Wow, Michaelji -- "in 2998?"
You sure have that time
travel sidhi down pat! :-)
Michael Turner <Michael112658@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SFS
>alt.meditation.shabda
>
>
>SATSANG ON FREEDOM
>by Michael Turner
>(c) 1998, 2008
>
>(Author's Note: The following is based upon a Satsang I gave on March
>11, 2998, following meditation and reading from the chapter entitled
>"Freedom" from Paul Twitchell's classic, "Stranger By The River".
>Much love in the LightSong of the Eternal, Michael Turner)
>
>********************************
>
>Freedom. I just want to make a couple points here, for starters.
>It's interesting. The chapter's title is "Freedom," but Paul
>Twitchell also talks a lot about love, and relationship love more
>importantly, which can be very romantic, as well as very
>enlightening.
>
>It can also push a lot of buttons, whether you're male or female, by
>using the paradigm of man and woman, and using the male pronoun as the
>primary point of focus. It can easily step into some of our
>preconceptions about roles. I don't look at relationships as being a
>man is responsible for one part and a woman is responsible for another
>part, too much. I think there are some natural biological
>inclinations we have, some natural rhythms we get into as human
>beings, as man and woman. But they don't have any real bearing on our
>spirituality, in terms of our ultimate goal, which is self-realization
>and God-realization. The goal is working off our karma in this
>lifetime and becoming spiritually free. Which is what this chapter is
>titled.
>
>But there's a secret in this title. And that secret is, learning to
>love. Learning to completely fall in love, unequivocally,
>unreservedly. Because when you do that, when you take that leap, take
>that chance, everything drops away. You have nothing you fear. You
>don't care if you live or die. You just step out into love, in
>complete faith, and complete trust that the love will sustain you,
>that the love will buoy you.
>
>That is exactly what it does. This is exactly how you find spiritual
>freedom. You don't find it through postulates. You don't find it
>through reading books. You don't find it through going to the right
>seminars or hanging out with the right people, having the right
>knowledge, learning secrets that some people talk about, thinking, "If
>I know the secret, then I'll find freedom." Stuff like that. All the
>metaphysical stuff, which has its place, extends from the mind on
>down: mental, causal, astral and physical. And, as such, while it can
>be useful and a good tool, ultimately it is part of the duality.
>Ultimately it just creates more karma and keeps us bound.
>
>And it's really kind of funny, because it's like the ultimate joke God
>plays on us. We're given all these instruments of perception. We're
>given these faculties of reasoning, and learning and knowing. And
>when we start evolving spiritually, we get beyond basically going to
>church and we start looking at other stuff, seeing what's out there.
>Concepts of other dimensions of existence begin to sprout up and we
>think, "Those are really cool," and we're exploring. We think,
>"Ah....if I can just figure this out...."
>
>And so all these little baubles are dangling in front of us, like
>"supreme knowledge" and "perfect wisdom," or the various siddhas you
>can find. There are things you can learn to do, like looking into the
>future and reading the past, doing past life readings, or reading
>future lives. You can discover the tap roots of every theory, every
>philosophical system, every belief system, every religion which has
>ever existed on this planet, or ever will exist. But, none of these
>things give you spiritual freedom.
>
>And so you go through this whole process of learning more and more,
>and developing incredible powers of discernment and perception. But
>ultimately it comes back to one thing, really and essentially. And
>that one thing is love.
>
>It's just like Saint John said. You are love. God is love. The way
>to God is through love, because God is love. It is this complete
>immersion in Divine Love that this path is about. That is really the
>essence of the Light and Sound meditation. We talk about the Light
>and we talk about the Sound, because these are things you can
>visualize, that you have some sense of tangible awareness of. You can
>see inner things and hear inner things, just like you can see outer
>things and hear outer things.
>
>But really, this duality in a sense, this dual principle of Light and
>Sound merges back into the one principle of Supreme Golden Love. And
>that is the essence of the Lord. And it's been said over, and over,
>and over again. It's basic. Almost all the preachers talk about
>it.
>
>But is what sets you free. Pure love is non-dual. It has no
>polarity. It's not "love vs. hatred" or "love vs. fear." Pure love
>is the simple Isness. It is timeless. It is golden. It is warm. It
>is absolutely amazing. It is singular and pure. It creates no
>karma. When we merge with It, we become saturated in Its essence,
>until every single atom in our fiber is It, and we no longer create
>karma. When we no longer create karma, we start to move towards being
>spiritually free.
>
>Now, of course, the question is, "How do you find this love?" And I
>remember being a mystic in high school - I started out young - and
>there was something I was looking for. I was reading lots of books
>about it. And it was called "wisdom," it was called "love". It was
>something unfathomable and intangible, yet everybody talked about it.
>And I couldn't figure out what it was. I chewed on it, metaphorically
>speaking. I reasoned with it. I pondered it for years. And finally,
>through the grace of my Master, and through lessons and relationships
>in live, I learned about this thing called "love".
>
>But it's something you can't read in books. Because reading in books,
>all you will know about love - just like all you will know about God -
>Is all in your head. It remains a theory. It remains a mental
>abstraction upon which you've put your expectations, your
>preconceptions of God. It's just like the thing falling in love and
>running off into the sunset, like all the fairy tales we hear.
>
>How do the stories end so often? "They lived happily ever after."
>The prince and princess, they go through some travails and
>tribulations getting together. Usually there's some sort of
>opposition force that gets in the way. And then they triumph over the
>opposition. They get together and they live happily ever after.
>Which is really beautiful.
>
>But anybody who's in any kind of relationship will tell you that you
>don't tie the knot and suddenly it's, "La la la la la. Our love will
>keep us together." (like that old song used to go). It does in the
>most fundamental sense. But, no, two can't live as cheaply as one.
>There are all of these things that you find out. And there are
>conflicts, because you're dealing with another human being. They're a
>different person. So there are different ideas, different emotions,
>different moods, different habits - whether it's where you put your
>clothes, or your toothbrush, or how you cook, or whether you leave the
>heat on at night - stuff like that. There will always be things that
>bring up duality.
>
>And so we learn that, in this life in relationships, it's not a
>destination, it's a process. It's about finding one with whom you are
>amicable, with whom you get along, who you can stand being around on a
>regular basis, and learning to completely love them. And to be loved
>by them. To find a human being who is in the now, a real tangible
>person who you can just completely dive into, and who in turn can dive
>back into you.
>
>Because what happens is, you complete a circuit. That's really what
>Rebazar Tarzs is talking about here referring to the different
>qualities of male and female. They're like the different parts of
>polarity in a circuit that you put together. When we put these pieces
>together, and they interlock just right, we have a complete cycle of
>love. You are loving this person, and they are loving you back. And
>so it just keeps flowing through, and it keeps building up momentum.
>
>When I said, "living in the now," it's important to understand that
>loving somebody who used to exist, while very comforting to us -
>whether it's past master or a past spouse, or a member of the family -
>if that's where you confine your love, then again you take it out of
>the here and now. You take it into another dimension, which gets you
>out of the present, which puts you on the time track again. It keeps
>you caught back up in the web.
>
>Now there's no harm in this. But we have to stay in the now. As long
>as we're human beings, we have to interact with other human beings.
>
>I was thinking about a scene in the movie, "Truly, Madly, Deeply."
>It's kind of like a British version of "Ghost". Alan Rickman and Emma
>Thompson are in it, and Emma's in love with her late husband, played
>by Alan. She's not dating. She just absolutely adores her departed
>beloved. She talks to him all the time. And one day, he comes back.
>She hears him playing his cello. Her love is so powerful it has
>brought him back into the physical. But the lesson of the movie is
>that she has to move on and be with the living. As Jesus once said,
>let the dead bury the dead. They can take care of themselves.
>
>What happens is that Rickman brings all of his dead friends to hang
>out with him, because those are the people he's hanging out with now.
>He can't hang out with living people. And the house gets really
>crowded with all of these guys hanging out watching the TV all day.
>She comes home from work and there are all these people there. Until
>finally, she's had enough and starts staying away from home a lot
>(like when you have a roommate you don't like and so you find reasons
>to not come home until it's really late). And she meets this guy and
>they end up falling in love. And so her husband and his friends have
>done their job by forcing her to be focused in life. And there's this
>great look on Alan Rickman's face as he goes back to the other
>dimension. He's kind of sad and wistful, but he knows he's done what
>he came to do, which was to get her out of this funk she was in, and
>be here - now.
>
>This is a very important spiritual lesson we all need to deal with,
>especially when we get into metaphysics, when we get into forms of
>meditation which can take us into different dimensions. Believe it or
>not, life here on earth can be a drag. Yes, I know that everybody
>around here walks on water in perfect bliss and never has any problems
>at work or anything like that, and it's always really groovy.
>(laughs) But, rumor has it, life can be a drag. And there's a real
>risk that, when we start doing serious interdimensional meditation, we
>can really like it too much and start spending more and more time
>there, and less and less time here, which in turn can lead us to have
>an increased disability to deal with being here. You can't pull a
>9-5. You'll find any reason in the world - and it's usually
>subconscious, it's not usually conscious - to pull back more and
>more. And this has its phase. But it really leads us to being
>imbalanced. I would really call it a form of "spiritual neurosis,"
>which is what a lot of mysticism is. You become somewhat of a
>sociopath. And this is, again, why the masters always say, "Hang out
>in your society. There's nothing wrong with being married. There's
>nothing wrong with having a family, having a life, having a job. In
>fact, these things are good because they keep you balanced. They keep
>you participating in the family of humanity. They keep you paying
>your taxes, so you're actively engaged in this flow of reciprocity.
>
>Okay here's my periodic harangue. Taxes are good. Taxes are very
>good. And I'm really glad we have a tax because it keeps income
>flowing and really creates a larger socio-economic balance. It's not
>fun to pay them. But then again, it's not fun paying off our karma
>either, now is it? But it's there. Trust in God, and tether your
>camel.
>
>Work in this life. Learn to love in this life. Don't love something
>in the past, or something in the future. Do it in the now. Find one
>in whom you can completely, unequivocally dive into their eyes. Dive
>into the eyes that hold only love for you. It is through those eyes
>that you find God. Because one in whom God is saturated, one who is
>saturated in God, is of the essence of God. And when you find that in
>a human being, it is in the now. And it brings you into the now of
>God. And that is really the essence of love and freedom. And once
>you let go, once you completely let go to love in its pure form,
>everything else falls away. And you are left as soul, pure, golden
>soul. Nothing else exists, except you and God. Nothing else has ever
>existed.
>
>All this stuff, it's just forms we take on to learn from, to interact
>with. But really, when it all fades into the background, and
>dissipates like the morning fog, it is simply you and God and the
>Light and Sound, the Holy Spirit.
>
>Any comments, thoughts on the chapter? Go for it.
>
>Q. "It's kind of interesting because when you were reading from the
>book, I found myself getting annoyed, like having some buttons
>pressed, only because like, I love you, and I love them, and I trust
>you guys. But as far as being able to trust anybody else, I see no
>reason to because I've never, I don't have any reason to trust
>anybody. And it's sad, it's pathetic. It really sucks. But I'd
>really like to be able to trust people and women and stuff. But I
>feel like I can't. It's impossible. There's just no way. I feel
>like I've done my part, and I can't do any more.
>
>It's great that I've found you and I've found the meditation. And
>unfortunately now those are the only real things that get me off, that
>really bring me peace. And it seems like now when I just deal with
>the real world, and the real people in it, it's nothing but
>disappointment. It's either disappointing, annoying or boring, or
>just - I feel I can't trust. It's not there. The women aren't going
>to be there for me. The friends aren't going to be there for me.
>They just come and they go, even faster than they did when I met
>you."
>
>M. Thank you very much for that comment. You've basically laid out
>the reason for the living master. And that is that it is difficult to
>trust in this world. Especially - I think it's happening more than it
>used to - but we go through multiple relationships in life, whether
>they're multiple marriages or we just date more and stuff. We have
>more interactions. It used to be, you went to court someone. Or your
>parents arranged something and you went out on chaperoned hay rides,
>and things like that, and eventually settled down.
>
>But these days, things seem to be speeded up, and we get burned a lot,
>which makes it difficult to trust. And this is one of the reasons
>that God blesses us with the living master, because this is an
>individual, when they're real, who is simply there to love you. There
>are no games being played. There are no strings being pulled.
>
>That's why I, for one, don't like to charge money. I don't want to
>have any weird stipulations and angles happening. It's simply that
>you have to have somebody in your life you can trust. And that is
>absolutely essential.
>
>The only way you can really know God, the only way you can really let
>go of your mind, and your intelligence and your cleverness and
>everything else, is to find one human being who is saturated in God
>that you can love. Through loving the master, you learn to love
>God.
>
>And also, in the process, you learn to open up. You learn to trust.
>And you find other human beings in your life who act as, you might
>say, "supplemental education" to your spiritual education. And I know
>it's not easy. It's tremendously difficult.
>
>Q. "Well for me, it seems just impossible. It's like I thought that
>at least, when I got on this path and I was willing to love a woman,
>that I would actually get more help from God on this subject. But
>apparently God doesn't care, because the same thing happens. I mean,
>it was like worse than ever. I feel like I got burned in this last
>relationship worse than ever. And I was kind of like, "Okay God.
>Thanks. I opened up, tried to love, and that's the thanks I get. I
>appreciate it."
>
>M. Well Zak, let me tell you something. Hang on there a second. Hold
>on, Bubba Louie. Are you talking to this amorphous thing, or are you
>talking to me?
>
>Q. "Huh?"
>
>M. You're saying, "God doesn't really care about me. This really
>stinks, etc." But you come here to talk about this, and what did I
>tell you when this relationship went from one phase to the next to the
>final phase? What did I tell you? I said, "You're doing great." I
>said, "This is really good."
>
>Q. "I know you said that. But it doesn't feel good."
>
>M. I know it doesn't feel good. We make our beds, and we make
>relationships that are based on countless other relationships that
>precede them. Countless life experiences lead us. They condition us
>to grow in certain ways.
>
>It's just like a tree. If you bend a tree in a certain direction and
>push it, it will grow in a certain direction. Or it's like the old
>thing about backpacks and purses. If you wear something over your
>right shoulder or left shoulder, you'll start walking funny after a
>while because you're used to certain habits. It's true. I remember
>when I went from wearing a backpack over both shoulders to hanging it
>on one shoulder, and I started walking funny. And I'm told women have
>the same problem with purses.
>
>Our karmic patterns are the result of so many actions and reactions in
>this lifetime, and previous lifetimes, you don't unlearn them
>overnight. We tend to make the same mistake, even when we get all
>right information. We still have free will to do whatever we darn
>well please. And you might well say that God gives us pointers until
>He's blue in the face. But have you ever given somebody advice who's
>not ready for it? I mean, you can just yak, yak, yak, yak, yak. And
>they're not going to listen, because they can't.
>
>Each of us has our own things that God's yakking at us about, and
>we're all busy with out trip. We're not listening. We're not really
>listening. We're not wholly and solely receptive. Instead, we're
>saying, "Yeah. But...." or "Come on God, break with it. I want the
>golden love now, man. Come on, put it up. Put up or shut up, Lord."
>
>And, on top of the fact that that's not how God operates, God's time
>track is very, very big. It's like Michael Palin once said in "Monty
>Python's Meaning of Life": "Lord, you are so very, very huge. And we
>are so very, very, very small." So it seems to us like a long time,
>but it's just like a little period of re-tuning, where we're just...
>
>Q. "I think of the word "tapes," meaning the little tapes playing
>inside our heads. And my other thought is: Job. It's like, "Why
>should I love God? Why do you do this to me?" So there are tapes -
>and there are past tapes.
>
>And the other thing too is that I think you have to go through a
>tremendous amount of experiences to even know how to love,
>unconditionally. And see, there are conditions, "I love you with all
>my heart, as long as you do it my way, or you can just take off." But
>if you decide to let it be like a bird and fly out of that cage, and
>if it was your bird it will come back and if it isn't it won't...
>
>Anyway, life goes on. And there's someone out there. And sometimes
>when you're not looking for it, that's when you find it."
>
>M. In addition, every person is different. We have different needs.
>We have different backgrounds. We have different programs, and
>responses. And it takes a lot for us to respond to stimuli
>differently. They are so built up, they are so conditioned that you
>have to retrain yourself over, and over again. You have to take
>chances and make mistakes - because you are going to make mistakes,
>just like your guitar is going to go out of tune. You're going to hit
>wrong chords before you hit right ones. If you're trying to do E, A
>and G, it will take a while before that E, A and G really sound good.
>And then you're going to get that sounding nice, and then God's going
>to say, "Let's try a bar chord." And you're going to try to get your
>index finger down on the fret board, and discover muscles you never
>knew you had. It takes a lot of practice.
>
>I have this very dubious talent of just springing into stuff,
>sometimes against rational judgment. But when I found out about this
>path in the mid-1970's, I said, "Great! Let's go for it! I don't
>want to see the brochure. I don't want to see the future. I don't
>want to see what's going to happen, or what price I'll have to pay.
>Just lay it on me." It's kind of like going to the doctor for a
>shot. I know there's a shot involved, but I don't want to see it,
>because then I'd just be hanging back trembling, knowing that I had to
>pay some big Visa bills. And that's never fun.
>
>So I said, "God, please, just give it to me." And so I've jumped into
>more things, and gotten burned more ways from Sunday than you can
>possibly shake a stick at. And for some reason, I just get up and
>say, "Okay, hit me again. Please sir, may I have another?" Because I
>figure - this may be rationalization - but I figure that, when you're
>in the process of working off your karma, every time you get kicked in
>the hind end, that's one time less time that it has to happen. You're
>paying off a debt.
>
>And really, what it is, is like one of those devices you see on those
>old Warner Brothers cartoons with the winch and the crank, and you've
>got the 'ole boot behind you, and you keep pulling the winch on the
>side to make the boot kick you. So really, we're just kicking
>ourselves. Until we finally get tired of pulling the winch. It's not
>fun when it happens. But the key is learning to maintain with the
>meditation. That's a practical, tangible way that Shabda meditation
>works. It gives you this beacon of purity, of clarity, of constancy.
>So even when everything is kind of whirling around you looking funny,
>where everybody seems like an alien or you feel like an alien, and you
>can see all of the games that people play in their plastic
>transparency - you'll get that at some point on your spiritual path,
>suddenly you'll just see everybody's trip, and it's appallingly
>scary. And you think, "My God! They don't see it. This is so
>weird."
>
>But you have to have the emotional balance, the calm, the equipoise to
>look at it like you're reading a book, or looking at a Petri dish -
>not coldly, through the analytical eyes of the mind, but lovingly and
>compassionately, through the eyes of soul, immersed in the golden love
>and eternal beingness of God.
>
>May the blessings be!
>
>
>Michael Turner
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SFS
>alt.meditation.shabda
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