Awareness associated with the Shiva and with all those who shine with that Light - ‘shining ones’ being the root Sanskrit meaning of Devas or ‘gods’. Buddhist spiritual a-theism then, replaced not just religious monotheism, polytheism, pantheism and ‘panentheism’ (the immanence of God in all things) but also Hindu Shaivist and Tantric ‘nootheism’ – the recognition that Awareness absolute and unbounded (Greek noos) is the Divine, personified as Lord Shiva. As a result the defining Buddhist principle of ‘Awakening’ (Bodhi) replaced the Tantric principle of Awareness (Chit). Hence all talk of ‘Buddhist Tantra’ is inherently misleading. For all the truly ‘Tantric’ elements of Buddhism derive from ‘Hindu’ Tantrism and not from Buddhism as such - from the religious principle and practice of ‘re-linking’ to an ultimate and divine awareness and not from the secular principle and practice of seeking an ultimate state of human awakening or enlightenment.

How then can each of us actually begin to experience the reality of the Divine as Awareness? Normally we think of and feel our awareness as something contained within our own bodies - or even just our own heads. The first step we can take towards experiencing the Divine Awareness is to become constantly aware – not just with our eyes but with our body as a whole – of the space surrounding our bodies. In this way we learn to sense space itself as an open and unbounded field of awareness – not ‘our’ awareness, ‘yours’ or ‘mine’, but that awareness which is the Divine. If we can also feel the insideness of our own bodies as a hollow space - not just the insideness of our heads but that of our chest, belly and abdomen – then we can learn to sense that ‘inner’ space too as a space of awareness - one not in any way separate from the space around us.

We know that matter is composed mostly of empty space. Through the simple practice of identifying with the space within and around our bodies - and experiencing them as one – we begin to feel the very materiality of our bodies as something as much pervaded by pure awareness as it is by empty space. We cease then, to experience ourselves as contained in our own skins and merely looking out at things through the peepholes of our eyes. Instead we begin to sense the entire physical environment around us in space as our own larger body – part of the universal body of the Divine Awareness. We feel our own ‘smaller’ human body then, as just one body among others contained within this larger awareness which, as the very ‘aether’ of space, surrounds, embraces and pervades them all. We no longer see things or people merely as bodies ‘in’ space. Instead we sense both our own bodies and those of all the things and people around us as living embodiments and expressions of the pure awareness (Shiva) that permeates space, and of the innate vitality or Shakti that pervades it - the breath or ‘air of awareness’ that is called Prana. All this was already indicated in the Vijnanabhairavatantra, one of the most important practical treatises or tantras of Shaivist Tantra - and one of the many gifts of Hinduism.

1 see About the name ‘Hindu’ and Becoming a Hindu or Devotee is Easy by
Stephen Knapp, at www.stephen-knapp.com/about_the_name_Hindu.htm and
www.stephen-knapp.com/becoming_a_hindu_or_devotee_is_easy.htm

Edited by author 24-01-2008 06:02 AM
                           WHAT IS ‘YOGA’?

              Global Capitalism and the Politics of Awareness
 
‘Yoga’ today is most generally taken to be – and practiced as - a system of physical stretching and bending exercises for ‘health’ and ‘well-being’ (‘Hatha Yoga’) based on a set of bodily postures or ‘Asanas’. This “phoney yoga” of stretching and bending is a 20th century invention that could be called ‘American yoga’. As documented by Linda Sparrowe, it was introduced to America In 1947 by Theos Bernard, author of one of the first guidebooks to Yoga Asanas and popularised in the 1950’s. As a result:

“By 1961, thanks to the power of television, Americans everywhere were learning a non-religious, decidedly unspiritual form of yoga exercise.”

This is the reason why ‘yoga’ today (American yoga) is not so much the noble continuation of an ancient tradition of religious and spiritual wisdom but a global New Age industry – a commercial medium for the marketing of yoga mats and straps, belts and bolsters, cushions and clothing, pillows and props, books and CDs, instructional videos and personal fitness regimes. Though American yoga drew from ‘Hatha Yoga’ (meaning ‘violent’ or ‘forced’ yoga), the latter was a relatively late and minor form of yoga. Though it had much deeper historical roots, it did not regard itself as ‘yoga for beginners’ but rather as suitable only for the most advanced practitioners of non-physical forms of spiritual yoga practice and meditation. Though yoga teachers pay lip service to the ‘Bible’ of classical yoga – ‘The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali’ – this makes no reference to Hatha Yoga as one of the branches of yoga, nor does it describe systems of yoga postures or Asanas. Indeed the only basic posture it refers to is simply ‘sitting comfortably’, preferably with ‘the spine erect’.

What passes as ‘Yoga’ today then, has become little more than a global commercial industry – a respectable bourgeois ‘opium’ for the middle classes of East and West. The NEW Yoga, the Yoga of Awareness is no part of this global industry. Its purpose is not to spiritually compensate for or ameliorate the stresses of life under global capitalism but instead to subvert and overturn the ignorant and narrow ‘consciousness’ underlying it – to bring about a global revolution in awareness and the dawning of a deepened and expanded awareness, not through war or violence but through awareness itself.

The NEW Yoga recognises awareness as such as the biggest single threat to global capitalism. For this is a system which relies for its survival on ensuring that individuals are kept so busy doing – selling their time to employers to survive - that they have no time to become more aware of what they are doing, who for and why. The result is a world in which economic wealth is paid for through time poverty, attained by economically exploiting the labour time of others, and used to pursue ever-new ways of squandering time or making more money. Consequently, people feel that they either have ‘no time’ or - whether super-rich or poor and unemployed - do not know what to ‘do’ with the time they have except squander it, reinforcing the capitalist work ethic that ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’. Even those in so-called ‘employment’ suffer from the hidden unemployment of their individual creative potentials, which find expression at best, only as hobbies or part-time activities.

Karl Marx is often quoted as declaring that individuals’ awareness is constricted by their “social being” - their economic status in class society. For Marx this was not an eternal truth but a temporary condition associated with class societies, and the ruthless exploitation of labour time. Therefore the converse truth also holds – individuals can save the world from the stranglehold of class society in its final stage – global capitalism – only by expanding their awareness. This means resisting all pressures which prevent them taking time to be aware - thus expanding their awareness and freeing it from bondage to the narrow worlds of wage slavery on the one hand, and consumerism on the other.

The New Yoga of Awareness is therefore a fundamentally subversive and revolutionary yoga. Its aim is nothing less than a global revolution in awareness, one that fulfils John Buchan’s dream of a “4-dimensional Communism” - one that recognises that the capitalist degradation of human life begins with the exploitation and degradation of time. The notion of 4-dimensional Communism is one that, like Marx himself, recognises the 4th dimension – time - as the frontline in the struggle for a new world. This is a world that can come about only by educating and empowering individuals - in whatever personal, relational, institutional, corporate or political contexts they live and work in – to expand, deepen and enrich the awareness they bring to themselves and others, to their work and to the world.

Yet time itself is not just an extra ‘4th’ dimension pinned onto the three dimensions of space that we know. Time is the very space of awareness, more or less expanded or contracted, that we feel in the moment. That is why, when we speak of having ‘no space’ or ‘no time’ for something or someone, or of wanting more ‘space’ or ‘time’ for ourselves or others, we mean the same thing. That is also why The New Yoga of Awareness is not about stretching our bodies in space or holding them in particular positions for long times. Instead is about stretching the time-space of our awareness.

This is all the more important today because the ever more plain and obvious fact is that humanity is fast running out of time - and that if it is to survive much longer, we can no longer afford to maintain a society in which ‘yoga’ and ‘meditation’ are a middle class ‘spiritual’ luxury misused to compensate for the ‘stresses’ of global capitalism - rather than to overcome its entire culture of busy-ness, time exploitation and time poverty. Awareness is not a luxury that we can only afford to give ourselves at special times through commercial, profit-driven classes in ‘yoga’ or ‘meditation’. For the true purpose of practicing yogic meditation is to teach us to be more aware at all times - and to identify at all times with awareness as such – with ‘pure’ or ‘transcendental’ awareness. Pure or transcendental awareness is a spacious awareness - for just as space both embraces and transcends every thing we perceive within it, so does pure awareness embrace and transcend all ‘contents’ of consciousness, all that we are merely aware of within it. Indeed space as such is nothing merely physical but is an infinite spatial field of awareness, an awareness that, like space, is not private property, yours or mine, but the very essence of the divine.

What we ordinarily call ‘consciousness’ is a purely focal awareness, always focused on one thing or another. Through it, our ‘being in time’ is reduced to ‘going from one thing to another’ and ‘doing one thing after another’ – in other words passing from one focus of awareness to another without any meditative intervals or ‘intermezzos’ in which to regather ourselves, recollect events in the context of our lives as a whole and allow new reflections and insights to arise from our awareness – thus allowing us to decide, with awareness, what we do next and how. Without giving ourselves these time intervals in which to simple abide in awareness, the space of our awareness is contracted to a single focus and we lose a sense of the expansive field of awareness in which we dwell. We become like dwellers in a spacious ocean of awareness - dwellers so used to just focussing their awareness on one thing or another within that ocean that they have ceased to be aware of the ocean as such – no longer seeing it, sensing it or even surmising its existence.

A basic principle of The New Yoga as that we all dwell in pure awareness as we dwell in space itself. We can identify with pure awareness by identifying with the space around and within our bodies, around and within things and around and within our thoughts and feelings. Learning to identify with space opens up for us a larger, spacious field of awareness. This “free awareness field” (Jane Roberts) is what alone can prevent us falling into bondage to any particular focus of awareness –stopping it from preoccupying or filling up our minds, weighing down our feelings, wearing down our bodies, and unwillingly dominating our lives.

We are as much aware of our self as a whole – our soul – as we are aware of our body as a whole, both from within and as a part of the entire space around it. The moment a person’s AWARENESS of the inner and outer spaces of their body and mind is replaced by identification with their current bodily and mental states, they become unfree – attached to those states rather than freed by the larger field of those spaces. The moment a person loses awareness of the body as a whole – including both the spaces within and around it - their awareness of their self as a whole is contracted too. Because of this contraction, they can only relate to themselves, other people and the world from a small part of themselves and in a purely reactive and unaware way.

The NEW Yoga is designed to cultivate not only a new type of aware experiencing, but through it, aware action – action of the sort that alone can save us from the wholly unaware and reactive actions of world politicians. In the political movements of the 1960’s the word ‘awareness’ was associated with action designed to raise people’s ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ of uncomfortable political, economic and ecological facts and events - thereby confronting them with the need for worldwide revolution. In The New Yoga, the political importance of the term ‘awareness’ does not simply lie only in worldly action designed to ‘raise’ awareness of something, however important. Instead it has to do with attaining the freedom and power of truly aware action in the world - action that comes from an awareness free of identification with the turmoil of the world.
 
“In robbing us of time, today’s culture also robs us of dignity. But dignity has no great value in a culture devoted to progress, power and productivity. Since time is money in modern culture, few of us can afford dignity.”

Alexander Lowen, in 'Bioenergetics'

Today’s world faces a grave economic, ecological, cultural crisis – indeed a global civilisational crisis. The word ‘crisis’ means a ‘turning point’ in time. The basic need expressed in this crisis however, is to find a way of ‘being-in-time’ and ‘being-in-the-world’ that is no longer dominated by ‘busy-ness’ – by doing – and aimed only at having what we need to survive, or more. The new relation to time that human beings so desperately need at this time is one in which they freely allow themselves more time, not just to produce or consume, work or play – but be aware. For to truly ‘be’ is to be aware. Just as to truly ‘meditate’ is simply to take time to be aware, and to abide in the inner stillness and silence of pure awareness as such. Only out of this ability to be aware and to abide in awareness can come better decisions and deeper more aware solutions to world problems. Only by taking time to be aware and to abide in meditative awareness can people learn to be and relate to others in a more meditative and aware way – thus transforming human relations. And only through meditative awareness can important decisions, whether in personal life, business, management or government be properly pre-meditated, taken with full awareness of all there is to be aware of. All mismanagement, mistreatment and misgovernment of others stem from the self-defeating rush of busy-ness, from denying oneself and others time to fully meditate decisions in full awareness of all the facts. Paradoxically however, it is our very culture of speed and busy-ness - and the value it places on ‘quick thinking’ that prevents deep thinking and ends up endlessly delaying aware and effective decisions and actions.

Global capitalism demands that people be kept busy and active in a wholly unaware way - forcing them to sell their labour time as a commodity to the highest corporate bidder in order to produce and purchase ever-more profitable but mind-numbing technological products and services. The global economic culture of ‘work’ is effectively still a system of enforced economic conscription or ‘wage slavery’ - serving nothing but the ruthless exploitation of both human beings and nature. Only a revolution in awareness can prevent capitalism from destroying the earth. Yet this is revolution that cannot be achieved through political means alone - let alone through war or violence - but only through raising humankind to a higher level of awareness. That is why the military, economic and ecological crisis and devastation wrought by global capitalism tells us one thing alone – IT IS HIGH TIME FOR HUMANITY TO BE AWARE. Yet how is this awareness to be attained?

 “Only a god can save us now.” Martin Heidegger

The god that Heidegger refers to here is one he describes as “totally other” than the Christian God, and transcending all types of “theism”. The birth of The NEW Yoga marks the dawning of that ‘god’ – a ‘god’ which is not a supreme being ‘with’ awareness but IS awareness. For The NEW Yoga is the Yoga of Awareness in another sense too - recognising awareness as the ultimate reality behind all things and thoughts, all things and all worlds - for it is the very condition for our experience of any thing or thought, self or being, world or universe whatsoever. Awareness is not the private property of things or bodies, persons or beings. This is the basic myth born of property- and class-based societies, a myth unquestioned by the fundamentalist dogmas of both secular science and all those religions which see ‘God’ as an ultimate or supreme being - rather than as an ultimate, supreme or divine awareness. Only in particular Hindu yogic traditions do we find a recognition of that ‘God’ which is not a supreme being ‘with’ awareness but IS awareness, infinite and unbounded. ‘Yoga’ means to yoke, conjoin or unite.

The NEW Yoga is not a secular, commercialized yoga of ‘well-being’. Instead it allows us to conjoin our consciousness with that infinite and universal awareness which IS God - an awareness of which our own being and all beings are a unique portion and expression. Within the context of the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ – in reality the clash of reactionary Christian fundamentalism and global military and economic imperialism with reactionary political Islamism - a renewal of this, the inner truth of what is called ‘Hinduism’, could play a vital role in bringing about a global revolution in awareness. Yet for this to possibility to be realized, the renewal of Hinduism must take the form of a new non-ethnic, non-violent and internationalist world-view – rather than being restricted to an aggressive form of narrow, ethnic Hindu nationalism confined to India itself – thus continuing to degrade ‘yoga’ to the status of a commercialized global industry and ‘spiritual’ export.

Namaste, Acharyaji, and greetings from Norway :-)

I was very pleased to discover your website just before christmas and have been studying your web-material since then. I have been studying trika shaivisme through the Universal Shaiva Fellowships webpages for some years now and did not expect to find a living acharya teaching the Trika so close to home.

I hope we will meet some time in the future and that I will benefit from your deep insights and practical wisdom.

Love from Visarganath

Namaste Visarganath! My thanks to you for writing, and for you kind salutations and words of appreciation.

Your post regarding the site was most timely, since it arrived just as we were in the last stages of redesigning it – allowing me to post this message to you as the very first on the new site.

As you will see, this has a number of new elements, including a bookshop, quotations page, further essays, some more galleries, a page on Puja which will be developed much further and also the first video talk of very many – but being the first please excuse its technical limitations and the background noise!

Last but not least there is ‘ASK AND LEARN’– a new and important service I offer, dedicated to providing answers to questions of any sort from all serious correspondents and students, thereby aiding their learning. It is my wish that this service will also serve to lay the basis for direct encounter, teaching and initiation – which I have always so far conducted on an intimate, long-term and one-to-one basis.

“Questioning is the piety of thinking.” Martin Heidegger

Given the devout and studious nature of your own interest in Trika Tantrism and The New Yoga, together with your familiarity with other Shaiva teachings, any questions you yourself might submit would be welcomed – both as a valuable initiation of this service and thus also as a service in itself.

In the service of what? You will have gathered from your reading that I see it of the utmost importance to re-initiate the Trika Tantric tradition through an incisive re-interpretation of it – one which serves to decisively broaden, deepen, clarify and sharpen its relevance to all aspects of life and society in today’s world.

All thanks to that One Awareness that is both God and Guru Supreme, ceaselessly seeding new possibilities and bringing them to fruition through us.

with love,

Peter

A call for a NEW Shaivism

The essence of the term ’shaivism’ is ’science of awareness’. This science is as old as humanity itself but has taken many forms and many names. In the 14th century it took the form of the holistic threefold science of awareness (Trika Shaivism) through the grace of Acharya Abhinavagupta. This tradition has lived relatively secluded in the valley of Kashmir for many centuries and its teachings was very much considered secret. It was not until modern times (in the 1970’s) that this teaching was given to the world through the grace of Swami Lakshmanjoo.

Swami Lakshmanjoo saw the limited future for this tradition in Kashmir because of the conflict between the hindu and muslim communities. So when an american came (John Hughes) and asked if Swamiji would teach him the Trika teachings, Swamiji answered ‘yes’ with the condition that John would tape record the lectures and try to publish them for the benefit of the world. This came to be and through the work of John and Denise Hughes and The Universal Shaiva Fellowship the Trika has now been made available to everyone.

I have been studying Trika Shaivism for some years now and have benefited from it greatly. Through the teachings of Swami Lakshmanjoo my heart has been filled with more peace, more freedom and more bliss. But there has also been a pain in my heart. Swami Lakshmanjoo is gone. The Universal Shaiva Fellowship is in Kashmir and California and here I am alone with no living master to guide me.

This does not mean that there does not exist people that offer themselves to do it. But I have found no one that walk the talk. What I find attractive in Trika Shaivism is its extraordinary ordinariness and its freedom and respect for the individual (that I suspect comes natural when you see and respect every particle in the universe as a manifestation of the Divine Awareness).

The so-called Trika teachers I have managed to find seems to be more in the field of ‘Pay Me-Bless You’-business.

But then I discovered Acharya Peter Wilbergs website and upon reading more and more of his articles and books my heart is filled with inspiration, joy, and hope. Acharya Wilberg has really updated this age old tradition of tantrism in a way that makes it totally applicable for a modern mind and a modern humanity. He speaks from a place where he not only express understanding if the Trika but also seems have such in-depth knowledge of it that he have made it his own and is able to express it in a creative way.

It seems that the seeds Swami Lakshmanjoo gave to the world have found fertile ground in Acharyaji’s heart. (I find it amusing that Swami Lakshmanjoo was considered by many of his devotees as the incarnation of Acharya Abhinavagupta’s master. How suiting then that the guiding light of the revived trika haivism expressed in ‘the Awareness Principle’ identifies so strongly with Abhinavagupta :-)

A NEW SHAIVA COMMUNITY?

I hope that there in time will develop a New Shaiva Community around Acharyaji that makes use of the teachings of The Awareness Principle and the practice of the The NEW Yoga. A community that will stay away from secterism and dogmatic tradition, that dares to let the individual be free and responsible, where the Guru can be a friend and not a dictator, that will show the highest human expression of Divine Awareness.

I would like to find a NEW path for this suffering humanity (which includes myself) which is filled with meditation and celebration, not anger and anxiety.

I would like SHAIVAS to be people living with a strong awareness, not with a dried up tradition.

I would like to be in communion with a COMMUNITY where people live with love andawareness, not with morals and dogma.

I would like to be part of something where The Awareness Principle is the guiding thought, The NEW Yoga of Awareness its beating heart, and a NEW Shaivism the body of expression.

Does anyone share my hopes?

Love from Visarganath

Dear Visarganath,
 
Your 'Call' was a gift for which I thank you with all my heart.
 
It is inspiring in the way of refreshing my spirit at a time when I needed it.
 
I have been working with Peter Wilberg for many years. During that time quite a few people passed through who enjoyed picking at bits from the fruits of Peter's work but very few stayed. As Peter noted, many were glad to be given and receive a great deal from The New Yoga for themselves, but their interest in The New Yoga as such - its larger relevance beyond their personal world - was limited by inability to see its significance in and for that world.
 
This has been a pain in my heart - that after many years of painstaking work on publishing books and creating websites almost nobody seemed to be interested in The NEW Yoga, that nobody seemed to have the background experience, knowledge or capacity to feel any resonance with its larger truth and relevance.
 
Your 'Call' arrived at the time when I had just completely given up on a dream, which I have tried to make reality in the last two years - the dream of a Shaivist Ashram where Peter would teach and where people would meet to learn, meditate and celebrate, a temple to Shiva.
 
Your call reached me while the house that was supposed to be the material expression of the ashram, and still houses our shrine, needs, unfortunately to be sold, leaving us considering a move to Europe from the UK.
 
Your call for a New Shaivist Community touched me deeply because you describe "my" dream. Only, it is not at all "my" dream but a reality, an existence beyond the dreamer.
 
I will not let go of that reality, that existence because you truly and sincerely share it. That was the special gift you gave me.
 
You shared something of your spiritual situation and history, and your connection with the Universal Shaiva Fellowship.
 
I would be very interested to know more about you, your background and current life in Norway.
 
With Love from Karin

Namaste, dear Karinji, and thank you for your post :-)

 There seems to be some difficulties with The New Yoga e-mail adresses. (I have tried to write Acharyaji but my e-mails have been returned to me.) Would you care to send an e-mail to my adress so I can "re:" it? My e-mail is: 'visarganath@shaivisme.no' I think we will have some interesting things to share :-)

Love from Visarganath

A RESPONSE TO VISARGANATH’S ‘CALL FOR A NEW SHAIVISM’

Your Call is a wonderful one, expressing a heartfelt longing for community we all share – not one far away in Kashmir or California, but here in Europe.

Your Call was a timely one, coming at just that time when the foundation stones for its gradual realisation have begun to be publicly laid.

Your Call was also a voice from a place of spiritual isolation in the social wilderness of this world in which so many find themselves. Yet at the same time it affirmed in my work the seminal fruit of a lifetime’s solitary study and meditation in that same social wilderness. This is a work around which has revolved only a very small circle or KULA, powerfully enriched by the most private and profound forms of teaching and initiation possible - and yet so far lacking any form of public or communal teaching and sharing.

Your Call appreciates and affirms a basic truth behind my work – namely that a great tradition of knowledge can only be truly and lastingly CONSERVED through its own radical RENEWAL – not merely a new scholarly or didactic presentation of it, but a ‘reinterpretation’ that is RADICAL in the most literal sense – unveiling the ROOT insights and truths of that tradition in terms designed to do it the greatest service. Such conservation through renewal was the aim, mission, principle and accomplishment of Acharya Abhinavagupta. That is why to embody his spirit –to become ABHIVNAVACHARYA - is to DO what he did, and not only cherish and teach what he taught.

Your Call pointed out in addition some important historic parallels which I have hinted at myself, but that need to be understood at a deeper level than hitherto. For indeed, it is not any ‘person’ but the spirit – awareness - that they PERSONIFY which ‘reincarnates’. This was understood by Abinavagupta. You also suggested a parallel between Swami Lakshmanjoo and the spirit of Abhinavagupta’s own teacher on the one hand, and the spirit of my own work and that of Abhinavagupta himself on the other.

Your Call therefore, was precisely ONE I HAVE LONG BEEN WAITING FOR – constituting in and of itself a BRIDGE between the passing of the revered teacher you refer to - Lakshmanjoo - and the recognition of my work as the rebirth of the tradition he taught, and its essential spirit. Your Call beautifully summed up the essence of that spirit – its “extraordinary ordinariness” and the immense value it places on Freedom and on respect for Individuality (the nature and importance of which I seek to give fresh emphasis and importance to in The NEW Yoga). That said, you might be surprised, if not shocked, to know I have read very little of Lakshmanjoo’s work - for it sufficed for me to read his face and eyes. Instead my concentration has been on experiencing and articulating the wordless awareness revealed through the words of Abhinavagupta, and those who immediately preceded and followed him.

Your Call calls to awareness a key question however – why the spirit of Abhinava should find its reincarnation in a EUROPEAN personality rather than an Indian or Kashmiri one? I believe this is no accident. For were it not for the seeds of Indian thought that were planted and bore fruit in European soil, not least in German philosophy, The NEW Yoga would not exist. My task has been to gather and harvest this fruit so that its seeds can be returned, in turn, as a gift to the Indo-European motherland and to the whole world - not as a neo-colonial imposition but as a new THINKING which is also an explicit THANKING of its own source.

Your Call calls for a NEW Shaivism, but therefore implicitly of course also for a new SHAIVISM – in contrast to something of the nature of Rudolf Steiner’s profound and worthy but still unashamedly Eurocentric and neo-Christian interpretation of Indian and European theosophy. In contrast, The New Yoga is recognitive of the ‘Death of God’ - the Judaeo-Christian god-concept - heralded in European thought by Friedrich Nietzsche and deepened by Martin Heidegger’s meditations on a God “totally other” than the Judaeo-Christian one.

Your Call gave poignant expression too, to the painful absence you feel in Europe of the sort of Shaiva community and fellowship that can be enjoyed in places such as Kalifornia and Kashmir. Yet in doing so it not only gave expression to the yearning for ‘A New Shaiva Community’ or its futural potential in Europe itself. Instead, IN AND OF ITSELF, your call ANNOUNCES to the world the unalterable spiritual REALITY of that community – making us warmly and lovingly aware of its PRESENCE IN ABSENCE. For what is a ‘Shaiva Community’ old or new, actual or potential, if not a community founded on delight in the spiritual reality of a shared unity with The One Awareness that we call ‘Shiv(a)’? Thus the very hope and LONGING for a potential, as-yet unrealised Shaiva community expressed in your call already affirms its reality – the reality of our mutual BELONGING to and communion with Shiv. In this sense, your “hopes” are not only already shared but already realised.

Your Call has to do with ‘Shaivism’ and thus with Shiv. By ‘Shiv’ of course we mean ‘God’ – a word whose root meaning is one who ‘is called to’ and/or ‘calls’ to one. Understood as Shiv, ‘God’ is THE ONE AWARENESS that recalls us to itself and to its infinite potentialities; an awareness which also constantly calls upon us to respond to its Call - not just by calling ‘for’ the ‘realisation’ of those potentials but by CALLING FORTH THEIR REALITY.

Your Call - you can already be assured - does not express a mere lonely desire of your own. Indeed is not YOUR call alone, but essentially a call from SHIV – one that calls upon us ALL to freely fulfil and further a new and exciting CALLING. This Calling is the principled and many-sided Practice of Awareness that is ‘The New Yoga’ - a practice which alone can respond to the stifled calls of all who suffer in and from today’s callous and superficial world of commerce and global conflict.

Your Call is truly a NEW Call, for it is the very FIRST such Call of its nature to have been formulated - calling upon people to take heed of The NEW Yoga as a new Calling from Shiv. As such IT IS THE INITIATION OF WHAT IT SEEKS AND CALLS FOR. Yet it also calls upon you yourself to first of all fulfil a very specific ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’, that of transmitting or ‘emitting’ (VISARGA) the seminal Call itself, not just to the few around me but to the many – to all those you know of who might be opened - through reading it - to a discovery of The NEW Yoga of the sort you are enjoying and wish to share with others.

Your Call is one I see as a powerful WAKE-UP CALL for anyone with any association with Shaiva and Trika traditions, who, unlike you, has not yet discovered The NEW Yoga. Therefore I request your permission to place a version of it on the website under your name - one that you yourself can forward to others - and that, with your permission, we might even use portions of as a foreword to my books. Indeed, your Call along with this Response that it has called forth, could together constitute a wonderful new AGAMA for the website.

Your Call is one whose wording you may or may not feel called upon to meditate further for the purposes of a FAR WIDER DISSEMINATION OF IT. I will mail you soon a shortened and slightly amended ‘abstract’ of it - one which I would most appreciate your posting up as a REVIEW (with or without further elaboration or reformulation on your part) for the three first New Yoga books currently listed on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. (Note: I can be mailed directly by anyone through the ‘ASK AND LEARN MORE’ button on the site homepage. And anyone who wishes to make their e-mail address available to me can do so by activating the SUBSCRIBE button on the site's bulletin board itself.)

Your Call concludes with the following words: “I would like to be part of something where The Awareness Principle’ is the guiding thought, The NEW Yoga of Awareness its beating heart, and A NEW SHAIVISM THE BODY OF EXPRESSION.” It will be clear that you ARE already part of this ‘something’. So let me express my deeps thanks to you for your Call as a whole, one whose wording so beautifully embodies the third element of the TRIKA you outline in the quotation above, this being the very one you use to name your Call as a whole – the call for ‘A NEW SHAIVISM’.

As for 'A New Shaiva Community', this cannot, as you so rightly say, be reduced to a commercial transaction of Blessing and Pay. DIKSHA in The NEW Yoga certainly transcends all forms of symbolic blessing or even the simple transmission and absorption of grace through Guru - being simply too RICH to be valued in monetary terms.

Your Call aptly describes the necessary nature of any New Shaiva Community, so I leave the last words on this to you - for they are so true: “A community that will stay away from sectarian and dogmatic tradition, that dares to let the individual be free and responsible, where the Guru can be a friend and not a dictator, that will show the highest human expression of the Divine Awareness.”

THIS ‘Acharya’ or ‘Guru’ offers not only seminal wisdom for the world, but the simple word and hand and potentials of friendship to YOU, both as an individual and as ‘Emissionary Lord’.

Namaste 'VISARGANATH'!

with love,

ABHINAVACHARYA – ‘new preceptor of ABHINAVAGUPTA, renewer (Abhinava), and revealer of the hidden (Gupta)’

Edited by author 18-02-2008 12:37 PM
Sharing my thoughts on: MEDITATION AND CELEBRATION

Meditation and celebration must be the highest human expression of Divine Awareness.

Why?

Because wherever Divine Awareness finds expression in meditation, its overflowing feeling of bliss seems to find its expression in celebration.
 


     I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,
     where Shiva and Shakti were making love.

     I dissolved into them,
     and what is this
     to me, now?

     I seem to be here,
     but really I’m walking
     in the jasmine garden.



          With repeated meditation practice
          the expance of the visible universe
          with all its qualities dissolves
          to nothing, to where there is
          only health and a great joy.

          All teachings comes to this.



     Everything is new now for me.
     My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
     The whole world looks rinsed with water,
     washed in the rain of I AM THAT.

     Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy
     that creates and sustains the universe.

- Three poems by the ecstatic naked kashmiri saint Lalla



          You alone, O Lord, are the self of all.
          And everyone naturally loves his own self.
          Thus victorious becomes the one who knows
          That devotion is inherent in all.

- From Utpaladeva’s SHIVASTOTRAVALI


Celebration is an expression of insight and devotion.

Celebration is an expression of reverence and gratitude.

Celebration is an expression of joy and creativity.

Awareness-bliss (CHIDANANDA) is found in meditation and expressed through celebration.

Swami Lakshmanjoo compares Shiva’s motivation for creating this universe with that of a little child.

When you look at a little baby lying in the cradle you will see sudden outbursts of joy, resulting in wild movements of arms and legs and sounds of “gah” and “ah”. The inborn joy of the child is too much to hold in and it has to express itself through movement and sound.

Just like this it is for Shiva. The state of awareness-bliss is too much to keep inside and in a sudden outburst of joyful expression he creates this whole universe.

What a wonderful description of creation that Swami Lakshmanjoo makes :-)

It seems that our great misery is that we have lost touch with the feeling of this inherent awareness-bliss and that we believe that it can be found outside, in some temporary expression.

It seems that we have forgot the play (LILA) of Divine Creative Expression and lost ourselves in the unaware activities of give and get, and by doing this have entered a state of being which is being filled with pain and suffering.

It seems we have become like children that forget that they are playing together and have started to fight over their toys instead.

I want to be part of Shiva’s family (SHIVA KULA) and take part in the Divine Play of Creative Expression of Awareness.

I want to live a life of meditation and celebration. To live a life of awareness and creativity. And maybe - one day - I will also be able to re-enter the jasmine garden (the garden of Eden?) as Lalla did.


When you experience Divine Awareness
as being different from your self, celebrate it!

When you experience Divine Awareness
as being no different than your Self, celebrate it!

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA!

Love from Visarganath

Edited by author 10-03-2008 05:13 AM
Though it is every ‘WHEN’ and every ‘WHERE’, at that dark night of the year when we are drawn to meditate most intensely our living relation to the Divine Awareness personified by Mahadeva Shiva - or rather to meditate Shiva AS that singular, non-dual RELATION which unites us with the Divine Awareness – it seems timely to draw attention also to our relations with other human beings.

With this in mind I share below an extract from a new Tantra I am writing on ‘Marxism and Moksha’, one which will be entitled ‘THE RED BANNER OF RUDRA – TOWARDS A YOGA OF REVOLUTION’. Its principle is that relationality as such is the very essence of what is called ‘non-duality’ or ‘Advaita’. Its message is that only through new and more aware ways of RELATING to others can individuals WITH awareness cultivate awareness IN those others, thus allowing them too to experience themselves as unique expressions of the Divine - as one pole of a singular, non-dual RELATION to it.

The Divine Awareness pervades not only every ‘when’ and ‘where’, but every thing and every being - ‘every body’.

The practical significance of what follows can thus be summed up very simply: it is only though granting awareness - every where and at all times - not only to our divine Self but to EACH AND EVERY RELATIONSHIP with the Others in our life that we most fully live the ‘Divine Life’ – our RELATIONAL LIFE.

 
 
INDIVIDUALITY, COMMUNITY AND ‘THE THIRD REALM’

It was the profound insight of Martin Buber that the true locus of radical change or ‘revolution’ – the attainment of WORLDWIDE human liberation or ‘Moksha’ - lies NEITHER in the realm of society or community nor that of the individual, that it can be achieved NEITHER through social revolutionary movements - least of all nationalistic ones - NOR through the security of self-centred religious or spiritual communities. Instead the decisive locus of revolutionary change is a THIRD realm - one beyond the realm of the social or communal on the one hand, and the realm of individual consciousness on the other. The ‘third realm’ is the realm of relationality AS SUCH - of immediate human relations BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS.

“The individual is a fact of existence in so far as he steps into a living relation with other individuals. The aggregate is a fact of existence in so far as it is built up of living units of relation.”

Martin Buber

The starting point for a WORLDWIDE REVOLUTIONARY TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN RELATIONS can only lie IN immediate human relations themselves – in those very “units of relation” that shape the reality of BOTH individuals AND the social, economic or communal groups and institutions they belong to. ‘Human relations’ on a group, institutional, social, economic, communal, national, international and worldwide global scale can only be changed by changing the way in which individuals relate to one another as individuals within families and communities, groups and institutions.

No spiritual or political initiatives and activities can bring about any fundamental or ‘revolutionary’ changes IN human relations unless those activities and initiatives are the expression of a revolutionary spiritual transformation OF human relations between the very people who initiate them.

Raising each individual’s awareness of the REAL economic, political and cultural contradictions that stand in the way of liberation or Moksha is the vital task of Marxism. Raising each individual’s awareness to a higher plane beyond these contradictions – in a way that can FREE individual consciousness from their yoke is the task of traditional or classical ‘yoga’. Learning to guard and embody this free and liberated state of awareness (Svatantrya/Moksha) in our relations with all other individuals in our life world is the task of a revolutionary ‘New Yoga’ – understood as a yoga of AWARE RELATING aimed at bringing about a RELATIONAL REVOLUTION through awareness, and with it RELATIONAL FULFILMENT.

The old, sad and yet still persisting dilemma besetting those on a traditional spiritual or political path is that the deeper or broader their spiritual or political awareness becomes, the more isolated they may feel - for example by finding relationships with those with different world-views or with a shallower or narrower awareness uncomfortably confining. As a result of this dilemma they may either retreat into deliberate isolation or else seek the superficial comfort of a group or community that merely shares the ideological or religious SYMBOLS of a ‘higher’ awareness. Deep or authentic community on the other hand can only arise out of living “units of relation” – multiple deep one-to-one relationships between its members. Such a community is quite different in nature from one that SUBSTITUTES for such relationships – let alone one that suppresses them in the service of an overriding allegiance to a group ideology. That is why, in the absence of deep relationships and communion between specific individuals within a community, even such things as sharing in communal events - whether political gatherings or demonstrations or religious festivals and celebrations – may even end up leaving the individual with an intensified sense of isolation. Hence neither hermetic retreat, ‘being alone together’ in a symbolic community, nor resignation to what is felt as the compromise of ‘ordinary relationships’ may suffice to overcome the aware individual’s sense of social isolation.

For the more politically-oriented individual, this isolation may actually lead them away from aware relating to others and be replaced instead by a militant hostility towards others – for example in the form of individuals, groups or communities with other values or convictions, ethnic origins, class or colour.

For the more spiritually oriented individual the same intensified isolation may lead to ever greater identification with their own divine Self – yet at the exclusion of aware relations to the living human Others in their lives. And whilst this can lead to the experience of evermore exalted and higher states of DIVINE SELF-awareness, the individual’s capacity to EMBODY this awareness in deepened relations with a HUMAN OTHER diminishes. The result is a vicious circle in which an ever-greater spiritual ‘REALISATION’ of SELF through relationship with God leads to an ever-diminished spiritual RELATIONSHIP to human OTHERS.

One basic reason for such dilemmas and vicious circles of isolation is a failure to fully accept and finds ways of responding to unavoidable ASYMMETRIES in adult-to-adult or peer relationships - differences in maturational levels of awareness.

In peer relationships these differences may be felt by the more aware as isolating in themselves - or lead to them to act or be perceived as distant or haughty by the less aware.

Parents or teachers, on the other hand, accept awareness asymmetries in relationships from the very start. They do not EXPECT their children or their students to be cognizant or aware of all that they are aware. They not only make AWARE ALLOWANCES for their childrens’ or students’ lack of awareness, but relate to them with the AWARE INTENT to gently educate’ and ‘draw out’ a greater awareness (e-ducare).

This acceptance of asymmetry in the parent-child and teacher-student relationship comes to a different type of expression in the guru-disciple relation. For this is a relation in which the guru unites the role of teacher with that of spiritual parent to another - albeit often younger - adult.

The AIM of the guru in fulfilling this role however, is precisely to offer a MODEL to the disciple of how they themselves can relate to other adults on a basis of TOTAL EQUALITY AND RESPECT - whilst at the same time not only making allowances for asymmetries of awareness (still less accommodating to them) but intentionally and actively using ‘skilful means’ to overcome them and heighten the awareness of the other. This requires a deep capacity on the part of the guru to MEDITATE THE OTHER – that is to say to meditate and identify with a specific HUMAN OTHER as well as with the DIVINE SELF within them. Only in this way can the disciple be led to an experience of their own divine self - whilst at the same time learning from their guru by what PROFOUND MEANS AND MODES of meditative and aware relating they too can find RELATIONAL FULFILLMENT through spiritually teaching and parenting other adults.

Just as a child has only an inkling of the adult world of the parent, so the disciple has only an inkling of the larger world of awareness of the guru. Yet just as child learns about the ADULT WORLD of their parents in a way that is primarily relational - from the ways in which their parents relate to them FROM that world - so too can the disciple learn much about the AWARENESS WORLD of the guru through the guru’s way of relating to them.

The Awareness Principle and the Practice of Awareness – including the practices of AWARE ACTION – that constitute the grounding principle and practices of The New Yoga, show how the false dualism of hermetic isolation and communal belonging can be overcome - through practices of AWARE ASYMMETRIC RELATING.

The Practice of Awareness in asymmetric human relations is based on The Awareness Principle itself – with its fundamental distinction between identifying with anything we experience or are aware OF on the one hand, and identifying with the pure AWARENESS of it on the other. For one application of this Principle is the recognition that awareness of asymmetry – of the limitations, superficiality, lower level or narrower focus of another person’s awareness - is nothing that need be felt or feared as isolating. Why? Because the very AWARENESS of asymmetry is not itself anything limited, lowered, or rendered narrow or superficial BY that asymmetry. The fear or discomfort of feeling one’s own awareness confined within the narrower horizons of another comes from

(a) fear or failure to be aware of asymmetry - to fully recognise, accept and make allowances for the limits or confines of another’s awareness

(b) failure to identify with the pure AWARENESS of those limits or confines - an awareness that is not itself limited or confined by them,

and

(c) lack of the awareness and skills necessary to successfully relate to the other from a place of higher awareness – rather than feeling or being confined by the lower awareness of the other.

If asymmetries of awareness are not responded to through aware relating, those with higher awareness may end up just avoiding social contacts, situations and relationships altogether out of fear of feeling confined and isolated by them. Without the meditative means to engage in aware relating in asymmetric situations, self-isolation is chosen as the safer alternative to feelings of social isolation.

It must be emphasised that awareness and acceptance of asymmetry in adult relationships, and the practice of aware relating in response to it, is not just a way of accommodating to the limits or lesser awareness of others. On the contrary, it is what allows the highly INDIVIDUAL NATURE of the limitations evident in another person’s awareness to become a source of DEEP INTEREST, MEDITATION, LEARNING AND INSIGHT rather than a cause for boredom or accommodation, restlessness - or a sense of innate superiority. For the aware acceptance of asymmetries in relationships also turns all social situations into opportunities to recognise what I term ‘reverse asymmetry’. By this I mean the opportunity to appreciate and learn from the unique individual QUALITIES of awareness embodied or expressed even by persons with a ‘quantitatively’ lower level of awareness.

The principle of reverse asymmetry gives expression to a notable autobiographical remark made by Martin Buber. Here he describes the enduring life inclination he felt impelled to embody, one which recognises both the TRANSFORMATIVE power of aware relating and the ‘reverse asymmetry’ or RECIPROCITY of relational transformation. Thus, speaking of his central life inclination Buber wrote:

“It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, just to change something if possible in the other, but also to let myself be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance…put up no resistance to it. I began as a young man. I felt I had not the right to want to change another if I am not open to being changed by him…”

These wise words echo the old Talmudic saying that a truly wise human being is one who finds something to VALUE AND LEARN FROM in each and every other human being.

Aware relating is innately and intentionally educative and transformative, allowing the relation to teach and transform others - but only on the condition that one is open also to BEING TRANSFORMED by it, above all by being open to and learning from the uniqueness of the other – what makes them different or ‘special’, however ‘aware’ or ‘unaware’ they are.
          
People have their own individual feelings and world-views, values and principles, fears and desires, dilemmas and problems, hopes and potentials. ‘And’ they have relationships, more or less fulfilling.

The aim of a New Yoga of active and aware relating is to bring an end to this mere ‘and’ - with its implication that relationships and relating are merely an appendage or optional add-on to our lives.

Its aim is also to clearly distinguish RELATIONSHIPS from RELATING. Relationships are something we ‘have’ or don’t ‘have’. Relating is something we DO. So the fact that people may ‘have’ or ‘be in’ relationships, whether short- or long-term, is no guarantee that they actively RELATE to one another - let alone relate with AWARENESS.

Similarly, though people engage in all sort of relational activities with others – whether educational or economic, recreational or therapeutic, social or even spiritual – this is no guarantee that they actively relate to one another in doing so. RELATIONAL ACTIVITIES are no guarantee of ACTIVE RELATING.

Then again, people are aware of having all sorts of everyday PRACTICAL RELATIONSHIPS with others – whether within the workplace, family, privately or as public citizens of state and society. Yet this too is no guarantee they that engage in aware RELATIONAL PRACTICES – practices that are not means to an end – even spiritual ends – but instead transform relating itself into a spiritual END IN ITSELF.

For in the end, individuals can only sustain a deepened spiritual relationship to God through a transformation of the RELATIONAL PRACTICES through which they engage with others - practices aimed at drawing out both the DIVINE ESSENCE of the other and fulfilling the DIVINE QUALITIES and potentials at the core of their unique HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY.

The New Yoga as a ‘Yoga of Revolution' then, is a yoga of aware and active, meditative and embodied RELATIONAL PRACTICES.

It is also a wholly new understanding of ‘Advaita’ or ‘non-duality’ - not as some more spiritual TYPE of relation but as RELATIONALITY ITSELF.

In Buber’s terms, ‘spirit’ itself is no ‘thing’ but IS our relation with a divine Other or ‘Thou’ – with ‘God’. The principle of Advaitic philosophy is that we can come to experience this divine Other as a divine Self or ‘I’ within us, and within all beings – in every ‘Thou’.

The seeming dualities of ‘I and Thou’ or ‘Self and Other’ dissolve as soon as we recognise that BOTH the divine Self or ‘I’ AND its divine Other or Thou are but DUAL POLES of a SINGULAR, NON-DUAL RELATION.

Buber himself distinguished ‘spirit’ - which he understood as an inner relation to a Divine Other or Thou - from ‘soul’, which he saw as an inner relation to the world and other human beings. The ‘self’ that is ordinarily constituted by our everyday social relations is most often the ordinary ‘worldly’ or ‘social’ self consisting of what Jung called ‘ego’ and ‘persona’.

Yet what if our relation to the world and other people came itself to be centred in another self – that SELF constituted by a spiritual relation to the Divine? In this way the seeming duality of ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’, of the human being’s inner relation to the DIVINE on the one hand, and to the WORLD of individual human beings on the other, would dissolve. The two relations would THEMSELVES be experienced as DUAL aspects of a SINGULAR NON-DUAL relation – that relation whereby the divine itself MANIFESTS as every ‘thing’ and ‘being’ in this the world.

This singular relation between GOD and WORLD is one that can come to be experienced in and through the relation between ANY TWO HUMAN BEINGS. And any such relation is also a BI-PERSONAL FIELD which, by opening a portal BETWEEN two BEINGS, can open a portal TO other WORLDS. Hence the famous saying of Christ – “where TWO OR MORE are gathered…”

In the specific Advaitic tradition known as Kashmir Shaivism or ‘Tantrism’, the Divine as such is understood as a dynamic RELATION - between pure awareness on the one hand (SHIVA) and its pure power of manifestation and embodiment in lived experience (SHAKTI).

And in contrast to the simple linear succession of life stages or ‘Ashrama’ of orthodox Vedic Hinduism - from student to householder or ‘family man’, and thence to community elder and renunciant hermit – the TRIKA or ‘triadic’ school of Kashmir Tantrism embraces the ‘KAULA’ principle of the soul family or ‘KULA’.

The KULA is itself triadic in principle – for it unites a THREEFOLD SET OF RELATIONS - the INDIVIDUAL in his or her singular relation to the Divine, the Divine itself as a singular RELATION expressed in the ‘relational unit’ or couple (Yamala), and the wheel (Chakra) of couples that make up the soul GROUP or ‘Kula’ as such. This understanding gives new meaning to the words of Acharya Abhinavagupta:

“The essence of the TANTRAS, present in the right and left traditions, which has been unified in KAULA, lies in TRIKA.”

Om Namah Shivaya.

Dear Baba Peter,

I have been reading your work here, at Marianne Broug's site, and at thenewtherapy.org for a couple of months now. I have also ordered several of your books.

I wanted to thank you for your work, but decided to read through the bulletin board postings before submitting my own message.

I have been a spiritual seeker for a number of years, and spent some time in a couple of different Sufi orders before meeting Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) about 5 years ago. That opened up my awareness dramatically, much of it at the emotional level, and also brought the issues of relatedness and relationships into greater prominence than had been the case previously.

I received a mantra from Amma about 4 years ago, and since then I have been exploring how to integrate the experiences I have on her retreats into my daily life. I have connected with a local satsang, and that has helped to develop my experience within a cross-cultural (Indian and Western) context. I have also had a couple of close friendships with other devotees. They have had some beautiful moments--such as you describe in your work on spiritual intimacy--but there have also been difficult experiences too, such as you describe in the article "Abuse, Awareness, and the 'Bad Subject'".

Even when these group or friendship situations have been at their best, I have not been able to find genuinely satisfying companionship in terms of philosophical or psychological awareness. I am a university professor and a classical musician, and there is a limited extent to which I can get by on ritualized devotionalism and on people not being very articulate, or even very open, about what's going on with them as they try to work the spiritual path into their daily lives. Your piece on the occasion of Shivaratri was very pertinent to this kind of experience.

While this change in my spiritual path has been going on, my mother underwent treatment for malignant brain cancer. She passed away in late December 2007. As I learned about my grief process from the inside, some of the dissatisfactions in my relationships began to be magnified and I found that I needed to spend more time alone in order to focus on the work I needed to do for the university, and also to listen to the inner reorganization that was going on since my mother's death.

I have a partner, and he has been working on developing his awareness in ways that appeal to him. Being supportive of one another has been good, but there is something special that I feel when I am relating closely with an Amma devotee, and I miss that when that's not available. It has also been necessary to find other forms of support as issues have come up, since a high-profile guru such as Amma is not available for direct dialog. I have done quite a bit of reading by Western psychologists and spiritual teacher, and did 3.5 years of talk therapy (which I recently terminated).

Your work has been really good in helping me to sort through the variety of experiences I have had in the last few years. I find that, since I have been reading your work, there is greater awareness in the experience of the spiritual practices I am doing. I also find that I am becoming quieter inside, and more patient with the unfolding of thoughts and feelings as they come. There is less of a compulsive need to "get things out" or to "hold things in" as there was before.

So, thank you for the contribution that your work has been making to the understanding and acceptance of my various life situations.

Peace,

Ron

See NEW essay on Archive page of www.thenewyoga.org
'COUNSELLING, MEDITATION AND YOGA - The New Yoga as Non-Dual Therapy' (www.thenewyoga.org/CMY.pdf)

Edited by author 15-06-2008 12:11 PM
WHAT IS ‘GOD’? WHAT ARE ‘GODS’?


God does not have but IS awareness.
Not your awareness or mine, but an
Awareness universal, absolute and divine.
Awareness in turn – God – is everything.
Everything in turn IS an awareness,
A portion of that unbounded awareness
That is God, that is the Divine Awareness.
Since each and every thing is a distinct part,
Portion and expression of God, inseparable
From the Divine Awareness as a whole,
Each thing is not only a portion of that whole, but
IS that whole – God - manifest in a unique way.
In this sense each thing is both ‘God’ and ‘a God’.

Thus thunder is a unique expression of God,
God’s thundering - and yet, by the same token
Thunder is a unique God, the ‘God of thunder’ that
Is God’s expression as thundering.
The major Gods of the different religions
Are not simply different but exchangeable
Names or symbols of the same God, but distinct
Expressions of it - each imbued with specific psychic
Qualities and imbuing their worshippers with them.
Behind every God is a quite different God Concept.
Allah is not Brahman by another name.
The God of Jesus was not that of Moses.
Nor is Zeus Osiris, or Christ Kali or Krishna.

‘Awareness is Everything’ means that
‘God is Everything’ - God being that
Awareness of which all things are a portion.
‘Everything is an Awareness’ means both that
‘Everything is God’ and that at the same time
‘Everything is a God’ - being both a portion
And a unique expression of God as a whole.

‘God’ and ‘the Gods’ are thus distinct but inseparable,
Each God being both part and whole, a distinct
part of the whole that is God - thus ‘a God’ - and
An expression of God as a whole, and thus ‘God’.
Understanding God in this way unites ‘monistic theism’,
The recognition of God as a singular all-pervading
Awareness, with a monistic pluralism or ‘polytheism’,
That recognises all things as Gods.

Behind all things and phenomena are the unique psychic
Portions, patterns, powers and qualities of awareness, of
‘God’, that give each and every thing its character as ‘a God’.
The outward forms of things are but symbols of those
Unique portions of the Divine Awareness that make them
Both a part of God and yet also Gods in their own right.
All things or phenomena, of whatever shape or form
Are manifestations both of God, and of the particular
Patterns and powers of awareness that constitute
Their nature as distinct Gods in their own right.
All things then are the outward forms of Gods.

In recognising and revering them as Gods we amplify those
Unique patterns, powers and qualities of awareness
That constitute their God-nature in a dual sense,
Their nature as expressions of God and therefore
Also their nature as unique Gods in their own right.
A bicycle or brick is as much the outward form of a God
As a cat or tree, a religious text, or a sacred idol or icon.
Every particular cat or tree is ‘a God’, and yet so also are
‘Cat-ness’ and ‘tree-ness’ as such - these being particular
‘Idea-shapes’ or patterns of awareness, present as
Potentials within the Divine Awareness that is ‘God’.
If you could really see a rose, you would behold the
‘Spirit’ behind it as a God – as a vast living idea-shape
Eternally present and resplendent in the Divine Awareness.

Only through our capacity to recognise, sense and feel
 Any ‘thing’ or ‘being’ at all as a God – to worship it with
Our senses, do we truly recognise and worship ‘God’.
Those who oppose the worship of Sky and Earth Gods,
Wind and Rain Gods, Rock and Tree Gods, Animal Gods
Or human-like, ‘anthropomorphic’ Gods to the worship of
A single and invisible ‘One God’ do not know the true nature of
The One God, for this is a God that finds expression as
Multiple Gods, in and as all things and all beings.
All dualisms of opposing ‘-theisms’, such as
‘Monotheism’ and ‘polytheism’ are false dualisms.
For there is nothing that is not God – singular – and there are
No things or beings which are not Gods – plural.

Those who refuse to worship a natural phenomenon such as
A tree, being ignorant of its God-nature, are just as deluded as
Those who worship only trees, ignorant of the God-nature of
All things - whether natural or artificial, ancient or modern.
Only those who can worship all things as Gods know God.
Only those who can use their senses to sense the soul of any
Thing as ‘a God’ can also know it as an expression of ‘God’.

Not all things are equally worthy of worship,
For some things are better than others and thus
Make better objects of worship and identification.
Many are those who worship the Gods of Money and
The Market, of Capital and Consumerism, The Media and
The Mobile Phone, the Motorway and The Automobile,
The Gods they make of celebrity icons and idols,
Of commodities, brand logos or stock values.
Such Gods as Profit and Fashion are not ‘evil’, but
Their worship, justified in the name of the ‘One God’,
Brings suffering to the worshippers and to all humanity.

There are named Gods and unnamed Gods,
Gods that human beings idolise and worship unawares.
And those they worship – as Gods – with awareness.
There are ancient Gods, personified or not personified
In human form, and there are modern Gods, personified
Or not personified in human form.
Many prefer the Gods of Old to the New Gods of
Global capitalism and technology, and to the
Monotheisms of Money and of The Market.

The Old Gods never die, thus they were called ‘immortals’.
Insteady they live on, whether or not their names
Are recalled or forgotten, their rituals and places
Of worship destroyed or surviving as ruins.
Battles rage between the Old Gods and The New.
Odin fights the i-Pods, the Madonna fights Madonna.
Battles still rage between the Old Gods themselves.
The Judaeo-Christian God fights the God of Islam.
Pagan, Wiccan and Norse Gods still fight the Gods of
Judaeo-Christianity, and the Gods of Nature
Wreak destruction on the destructive Gods of Man.
So has it always been – the ‘One’ God fighting the
Other ‘One’, the many Gods fighting each other
Each counting on their worshippers as warriors.

There are The Old religions and The New.
Television is the new shrine to which people offer
Sacrifice of what is most precious of all, their time
Having forgotten how the old shrines worked.
The screen is an electronic substitute for
Long lost powers of inner clairvoyance.
The shopping mall is a grand temple
To the God of Consumption, yet work -
Production - is wage-slavery to the God of the Market,
Determining by its iron ‘Law’ the value of all things
And doing so only in terms of their profitability.
The computer workstation is a technical altar,
The ‘virtual’ simulacrum of a portal
To other worlds, once reached from within.
The world of telecommunications is a substitute for
Deep and wordless telepathic contact with others.
The USB stick replaces ancient memories,
Once evoked by the flicker of a fire.

Mankind remains a kindergarten of infantile souls,
In thrall now to New Gods who bestow ignorance
Rather than knowledge, and who disensoul
Human beings rather than ensouling them.
For the priests of the New Gods it is ‘brands’
That have ‘souls’, whereas ‘souls’ are seen as
Mere manipulable brains stuck on a body.

To know yourself is to know your Gods.
Whether this God be a pop idol, sport or drug,
Tree or TV, church or business corporation.

To know God is to know all things
AS Gods, and to worship only those things -
Those Gods – most auspicious and beneficial
In coming to know that ‘One God’ of which
All things and beings - all Gods - are an expression.
Hence the importance of each individual
Finding their Ishta Devata – that God
They feel most personally attuned to, and that
In turn attunes them most to God as such.
To know God is to know yourself, both as God
And as a God in your own right - and to know other
People likewise, as both God and Gods.
Behind all people’s inner ‘psychology’
Lies their ‘inner theology’ - the Gods
They truly worship in deed, even if not in words
Or through religious prayer and meditation;
The things they idolise in mind and body -
Or with their wallets - even if ignorant of
That one God which is nothing but
Awareness itself in the manifold shapes of
All things and thoughts, all bodies and beings.

Your big toe feels itself as part of a
Larger whole - your foot – which is its God.
Your foot feels itself as part of a
Yet larger whole - your leg – its God.
So does any part of your body feel
Your body as a whole as ‘God’,
A whole from which it is inseparable
And yet at the same time a unique part.
Unlike their own toes and feet, fingers
And arms, stomachs and chests however,
Human beings tend no longer to feel
That larger whole of which they themselves
And their whole bodies are a part.
Yet unlike their bodily parts they
Can come to see and conceive that
Larger whole – God – in any way
They choose, in this way giving rise
To countless images and ideas of
God - to countless Gods.

Yet God is more than just an idea or image.
For any thing or being, idea or image to which
We sacrifice time and awareness,
Anything we put ourselves ‘into’
We also endow with a portion of ourselves
In this way it attains and retains its own
Independent reality, identity and consciousness.
It is turned into a God.

Every artist knows how in putting their time, awareness
And a portion of themselves into their creations
Those creations, like characters created in a novel,
Take on a life of their own, evolving in their own way and
Re-shaping not only the novel itself but its creator.
We are all creators – ‘god-makers’ whose every creation,
Whether a mere thought, mental image or material artefact,
Is no sooner created through a sacrifice of time and
Awareness, than it returns that sacrifice to us
Multiplied - whether as bountiful boons or burdens.

There is no thing and no thought, no being and
And no body which you have ever ‘worshipped’
In any life, ever sacrificed time and awareness to,
That does not retain reality as an independent
Consciousness, one which is forever a part of you
And at the same time distinct from you – a God.
Every cell of our body retains memory traces of
The Gods we have dreamt up and created within our soul.

We are not composed of ‘eternal genes’ but of eternal Gods.
Our genes are but the biological imprint of those elements of
Our souls that are part of or have become autonomous Gods,
Created or sustained by sacrificing portion of ourselves to them.

Not all the Gods which we thus create are
Comfortable or in harmony with one another.
Battles also rage between our personal Gods, past and present,
Old and New – battles felt and fought out in our dreams, as in
The very flesh of our genes, as symptoms and sensations of dis-ease.

There are minor Gods, which are a part of our souls.
And there are greater Gods, great souls or Mahatma
Of which we ourselves are a part, as they are a part of God.

‘Know thyself’ means ‘Know your Gods’.
It also means ‘Know God’, for God is
No supreme creator being, but the creativity
Constantly arising from Awareness as such,
A creativity by which God constantly
Gives birth to Gods, not just as us but also
 Through us, through the divine Creativity of
The Divine Awareness of which we are a part.

There is ‘No Religion Higher than Truth’
And the inner truth of religion is that
There is nothing outside God, that
Reality consists of nothing BUT ‘God’ and
‘Gods’ - nothing but GOD GODDING.
Thus there is no denying the Gods.
For our world and everything in it
Is a living pantheon of Gods,
Old and New - all emerged
From and dwelling in the
Awareness that is God.

You yourself ARE a God
Just you ARE God, even
Though God is more than
You are and can be.

Why then do people seek immortality,
God-like beauty, power, wealth,
Splendour and sensuous luxury?
Why do they wish to become ‘like’ Gods?
Because they are unable anymore
To see the beauty, feel the power, or
Sense the luxuriant wealth of the
Immortal Gods they already ARE,
The Gods that are a part of them,
The Gods of which they are a part,
And that God which is the source of all Gods.
Forever Godding Itself in countless forms.
The Gods, all of them, are alive,
As alive as you and me, and
As alive as all things and beings,
Which as portions of God, are
Themselves also Gods.

Odin lives, as do Thor and Loki.
Jesus lives, as do Peter, Paul and Mary.
Zeus lives, as do Athena and Aphrodite.
Krishna lives, as do Vishnu and Kali.
Their names speak of Gods, but
In doing so they also bespeak that
One Awareness that alone – ‘All-One’ -
Is God, transcendent of all Gods, yet
Immanent in them all, The All that
Is One and the One that is them All.
For what could embrace and create such
Infinite space for the fullness of all the countless
Gods that make up all things, except the
One God that Gods them all?

Once more on the symbolic meaning of ‘Shiva-Shakti’ in The New Yoga:

The SOLE PURPOSE of ‘Shiva’, as that ‘God’ which is nothing but pure, non-active awareness, is to create space for and release the wholly AUTONOMOUS and SOVEREIGN ‘power of action’ (‘Shakti’ / ‘Svatantrya’) that is the essence of the ‘Great Goddess’.

The sole purpose of the Great Goddess is to express and embody the sovereign powers and potentialities that She is - doing so WITH awareness.

Thus is the inseparable unity of Shiva and Shakti both realised and sustained.

Shiva 'does' nothing but meditate the Goddess as a womb of infinite potentialities of awareness.

The Goddess 'is' nothing but the birthing and embodiment of these potentialities, with and within awareness.

In simple terms - from the stillest most quiescent stillness that lies at the heart of pure awareness all powers of right thought and action arise spontaneously and autonomously.

THE PARABLE OF THE SPIRITUAL BILLIONAIRE

“Seek and you shall find. Find, and you shall be disturbed.” (Gospel of Judas) For our world is in essence and not just outwardly a ‘negative’ one - borne of UNawareness and UNknowing (agnosis / ajnana ) which only spiritual knowledge (gnosis / jnana ) can heal.

The parable:

Imagine that a person unknowingly meets a secret billionaire - albeit one who does not in any way look or feel like a billionaire. Imagine further that the greatest joy of this billionaire lies in sharing their wealth freely, not just with those who are in dire need of it, but also - or above all - with those who they think might be able to make the best use of it for the benefit of those in need.

Imagine now, how such a billionaire might feel, when, in offering such an individual a few million pounds in cash - with no conditions or strings attached - he or she is met with nothing but suspicion and mistrust, and the gift is refused.

Imagine further that after repeated experiences of this sort, our billionaire realises it is wiser to offer to share their wealth to others in less generous quantities so as not to arouse distrust - say only 10,000 pounds, or to use a different analogy, just a few gold trinkets or precious gems from their treasure chest – yet only to find that they are still met with distrust, their gift still refused, and the smallest of their gold trinkets and precious gems examined with deep suspicion. Imagine that finally our billionaire learns to offer gifts of only 100 or even just 10 pounds or 10 pence to any given individual, or maybe just one or two trinkets or gems from their huge treasure chest - and yet the mistrust is still there and the gift still refused - to the detriment not just of the potential recipient but also to all those they in turn might have given to from what they had received.

The point of this parable is that there exist even now, in this world, on this plane and this planet, individuals so rich in accumulated spiritual wealth that they might be described as spiritual ‘billionaires’ or even ‘banks’ - for they are indeed living human repositories of an unimaginable wealth of spiritual knowledge, guardians of vast historic treasure houses of such knowledge - in both entirely new and long forgotten forms.

They too seek to disburse their riches freely, first in large and then in ever smaller quantities – wary of the possible mistrust or incredulity that offering too much might arouse, and aware too of the spiritual immaturity of those they might offer it to. By this I mean their incapacity to grasp either the immensity of the spiritual knowledge being offered to them freely – and its inestimable value for a world in dire need of such knowledge.

Confronted with this immature incredulity or mistrust, our spiritual billionaire respects the truth of the words 'Ask and you shall be given', resolving to give of their wealth only to those, however few in number, who dare knock at their door and ask for a portion of it - however small.

He or she no longer offers their knowledge freely except to those who knock and ask for it. It happens then, that a rare few that do indeed take advantage of this opportunity, do indeed knock, ask and are given.

Of these, some are overwhelmed at what they are shown and immensely grateful at the spiritual gifts they receive. They are like seekers who have been let through a door into vast hall of glistening treasures from which is chosen and granted them as much as they are willing to receive - and can carry out into the world.

Others however, no sooner leave the hall of treasure than they begin to trade in their gifts of gold, precious metals and shining gems of wisdom for the spiritual equivalent for the cheap plastic kitsch they previously took for ‘knowledge’.

Then again there are those who leave the treasure hall spiritually enriched to a degree they could not previously have imagined, and yet keep all that was given them to themselves alone – not giving in the way they were given to. As a result, they find their new gained spiritual riches gradually decaying and diminishing, and their very memory of the treasure hall itself dimming to the point where they decide it must have been a mere dream.

As for those who outrightly rejected the gifts freely offered to them (which include actual spiritual gifts and powers of an extraordinary and wonderful nature), or those who never dared knock at the door of the treasure hall, this has karmic implications for their lives. For it amounts to a type of spiritual ingratitude that is in direct proportion to the VALUE of the spiritual riches and gifts they could have received and shared with others.

The karmic consequence of this is that when they depart this life, they will be led by their spiritual guides to look back and realise just how much they and others would have been spiritually enriched – IF ONLY they had gratefully accepted the gifts offered them, if only they had knocked on the door of the treasure hall - or if only they had dared open and peer inside the treasure boxes placed right in front of their eyes.

Such ‘karma’ is not a form of punishment for wrongdoing but a form of learning. For the ‘law’ of karma is simply this: that what we fail to learn in one life we are led, unavoidably and inexorably, whether from within ourselves, with the aid of others - or through life itself - to learn in the afterlife or in another life.

In this parable of the ‘spiritual billionaire’ we are speaking of sages with an unseen wealth of spiritual awareness, gifts and knowledge accumulated over lifetimes.

We are also speaking of a 'once in a lifetime' chance on the part of those who encounter them to freely receive a portion of their spiritual wealth.

Such encounters are truly 'karmic encounters'. For if it should happen that one encounters such a spiritual billionaire - a true spiritual 'initiate' or 'teacher', 'guru' or 'sage' – then the decision to trust or mistrust, close or open one’s eyes to, see or turn away from, accept or reject the gifts of knowledge that he or she offers is a spiritual decision with huge karmic weight and consequences - for it will determine the entire course of one’s life.

There are those who know much, and there are those who know little. Then again, there are those who want to learn and know more – who courageously seek and gratefully accept gifts of spiritual knowledge - and there are those who think they more or less 'know it all' and have little or nothing to learn that is new.

Finally, there are those who just "don’t want to know" – for they fear how the newness of the spiritual knowledge given them will also change them – and shrink also at the responsibility to the world that new spiritual gifts necessarily bring with them.

All this, in a nutshell, is the rule of spiritual knowledge or ‘gnosis’, and at the same time the ‘law’ of karmic learning - one learned and recognised by sages throughout the ages.

Murti Darshan, 08/07/08

In our house we have three shrines to the Lord Shiva, two ‘personal’ ones in our private rooms, and one in the conservatory for group darshan, puja and meditations.
There Peter and I sat for a joint meditation in front of the murti of the meditating Lord Shiva.

The following poem describes some aspects of my experiences during this sitting.
Karin Heinitz


Shining Beauty

There you are
Contemplating the Mother, the source,
Your blissful face radiating Beauty.
Potentials occur and blossom into Being
Through your grace.
These two occurred,
Through you they grow
Towards what it is they are meant to be.
You pervade her and him and them,
Oh Lord of the Shining Beauty.

Your golden hair
Sits on a throne of bronze
Above your silver brows,
Your silver eyes
Shine.
Your bronze cheeks show off
Your silver mouth, jaws, chin.
You shine
And you smile with delight.
You are awesome and terrible,
Oh Lord of the Shining Beauty.

When this body gave thanks to you
It was blessed with sensual bliss,
Your all embracing, all pervading grace is infinite,
Lord of the Shining Beauty

Shrine with the murti of the Lord Shiva

Edited by author 07-08-2008 08:18 AM
Awareness as a Universal Consciousness - and the 'unconscious'


I hail that Universal Consciousness [Vijanana-Bhairava/Shivachaitanya] of which everything and everyone is a unique portion and expression, individual yet indivisible from the whole!

The Universal Consciousness is not awareness 'of' things but awareness as such. It is not ‘yours’ or ‘mine’ but the essence of the Divine, a consciousness universal and unbounded.

‘God’ is not a supreme being ‘with’ consciousness, nor does any being ‘have’ or ‘possess’ consciousness as its private property. Instead God IS consciousness.

God is not a person, but all persons are personifications or face (personae)of the Universal Consciousness,

All individual beings and persons are bounded portions, expressions and personifications of the Universal Consciousness that is God.

The bodily boundaries of individual consciousness no more separate it from the Universal Consciousness than does the skin of a fish separate it from the ocean, or the wings of a bird separate it from the air.

Our own skin is a permeable boundary, one that does not separate us from the air around us but unites us with it - breathing that air. Were our skin a sealed boundary we would die from lack of air.

In essence, what is called the ‘unconscious’ (ucs) IS the Universal Consciousness (UCS).

The ‘ego’ or ‘conscious’ mind, on the other hand, is not more but LESS conscious than THIS ‘unconscious’ – it is a contraction of the Universal Consciousness within the Universal Consciousness.

Many people speak of consciously ‘creating’ their reality. In truth it is their ‘unconscious’ in the Freudian sense that ‘creates’ their reality – constantly seeking ways to express all that escapes the CONTRACTED awareness of their ‘conscious’ mind, and doing so in ways the conscious ego remains unaware of.

If your sole motto is 'I create my reality', you have not yet asked who or what this 'I' is. It is not the conscious mind or ego, but all that remains unconscious to it through its limited and contracted awareness.

In reality there is only ONE creative source of all realities and of the ego or 'I' itself – the Universal Consciousness.

The Universal Consciousness has the innate power or capacity (Shakti) to give form to itself - manifest, individualise and personify itself in infinite potential forms. Thus it not only transcends and surrounds but pervades all its manifestations – all beings.

The Universal Consciousness is truly transcendent and immanent – surrounding and pervading all things.

Everything actual is a form taken by the Universal Consciousness within the Universal Consciousness. There can be nothing outside the Universal Consciousness as there can be nothing ‘outside’ space or ‘before’ time.

“We are inside God.” Jane Roberts. Everything exists within the Universal Consciousness – within God.

Being inseparable from the Universal Consciousness as a whole every being is that Consciousness as a whole, is ‘God’.

Being a distinct portion of the Universal Consciousness as a whole everything is at the same time a unique expression of it - ‘a god’.

The Universal Consciousness is no mere ‘state’ of ‘cosmic consciousness’ to be evolved by or attained by individual human beings. It is the divine source and innermost nature of all beings, all individualised consciousness.

As individualised consciousnesses we experience ourselves as bodies ‘in’ space. In contrast, the Universal Consciousness experiences itself in the same way that space might experience both itself and the bodies in it – as that which both surrounds and pervades them.

The Universal Consciousness is no ‘thing’ we can locate ‘in’ space. Nor it is anything enclosed within our bodies or brains. Instead it is space, inner and outer – being that within which we experience all things.

Space and time are the primary expression of the Universal Consciousness in our ‘physical’ space-time reality.

The Universal Consciousness is an infinite ‘time-space’ or ‘time-sphere’ of awareness embracing all realities – past, present and future, actual and potential.

Ordinary consciousness is a narrow, focussed awareness, like a torchlight in a dark room. The Universal Consciousness is like light pervading space in a lightened room or sunny day.


Light [Prakasha] is the light of the Universal Consciousness.
Space [Akasha] is the spaciousness of the Universal Consciousness.
Air [Prana] is the immanent vitality of the Universal Consciousness.
Water is the oceanic fluidity of the Universal Consciousness.
Fire is the transformative power of the Universal Consciousness.
Matter is the formative matrix of the Universal Consciousness.
Planets are materialised planes of the Universal Consciousness.
Bodies are embodiments of the Universal Consciousness.
Suns are radiant centres of the Universal Consciousness.

Shiva/Bhairava are names for the Universal Consciousness in its aspect as pure awareness.

Shakti/Bhairavi are names for the Universal Consciousness as pure power of manifestation.

I hail that Universal Consciousness which is Shiva-Shakti!

BEYOND ZEN - Meditation, Movement and ‘Just Sitting’


‘Meditation’, as understood through The Awareness Principle, means simply giving time-space to a type of wholly non-active or ‘quiescent’ awareness - one not reliant on bodily movement or action. Most Westerners however, can only feel a sense of meditative inner stillness through movement in space.

Sitting still, they can no longer feel their body as a whole, let alone sense the space of awareness, around it – but instead begin to get lost in thought and their heads. Put in other terms, they cannot sustain a ‘proprioceptive’ awareness of their own body without sensations of physical movement - without ‘kinaesthetic’ awareness.

That is why they need to be constantly ‘on the move’ - whether through any type of physical activity involving movement of the body, or by literally moving from place to place - for example by travelling or engaging in pursuits such as walking, jogging, swimming etc.

That is also why a notable guru of the nineteen sixties and seventies felt forced to come up with the idea of so-called ‘dynamic meditation’ – effectively no form of meditation at all but a mere means of emotional catharsis through spontaneous movement.

Kinaesthetic awareness – dependent on movement – does indeed awaken proprioceptive awareness. Yet in Western culture it is, for most people, the only way they know of awakening or sustaining proprioceptive awareness of their bodies.

In Eastern and aboriginal cultures the reverse has been traditionally the case – movement and kinaesthetic awareness are grounded in motionless stillness and proprioceptive awareness of one’s body.

As in the practice of Tai Chi and of different forms of Asian dance and martial art, Eastern cultures value forms of bodily movement which arise out of a sense of motionless stillness - and believe in letting this very motionless stillness guide and time their physical movement or ‘kinesis'. Thus the most truly advanced martial artist is precisely one who does not actively move their body at all, but rather lets it be moved – moved by a ‘proprioceptive’ awareness that embraces not only their body but their sense of the entire space around their body.

It is because the ‘kinaesthetic’ awareness of the martial artist is already so highly trained that all they require to guide their physical movements is a meditative, motionless proprioceptive awareness.

Sitting meditation on the other hand, teaches people how to ‘move’ in a different way – to move from one location or ‘place’ to another in themselves - not with their physical body but within their inwardly felt body.

Strictly speaking this is not movement at all but awareness – awareness of the many different sensations and feelings and thoughts that are presencing or occurring in different regions or locations of their body. It is awareness too, of the relation of these sensations or feelings, whether subtle or intense, to the thoughts they are having and to the things or people they are connected with in their world.

The principle aim of sitting meditation is to learn how to be physically still whilst still sustaining awareness of our body as a whole and the space around it - sustaining both proprioceptive and spatial awareness.

This proprioceptive awareness is what sitting meditation and the Zen practice of ‘just sitting’ was implicitly designed to cultivate. Yet the problems faced by students of Zen-style sitting meditation – physical restlessness, mental boredom or drifting off, were not understood and responded to with this understanding or aim in mind – the aim of cultivating awareness of our bodies and the space around them.

Instead they were left to struggle with sensations of restlessness, strain, boredom or fatigue leading them to mentally dissociate from their bodies rather than become more aware of them, to get lost in thought or even fall asleep during meditation – hence the Master’s ‘awakening’ stick. There was no instruction to students to fully affirm all bodily sensations in awareness – thus coming to recognise that the very awareness of a bodily sensation is not itself anything bodily but is essentially bodiless and sensation-free.

Similarly the awareness of a distracting thought or mental state is not itself anything mental or any activity of mind - ‘mindfulness’ - but is instead something essentially thought- and mind-free.

Lacking this understanding and experience of pure awareness, Zen students were left to rely on their minds to distract or dissociate themselves from their bodies - or to simply stay awake. This however only compounded the challenge of attaining a state of pure, mind- and thought-free awareness.

What they required was ‘The Awareness Principle’ – the recognition that just as the awareness of our bodies and of bodily sensations is not itself anything bodily, so is the pure awareness of our minds and thoughts not itself anything mental but a thought and mind-free awareness.

The Zen practice of sitting meditation aimed at transcending both mind and body and attaining a state called emptiness or mu - ‘no mind. No body.’ Yet this practice did not recognise that the pure awareness of mind and body is – in principle - something innately transcendent or free of body and mind.

Without this recognition, ‘success’ in meditation came to be identified more and more with ‘one-pointedness’ – the concentration of awareness on a single inner or outer focal point (for example the centre of a mandala.). It is precisely this practice of ‘one-pointedness’ however, that misses the point - which is that a state of pure mind- and body-free awareness is, in contrast to ordinary consciousness, precisely an awareness not focussed or concentrated on a single, localised point. Instead it is an all-round ‘field’ awareness embracing the entirety of space – not least the space around our bodies, around our physical sensations and around our thoughts themselves.

It is from the formless all-round space of pure awareness that all formed elements of our bodily and mental experiencing, inner and outer, arise. To concentrate ‘single-pointedly’ on any one of these is to miss the central aim of meditation, which is to cultivate a proprioceptive awareness of our bodies – and even our thoughts themselves - from the space surrounding them.

The term ‘sacred space’ is both true and misleading. For a sacred space or a holy place such as a temple or cathedral, is in essence any place which helps us – either through its vast inner or outer dimensions and/or through its association with God or the divine – to experience space as such as sacred and holy - as the divine and as the God inside which we dwell.

What happens when people enter a sacred space such as a large cathedral for example is - first of all - that they gain a sense of its vaulting spaciousness, and at the same time, by virtue of knowing the cathedral as a holy place or ‘house of God’ - associate this spaciousness with that holiness and with God.

When people come together in temples, churches or mosques they are first of all aware of being together in a common space which is recognised as sacred or holy in some way. In that way, they knowingly or unknowingly come to an experience of space itself as divine – that which embraces all things and beings. Going to a holy place involves movement in space. Yet being there means motionlessly abiding in that place, thus coming to experiencing its space – and thereby space itself – as holy.

Again, movement or kinesis – activity or change of place – can be a way of awakening or sustaining proprioceptive awareness, or it can be a way of avoiding it. Yet the question whether, at any given moment, awareness is better sustained through movement or non-movement, can itself only be decided by first of all not-moving – by abiding in a motionless stillness.

Mountains and trees do not move from place to place, go to church, go for walks or go on pilgrimages. Mountains will not come to Mohammed. Trees do not have eyes to see. Yet they are the true ‘Zen masters’ and yogis of nature. For not having eyes to perceive space or limbs by which to move from place to place, they are masters at motionlessly sensing the space, light and air around them. Indeed their proprioceptive sense of their own bodies comes from sensing their spatiality.

The tree’s trunk rises towards the heights of the sky. Its roots plumb the depths of the earth. Its branches spread and its leaves and flowers open themselves to the vaulting curvature of the heavens above – absorbing the light and air of space not through any eyes or noses, but through their entire surface.

To be ‘conscious’ is to be aware of things occurring – abiding or moving - ‘in’ the space around them. To be AWARE of things however, is not the same as to BE that very awareness. To BE awareness means to be the space, inner and outer, in which things occur, and not just be aware of things occurring in that space. For pure awareness, in our space-time reality, is space. BEING space, we do not need to engage in activity or movement to experience time. For space IS time-space. The vaulting expanse of space is the spacious expanse of time itself – a time-space that embraces all actions and places - past, present and future - without any need for movement from one place to another ‘in’ space or one moment to another ‘in’ time.

Practicing Sitting as Meditation:

Sitting meditation is essentially the experience of sitting – anywhere and anytime - AS meditation. This involves 4 simple steps:

1. Sitting with your eyes open, but not focussing on anything.

2. Sustaining awareness of your sensed body surface as a whole.

3. Feeling your body surface as ‘all eye’ – enabling you to sense the entire space within and around your body.

4. Letting all that you are aware of in your body in the form of sensations or feelings, and all that comes to mind in the form of thoughts and images, dissipate into the space of pure awareness surrounding your body.

Edited by author 29-09-2008 02:44 AM
A 'Thought for the Week' - Full Marx for the Archbishop

Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury made some pertinent comments about the current financial crisis which acknowledged certain insights of Karl Marx. So allow me to start this post with some basis of Marxism:

We all know what a loaf of bread or bunch of bananas is because these are tangible or ‘material’ things. That’s not because they are made up of mysterious invisible particles but because we can not only see them (as in a vision or hallucination) but also touch, feel, taste and use them – for example to make ourselves a piece of toast or a banana sandwich.

Bread and bananas have a clear ‘use value’. On the other hand what makes any two quite different things equal or comparable in value – what Marx called their ‘exchange value’ - is something completely different from their use value.

You can pick up a loaf of bread or banana but you can’t pick up, feel, touch, eat or taste its exchange value or market value. As something totally immaterial, Marx saw exchange value as something similar to religious notions of an immaterial Spirit or God. Yet society found a way to ‘materialise’ the invisible exchange value of things - by inventing money. Money itself would not be worth the paper it’s printed on were it not for the symbols printed on it. These are just like (or even contain) mythical religious symbols – since they represent something completely immaterial – market value or exchange value.

In the past, markets and the exchange of commodities were much simpler. People would make or grow things, take them to market, sell them to others and use the money to buy things they needed for themselves. Marx had nothing against ‘markets’ as such. But the odd thing he noted about the capitalist market is that it works the other way round. Instead of people selling what they make or grow in order to buy what they need, capitalists do just the opposite – buying in order to sell at a profit and accumulate more exchange value, money or ‘capital’ – all for its own sake. What they end up buying has no tangible reality at all, but takes the form of equities, credits, loans, currencies, and countless other virtual or even wholly mythical forms of capital.

So full marks (excuse the pun) to the Archbishop for reminding us that Marx himself “long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves”. He doesn’t quite get full marks however, because Marx also saw the quasi-religious nature of this mythology, and how its gods of Money, Wealth and ‘The Market’ do take on a life of their own - one which, as we can all see and feel, affects our lives too.

Just as the media would like us to think that the current Credit Crunch and Crisis on Wall Street are just brought on by the iniquitous greed of a few, so the Archbishop too would like to see them as a purely moral problem - caused by “unbridled” capitalism rather than capitalism as such.

Marx saw things otherwise - recognising that though the endless extension of credit helps keep capitalism going, it also creates “the most colossal form of gambling and swindling” (and for all the talk of tighter ‘regulation’ of financial markets, the fact remains that both bouts of ‘short-trading’ and even ‘insider trading’ are not exceptions to a rule but are the rule – the most general ways in which this gambling and swindling is carried out).

As for Washington’s $700bn ‘bailout’ of the Wall Street banking houses, this is in no way ‘socialism coming to the rescue of capitalism’. It is capitalism once again ‘socialising’ its losses – demanding emergency welfare ‘benefits’ from the state and from the poor to make up for its losses, whilst continuing to privatise its profits and ‘bonuses’. When will our national press ever headline the scandal of corporate welfare ‘scrounging’? This makes ordinary ‘benefit fraud’ seem like peanuts in comparison - according to one estimate costing the US treasury around $140 bn every year.

So why is a religious Hindu writing about the Archbishop of Canterbury and talking up Marxism in relation to his well-timed comments? After all, wasn’t Marx an atheist who famously declared that “religion is the opium of the masses”? Personally, I believe the type of religion he was referring to was precisely the sort that mythologised, moralised about or tried to make more palatable the real religion of capitalism – what Marx called ‘the monotheism of money’.

Yet Marx also emphasised from very early on in his life something of central religious significance to Hindus. This is the fact that, like the things of nature, we can enjoy all things with our senses – yet without having to ‘have’ them – to buy and own them. So the next time you gaze at some beautiful but unaffordable item in a shop or marvel at some Porsche or Ferrari prancing your streets, take this as your ‘thought for the week’. You do not need to buy things from others to sensually appreciate, admire and enjoy them for yourself.

In a globalised capitalist economy in which half the world lives on less than a dollar a day, what is clearly needed is not a continuing rise but a general lowering of wasteful consumption in the developed world - and a brake on its spread in the developing world – where what the majority need is shelter, food and water, not Coca Cola and fashion icons.

Capitalism of course, makes an icon or idol of everything that its marketers seek to sell us. In Hinduism on the other hand, a religious ‘idol’ is a work of sacred art - worshipped not for its celebrity status or investment value, but because it gives sensory form and expression to the infinitely creative soul of the Divine.

Edited by author 12-10-2008 05:58 PM
Addressed to the organising committee of the 'Tantra Union':

SOME NOTES ON THE MEANING OF ‘TANTRA’
Reflections and Practical Suggestions for the ‘Tantra Union’

1. From ‘Tantra; Sex, Secrecy and Politics in the Study of Religion’ by Hugh B. Urban:

   “Most scholars seem to agree that … the term [tantra] probably derives from the root tan, which means basically to stretch, spread or to weave, and, metaphorically, to lay out to explain or espouse.”
   “Derived from this seminal root tan, the noun tantra is first used in the Vedic hymns to denote a kind of … loom. Even here, however it has the extended meaning of the weaving of speech: the visionary poets who wrote the tantras wove them with the threads of words, as if upon a loom.”
   “… by the period of the great Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata (ca. 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E.) the range of tantra has been extended to refer simply to any rule, theory or scientific work.”
   “According to one common definition, a tantra is simply ‘a scripture by which knowledge is spread’…” “In sum, as Padoux observes, the substantive noun ‘Tantrism’ appears nowhere in Indian literature prior to the modern period.”
   “There is of course a vast body of texts called tantras, as well as related texts called yamalas, agamas, nigamas and samhitas, which spread throughout the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist communities over the past 1200 years.”
   “ … We cannot find any concrete references to Hindu tantras until the ninth century.”
   “Perhaps the most logical place to look for some kind of coherent internal definition of tantra would be … in the [tenth century] works of the monumental Kashmiri philosopher and aesthetician Abhinavagupta. In his classic work Tantraloka (Light on the Tantras) and Tantrasara (Essence of the Tantras) Abhinava sought to create a grand synthesis and ordering of all the known schools of Saivism, ultimately placing his own school of the Trika (Triad) at the summit, as their culminating goal.”
   “This is perhaps the closest we come to an idea of ‘Tantra’ as a singular, comprehensive category that embraces most of the traditions that we now identify with the term.”

2. Now contrast these historical truths - not least the fact that both the oldest and most common meaning of tantra is a ‘weave of words’ – ultimately a divinely inspired and refined religious-philosophical treatise - with the disrespect or plain historical ignorance of the tantras revealed in the words of the famous ‘Tantric’ Guru - Osho Rajneesh:
“The tantric attitude ... is not a philosophy. It is not even a religion, it has no theology. It does not believe in words, theories, doctrines …”

3. The situation today can perhaps best be described in the fashion of a Christian parable. Imagine that there were countless workshops being offered, not on ‘Tantra’ but on ‘Christianity’. Imagine further than none of the spiritual teachers offering these workshops had ever read or even heard of The New Testament - of the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Instead, just as Tantra workshops focus on sex, their ‘Christian’ workshops focussed entirely on some sacramental practice such as baptism. On the model of commercialised New Age ‘Tantra’ workshops you can just imagine the ads: ‘Discover the sensual bliss of Baptism’, ‘Learn to Baptise your Partner’, ‘Baptismal Immersion and Underwater Massage’ etc. Imagine further however, that our ‘Christians’ sought public and professional ‘respectability’ by establishing a quasi-institutionalised ‘Union’ of ‘Christian Practitioners’ - with its own structure, membership, ‘code of ethics’ etc. What on earth would you expect any Christian with a deep awareness of the message of the Gospels to make of them? They would be left speechless – critical thinking and debate not being any part of New Age culture in the way it was in the tantras themselves.

On this analogy then, for ‘Gospels’, read ‘Tantras’ – plural. What is anyone with a deep awareness of the sublime concepts and refined religious-philosophical message of the tantras supposed to make of teachers of ‘tantra’ or ‘tantric sex’ who have not read or even heard of the most important yogic treatises or tantras of all – for example the Vijnanbhairavatantra - let alone studied or heard of Acharya Abhinavagupta? For it was Abhinava who was not only the greatest synthesist of the tantras (plural), but the first to stretch, spread, weave, lay out, explain and espouse a framework of religious-philosophical principles and practices that could give meaning to the single and singular noun tantra. To understand the importance of the Kashmir Shaivist tradition and Abhinavagupta (the Hindu equivalent of a Thomas Aquinas) in understanding the term ‘tantra’, let me return again to the analogy with Christianity. For what if the very term ‘Christianity’ had only been coined or given a unified meaning by Thomas Aquinas – before whom there were only a multitude of gospels referring to Christ? For that was more or less the real role of Abhinavagupta in transforming the tantras into tantra.

4. What can possibly ‘qualify’ people as tantric practitioners if their ‘Union’ is not itself founded on a newly unified experiential and philosophical understanding of what ‘tantra’ is? Such a newly unified understanding, like Abhinava’s Tantraloka, can only shed new light on the meaning of tantra through deep, meditative study and practice of the tantras.

5. Osho Rajneesh, who did not forego the word but spoke and wrote a great deall, often using words to express deep and wordless insights, was nevertheless right in one respect: namely that language – diction – can lay many traps. If he had applied this insight to his own words however, he might have been aware nthat in declaring that the “tantric attitude … does not believe in words, theories and doctrines” he was himself using words to propound a doctrine or theory of tantra. This brings us to the chief danger of today’s ‘New Age’ and ‘Neo-Tantric’ words and diction. The danger is one of pandering to the Western cultural addiction (‘ad-diction’) to all sort of supposedly ‘direct’ modes of bodily and sensual experiencing (for example through drugs, alchohol, extreme sports - or the media fetishism of sex). In contra-diction to this addiction, the essential meaning of the tantras and of tantra as I lay it out, expound and practice it in my own many treatises or tantras (see www.thenewyoga.org ) lies in a fundamental distinction between all dimensions of experiencing on the one hand - whether mundane or spiritual, sensual, bodily or emotional – and the pure, non-active awareness of all we experience on the other. This is the distinction pictured in the tantras by a supine Shiva lying motionless beneath the mobile, dancing feet of Kali - in this way symbolising pure, non-active awareness in contrast to the entire dimension of action and experiencing (Shakti).

 6. What I term ‘The New Yoga’ is ‘Tantra’ of a sort firmly rooted in the tantras. For it teaches that awareness as such – pure awareness - is both distinct and inseparable from all that we experience or are aware ‘of’. This relation of inseparable distinction - comparable to the relation between two sides of the same coin - is a relation neither of dualistic separation nor of merger into indistinct oneness. And yet it is the essence of ‘non-duality’ - indeed of sexual ‘union’ itself. It is the very hyphen in ‘Shiva-Shakti’. In contrast, the drive for the spiritual or sensual enhancement of human action and experiencing in one of its most intense dimensions - sex – privileges the ‘Shakti’ pole of this relation (action, movement and experiencing) over Shiva (pure, non-active awareness). Hence Osho’s ‘Dynamic Meditation’, ‘Trance Dance’ and all the other forms of New Age ‘Neo-Tantrism’. Hence also the talk of ‘consciousness’ instead of ‘pure awareness’, and the incessant and wholly unquestioned use of the term ‘energy’ in New Age and Neo-Tantric diction today. For ‘energy’ is a modernised word of Greek origin, and one whose root meaning (activity) is a very poor translation of the Sanskrit Shakti – which does not refer solely to action (energein) and the actuality of experiencing, but first and foremost to the pure potentiality or power of actualisation (Sanskrit shak) that is the Great Goddess.

7. Questioning the meaning and use of the term ‘energy’ is no mere quibble about fine points of translation of religious terms belonging to religious-spiritual traditions not rooted in Greek language and thinking. Instead it points to something far more significant. This is the way in which, bowing to the unquestioned authority of science, the term ‘energy’ has not only replaced the term ‘God’ in New Age spiritual diction but has been effectively elevated to the status of its One True God. If today, “Science is the new religion” (Martin Heidegger) then ‘Energy’ is its God, just as it has also become the sacred ‘mantra’ of New Age spiritual discourse - as if its mere use (or rather constant repetition) was enough to grant credence and an aura of scientific respectability to New Age philosophies and practices, not least of the ‘tantric’ variety. It is in this way that the Divine – and with it all depth of authentic religious feeling - is insidiously brought down to something scientifically ‘sexy’ and marketable. And if direct connection with God is reduceable to an experience of ‘tantric sex’, what need is there of any deeper understanding of exactly what constitutes the Divine as such? Similarly, if relating to and experiencing a sexual partner as a god or goddess will do, what need is there to understand the nature of divinities as such? New Age Tantrism has it the wrong way round. One does not come to understand the innately sexual dimension of the Divine as Shiva-Shakti by seeking to divinise the experience of sexual union. It is the other way round. Sexual experiencing can be divinised only through a capacity to recognise all experiencing as an expression of the divine interplay (Leela) and union (Maithuna) between pure awareness (Shiva) and its power of manifestation (Shakti).

8. All experiencing is valid, period. There are no invalid or ‘false’ experiences. Therefore it is not the purpose of these notes to in any way diminish, denigrate or deny the ‘truth’ of the often wonderful, powerful and very meaningful experiences offered to and enjoyed by people in the name of ‘Tantra’. Yet whilst experiences are not ‘true’ or ‘false’, their interpretation - not to mention the frameworks of knowledge and language which shape them - do indeed possess varying degrees of truth, or reveal varying degrees of ignorance. I therefore appeal to the founders of the Tantra Union - as a ‘Union of Tantric Teachers and Practitioners’ - to consider deeply what they think could, would or should constitute the minimum ‘qualification’ for anyone to be considered a teacher or practitioner of ‘Tantra’ – for example by considering what literature even a hypothetical course of studies or teacher training in ‘Tantra’ would take as its foundation. At the very least, I would suggest that the Tantra Union take as a part of its own remit the establishment of a basic reading list of literature on ‘Tantra’ – one that embraces both the tantras themselves and serious historical and philosophical, political and theological studies and interpretations of them. It was with such a reading list in mind that I began these notes with quotes from Hugh B. Urban’s original and important study of the meaning of ‘Tantra’. Last, but not least, I would also urge participants in the Tantra Union to bear in mind that the tantras of Abhinavagupta distinguished not only between different degrees of qualification among teachers – and different grades and types of teacher - but also distinguished between those qualified or unqualified to be students of tantra. I should add this distinction is central to my own ‘code of ethics’ as a teacher and practitioner.

9. I referred earlier to a (critical) lack of critical thinking and dialogue in the culture of ‘New Age’ spiritual teachers, so many of whom do not begin to question the most basic terminology of their work - which is so often described using an uncritically accepted but wildly eclectic language of ‘buzzwords’ deriving from wholly distinct spiritual teachings, traditions and forms of training. The marked absence of critical thinking, questioning and debate among and between spiritual teachers and practitioners of different schools and traditions (as if it were of no value, or even inter-personally and 'politically’ incorrect) allows for a type of free-for-all, 'anything goes' culture – including any way of thinking the meaning of ‘tantra’. Such an uncritical culture contrasts with both the educational and ethical aims of the Tantra Union – as well as being in direct contrast with the rich culture of intense critical debate among and between different Hindu and Buddhist schools and teachers from within which the Hindu tantras first arose and flourished in Kashmir.

10. With all these considerations in mind, I would therefore also suggest that the Tantra Union establish some new medium of critical on-line dialogue on the meaning of This could take the form of a new on-line journal on Tantra – one that is not purely academic or scholarly, but could instead begin to build a bridge between (a) practitioners whose principal focus is on sexual relating and experiencing on the one hand, and (b) those wishing to explore new philosophical, linguistic and religious understandings of ‘Tantra’. For I find it sad, if not absurd, to see the word ‘Tantra’ abused as a mere ‘brand name’ for the promotion of a whole variety of spiritual wares from Celtic rites and Reiki to cashmere garments - none of which bear any relation to the Kashmir tantras. What the word ‘Tantra’ should serve is not commercial branding and spiritual self-promotion but self-less devotion and freely offered service to the Divine; not the marketing of an eclectic multiplicity of practices, but a search for newly unified understandings. In short, not Advertising but Truth. Yet without the unpaid piety of deep, meditative questioning worship and reflection, no amount of spiritual name-dropping and no rag-bag assortment of teachings and practices will help authenticate and refine the inner truth of ‘Tantra’.

 
Appendix: A Short Bibliography of Literature on Tantra

Bhattacharyya, N.N. History of the Tantric Religion Manohar 1999
Bhattacharyya, N.N. Tantrabidhana - A Tantric Lexicon Manjula Battacharrya 2002
Dupoche, John R. Abhinavagupta - The Kula Ritual Motilal 2003
Dyczkowski, Mark The Doctrine of Vibration - an Analysis of the Doctrines and Practices of Kashmir Shaivism State University of New York Press 1987
Evola, Julius The Yoga of Power Tantra,- Shakti and the Secret Way Inner Traditions 1992
Feuerstein, Georg Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy Shambhala 1998
Isaveya, Natalia From Early Vedanta to Kashmir Shaivism SUNY 1995
Lawrence, David Peter Rediscovering God with Transcendental Argument SUNY 1999
Marjanovic, B. Abhinavagupta’s Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita Indica 2002
Mehta, J.L. Philosophy and Religion Indian Council of Philosophical Research 2004
Muller-Ortega, P.E. The Triadic Heart of Siva SUNY Press 1989
Pandit, B.N. Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism Mushiram Manoharlal 1997
Perera, Jose Hindu Theology – A Reader, Image Books 1976
Shankarananda The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism Motilal 2003
SenSharma, Deba Brata The Philosophy of Sadhana SUNY Press 1990
Sinha, Debabratsa Metaphysics of Experience in Advaita Vedanta Motilal 1995
Singh, Jaideva Abhinavagupta - Paratrisika-Vivarana Motilal 2002
Singh, Jaideva Siva Sutras – The Yoga of Supreme Identity Motilal 2000
Singh, Jaideva Spanda-Karikas, The Divine Creative Pulsation Motilal 2001
Singh, Jaideva Vijnanabhairava or Divine Consciousness Motilal 2001
Singh, Jaideva Pratyabehijnanahrdayam, The Secret of Self-Recognition Motilal 2003
Shankarananda The Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism Motilal 2006
Urban, Hugh B. Tantra – Sex, Secrecy and Politics in the study of Religion
University of California Press 2003
Wilberg, Peter The Awareness Principle New Yoga Publications 2007
Wilberg, Peter Heidegger, Phenomenology and Indian Thought New Gnosis Publications 2008
Wilberg, Peter Tantra Reborn – On the Sensuality and Sexuality of the Soul Body
New Yoga Publications 2007
Wilberg, Peter The New Yoga - Tantric Wisdom for Today’s World
New Yoga Publications 2007
Zimmer, Heinrich Philosophies of India, ed. by Joseph Campbell Motilal 1990

Edited by author 22-11-2008 09:15 AM
'THE AWARENESS PRINCIPLE' - New Answers to the Big Questions

Q. What is ‘The Awareness Principle’?
A. The recognition that awareness is the ultimate and sole reality – that awareness is everything, and that everything in turn is a portion and expression of a universal awareness that is ‘God’.

Note: ‘The Awareness Principle’ refines and clarifies understandings of the ultimate nature of reality stemming from traditional Indian religious philosophies and yogic practices - in particular the tradition of tantric philosophy known as ‘Kashmir Shaivism’. It arose by re-addressing the ‘big questions’ from and out of which this and other spiritual traditions and teachings of the past arose. In this way The Awareness Principle constitutes an original spiritual teaching in its own right - offering ‘new answers to big questions’, and yet doing in a way free or attachment or confinement to the specific cultures, religions, languages and symbols of all past spiritual traditions and teachings.

The ‘big questions’:

Q. How do you know that you exist?
A. From an awareness of existing.

Q. How do you know your body exists?
A. From an awareness of that body.

Q. How do you know that anything is or exists at all?
A. From an awareness of things.

Note: this question is one of the oldest philosophical questions of all. This is the question of what comes ‘first’ - the ‘objective’ existence of things or a subjective awareness of them. Since we only have direct evidence of the existence of things though subjective awareness, it follows that awareness or subjectivity is more primordial than ‘being’ or ‘existence’. The first principle of ‘The Awareness Principle’ is therefore that awareness as such is the 1st principle of the universe - the basis of all that is or exists.

Q. If we only know things through an awareness of them do they continue to exist when we are not aware of them?
A. No. This question carries with it the traditional Western assumption that awareness is something that ‘we’ possess as our private property. In reality each individual’s awareness is an individualised portion and expression of a universal awareness. This universal awareness cannot cease to be aware of anything – for even the most seemingly insentient or inanimate ‘things’ are also individualised portions and expressions of it.

Q. Does that mean there is no such thing as an unaware or ‘insentient’ thing?
A. Yes. There is no such thing that is merely an insentient ‘object’ of consciousness. Instead every ‘thing’ is a distinct awareness in itself, though the awareness that constitutes that being may be more or less differentiated, and refined. Thus the portion of the universal awareness that manifests as a molecule or mineral form is both more primordial and less differentiated than that of a vegetable, animal, human or trans-human being.

Q. Are you saying that the things we perceive as objects are sentient beings which are just as much aware of us as we are of them?
A. Yes, though they do not perceive us and other things in the same way that we do.
Thus what we perceive as a ‘stone’, ‘tree’, ‘spider’, ‘cat’, ‘jellyfish’, ‘shark’ etc. may not correspond in any way to the way in which they perceive each other - or human beings. What the human being perceives as ‘a cat’ – or any nameable ‘object’ - is a product of our specifically human mode of perceptual awareness. In reality there is no such thing as a ‘tree’ or ‘cat’ - only our specifically human way of perceiving the type or ‘species’ of awareness that constitutes any other being.

Q. So there are such things as existing ‘beings’ – independent of our awareness?
A. Yes, so long as we understand that (1) a ‘being’ is essentially nothing but a specific shape or pattern of awareness, and (2) that whilst beings exist independent of our awareness they are each shapes taken by a universal awareness.

Q. What is ‘body awareness’?
A. Not an awareness produced by or belonging to the body but an awareness of the body.

Q. What is ‘self-awareness’?
A. Not an awareness belonging to the self but an awareness of self. Any and every self is ultimately but the self-expression and self-recognition of the universal awareness we call ‘God’.

Note: since our very knowledge that our self and our body ‘are’ or exist depends on an awareness of being and an awareness of body and self, it follows that that awareness cannot itself be the property of any selfor the product of any body or body part, such as the brain. The 2nd principle of ‘The Awareness Principle’ is that awareness cannot – in principle – be reduced to the property or product of any being, body or self there is an awareness of.

Q. What is ‘God’ and in what way does ‘God’ exist?
A. ‘God’ is not some existing and supreme being that has or possesses ‘awareness’. God is awareness – a universal awareness that individualises itself, and is the therefore the source of all beings - understood as individualised portions and expressions of it.

Note: Since the existence of any things or being, including a supreme ‘God-being’, assumes an awareness of its existence, follows that awareness itself must be considered as having a more primordial reality than any being – including a supreme ‘God-being’ - that we are aware of. Thus it is that awareness alone – a universal awareness and not an a awareness that is merely ‘yours’ or ‘mine’ – can be considered as the very essence of the divine - of ‘God’.

Q. What is ‘awareness’ itself?
A. A broader and more spacious consciousness field or ‘field consciousness’ – ultimately a universal consciousness field of which every thing and being is an individualised portion and expression.

Q. What is the difference between ‘awareness’ and what we call ‘consciousness’ ?
Ordinary consciousness is not field consciousness but a purely focal consciousness – attached to whatever it is we happen to be currently experiencing or aware ‘of’. As a field consciousness however, awareness on the other hand, embraces every possible element or focus of our conscious experience - whilst at the same time remaining absolutely distinct from them.

Q. What is the value of awareness?
A. Awareness is freedom - for being distinct from all that we do, say and experience it frees us from identification with any element of our experience – mental, physical or emotional, and therefore at the same time allows us to freely choose the focus

Note: The pure awareness of a thing or thought, sensation or emotion, impulse or action is not itself a thing or thought, sensation or emotion, impulse or action. Hence by simply recognising that the awareness of a troubling thought or emotion, for example, is not itself a thought or emotion, it ceases to be troublesome. For just as empty space is distinct from every possible object in it, so its pure awareness distinct from all its possible contents – from everything we are or could be aware of. Awareness, like space, both embraces and transcends everything experienced within it. Indeed it is by sensing and identifying with the emptiness of the space around things and around our bodies that we can come to experience space itself as a space or field of pure awareness. Doing so enables us to fully feel, affirm all that we experience within that field – whilst at the same time remaining absolutely free from attachment to each and every element of that experience.

Q. What can explain the existence of awareness itself?
A. Nothing (‘no-thing’) can explain the existence of awareness, since any ‘thing’ or ‘being’ we might think of as a cause or explanation ‘for’ it already assumes an awareness of that thing or being.

Q. How does everything we experience come to be or exist in the first place?
A. As creative expressions or manifestations of potentialities latent within the universal awareness – in the same way that a work of art is not something ‘caused’ but an expression or manifestation of potentialities latent in the artist’s ‘soul’. What defines the artist as a ‘being’ is that soul – which consists of nothing but a set of unique qualities and potentialities of awareness.

Note 1 This viewpoint differs from the idea that the universe was ‘created’ by a supreme being. This view doesn’t explain how that very ‘God-being’ itself came to be. And if we believe that ‘God’ is a being separate and apart from the universe it created, we effectively turn God into just one being or entity among others in the universe.

Note 2 The Awareness Principle also differs from the scientific view that the universe – and with it time and space themslves – ‘began’ with a ‘Big Bang’. Since the very idea of time and space ‘beginning’ at some point in time or space is illogical in principle, it is certainly not provable by experiment.

Note 3 There are three basic models of how things came to be:

1. The standard ‘Creationist’ model, which assumes the existence of the Creator Being - but does not explain how this Being itself came to be.

2. The Big Bang model, which illogically talks about time as if it could be something that itself ‘began’ in time - and offers no explanation of how the Big Bang itself came to be.

3. The Creative Expressionist model. This understands all actual things as creative expressions of potential shapes and qualities of awareness. This model does not assume the existence of a Creator Being - or of any being – for it understands beings themselves as expressions of potential shapes and qualities of awareness.

Q. How exactly does awareness give expression to all that exists?
A. The problem with this question therefore, is that the scientific world-view is so ingrained in people that they can only conceive of this 'how' except in terms of some sort of causal explanation. On the other hand, they do not think of asking themselves, for example, exactly 'how' their awareness of something expresses itself in words, thought and speech. The Awareness Principle offers an expressionist model of creation of a sort quite different, in principle, to causal models. For expression - as in speech – is something we experience directly. The need to 'explain' the ‘how’ of expression through some hidden causal mechanism that we don't experience is a product of scientific brainwashing.

Q. What, ultimately, is ‘reality’?
A. Most people identify ‘reality’ solely with an awareness of actuality - with things that are actually present or existent. Yet the dimension of potentiality is no less real than the realm of the actual – indeed it is out of an awareness of the countless ever-changing potentials latent in each moment that all ‘real life’ actions and actualities emerge. Reality then does not consist ultimately of one ‘realm’ only, but of three realms of awareness – awareness of things actual and present, awareness of potential shapes and forms of awareness (‘beings’, and a third realm which belongs to the essence of life itself. This is the realm of ‘becoming’ - the very process of actualisation or ‘presencing’ by which potentialities and possibilities latent in awareness become actual or present – by which they come-to-be or ‘become’. Awareness alone and as such is ultimate reality – the three primary realms or dimensions of actuality or ‘being’, potentiality or ‘non-being’, and actualisation or ‘becoming’ being all dimensions of that ultimate reality - of awareness as such.

Q. What is ‘life’?
A. Life is an innate drive towards ‘actuality’ or ‘being’ latent within all potentialities, and propelling them towards ever greater and fuller ‘self-actualisation’ – not in the sense of actualising some actual and already existing self or being, but in the sense of allowing potentialities of awareness to manifest and take shape as countless different ‘beings’ or ‘selves’. In a nutshell then, life is an innate drive, will and power to be that expresses itself in all that is.

Q. What is ‘the meaning of life’?
A. Life is expression. As such, it has the essential character of being a type of ‘speech’. That means it is innately meaningful. The ‘meaning’ of life lies in the fact that every thing in our lives has an expressive meaning that addresses us in the same way that speech addressed to us does - calling for awareness and calling upon us also to respond.
 
Q. What is ‘death’?
A. We have more than one life in which to face and answer this ultimate question of life, and there are more worlds than one in which we face it. Just as birth is a form of expression, so is death – our rebirth into the multi-dimensional universe or ‘multiverse’ of awareness, one not restricted to the dimensions and expressions of awareness we perceive as ‘matter’, ‘energy’, ‘space’ and ‘time’.

Q. What is the universe ultimately ‘made of’?
A. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” (Shakespeare) As our dream images and sensations give expression to felt shapes, patterns, colours, tones and textures of awareness, so do all things. The universe is made up of elemental qualities of awareness – what we perceive as light, for example, being a manifestation of the light of awareness.

Some counter-questions and answers:

Q. How can there be such a thing as ‘awareness’ without things to be aware of? Doesn’t this question allow us to argue with the same force that the existence of those things comes first – or at least is as fundamental as awareness of them? Furthermore, by implying that awareness itself ‘is’ or ‘exists’ does it not follow that the principle of ‘Being’ or ‘Existence’ is more fundamental than ‘The Awareness Principle’?
A. Whilst awareness is indeed inseparable from things we are aware of it is also absolutely distinct from them (in the same way that space is both inseparable and yet also distinct from everything in it). In addition however, awareness embraces not just things that actually are or exist – the realm of Being or Existence - but also everything that is not but could be, the entire realm of potential being or reality as well as actual being or ‘existence’. Since the very ‘being’ of awareness is of a sort that embraces and partakes of the entire realm or reality of potentiality or ‘non-being’ it is a more encompassing principle than The Being Principle.

Q. How did awareness itself begin or come to be?
A. Time, like space is a dimension of awareness. To think of awareness as having a beginning or end makes no more sense than to think of space as having a location ‘in’ space, or time as such having a beginning or end ‘in’ time. Awareness, like time, is not itself anything ‘temporal’ – having a beginning or end – but instead is essentially timeless or time-transcendent – the true meaning of ‘eternal’.

Q. Isn’t there a simpler answer to how we know that anything exists - because our brains give us a picture of things through information picked up from our senses?
A. If everything we perceive consists of pictures produced by the brain, how can the senses pick up information from them in the first place? The idea that our brain produces pictures of things from our sense organs is as illogical as saying that a camera produces photographs through the light reflected off things - and then saying that those things are actually nothing but photographs produced by the camera! Then again, since both our sense organs and the brain itself are something we only know about through our perception of them, how can they be used to explain perception as such? Sense-perception is itself a specific mode of awareness – a patterned awareness of sensory qualities such as colour, sound, shape, warmth, texture etc. That does not mean that perception is a property or product of our brains and sense organs - or that sense organs prove to us that things exist ‘out there’. For our brains and sense organs are themselves things we know about only because we can perceive them. Perception is no more something ‘caused’ or ‘explained’ by things we perceive (including our brains and sense organs themselves) than can dreaming be caused or explained by some particular thing we dream of. Seeing, for example, cannot be explained by anything we see – including the eye.

Edited by author 02-01-2009 03:23 PM
AWARENESS,PARAMSHIVA AND 'THE DREAMING'

A Tantric Interpretation of Seth’s Creation Account


“At first, in your terms, all of probable reality existed as nebulous dreams within the consciousness of All That Is. Later, the unspecific nature of those ‘dreams’ grew more particular and vivid.”

“Potential individuals, in your terms, had consciousness before the beginning or any beginning as you know it. They clamoured to be released into actuality, and All That Is, in unspeakable sympathy, sought within itself for the means.”

Seth, in The Seth Material by Jane Roberts

Seth goes on to acknowledge that in a certain sense the initial dreams were so “nebulous” that there was as yet no clear distinction within them between dreamer and dreamt, between God or ‘All That Is’ and all the potential selves he dreamt.

‘In the beginning' then, there was a primordial awareness that could be described as a dreaming without a dreamer – an ultimate or primordial 'Dreaming' lacking any dreamer or dreaming self clearly distinct from the selves it was dreaming. This corresponds to both the “pre-dream state” referred to by Seth, and also to the tantric concept of turya - a ‘fourth’ state of awareness transcending and embracing both waking and dream states of awareness, as well as the state of sleeping state from which dreams themselves arise - and corresponding to the ultimate or highest awareness known as Anuttara or Paramshiva.

Only as the selves that were being dreamt became more diverse and differentiated did this ultimate awareness first attain to an awareness of Being, and to an awareness of itself as a distinct ‘God-being’ (corresponding to Shiva) distinct from the selves it was dreaming (corresponding to ‘his’ Shaktis).

Having come to an awareness of its own actuality of being, in distinction and in contrast to the merely potential being or ‘non-being’ of the individuals it dreamt, what Seth calls the ‘Primary Dilemma’ and 'Agony' of that God-being arose. Its source lay on the one hand in the innate yearning or desire of the potential selves it was dreaming for their own free self-actualisation and fulfilment, and, on the other hand, an intense desire on the part of God to release them into actuality. Seth adds that these very feelings of agony and desire were themselves the foundation of that God’s awareness of being, for:

“The agony and the desire to create represented Its proof of its own reality. The feelings in other words, were adequate proof to All That Is that It was.” Seth

From out of a nebulous dreaming then, came intense feeling – agony and desire – and it was from dreaming and feeling that a sense of being was born – rather than the other way round. This alone did not solve the Primary Dilemma of a God who “in unspeakable sympathy” for the potential individuals who “clamoured to be released into actuality” sought “within itself for the means to do so”. (Seth)

In tantric terms, the means it found were identical with the means necessary to overcome anavamala - the sense of ‘own-ness’ or ‘mineness’ – for we are speaking of a God that was aware of being only by virtue of feeling itself as owning the countless potential selves and realities it dreamt. Shiva (‘All That Is’ in Seth’s terms) has himself had to let go of this sense of ‘own-ness’ and in doing so release all beings into their own autonomous actuality from the dark womb of non-being or potentiality that corresponding to the Great Goddess (Mahadevi/Mahakali ).

“All That Is had to let go. While it thought of these individuals as its creations, It held them as part of itself and refused them actuality.”

‘Letting go’ meant letting all potential beings be by acknowledging their distinctness from the awareness out of which they emerged and took shape. In a sense then, God or ‘All That Is’ (Shiva) had to distinguish its own being as an ultimate awareness (Anuttara/Paramshiva) from the individualised portions and expressions of it that constituted its dreams (Shaktis). This is rather like a human dreamer becoming aware within a dream, that they are dreaming – in other words identifying with a pure awareness of dreaming distinct from each and all of the beings, selves, worlds and events being dreamt.

In the context of tantric metaphysics, there is a distinction between the ultimate awareness as Anuttara (the ‘non-higher’) and as Paramshiva. For the very term Parama Shiva or Paramshiva is paradoxical, capable of being taken as a sign for the supreme or ‘highest’ Shiva and that which is higher than or ‘beyond’ (para-) Shiva. These senses of Paramshiva are two sides of the same coin - for Paramshiva is only Parama Shiva – the ‘highest’ Shiva - by virtue of knowing himself both as an expression of and as that ultimate reality (Anuttara) higher than or beyond himself. The emergence of Shiva as a supreme God-being was understood in the Shaiva tantras as the internal ‘negation’ (Nigraha) or ‘withdrawal’ (Tiridhana) of his ‘transcendent’ aspect as Anuttara itself. This withdrawal however, can be understood precisely as that which makes space (Akasha) for the actualisation or coming into presence of his ‘immanent’ aspect – all those potential beings hitherto concealed in the darkness of Non-Being. The process of creative emergence of beings is essentially a withdrawal-into-presence of the Divine Awareness.

"Desire, wish and expectation rule all actions and are the basis of all realities."

This statement of Seth echoes and affirms the tantric metaphysical understanding of a triad or trika of primordial powers or Shaktis. These were called icchashakti (‘will’ in a sense corresponding to ‘desire and wish’), jnanashakti (knowledge and knowing intent in a sense corresponding to ‘expectation’) and kriyashakti (action and the process of actualising ‘all realities’). The first power or Shakti that Seth refers to is ‘desire’ and ‘wish’. It is this that brings us from ‘ultimate metaphysics’ to Freud. For the uniqueness of his work lay in his deep and determined desire to find the ultimate truth of the human condition – a desire that, paradoxically, was fulfilled by the discovery that this ultimate 'truth' was nothing but desire as such. Freud’s genius lay in succeeding to pursue his desire for and rationally lay out an understanding of the truth of the human condition in a way which recognised desire itself as that truth. This was what marked his work out from both 'scientific' and purely 'philosophical' understandings of 'truth' or 'reality' – both of which ultimately identify truth with reasons for things being, rather than with a primordial desire to be.

In this way Freud made 'ultimate truth' something human and personal as well as trans-human and impersonal. His ambivalent relation to both science and philosophy can be understood as arising from an awareness that their supposedly 'pure' and 'rational' search for ultimate 'truth' could simply be a defence against discovering what their most intimate personal desire was – the object of psychoanalysis. That does not mean we need see ‘desire’ in purely Freudian or psychoanalytic terms – as desire 'for' some object or satisfaction. Instead we can understand desire on a much deeper metaphysical level - as an innate "yearning" for fulfilment of potentialities within us all. If we do so then Freud was essentially right in identifying desire itself with ultimate truth - rather than reducing truth to any form of purely cognitive or reflective, scientific or philosophical cognition expressed in the form of ‘true or false’ propositions. Seen in this way, Freud was not only right, but right in tune with the affirmation of desire that distinguishes Hindu tantrism from the transcendence of desire sought through Buddhism and adopted by Schopenhauer under its influence.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism recognise not just the realm or plane of the physical but higher realms of awareness (Loka) and higher beings within them (Buddhas or Devas). Different levels or orders of beings can be compared to the circles within circles characteristic of Australian aboriginal paintings, just as the aboriginal notion of ‘The Dreaming’ corresponds to the notion of a primordial dreaming awareness – a Dreaming without a dreamer.

In the sections of his Tantraloka cited by Deba Brata SenSharma, Abhinavagupta describes many orders and sub-orders of beings. The highest are called Shuddha Pramatas – translated as ‘pure experiencers’ but essentially what could be described as ‘Awareness Beings’ (Chaitanyas) or ‘Awareness Powers’ (Shaktis). The highest of these Pramatas are called both Shiva and Shivas, being plural and yet essentially singular - a plurality of Shivas knowing themselves as singular – as Shiva – in the realm known as Shivaloka. According to Deba Brata Sen Sharma:

“All of the Shuddha Pramatas are said to possess bodies made of the Bindu - divine Shakti in potentialised form.” The Philosophy of Sadhana

In other words they are the very unity or non-duality of Shiva and Shakti, each being an awareness (Shiva) with an immense and ever-active power of actualisation at its core. SenSharma describes them as “…incapable of participating in worldly activity in the absence of a physical body made from material elements.” This accords with the nature of what Seth calls higher trans-physical “entities” – not least that particular one above and beyond him which Jane Roberts called ‘Seth 2’. For in its own words:

“We gave you the patterns, intricate, involved and blessed, from which you form the reality of each physical thing you know … The entire webwork was initiated by us.” The Seth Material Jane Roberts

“Webwork” of course is another word for tantra as such - with its root meaning of ‘weave’ or ‘web’ on the one hand, and its relation to the Sanskrit term for spider (tatra) on the other. In my understanding, it’s the very highest and least physical of such higher Entities or Awareness Beings (Shivas) which constitute at the same time those Awareness Powers or Shaktis which create and sustain the seemingly ‘lowest’, most basic building blocks and elementary forms of physical reality.

Thus it is that the physical form taken by these Powers is that of the most powerful of all cosmic phenomena – supernovae, stars and the black holes at the centre of whole galaxies or galactic clusters.

Thus it is that in the pre-history of mankind human beings not only worshipped but directly perceived cosmic bodies such as the Sun or Moon as higher beings, and also worshipped the most elementary or ‘elemental’ physical phenomena such as fire, wind and water.

Thus it is also that those higher Awareness Beings or ‘gods’ that are constantly bringing all physical things into actuality can also communicate through religious statues or ‘idols’ (Murti) made of the most seemingly ‘insentient’ and elementary physical materials such as stone, wood and metal. For if such idols are themselves crafted from the artisan’s direct experiences of the Divine Awareness, then they are not merely artefacts of matter but artefacts of awareness - capable of embodying and transmitting the awesome intent (Iccha), knowledge (Jnana) and action (Kriya) that are the powers or Shaktis of the highest order of Shuddha Pramatas - the Shiva(s). That is why Murti Darshan – sitting in the presence of a powerful Murti - can become an almost instantaneous source of initiation, allowing one to receive an active impartation of higher awareness and inner knowing from the idol or Murti, to experience it as a medium of communion and communication with higher Awareness Beings, and to know it as it knows both itself and us - as an expression of the infinite field, space or ‘clearing’ that is the Ultimate and Divine Awareness itself – Anuttara.

"… all individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as All That Is once dreamed of them." Seth

In Seth's account, having freed ourselves from the reincarnational cycle, each of us will evolve, on higher planes of awareness, into an “entity” such as Seth himself, then into a higher entity (such as the one who speaks in the Seth Material as 'Seth 2') and into yet 'higher' and 'higher' entities – until a state is reached when, individually and collectively, we become 'All That Is' in its original state 'before' Creation. In tantric terms, our destiny is to become Shuddha Pramatas – to become ‘Shivas’ - and in this way both return to and recreate that Ultimate Awareness that is Anuttara or Paramshiva.

A profound reason why individuals “remember their source and now dream of All That Is as All That Is once dreamt of them” is, ultimately, to sustain and indeed recreate the very reality of ‘All That Is’ - the Divine - now that it has released them as beings from ‘The Dreaming’ that once bore all individuals in a state of potentiality or ‘non-being’.

There is a type of eternal and Divine Cycle then, within which religious God-concepts, God-names and God-images, together with the qualities of devotional feeling (Bhakti) associated with them and amplified by religious worship play an integral part. The Cycle ‘begins’ with God 'godding' – the Divine Awareness (Shiva) creating multiple distinct god-beings or ‘entities’ within Itself, each endowed with specific qualities and powers (Shaktis) of this Awareness. These gods in turn ‘world’ – creating a boundless multiplicity of worlds and of aware beings such as human beings. Yet that is just one half of the cycle. For since they are themselves innately endowed with divine awareness and its creative potentials, human beings themselves begin to 'god' - differentiating their at first 'nebulous' sense or 'dream' of the Divine within themselves, and letting diverse god-images, symbols, names and concepts arise from it. In doing so they re-link themselves (re-ligio) to the divine awareness that is the inner source of this religious creativity. Yet by granting, through different forms of religious meditation and worship, ever more awareness to their own dreamt or imagined gods, human beings also endow the gods or higher ‘awareness beings’ they dream and give form to with their own independent awareness and reality.

A well-known tantric saying is that ‘To worship a god is to become that god’. The Divine Cycle can be summarised as follows: God 'gods', those gods 'world' or 'create', then their creatures in turn feel, dream, give form to, worship and eventually become the gods they worshipped - leading to a stage at which these gods or higher beings in turn become that singular God or Awareness out of which all beings 'first' arose. This explains the continuous power and importance of religious myths, symbols and dramas arising from the realm of the ‘imaginal’ - and why the visualisation of diverse gods and the cultural practice of different forms of religious worship is indeed innate in our make up - in our dreams and in our genes. It is innate not just for some Darwinian purpose of furthering the biological 'evolution' and 'survival' of human beings as a species. Instead the true evolutionary process it serves is the evolution of gods and of God as such - a continuous cycle of divine evolution that ensures God’s survival. Human beings then, neither simply imagine, invent, create or ‘make up’ gods and God – and nor are they simply made or created by them. Instead ‘creation’ is a continuous co-creation of God and human beings, one mediated by higher beings - by ‘the gods’.

Just as granting awareness to plants, animals or other people actually grants them more life and vigour - and helps sustain their life - so does granting awareness to gods grant them life, serving to sustain their living reality, and that of God as such - the awareness (Shiva) that is the source of all creative power (Shakti). The essence of religious 'worship' then is 'thanking' God in the very specific sense of returning or GIVING AWARENESS BACK to its source in that ultimate or divine awareness which is God - in this way both opening ourselves further to that awareness and sustaining Its ultimate or divine reality. Different gods are the medium through which we do so - by which we worship or grant awareness back to God. The imaginal forms of these gods do not spring from nowhere however, any more than do the images of our dreams, or our sensory perceptions of the world around us. For the world of sensory forms cannot be divided into a realm of ‘imaginary’ perceptions on the one hand, and ‘real’ perceptions on the other. Instead the sensory qualities of all things are but our way of perceiving the soul qualities behind - those innate qualities of awareness that we experience when, in Rudolf Steiner’s terms, we pass from the realm of Imagination to that of Intuition, feeling from within what we previously only perceived from without.

Just as the tantric maxim is that ‘To worship a god is to become that god”, so Steiner’s maxim was that “In the spiritual world we become what we perceive.” Yet what we become always has the nature of both God as such and the unique ‘god’ that we each are. For since we are each inseparable portions of the ultimate and universal awareness as a whole, we each are that whole– we are each ‘God’ or Paramshiva. And yet being individually distinct portions of that inseparable and singular whole we are also each ‘a god’. And not just us. For ultimately there is not a single thing or phenomenon that is not a manifest sounding or playing forth (the root meaning of ‘Deva’ and ‘Devi’) of a unique and singular soul tone in the great symphony of creation that is Shiva-Shakti.

THE PRIMARY DILEMMA AND TICKING CLOCKS

Woke up at 3 in the morning and ‘couldn’t go back to sleep’. I put it like that because I’m almost glad for these situations to play forth with awareness. Lying there and feeling the space around things and the silence around sounds. Heard the sound of the clock ticking and aware of the thoughts "Now I’ll fixate on the sound of the clock ticking and never go back to sleep". Then what came to me was a strange almost ‘double vision', an awareness uniting two seemingly distinct events. One was the clock ticking. The other was you writing in 'Absolute Awareness or Absolute Egoity' that:
 
"...ten thousand times each day the ego or ‘I’ works its way unawares into the life of every human being. It does so by appropriating for itself everything that emerges into experience from awareness, whether a perception, feeling or thought, and transforming the awareness from which it emerges into something quite different - the idea and experience of an "I" that is doing this perceiving, feeling or thinking, that 'owns' these perceptions, feelings and thoughts - and experiences awareness itself as its private property - the delusion called anavamala."

What came to me was that saying that I can hear the clock ticking is an example of the cause-effect thinking that afflicts the West in the light of the belief that things are simply present, there, waiting to be perceived. If we believe that, then of course a simple thing like hearing a ‘ticking’ sound must be CAUSED by something else - the clock. Ten thousand times a day we repeat this in ten thousand situations. I found myself in bed suddenly intellectually aware that there was no clock or ticking, there was a "playing forth" of the clock through its ticking, indeed a playing forth of the clock as such - a 'clocking' etc. In other words Paramshiva playing forth or releasing itself in the form of a clock and its ticking NOW, revelling in the joy of resolving Seth's account of the 'Primary Dilemma' (referred to in your essay on Awareness, Paramshiva and 'The Dreaming') by releasing from its ownership all potential things such as 'clocks', and all potential individuals that might look at or hear them.

In this way, I felt a different take on why we refer to ‘I’ ten thousand times a day. Because of the way we think about reality, that things are simply present, we feel that we are here, simply present, almost ‘waiting to be perceived by ourselves or others’, there must be a cause of that and that cause is the ‘I’. Just as the clock ticks so is the ‘I’ thinking, feeling, acting etc. And yet it isn’t like that. Intellectually I worked my way through the idea of Awareness ‘I’-ing, thinking feeling, acting etc. to a point where I've never felt it like that in that way before. And as I was lying there feeling the silence surrounding the ticking, I could sense Michael Kosok's wonderful phrase ‘endlessly once’. That is, that ticking is Shiva releasing that sound NOW and being released of that sound NOW - "endlessly once" and not back then. I got a real sense of just how present the Primary Dilemma still is and always will be the driving force.

Then I was playing with the question of why we must sustain the reality of God. It is obvious that if we are to save the earth and ourselves, we have to discover AWARENESS, take time to be Aware. If we don’t the earth will be destroyed as Seth says and another earth appear in its place and we have another go at it. So presumably, in order to not destroy earth, we must discover Awareness. That whole process is actually, like everything else, a process of dreaming it, feeling it, worshipping it (in the sense of me worshipping the search for truth) and finally giving birth to it. But it is obvious that if we destroy the earth, we have ‘fucked up’. Therefore to not fuck up - or undo the mess we have made, we must discover Awareness - which means re-discovering and, in the long run, sustaining and re-creating God as pure Awareness.

CAUSALITY AND KALI

The important connection you make between the ticking of the clock and the cause-effect paradigm has a direct bearing on the delusion known in tantra as 'anavamala' - the reduction of subjective experiences such as hearing to the property of an individual ego or 'I'.

The belief in an 'I' that is passively hearing the ticking corresponds to the belief that the clock is 'causing' that 'I' to hear it. This reflects a general belief that subjective experience is 'caused' by a world of objects such as clocks - a belief which reduces subjectivity to a mere 'effect'. In reality however, our very perception of 'objects' such as clocks and of sounds such as ticking is itself nothing but a mode of SUBJECTIVE experiencing - arising from a field of pure awareness or subjectivity.

It was important too, that you recalled Michael Kosok's profound notion of the "endlessly once" - for this phrase is indeed key to understanding why it is that 'creation' is not something that begins in or belongs to a primordial 'past' but is something occurring constantly and continuously.

ALL events of manifestation or creation occur not just "once" in the past (the 'Once upon a time...' type story) or once in the future - but eternally or "endlessly" - in a "spacious present" or expansive "time-space" that spans and embraces both past and future. 'Kali' is another name for the ultimate horizon of this time-space of awareness ('kala' = time), out of which all actual events are constantly being born from the dark ('kal') womb or 'black hole' of potentiality that is the Great Goddess (Mahadevi/Mahakali).

This is one of the themes explored in more depth in my forthcoming book entitled 'EVENT HORIZON - Terror, Tantra and the Ultimate Metaphysics of Awareness'.

DIVINE AND HUMAN DILEMMAS AND DIS-EASE
 
I want to point out a correlation between 'The Primary Dilemma' (God's need to find a way to release all potentialities of awareness into actuality referred to in Peter's earlier post on 'Awareness, Paramshiva and 'The Dreaming') and the nature of illness (see also Peter's article on 'Awareness and Illness'). I believe that understanding an aware relation to illness in terms of what Seth called this Primary Dilemma can cast light on both, in fact on all human dilemmas.

Example: I find myself with a pain in the neck or shoulder. I don’t feel myself. I find myself in a state of discomfort or 'dis-ease'. From this feeling a sense of self develops and I start to experience and say, “I have a pain in the neck or my neck is stiff”. Of course I wish to free myself of that pain, but in owning or possessing it as something 'I have' I am trapped. "Everything is an Awareness" is of course one of the two basic axioms, maxims or mantra of The New Yoga of Awareness.
 
It means that everything we are aware of is also an awareness of something beyond itself.
 
The pain too, IS an awareness in itself of something beyond itself, for example an awareness of feeling something or someone as a 'pain in the neck' or an awareness of feeling I am 'shouldering' too much in my job.

Not yet RECOGNISING the pain as an awareness of this sort - it remains just a plain old pain in the neck.
 
It is only POTENTIALLY an awareness.
 
Peter has compared illness with pregnancy in his writings.
 
The state of 'not feeling ourselves' because we experience symptoms of dis-ease is a prelude to 'feeling another self' and giving birth to that new self - one that we are pregnant with in the way All That Is was pregnant with countless potential selves.
 
The pain in the neck or shoulder is therefore also the awareness of a pregnant or potential SELF.

I prevent this new self from being actualised through my sense of ‘mineness’ or ‘ownership’. The pain increases, I feel worse, my desire to free myself of the pain grows as the agony does. By virtue of feeling ill at ease, I gain a sense of being a self. I identify with what has emerged from a field of awareness and I identify myself as the being who ‘has’ the pain, and I theorise how I caused the pain by doing this or that, for example, sitting in the wrong position.

To free 'myself' of the pain, I must overcome 'anavamala' - the sense of it being 'mine'. By reminding myself that the AWARENESS of a pain is not itself a pain and not itself anything painful, I apply the 'Fundamental Distinction’ central to The Awareness Principle - between anything we experience and the pure awareness of experiencing it. In other terms I start to become 'lucidly awake', aware of the pain as a sort of waking life "bodydream" (PW). Applying The Awareness Principle to the pain means recognising that:

1. I am the larger awareness FIELD out of which the pain emerges and not the intense FOCUS of awareness that constitutes the pain.
2.The pain is an awareness of something that I can awaken to.
3.The pain is also a potential self that I can give birth to from the awareness of it.
 
The notion of God 'withdrawing-into-presence' introduced in “Awareness, Paramshiva and 'The Dreaming’” can also be correlated with an aware relation to illness:

The "withdrawal" is into the transcendental awareness of the pain (for example by identifying with the space around it). In doing so I open up a space OF awareness within which I can experience its 'immanent' aspect - taking time to inwardly experience the pain as a particular way of feeling myself - as a felt self. By thus "taking time to be aware" (the most basic Practice of Awareness) the feeling and self embodied in the pain will, in time, transform into another feeling and another sense of self. Reminding myself that the awareness of pain is not itself a pain, I am able to grant more awareness to the pain - feel it more. This in turn allows the awareness it IS to come to mind. It also allows a feeling of the potential self it is pregnant with to be felt in a bodily way and embodied - for example a self that feels able to no longer shoulder more than it wants to at work, or that can and does disattach itself from whatever or whoever was felt as a 'pain in the neck'.

Becoming lucid in the waking ‘dream’ of an illness, I can then fully become the new self through recognising what was merely a feeling that there was ‘more to it’ when I just wondered why 'I had' the stiff neck. The potential self too, is recognised in my thoughts and emotions, felt as a new bodily sense of self - one that is embodied through a new demeanour and behaviours.

Returning to the parallel with the Primary Dilemma - God's need to find a way to release the potential into actuality and the pain or "agony" that, according to Seth, he went through to do it - what I am suggesting is that not just 'my' pain in the neck but all human dilemmas and dis-ease are an ongoing expression and embodiment of that Primary Dilemma - since they TOO are a means whereby a potential awareness - and "potential selves" are actualised.

It 'was' through the Primary Dilemma that everything 'came' to be actualised, but it seems to be also an on-going template for anything that we can transcend and release ourselves from by releasing or 'giving birth' to the AWARENESS POTENTIALS and potential 'selves' or 'awarenesses' it bears within it.

Edited by author 16-01-2009 05:53 PM
ANGER AWARENESS VERSUS ANGER DEFICIENCY
Towards an Affirmative Psychology of Anger


"The great Islamic activist Hamza Yusuf Hanson distinguishes between two forms of political action. He defines the Arabic word "hamas" as enthusiastic but intelligent anger and "hamoq" as uncontrolled, stupid anger. The Malays could not pronounce the Arabic 'h', and the British acquired the word [amok] from them." George Monbiot

Preface

This essay on personal and political psychology emerged from an awareness of the intense anger that I feel towards the outrages committed by the Israeli Zionist regime through their attack on Gaza - an anger fuelled by a parallel awareness of what appeared to be a fundamental ‘anger deficiency’ in response to these outrages within Western media and political circles. Together with this went a more general awareness of the way in which political leaders in international conflict situations seem to be too scared or avoidant of their own internal anger to even countenance the thought of face-to-face encounter and communication with their ‘enemies’ – thus resorting to indirect emotional communication through missiles, bombs and bullets. I see this as but one example of the way in which personal and political violence, far from ‘expressing’ highly-charged feelings of anger, serve principally to explosively discharge or ‘let out’ those feelings – in order to avoid having to bear that anger inside, and evade the challenge of feeling and communicating it in a fully aware and embodied way, face-to-face but without violence.
 
Introduction

An all-pervasive but almost unquestioned belief has pervaded Western culture since the birth of Christianity, though it is also reflected in Buddhism and other ‘spiritual’ creeds. This is the belief that anger – at least if not ‘controlled’ or ‘managed’ - leads to violence and is therefore a ‘bad thing’. The belief is reflected in the currently fashionable phrase ‘anger management’ - which suggests that unless it is kept at some ‘moderate’ level on a scale of emotional intensity, anger automatically transforms into violence. In this essay, I will argue that a whole host of personal, social and international conflicts - above all those that do erupt into violence - do not result from a surfeit or excess of anger but rather from its opposite – from cultures characterised by a type of ‘anger poverty’ or ‘anger deficiency’. This anger deficiency is sustained by deep-rooted beliefs about anger – in particular the belief that if unchecked, anger leads to violence, for this a belief which in effect functions as a type of self-fulfilling prophecy. The purpose of this essay is to dispute this belief and argue instead for a fundamentally new understanding of anger, together with a new form of ‘anger awareness’ – one that alone can overcome the fear of anger that I will claim is the true cause of violence. I will present my arguments rhetorically, as a series of ‘no’ answers to a set of yes/no questions to which most people would answer ‘yes’ to.

Questions concerning anger

To begin with, let us begin with a seemingly innocent if not banal question to which one would undoubtedly expect such an automatic ‘yes’ answer:

Q. Do people get angry because they feel angry?
A. No they do not. Feeling anger is one thing. ‘Getting angry’, acting on that anger, is something quite distinct. People ‘get’ angry, act on their anger, not because they feel anger but because they are afraid of feeling anger. The most violent of individuals are those who are least capable of bearing feelings of anger – who find the slightest feeling of anger so unbearable that they must immediately seek a way to discharge that feeling through action. In particular such individuals are not strong enough to feel emotions of anger with and within their bodies. So instead they make use of their bodies and bodily strength as an instrument with which to discharge emotions of anger from their bodies. Finding it unbearable to abide or ‘stay with’ feelings of anger inside their bodies they have to ‘let out’ their anger on others or else find some way of discharging it or ‘channelling’ it, if not bodily violence then through obsessional physical exercise or competitive sports. Alternatively, they may simply make sure that there is always something aside from anger that keeps them so permanently preoccupied and busy that this very busy-ness leaves them no time to feel their anger – or else serves as a convenient ‘outlet’ for it.

Q. Do uncontrolled feelings of anger lead to violence?
A. No they do not. To repeat: it is fear of feeling the emotional charge of anger inside one’s body that leads to discharge through violent bodily action.

Q. Is the exercise of force and violence an exercise of strength, power and dominance?
A. No it is not. It is a surrender to a sense of weakness and powerlessness in the face of feelings of anger, aimed at making the victim feel the same weakness, powerlessness and fear of anger that lies behind the acts of the perpetrator - a fear that often stems from their having been a victim of violence and fearing the retribution that anger might bring).

Q. Is the overcoming of anger either a pre-condition, purpose or benefit of religiosity or ‘spirituality’?
A. No it is not. More often than not, it is those that suffer from what I call ‘anger’ deficiency’ that use religion or spirituality to fill the ‘hole’ it leaves them with. Yet unless their particular religion or form of spirituality is one that affirms anger as a natural and valuable emotion (which most do not) no amount of contemplation, meditation or prayer will fill the spiritual emptiness they feel in themselves. Anyone with anger deficiency will be haunted by a spiritual vacuum, felt as an underlying sense of boredom, depression, restlessness or lack of meaning in their lives. Yet unless they first of all allow anger to fill this spiritual hole, anger as such cannot be spiritually ‘transcended’ or transmuted into empathy and compassion. For how can someone with anger deficiency – someone basically uncomfortable with even moderate anger - possibly ‘empathise’ with the intense anger and outrage felt by those who are economically exploited or starved, subject to cruel political and military oppression or victims of criminal violence and abuse?

Q. Isn’t the ideally ‘developed’ or ‘civilised’ society one in which both the general populace and political leaders in particular are happy and not angry?
A. On the contrary. For we see in the ‘developed’ world - and the West in particular - how anger deficiency leads to a state of almost total emotional apathy and indifference towards outrages being committed in other parts of the world – an apathy and indifference shared by both politicians and the general populace, who would rather entertain themselves by watching fantasy TV violence or war-glorifying films than empathise with those suffering from real violence and wars. The Western media in particular, play a central role in preventing hosts of real-world outrages being fully revealed on screen or in print – for fear of the intense anger or outrage this might in turn evoke in their viewers or readers. Thus the British tabloid press would far prefer to frontpage a famous football player such as ‘Gazza’ – one of many to have experienced so-called ‘anger’ problems – than to reveal and express anger at the outrages committed by Israeli military forces in Gaza.

Q. Aren’t Western or Western-allied powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel right in tackling violent rhetoric and terrorist violence in the Middle East and elsewhere?
A. Not if they deny the suffering that gives rise to them - and their own historic, economic, political and military responsibility for that suffering – and, last but not least – not if they fail to see also that it is precisely their own indifference and lack of anger towards that suffering that fuels the very violence they decry. The essence of Western military technology lies in the fact that it does not require any human feeling or an iota of anger to obey an order to release missiles that will kill or maim children, decimate families, destroy innocent lives and create whole generations of people filled with an intensity of anger towards the West. A principal reason why this anger does find expression in violence is because the suffering behind it neither understood nor responded to - except through hi-tech military operations of a sort that require no human feeling whatsoever to conduct. Thus it is that those who surrender – who see no option but to discharge their real human feelings of anger and outrage through acts of violence such as suicidal martyrdom - are called ‘terrorists’, whilst professional killers hired to deploy high-tech weaponry are called ‘professional soldiers’.

Q. Isn’t it still true that the only way to control violence is to control feelings of anger?
A. On the contrary, it is only if people are taught to affirm rather than avoid feelings of anger - and to feel their anger to the fullest degree possible - that the danger of their discharging anger through violence is diminished. Anger repression is not a solution to violence but its principal cause. The true solution is a new type of ‘Anger Awareness’. This is a way of overcoming fear of anger and the resulting ‘fight-flight’ response to it – the tendency to either flee from anger (or any people or situations that might evoke it), fight to control it - or seek to evacuate it through an actual fight. To cultivate Anger Awareness means first of all ceasing to judge or label anger as a ‘negative’ or ‘unspiritual’ emotion. Instead we must allow ourselves to affirm and fully feel any anger within ourselves. Yet to overcome the fundamental fear of anger that stops us from doing this requires more than just rejecting the belief that anger is a ‘bad thing’. It means also recognising that the awareness of an emotion such as anger is not itself an emotion. Only by reminding ourselves that the awareness of anger within ourselves is something quite distinct from - and therefore also free of anger – can we feel free to affirm that anger, without any fear of it controlling us, and without any need to control or ‘manage’ it. The practice of Anger Awareness then, involves (1) identifying with the awareness of feelings of anger rather than with the anger as such (2) thereby feeling free to fearlessly feel and affirm that anger - not as some negative emotion that we need to either ‘control’ or ‘let out’, but simply as a particular inner-bodily sensation that we can choose, with awareness, to stay with, embody and let be. Only such a new type of Anger Awareness offers the basis for a new, non-violent politics of justified anger. Without this Awareness however, the symptoms of Anger Deficiency will continue to plague society. These include not only violence but spiritual emptiness or meaning-loss, together with boredom, anxiety, depression and their counterparts - the restlessly manic ‘busy-ness’ and technological and spiritual consumerism that defines the culture of late capitalism. We know all too well that many young people become violent not through an innate surfeit of anger but because they are bored or excluded through poverty from the promised compensations of this culture. If we do not wish them, or anyone to become violent, it is all the more important that we feel and respect their anger. This is something that those with an emotional fear and poverty of anger cannot do.

Q. Aren’t all emotions, including anger, basically ‘irrational’?
A. Certainly not. Just as in our sick and psychotic world there are all sorts of good reasons for people to feel ‘depressed’ – reasons which make the treatment of depression as a medical ‘disorder’ both irrational and irresponsible - so also are there always good reasons why people come to feel angry. The great virtue of anger however, is its capacity to act as an emotional yeast or vitamin - one which can very quickly restore a person’s sense of bodily vitality and mental clarity and by doing so renew their sense of meaning and purpose – something which makes it particularly valuable in transforming states of apathy, lethargy or ‘depression’, individual and social. ‘Anger deficiency’ then, can be compared to a type of unrecognised vitamin deficiency; not a biological deficiency but a culturally-conditioned one, shaped by almost universally accepted beliefs about anger.

Summary

It is high time to finally dispel the mythical belief that anger possesses an innate malignity or negativity linking it to violence. On the contrary, it is only by affirming anger with awareness that we create the conditions for clear-headed, empathic and ethical actions – replacing actions that are only ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to or ‘outlets’ for anger with those that stem from a capacity to be aware of inwardly felt anger and to stay with that awareness. Since awareness of anger - however affirmative of that anger - is itself nothing ‘angry’, it is only through greater and not lesser ‘anger awareness’ that anger can be ‘transcended’ in a truly authentic and non-avoidant way – freeing us from the impulse to blindly react to or act out of anger, and offering us instead a vital third option in place of either repressing or ‘managing’ anger or ‘letting it out’. That is why giving ourselves time to be fully aware of any inwardly felt anger, as well as time to stay with, affirm and fully feel that anger, is far from being something ‘unspiritual’. Instead it is one of the important forms of meditation needed in today’s conflict-ridden world. Hence these written meditations on anger - themselves borne out of a meditative and affirmative awareness of anger. Or rather borne of out a state of outrage towards outrageous acts. Indeed perhaps in the very word ‘outrage’ we can hear the hint of a state of ‘anger awareness’ that, whilst arising from the highest intensity of anger (‘rage’) nevertheless – or for that very reason – transcends or ‘out-strips’ that anger and rage - thereby undermining the need to ‘act it out’ in angry, raging or violent ways. Anger and rage are emotions. Outrage is a state. Heard in this way, the word ‘outrage’ itself could be taken as a pointer or even as a type of synonym for a new type of Anger Awareness – a state of awareness that propels us in the direction of aware, non-violent and forward-looking actions in response to the outrageous.

Further Reflections on the Nature of Individuality, Freedom and the 'Ego'


Each of us is a portion of the ultimate or universal awareness (Anuttara/Paramshiva) and consequently inseparable from that divine ‘source’ awareness as a whole.

Each of also IS an awareness in its own right – an inseparable but also individually distinct portion of the source awareness.

We are each 'gods' - distinct parts or portions or parts of the Divine Awareness that is 'God'. Yet being inseparable from the Divine Awareness as a whole, we ARE also that whole - we are each 'God'.

This relation of INSEPARABLE DISTINCTION between the individual ‘soul’ or awareness (jiva) and the divine awareness (Shiva) is the new and true way to understand the essence of ‘a-dvaita’ or ‘non-duality’ – which is NEITHER a relation of dualistic separation NOR a state of merger into indistinct ‘one-ness’ or ‘union’ lacking any individuality and distintiveneness.

The ‘ego’ is a specific portion of the distinct awareness that we each ARE - yet one that does not experience and understands itself as an inseparable part of the divine awareness as a whole but rather as separate and apart from it, and thus separate and apart also from other portions of that awareness - from other people and the world.

As a result of feeling itself apart from it, the ego also experiences itself as owning thE awareness which we are - indeed owning or possessing awareness as such as its private property. This is the delusion of egoity known as 'ananavamala' – the false belief that awareness or subjectivity is the private property of separate subjects, beings or ‘egos’.

The ego also regards itself as an independent agent of action, separate and apart from action as such. As self-assumed ‘agent’, the ego understands all actions as its own ‘intentional acts’ – rather than understanding all actions as emerging from awareness.

Yet just as the awareness of a thought or thing, impulse or action, is not itself a thought or thing, impulse or action – so also is the awareness of ego nothing ‘egoic’ but something essentially egoless.

Thus there is no essential duality between egoity and egolessness. There is however a fundamental distinction between identification with the ego and intentional acts and simple awareness of the ego and of those acts.

Indeed on one level, ‘the ego’ as such is neither more nor less than an identification with ‘ego’ i.e, with that portion of both awareness and action that regards itself as separate and apart from both awareness and action – and sees both as its private property.

The awareness of sensations, thoughts and emotions, mind and body, the awareness of ego and intentional acts, being essentially distinct from such contents of consciousness, is therefore also essentially free of them - free of sensation, emotion and thought, free of mind and body and free too of ‘ego’ and ‘intentional acts’.

This is one essential sense in which awareness is Freedom.

All powers of action (Shaktis) are latent in and arise out of awareness (Shiva). At the same time awareness is an inexhaustible field or ‘womb’ of different potential actions and modes of expression.

Without awareness of more than one possible or potential action, more than one possible thing to do or say - and more than one possible way of doing or saying it - there can be no freedom or action or expression through action.

This is the second fundamental sense in which awareness alone is Freedom. For any action undertaken without awareness of alternate possible actions, or of alternate possible ways of acting is essentially unfree.

So called ‘spontaneous’ acts which do not arise from expanded awareness – an awareness embracing a larger field of alternate possible actions - are no more ‘free’ than actions which come from obeying orders, or blindly following impulses.

Blindly obeying orders or following ‘spontaneous’ impulses – without awareness of alternatives – are the poor man’s way of freeing himself from ego and the poorest form of ‘egolessness’, requiring as they do surrender of the ego either to impulse or to the commands of others.

That is why the basic life-practice of awareness in ‘The New Yoga’ is called taking time to be aware.

In particular this ‘taking time’ means establishing pauses and interval between one action or series of actions and another, in which to return from a highly ‘focussed’ awareness to a more expanded or ‘field’ awareness which embraces a range of alternative possible ‘next’ actions.

The alternative is to live life under the rule of ‘busy-ness’ - ‘going from one thing to another’ and ‘doing one thing after another’ – without pausing and taking time to do nothing but be aware – and in this way come to an awareness of alternate possible ‘next’ actions and choose freely between them.

Only out of awareness of a larger field of possible actions and ways of acting can choices and decisions arise from awareness that are themselves truly aware and free choices and decision.

Not just speech but all modes of action are expressive languages. The smaller the vocabulary of sounds and letters in a language the smaller the number of words and sentences that can be formed from it – the smaller its creative potentials and degree of freedom - the freedom with which awareness can express or ‘articulate’ itself in and though the language of action.

The ego thinks action in terms of black and white, either/or alternatives. Its mantra are ‘Do X or Y’. ‘Do X. Don’t do Y’. Aware action is the recognition not only that there are countless ways of doing both X and Y, but that doing either X or Y in one way is not the same action as doing it another way.

Here I have just finished meditating the further reflections on the nature of individuality, freedom and the 'ego' on your bulletin board. Again I see the new formulation of portion with inseparability, and expression with distinctness. By juxtaposing ego as a portion of the awareness that we are, while being distinct in its own right, it is ‘easy’ to make the point that it is a small step to the ego regarding itself as separate from awareness, and then ultimately owning it. I also liked the no essential duality between egoity and ego-lessness. That is, it is not a case of either ego or non-ego behaviour. By thinking of it that way, people are forced into the crude interpretation of impulses that you refer to. If we are not to be bound up in ego, well we will just respond, ‘spontaneously’, to whatever impulse we feel. The over arching solution though, AWARENESS, provides one with a pool of potential actions, impulses etc from which to choose. Thus, for me, real freedom comes when we ‘have our cake and eat it too’ combining the best of egoity - we choose - and the best of egolessness - a vast ocean of awareness that we and our actions, choices, impulses emerge from.

I have been conducting some interesting experiments with myself. I have been listening to audiobooks with my iPod and found an interesting paradox. I was listening to Tagore’s Sadhana and was well aware of just how hard it is to listen to an audiobook. To concentrate, to focus on the words and actually take them in. So many times I find myself having to ‘rewind’ the ‘tape’ and play back what I just completely missed. It reminded me of batting when I was a cricketer which wasn’t easy for me. The more I told myself to focus and concentrate and ‘don’t get out, don’t take a wild swipe, watch the ball etc’ the less it worked. The more I tried to focus on the words in my head listening to the audiobook, the more I got distracted etc. The more I closed my eyes to ‘concentrate’, the worse it got. Then I finally discovered the secret. The way to concentrate and listen was to open myself up completely to the whole environment I was in, to be aware of the whole room, especially the space in the room, and be that space taking in the audiobook in the context of everything else in the room. I had to intend to listen to the words but take in everything else at the same time. And I found in doing so that I was in the blessed space that I should have been in all those years ago when batting, that is, relaxed but alert, not focused solely on the ball but aware of everything. Listening to this audiobook in this way I was then able to slip into that state where I was taking in the book but was especially waiting for those felt senses of significance that crop up in me hearing a certain phrase. So I would switch off the ‘tape’ and explore the unthought stuff in the words of Tagore. Now I have been saying to myself, what if I approached everything I was doing as if I was listening to an audiobook? That is, taking in all that there was to take in, while intending something in the forefront of attention? Quite illuminating to discover that the very meaning of focus and concentration that sports people go on about isn’t actually what they are implying.

BEYOND THE MONOTHEISM OF MONEY
Shivratri in the Context of Global Economic Crisis...

“Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.”

“…the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade, and the bankrupt trader deals in the Gospel just as the Gospel preacher who has become rich goes in for business deals.”
Karl Marx

In what way does owning a beautiful tree, plot of land, building or work of art add to the awareness of its intrinsic beauty? From whence came the idea that owning something – anything – somehow adds to its intrinsic value? The idea came from a quite different notion of ‘value’ – not as the sensuous, ethical or practical value of something but as its exchange value.

Human history began with aboriginal tribal communities who had no notion of land, water, food or any other necessity of life as private property – whose social organisation therefore, constituted what Marx called ‘primitive communism’. It was only when such tribes began to barter that a notion of the ‘exchange value’ of things came into being. And as Marx perceived, exchange value is a mysterious thing. For though it is no ‘thing’ in itself, it is what makes a specific quantity of one type of sensuously tangible thing (fish for example) equivalent to some other thing completely different in its sensuous nature or practical use (for example beads or necklaces).

It was and is the wholly abstract, non-sensuous, invisible and immaterial nature of exchange value made it akin to a type of mysterious, immaterial and invisible Spirit – one that eventually then took the tangible and visible form of one specific material thing – money. Through exchange value things, and ultimately even human beings and human labour - became ‘commodities’. Thus began a millennia-long karmic history of social and economic development – a history with a significant religious dimension. From the turning point marked by the transformation of things into commodities with a specific exchange value represented by money, there began a process by which both the commodity and then money itself took on the nature of a religious fetish. Marx himself spoke of ‘the fetishism of the commodity