Energy is used to do work.

I would now like to talk about the main thing that all Spiritual Teachers say and have said, and that can be summed up in two words: It's OK. That's the main thing that I or any other Spiritual Teacher has to teach you, that it's OK. Some teachers have said it just to their students: “It's OK. For everyone else out in the world it may be horrible, but for you — it's OK.” From my point of view, everything is holy, and there's nothing that isn't God, so it's OK. Picture a spiritual seeker, who has spent years and years seeking the truth, and finally he goes to the Himalayas, to seek the Enlightened soul. He climbs all the way up the mountain, and finally he finds the wise man. The old guy is sitting there meditating, totally zonked out, trying to decide who to bet on in the third race. The spiritual seeker bends down at the wise man's feet, and says, “O wise man, O enlightened soul, tell me, what is the meaning of life?” The old guy sort of opens one eye, looks at this person, and then tries to ignore him, hoping he might go away. But the seeker asks again, “What is the meaning of life?” Finally the old guy opens his eyes, looks at the seeker, and replies, “It's OK.” Then he closes his eyes again. The seeker looks at the old guy, and asks himself, “Did he say 'It's OK?' “ Realizing that this was his answer, he begins to climb down the mountain. But after a few minutes he starts to get angry, thinking that he had come such a long distance for such a simplistic answer. Finally, he climbs back up the mountain, confronts the wise man, and says, “What do you mean, 'It's OK'?” This time the old guy looks at the seeker very seriously, and contemplates the question very deeply. He knows that if he gives the right answer he might become famous and have books written about him. Finally he says, “It's all right. It's not so bad. It could be worse.”

I renamed the ocean “love.”

Whenever you make a mistake remember That you are God. God doesn't make mistakes. God only has experiences.

The stars meditate constantly. They burn their very substance to give Light to others. This is constant and conscious meditation.

You are in the world of the dream. The power gets stronger as we move up the gorge. We go deeper into the center of the circle.You change forms. You confront death passing through you and birth passing through you. But that is not your essence. They are shadows and are not you.This is the dream of the opposite self. You are on the luminous edge of existence. There is no past and no future. You are eternal. You are in the land of the other. You are the dark side. And you are the light side.We are one self in fragmented pieces. But I bring you together into one self.You are a fluid metaphor for existence. You are your own death and your own rebirth. Here is forever. It never changes. We bring Perpetual oblivion until we change the world.Feel this wind. This wind blows from world to world and from life to life. This is the wind of dharma. Be in love with the wind. It is an intimate lover. It enraptures you. It blows you through eternity.

"I put my finger on your forehead"

The only things that stand between you and the Infinite ecstasy of existence are thoughts. When you stop your thoughts you stop the world. When the world stops, time stops. When time stops, matter stops. When matter stops, energy stops. When energy stops, self-consciousness stops. When self-consciousness stops there is nothing: Nothing left to stop, start, begin or to end. The person who did all of these things has gone away, Vanished without a trace in the ecstasy of existence.

There is no life and there is no death. Life and death are moving shadows cast upon the Ground by clouds that sweep across the sky.

There is fire on the mountain.It is a mountain of 🔥

ELAINE

This is actually two stories. The first is of how I was cured of a disease. The second is how I met Rama and became his student. I have worked in the health field for the past ten years as a physical therapist. I have been involved in taking care of people in pain and ill health. It was therefore with some amount of reluctance that I began to realize that there might be something wrong with my physical health.When I look back I can realize that my health first started to change about three years ago. At that time I had been exercising rigorously, at least twice a day, engaging in total vegetarianism, fasting, and generally putting a lot of energy into getting my body into good shape. One day I noticed that every time I went out and pushed myself to the maximum physically I would end up sick for the next week. This pattern had repeated itself three or four times and I had decided that I must have had a touch of anemia and reduced my exercise levels. Since that time I hadn't noticed any problems. My health had come to my attention again because of the increasing drain I felt with even the normal amount of work. I had been used to working hard and feeling the effects afterwards, but this was different. I was working at the time at the Solana Center For Total Health, and I found that I would barely drag myself home, eat something for supper, and then collapse on the living room floor. Our clinic offered a wide range of health practitioners including acupuncturists, chiropractors, psychologists, medical doctors, and nutritionists. I decided that I was going to have to discover what was wrong with me soon, and so I made appointments with, and talked to, several of the staff. The problem was that I looked healthy. Whenever I was asked to describe my symptoms, the closest I could get was fatigue, lack of energy, slightly changed eating pattern, and a “feeling” that something was wrong. Although I didn't realize it at the time, about the nearest I got to understanding the problem was during a rebirthing session when I both became aware of a great deal of tension in my solar plexus region. In the rest of my consultations I checked out as perfectly healthy. The feeling that there was something wrong persisted, however, and I began to ask God to help me. As a one-time devotee of Yogananda, I had dropped off from regular meditations for several years. Somewhere in the time between October and December I had begun to meditate again with consistency. It was during these meditations that I began to cry to God to help me. I really didn't even realize what it was that I needed help with. It was just a feeling that the world was overpowering. About this time, early January, the director of our clinic wrote me a note asking if I would volunteer my services to give physical therapy to members of the office staff. I had written him a note in reply in which I told him that he didn't have to ask me to do that, because I already had been trying to help ease the strained necks and backs of our overworked staff. I went to put the note in his mailbox when an urge came over me and I added at the bottom, “but who is going to take care of the physical therapist?” I stood for several minutes debating whether to give him the note. I ripped it up, rewrote it, tore that one up and rewrote it again, all the time struggling with whether or not to keep in the last question. It has never been easy for me to ask for help and this note was one of the few times that I had. Finally some part of me won the struggle and I put the letter in his box amazed that I had actually asked someone to help me. The next night the clinic director asked me if I wanted to go with him to a meditation at Rama's house. I had heard a little bit about him from several of his students that also worked at the clinic, and their stories of “watching him turn gold,” and “watching the room light up,” had struck me as being a little incredible. It just seemed to be out of the realm of human possibilities. We got there just before Rama walked in the room. I recognized a few of his students and my reasoning mind let go of certain doubts because of the respect that I had for them as responsible, rational human beings. Rama entered the room and sat down and began to lecture on meditation. I found myself experiencing an instant trust and liking for him. There was a definite truth to what he was saying. The world began to fade, the people I knew, and the room around me just seemed to slowly leave my consciousness. I became totally immersed in what he was saying and then suddenly I noticed what looked like a gold color of light encircling his body and spreading out to fill up the whole room. I kept trying to come back to my “senses,” but the light persisted. About this time Rama asked everyone in the room to meditate. In the next 30 minutes my consciousness became quite altered. After a few minutes of meditation I found myself looking not at Rama but at an older person with Oriental features and a beard and mustache. I had immediate feelings of recognition, total love, and trust. My instant perception was that I must have sat with and loved this person for many, many lifetimes. I remember that I started to cry out of happiness and from the intense love that I was experiencing. The meditation was continuing and he was looking at each person in the room one by one. He came back to me several times and I would be overcome by the love each time and by sensations of intense heat. The meditation ended and I sat there in a bit of a trance as the world as I knew it began to filter back into my field of perception. He thanked everyone for coming and asked for questions or comments on what people had experienced. Much to my relief several people in the room talked about experiencing heat, seeing the room light up in a golden glow, and seeing him change form. I didn't talk because the feelings I had experienced were too real, too deep inside of myself to be able to find the words to describe them. After he had answered everyone's questions he thanked everyone for coming and then asked us all to enjoy a few refreshments. I wandered up to the fireplace, still in a daze and stood warming my hands. One of my friends came over to me after awhile and told me that I was glowing. I couldn't respond other than to just smile more and feel my heart opening. Rama came over to the fire after a few minutes and put another log on to burn. I longed intensely to say something to him, to connect what I had just experienced to this seemingly friendly, “American,” human. Finally I murmured a half question, half statement, “you're so familiar.” He continued to play with the fire and replied with assurance, “Japan.” I left the meditation and went home still feeling my heart and feeling a great deal of energy. I stayed up all night and most of the next night. All of my resistance and skepticism were gone and I looked forward to seeing him again. The opportunity presented itself in the next week when he invited all the staff of our clinic to a dinner and meditation at his house. Rama entered the room and we all sat down on the floor in front of him. After a few introductory remarks he asked if the girl who was the physical therapist was present. I raised my hand from the back and he proceeded to tell us that when he had seen me the previous week he had seen that I had a large black mass growing in my etheric body in the region of my solar plexus. He said that he had cleared me of it and that I would be okay, but that I, and everyone else, would have to become aware of picking up energy from people. He told us that there was a karmic transfer of energy from patient to therapist, and this was especially so when you physically touched them. He said that this energy was quite damaging to our subtle physical bodies. As he spoke I could remember instances in which I would wake up with the identical symptoms of a patient that I treated the day before. I could also remember patients that I had dreaded to see, feeling that they were draining me of my energy. I would treat them anyway because of my sense of responsibility. I sat there in a state of shock. Finally someone had seen. The feelings I had that there was something wrong were real after all, and it had taken Rama to see and to help me. He had not needed “physical” symptoms to see that there was something that was drastically wrong with me. Rama then asked us all to meditate with him. This time, whenever he looked at me I felt such intense energy entering my body that I actually leaned over backwards. There was a feeling that my body was spinning and that I was sitting next to a burner that was turned up to full heat. Once again the feelings of love and familiarity overcame me and I began to cry. Suddenly the meditation was over and I sat there with tears of happiness rolling down my face. It was as if Rama had tapped a well that did not want to stop flowing. After awhile the clinic director came over and asked me if I wanted to meet Rama. I sat down in front of him, tears still pouring out, and thanked him for what he had done for me. He told me that I would be okay, but that I was going to have to become extremely careful about picking up energy from people. The tears were continuing to pour down my cheeks and I sat there, speechless. Finally, from somewhere inside of me a voice took form, and I asked him if I could be his student. “Are you willing to care for other people more than yourself?” he asked me. “I think that's my problem,” I replied. He looked at me intensely. So intensely that I drew back. He smiled and said, “I'm just looking.” He paused for a moment and then asked me, “How much do you want to obtain enlightenment, 50%, 70%, 90%? You need to want it 100%. You need to want it more than anything else in the world. You need to want it with all your heart and mind.” I sat there for what seemed like an eternity and then finally he told me that he would accept me as a student. My heart almost burst with joy as I felt the weight of the world lift from my shoulders and a peace and sense of safety settle into my being. How can one describe the feelings of someone who realizes that someone has just saved their life? I left his house with a smile that almost cracked my face while at the same time crying from a source that did not want to stop. When I woke up the next morning I had a deep sense of peace and the feeling that God had answered my prayers. I instantly began to change the manner in which I worked, reducing the number of people that I treated, washing my hands thoroughly between patients, and refusing to treat people with a lot of negative energy. As a woman, he had advised me to avoid treating certain men because they would transfer sexual energy to me that would be damaging to my subtle physical. My health began to improve and I experienced a growing level of energy and increased happiness. My friends and co-workers began to remark about the sparkle in my eyes. Inwardly I have become aware of how easily I lost my energy by opening up too much to people. It was my empathy with people that had attracted me to the therapy field in the first place, but it was this type of caring that was the problem. I asked Rama how I was doing, recently, and he said that I was much better when compared to before, but that I still needed to put distance between myself and certain people. He told me that it's not that other people intend to hurt you, they just do. I'm certain that one day I will do some other type of work. Until then, I am eternally grateful to Rama for saving my Me and helping me to see and grow. It has been his love for me that has helped me to realize that we need to save our best love for God and for Eternity.

"Well, I'm going to go see rama in dreaming and wake up in my dreaming when I meet him."

Meditation01:

Hold your attention on the navel area and listen to the 5 songs. They reference planes of light. And you move from one to another, you climb up the ladder of light, just by listening to them. Then when those 5 songs have ended, move your attention to the center of the chest. The next chakra up is called the heart chakra. It’s in the center of the chest. If you will hold your attention there, same thing, if you want to, you can put your fingers there and apply a little pressure. Hold your attention on the center of the chest, gently press very lightly and listen to the next 5 songs. The chest center, the heart chakra and the chakra above it, the throat center at the base of the throat, are the centers of balance, of happiness. The best chakra, the easiest to activate is the heart center and it will also pick up the throat center for you. If you hold your attention there for 5 songs, you will feel tremendous happiness, brightness, might see vivid colors, you might feel sensations of lightness, But if you just listen deeply you will stop thought. Same thing will happen with the navel center and with the third eye. After you’ve listened to the 5 songs, now you’ve gone up through 10 and you’ve moved up to a much higher plane of energy, climbing up the laticework of light of dimensions. Hold your attention up on the third eye. Your third eye, which is between your eyebrows and slightly above, the Agni chakra, is a center of knowledge. The third eye and the crown center at the very top of the head are the knowledge centers. The three meridians are power, balance which is happiness, and knowledge or wisdom. When you bring all three together, you are complete.Simply listen to the music. Simply listen to them, keep your attention on the third eye. When thought comes in and out of your mind, simply ignore it.Don’t get frustrated if your mind is restless. There is a lot of energy in the world and it takes patience to learn how to meditate. What’s happening as you listen to each song, the first 5 songs for the navel center, the second 5 songs for the heart center and the third 5 songs for the third eye is you are bringing the Kundalini up through concentration. The chakras are doorways to different dimensions, the different planes of Enlightenment. As you hold your attention on them, the Kundalini energy at the base of the spine will gradually rise first to the navel center, then the heart center, then to the third eye.

What are the 5 songs?

Meditation01:

A certain amount of the basic teachings of Buddhist Yoga can be learned from a book. But in order to really practice higher yoga, you need the energy, vibrational purity, example, humor, patience and wisdom of a living master. The first and most basic thing you gain from studying with a master is pure power.When you are with your master, he transfers highgrade kundalini energy into your subtle body.The empowerments from your master energize and activate your chakras, allowing you to do things that you could not possibly do with the amount of energy you normally have at your disposal.

Hmmm...

The fog is a powerful elemental(like the wind and the sunlight) that can be used to see and enter into other realities.The advanced mystic can manipulate the fog and other elementals in various ways to change levels of awareness.

MrSinister:


What are the 5 songs?

Enlightenment tape and canyons of light

Meditation01:

Enlightenment tape and canyons of light

Interesting... where can it be obtained?

One night with friends, in May of 1981, I happened to find myself going to a lecture at U.C.L.A. on meditation. I knew nothing much about it, but still it seemed like an interesting way to spend the evening. I had already made a commitment to join friends in India, later that summer, who were studying with a teacher there. I was convinced that this step was necessary for my spiritual progress and therefore was not expecting much from meditating with anyone else. Still, it seemed like a fun way to spend a Friday night. When we approached the room at Young Hall, I noticed that there were only about sixty people in the room. I had no trouble finding an aisle seat close to the front and closed my eyes. Immediately upon sitting down I felt a sensation similar to that of being pulled backwards! What was happening? A feeling of lightness filled me, and a light azure-blue light pulsated in front of me. I remember I gulped and took a couple of deep breaths to try and get a grip. Arcs of shimmering gold hues seemed to surround me. Quickly I opened my eyes only to find that the colors still flooded my senses. I sat there confused and surprised, but continued to flow with the energy. It felt as though heavy, cloudy thoughts were being emptied out of me, drained out, and a new sense of clarity and well-being poured in. A palette of colorful lights flashed before me only to dissolve into a brilliant white. The meditation continued to flow in this manner. Near the end of the night I opened my eyes and found myself gazing at the teacher in front of me. I kept squinting to try to actually see him through all the gold light, but could not. Everything in the room had disappeared, or so it seemed! There was a white hazy mist floating throughout the room. As I strained to see, I watched a clear tube form in the center. Peering deeply into this window, I noticed a “close-up” of the person leading the meditation. He seemed so close, in fact, it was almost as though he had been magnified. Feelings of intense warmth and delight filled me. It was a deep and beautiful moment. I felt truly wonderful, however my mind was frantically struggling to comprehend the sight before me: There sat Rama! My mind could not accept it. He was young — about thirty, nice looking with a friendly smile, and wearing a pullover sweater and running shoes. He gave off an easy, calm, laid-back manner as he sat on a hand-knit afghan expounding basic dharmic truths, the Eight-fold Path, and the virtues of Haagen-Dazs in the next breath! The most unbelievable part of all was he was American! Nothing in several years of investigation of spiritual study had prepared me for this! I had experienced interesting meditations with an Eastern teacher (so much so that I was going halfway around the world), but nothing like this! My mind fought to deny it, yet the beautiful stillness in my heart persisted, and I felt content inside. Wherever I looked there was gold light. My body felt dissolved, while the rest of me felt fully alive. Clearly I could not deny what was happening. This was my first encounter with Rama.

It was the second stop on the journey. Rama was silhouetted against a desert tree which shone silver in the near-full moonlight. About 250 students with backpacks were seated around him in a semi-circle. It was probably about one o'clock in the morning, although I didn't bother to look at my watch because time doesn't exist when you're in the desert with Rama. Rama told us to turn and watch the mountain to our left. As he meditated on it, its aura became very bright and the top of the ridge seemed to dissolve into a jelly-like consistency. Then I saw Rama's double appear at the top of the ridge. The glowing blue form jumped without jumping from place to place along the mountaintop. “Observe the moon,” Rama said as he turned to face it. I watched as the hazy ring around it dissolved. The moon separated into two moons and the subtle moon circled around the physical moon. That one got a lot of “ooohs” and “whoahs.” Then Rama did a special light show — a fireworks extravaganza in the subtle physical to celebrate the 4th of July, 1982. After a lengthy discussion of the phenomena and other related topics, Rama asked us to lie down on our backs and observe the sky. I was expecting to see the 'usual miracles': rearrangement of the star patterns and such. But something very different happened. As I lay there gazing at the star-spangled array, wave after wave of sparkling light began to explode across the sky. My whole being was inundated with each rush of light. Soon the entire sky was a swirling mass of colorful glittering light. The radiance was like none other I've ever perceived; it was alive, almost tangible I was bathing in a profound feeling of allencompassing peace and love. I thought to myself, “I feel so close to Eternity right now. Then the whole sky disappeared and I felt that I was actually looking at God. I felt a quiet intimacy between myself and Rama; between myself and my Self. For a moment outside of time, the sky was alive. God was real.

"Oracle"

I had been in the Center only a short time when I went on my first desert trip. Although my first meeting with Rama had been an excellent experience and the center meetings had been filled with light and had given me a feeling of inner peace, I was still skeptical. How I could be skeptical baffles me, because a mere glance from Rama would hurtle me through endless realities. I drove to the desert alone to try to gather my senses and wits about me. I arrived early and proceeded to examine the area. I have lived in California all my life and, at first glance, this seemed to be average California desert. My mind started becoming skeptical again. I had driven four hours from Los Angeles to this gorge in the middle of the Anza Borrego desert. I was thinking that I must be unquestionably insane. I proceeded to mill around with my fellow seekers, some of whom were on their first encounter with the desert meditations and other “old pros” who had made at least one other trip. When Rama arrived, within minutes we were racing into the desert at a very brisk pace — with him and two or three of the staff in the lead. The gorge is about a half mile wide, very flat and covered with soft sand. We walked for about two miles and stopped to rest. We meditated for about twenty minutes and proceeded on our way. We stopped again about five miles into the desert. We gathered around Rama, all sitting on the sand. The show began. Although I was still very skeptical about the experience, those feelings began to be
washed away as Rama proceeded. First he filled the area around us with a golden light. He then looked over the group and announced that we should pay particular attention to the moon above our heads. He then, without question, made that moon move. At this point, I got a little more attentive, to say the least. The sun had been down for some time, and the chill in the desert air was starting to make us quite cold. Rama sensed that some of the seekers were short of clothing. He raised his arms and said, “Heat,” and I felt a blast of warm air equal to that of an electric heater blow across my face. He then scanned the sky and fixed his vision on a small but very dense cloud right over our heads. It was a cloud, not smoke or fog, it was a cloud, white and fluffy. “Watch this,” Rama said with a smile. He pointed his finger at the cloud, and it began to change ever so slightly. There was a side of me that was convinced that some of the phenomena I had seen could have been imagined or misinterpreted. That side of me had my eyes fixed on this cloud. I wasn't going to let this go by without a fight from my conscious mind. I brought myself down from meditation and gathered all my senses. I stared at that cloud while it continued to change form very slowly. “He'll never make this cloud do anything much,” I thought triumphantly. Suddenly the cloud started to disappear. It grew smaller and smaller and as I stared at it intently, my mind screamed in disbelief, “Was it possible?” Possible it was. That cloud totally disappeared. It was no longer in the sky above the gorge. Rama also painted, with light, the hills white and gold that evening. He made the desert appear as if there had been a snow. He disappeared and levitated, but nothing had quite the effect on me that the cloud disappearing had. The trip to the desert had the effect of giving tranquility to my being. As I drove home, I realized that I had just begun to scratch the surface of what is reality.

Rama uses the desert as the main “training ground” for the path of mysticism. Several times a year we venture forth 'en masse' down the Gorge, and we never really come back. It's quite a sight to see such a huge entourage of women and men with backpacks hiking determinedly under the moonlight in the soft sand. I sometimes wonder what passers-by in their cars must think when they see us entering the gorge ... a midnight field trip of the Sierra Club? ... Moses leading the Jews out of Los Angeles? ... a practical survival drill in case of nuclear devastation? ... what's going on? No one would ever believe the truth; a self-realized teacher taking his students out into the desert to dissolve them and their concepts of “reality.” On October 18, 1981, about 150 of us assembled in the Anza Borrego desert at four o'clock p.m. and walked into the gorge until sunset. When we stopped and sat down, Rama had us observe two adjacent ranges of power on a mountain. One of them had a very light, psychic vibration. It looked to me like a stream of molten energy trickling down the mountain. The other field of energy felt “ominous;” the same way a dark thundercloud rumbling in the distance feels. Rama informed us that an occult being lived up there and that it didn't particularly appreciate the fact that Rama had brought us all to its front doorstep. All at once this being jumped at Rama in attack; that was its last act. Rama is a ruthlessly detached warrior in the desert — it's no place to fool around. A student spoke up and related what he saw: “The being looked like a centaur, and when it leaped out at you I saw it shatter into millions of tiny fragments.” Rama affirmed this perception and then said, “Look up in the sky.” I looked up, and there was his double, a brightly glowing blue form, hovering above us. We walked about two more miles and then stopped again. Rama said, “I'm going to introduce you to a couple of my friends. They are cosmic goddesses who exist in a higher astral plane. These beings are real, and they possess great powers which they use to aid spiritual seekers.” The first celestial friend to manifest was the goddess of rapid spiritual transformation — Kali. The energy of Kali was very intense, volatile and powerful. The image I saw was a huge intricate golden fan spread out against the rock wall. Then Lakshmi, the goddess of beauty and prosperity appeared. When she came, everything seemed to take on a delicate blue hue, and I felt a sense of peace and harmony. Rama then had us lie on our backs and watch the stars. Gradually, the stars that we all know so well disappeared and a new pattern emerged from the emptiness. These new stars were like negative” stars; they were very luminous but they reminded me of black holes in space. After a few minutes it seemed as though we all rose up and merged with the stars. I felt tremendous love for the universe. A bit later, Rama told us that he was going to call in his allies. Allies are powerful beings that 'work' for an occultist. I was sitting in the front row of the semi-circle surrounding Rama when he raised his arms straight out to his sides. The wind picked up and brought a powerful wave of energy. Rama said, “These are my two allies; one is to my right and the other is to my left.” I clearly saw the one which was to his right. Overwhelmingly in front of me, looming about six or seven feet tall, was a huge white doorway. I had seen it once before with Rama at Torrey Pines beach, although I didn't know that it was an ally at that time. I focused my attention on the other ally, but I couldn't see it very clearly. It had an animal-like shape to it and perhaps a bird's head, but I couldn't be sure. Rama asked us to report what we saw. I decided to speak up. “The one on your right is a large white doorway,” I said. “Right! Very good seeing!” Rama answered. “Now what does the other one look like?” Since I didn't feel that my perception of that one was particularly accurate, I decided to try and give a humorous answer. At the time, Rama and many of his students were living in San Diego county, which is known for its holistic fanaticism. Rama used to love to razz his mellow, organic-type students. “Well, I can't quite make out the other ally, but it's definitely more organic ...” I said, hiding a smile. Rama seized the moment and said, in his best 'Suzy-Holistic' voice, “Oh ... fer sure ... like we have organic allies; we're mellow ....” An uproar of laughter filled the silent air. The walk out of the gorge was five miles non-stop at a fast pace, although it seemed like ten miles because we were all tired and no one had brought enough water. As I walked on, I could sense and almost see the Indian spirits who stand guard over the gorge from atop the canyon walls. Then, for the finale of my desert experience, as I neared the end of the trek I happened to look up at the top of the ridge to my left. I saw a beautiful woman in a long blue gown. She was made of white light and her smile radiated sweetness. I think it was Lakshmi. She seemed to be 'seeing us to the door' of the desert as we left. I smiled and walked on. Despite all of the visual phenomena — I saw cosmic goddesses, stars disappearing and appearing, beings from other dimensions and the like — I felt that these manifestations were merely Rama's sideshows to distract our minds from what's really going on on a much deeper level. I sensed what Rama was doing was melting the glue which holds together our world — the perceptions and definitions we adhere to that bind us to the illusion that we really exist.

You're what?” my husband, Alan, said, staring at me as if I were a stranger. “We're going out to the desert to meditate under the full moon,” I repeated. I could see it all in his eyes: witches, cauldrons, animal sacrifices. Hoping to diffuse the tension, I nonchalantly added, “Yeah, and I need a few things before I go. Do we have any extra newt toes or bat wings laying around?” His head recoiled in surprise and we both laughed. “Thank God,” I thought, “no battle for the moment.” If Alan could change one thing about me it would be my irrational fascination with things metaphysical. He shakes his head at the way I waste my time. “I'll just tell everybody you're spending the weekend with the Moonies,” he said, pretending to joke. “Just tell them the truth,” I sanctimoniously replied. But I must admit that I haven't been entirely truthful with him. I've been playing it “pretty close to the vest” as they say, jealously guarding a secret. I am now about to open the floodgates and, as the truth spills out, I'm afraid I'll sound a little like a voice over in a Grade B Raymond Chandler movie: “It all started innocently enough ...” I went on my first desert trip with Rama two months ago over the 4th of July weekend. For several weeks prior to the trip, every time I closed my eyes to meditate I would see the same image: I was an Indian on a mountaintop, awaiting a vision. Although it was the middle of the night, the moon became as bright as the sun, began to pulsate and then revolve in the middle of a sky that looked like a Van Gogh painting. It slightly annoyed me that I didn't understand what it meant, but then the image would fade from sight and memory until the next time I meditated. I arrived at the desert at sundown. I could see about 200 people in the distance, sitting cross-legged, meditating on the setting sun. They looked like an Indian nation. As I approached them, I had a weird sensation that I was about seven feet tall (I'm actually 5'2”) and that, as I walked, my life (up to that moment) was telescoped behind me like an after-image or ghost on a television screen. I was elated and felt a determination, purpose and grace in my stride that was unfamiliar. We walked through the gorge and stopped to meditate next to a mountain. Rama said it was a power spot, and directed our attention to the top of the mountain. He pointed his arm towards it and it began to shimmer, became transparent and then completely disappeared. “That's what happens when I meditate on each of you,” he said. I broke into a cold sweat. Bob Dylan was hammering away inside my head, “You know something's happening, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” Lifting his hands to the sky, he told us to watch the moon. B became very bright, separated into two separate moons, reunited, began to pulsate and then slowly to revolve. “The sign, the sign,” I thought. I can say for sure that somewhere along the line I had stopped breathing because the next time I took in air I gasped. My cheeks were wet, but I had no recollection of crying — on the contrary, I was filled with a sense of peace and well-being. He then asked us to lie down our backs and watch the sky. I thought I saw red, blue and white brushstrokes across the sky and chuckled deeply at the 4th of July joke. Since no one else made a sound or subsequently referred to it, I assumed that my imagination had run wild. But then, the constellation I was watching moved. There was absolutely no doubt about it and I didn't even glance around to see if other people were noticing it. I'm telling you, that sucker moved and I was awestruck! I could hear Rama saying something like “Unless they see, they will not believe.” “No, no, no,” I shrieked inwardly, “I'm not ready for this.” I felt that he was about to blow the sky wide open and I panicked. I squeezed my eyes shut, gritting my teeth, and said, “Not yet. I've only been a student for 6 weeks. I can't handle this.” All right, so I was a chicken. I admit it. After that, I relaxed and surrendered to the experience. I simply stopped resisting. Many things happened that night. I saw and I believed. I went home with a wild look in my eyes. As Hamlet says to his best friend, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” But I couldn't tell anyone. Who would ever believe me? I hugged my secret against my chest. “I'm just afraid that the things you're doing will drive a wedge between us.” I was abruptly brought back. Alan had tears in his eyes. “We have to have a common ground of things we believe in, or we'll drift apart. You've been different since you came back from the desert in July and God only knows what you'll be like this time.” I sadly touched his hand and struggled to find words of reassurance. But he's right, of course. Once you've seen a miracle, there is no going back.

"Then Rama had us look up at the moon again. He usually doesn't say what he is going to do so people won't think he is suggesting what to see. But sometimes it gets frustrating not knowing what is going on. So he said he would make the moon get bigger and smaller while he said “in” or “out.” We were supposed to feel what he was doing to the moon while he was saying those things. I'll be darned if I didn't see that ol' moon getting bigger and smaller. I didn't have to meditate to see it. It was that plain. "

“That is all, just meditate,” he said. “If I were you, I would listen to Fwap,” the Oracle remarked offhandedly. “Okay,” I replied. For some reason it seemed to me that there should have been more of a ceremony involved, or that I should have had something eloquent to say to them, but “okay” was all I could come up with at the time. I closed my eyes and started the “Blue Sky” visualization. After picturing the blue sky for a few minutes, I began to see a lot of different reds, greens, yellows, blues, and a particular shade of turquoise I had never seen before, swirling around me. Then I saw the white puffy circles of light that I had passed through the day before. But I didn’t feel as if I was in my astral body, and I couldn’t manage to move toward the circles of light. They, however, moved toward me. One circle of light after another passed around me. They looked like phosphorescent circles that were made up of light and fluffy cumulus clouds. I felt timeless again. The circles of light unexpectedly disappeared, and I found myself sitting in what appeared to be Master Fwap’s meditation room at his monastery in Katmandu. Master Fwap was sitting on my right, and the Oracle was sitting on my left. I looked from one to the other. They both had the biggest smiles on their faces that I had ever seen. “The American boy has done it, Fwap. Phat!” shouted out the Oracle with joy. “Yes, I must admit, I didn’t think he had it in him,” Master Fwap calmly remarked. “But my own master, Fwaz-Shastra Dup, had foreseen that he would solve the riddle. As usual, my root guru was correct.” “Okay, Master Fwap, but what about the riddle, when do I get to that part? And, if you don’t mind my asking, I thought you said that you and the Oracle weren’t going to come into any of these astral dimensions with me?” “You’ve already solved the riddle!” the Oracle shouted. “The Oracle’s correct,” Master Fwap calmly responded. “You’ve done it.” “But what are you guys doing here in the dimensions with me? Did you come in just to tell me that I’ve done it?” “We are not in the dimensions with you,” Master Fwap said in a soft and even tone of voice, as if he were explaining something complicated to a small child. “We are in the here and now, at my temple in Katmandu.” “Wait a minute, Master Fwap. Aren’t our bodies still back in the cave of enlightenment, in the Anapurna Himalayas?” “No,” Master Fwap replied, shaking his head gently from side to side. “Master Fwap and Master Oracle, are you trying to tell me that we teleported our bodies all the way from the cave of enlightenment back here to Katmandu?” “Precisely,” replied the Oracle, with a tone of proud achievement in his voice. “But this can’t be real. I mean, I don’t even know how I did it!” “You will never know,” Master Fwap proceeded to explain. “Your second attention did it, as did ours.” “Master Fwap, I am seriously speechless. Was that the answer to the riddle, being able to teleport back here?” I asked with incredulity. “Evidently,” the Oracle replied, in a flat and suddenly bored tone of voice. “Listen, my young friend,” the Oracle continued. “What your second attention did just now wasn’t a very big deal from our point of view. We did something a little more difficult, didn’t we, Fwap?” “We did, indeed,” Master Fwap replied, “although, honored Oracle, you must admit it was relatively easy compared to what our own masters made us do when we were his age, in order to regain our past-life enlightenments.” “Yes,” the Oracle sighed, as a far-away look filtered across his eyes, as if he was remembering something from a long-forgotten past. “Excuse me, but would either of you please tell me what you just did that was so hard?” I had to ask, the suspense was starting to get to me. ‘‘Why, we brought back your snowboard and knapsack with us,” replied the Oracle. “See, they are lying right behind you, just turn around and have a look for yourself.” I turned my head around and there they were; both my snowboard and my knapsack were lying on the floor behind me.

RICCARDO

A few nights ago, meditating with Rama in the Anza Desert, I fell in love with Death. A hot wind was blowing and the night was clear. The air was vibrating with a strange form of electricity, as if a myriad of bubbles of energy were floating around and the hot wind made them burst into a rain of golden sparkles. Everything around us was still and spoke of Eternity. Only the crickets, busily rubbing their wings, trying to send their mating call across the sands before the end of their short season, reminded me of the passing of time. That night, for the first time in my life, I felt that I was a part of everything and that everything was a part of me: the wind, the sand and the mountains, and the sky with the moon and stars That night I understood that I am eternal. Rama told us that the place where we stopped for the second meditation was a place of transit, like an obligatory door or tunnel through which creatures from other planes must pass in their journey through Eternity. I thought that perhaps I had also gone through places like this in my journey and that I had probably lived in many other worlds. I would like to be able to remember these things, but I cannot. I then realized that at the moment of my Death, finally freed from this shell of imperfection, my journey will continue. I will be able to see and grasp the immensity of a Great Plan, and see things that these physical eyes will never see. I understood that Death is the most exciting adventure in one's life, and I felt free as I suddenly realized that I had lost all fears of Life. Then, Rama started talking about Death, his Death and that of his students. Whenever Rama talks about his Death, I start getting worried. In this life I have been able to find him, after searching a long time in my journey across the countries. Will I be so lucky to find him again in my next life? How soon is he going to leave us? And how much time is still available to me? There might be so little time left and still so much to do. I have decided from now on to live my life as if every day were my last, as if I were to die tomorrow every day. I returned to Los Angeles full of energy. I know that in the Anza Borrego Desert, on September 5th, 1982, I have become a warrior.

NEIL

One day in the late summer I was at Rama's house in La Jolla. His house was not just the place where he lived. It was also used as the meeting place for his students' weekly meditations and for offices and as a production facility. I was there tutoring one of his students in computer science, which was my major at San Diego State University, when Rama walked into the room where we were working. He was wearing his running shorts and a tee shirt and he was holding the keys to his car in his hand. He asked us what we were doing and I told him that I was helping the other person with his computer science homework. Rama exchanged pleasantries with the other person and asked how the tutoring was going. Then he stood there, not saying anything, for several moments. “Why did you come here today?” he asked me. “Well, I had to help him with his homework,” I replied. Rama looked at me as if I didn't know what I was talking about, and that there really was another reason why I was there. “Why don't you come running with me?” he said. We drove down to the beach where Rama liked to run. It was around six-thirty and the sun was low in the sky, approaching sunset. It reflected off the water in beautiful shimmers of gold. There was about a mile of beach which had a restaurant on one end and a pier on the other. We were right in between. We started our run, barefoot, with the ocean to our left. Rama stayed close to the water's edge and I ran next to him. “I prayed to the cosmic gods and goddesses very intensely this morning during my meditation,” Rama said as we ran. The cosmic gods and goddesses are fields of energy. They are not physical, but they have tremendous power and can help spiritual seekers in accomplishing many things in the world. “I asked them to intervene in our behalf with the forces that have been keeping us from reaching the spiritual seekers that I have felt that I could help,” he said. Rama explained to me that in many lives he and several other people who were close to him have tried in whatever way they could to bring light to as many people as possible. But they were always thwarted by the dark forces of the world from doing all that they could. By this time we had reached the pier, turned around and were running in the other direction. The sun was lower in the sky and I felt a sense of joy and excitement growing within me. “They said that they would help us,” Rama continued, “and that from this day forward we shall not be held back by the negative forces of the world.” We continued to run. I felt a powerful force emanating from Rama. I allowed myself to be carried by this energy and it seemed that I was gliding over the sand with no effort at all. We reached the restaurant, turned around and doubled back. Rama then outlined for me the major events of our lives and I strained to see into the future with him as he spoke. As we approached the end of our run Rama made joking references to the fact that several thousand years ago the in-habitants of the area were Indians who had a very highly developed, spiritually powerful culture and performed many of their sacred and mystical rites on the cliffs that overlooked the beach where we were running. “Yes,” he told me, “this is the land of our fourfathers. Mother was kinky.” When we stopped running we were back where we started We entered the ocean up to our thighs. The sun was setting now and it was just above the ocean in the sky. Blue, purple and red spread out across the horizon. We lifted our arms up over our heads and pointed our palms towards the sky and meditated facing the sun “Today is the gate that we walk through to the future,” Rama said. Then he instructed me in a new way to meditate while we were standing in the water. “Feel that the ocean is entering you through your navel,” Rama explained. “Now, in gratitude to the ocean, offer it your life force and let the power and purity of the ocean enter into you.” We still had our palms raised to the setting sun and he said, “Now feel that you are in the sky, that you are part of the sky. And if you can, spin and twist and turn.” For a moment the immensity and power of the ocean frightened me, but I overcame my fear and felt that I was offering myself to the ocean. Then I felt my palms tingling and a force came out of them. It was as if I could feel myself in the sky with the force that was emanating from my hands. Then my awareness shifted. I felt that I was in the sky looking down at the ocean and that I was spinning and twisting madly with joy.

Consciousness comes about through awareness. Awareness is the dream of consciousness. In Nirvana there is pure being. There is no individual awareness of form. You have returned home and everything is complete. There is no craving or disappointment.

I am a highly ethical person.

Read 600 pages per day.

“In day-to-day life,” he said, “you are constantly dealing with the unknown. Yes, there will be a certain amount of repetition in most people’s lives. For example, you may go to school each day at approximately the same time and follow the same route. “But one day, something may occur on your way to school that was quite unexpected, something that you could not have anticipated would ever possibly occur at precisely that moment. Perhaps a car swerves out of control and suddenly bears down on you, or perhaps the most beautiful girl you have ever seen suddenly walks past you. “If you were thinking logically, in straight lines, at the time, you would probably not react quickly and correctly to what was happening to you during that unexpected moment. Employing the hierarchical Western system of thought, you would need to analyze, consider and evaluate before you could act. But in real life, not in theory, by the time you had done so, you would have probably missed your chance to avoid disaster or seize an unexpected opportunity. “The most successful people in the world are those who think relationally,” Master Fwap continued. “Of course they can use hierarchical logical analysis too, when it is beneficial for them to do so. But most highly effective and successful people don’t rely on hierarchical logical analysis for most of their problem-solving; instead they solve problems relationally with the assistance of their second attention. “Most highly successful people live in a state of creative and happy emptiness. Unlike average people who become overly absorbed in what they are thinking about, dealing with currently, anticipating or remembering, individuals who think relationally— from the center of the circle of consciousness—can see opportunities that other people overlook, and simultaneously create rapid relations that enable them to quickly and successfully seize these opportunities and avoid disasters. “To sum it all up in overly simplistic terms,” Master Fwap said tersely, “success in life primarily depends on two things: timing, and a person’s ability to create rapid and accurate relations within one’s own mind.” “But wait a second, Master Fwap. How does thinking relationally affect my walking past the most beautiful girl I have ever seen?” “If you were thinking logically,” he replied with a laugh, “you would probably not react properly or quickly enough to meet and impress her. Logically, if she was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen, you would be so overwhelmed by her beauty that you wouldn’t react quickly enough, and you would miss the opportunity to introduce yourself to her. “Or you would react logically. You might like to meet her, but remember you are on your way to school. You might not have enough time to meet her without being late to class. “Also, how would you react?” he inquired rhetorically. “Using logic, you could only rely on your past experiences, those that are in your current memory, to draw information from, on how to approach her. You would have to think quickly of a way to create a logical relationship between yourself and what you were going to say to her. But by the time you got all of this constructed in your mind, chances are she would be long gone.” But Master Fwap,” I stammered, “I don’t see how thinking relationally, or not thinking at all, or whatever it is you are trying to explain to me, would help me to meet and impress her.” “It is easier than you realize, but you must think relationally to understand what I am talking about,” he replied with a soft chuckle. “As I said before,” he continued, “the mind is like an onion; it is made up of countless layers. The layers closest to the surface of your conscious awareness are the storehouse of your memories and experiences from your current lifetime. But beneath those layers are deeper layers that contain your past-life experiences, and deeper still there are layers that access the pure intelligence of the universe itself, which I refer to as the second attention. “When you think relationally, when you have the full awareness of your mind— all of those layers are at your disposal. You can immediately draw information from your past lives or, if the information you want can’t even be found there, you can draw information directly from your second attention. “Perhaps you have had many past lives in which you knew equally beautiful women,” Master Fwap said seductively. “You could draw information about the best way to react and speak to her from your past-life memories. And if you think relationally, via the second attention, you could access that information instantly. “From the center of the circle, you can instantly find whatever it is you need to know,” Master Fwap explained, “in order to react properly to any situation. Trust me, this is true.”