Tag: nonduality

Avinash, born in Brazil, spent many years living in Pune, close to the Indian mystic Osho whom she first met in 1977. From those years she draws a vast experience as a therapist in tarot-reading, chakra- and breath-therapy.

In 1991 in the presence of the Indian mystic Sri Poonjaji (Papaji) in Lucknow she realised her true nature. Together with her partner Gyandeva she spent six years in the community with Papaji who instructed her "to speak the silence she has found". Since then she expresses this silence through words, and lots of people come to her meetings and sessions in Brazil, India and Europe.

Unpretentious, with a clear vision for the essential, Avinash takes people directly to their hearts and to the freedom of the moment. This direct experience of the reality she calls "Simply being".

A modern-day mystic and yogi, Eric Putkonen focuses on nonduality, as seen within the "Direct Path" traditions: Jnana Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism, etc. After searching for thirteen years and awakening in 2005, he has made himself available to whomever wished to speak with him. He directly points towards our true Self and liberation from suffering...that is "Enlightenment."

He began holding meditations and Satsang ("meetings about the Truth of our Essence") in his home in 2006 and met with individuals privately in order to sit together in silence and point towards who/what we really are.

Eric speaks from direct experience and understanding, but the most influential teachers for him have been the work and lives of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, J. Krishnamurti, Mahatma Gandhi, and Paramahansa Yogananda.

What makes Eric's teachings different than another's teachings?

Well, he has realized six truths that he often sees at least one point contrary to other contemporary teachers:

• Not Two (i.e. Advaita or Nonduality) - Others are a mirage, so is a separate self.
  
• Enlightenment, Awakening, Liberation, Moksha, etc. are equivocal terms for the deep realization of the Self.
  
• Enlightenment is sudden & complete...it does not come in stages, levels, or over time.
  
• Enlightenment is not gained, and with Enlightenment there is not anything gained.
  
• Enlightenment is permanent...it can not be lost or go away in some way.
  
• Enlightenment is not the end, and yet there is nothing to do.
  

The true meaning of these six points are not easily understood and often are misunderstood, but are given as the basic tenets of Eric's teachings. He speaks and teaches from these, so (for example) he will not talk about stages of or towards Enlightenment...and in fact, he flatly says that is a part of the illusion. Either we are Enlightened...Awake...or we are still asleep.

Byron Kathleen Reid (or "Katie" as she is called) became severely depressed in her early thirties. She was a businesswoman and mother living in a little town in the high desert of southern California. According to Katie, for almost a decade she spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom. Then, one morning in February 1986, while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders, she experienced a life-changing realization. She described her experience as similar to spiritual awakenings described in Buddhist and Hindu traditions under various names; she called it “waking up to reality.” In that moment of enlightenment, she says:

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.

Soon after her realization people started seeking Katie out and asking how they could find the freedom that they saw in her. People from her town and eventually from elsewhere came to meet her, and some to even live with her.

Katie is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. She is married to the writer and translator Stephen Mitchell, who co-wrote her first book, Loving What Is and her third book, A Thousand Names for Joy.

Katie calls her method of self-inquiry The Work. She describes it as an embodiment, in words, of the wordless questioning that had woken up in her on that February morning. As reports spread about the transformations people felt they were experiencing through The Work, Katie was invited to present it publicly elsewhere in California, then throughout the United States, and eventually in Europe and across the world. She has taught her method to hundreds of thousands of people at free public events, in prisons, hospitals, churches, corporations, shelters for survivors of domestic violence, universities and schools, at weekend intensives, and at her nine-day "School for The Work".

Katie is the author of three bestselling books: “Loving What Is – Four Questions That Can Change Your Life” (with Stephen Mitchell), “I Need Your Love – Is That True?”, “How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead” (with Michael Katz) and the recently published: “A Thousand Names for Joy – Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are” (with Stephen Mitchell). Her latest book is “Question Your Thinking, Change the World: Quotations from Byron Katie”.

Ameen was born in Israel in 1966 and growing up in the Israeli society his passion for freedom was awakened. Although Ameen was never interested in religion or spirituality, he lived unconsciously the life of a spiritual seeker. Even rather young he felt that life in Israel was too restrictive and aggressive. So he was rebellious and critical and his longing for freedom grew. At the age of 18 he was suffering from depression. At that time, being in loneliness and pain, the self began to show itself. Not really knowing what it was, Ameen continued his life. Many years later his longing for freedom guided him to Asia. While meditating in Osho’s Ashram his real self appeared again. In 1998 his personality dissolved completely and awakening happened. After years of integration and understanding Ameen started teaching. His way of human liberation, which he calls "guidance through awakening", is focussed on deepening of the silence and the development of clarity and understanding as a door to the now, the true self.

In Satsang and single sessions Ameen leads through the individual way of awakening and he shows the simplicity that freedom can be found by everyone if he lives a silent and honest life.

More Info about Ameen
www.ameen.be

he most direct path to Self-realization is the study of Truth, deep meditation and the association with the Guru, the physical embodiment of the living principles of Truth.

No teacher reflects Truth with greater clarity than Francis Lucille. With impersonal compassion, he gently instructs his students and, by his presence, permits them to witness how universal principles can manifest in the human being.

He is humble and makes absolutely no effort to promote his body of work. It is merely available as a service to those desiring further pointers on the path to Self-realization.

Francis reflects such humility and compassion that is easy to overlook the enormity of his tireless and timeless gift to us.

He is second to none and those of us who have benefited from his company owe him a debt of gratituted that we will never be able to repay. You can visit his website directly at www.francislucille.com. There you will find information on his work, his retreats and how to reach him directly.

For those who have had the pleasure of spending time with him, Francis frequently refers to the works of Eastern and Western sages. What many do not know is that Francis translated some of the original documents he refers to in his dialogues. Click here to read his translation of Meister Eckhart (The Poor Man: Mathew 5:3), of Shankara (Atma Bodha), and Parmenides (On Reality).

Cory Bright follows no path and yet embraces ALL. The core of the sharing is mostly nondual however honors the appearances but is clear that they appear for no one. No "me" , no self, no "I", etc.

It is an "apparent" integration of appearances without compromise of wholeness or buying into those appearances and the story of who we think we are as real.

It is also shared that awareness is instant and direct as is already who you are! Ending the search if you apparently choose or/and honoring it preferable as the joyful adventure that it arises as.

Born in New York to Jewish parents in 1950, growing up mostly in North Carolina, Saniel felt from early on that he “was going to be part of something that would change the course of human history — for the better.” By the time he received a B.A. in Social Relations from Harvard in 1972, a quest for spiritual enlightenment had become the focus of his life.

During the years of his search he benefited from both Eastern and Western teachings and transmissions — as well as from the training in integrity, tolerance, compassion, and perseverance he received from his parents and secondary school mentors. His quest culminated in December 1992 in the awakening he calls his Second Birth.

He has been a pioneer in the widespread embodiment and mutual, evolutionary exploration of awakened consciousness for over a decade.

More Info at http://www.sanielandlinda.com/

The author's description of his enlightenment.

I was 55 years old. One morning, waking up from my sleep, I noticed that, psychologically, I was functioning differently from the night before. The mind had lost its usual turmoil. In a state of serenity I had never felt before, I was functioning in perfect communion with my whole somatic structure.
My surprise was so great that it prevented me from understanding the mysterious phenomenon as I didn’t manage to put it into words. I had read, of course, lots of descriptions of Enlightenment, Liberation, but there is a great difference between mere intellectual knowledge and directly experiencing the phenomenon.
Only after a couple of hours I realized what had happened to me, without pursuing this “something” as an ideal to accomplish. I was, to use a simile, in the situation of a man blind from birth, who had just gained his sight after undergoing surgery. Everything around me was as new. I had an overall perspective on things. A silent mind allows the senses to perceive things as they are.
The mind in its totality had become, through silence, an immense mirror in which the outside world was reflected. And the world I was perceiving directly through my senses revealed its own reality to me. My fellow beings, close friends or complete strangers, were being regarded indiscriminately, with a feeling of love I had never felt before.
If any reaction of the mind surfaced, it disappeared immediately in contact with the sparkle of impersonal Attention. A state of quiet and all-encompassing joy characterized me in all circumstances, whether pleasant or painful. My behaviour was that of a simple witness, perfectly aware of what was happening around me, without affecting my all-encompassing state of peace.
The State of Sublime is, of course, difficult to describe, but not impossible to experience by someone who authentically practices awareness. In order to communicate it, a simple and direct language is used, which is not filtered through reason, because the “ego” with its subjective perception is no longer there. To put it this way: the psychological emptiness is the one who lives in the present moment, expresses this encounter into words and still remains present and available to the next moment.
As a result of this direct encounter with the moment, always new and renewing itself, I felt the need, fueled by intuitive impulses, to express “Self-knowing” using verse. It was a natural thing to do. In few words I could encompass and communicate the essence of the experience.
In the first year I wrote 300 poems. Later on, their number reached 1000, of which 600 are accompanied by prose explanations, such as the ones in this book.
I would also like to describe a few effects which, as a result of becoming aware of the reactions of my own thinking process, have completely disappeared, without any other intervention from my mind.
After experiencing this phenomenon, I felt as a broken vessel, from which the following started to disappear: my interest in astral journeying, my religious beliefs, my egoism, desires, fear, envy, pride etc. My awareness remained open all the time, offering me the possibility to pass from the finite dimension into Infinity.
When encountering this extraordinary phenomenon, with the help of a global perspective, I understood the whole human tragedy, caused by the misinterpretation of life in its constant mobility and newness from one moment to the next.
Life cannot be encountered and understood objectively unless we are in a state of complete freedom and serenity of the mind. Life is always new, from one moment to another, and it demands, even forces us to encounter it with a new mind, with a new brain and with new brain cells, which have not been used previously. It is a well known fact, scientists claim that man, during the whole span of his life uses no more than 10-15% of his brain cells and memory potential. As you can see, our psychological possibilities are unlimited.
After these explanations, it will be easier to understand the process of our own conditioning, as well as the phenomenon of breaking the shell of the “ego”.
As I had shown previously, life demands that we encounter it directly, without any memory baggage.
How do we lose the memory baggage? Easy, very easy. Here is how:
We encounter the movement of the mind with the flame of total Attention - requested by the aliveness of life in its continuous flow. Without the light and serenity provided by Attention, nothing can be understood in a real way.
In the light of Attention, any reaction of the mind (thought, image, fear, desire), which functions chaotically, obsessively and dominates us, is instantly dissolved. In the psychological void that follows, a new mind appears which expands into Infinity, as a state of Pure Consciousness, pure understanding as well as transformative action.
This simple state of “being” is in itself an action, where the entity who performs the action doesn’t exist anymore. The old man, conditioned by his behavioural patterns, loses its authority as the chaotic, uncontrollable reactions dissolve - they are the energies which sustain and fuel the “ego”. Only in this way, by a simple encounter with the reactions of the mind and its subsequent demise, the barrier of the “ego” is broken. Through a momentary opening, our real being is revealed - which alone can transform and heal us.
The total Attention without any purpose is the Sacred itself in action. There is, in fact, another type of attention directed by will, which behaves subjectively by limiting itself to one object. By its own nature, this type of attention defines itself as lack of attention.

In the peace of the soul, in the passiveness of the mind, in the psychological emptiness or stillness - who exists nevertheless? When the usual mind is silent, can you notice that, as silence takes over, a new mind appears, which expands into Infinity and defines itself as Pure Consciousness?
Thus we discover that we are a simple ”being”, “here and now”, boundless - one with Infinity. In this simplicity, there are no expectations or purpose, because the “ego” has completely disappeared. This is the Absolute Truth, existent within us and everywhere around us, revealing itself to us when we open the gate, through the humble silence of the mind.
Such realizations, on moments of existence, operate radical transformations which will eventually shatter the fortress of the “ego”, whose prisoner you are as long as the mind dominates you and as long as you give psychological importance to the mind.
When this fiction disappears, melting into the Sublime, we experience creative Intelligence, Love, Beauty and Happiness, which direct our behaviour through intuitive impulses.