The Spiritual Path Towards Liberation
The goal of ‘Liberation’ is to
De-program our mistaken identity of being an ego mind body.
The essential endeavors to become “Self-Realized” is a required process.
Since we don’t really know who or what ‘we’ are,
we can use negative deduction to whittle down the objects that are not Ultimately…
our True Being.
We are ‘not this… not that’ – Sanskrit term is ‘Netti Netti’.
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When we become “Enlightened” to our True Nature,
we become ‘Liberated’ from the pain and suffering
that is caused by the ignorance of mistaking our True Identity as
a limited food-based entity… AKA – the ego body mind.
Each step along this ‘Path’ brings more and more relief from life’s inherent pain and suffering…
However,
this will not be a permanent Liberation until the final ‘Fruition’ of Enlightenment.
But never the less…
Each step along this ‘Path’ will give fresh new meaning to one’s life.
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Embodying the Conventional Wisdoms into our daily groove
will allow us to be in harmony with our True Nature,
this goes a long way towards allowing the perspectives of our True Being
to become our ‘Natural State of awareness’.
There are three main pillars of A Non Dual
Spiritual Path of Higher Consciousness Towards Liberation.
Conventional Wisdoms
Concentration Meditations
Insight Meditations
The first step, is also the last step, and all steps along the Path…
One must study, contemplate, and put into action these:
Conventional Wisdoms:
A balanced psychological perspective.
All of the Buddha’s teachings are in fact
the world’s original wisdoms of balanced psychological perspectives.
To the average mentally healthy person,
the Buddhas teachings are all that is required
to engage in an effective and meaningful spiritual Path.
However,
if your life has had it’s challenges that have created strong mental road blocks
to an otherwise peaceful nature…
then a wee bit of work with those challenges will be necessary…
but well worth the effort.
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Modern psychology has many facets that focus on the broad spectrum of
a general healthy mindset along with specializing in the particular aspects of
individual ‘shadow issues’ and mental challenges.
One can’t effectively navigate a deep and meaningful spiritual Path
if they do not got a good grip on their ‘stuff’.
Mental baggage and unresolved issues will keep one from achieving
‘one pointed’ mindfulness necessary later down the Path of Insights.
A Reasonable Life Philosophy.
The Buddha’s Noble Eight-Fold Path is a good start.
I have a relatively concise body of knowledge that will give a seeker
a good introduction, there are many more helpful information written by others
that will help one to understand the Buddha’s Noble Eight-Fold Path and
most importantly…
To embody these Wisdoms in one’s daily life.
https://mauimarryingman.com/category/buddhas-noble-eight-fold-path/
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Study the Tao – this will align one with the natural flow life and beyond.
Study all teachings of “Non-Dual Spiritual Perspectives.
Along with the many teachings from the Buddha,
Dzogchen and Advaita Vedanta offer a vast resource
of the fundamental essential aspects.
Morals and Virtues
Integrate morals, virtues, compassion, full spectrum mindfulness,
joy, and happiness into your daily groove.
Love all – Serve all – and create no sorrow – Including yourself!
All reasonable spiritual traditions and even ‘mythic literal’ religions like Christianity
were at least originally based on Morals and Virtues…
Even if they lost the thread along the way through history.
Concentration Meditations
Concentration meditation practices will help us focus with ‘one pointedness.’
This allows us to gradually take control over our bio-computer brain,
which naturally generates thoughts upon thoughts
like a random number generating computer.
It’s useful for many conventional challenges in this life, but
when we learn to turn if off or hibernate it,
we can then move closer towards abiding in our True Nature.
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The more we abide in our True Nature,
the more natural this perspective becomes and the less attached to
the mistaken identity of being an ego mind body.
Our True Self is Boundless Awareness… There is a Boundless Spaciousness to it.
There is no thinking, comparing, conceptualizing about the past or future…
Everything always happens in the ‘now moment’.
The less our dependance on the mistaken identity of there being a ‘self’ that is control of everything,
the more our True Self is free to just be… what is left is just Awareness…
with a sense of Boundless Spaciousness.
This also feels like a relief from all the responsibilities that come with being a limited ‘self’…
so it also feels like Bliss… This Un-conditioned Happiness is our True Nature.
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To be aware of what it is about ‘us’ that is… aware…
is the general perspective of our ‘True Self’.
With time you will differentiate the mind/brain’s ability to pay attention to where ‘we’ direct it… however,
the brain/mind will always interpret what the sense organs reports
and add it’s filters of biases, memories and past experiences to whatever our attention is on.
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When we tap into our ‘Center’… our True Nature…
There is a feeling of relief.
Knowing ‘we’ are not our limited ego mind bodies that suffers
the psychological pain that the challenges of life will always throw at us…
along with getting sick, old, and then die…
Simply by knowing our True Self…
We can then relax and enjoy our life, knowing that ultimately,
all the challenges we have faced and will endure is only our story…
Our story is not what defines us eternally.
Tapping into our ‘center’, our True Self…
It starts as a subconscious feeling, that blossoms into
a Blissful peaceful easy feeling.
It feels like unconditioned happiness.
Normally
in our old conventional lives, happiness tends to always be
conditioned on objects we think makes us happy.
But this is not true happiness,
it’s only a phase between two periods of Unhappiness.
So,
when the happiness that was caused by one object fades
and unhappiness arises…
We tend to run out a seek another object
that will instill that happiness we once felt.
This is also akin to the donkey with a carrot on a stick,
just out of reach.
Our lives become like that donkey.
This is just one of the profound issues that an aspirant seeks
to become Liberated from.
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Concentration meditations always utilize an object of meditation,
typically the breath.
Later down the Path, when Insight meditations are practiced,
there are no objects of meditation…
One only abides in the Blissfully peaceful easy feeling of their True Nature.
But until one has significantly mastered the aspects of concentration meditation,
an object will be necessary to keep the monkey mind
from jumping from one thought to another.
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Bringing our attention to various objects
allows us to go deeper into that area of focus.
At first, we follow our breath.
It flows through our nose, down to our lungs and back out.
Also of profound significance is our energetic life force, “prana” or Qi (chi)…
Which also flows along with the breath.
It travels along nearby channels that intersect at various ‘crossroads’
called chakras.
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If this sound like new age fluff & nonsense,
consider that the Chinese have well documented these energetic life forces
and created a very detailed map of how they flow through the body.
By manipulating this flow,
they can effect many aspects of physical healing within the body.
Qi (Chi) – is the force that gives marshal artist like Bruce Lee
His larger-than-life power.
Still a skeptic?
Have a Kung Fu Master use all of his Chi to hit your chest.
Once reincarnated… there will be a different perspective.
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When we bring our awareness to the chakras, one at a time,
we become attuned to this energetic field,
we can then control it and expand it with practice.
Using the practices of Kriya Yoga and Kundalini work,
we can effectively build this flow to a quite noticeable vibration,
a tingling sensation, that as we move our awareness from
the bottom chakras to our crown chakra, a glowing feeling is experienced.
This ‘after glow’ from these Kriya and Kundalini practices
form the objectless meditations involved with ‘Insight Meditations’,
the next phase on the Path…
To fully learn and put into practice the spiritual Path up to this point,
Read the entire series of books, starting with:
Kriya Yoga Exposed by SantataGamana
Insight Meditations
When an aspirant has completed the necessary practices that essentially
‘purifies’ the mind to the point that one can remain ‘one pointed’ on
an object of meditation for longer and longer periods of time…
and can easily achieve the ‘after glow’ of prana Qi (chi) practices…
Insight meditation then becomes the ‘practice-less practice’, in that
no longer is one working hard to “do” something,
like purify the mind and focus ‘one pointedly’…
One just sits… they don’t ‘do’… they just… ‘Be’.
Surrender…
and allow Grace to do what will come naturally.
All of that has somewhat become a natural way to … just sit.
Zazen as it is called in Zen.
Abiding in Rigpa, as Tibetan Dzogchen master’s teach.
Abiding in one’s True Nature, as taught in Advaita Vedanta…
The longer one practices these ‘insight meditations’,
the more often the wordless Wisdoms of Insight will naturally arise…
it is Grace in action.
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While these Insights are being experienced, there is no conventional mind
to conceptualize what is going on.
If the mind does jump in and start questioning and thinking about it…
The whole insight process dissolves…
It’s not about the thinking mind…
It’s about re-programing our perspectives away from the ego mind body
and to just rest in our True Nature.
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It is in the ever-deepening Insight meditations
that various states of consciousness arise.
They range from pure Bliss, ecstatic Bliss, Rapture…
and will often involve various ‘Samadhi’s’…
states in which one becomes at one with various perspectives of
being at one with it all, or at least any particular aspect
that arises by serendipity or on purpose.
Taken deeper,
one will experience “The God state’ called Turiya.
In this state,
One experiences what can later be described as finding “God”.
Again,
During these states,
one can not think about it, or contemplate it…
Only later can one attempt to contemplate the experience.
At this point in one’s Path, the experience of ‘God’ arises…
It can feel like one is ‘at one with God’… then, ‘they’ are ‘God’…
Then,
It is profoundly experienced that…
There is no ‘God’ that is outside of the person…
And,
There is no longer a person as previously perceived as an ego mind body.
There is just inseparable Unity.
Not an ego over here, at one with an ‘all the rest’ over there.
A Oneness of all that is.
This is Non-Duality.
The aspirant will continue to practice Insight meditations
while in formal sitting sessions, then
continue the ‘after glow’ into all moments of daily life…
The meditation ‘after Glow’ is called Parvastha in Sanskrit:
The “after-kriya” blissful self-awareness state.
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This eventually begins to take over the sleeping and dreaming states as well.
This new perspective become absorbed into one’s being…
This profound phase is called – Absorption.
Continuing this practice will eventually lead to the total disappearance of
one’s perspective of being the limited ego mind body.
This is Liberation… Enlightenment… Self-Realization.
The ultimate goal attainable of the human form.
Once one has read all of the series of books by SantataGamana,
Study this book and put these wisdoms into practice…
It will indeed be…
Liberating.
Liberation – by Av Neryah