Opening the Hearts Door

Back on 10 Steps to Enlightenment, I note the importance of experiencing our nature and study to understand it. Spirit & mind. But I also mention Housecleaning. Taking a look at our emotional baggage.

I’ve found this a key aspect of the awakening process. While the second unfoldment is around the heart and thus it’s cleansing is critical, I’ve observed that there is often some emotional cleaning prior and after each stage. Some acceptance may be required to let go of the ego in Self-realization and theres the emotional drivers to resolve afterward. The “last stress” can also be emotional. The core fear and BBQ come prior to letting go of the identity before Unity, followed by the falling away of a new layer of shoulds and musts. And so forth. People use the analogy of peeling the onion. It can sometimes seem like you clear some layer, then circumstances bring another layer to awareness. This last year has surprised me with what circumstances have brought forth. (laughs)

I’ve been reading Adyashanti’s new book, Falling Into Grace. While it’s largely a lighter more introductory read, he makes some profound points.

“As a spiritual teacher I’ve seen over and over again that people can have very deep and powerful revelations, even real awakenings to the truth of their nature, and yet at the same time they can still have a deep hesitation or even fear to enter into real human intimacy.”

He described intimacy earlier:
“When we become intimate with another human being – a lover, a friend, or even a stranger we’re simply conversing with – and we actually open ourselves in an undefended way to the other person, we’re doing something that human beings rarely do. We tend to be quite protective, holding ourselves behind some wall of fear, usually a fear of the very thing that we crave – closeness, intimacy, and union.”

“Intimacy with reality is one thing. Actually, intimacy with reality is relatively easy, once you get the hang of it. Once you get the hang of being with yourself, being with your own unknowingness, you realize it’s not really difficult, after all. It’s a process of relaxation, not a process of struggle. But to be very open and intimate with another human being, that’s not so easy, at least initially. To do so requires a depth of insight and a deep willingness to open to fear – to be willing to see those parts of you that don’t want to open. Further, we must come face to face with the whole world of emotion – emotional protection and emotional availability. Through relationship, we can start to see how we often go into a mode of self-protection or recoil, or into various degrees of fear. While much of this resistance is fueled by thought, this whole area of intimacy and availability is something that also takes place on a deeply emotional level. To be open-minded, to be no-minded is one thing, but to be genuinely emotionally open is something deeper, and it touches the heart and core of us in a very profound way. It requires that we stay in beginner’s mind and, more importantly, in beginner’s heart.”

“The most important thing when it comes to emotional openness and vulnerability is a willingness to face our fears, because many of our fears, although they’re created in the mind and memory, are also deeply lodged into our emotional makeup.”

“You can’t run so far, so fast that you get even one inch away from yourself. There’s no possibility of running from yourself. There’s no hope that you will be able to escape yourself.”

“‘Getting close’[to fear] doesn’t mean snuggle up to it. Getting close simply means you stop running away. You don’t have to run toward it. You just have to stop running away. Then you’ll feel an intimacy. You may feel a resistance, but you can choose to stay right there.”

“But when you’re willing to be intimate with your resistance, closer than you imagine, then you will see that your fears are not your enemies; they are your allies.”

“But when you have the willingness to open your heart, to be intimate even with the things you don’t like, with the people and events that frighten you, with the state of the world that may intimidate you, then you will find a way in which the core of you has an avenue through which to express itself. You can express and manifest the very depth of yourself in the outside world, so that there is no longer a division between inside and outside [unity] and there’s no longer a boundary for our love.”

Never underestimate the profundity of being able to express the source in your life. It is the difference between a relief from suffering and a lived embodiment of Being. The step after Self realization is the awakening heart. Adya points to why many can stall a little there. Additionally, many of the treasures of the path reveal themselves when we’re ready to look into our shadows. Our emotions are the home of the so-called veils over truth. Past lives, raptures, celestial perception, new abilities, and shifting into the flow of life all come from a willingness to see what is here.

While it’s not so easy to look, really seeing is the end of the burden and the dawn of the light.
Davidya

For more on this subject, see the Key Posts link on the right under “Pages”. Look under Clearing and The Heart topics.

PS: Soothing music can be a beautiful way to open the heart. This is one of the reasons I’m a fan of Denise Hagan. Heard her on Sunday again.

Yukteswar’s Yugas

I’ve occasionally mentioned the Yugas here. Basically, it’s a Vedic understanding of the cycles of time. Just as we have a cycle of hours, days, years, and centuries, the Vedas also chart ages (as in Age of Aquarius), yugas, cycles of creation, and more.

In the West, we have a rather heavily embedded meme telling us we started out as hunter-gatherers/cavemen and have evolved linearly from there into progressively better life. This worldview informs historic researchers, who almost always ascribe prior cultures as more primitive, sometimes in spite of evidence to the contrary. If we don’t understand it, it’s considered myth and superstition. But would a person of 200 years ago believe or understand a description of today’s typical living-room?

Yogananda’s master Swami Yukteswar was a renowned jyotishi. When he studied the ancient texts, he found that during the dark age Vedic scholars had made a small error in calculating the length of the yugas. They’d added a multiplier to adjust time to Deva (angel) years. This was a small error with a big impact. Common understanding is that Kali Yuga (the dark age) is 432,000 years long with a complete cycle of yugas lasting over 4 million years. By this calculation, we’re still only a few thousand years into the worst life has to offer.

Yukteswar’s correction* brought the Yugas back into a rising and falling cycle that aligns with the cycle of the ages and with what we call The Great Year in the west, the approx. 25,000 year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes**. In this model, Kali is only 1,200 years long. We passed through the trough in 500 AD (the Dark Ages) and are now about 311 years into the second age, Dwapara Yuga, the bronze or energy age***.

I recently finished reading a fascinating book called The Yugas, by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz. They took what Yogananda and Yukteswar had said on the subject and extrapolated out the dates, then compared them to history. It’s a pretty fascinating re-examination of our past and coming future. And it addresses many of the curious historical anomalies we’re all familiar with. I wouldn’t say I’d agree with all of their interpretations and the book is organized a little curiously but the research is diverse and largely well done.

The key detail to understand about the yugas is that it’s a cycle of expression of consciousness. (this cycle was known in most ancient cultures, like the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron ages of Greece) During the golden age or Sat Yuga, about 40% of time, most of us live at our full potential and enjoy “heaven on earth”. 30% of time we live close to that. 20% of time we feel individual and get into commerce and cities (like now) and for just 10% we go through a night and become quite dull, seeing only the physical world as real.

He summarizes the memes with 3 terms: (dates are for the current ascending cycle)
Satya – Golden: (7700 – 12,500 AD ascending, then a similar period descending)
Self realization, direct intuitive perception, consciousness

Treta – Silver: (4100 – 7700 AD)
Self-mastery, intuitive attunement, thought awareness

Dwapara – Bronze: (1700 – 4100 AD (current))
(enlightened) Self-interest, awakened intellect (science), energy (flow, intuition)

Kali – Iron: (500 – 1700AD ascending after a similar decent from 700 BC)
Passive acceptance, dull-mindedness, matter awareness
This period was more uncultured than now. But not before that.

They have a chart here illustrating the current rising and prior falling cycle with the shift dates. It should be noted that each yuga has a “Sandhi” or transitional period of about 10% that adds to the time of that yuga. By that calculation, we’re just over a hundred years out of the transition from a material paradigm. In many ways, the transition is still underway as we hold to the old while we rediscover who we are and what we’re capable of. Self-interest has become dominant and they suggest it will become  “enlightened” over time when we find our own happiness is supported by self-awareness and caring for  others. They suggest this shift from passive acceptance to self-interest is what has driven us into commerce, “civilization” and city dwelling.

The book goes into the tone and characteristics of the developing and future ages, then looks into the last 14,000 years of our past. As historians can trace the development of language and writing, they suggest this illustrates our evolution. The book suggests this actually illustrates our devolution in consciousness. They observe that the worlds proto-languages all appeared fully formed around the same time and suggest this was an adaptation to losing the ability to communicate mentally with others. As we lost the connection, our world culture and languages became fractured and increasingly isolated.(think Tower of Babel) We adapted first by developing oral language and traditions, then when consciousness dropped into Dwapara, the written word. The Yuga dates correspond to the known arising of the Vedic oral tradition and the later compiling and writing of the Vedas. Also the evolution from mantras into rituals.

Another example suggests why the Egyptian pyramids begin with the best work and slowly degrade. (book excerpt) The book goes into many such examples.

Yogananda indicated there had been many such yuga cycles, saying civilized man has been around for 50 million years. The book talks about why we see little evidence of that. But not none.

Finally there is an interesting discussion about Yukteswar’s reference to the sun’s “dual”. I’ve usually heard this to mean an unknown binary star around which our sun is orbiting. (The vast majority of stars have now been found to be binary) This 25,000 year orbit is what is said to cause the earths slowly rotating tilt and thus the cycle of the ages and yugas. They note that while this might be what he was referring to, both the Sanskrit term for the orbital point and the word “dual” may actually be a geometric term for the axis of the ecliptic. It’s an obscure thing from projective geometry but if you’ve ever explored Buckminster Fuller, you’ll have seen the models where there are forms within forms. The inner form is the inverse or dual.

I appreciate the work they’ve done to compile all this research to corroborate the idea. It’s certainly a very different take on our history, where we are and where we’re going. Happily, the news is largely good. 
Davidya

The book’s web site, with articles (book excerpts), blog, and references.
theyugas.com

Notes:
* Yukteswar reviews his discovery in the Introduction to his 1894 book, The Holy Science. It’s still in print. The correct numbers are also in the Manu Samhita. (ever heard of the Laws of Manu?)
Curiously, I’d actually noticed the error myself when trying to reconcile Vedic time with astronomical and experienced time.

**Dr. David Frawley suggests both cycles could be correct. One is human scale, one Devic. This is similar in idea to the dasha and bhukti cycles in jyotish, one within the other.

***It should be noted that this model shows the Sat yuga/golden age/Age of Enlightenment as rising in about 7700 AD. Krishna’s (and others) out-of-cycle prediction of a Sat Yuga in the current time is a different subject. This book is about the underlying cycle.

Fire the Grid completes

Back in 2007, the first Fire the Grid (later numbered III) event took place. Shelley Yates toured the continent speaking about it. Millions of people around the world joined in a simultaneous meditation. I spoke about it here.

The second event was 2 years later in 2009. Shelley didn’t tour and it got much less attention. But lots of people were aware of the event, most participating more personally.  I wrote about it here.

Amongst the many 11:11:11 events yesterday was also the final Fire the Grid I. Again it was in the middle of the night here. Most of the focus was a core group in Montreal. Here is the message Shelley got during the meditation:

The time for sadness is gone. Be in joy now, find joy in every detail. Feel the strength in your Unity. Feel the power in your co-creation. Feel the Magnificence and splendor of your LIGHT. The field is set. The Light has won. Thank you dear ones. We love you. Love each other as we love you. Love without condition, without judgement and with all your heart.

REMEMBER.

So now We begin.

Samoiya Shelley Yates

Fire the Grid

Update:
I’d forgotten. Fire the Grid was not the end but the beginning, as Shelley implies in her closing. The next step is “Lutaria”.

Lutaria is a community of high frequency humans that are living  those simple principles.

1. Do no harm first and foremost to yourself, for until you love yourself you will never love another fully.

2. Do all that you do with honestly and integrity. It will deepen your relationships with each other and deepen the connection to the Source.

Finally 3. Seek out your human JOY live it fully then be in gratitude for the experience. It is with this gratitude that you will lift your personal frequency to its highest levels.

They’re working on a new web site per: Building Lutaria is a directive from the Beings to unite humanity globally.

Life Continues

Over on Takuin’s blog, he responded to a question on the afterlife. He said he didn’t know. Then that he never would know nor would anyone else.

I responded: “…to say you don’t know is honest. But to then suggest it can’t be known and no one will ever know is just belief, no more or less than those who believe in an afterlife. I quite appreciate there are many who make a big story about this and there is a lot of nonsense. It’s also a very personal experience, so those with the experience may not differentiate between what arises and what they’ve brought to it. But there is ample evidence of people having such experiences and assisting people making the transition.“

Takuin asked “how am I to find out?” “So……where do I begin?”

Past Lives
On this blog, I try to focus on what I’ve learned rather than specific experiences. But in this case, it seems personal is the best way to answer.

I’ll begin where I began. Several decades ago, I found myself in a circumstance I could not understand. Every day I was faced with people having the worst experiences of their life. Ridiculous challenges kept arising. While I understood the ideas of karma, I didn’t understand how a person like me (laughs) could have generated such things. Was I creating this? Was there supposed to be a lesson here? I mulled such thoughts frequently at the time.

I began to have brief visual flashes of something troubling. They came to seem like memories, much as remembering being 8 years old. But they were older and seemed both familiar and like someone else’s. Over time, I became willing to look more and began to see pieces of scenes, then whole scenes. Then the larger sense of the life circumstances; what I faced and the choices I made. It was clearly me, but in a different “meat suit” and with different circumstances.

It became apparent that I was remembering my last lifetime, particularly the difficult parts that had not been fully resolved. These were the things that had carried forward into this life. They related to my marriage, children, work, and more. It explained my circumstances and inclinations profoundly and intimately. I was living the alternative to a choice I’d deeply regretted in that life. I realized that the point here was to resolve the experience rather than fight it and carry it forward yet again. Note that memory is associative. So memories will arise that are most related to current circumstances, especially emotionally (energetically).

The greatest thing this brought me was a sense of understanding about my life. Over time, I followed the threads of the prior life back to their source in still earlier lives and came to recall about a half-dozen or so. Aside from the understanding and things I couldn’t possibly imagine, several obscure details came up that were historically verifiable, like a book I’d once written. At some point, I realized I’d lost the fear of death (although transcendence would have contributed).

That satisfied my concerns that had started the process and it fell to the background of my life. Then occasional people or circumstances would arise that would bring new memories. Slowly, it continued to fill out.

There was a further barrier to overcome to see past the last decent in the cycles of time. After that, the long cycles of time and my own lives became clear. They disagreed with the standard understanding of Yugas but I found Yukteswar’s (Yoganandas master) math aligned. Going back to the last golden age or into the future was more distorted due to the higher consciousness of the time. (We experience everything from where we are now) Even the memory nodes are different then; intentional rather than difficulty based.

I made some points about validating and revisionist memory on Coming Back to Past Lives. Up to this point, I’d only experienced them in a linear way. In this article, I quote Vasishtha’s story on other variations in What’s After and Before. (I’ve never experienced it that way) Then the mesh and nodes of connections between lives became seen, then all lives happening at once. I talked about that in The past.

Similarly, I talked about the Roots of Fear in the last decent. And I wrote several articles on Time. This includes Bhusunda the crows experience of the even larger creation cycles.

The process continued into experiences of the mechanics of time; how it arises, unfolds and rolls up into a singularity. And how the soul is a point of awareness aware of itself in a sea of alert existence, and so forth.

The Afterlife
Takuin’s original question was on the afterlife; what might be considered between lives. But it’s really just the flow of life through various states.

More recently, a couple of close friends died and I ended up supporting their transition in “crossing over”. I wrote On Death on the process I observed after this. For once, there was a practical use for all this. 

There’s also an article on Vasishtha’s observations in After Death.

How?
As to the question of how, Patanjali outlines this in the Yoga Sutras.
3:16 From Samyama on the three transformations (characteristic, temporal quality, and state) comes knowledge of the past and future.
3:18 From perception of impressions (sanskaras) comes knowledge of previous births.
3:22 Karma returns both quickly and slowly. From Samyama on that, or from premonitions, comes knowledge of death.

Really, these describe what I was doing without realizing it.

Conclusion
It would seem this all arose for me due to my drive to understand my life. It seems to arise for different reasons for different people. But one certainly has to be open to it and prepared to face what we’ve done in the distant past. I found it rewarding, especially once I moved past that.

It’s certainly not anything necessary for the spiritual journey for most people. Anything unresolved now can be resolved now as well. All the markers or nodes exist in this life too. I wouldn’t recommend chasing past lives in itself.

Equally, our continuity through lives can be found in the simple experience of our unbounded being.

As don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements, “Don’t believe me. But learn to listen… what I’m telling you is just a story… it is true just for me. But if you learn to listen you will understand what I am trying to communicate.“

I hope that answers your question, Takuin. 
Davidya

Busting Beliefs

As readers of this blog know, I often talk about “the story”. This is a conceptual structure we use to give meaning and relate to the world with. While this can aid us, the story can also get in the way of seeing what is actually here. This can prevent us from recognizing who we are and enjoying the fullness of our life.

Much of the meaning we give to life arises when we’re young children. At that point, we’re just guesstimating and tend to blame ourselves for the shortcomings our parents point out. Some of the resulting beliefs can be rather primitive and harsh. We also have the role of vasanas, unresolved tendencies carrying over from past lives. These colour our experience and encourage certain kinds of conclusions.

I’ve explored ways that various teachers use to explore our story. Some teachers suggest inquiry. Some use techniques like “The Work“.

I first emphasize the value of an effortless meditation. This allows us to have the direct experience of who we are and also helps to clear much of the baggage we carry. What it doesn’t always cover is the stuff we’re more invested in, the stuff we keep reviving in our day-to-day life. These are sometimes called the sprouted seeds of karma.

Curiously, I’ve noticed that while we can remove the vasanas or tendencies automatically through deep meditation, the tendencies of those impressions may continue out of habit. These are of course the easiest to clear as they’re now just superficial habits. They just need to be noticed.

They key thing to remember about the story is that it’s not just what we’re telling ourselves but it’s also the emotions behind it that drive those ideas. A process must resolve both or they will continue to  arise again.

Happily, this is not actually hard. It’s just a little subtle or unconscious so we may need a technique or two to see and release them. Because it is simple, the essence of any good technique is simplicity. Further, all healing is through awareness. We just need to be able to see the story or belief for us to have a new choice and let it go.

Beliefs
Recently, a friend forwarded me an email on the Lefkoe Method. Morty and Shelley Lefkoe offer a simple technique for becoming aware of and letting go of beliefs that don’t serve us. They’ve identified about 20 beliefs that are very common, each with their own similar routine to walk you through seeing and releasing the belief. They offer 3 of them for free. (I’d recommend “I’m not Good Enough” first as it has a bit more background)

It’s a useful process to walk through, differentiating between what happened and the meaning we gave it. It includes the belief, the feeling value, and the senses. It will give you a good sense of how to approach beliefs within yourself. If you want, you can purchase others belief busters individually or as a set. Sometimes our beliefs are simple but so intertwined, it’s good to have some help unraveling them. For this, you can arrange a phone session with them.

They observe that as children, we naturally give meaning to events that arise. If something “bad” happens repeatedly, we tend to blame ourselves and create a belief of deficiency. If those beliefs remain unexamined in adulthood, they can impede our enjoyment and success. Further, beliefs tend to beget more beliefs and thus a whole story is born.

“I create my beliefs
Beliefs determine what I do and feel.
Therefore, I create my life and I can change it.”

They observe that we tend to see ourselves as the sum total of our beliefs (the story) yet even if our beliefs change, we’re still here. We don’t eliminate our sense of self if we delete beliefs. (though the ego may fear this) They go on to observe that you need an interpreter to create an interpretation. That you are this interpretation creator, not the creation. “As the creator, what limitations do you have?” Interestingly, they talked about witnessing your creation and being consciousness.

They summarize:
1) change your creation by changing your beliefs.
2) see yourself as creator and transcend your own creation.

Morty has a blog with various articles on the subject. Here’s a “best of” post with links.

Conditioning
For a long time they didn’t have a solution for people with an eating disorder. They realized that overeating is not primarily belief-based. Rather, it’s driven by conditioning; what they describe as the emotional equivalent of belief.

Like beliefs, conditioning happens from repeated experience. They suggest 2 ways conditioning arises. The first happens when we make a connection between comfort or distraction from a bad experience and food. The second happens when we equate food with a reward. Both are of course common experiences in childhood. How many of us had parents that rewarded deeds with sweets or gave us dessert for eating our vegetables? Food is the easiest to condition as we eat 3 times a day and these routines went on for years.

These associations create “triggers” emotionally. When we experience certain emotions or feel we deserve a reward, the trigger is activated and we feel a compulsive need to eat. The solution is in removing the triggers (associations) and thus the unwanted behavior stops. They suggest it is as easy as removing beliefs, but as its emotional, it is more subtle and can be multi-layered. Rather than having an on-line or downloadable program this requires personal sessions. They claim high success rates. You can explore a free report that goes into this in more detail, outlining the process. If you follow a belief process first (above), this will be clearer.

I noticed Morty suggested a few times that this is the total solution for overeating. Overeating can often lead to bad food choice habits  as well. This technique may solve the compulsions that lead to overeating, but there is great value in culturing healthy lifestyle habits afterward. This will be much easier with the triggers resolved but I would not describe it as the complete solution.

We will still need to process stress and give ourselves rewards. They suggest we find other pleasurable activities like meeting friends, movies, or a book. Don’t forget effortless meditation. Healthy escapes can be fun and free of guilt. 

This article is not an endorsement of the method. I’ve not spoken with the Lefkoes nor purchased any products. But I’ve reviewed their on-line materials and saw some value here. They offer another  perspective on ways we can lighten our load and enjoy life more fully.
And that’s a wonderful thing.
Davidya

PS: Here’s a video where Morty walks through the process (with lots of explanation) with Joe Vitale (5 parts)   Busting with Joe Vitale.  (the free on-line tools are simpler)
In another clip, Joe talked about also ending his resistance to exercise this way.