Individual Meetings
There are no in-person or virtual meetings presently - if you wish to initiate a serious conversation please email - the email address is on the profile page. There is no donation or fee for anything so don't even offer. If you are serious about getting to the bottom of it, we can have an email conversation and if merited, eventually talk on Skype or phone.
We are seeking because we have a basic misconception about reality, there is a mistaken identity going on. Because this is the root idea you have about reality, a few pointers won't change that.
What is necessary is to realize that something like Vedanta is necessary to come to know what you are. It is said that Vedanta is a means of knowledge - like any means of knowledge it is the means by which something is known. If I want to see the sunrise I must have eyes. If I wish to hear a symphony I must have ears. If I want to know what I am, what means must I have? Can I see myself? Hear myself? Is my Self available to know through the five senses? Is it something which I can know objectively? No. So I need some other means of knowledge - Vedanta is an example of a means to know what I am.
This is not about hearing the right words and then magically your state changes to some permanent bliss. If we enter discussions of this kind with those expectations we will always be frustrated. We may have some temporary change of mental state but that state will always change, then we are left disappointed because we think "I had it and then lost it" as if it's some perfectly balanced state which can fluctuate and come and go - the proper "enlightenment" being making it permanent. This is false.
This is about being open to having our beliefs and assumptions challenged, seeing the simplicity of it - recognizing how we make absolute truths out of our assumptions, out of appearance.
Most who initiate meetings or conversations don't last. It's not what they want to hear. Most want enlightenment to save them from what they take to be crappy lives - few hold out to get past this idea. That's not what this is about. It's about truly looking past our normal ideas about what the world is, about what you are, and seeing through the false. In the seeing through of the false, the simplicity and immediacy of reality is known.
It might seem odd on a nonduality site where it's said - you are already what you are seeking - to say that there are prerequisites for this knowledge.
It's not like - you must get a Bachelor's Degree before you get a Master's Degree, or you must take Seeing 101 before you can take Seeing 201.
You already are what you seek, however you don't know it, otherwise you wouldn't be seeking. This is about Self-Knowledge - knowing what you are. It's not a change of experience but a knowledge, a certainty about what you are. But if the mind is still stuck in the relative, still holding on to material things, still easily upset over the small things that happen, this knowledge is almost an impossibility.
Vedanta has outlined a set of things sort of like prerequisites - in other words if you don't have it this knowledge will be difficult to discover.
The first prerequisite is called Viveka - this is basically understanding relativities - understanding that our knowledge is always relative, our ability to know the world or anything objective is relative. Nothing we know is absolute. It is understanding that everything you once considered valuable, important is only so until you get it, then it loses it's value, it is no longer the main focus and then we must chase something else. You understand that there is absolutely no answer in anything of the material world, therefore there is no need or desire to chase it. The only true importance is wholeness, which is really what this chase has always been about.
The second prerequisite is Dispassion, called Vairagya (not Viagra).... - you understand that all these things that happen really have no power, have no importance - they are all relative and limited - achievements - acquisitions - status, power, material wealth - none of this means anything at all. In other words, you come to a natural dispassion about this relative life and the so-called "world". It's lost it's absolute value, even if you cannot replace that value with something else.
The third prerequisite is called something with a long, unimportant name - it is more of a category - in this category are things like - the ability to withstand the negative things that happen, not blowing things out of proportion, losing interest in drama, realizing that desires are a natural function and not losing oneself in the pursuit of an object of desire, a natural contentment with what is going on - regardless of whether it's good or bad, recognizing that the spiritual trappings are not relevant, seeing through the idea of ownership. This category might be called spiritual maturity.
The last prerequisite is desire for Moksha or freedom. This is the earnestness Nisargadatta talks about. This desire is the final desire - the desire for liberation. It consumes all other desires. One might go for two weeks without a shower because the mind is so intensely focused on the inquiry that all else is forgotten.
The point of these prerequisites is to be a guidance - we seek and when we don't achieve we are frustrated. This is because we are still holding on to our ideas about the world and about what we are. When through practice or experience we come to this dispassion, to this discovery of the relativity and falseness of our ideas and feelings, we are "prepared" to hear the message. Otherwise we are asking a question with earplugs in. We simply cannot hear the answer - we are always putting it in the context of our existing ideas and beliefs. Most in this situation go back to seeking enlightenment as an experience until these "prerequisites" are naturally arrived at.
The most important thing is to realize that the problem is not a lack of peace or bliss or wisdom but a fundamental ignorance of what you are. This ignorance leads us to build a world around us and try to make it fulfill our desires - it is an inherent condition - as long as there is a condition on the world or on Life there will always be unhappiness. It is based on the idea of separation - or the idea of a lack of wholeness - isolation - limitation. So the root problem is that you believe yourself to be limited or separate from the world.
It isn't that this belief is true and somehow through spirituality this separation is ended or healed. It is that this idea is false. So reality doesn't need to be healed. You just discover that it never was separate. In other words you realize that you are not this independent entity you took yourself to be. You weren't an independent entity who became whole - you discovered yourself as whole - you discovered reality is whole and what-you-are is THAT wholeness.
So if we are off doing spiritual practices, seeking spiritual experience, this message isn't going to resonate. That doesn't mean the practice is not valuable - it just means you believe it to be valuable until you realize it's not - that realization is the basis for these prerequisites. The value of it is to realize it is ultimately unnecessary - unless you do it you don't know.
The most important thing is to realize that the problem is not a lack of peace or bliss or wisdom but a fundamental ignorance of what you are. This ignorance leads us to build a world around us and try to make it fulfill our desires - it is an inherent condition - as long as there is a condition on the world or on Life there will always be unhappiness. It is based on the idea of separation - or the idea of a lack of wholeness - isolation - limitation. So the root problem is that you believe yourself to be limited or separate from the world.
It isn't that this belief is true and somehow through spirituality this separation is ended or healed. It is that this idea is false. So reality doesn't need to be healed. You just discover that it never was separate. In other words you realize that you are not this independent entity you took yourself to be. You weren't an independent entity who became whole - you discovered yourself as whole - you discovered reality is whole and what-you-are is THAT wholeness.
So if we are off doing spiritual practices, seeking spiritual experience, this message isn't going to resonate. That doesn't mean the practice is not valuable - it just means you believe it to be valuable until you realize it's not - that realization is the basis for these prerequisites. The value of it is to realize it is ultimately unnecessary - unless you do it you don't know.
Podcasts
Audio Blog and Second Life meeting recordings are available on the Podcast Page.
Randall has occasionally been asked to share the message on podcasts with the Urban Guru Cafe.
Subscribe to audio blogs on iTunes.
Group Meetings
There are presently no group meetings. The Second Life meetings (SL UGC) have ended and there will likely be no resumption.
