A master of an art is someone, I suppose, who's been mastered by the art. They've become so one with what they teach that you can't tell the teacher from the subject. The teacher is the subject; that's what their whole life is about. They're so wrapped up in it. I had college professors like that. They were so wrapped up in their subject that that's all they could talk about. I would say such a person is a master of their subject, or that they've been mastered by it. Their life and their subject are one. That's how I define a master. A Zen master is someone whose life is so one with enlightenment and self-discovery that they can never be separated from that. They've been essentially mastered by Zen. No one ever masters a subject; I mean, that's a strange concept. The subject masters you. So you need to selectively pick a teacher, one that you respect, and also, of course, one who's capable, one who can do what they say. In the world of enlightenment it's not just someone who can talk with wonderful poetic figures about enlightenment, but someone who has the personal power to bring you into altered states of awareness, someone who has an advanced knowledge of other planes of consciousness, who can see beyond the physical world.

A lot of people aren't successful students because they don't know how to study. Studying involves quiet. Your mind can't be running all over the place. You need a quiet place that feels good to study.

I remember in college there were so many people who used to study in the library, and I could never understand it because the library is the worst place to study -- better a room in a noisy dorm, where at least you can put on some earplugs. The library was just filled with people who were goofing off, who were falling asleep. There was such a sleepy energy there that you wouldn't get anything done. The best thing to do was go in, get your books and go off by yourself someplace where the energy is clean. You need a place to meditate, to study, where the energy is clean.

At the university I went to, they had an honor society for people who were in the honor's program, and we would all spend our time studying together. Everyone else was partying and running around and having a wonderful time. We were partying and sitting still and having a wonderful time studying on Saturday night, Friday night. Oh, once in a while we'd go to a dance or have a great time, but we spent an inordinate amount of time studying -- a lot more than your average student because that's what we got a kick out of. It reinforced tremendously that sense of scholarship to be with other people who were doing the same thing. Sometimes -- I spent most of my time actually -- studying alone in my little apartment because I always found I could assimilate more that way.

There was a time in my life when I was going to become a botanist because I love the world of plants. I used to go out foraging with some of my botany teachers and we'd walk in the woods and things like that, and we just enjoyed so much being out in the woods. We shared something. I admired and respected my teachers, and one teacher I was walking around the woods with was a great teacher, not only a scholar but also a teacher and a gentleman. We would tromp around the woods, and he'd show me some weird fern or some strange vine, and we had a great old time. I also admired the way the teacher taught in the classroom. But what inspired me the most was the subject itself. There was a sense of shared camaraderie about the subject.

Suppose you are trying to solve a mathematical equation, and no matter how many times you factor it, you can’t get your equation to balance properly. Now, the average person will simply become frustrated. They will find fault with themselves or the equation and either give up in anger or depression. If they are headstrong, they will just keep mentally pounding away at the equation, angrily looking for a proper solution to it. The chances that they will solve a difficult equation this way are minimal.They may factor and refactor the equation over and over again, but if they don’t find a different angle to view the equation from, they will only be bringing the same mind-set back to the equation again and again. If their previous mind-set wasn’t able to factor the equation initially, why would it be able to later?Taking the angular approach to problem solving means that you would forget about the equation for a while and go and do something else. Later, in a different frame of mind, you might see the equation in an entirely new light. Then with this new frame of mind you would find it easier and more enjoyable to solve.By allowing your second attention to move your mind to a different and higher nodal point, you gain a more advanced way to problem-solve.

A nodal point of perception is the view that you have of life at any given moment in time and space. If you were able to see into your second attention, as I can, you would see that you actually have countless nodal points within your nonphysical mind, deep within your second attention’s perceptual field. Most people have access to only one or two of these nodal points of perception.Persons whom most people refer to as geniuses have access to perhaps a half dozen or so of their nodal points of perception. In reality, there are an infinite number of nodal points of perception hidden within your second attention. In and through the practice of meditation, you can learn about and experience many or all of these nodal points. When you are very skillful in yoga, you can even consciously change nodal points at will, selecting the proper nodal point for whatever life situation or problem you currently need to deal with or solve.

Relax your mind for a moment. Now instead of trying to grasp what I am saying, just let my words flow into your second attention. Don’t try to understand or analyze them, and perhaps you will comprehend my explanation without my having to explain it to you.

ASSOCIATIVE RELAXATION

Lie down on your back. Take a deep breath and slowly exhale. Relax. Think of the color
green for a moment. Imagine that your feet, ankles, legs, knees, and thighs are being bathed in a
beautiful green light. Now relax these parts of your body. Continue relaxing them until all tension
has left.
Think of the color purple. Imagine that your stomach, abdomen, lower back, and lower ribs
are being filled with purple light. Now consciously relax these areas of your body until they are
completely relaxed.
Visualize your chest, upper torso, back, and ribs. Feel that they are being bathed in a beautiful
light-blue light. Now relax these parts of your body until all stress and tension has left them.
Feel the area of your shoulders, neck, face, and head. Imagine that they are surrounded with a
beautiful golden light. Now consciously relax these parts of your body until they are completely
relaxed.
After you have completed this process, then imagine that your whole body is being bathed in
a glowing white light. Now relax your entire body until all signs of tension have left you.
After you have practiced this technique a number of times, you will be able to use it to relax
specific sections of your body at any time. For example, if you find that your stomach is tense
while you are driving or at a meeting, then imagine that it is being filled with purple light. Your
muscles should relax very quickly. If you develop a headache or a tight neck, imagine that this
area of your body is being bathed in golden light. If you feel a tightness around your chest, then
imagine that your chest is being bathed in a light blue light, and so on. The more you practice, the
better and more quickly the technique will work. Eventually you should be able to relax any part
of your body within moments of visualizing the color you associated with it.

Most people enjoy the feeling of complacency. They've learned to like the feeling of sitting down in front of the television set, of lying on the beach in the sunshine, of driving around in their car without anything to do, of talking endlessly for hours with others about trivial subjects -- in other words, no demand. A successful student decides that they enjoy the world of demand, the world of willpower, the world of work, more than the world of trivial pursuit. If you're out there playing Trivial Pursuit, it means that you've got nothing going on in your life. And Trivial Pursuit is more than a board game (Rama laughs). It's the way that most people live. Their lives are trivial pursuits.

One doesn't pick easy teachers. Easy teachers can be disastrous because they're so easy, you're so bored that you don't do well. You pick good teachers. Some of the teachers I picked were hard; they had reputations for never giving anyone an A, which I found to be untrue. Those were obviously the people who didn't get A's who spread those rumors, who didn't work too hard. Selecting a teacher is a very important thing, and the more time you spend with a teacher, the more important it is. If it's a teacher you're going to have in a classroom for one semester, it's important. Once in a while there's nothing you can do. Only one teacher is teaching a section of a particular course and there's no way around it and you have to take it that semester. Then, you have to take it. It's still worthwhile going in and making an initial contact, I think, with a teacher. If it's a subject you're going to be spending much more time in, if the subject is enlightenment, if the subject is martial arts or something where you're working with a master of the art, a mentor, someone who you will be involved with, not just for a month or two but for a long period of time, who will really oversee your study for many years -- then you have to be very selective. As I said -- most teachers are mediocre. Most people who profess to teach about enlightenment are terrible, in my opinion. They're mediocre. They're not terrible, but that's how I view them because my standards are different. Then there are some who are even worse and there are a few who are very good. I found the same thing as a college professor. Most of my colleagues were boring, so their students thought anyway. They were great scholars, but that's a little different.

Taking the angular approach to problem solving means that you would forget about the equation for a while and go and do something else. Later, in a different frame of mind, you might see the equation in an entirely new light. Then with this new frame of mind you would find it easier and more enjoyable to solve.

The use of the powers, of the siddah powers, is actually a very scientific application of occult energy through the occult body to do something specific.

When you visit an Enlightened teacher, if you have the opportunity meditate with them, if they sit in meditation, for a period of time, you should close your eyes and meditate. But you should also once in a while open your eyes and observe them. Look at the energy field around their body. You will see if they’re Enlightened, if you’re not complete blocked up psychically, you will see a number of emanations, a number of different lighting effects that are beautiful to watch. You may see golden lights all around them, diffuse light all around them. You may see them go into a photo negative where it looks like everything reverses. You may see them dissolve in light, the light may grow so thick that you can’t see them, you can’t make out their body. You can see through them sometimes. Sometimes you can actually see right through them and see what’s behind them. Depends upon the state of attention that they are in. But as you watch an Enlightened teacher, You will see this light after a while. Some times people come to an Enlightened teacher and they don’t see the light at all. They’re just blocked up. Their mind is so caught up in the world of the senses and thought, that they simply can’t let go and allow their occult eyes to see. So they need to practice meditation for a while. But most people can see the light. Even the first time. Sometimes it’s funny, they don’t even know what they are seeing. Its so natural that it doesn’t seem like its unusual.

This earth itself is nothing but beauty. But human beings have been a disease, from a certain point of view, a kind of a bacteria that has infected the earth, that has destroyed the forests, the rivers, polluted the oceans, that is currently destroying the ozone layer. Human beings have not taken very good care of the resource that sustains them. They don’t seem to realize that if they destroy it, they destroy themselves. A most unusual species. Yet taken individually, human beings are incredibly beautiful. If we look at any person, they have sensitivities, inner light. While they may be in a certain stage in their evolution where they’re a little confused, just as a third grader does not know everything, we can’t necessarily find fault with them for that. They’re doing the best they can with what they have. Indeed, what we should have is an attitude of tolerance, not of perdition. We should feel that all of humanity is our family—and I always think it’s a good idea to put as much distance between yourself and your family as possible (Rama laughs), unless, of course, you have an exceptionally enlightened family.

In today’s world it’s really impossible to get away from humanity. We live in a media jungle, what McLuhan called a global community. All of us are joined together by media— television, satellites, newspapers, magazines. Even if you live out in the far reaches—there are no longer far reaches—because in an instant, through the marvelous aid of electronics, you can be in touch with any part of the world. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty hard to avoid it.
The problem is that a great deal of the information that comes down the pike is not very good. The consciousness of most human beings has a certain focus. And while all people are good and many people think noble thoughts, by and large we live in a world that is interested in sensations. The news that greets us is in many ways very similar to the sights that greeted those who went to the Roman Coliseum to watch the games. There’s an urge within the human species for blood, for violence. People derive a strange pleasure from hearing about the misfortunes of others. This is the way the world is. To think badly of the world or of humanity for being this way is like condemning, again, all the second and third graders in the world. Tolerance is necessary.
So, [we’re] living in a world of darkness. In other words, the dark ages have always been present, in a sense, from the spiritual point of view. Many spiritual communities have flocked off to the woods; they still do today. They live in seclusion and this is an interesting way to live. I think it’s as valid a way to live as any other. It just depends what your purposes are. I myself have always been a lover of society and nature at the same time—because I see God in the flowers and in the city streets as well. I don’t see that there’s essentially a difference. Sometimes it’s fun to be in one and sometimes it’s fun to be in the other.

It is my belief that you really can’t escape the vibratory energies of this world. That is to say, even a few hundred years ago the population of our planet was much smaller than it is today. Each person who lives on this earth creates a vibratory energy and when the planet was not as populated, the energies were not as volatile. But as the population continues to escalate, the weave of the energies gets stronger and stronger and it has an effect on everyone who lives here. Even if you live on top of an isolated mountain, it can’t be isolated in terms of energy. As you meditate and you develop more sensitivity, or let’s say you just become more aware of the sensitivity that all human beings have potentially, you are affected strongly by these energies.

As far as I’m concerned, in terms of spiritual evolution, while it used to be that you could go live in the convent or the monastery and get away from it all—and in a sense you could, you could just put physical distance between yourself and the population masses, the unenlightened masses who were interested in their own pleasures and pastimes, which might not have been your pastimes—that’s really not possible today because even if you just go a few miles away, the energies are so volatile in the world that you really can’t get away from them. Oh, there are some places where there’ll be less—Hawaii, a few other places, parts of Switzerland—where you can, to some extent, get away from it all. But even so, I don’t even think it’s necessarily good to try. Because if you’re interested in helping humanity, which is the hallmark of real spirituality, at least in my estimation, it’s pretty tough to help people when you’ve separated yourself from them. In other words, you can help a lot of squirrels out in the forest, but aside from an occasional ranger or par
Secondly, there’s a real problem with separating yourself from humanity. While you will assert, and I will certainly agree, that humanity is not at a very high state in their evolutionary development—they’re currently inventing bigger and better bombs to blow themselves up with—the same silly stuff that’s been going on for thousands of years still goes on, the same repression. While we’ve developed an interesting technology, human beings really, in my estimation, have not evolved very far. We don’t have a much greater sense of humanity than the ancient Greeks did or the ancient Chinese. Still, when you start to separate yourself from humanity, a funny thing happens. When you feel that you are a spiritual seeker and you want to step back from the world, in many cases an egotism or an egotistical attitude begins to develop, and you see this, unfortunately, in many spiritual groups. It’s the “holier than thou” attitude.

The most important quality in self-discovery, in the so-called spiritual life, is humility. If you have all spiritual qualities and do not have humility, then all is lost from a spiritual perspective. If you have humility and nothing else, then don’t worry, all other spiritual qualities will follow humility.

Persons who isolate themselves from the world, unless they’re truly humble, usually begin to develop this subtle sense of superiority which is very detrimental to their spiritual growth and development. The idea is that, “I can see more than humanity. I’m more advanced spiritually, therefore I’m better. I’m removing myself from the dirty world with its wicked people because I am superior, I am chosen.” This is not a very healthy attitude for people who claim to be interested in love. So from my point of view as one who, again, teaches not so much the basics in spiritual discovery but the advanced aspects, the graduate school of spirituality, while I recognize that very often there is a common need in people in early spirituality to do this [isolation], it’s quite detrimental to persons who are interested in full enlightenment, God realization, liberation.

Sometimes it is necessary to put something down very heavily, even more than you might suppose. For example, many women who have been abused by men for thousands of years need to separate themselves for a while from men in order to form their own identities. In other words, their identities have been lost by living in a male-controlled world, where the males dictate what the image of a woman is. Naturally, you’re going to have to have some kind of reaction for a while to balance the scales. Women are going to, if they’re interested in enlightenment, have to stand back from men for a while and associate more with each other to develop a proper image. While some may view this as extreme or going overboard, it’s necessary. It’s a necessary reaction for a time. But then, after that new identity has been developed, there has to be a relocation in the world, a coming together. But for a while, sometimes, there needs to be separativity. Someone who’s an alcoholic, for a while, might have to put down alcohol. In other words, it might be OK for someone to drink who can handle it properly— who uses but does not abuse. For that [alcoholic] person, for a while, when they first break away, there may be a need in their being to just say to all who come within hearing distance that alcohol is the worst, that people who use it are foolish and so on. Now eventually, if that person really beats the problem, one day they will become more moderate and they will be able to accept that others may like it, but they simply don’t. But it’s foolish to think that people can go to that state right away.

If you become so sensitive that you can’t bear the vibrations of the city street, then you have not been practicing your yoga and meditation correctly. While there will be a residual drain, naturally, when you enter an area where the energy is a little bit lower than your own cycle, spiritual practice should make you strong enough that you can go out and live and work in the world and deal with it, and then come back to your home, to be with your other friends who speak the same language you do, to go to your spiritual meditation meetings and so forth and recharge your batteries and then go on out for another adventure. Living and working in the world. How do you deal with it? How do you deal with society with all of its incongruities? How do you deal with sitting in your office after you’ve just come back from the desert, where you’ve been meditating? You watch the room dissolve and fill up with light. You’re floating in another world, the sea of consciousness, and the guy at the desk next to you is too busy looking at the legs of the secretary, when maybe he should be thinking about his wife— or he’s busy looking at you. How do you deal with a boss who tells you to produce more and more and to use pressure techniques to sell, when you’re interested in God and liberation? Where is that beautiful pine forest grove for meditation as you’re sitting on the 405 Freeway at 5:00 o’clock, and the traffic is definitely not moving? What do you do with the violence, when someone pulls a gun on you in the street, when someone breaks into your home and rips everything off? How do you deal with the incongruities of existence, of a world of people who are cruel to each other, sometimes without even realizing that they’re cruel? How do you deal with it? Very, very skillfully. Living and working in the world.

Towards the end of your meditation session, or when you feel your meditation is deep, Read "Kring" several times. Repeat it with sharp intensity, without elongating the syllables.

Diet is a matter of personal preference, but if you're interested in the advanced states of meditation, eating mammals should be avoided. They have a more evolved consciousness and can affect your attention field greatly.

Focus on an object of some type, hopefully an object that's beautiful or powerful.

The highest type of meditation is done in silence. In silence there are no mantras. Mantras are not essential, but they can be very helpful.

Always use ‘PHAT!’ when you find yourself in an impure or aurically negative physical location, when you need to purify it. Just as fire can purify physical things, the mantra ‘PHAT!’ can purify astral spaces.

THE BLUE SKY

Picture a beautiful blue sky without any clouds in it. As you picture the clear blue sky, feel
that your body is growing lighter and lighter. Close your eyes and keep the image of the blue sky
in your mind. There are no limits to the blue sky. It stretches endlessly in every direction, never
beginning and never ending. As you visualize the blue sky, feel that your body has become so
light that you have floated up into the clear blue sky. Feel that you are floating in the sky and that
all tension, fatigue, worry, and problems have left you. Relax your mind and allow your breathing
to seek its own level. Feel yourself floating gently in the clear blue sky which stretches endlessly
in every direction, never beginning and never ending.
After several minutes have passed and you feel yourself relaxing, then picture that your entire
body is merging with the blue sky. Your body is merging with the peace of the blue sky... Your
mind is merging with the tranquility of the blue sky... Feel that you have actually become the blue
sky. You no longer have a body or a mind. You have become the infinite blue sky that stretches
endlessly in every direction, never beginning and never ending. Feel that you have become the
perfect peace and tranquility of the blue sky. Completely let go and experience Total Relaxation.
When you feel that you have relaxed for as long as you like, then open your eyes. You will
now have a new and deeper sense of peace, relaxation, and poise. This renewed energy, joy, and
calm will stay with you as you resume your normal activities.

To be normal is the ultimate aim of the unsuccessful- Carl Jung

Relaxation is Meditation.

I don’t judge a snowboarder by his jumps or tricks; I watch how he carves and cuts. Too many snowboarders these days are in a rush to get into a photograph or contest. They work on what looks good, not what feels good. In the interest of becoming famous and getting sponsored they neglect to learn how to do a perfect turn, and instead they overfocus on trick riding and jumps. The fundamental things in snowboarding are your turns and your attitude. You need good gear, technique, and training, as well as common and uncommon sense to survive in backcountry powder. I throw in a good sense of humor for all of the days it doesn’t go your way, and you will love the sport as much as I do. But if you really want to excel in snowboarding, or in any high-rev form of athletics, the shape of your mind is ultimately going to be the determining factor.

Meditate 24/7..never quit!