Tuesday, 07 February 2012 16:46 Written by Nirmala
Many of the questions and concerns in the satsangs or spiritual gatherings I lead come in a similar form: How do I get or keep a particular experience? How do I get or keep a sense of awakeness or expansion or openness or freedom or loving kindness or Presence? Or if worldly concerns are the issue, the question is the same: How do I get or keep more health, more wealth, more comfort, more security, more romance? Another form these questions take is: How do I avoid falling asleep or feeling stuck or being contracted or being sick or losing love? They’re good questions. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re real for the person who’s asking them.
Within each of these questions is the assumption that you need to do something-you need to get or keep or avoid something. Right there, in that assumption, is our suffering. The effort to get or keep or avoid any experience is what makes life miserable, difficult, dis-easeful.
In satsang, another possibility is pointed to, a way of touching your experience without either trying to hold on to it or push it away. It's a way of reaching out to your experience and really seeing what's it's like. In doing this, the questions become: How open or stuck am I right now? How open or closed is my Heart right now? How happy or sad am I right now?
And when the answer comes, the question becomes, What's that like? What's it like to be expanded or contracted or whatever it is you are experiencing? What's it like to have an open Heart or to not be in touch with your Heart at all in a particular moment? What's it like to be filled with love? What's it like to feel a lack of love? This is reaching out and touching the experience as it is and also as it changes naturally. It's not a static question, but an alive one; you're never done with that question because your experience is always changing.
In doing this, rather than trying to change life, you're living life as a question. What's this like? And what's it like now that I've noticed what this is like? And what's it like now? And now that it's changed again, what's it like? Even your noticing something changes it, so by the time you've found an answer, it's time to ask the question again.
We've been so conditioned to think that the point of questions is to get answers that we overlook that the point of answers is that they get us to more questions. The questions are as valid and rich as any answer because every answer is full of questions. You can even begin to enjoy the questions, even trust the questions, as much as any answer that comes.
When you value the questions themselves, you just naturally hold the answers more lightly because they aren't the goal. If the question is just as rich as the answer, then it's fine if the answer comes and goes. Have you ever noticed that you've forgotten everything you once understood? Every insight you've ever had has faded, and that's great because then you're back in the question. You're back in this really alive place where you're getting to find out what you know now, what's happening now, what's moving, what's changing, what it's like now. What is it like now? You'll never be done with that question. What's happening now? You could say that answers are just a temporary side effect of having questions.
This is a gentler, more respectful way of being with your experience. It's a more intimate way of being with your experience every moment to ask what it's like instead of How can I fix it? How can I get more? How can I get less? How can I improve it? How can I change it? How can I avoid it? How can I hang onto it? Do you see how all of these questions have an effort to them? They have a sense of violence to them-a sense of being in battle with or in opposition to your life. It's hard to be intimate with someone when you're pushing them out the door or trying to keep them from leaving. There's no intimacy in that kind of interaction. How much possibility is there for real, deep contact? The same thing is true for other aspects of our experience. It is possible to intimately experience the expansions and contractions, the openings and the closings, the freedom and the stuckness, the wonder and the confusion, the understanding and the lack of understanding.
So, what experience is moving in you right now? No matter what that is, that's the place to start because that's what's moving in you right now. If a desire is moving in you right now, what's it like to want something? Or if it's a fear, what's it like to fear something? There are no wrong questions; they're all entry points, places where this inquiry can open up and become soft and intimate. So, what's it like right now?
(The above is an excerpt from the book, Nothing Personal, Seeing Beyond the Illusion of a Separate Self by Nirmala. Part 1 of the book is available as a free ebook download here , or you can purchase the entire book in our bookstore .)
Thursday, 29 December 2011 14:01 Written by Nirmala
For those of you who received a Kindle, Nook, iPad or other ereader as a gift for the holidays, here are some free ebooks to download:
Note: Nirmala and Gina's free ebooks are now also available for free on the Amazon Kindle store. Some of our ebooks have always been free on this site and on Barnes and Noble's Nook store, Apple's iBooks, and Sony and Kobo ebookstores, but Amazon has always required that we charge a minimum of $.99 for the ebooks we sell on their Kindle store. Now Amazon has dropped the prices to match the other ebookstores so the following Kindle ebooks are now free on Amazon. Click on the title to go to the Amazon store where you can download them for free, or follow the other links for the Nook store. To find our free ebooks on iBooks, do a search for our names.
That Is That: Essays About True Nature is a free ebook collection of articles and answers to questions posed by spiritual seekers. It captures the essence of spiritual inquiry and provides the reader with a real transmission of Presence on every page. Nirmala's warm-hearted and accepting presence makes it possible to drop into the space he so eloquently describes, where peace, love, and joy abide.
A free collection of nondual spiritual poetry written from the Heart by Nirmala, who is a spiritual teacher in the Advaita tradition. This spiritual poetry attempts to capture the undying presence of love in all of its forms. Let your soul be deeply touched by the Rumi-like words of a lover drunk with a passion for the truth.
What About Love? Reminders for Being Loving is a collection of 23 essays and 58 short quotes about love and relationship taken from Gina Lake’s many books, which are meant to expand your understanding of love, drop you into a more loving space, and inspire you daily to be more loving.
Free Kindle Ebook: Radiance: Experiencing Divine Presence by Gina Lake
Radiance shows you how to experience the Divine in the world in simple ways by being very present. It is possible to experience the mysterious truth that everything is an expression of the Divine by paying close attention to the many signs that reveal this great Mystery.
(Optional: Buy a Kindle from Amazon.com to read the ebooks on this page.)
(Ebooks can be read on many devices including your computer)
Sunday, 25 December 2011 15:34 Written by Nirmala
(Here is another excerpt from my book, That Is That which you can receive for free here.)
There is just one source for everything. It all comes from an infinite potential within existence itself. Don't take my word for it. Reach out and touch something with your hand, like a piece of furniture or other simple object. For a moment, just sense its pure existence, the simple fact that it exists. Then, sense even more deeply to feel the source of the object. See if you can sense how ultimately it is coming into existence freshly in this moment. In every instant, it is a completely new version of itself. You may be able to sense its source directly, not with your mind or through logic, but with your fingertips and with your Being.
Now touch another object and see if you can sense its source. Where is this other object's existence flowing from? You can also hold your hand out and simply touch the space in front of you. First, just experience the reality of space with your fingertips. There is a mysterious open allowing spaciousness here that everything else fits in. As you sense the wonder of the space in front of you, see if you can also feel its source. Where does space come from? Where is the space itself flowing from? Although you may not be able to sense the source of space by thinking about it or figuring it out, you may be able to directly sense the underlying source of infinite space through your fingertips and your most subtle inner sensing. It's a matter of sensing with your whole being the wonder that lies just beyond your fingertips, even when you are only touching empty space.
Now reach down and touch your own body. Once again, just sense the wonder of your body's existence. And then sense the source of that miraculous form you often call "me." Where does the body's existence come from? You can touch your legs, your face, your other hand, your hair, and with each part of your body, see if you can sense from a deeper place the infinite potential that can form itself into a living physical body. It can help to drop down and sense the body from your heart instead of from your head. This allows a fuller sensing with all of your physical and subtle senses...
To whatever degree you have a sense of the source of these various objects and of space itself, notice if there is any difference or separation between the source of the objects and your body or empty space. Is it the same source that is forming the furniture and your body? Is there any separation between the source of the space around you and the source of your body? Don't worry if this doesn't make logical sense, and simply sense with your heart the source of space and the source of your body at the same time. Are they separate or are they one and the same?
You can explore further with nonphysical experiences. Notice the flow of thoughts you are having right now. Even if you can't touch them with your fingertips, just sense their existence and their source in infinite potential. Where do thoughts come from? Where does the energy of feelings arise out of? What is the source of your desires? We are often so involved with the object or direction of our thoughts and desires that we rarely pause to consider their source.
What do you find? It's fine if you only have a vague or slight sense of the source of an object or space or your thoughts. What is this vague sense of the source like? Is it a similar sense for all of the objects and experiences that you explore? Can you find a boundary between the source of your body and the source of your thoughts? Can you find separation between the source of objects and the source of space itself?
Differences and separation are very obvious at the level of form. Your body appears very different and separate from the objects in the room you are in. It has very different qualities from the space around you, even if it is not really separate from the space around you. This is the beauty and wonder of the world of form and experience: It offers endless differences and the appearance of separation. That's what makes it possible for two forms to dance or play. But what about the source of these experiences and forms? At that level are they separate? How pronounced is the difference between the source of your thoughts and the source of your physicality? Do your body and space come from the same subtle presence that lies behind all experience and differences?
It is at the level of the source of existence that oneness is obvious and clearly true. If we look for oneness in the world of form, we can easily doubt its reality. Often at best, oneness is a vague concept we try to imagine. But if we sense the source of everything, we find that there is a deeper and infinite potential that everything comes out of and everything is made of. Then, if we continue to sense the underlying source of the various forms, we can more clearly sense their oneness even while we enjoy and appreciate their endless differences.
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