Love this chat Rick. 10 year tmer here. A gift. Helps while recovering from a knee op. Transcendence as you know is what all humans thirst for. I don’t know how people get through the day just stuck at surface level Mind.
I will listen again and again. Thank you so much Rick for making this available. 🙏 Golden nectar to say the very least. Let's never forget something that is so often forgotten or neglected. The truth that despite all appearances "every single being is real on the inside". To remind me when I forget (which is every single second!) I use the acronym EBISROTI as a keyword to remind me. May all beings without exception be truly happy and truly free.
Thank you Rick for posting this dialog. I’m looking forward to learning more about the Christian meditation. I grew up in the Catholic Church and learned TM 2017 and have practiced it since but I feel stagnant for a while
Ishtar is a wonderful man and teacher of Ascension Meditation. He's such a gifted, multidimensional human and a terrific Astrologer too! Thanks Jerry, great to see you! Thanks Rick!!💓
Thank you very much for this. I have asked myself questions like this and others for years and wondered about mixing techniques. How much do we not know? A lot! I got initiated in 1978 and used TM for 22 years, then the mantra just stopped working, so I had to find other workable techniques. I never stopped meditating. I know Ishtar has said many long-time meditators, finding their meditation become stale, often shoot forward when starting on a new path, as you said. I always have found what you say interesting and valuable, and now and then I check to see if you have finished your book yet. These are long overdue subjects for consideration.
Thanks so much for this comment and for your kind words. The book (_The Enlightenment Puzzle: A Guide to Navigating the Truths and Fallacies About Awakening_) has a life of its own, it seems, and is writing itself as I continue to live through my own, it seems never-ending, process. I can't say how soon it will be ready for publication, but the work is ongoing every day.
What about the element of "diksha"? (Initiation) There is effortless thinking, and there is using a word or phrase, but there is another element: diksha. Initiation under the auspices of a lineage, a river of consciousness which is more than one master, one guru, a river of guru-tattva, streaming from the eternal to anoint and open and reconnect the individual to the deeper Self, from whom he or she has been disconnected for aeons (in the West, "fallen" into "sin," the state of separation from the divine Source). It is diksha that reconnects the human individuality to the cosmic Being, the drop to the sea. It is initiation that enlivens the mantra, so that it becomes not any word or sound, but a "chaitanya" mantra, alive with divine shakti. Without initiation, the mantra is just like a scrap of yesterday's newspaper. That is the teaching about the significance of diksha. You don't have to agree with it, but I think it deserves some discussion, and not just being passed off as bunk.
Yes, that's an important question. I am inclined to feel such teachings overly promote the agendas of gurus and spiritual organizations, as a result of which there has been a long track record of excesses and and abuses by people who have held the position of guru. I have experienced this directly and profoundly in my own life and have become highly cautious regarding gurus and doctrines that enforce the authority of gurus. If you haven't read it already, I hope you'll click on the link in the description of this video that goes to my essay, "Why there are no perfect teachers (& is there really such a thing as 'enlightenment'?)" Here, again, is the link: www.freemanwhistles.com/essays/Why%20there%20are%20no%20perfect%20teachers.pdf
@@JerryHFreeman I shall read it.But I am not talking about a doctrine, but an experience. I worked with many kinds of meditation, and mantra, but only in the surrender that happened at initiation did I connect with the absolute Being and feel that I had come Home. I am not talking about any esoteric planes of light, or ascended masters, or rapturous states, but That which is fundamental, essential, pure, beyond light, beyond rapture, beyond sensation. Home, the infinite silence that nourishes creation. It has nothing to do with the personality of this or that guru. It is one's own experience of one's own infinite Self. Peace.
@@alfredlamotte9844 Experiences seem to vary in that regard. I know many who teach or have received teaching without an initiation or any intention to create a formal transmission or diksha process and found the practice to be profoundly beneficial and effective. I don't have a simple yes or no answer to the question. I do think it's important that teaching take place in an atmosphere of simplicity and transcendence of ego, to whatever extent and by whatever means that is possible.
This was awesome! I practice Centering Prayer and it has been completely transformative. I will say this though, unlike mantraic prayer the prayer word one uses is only used as a symbol for intention to accept the presence and action of God and is only used as one notices a thought/feeling/sensation. In fact, Thomas Keating also says that the word isn’t to be used as a means to push away thoughts but to reignite our intention. He also says it’s a practice of intent rather than focus. As someone who promotes TM, do you think that the difference in methodology produces a different effect? Or is this a tomato/tomAHto kind of thing?
I do think there's a difference. I started with TM and practiced it for many years, but what I practice now is somewhat of a hybrid technique. As we discussed in the webinar, the involvement at subtle levels, of some quality of heart or feeling -- not in an intense devotional way, but on the level of intention, as you mention -- or with some sense of the significance of the mantra's connection with divinity, can make a big difference in the character of the experience.
This originally was a talk for a specific group of participants who had come with similar backgrounds, but afterwards we thought it might be worthwhile to share it publicly. If there are specific words you found unclear, I'll be happy to try to provide definitions here.
@@JerryHFreeman No need. By the end it became mostly obvious. I know of at least a couple of people who after realizing Brahman no longer transcended in meditation or felt they derived any benefit from it except for a brief rest. What they did derive deepening from was reading the Upanishads or listening to those who recite the texts. In other words, TM was useless for them after that and indeed, they had largely abandoned the technique before their realization and taken up what might be called jnana yoga, with some karma and bhakti yoga.
