Truth on the Run E-Book

Bill Lindley

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 533

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

He held no degree and could not claim any special lineage. Modern day sage and teacher Bill Lindley encouraged everyone to go ahead and look for themselves, reinvent the spiritual wheel, and then integrate one's spiritual life into his or her everyday life. Known as Ahimsananda, Bill wrote Truth on the Run the last year of his life after being diagnosed with cancer. When writing these essays Bill demonstrated an urgency and single mindedness never seen in all the forty years he and his life partner were together. A fierce earnestness became his compass on a daily basis, as exemplified by his guru Nisargadatta Maharaj. A rich account of his life experiences as a former Christian monk gone "too independent" easily guides the reader through religious tradition and difficult concepts such as non-duality. This is the enlarged 2nd edition.

Leseprobe

For

Tom, Bill’s brother

And Bill’s Facebook Friends

Contents

Preface Note

Introduction

Fearlessness in Divergence: Beyond the Safety of the Masters

Education: Help or Stumbling Block?

Nebulous Clarity

Emotion in the Search Beyond “I Am”

The Lord’s Prayer as Advaita Meditation

Unlimited Potentiality and the Circle of Love

The Cloud of Unknowing

Yajna

:

Worship in Sacrifice

The Bhakti of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Don’t Mistake Success in Practice for Awareness

The Fear of Love

Eat Your Vegetables First, Enlightenment for Dessert!

Hymn to the Absolute

Living Non-Duality

Enlightenment and Mental Illness

Sound Effects, Conditioning, and Pavlov’s Dogs

Non-Duality, Poverty, and the Cross

The Empty Vessel Catches the Rain: Non-Duality and Christian Contemplation

What Are You Looking For? Seeking Without the Seeker

Advent, Incarnation, and Non-Duality

Noel: A Spiritual Children’s Book for Christmas

Living on Love Alone: Confessions of a Spiritual Teacher

Christmas: The Incarnation of Love

December 26th: The Turning Point of Commitment

The Child Behind the Mask

The Child Inside: The Practice of Observing the Child

The Absolute: Life as It Is, Even the Sad Bits!

The Finger Pointing at the Moon: Could It Be Me?

Love without an Object: Non-Duality in Action

Realization, Awareness and Enlightenment

Service: Completing the Circle of Love

The Possibility of Possibility: The Unlimited Potential that You Are

Eucharist: Non-Duality and the Circle of Love

Negative Space as the Lighted Screen

Sweet Biscuits and Unconditional Love

Ash Wednesday: A Non-Dual Perspective

My Life in the Clouds: An Awakening to Love

Living “As If”

Work Out Your Enlightenment with Fear and Trembling

Mr

.

Rogers, Me, and Remembering Non-Dual Awareness

Imaginary Horses and Spiritual Experiences

Living Accordingly: Life as Practice

Enlightenment: In Sorrow and In Joy

Light in the Darkness: Watching the Sunrise

The Facebook Bus: Spirit Tour

I Am Here!

Awakening Out of Madness

The Key to the Door

Is This What You Want?

Living Joyfully as Nothing

A Hike in the Spring: What a Lesson!

Whispering Rabbits and the Resonance of the Spirit of Love

Reflections of the Source

Those Who Return to the Cave: Spiritual Teachers

Seeking Love Only and Getting Joyfully Lost!

Teaching with Love and Wisdom

A Laughter of the Heart

Just Think About Something: A Good Friday Meditation

And We Are All Love!

Non-Duality and the Other

Keystrokes of Ego, Keystrokes of Love: Spirituality on Facebook

Nothingness, the Unexplainable, Reality and “Oh give me a break!”

Asperger’s, Earnestness, and Freedom

Getting Off Your Spiritual Backside

No-Duality, the Mind, and Potato Salad

Timelessness: Living in Awe

The Memory Child and the Kingdom of Heaven

A Non-Dual Perspective on Morality

Living Out Non-Duality: Do We Have a Choice?

The Problem of God

Ending in a Child’s Giggle

Time and Awakening: Follow Up to My Internet Interview

Unfolding

Non-Duality and the Facebook One-Room Classroom

We Are Not the Dancers, Only the Dance!

The Sparkling Wonder

My Angel

Pinocchio: A Story of Enlightenment

“Oh, My God!”

Tell Us All You Dare!

Swallowed Up in the Unfolding of Love

Observing the Comic World

Just the Beginning

The Loving Eyes of Poverty

Earnestness: Damn It! It is as Simple as That!

We Are All Together

Wake Up, Wake Up

The New Traditions of Non-Duality

Expressions of Love

God and I Are One, When God and I Are Not

The Little Man at the Foot of the Bed

We Have No Secrets, Only Love

Nothing But Love

Is It Possible to Love Too Much?

An Open Invitation

Surrender Everything

Which Came First?

Enlightenment and Depression

Offering False Hope

The Shadow as a Weapon

Living Skinless

Love without Reward: The Dance Itself!

The Trouble with “God” Revisited

The Call from Nothingness to Life

An Exquisite Frustration

Phantoms

A Lovely Bear

Teaching, Life, and the Potential of Love

Peace of Heart

Reinventing the Wheel

Enjoy the Show!

The Illusion of Evil

The Tingle itself

The Call to Exit, Stage Right

Limitless

Spiritual Surrender

Love’s Other Expression

Loping

The Absolute and the Relative: Separation?

There Is Only the Present, Where Else Should I Meet Ramana?

Follow the Resonant Drummer

The Same Dragonfly

Hidden Love and Human Fruit: Expressions of Love

The Gospel According to Bugs Bunny

Pain, Depression and Awakening

Love is Calling You to Die

“Living As If…” Revisited

The Teacher-Student Relationship: The Invitation Is Clear

Knowledge and Understanding

But Where Can I Go? I Am Always Here

Nothingness or Unlimited Potential?

Adyashanti on being stuck in emptiness

The Simplicity of the Little Child

Karma, Bhakti and Jnana in Service to Others

Self, self and Love: Being a Verb!

The Unfolding of Love

Who is the Teacher?

Time and the Now

Wise Love

Your Right Balance

Guru: Our Self as Guide

What is Love?

Destiny or Unlimited Potential

Celibacy, Chastity, and the Spiritual Life

From God to the Absolute: Stepping Beyond the Mind

The Dream Guru

Should Spiritual Teachers Charge for their Teaching: A Spiritual Perspective

Murderer’s Funerals and This Little Child

Poems

Preface Note

Bill wrote in his blog profile:

“I am a former Anglican Monk and Teacher of Non-Duality and Christian Mysticism. After a transformation as a result of reading The Cloud of Unknowing, my partner and I were asked by the Dean of Lincoln to form a Contemplative / Service Religious Community. I wrote the rule, and The Community of the Living Sacrifice was born. The Community worked with young Gay people, and we housed ex-prisoners, newly released psychiatric patients, and the homeless. As the Community was coming to a close, I discovered Ramakrishna, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Nisargadatta Maharaj. This revitalized the spiritual search, and in 1990 a final understanding occurred, and all seeking stopped. After about ten years, I attempted to ‘rewrite’ The Rule for the Community of the Living Sacrifice in Advaitic terms. After another decade, and a series of dreams where Nisargadatta appeared to enter the dream and indicated to me that I should share my understanding with others, I decided to start ‘teaching’.”

The first edition of Bill’s book Truth on the Run, published by In the Garden Publishing in 2014, is out of print. This second edition is expanded, insofar as more contributions (beginning with: Nothingness or Unlimited Potential?) and also poems by Bill have been added.

Reference should also be made to Bill's films on youtube.

I thank John Adams very much for the permission to compile this second edition.

Gabriele Ebert (ed.)

Introduction

Bill Lindley wrote his book during his last run around the sun from October 2010 to October 2011, in a series of blogs. Bill was a heart teacher. He held no degree and could not claim any special lineage. If someone wished to fence or argue he would simply decline and say that love was all he had to offer. But he would not soft about it. In the end, one of his friends remarked, “This guy really challenged me with his love.”

This non-dual spiritual teaching was from his own, uniquely American point of view with his special gift for simplifying difficult concepts. One of his readers said, “The really great thing about Bill is that he didn’t go in for the non-dual party-line. His notes and post were always truthful, but they had a really wonderful folksiness.” He encouraged everyone to go ahead and look, see for themselves, re-invent the spiritual wheel, and then integrate one’s spiritual life into his or her everyday life.

Chapter one, Fearlessness in Divergence: Beyond the Safety of the Masters, is typical of his objective, independent point of view.

Toward the end of our religious work at Lincoln Cathedral in England, the Sub-Dean accused Bill of becoming too independent. Many who are interested in non-dual philosophy come from a religious tradition, which has let them down. This was Bill’s experience as well, but he made use of it as a jumping off point, diving into the limitless pool of his expression of that “no thought” side.

When writing these essays, Bill demonstrated an urgency and single-mindedness which I had never seen in all the forty years we were together. A fierce earnestness became his compass on a daily basis, as exemplified by Nisargadatta.

Nisargadatta Maharaj was Bill’s guru. Though he passed away before Bill was aware of him, Nisargadatta’s books sufficed to provide direction and inspiration. In this book, Bill relates two dreams in which Nisargadatta appears, but there was also a third dream.

Bill was standing just inside Nisargadatta’s mezzanine room when his guru walked in to present him with a golden model of a Hindu chariot. The second dream prior to this was about the unspoken question, “Do you want this love?” Bill’s answer is in these pages, which I recommend reading again and again.

John Adams

Fearlessness in Divergence: Beyond the Safety of the Masters

One of my earliest philosophical ideas came when I was no more than eight or nine years old. It occurred to me that just because I and my friend both called the same color crayon red, did not mean that we both saw the same color. His view of red might be what I see as green, just as his perception of green might be what I perceive as red. But we both use the same color names, so we assume we both see the same color. And more perplexing still, we will never know the answer, as we cannot see for each other. No outside person can tell us, as they too live in a world of their own color perception.

This is much like it is on the search. We all seek in a way that works for us. If we try to follow a path, it must be our own. We would be unwise to ignore the paths that have gone before, but we must not try to imitate or re-live lives past.

As a Christian seeking monastic formation, one follows rules. First, the rules of the Church, then the rules of an order, and immediately, the rules and instructions of your superior. These include instructions from what to clean to how to contemplate. Some are good and some are bad, but the institution requires they be followed.

The belief system also requires following dogma: how to pray, how to envision the Trinity, how to think of heaven and hell, and all the rest of it. This is where I broke down. I reached a point where I no longer believed in the part of the creed that calls Christ, “Our only mediator and advocate.” I saw infinite possibilities. It was here I found Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and Advaita.

One of the things I have felt called to do is try to break the fear that causes seekers not to go on beyond the confines of what they know, or feel they should. Christians fear hell if they fail to see Jesus as “Lord”. Fundamentalists feel they must find some approval in the words of the Bible. They will go to the extreme of doubting Darwin or trying to find Noah’s Ark rather than simply look for themselves at what is in front of them.

I find fundamentalists in Advaita as well. Not just the Neo-Advaitins, but many who follow a stricter, more traditional path.

I recently used a word in a blog that is not the usual word used for describing the indescribable. I was told, “The realized use a different word as a reference.” This is a way of appealing to authority. This reference to the realized is no different than referring to the Roman Catholic Church’s Magisterium or referencing the Bible itself. It is fine to read and learn. The Masters from Buddha, Christ, Shankara to Ramana and Nisargadatta were different from society and different from each other. They all had a slightly different message, resulting in the same awareness.

Each master, each one of us, has an ongoing connection to the ultimate reality. Most of us have a hallway full of junk in our spiritual house that blocks the view, but it’s there. Only we can clean our hallway. It’s our junk. Sometimes someone comes along to help in the cleaning. Not in the cleaning itself, but in the organization of the effort. Some will find Christ is the one to sort out the situation. Others will not like his methods and turn to Buddha, or Ramana. The sheep know the shepherd, and the shepherd knows the sheep. The important point here is that each realized being interprets the message differently. Each has his references and his body/mind conditioning, so different words will be used, different concepts employed. So we must be very careful in quoting the realized, just as we should things from the Bible or any text.

But really, the important thing is openness. If we restrict our path to awareness only to those things, ideas, experiences, and practices recommended by others, we may miss our salvation.

There is a story I heard long ago, about a man who was sure he could trust God. He knew that God would create a miracle if only he needed one. One day, while crossing a high bridge over a bay, the man fell in. The water was swift and the man was immediately in trouble. The man went into deep prayer, “Only God can save me now,” he thought. Just then, he was spotted by a ship passing by. But he was lost in prayer and deep meditation, and the ship could not reach him without his cooperation.

An airplane spotted him next and tried to contact him, but by this time he was lost in prayer and beseeching, and he heard nothing. Next, a helicopter flew over, and even let down a net, but even though he saw it this time he was going to leave it to trust in the lord to save him. He drowned.

Upon arriving in Heaven, and being introduced to God, the man asked God why he had not saved him. God scratched his head and said, “I don’t know what happened. Didn’t you see the ship, plane and helicopter I sent?”

We don’t want to miss something because someone, no matter who disagrees. We all arrive at awareness in a unique way. Christ in his and Ramana in his, and yours, too, will be unique.

This is where trust, and what Nisargadatta calls absolute fearlessness, come into play. Being bound by the restraints of a Church doctrine, a Bible or the writings of the masters will not let us find awareness in our self. While the writings and words of the masters are our guides, we may be given a different path, and their words may be stumbling blocks in its way.

To step beyond the teaching, beyond the gate of fear and the comfortable, allows you to be the teaching.

Education: Help or Stumbling Block?

When I was a Christian monk, it took me some time to find the simplicity of Christ’s teachings. There were so many concepts to learn, so much stuff to fill the mind. It took what appeared to be a very long time to get it all down and organized. Then, realizing that the Church was not really following Christ’s message or teaching, I began to read and study Hinduism and some Buddhist literature and teaching: more mind-stuff.

Learning is fun. Education is an asset in many endeavors. But it can be a stumbling block to realizing. Many here, as well as many gurus, are vastly educated, Masters in Religion, Doctorates in Philosophy, Doctorates in Eastern Studies, and all the rest of it. But are they aware?

Many here, and on other spiritual websites post long, scholarly blogs using all the words and concepts they have learned through long, hard study. This is commendable, and done for many reasons, commendable or otherwise. It is not for me to judge. However, learning can be like any other attainment or acquisition: a source of pride. Nisargadatta comments that we learn our identity from others. Our parents, friends, and everyone we have contact with add to our image of ourselves. Our minds believe the projections these others tell us we are. So it is with education. As children, as well as in adulthood, we discover many things for ourselves. But if you look closely, you find that in order to fit in, many of us trade our own discoveries, our own intuition, for the commonly accepted view. I, and others, are constantly being told that our ideas or methods do not fit with the realized as if we should care. Ramana Maharshi had his realization, Nisargadatta had his, and you and I have our own. They do not need to fit.

Realization will not fit your concept of it. If you can fit your realization into your concept, your realization is in the mind only. We all seem to agree that awareness, enlightenment, the Absolute, are not available to the mind. Yet we study to fill the mind with concepts. Many, like me, spend time learning concepts of one religion or belief and later spend more time learning about another philosophy, religion, or belief system. Then we compare, combine and organize the whole into new concepts. This, of course, is all done in the mind, which cannot possibly use it for enlightenment.

Many on these spiritual websites love to play one-ups-man-ship. A “my mind’s full of more concepts than yours” kind of thing. Or we call out someone’s ego or criticize their concepts as not as good as ours. This is done because the mind does not want enlightenment. Enlightenment means silence to the mind. Enlightenment ends the control of the mind. If we have filled our minds with a large education, this is an investment we have made. This is something to protect. So even if we know that enlightenment is not available to the mind, we still pursue it with the mind and judge others, even gurus, with the mind. This is why so many are skeptical of every guru, every teacher that they can outsmart or challenge with their superior education.

The wisest teachers in spirituality are the ones who are mostly silent. Ramana was one such. He talked only out of compassion. And this is the key. Gurus are often questioned as to why they teach. And, of course, the answer is compassion. Just as those who search for awareness or enlightenment are driven by an unexplainable compulsion, the guru is compelled to teach. I am not talking here of those who see enlightenment as an achievement to add to their education or the guru who seeks an ego boost, a following, or riches. I am talking about those who realize that enlightenment brings nothing (and teaching is often thankless work), but who are compelled to search and to help.

I find it terribly funny that those who many see as enlightened like Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Jesus Christ were only educated in a very cursory manner. Yet many think that they need to have a large education to understand these simple men. Education can be a source of pride beyond almost anything else. Western gurus and teachers are almost all very well-educated. Many, like Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, and many others are very full of themselves. This does not a guru make. Many of the seekers who attend Satsangs are very educated people who are hoping to top off their education with enlightenment. They seek confirmation from their guru that they “have made it”. Enlightenment is simple. Christ tells us to “become as little children”.

I am not saying that education is bad. As I said, learning is fun and can be used to help others, but it makes neither seeker nor guru. The thing that defines a real guru or teacher is his compassion and the living of his teaching, not his educational level. If you seek awareness, enlightenment or whatever, then be as the guru: live a compassionate life. Earnestness, love, and selflessly helping others will lead you to what you seek without the seeking and without caring whether you find enlightenment or not. Living compassion is enlightenment. Be that.

Nebulous Clarity

The oxymoron that titles this blog needs some explanation.

The only way one can express the Absolute is by silence. This makes it a challenge to those who try to teach. When the call comes to teach with concern for the ultimate understanding, a kind of confusion comes that makes teaching at first seem impossible. This is often why those who are awakened either do not teach or wait a very long time to do so.

After waiting for twenty years, and finding a sense of establishment, I have been trying to encourage others to step into the unknown in this search.

I explain my understanding as love being your true nature. Of course, this is not accurate as the seeker will interpret love in their own way. The masters use words like Absolute or Self to explain the unexplainable or they will talk of nothingness or no-self. None of these things are at all accurate. This is why the early masters referred to this as neti-neti: not this, not this. Only by describing what something is not, can one come close, as the Absolute is beyond explanation.

I use the word love, as most of us have a vague idea of love, or at least sadly, the lack of love. This love of which I speak cannot be explained as the opposite of hate or a feeling or an emotion, but as the creative force that not only holds all together but creates the objects and the flow between them. This is not a true explanation, but how my mind explained it to “me”.

For some years, I struggled with the second verse from Chapter One of the Avadhuta Gita:

“How shall I salute the formless Being, indivisible, auspicious, and immutable, who fills all this with His Self and also fills the self with His Self?”

I knew myself to be one with all. After years of practice, I was established in the I Am. Still, I felt love for God, even as I recognized that God and I were not separate. Silent awareness would bring a response of tearful bliss. “How can that be?” I asked. How can love exist between two objects in this awareness? The answer came as “myself” and “God” vanished. Only love was left. This was, of course, an answer in my mind. The mind called it love. It was an explanation I could pass on to others, but not the truth. The truth is here. I am the truth, but I can’t explain it. I can only be it. This is the meaning of nebulous clarity.

When this happens, all is clear. There are no questions left. No more seeking. But you cannot explain it to others. Moreover, you cannot explain it to yourself! It is an understanding without knowledge. It requires the suspension of knowledge and the suspension of a conclusion. There is no judgment. There is no labeling, only silent awareness, without even an awareness of being aware. Nebulous clarity.

Some years ago, I saw a play about Oscar Wilde starring Vincent Price. It was presented as a lecture and talk, as given by Oscar Wilde at the end of his career. At the conclusion, he said, “I’ve lied to you, you know! But you don’t know where.” This is the problem with the teacher of spirituality. They all lie. Not in an attempt to fool you or mislead you, but in an attempt to explain the nebulous clarity they live but can’t explain, even to themselves. For any explanation is false. As soon as it is put into concepts, or words, it is false. It can only be and yet is beyond being.

A teacher can only give pointers. You must look closely for yourself. Find who seeks, who wants clarity. But don’t accept the explanations of others or those of yourself. If you can explain it to yourself, it is false. You must find and accept nebulous clarity.

Emotion in the Search Beyond “I Am”

Ramana Maharshi recommended exploring Who am I? Nisargadatta advised the earnest examination of the I Am.

But this only leads to the “I”. This is a comfortable place. It is a place, where anyone, with proper diligence (earnestness!), can find rest. It gives one an intellectual sense of who one is, but it is only the first step to oneness. The mind can only go as far as the I Am. All else is speculation based on memory or imagination. How then to go beyond?

The mind, in Advaita circles, has often become the devil. It lies in wait to catch hold of spiritual experiences, and insights, to confuse and falsely entertain itself. This, almost bestowing intent on the mind, paints an erroneous picture. The mind is often portrayed as protecting itself from extinction. This too is giving motive to the mind which simply does not exist. The body, the mind, and the emotions are all part of the functioning of the whole. All have their purpose and require acceptance. But the mind is the tool of choice for the student of Advaita, even though it is held in suspicion and contempt.

Most students of Advaita, as well as most people, see emotions as part of the mind. Some see them as bodily sensations caused by particular thoughts in the mind. Others think the thoughts arise out of certain bodily sensations. Clearly, the mind and body are intimately linked, but ultimately it is all linked, so this is no answer. The emotions are only reflections, like everything in my world. But they are not in the mind.

The emotions all stem from love. Now, here I am not speaking of love, the emotion, but the impersonal love. Here again, we have the semantics problem. We all have our attachments to the word love. Here I am talking about agape, in its fullness. David Jenkins, former Bishop of Durham before his election as Bishop, gave a lecture in which he gave a wonderful description of agape. He described God as having so much compassion, so identifying with man, that he became one (Jesus) in order to manifest love (Christ). In the Christian sense, this is the humbling of God to bring compassion to the cosmos. But it also demonstrates the creative power of love as essence (the Absolute).

Emotions are often looked at as distractions to spirituality, both in the East and in the West. But they are there, and trying to eradicate them only makes them stronger. Also ignoring or suppressing them is useless and dangerous.

Watch the emotions but don’t own them. They can teach you something, so don’t ignore them, but they are not you. They are just emotional track of the movie you live in. Love, as creative power, does not exist in the mind, but the mind in it. However, the reflections, the lesser emotions do.

The lesser emotions such as hate, fear, lust, anger, desire and so on, as well as some of the better emotions like joy, peace, contentment, surprise, and pleasant expectation, are all just refractions, reflections, and distortions of the impersonal love. Love, not the noun we set in our mind and try to define and dissect, but love as verb: love in action, love as connection. This love is the essence; the Absolute if you will.

These emotions are part of the whole when it comes to realizing the truth. We all know, even the most cynical among us, the truth is outside the reaches of the mind. So we must seek elsewhere.

When you feel something, rather than dismissing it, ignoring it, or using the mind to block it, open your heart to it. Remove the subject and object, and remain in the verb. As you examine the functioning of the emotion, its relationship to love or the lack thereof, will become apparent. When you do this with love as creative power, you find that you are nothing less than that indescribable movement.

The Lord’s Prayer as Advaita Meditation

Of the two places in the Bible where the Lord’s Prayer appears, I have chosen Matthew 6: 5-7, as it is used in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon, outlining much of Jesus’ teaching, describes the kind of attitude necessary for salvation/awakening.

The prayer, far from being a prayer of petition although some of that is included, is a meditation on the Absolute, the unlimited potential.

As you look at the prayer, go deeply into the meaning. You will find a meditation of our relationship with God/Absolute, and a method, a framework for realizing that.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

One of the most important points here is the use of the term, father, for God. And perhaps, as important, is that it is our Father; not Christ’s alone, but our Father. All of us are brothers and sisters to Christ, and sons and daughters of the Absolute. The use of the term father shows a familial closeness: God/Absolute as creator and protector. But sometimes Jesus used the word Abba. Abba means father but goes further in that it translates as daddy or another affectionate child-like name. This shows the connection to God/Absolute is love.

When God/Absolute is seen in heaven, this is a way of expressing the internal nature of God/Absolute. In Luke 17, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is “within you”. He then states that even the name of God/Absolute is holy.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

We already know the kingdom is within and this is our opening to it: thy will be done. Not mine. No, I am just acceptance. Then of course the exterior (earth), will be like unto the interior (heaven).

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Asking for daily bread is a prayer of petition, but a little one. And it is necessary to be aware that asking for our daily bread, our necessary sustenance, may be asking for pain and suffering. Pain and suffering, as well as actual daily bread, bring healing and strength for this journey to daddy.

Forgiveness is not something people in Advaita think about much unless it is in the context of karma. And this is what is addressed here. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” As we practice forgiveness, so our bad karma is lessened.

Most of us will admit selfishness from time to time. This selfishness is inherent in the I. This, at least, is a trespass. Sin, as used by Christ, is really ignorance. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We are called to love God/Absolute with all our hearts, all our soul, and all our mind. This is the prayer, the meditation: that our trespasses (ignorance) be forgiven as we use our hearts, souls, and minds to love.

The use of the heart or soul to love is not hard to imagine, for this is where we place love, but to love with all our mind: This is a meditation in itself!

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen

Lead us not into temptation – the mind, temptation itself! But is it evil?

If evil is described as that which leads away from the truth, then the mind is the thing! It is hard to place blame on an object which is only a bag of ideas, pictures and phantoms. But without intent, it stands in the way. Just as a bleeding man was able to say from a cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” we must forgive our minds, and perhaps mind as an idea as well. We need to learn to watch our thoughts pass. They are harmless unless you grab hold of them. Eventually, when seen for what they are they will disappear altogether. When the bag is empty, and fearless earnestness is present, love will fill the mind, heart and soul.

For ever and ever. Kingdom, power, and glory belong to the Absolute. This is unlimited potential. Amen.

This well-known prayer is not only a wonderful bhakti prayer/meditation, but a feast and challenge for the mind to find itself, forgive itself, and rest quietly in itself until it is filled with love.

Unlimited Potentiality and the Circle of Love

Ever since the discovery of spirituality in childhood and even during my young adult, and high school years as an agnostic, I have valued universal love.

I returned to Christianity as a result of reading The Cloud of Unknowing. The Cloud is a mystical Christian instruction on how to yoke with God in contemplation. It is all about love. The Cloud instructs one to hide the mind behind a cloud of unknowing, and penetrate the unknowing with “little arrows of love”. Basically, silence the mind, and be open with and to love.

As a Christian growing up, the statement of Paul, the Apostle, that “God is love” was not lost on me, but the profundity of this statement eluded me. As I passed into the non-dual teachings of Advaita, I began to wonder about “God” and myself. For a number of years, I held an intellectual understanding of unicity, oneness, and the I Am. But years of Christian practice, both in and out of the monastery, had left me with a longing for a “God” that I now had to dismiss as being only in the mind.

This longing, love actually, was manifest as a response to life that said “God” to me everywhere. The sky, the forest, and the desert would bring me to tears. Just the beauty, the stillness and the complex simplicity were overwhelming. The work I did also took on a different feel. The people I worked with, the developmentally disabled, were full of love and often brought tears to my eyes in their simple lives and acceptance. Again, this made me dwell on “God”, the Absolute. I kept asking myself: why did I feel love? I knew intellectually that I was one with everything and that “God” was an illusion. So why love? How can there be love between two phantoms in the mind?

Without going into the whole story here, I experienced an awakening that intuitively showed me that yes indeed, there is no “God”, and furthermore there is no “me”. There is just love. That connection, that love, is all there is. And that is what we are. I experience this in my life always. All is observable as an unfolding of unlimited potentiality, ever moving, the changeable changeless.

Love is quiet and still despite of its dynamic quality. We must be quiet and still to be it. But most important is our need to share it. I am not talking about sharing with a lover, but this can be part of it. Our personal love for a partner is not, nor should it ever be, a block to our awareness or our ability to recognize our existence as love. But that love we have for a lover must be pure, not lustful or selfish. It must be a nurturing ground for our greater love.

Love needs to be put into practice. Not just in spiritual practice, but in our dealings with all of the manifestations, including inanimate objects, however base.

When the religious community I was co-founder of at Lincoln Cathedral was just in its beginning stages, the Dean of Lincoln asked me to write the rule for the community. This was a great privilege. But after leaving the community, and more than a decade of Advaita studies combined with the above experience, I rewrote the rule for the Community of the Living Sacrifice into a small book entitled Community of One. This book examines the rule for a Christian religious community in terms of Advaita. It was an attempt to describe a life of a seeker of truth and the “Advaita of Christ”.

In the chapter on the Eucharist, I detail what I refer to as “the Eucharistic circle of love”. Love is all there is. It is an unfolding movement. In the book, I recall a lesson I learned from my birth father. He was a journeyman electrician and I remember his explanation of electricity. He described it as a flow. From the source of power, the electricity flows through the wires to the device to be charged or activated. A complete circuit is necessary. Remove one wire, one connection, and there is not only no power, there is no electricity. The electricity exists in potential, but there is no flow.

In my book, I use the Eucharist as my practice, but this can apply to any practice as long as it is a practice that shuts down the you, and opens you to love. In the Eucharistic example, we have love, as shown in the sacrifice on the cross, which flows to the communicant by his real and deep participation in this practice, and then to the world in the form of loving action or loving stillness. If we do not participate in the practice, or we do not go out and share that love with the world, there is no flow. But not only is there no flow, there is love only in potential, not realized.

Love is what we are. If practices alone are all we do, there is no flow of love: the circle is broken. If we try to do for others without the practice of centering in some way, we will not be able to sustain our efforts as there is no flow of love; the circle is again being broken. Love remains potential, but requires flow.

So to recap: love is what you are. Love is the connection, without subject or object. Subject and object appear when the connection is present. Practice clears the way to the opening required for us to be love. Once we realize love is our true nature, we must act on it. If love is what we are, then love is what we do.

Complete the Circle, be the love.

The Cloud of Unknowing

After reading The Cloud of Unknowing, a 14th-century English spiritual work, my life changed forever, eventually slipping away to a quiet peace. There were many steps and missteps along the way, but it started there, with The Cloud.

The Cloud of Unknowing was written, it is believed, by an English priest or monk from the East Midlands during the 14th century. Shortly after reading this small book, in the amazing wonder of the living Absolute, after dedicating my life to the search for God, I was called to service work at Lincoln Cathedral, in the English East Midlands.

Completely unaware of The Cloud’s origins, my partner and I began our religious community there.

The Cloud of Unknowing is a surprise to many who stumble upon it, as I did in the late 1970s. Not being raised Catholic, I had never heard of this book before or had any contact with Christian mysticism. It was a revelation to me. Not just the content but the discovery that Western culture had produced, in one of the most backward times in history, a book of such profound understanding of the mystical.

Our simple priest or monk recommends putting knowledge behind a cloud of unknowing, and waiting with great love on the grace of God. He recommends, both playfully and in great earnest, to be coy with God, not letting him know of our hidden desire:

“So beware of behaving wildly like some animal, and learn to love God with quiet, eager joy, at rest in body and soul. Remember your manners, and wait humbly upon our Lord’s will. Do not snatch at it like some famished dog, however much you hunger for it. If I may use a funny example, I would suggest you do all you can to check your great and ungoverned spiritual urge; as though you were altogether unwilling that he should know how very glad you would be to see him, to have him, to feel him.” The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 46

Just as new-age gurus teach of release from sorrow at Satsang, our little contemplative writes of acceptance of sorrow as a way of not only releasing sorrow but of escaping the I Am:

“Everyone has something to sorrow over, but none more than he who knows and feels that he is. All other sorrow in comparison with this is a travesty of the real thing. For he experiences true sorrow, who knows and feels not only what he is, but that he is. Let him who has never felt this sorrow be sorry indeed, for he does not yet know what perfect sorrow is. Such sorrow, when we have it, cleanses the soul not only of sin (ignorance), but also of the suffering its sin (ignorance) has produced. And it makes the soul ready to receive that joy which is such that it takes from man all awareness of his own existence.” The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 44

In one of life’s little paradoxes, it took Nisargadatta Maharaj to burn into my heart and soul the truth that was present in The Cloud of Unknowing. It is often some contact with the exotic, or at least different, to shake us out of our learned responses to stimulation. Ramana, Nisargadatta, and Advaita itself gave new life and images to things just waiting to be discovered. This is why so many Westerners, particularly Christians, find new hope in Eastern belief systems as they break the images of crucifixion, resurrection, and other ideas that have lost all real meaning to most Christians. Without an understanding of the spiritual element behind these appearances, these are just meaningless and bizarre beliefs. While Hinduism has its share of the bizarre, Westerners often bypass these features to concentrate on the heart of what they conceive of as the essence.

Hinduism and Christianity are full of rituals that appear meaningless, not just to outsiders, but often to the ones practicing them. Westerners often see the meaning behind foreign religions because they are not caught up in the bizarreness of the ritual, as it has no learned, emotional meaning. The learned, emotional meaning behind many of the Christian Church’s rituals is only the external performance, and the spiritual meaning is often lost.

The Cloud of Unknowing tells us that the Church has had a mystical side for a long time and that Christ’s message was about so much more than virgin births, crucifixion, and resurrection. Christ taught Advaita, and The Cloud of Unknowing presents as clear a picture of both truth and the path to it as is presented in any text:

“So crush all knowledge and experience of all forms of created things, and of yourself above all. For it is on your own self-knowledge and experience that the knowledge and experience of everything else depend. Alongside this self-regard, everything else is quickly forgotten. For if you will take the trouble to test it, you will find that when all other things and activities have been forgotten (even your own) there still remains between you and God the stark awareness of your own existence. And this awareness, too, must go, before you experience contemplation in its perfection.” The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 43

As I said above, it took Nisargadatta Maharaj entering the dream to ultimately get it here. His words were pure truth to me. Pure love flowed from every word. Maharaj taught me the importance of the I Am, and the need to abide there while waiting for transportation beyond the mind. But when the transportation came, it came in the formlessness of the Cloud.

The Cloud of Unknowing, with its emphasis on love and devotion, prepares the soul/seeker, for the openness required for being absorbed into the truth. All must be removed, even the I Am. This requires selfless, impersonal love to step beyond the I Am. Be that and accept the invitation!

Yajna: Worship in Sacrifice

“Yajna: (Sanskrit) worship, sacrifice. One of the most central Hindu concepts – sacrifice and surrender through acts of worship, inner and outer.

1) A form of ritual worship especially prevalent in Vedic times in which oblations, ghee, grains, spices and exotic woods are offered into a fire according to scriptural injunctions while special mantras are chanted. The element fire, Agni, is revered as the divine messenger who carries offerings and prayers to the Gods. The ancient Veda Brahmanas and the Shrauta Shastras describe various types of yajna rites, some so elaborate as to require hundreds of priests, whose powerful chanting resounds for miles. These major yajnas are performed in large, open-air structures called yagashala. Domestic yajnas, prescribed in the Grihya Shastras, are performed in the family compound or courtyard. Yajna requires four components, none of which may be omitted: dravya, sacrificial substances; tyaga, the spirit of sacrificing all to God; devata, the celestial beings who receive the sacrifice; and mantra, the empowering word or chant.”1

I found it interesting that yajna means both worship and sacrifice. This is similar to the seminal Christian Rite, the Eucharist, in that it involves ritual sacrifice. While it is true, one involves only oblations of rich and expensive earthly substances, when the other involves the re-enactment of human sacrifice; but as rituals they are sacrificial.

One of the four components above is the spirit of sacrificing all to God. This spirit is essential. Obviously, the thing being sacrificed (oblations/Jesus’ life, i.e., sacrificial substances) is there in ritual worship and the empowering words of the mantras or Eucharistic prayers. The celestial beings or the being of Christ or God, all these “things” are held together in the grip of the spirit of sacrificing all to God.

This spirit of sacrifice is none other than our true nature, universal love. But let’s look at the nature of sacrifice.

Burning some wood, no matter how precious, or ritual sacrifice of bread and wine will not give us the reality of sacrifice we need to understand. Our lives need to be informed by these rituals. The spirit of these rituals must inspire our hearts and hands (our sacrificial substance), the empowering words of “Thy will be done,” and the thousands upon thousands of celestial beings in the faces of the poor and helpless who are with us always; all moving together in this ritual worship we call life. All held together in the spirit of sacrificing all to God.

Sacrificing all means real sacrifice: a sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of convenience, a sacrifice of position or popularity, perhaps even sacrifice of respect. Those who seek social justice often lose respect from those in power. The truth can isolate you from your friends, community, and station in life. Will you sacrifice all? To give, to give unselfishly to others without need or desire for even recognition, requires being the fulfiller of need without attachment. In this state you can be overflowing with God’s love, as you are God’s love personified, giving without a trace of want or desire.

Love through sacrifice flows through being and is being. When there is flow there is no subject/object. Be the love. Be the sacrifice. Complete the circuit with outstretched hands.

1 While searching for the source that Bill did not provide, I came across the following: Hinduism‘s Online-Lexicon:https://www.shiavault.com/books/hinduism-s-online-lexicon-a-z-dictionary/chapters/24-y/ (3.4.2023)

The Bhakti of Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Sometimes I feel I am everything, I call that love. Sometimes I feel I am nothing, I call that wisdom. Between love and wisdom, my life continuously flows.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

Nisargadatta clearly saw that ultimately, he was the wisdom of no-thing. But, just as, dare I say wise, was his ability to see that he was the love that is everything.

Many Neo-Advaitins concentrate only on the “Sometimes I feel I am nothing...” and neglect the feeling of being everything. Neo-Advaitins also talk down practice or technique and scoff at worship. While it is true, practice, technique, and often worship too, fall off as one progresses. They do not need to and often don’t. Anyone who has read Nisargadatta’s small early work, Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization, will understand that Nisargadatta had a very worshipful side. He was very devotional until the end of his life. He chanted every day. When asked why he did this he explained that his guru asked him to do it before he died and that he always had, and the body gets used to things, and there was no harm.

When it comes to practice, Nisargadatta recommended abiding in the I Am, as his teacher before him had done. This was all that was required for Nisargadatta to realize the highest truth. But Nisargadatta had been learning since his youth and had been practicing bhakti for years before he met his final guru. Neo-Advaitins talk of instant awareness. Simply by hearing a word, or being in the presence of a well-known guru, one can be transported to immediate understanding. Years of preparation, meditation, study, prayer, if you will, are not necessary in Neo-Advaita. Just follow the teacher’s words as Nisargadatta did. Even after years of preparation, and meeting his ultimate guru, Nisargadatta took three years to realize. Now, I realize three years is not a long time. But it was not instant, and certainly not without preparation.

Nisargadatta spoke many times about the need for earnestness. Earnestness is defined as seriousness or zealousness. This is not unlike worship and devotion. It is certainly more than simply abiding in the I Am, but going beyond to that which is unknown.

Nisargadatta is right to start with the I Am. For we must understand this, get a good grip on it before we venture beyond the mind. But the I Am is of and in the mind. It is the highest truth the mind can understand.

While working on this I Am thought, with earnestness, there will also be a need to open yourself to others. Just as we learn to be open to emotions and thoughts without resistance or judgment, we watch others without judgment or hanging on. We see their needs and we fulfil them, just as we breath, without thought. This comes slowly to some and needs to be made a practice. We do this, not to be do-gooders, but to complement the I Am practice. For seeing to others acknowledges their reality too, which gives life to the connection of love. This connection takes us beyond mind.

Love has been relegated to the world of emotion for the most part. Sure, we make it the best emotion, but still, it remains with hate, fear, desire, anger, and lust!

When Nisargadatta, or Shankara, or any of the masters speak of love it is not the emotion, but interchangeable with the Absolute, God, or the ultimate understanding. We must understand this. When we see ourselves and the whole of the manifestation as no-thing, a void, we sell out to the mind in its ultimate grab. The mind says, “I have taken you to the ultimate, and it is not conceivable by me, so it does not exist.” But this is a lie. Beyond the mind, prior to consciousness, lies the nameless wonder. This is why the I Am practice leads only to the edge of the mind. This is why bhakti is so essential to realizing the truth. Without the sadhana of service, whether to a “God”, or to mankind, or the earth, you are not prepared to open like the flower to the grace of the sun in its time.

I will leave you with this thought:

Do not conceive of yourself as a noun, but as a verb. A noun is a person, place, or thing. A verb is an action, or being. When we love God, the Absolute, or another, and we know that we and God or another are mind-stuff, simply non-existent nouns, then we realize we are the verb of love that appears to be between the two. Love is all that exists. No me, no God, just the love. Love in action is everything.

“Sometimes I feel I am everything, I call that love.”

Don’t Mistake Success in Practice for Awareness

I think one of the pitfalls of practices is that the practices become ends in themselves or worse still, substitutes for the end result.

This applies to all practices that are external or internal, silent or active. Ultimately, practices are useless for finding truth. But one would be foolish to avoid practices in the early stages. Most practices are designed to calm the mind. Some are designed to stimulate the mind, and point it in a useful direction. But none is an end in itself.

I have meditated and engaged in contemplative prayer for many years. This was not time wasted or spent in delusion, at least not for the most part! Time spent at the Eucharist, likewise was very useful. Contemplating these mysteries quiets the mind and opens the heart. But they do not lead to the ultimate truth.

Nisargadatta’s I Am is a supreme practice. But it leads only to consciousness. Now I don’t mean to discount consciousness. It is a wonderful state. But we seek the pearl of great price, union with God.

All of this practice is beneficial because it quiets the mind or opens the mind to useful pointers. But there is an additional pitfall in practice and that is this very thing: this quieting of the mind. The mind needs to be quiet, empty of everything, particularly you. When we reach this state of quietness where we see that we are the observer, then, and only then can we find our way to being observing. But we must not mistake this quietness of practice for awareness, which is dynamic.

I’m a simple guy, so I use simple analogies. One of my favorites is the observing of the verb rather than the noun. This has been dismissed as simplistic. Words are words it is said. This is true, and we all understand the inadequacy of words. But words are part of the functioning of the One, so we need not discount them, or else resort to silence. By using this simplistic analogy, I attempt to point out the difference in being a static noun or an active verb. We are not a thing. We are life itself, ever changeless and dynamically changing.

I did not mean to go into that again, but I wanted to point out that observing is what is happening, rather than there being an observer or an observed. It is not just semantics. Meditate on it.

In the Christian Church, practices from the Eucharist to contemplative prayer are designed to quiet the mind and eventually eliminate the you. This is done, so that the mind and body will be open to the grace of God. There is no controlling this grace. We can only be open to it by quieting the body and the mind. In the East, I believe, practices are used in a similar way, be it meditation or some form of yoga. All of these practices result in a quiet mind and an awareness of consciousness. But at some point the mind, with all of its consciousness (noun), must move to the place of consciousness (verb) without the I Am.

This is how we get stuck. We mistake the quiet, the nothingness and the emptiness we find in our practice to be the ultimate, the Absolute. We love this quiet. We love to imagine this quiet, this freedom from mind, is the awakening. We rest in the I Am, unconcerned that there is still an “I”. The idea of an “I” is a noun, a thing. We long for awareness, not as a noun to hold on to, but as a verb, to be.

Dwelling in quietness or consciousness, no matter how wonderful, is only for practice. If we imagine a quietness, a stillness, or an emptiness, the mind is happy to oblige with one from our imagination or from the memory of our practice. But the awakening is not something we can get our minds around. It is not a thing. No “I”, no “self”, but the ever-flowing love.

The Fear of Love

We often hear about the play between love and fear. How one can’t see love because it is hidden by fear, or that true love drives out all fear and all the other clichés. But when love itself becomes the object of fear, we have a big problem.

I would have to say that this applies to all types of love, even those deemed inferior like romantic love. Romantic love, when it becomes devotion, can bring one out of oneself, and can work toward freedom. The thing to beware of is desire. Desire arises from the “me”, the next step from the “I” thought. Desire wants what the “I” wants, not necessarily what the situation calls for. Pure love knows the situation and the response.

But the word love itself is often the reason for fear. We use words like “self” to describe our personal self, our personality and our person-hood if you will. And again, we move from the personal to the universal by referring to the Self (Capital “S”) as God, awareness, truth, or whatever lofty idea the mind contrives. Why not just call it love?

We answer that love is just another word for the indescribable and that we all think differently about the word, and that the “Self”, “God”, and “the Absolute” must be nirguna: totally without attributes. But we all have a passing acquaintance with love. To deny this is almost as foolish as to deny the I Am.

It is true that we all have a different mind concept of love. And there are different concepts we tend to agree on like romantic love, familial love, and Agape or universal love. But intuitively we all know something of love, or at least sadly, the lack of it. Love is the is-ness, the being itself. It is what started you on this search, sustains you on this search, and leads you to itself. Call it what you like, but never deny it draws you, and that its existence is more real than the hand at the end of each arm. We must not fear this draw, this love.