Dear Hari,
One of the common understanding between the spiritualists of today is that, as they say: "It`s all God." Do you agree to this premises or is there something more to it?
It`s all God
Re: It`s all God
What is "it's"? I mean, what a vague question 
If this is supposed to mean everything is God, well, that sounds like vasudeva sarvam iti. How you deal with that depends on how your philosophy works. I might say everything is the energy of God and the energy and the energetic source are one and the same. But, since the energy of the Supreme is diverse and multifarious, one can also say that everything is spirit, yet everything has its own nature and quality. Each living being has a unique personality. Considering this, saying everything is God sounds good, but lacks the depth of meaning that the speaker might have intended. If you say that everything is awesome, then everything is the same, and what is the use of a life where everything is the same? So if someone says "it's all God" with the idea of negating the individuated aspects of God then they are cheating themselves out of the wonderful variety that exists in the universe.
But if someone says it's all God referring to the underlying motivation or force behind a particular act, such as the loss of money or a family member and so on, they are saying that it is the will of God. Even if we could argue the point, why would we do that when someone is suffering?
If this is supposed to mean everything is God, well, that sounds like vasudeva sarvam iti. How you deal with that depends on how your philosophy works. I might say everything is the energy of God and the energy and the energetic source are one and the same. But, since the energy of the Supreme is diverse and multifarious, one can also say that everything is spirit, yet everything has its own nature and quality. Each living being has a unique personality. Considering this, saying everything is God sounds good, but lacks the depth of meaning that the speaker might have intended. If you say that everything is awesome, then everything is the same, and what is the use of a life where everything is the same? So if someone says "it's all God" with the idea of negating the individuated aspects of God then they are cheating themselves out of the wonderful variety that exists in the universe.
But if someone says it's all God referring to the underlying motivation or force behind a particular act, such as the loss of money or a family member and so on, they are saying that it is the will of God. Even if we could argue the point, why would we do that when someone is suffering?
Re: It`s all God
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Yes Hari, it`s also my personal experience that, as you say: "Each living being has a unique personality." Now you may have noticed that I edited my comment here a few times not knowing exactly how to put that which preoccupies me in the right words. The great majority of people who give spiritual guidance nowadays seem to have the understanding that the dissolution of this "unique personality" would be the goal of ones spiritual practice.
A well known person says for instance: "It´s so simple to know who you are beyond the surface self. And that doesn't mean you can´t remember your history anymore, of course you can remember your personal history, that's fine. But you are no longer trapped in that exclusively personalized sense of me. It`s such a frustrating thing to live just with this little me. Always feels threatened by things and needs to identify with other things, and never feeling complete; never feeling satisfied for very long; always a sense of not enough. An awful way to live.
So, we are transcending that. And that's the shift in consciousness. And than as you bring in into your daily life that spacious awareness, the awareness of yourself as spacious consciousness, which you could also call stillness - there is a stillness - even as you speak you can still feel the underlying presence. In the foreground you speak, you listen, you do things, in the background is spacious awareness. In other words you sense your own presence - which is not your own - because your own presence is one with the universal presence. You might have mentioned I don't use the word god."
Now if I am in my spiritual essence an "individuated aspect of God", as you put it, do I dissolve myself and fuse again with God when I am aware or sense again my spiritual essence? I know that with the thinking mind and intellect all this is hard to fathom, but maybe you can give me some hints which could help me to better understand and experience this issue.
Yes Hari, it`s also my personal experience that, as you say: "Each living being has a unique personality." Now you may have noticed that I edited my comment here a few times not knowing exactly how to put that which preoccupies me in the right words. The great majority of people who give spiritual guidance nowadays seem to have the understanding that the dissolution of this "unique personality" would be the goal of ones spiritual practice.
A well known person says for instance: "It´s so simple to know who you are beyond the surface self. And that doesn't mean you can´t remember your history anymore, of course you can remember your personal history, that's fine. But you are no longer trapped in that exclusively personalized sense of me. It`s such a frustrating thing to live just with this little me. Always feels threatened by things and needs to identify with other things, and never feeling complete; never feeling satisfied for very long; always a sense of not enough. An awful way to live.
So, we are transcending that. And that's the shift in consciousness. And than as you bring in into your daily life that spacious awareness, the awareness of yourself as spacious consciousness, which you could also call stillness - there is a stillness - even as you speak you can still feel the underlying presence. In the foreground you speak, you listen, you do things, in the background is spacious awareness. In other words you sense your own presence - which is not your own - because your own presence is one with the universal presence. You might have mentioned I don't use the word god."
Now if I am in my spiritual essence an "individuated aspect of God", as you put it, do I dissolve myself and fuse again with God when I am aware or sense again my spiritual essence? I know that with the thinking mind and intellect all this is hard to fathom, but maybe you can give me some hints which could help me to better understand and experience this issue.
Re: It`s all God
Dissolution of an acquired personality that has been accepted within this realm of physicality is not a bad thing. Most spiritual practices ask you to drop off coverings.
When I speak of the essence of being, personality is the energy that is unique to you as the individuated being you are. It cannot be dissolved, only covered.
To uncover that essence, one has to drop off the acquired aspects that are not essence. When that is done, one may with ease naturally feel the connection that we all have to the divine and each other.
If those you quote are saying that the personal essence you are is also to be dropped, I would disagree. First of all, it is not possible. Second, I am sure they have not experienced self. But I am not sure this is what they meant to imply. I have little interest to defend or criticize others who you present here. Not my thing...
When I speak of the essence of being, personality is the energy that is unique to you as the individuated being you are. It cannot be dissolved, only covered.
To uncover that essence, one has to drop off the acquired aspects that are not essence. When that is done, one may with ease naturally feel the connection that we all have to the divine and each other.
If those you quote are saying that the personal essence you are is also to be dropped, I would disagree. First of all, it is not possible. Second, I am sure they have not experienced self. But I am not sure this is what they meant to imply. I have little interest to defend or criticize others who you present here. Not my thing...
Re: It`s all God
Thank you Hari. It is always a great pleasure and honor for me to read your explanations which make so much sense to me, and exchange my spiritual experiences with you. It is very true that, as you say: "most spiritual practices ask you to drop off coverings." The question is just whose coverings are they really?
Yesterday I was watching somebody speaking online from London. A person was asking the question: "I want to be a better me. I want to be before I am, how do I reach there, without always judging myself and not thinking that I´m not good enough? For many years since I´ve been born I always feel that I am not good enough, and I´m tired of that. I want to be myself, how do I get there and be a better person?" The answer of this man was: "Don`t be a better person. Being a better person is fine, but it`s not the same as being your true self. Because sometimes being a better person is linked with how people perceive you and all of this things. But your self is something quite beyond that. And it is easier than being a better person. You see, because it is already here..."
"We believe that you must grow through our conditioning and become a better person, and tehnic and practice, and grow and so on, and this has its place. But that is not what I am pointing to here. I say that all those stages there are still illusory, they are not true. Your true self is the only true thing that's here. It`s the only true thing that's here. Nobody can do anything for it; nobody can perfect it; or help it; it is the ever pure; it is your god-self. It is not somewhere else in another dimension waiting for you, it´s right here in the core of your being."
"Than you may say but how can I, how can I reach it, you see. And this voice, I want to say to everybody about it, the voice which we so trust in ourselves that says: "yes I really want to find, I really want to come home to myself" is universal, it´s a universal voice. "I want to come back to myself." And it is part of the play, the great play of life, that consciousness will adopt a human garment and say you know, and go through this life of seeking and finding, and leaving and going all this ..."
Is it also your experience and reached understanding, Hari, that our true self cannot or is not really meant to be perfected in some way, as it is already the ever pure "god-self ", or akin or similar to god, godlike self, to say it in another way, at the core of our being? We would just have to become aware of that, cognize it and integrate that cognition, that awareness, knowledge and realization into our being and our life.
Yesterday I was watching somebody speaking online from London. A person was asking the question: "I want to be a better me. I want to be before I am, how do I reach there, without always judging myself and not thinking that I´m not good enough? For many years since I´ve been born I always feel that I am not good enough, and I´m tired of that. I want to be myself, how do I get there and be a better person?" The answer of this man was: "Don`t be a better person. Being a better person is fine, but it`s not the same as being your true self. Because sometimes being a better person is linked with how people perceive you and all of this things. But your self is something quite beyond that. And it is easier than being a better person. You see, because it is already here..."
"We believe that you must grow through our conditioning and become a better person, and tehnic and practice, and grow and so on, and this has its place. But that is not what I am pointing to here. I say that all those stages there are still illusory, they are not true. Your true self is the only true thing that's here. It`s the only true thing that's here. Nobody can do anything for it; nobody can perfect it; or help it; it is the ever pure; it is your god-self. It is not somewhere else in another dimension waiting for you, it´s right here in the core of your being."
"Than you may say but how can I, how can I reach it, you see. And this voice, I want to say to everybody about it, the voice which we so trust in ourselves that says: "yes I really want to find, I really want to come home to myself" is universal, it´s a universal voice. "I want to come back to myself." And it is part of the play, the great play of life, that consciousness will adopt a human garment and say you know, and go through this life of seeking and finding, and leaving and going all this ..."
Is it also your experience and reached understanding, Hari, that our true self cannot or is not really meant to be perfected in some way, as it is already the ever pure "god-self ", or akin or similar to god, godlike self, to say it in another way, at the core of our being? We would just have to become aware of that, cognize it and integrate that cognition, that awareness, knowledge and realization into our being and our life.
Re: It`s all God
Yup, but I do not use terms like "core of being." Being is the core. It does not have a core.
A covering is anything that makes one feel that one is different than what one is. When one no longer has that misconception, one's body. mind, and all things connected to the physical and emotional self are permeated by one's essence.
A covering is anything that makes one feel that one is different than what one is. When one no longer has that misconception, one's body. mind, and all things connected to the physical and emotional self are permeated by one's essence.
Re: It`s all God
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It`s really remarcable, Hari, to discuss this spiritual topics with you. You are so clearly and promptly able to put your finger on the weak spots - also a question of attitude and interpretation - of somebodies presentations on spiritual truth. It makes sense to me that being does not have any ´other´ core, it rather "is the core" of my spiritual existence. I hope I understood you corectly in this regard. That´s a slightly different viepoint than what the man I mentioned above tried to make the questioner understand.
It was interesting for me in this regard, what I found online when I googled the expression "core of being". On a website to a new film one can read:
.» Trailer
"That's the story of a journey - the venture of the individual into the forgotten, deeper and deeper until the core of being.
LÄNGTAN (the name of the movie) is the attempt to understand the own individual definition in a new way - to remember, what we are - parts of the nature."
I find this to be highly appropriate to what we discuss here. Is our own individual, personal, existence just an ilusion we have to overcome in order to get and find the One and Only who/which is at the core of our individual being? Some spiritualists see it like this. Others say our own individual, personal, existence exists and thus makes up, forms, that of the One. We would thus be the components of the One or the individual "parts of the nature" to say it with the expression used in the description of the above mentioned movie. Others say our own spiritual existence exists at the same time as that of the One. What is your understanding and perception on all this, Hari? Of course more easier would it be to say: does it really matter in some way.
It`s really remarcable, Hari, to discuss this spiritual topics with you. You are so clearly and promptly able to put your finger on the weak spots - also a question of attitude and interpretation - of somebodies presentations on spiritual truth. It makes sense to me that being does not have any ´other´ core, it rather "is the core" of my spiritual existence. I hope I understood you corectly in this regard. That´s a slightly different viepoint than what the man I mentioned above tried to make the questioner understand.
It was interesting for me in this regard, what I found online when I googled the expression "core of being". On a website to a new film one can read:
.» Trailer"That's the story of a journey - the venture of the individual into the forgotten, deeper and deeper until the core of being.
LÄNGTAN (the name of the movie) is the attempt to understand the own individual definition in a new way - to remember, what we are - parts of the nature."
I find this to be highly appropriate to what we discuss here. Is our own individual, personal, existence just an ilusion we have to overcome in order to get and find the One and Only who/which is at the core of our individual being? Some spiritualists see it like this. Others say our own individual, personal, existence exists and thus makes up, forms, that of the One. We would thus be the components of the One or the individual "parts of the nature" to say it with the expression used in the description of the above mentioned movie. Others say our own spiritual existence exists at the same time as that of the One. What is your understanding and perception on all this, Hari? Of course more easier would it be to say: does it really matter in some way.
Re: It`s all God
I personaly, if I can say it like that, made the experience that people who argue that all is God that is, that exists, do not really negate the "variety that exists in the universe". What they rather say as I was reading ones is, that a very intriguing aspect of God is that God is existing (is immanent, is indwelling, etc.) in both the aspects the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the right and the wrong, the positive and the negative, the high and the low, the conceivable and the inconceivable, mortality and immortality, existence and nonexistence. As discussed in this video for example.Hari wrote: So if someone says "it's all God" with the idea of negating the individuated aspects of God then they are cheating themselves out of the wonderful variety that exists in the universe.
So if you say that by uncovering the essence, the spiritual consciousness that we are, we may with ease naturally feel the connection that we all have to the divine and each other, could one not also say that actualy it´s all the play of God in his "individuated aspects", the one pure, "divine", consciousness in its variegatedness, that is, might be, busy with themselves, itself, since it permeates, is immanent, in all that is?
Re: It`s all God
I see that you are playing with thought experiments to see if they relate to your own experiences. That is fine and your conclusions will be interesting. Me commenting on the twists and turns within your experiments is not required. You last conclusion is interesting and you should play with it more.
You do not need me at this point. Continue to research and see where it leads you!
You do not need me at this point. Continue to research and see where it leads you!
Re: It`s all God
Fine I will do that. You complained ones in a broadcast in 2010 about people who would continue to insist that you remain some kind of guru figure that they were familiar with from former times. Now I don´t do that anymore, but I do value your insight and I do appreciate it when something you say. or write, makes sense to me. Unlike as it was in the "old days" where you were urged to accept what people like you were saying, and teaching, just because you were considered to be an authority in the field, whose advise one would have to follow without delay if one would be sincere in reaching ones envisaged spiritual goal.
That is one of the main reasons of my enquires from you on this or other topics discussed in this forum. Your style of teaching seems to me to correlate with the teaching of a Zen master who was ones asked by one of his disciples: "What happens after death?" The master replied to his pupil: "I don't know, let´s wait and we shall see." With a certain degree of astonishment the disciple replied: "But you are the master, who should know it than if not you?" The Zen master replied: "Yes, you're right, but I am not a dead master." In other words "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." as the provern goes. Ones own wealth of experience is been considered to be equal to or above those acquired just in ones mind from various sources, or from the teachings of others.
Could you identiy yourself with this style of teaching, Hari? Is it that kind of self inquiry, to enhance the process of self-exploration in this field, you would like to foster in the people searching for spiritual advice from you? On the other hand those searching for advice often appraise their own competences at a very low level. So what to do, how to find or where is the right balance on this matter?
Also worth mentioning is what you were saying in that broadcast I mentioned above: "I have been trying to see things from the point of view of the divine. Instead of telling you what to do, I am trying to facilitate your realization of who you are, so that you may yourself know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, why to do it."
That is one of the main reasons of my enquires from you on this or other topics discussed in this forum. Your style of teaching seems to me to correlate with the teaching of a Zen master who was ones asked by one of his disciples: "What happens after death?" The master replied to his pupil: "I don't know, let´s wait and we shall see." With a certain degree of astonishment the disciple replied: "But you are the master, who should know it than if not you?" The Zen master replied: "Yes, you're right, but I am not a dead master." In other words "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." as the provern goes. Ones own wealth of experience is been considered to be equal to or above those acquired just in ones mind from various sources, or from the teachings of others.
Could you identiy yourself with this style of teaching, Hari? Is it that kind of self inquiry, to enhance the process of self-exploration in this field, you would like to foster in the people searching for spiritual advice from you? On the other hand those searching for advice often appraise their own competences at a very low level. So what to do, how to find or where is the right balance on this matter?
Also worth mentioning is what you were saying in that broadcast I mentioned above: "I have been trying to see things from the point of view of the divine. Instead of telling you what to do, I am trying to facilitate your realization of who you are, so that you may yourself know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, why to do it."
Re: It`s all God
Well, you have heard enough of my lectures to know how I do things. So remember what I did and then apply your experience to the various techniques you are familiar with and see if there is a match! And yes, the last statement of mine you quote does indeed reveal a lot!
I am not happy with you appraising yourself at a lower level than you are, and therefore I am always interested in helping you act according to your potential. In your case, giving you answers has little value. My task is to help you see how your own investigative capacity and your ability to come to your own perfectly valid and useful conclusions is far greater than you might think.
I am not happy with you appraising yourself at a lower level than you are, and therefore I am always interested in helping you act according to your potential. In your case, giving you answers has little value. My task is to help you see how your own investigative capacity and your ability to come to your own perfectly valid and useful conclusions is far greater than you might think.