Essay Edition
Spiritual Community and Preparation
There is this beautiful feeling of staying up until six in the morning talking about enlightenment with your teacher. It is one of the best, most beautiful things. Paramahansa Yogananda writes about that, and I have experienced that personally with my teacher.
Coming back consistently and having a talk about all the myriad topics pertaining to enlightenment is paramount because there is so much to discuss. There is so much to become aware of on the path.
Selective Exposure and Personal Culture
Selective exposure is essential because we need to become architects of culture, of our own culture. We can be architects of a greater culture too, but what you focus on, you become. What you are exposed to informs the structures of your mind. If you watch a bunch of violent movies, you are going to be all in that wavelength. If you join a fraternity, you are going to be on that wavelength. There is nothing wrong with joining a fraternity, but you are going to be on the wavelength.
One strategy and technique in spiritual practice, outside of meditation itself, is curating what you are exposed to. It is very powerful. You might ask why you cannot meditate. You cannot meditate because you have been sitting around the boardroom with the business guys who are all totally self-centered. That is why you cannot meditate. But when you expose yourself to energies, mentalities, and a paradigm that is conducive to meditative life and spiritual life, then it is easier to meditate.
How can we curate our culture? Think of what culture is. Culture is something we inherit. We step into a world where people see things a certain way, act a certain way, have certain expectations, and have certain etiquette.
You do not walk around naked in Los Angeles. That is a sort of etiquette. I do not think everybody should walk around naked in Los Angeles, but if you were perhaps in an ancient tribal civilization, that would be normal. There are all kinds of things like that. What is normal? When I do Tai Chi at the parks, people always walk right in front of me, but they do not know because they cannot see the energy. They do not have that sense of etiquette.
Selective exposure is a way of curating our mind. We choose certain things that we want to expose ourselves to. We also choose things that we avoid exposure to. You have to do both: bring exposure to some things and avoid exposure to other things.
Sit down and write about it. Make two columns and say, I am going to expose myself to more of this and less of this, and see how it changes you.
If you sit and watch CNN all day, you are just being programmed, man. You are being programmed by a narrative around the world. That is not just the world. That is what they choose to think about and how they choose to think about those things. There is a lot of negativity and a lot of stress. But if you go and sit with the squirrels, it is a completely different life.
Reading and Association with Truth
One of the most effective ways to build positive selective exposure is reading. You grab a book and open it for fifteen minutes, and you and Ramana Maharshi get to be in that energy. You get to be in the energy of the author.
To entrain yourself to something is to get into its frequency. You entrain your mind to the mind of somebody who is very powerfully established in a certain paradigm and energy. Ramana Maharshi is a perfect example. You open the book, read two sentences, and you are beginning to entrain yourself into that frequency, into that energy.
But here is the key: your reading should be of the original sage, saint, prophet, or author. You have to read the original words. Do not read what they said about Einstein. Read what Einstein said. Do not read what they said about Ramana Maharshi. Read his words. If you can read them in the original language in which he spoke them, that is even better.
You are trying to connect with the subtle authenticity of those verbal structures. There are subtle paradigmatic transmissions that occur when you read the way somebody says something. In my words, there is a great deal of that. You are getting a little dose of mathematics because I have so much mathematics in me. It is in the structure of my language, in the way that I relate to ideas.
We are like a tabula rasa. That means a blank slate. We are like a computer without any software on it, and we can run the software. What software do you want to run? That is your choice, actually. We use selective exposure to curate the software environment of our computer selves.
It does not necessarily take a lot of reading. It is the consistency. You might feel like you just interacted with somebody who thinks about the world in a certain way you do not really like. Open the book, read a couple of sentences of Ramana Maharshi, and you will get a nondualistic perspective on existence. You will start to feel the detachment, the love, the gratitude, and the absorption.
This is a big issue with Jesus. With Jesus, you want to read his original words. You do not want to read what they said about him because then you are going way too much through Christianity and the different ideas around Christianity. The same goes with any religion. Religions tend to move away from the pristine transmission of the state of mind that gave rise to them.
If you read Jesus’ original words, they are really amazing and very pure. It is the same with Osho. Osho gets a bad rap, but if you listen to his words, he is just speaking beauty constantly. Ignore everything else. What did he say? Osho says absolutely incredible things.
Another person I highly recommend reading is Krishnamurti. You have to read a lot of Krishnamurti to really get what he means. Stick with it. The more books you read, the more you start to understand what he actually meant because he says it from a lot of different angles.
This is the benefit of reading: you could read anything, really, and use it to entrain your mind. When it comes to spirituality, it is good to focus on people who were experiencing samadhi. They had access to Nirvana in some aspect. Paramahansa Yogananda did. Bruce Lee did. There are all kinds of beings from all different walks of life: musicians, artists, engineers, rocket scientists, sages, prophets, and writers. So many went into samadhi, and out came truth.
In samadhi, we clear the film of selfhood, and we become a torrent, a river of truth. When you read these people, you are entrained to that, and you are engaging in selective exposure.
What does satsanga mean? It means association with truth. It is very much about exactly that. We need to associate with others who get what we aspire to inwardly.
Even the word samadhi is a very unusual word. It is nice to hang out with people who know what samadhi is and want to experience samadhi. Satsanga means connecting with people who are living this life and have some interest in it. Most people have not even encountered the possibility, and very few people have an interest in enlightenment.
Although, I think there are millions. It is a small percentage, and I think a lot of people would love it if they really encountered it. This is a little bit more advanced than self-help, although it is the greatest self-help.
Relationships, Media, and Spiritual Education
Be friends with each other. Talk about enlightenment. Get together and do things in enlightened ways. I used to go and have dinner with a friend, and we would not speak a word. We would just be so mindful. Then we would go into light, and then we would meditate. It was lovely.
Be part of a community that centers on enlightenment. There are different communities that center on enlightenment, meditation, or something like that, and you can be part of multiple communities.
Avoid consuming content that is harmful to the spiritual paradigm. Movies, Instagram, and scrolling can be very bad. Scrolling is very bad, and it is very easy to do because you cannot check your messages without seeing at least something. It is designed that way on purpose, which is not the wisest decision by certain people in leadership.
You can watch films that really help. You can also watch films that hurt you. Be selective about who you spend time with. Sometimes you cannot help but spend time with certain people. But sometimes you can, and sometimes you can be careful around them.
Some people will entrain you to a certain mind state that is not very good for your progress. Take a look at your relationships and ask: How do I feel when I interact with these people? Do I start to feel selfish and ambitious, or do I feel generous, benevolent, loving, and humble? These are all different qualities that you may notice in different relationships.
I would not underestimate the possibility of what you can do for your kids. When I was a teenager, I hungered for it. I was looking for real teachers and contemplating philosophy by myself into the night. This is what I was. I would not put it past a kid to have that predilection.
You can also inspire that predilection. Sometimes it is a little hard to penetrate the words of certain authors. It is a little too dense for a teenager, but there are other ways and other things that are much easier. You can gauge their receptivity and curate something that will be palatable for their predisposition.
You can also let them try different things. Here is Taoism. They do not want Taoism. But here is shamanism. They are really into that. Find out what draws them into that deeper, deeper contemplation of life.
Dissolution and Spiritual Absorption
Dissolution is to be absorbed. It is to go beyond technique, beyond energy work. You are trying to allow yourself to become absorbed in the unknown, to go beyond selfhood, to go beyond becoming, to go beyond identity and technique, and become absorbed in the unknown.
The word is absorption. My Paramguru, my teacher’s teacher, would use this word. I found it very powerful, the way he said it.
In absorption, the mind sees, and then it does not see. It goes from seeing to no world.
Allow yourself to be washed away by the power. There is a power inside of us. The light is a power. The kundalini is a power. Let it carry you. Let it wash you away.
There is no meditator. You are being meditated. Watch out. The universe will meditate you if you do not resist it. We are allowing ourselves to become meditated by the universe. There is no meditator because who should meditate? There is no doer anymore when you become absorbed.
Be absorbed. Think of yourself as dust in the wind. It is a little bit scary for some people to do this because what you are doing is becoming nothing.
But when you become nothing, you become what you unassailably, immutably are, always and eternally. You cannot become nothing. You can only become what you are.
The surface of the ocean can become flat, but it is the water. The waves of the ocean become still in absorption. You become what you are, the substance of consciousness itself.
You have to figure this out. It is a math equation. It is a cosmic equation inside of you. You have to figure out how to do it. Selective exposure helps. Light helps.
Eventually, you will go and sit down to meditate, and two hours will go by, and you did not do anything. But you feel so profoundly renewed. When you come out of it, you realize you are going to become you again. You are about to become illusion again, and everybody else is illusion. There are billions of people in illusion, and they think they know what they are talking about.
You have leaders of countries, and they really think they know what they are talking about. You come to see from a vantage point of no self. There is this kind of transition mode when you come out of it, and you can see that.
You can always start by feeling your heart chakra. The heart has to really open to do this. Regenerate the heart. Love helps us submerge into absorption.
Allow yourself to become absorbed. Feel the ambient power within you. Let it carry you to the unknown. You are letting go, allowing a moment to be. You can use the light. Become absorbed.
Allow selfhood, that sense of identity, to fizzle away, so all that is left is what you unassailably are. This is the humility of dissolution.
Be what you are. Nothing to do. There is no one to be. Finally returned.
The self merges into eternity, the changeless essence of all things at all moments. Invite absorption. Give yourself. Come into a deep centering in the heart.
Reflections on the Meditation
You can use the light to become absorbed in the light, as the light, and beyond the light, which is the deeper light. Light can appear as white. It always has to be a color, even if it is clear or black. But it has to be visual. There has to be some visual element to it. Otherwise, we start to get into the metaphor of light, which is not what the light is.
With the light, I do not want to make anybody feel like they are lacking or they are not there yet. If you see the light, that is great. In the meantime, just work on the kundalini if you feel the kundalini. If you do not feel that, do not worry about it. Stillness, stopping. We are taking the step from where we are.
Think of it this way: there is a top of the mountain. Wherever we are on the mountain, we are moving up. It does not matter. Do not judge it. Do not judge it at all.
Absorption and expansion have a relationship where you expand, and then you become everything, and then you become nothing. Expansion is related because there is no separativity. But expansion can dissolve into nothing as well.
It is good to be everything or nothing. Those are both better than being something. It could be everyone. It could be no one. But being someone is not as deep as being everyone and no one.
Full Transcript
Spiritual Community and Preparation
Adam Wes Okay. Yeah, wonderful. Harrison, will you be joining us? Welcome, Kira. We just had an amazing meditation together, the dissolution meditation. We'll be doing a similar format for the session.
Settle in. We'll start in a minute or two.
Namaste, everybody! Thanks, Kira. That's how I feel. Did everybody see Kira's comment? Was that private? That's literally what we just did. I was actually doing this.
Namaste. Welcome, Sangha! Sangha, yes!
I'd like to keep the sermon to 20 minutes and do a 40-minute meditation. That's the new goal. If anybody disagrees with that, let me know, but I think maybe that's a little bit better.
Basically, I'll give a sermon on a topic, and there are so many things to discuss. There's this beautiful feeling of staying up until six in the morning talking about enlightenment with your teacher, right? It's one of the best, most beautiful things. Paramahansa Yogananda writes about that, and I've experienced that personally with my teacher.
Coming back consistently and having a talk about all the myriad topics pertaining to enlightenment is paramount because there's just so much to discuss. There's so much to become aware of on the path.
I wish Robert were here. Robert's about to join in a moment, but I'll get started anyway.
Do you guys have incense? I highly recommend burning some incense, resin, or a candle. Nag Champa or Satya Sai Baba incense is really great to burn. It conditions the mind to say, "Oh, this is a spiritual time."
I like Indian Temple Incense as well. That's a really beautiful one. Copal is good. Myrrh is my favorite. I love myrrh and frankincense. Those are my two favorite resins. With resin, you get a little coconut charcoal, put these little blobs of resin on it, and it makes this very pure smoke. It's just lovely. It's so lovely. Ariella, your husband will love it.
All right. Today's sermon is on selective exposure.
Mom, are you coming back? I hope she's hearing all this. Everybody got up to burn incense. Love it. It's important. Incense is almost out. I'll wait for her to come back.
Thank you. All right, today's sermon is on selective exposure.
Selective Exposure and Personal Culture
Selective exposure is essential because we need to become architects of culture, of our own culture. We can be architects of a greater culture too, but what you focus on, you become. What you're exposed to informs the structures of your mind. If you watch a bunch of violent movies, you're going to be all in that wavelength. If you join a fraternity, you're going to be on that wavelength. There's nothing wrong with joining a fraternity, but you're going to be on the wavelength.
One strategy and technique in spiritual practice, outside of meditation itself, is curating what you're exposed to. It's very powerful.
You might say, "Well, why can't I meditate?" You can't meditate because you've been sitting around the boardroom with the business guys who are all totally self-centered, right? That's why you can't meditate. But when you expose yourself to energies, mentalities, and a paradigm that is conducive to meditative life and spiritual life, then it's easier to meditate.
How can we curate our culture? Think of what culture is. Culture is something we inherit. We step into a world where people see things a certain way, act a certain way, have certain expectations, and have certain etiquette.
"Oh, you don't do that. You don't walk around naked in Los Angeles," right? Well, that's a sort of etiquette. I don't think everybody should walk around naked in Los Angeles, but if you were perhaps in an ancient tribal civilization, that would be normal, right?
There are all kinds of things like that. What's normal? When I do Tai Chi at the parks, people always walk right in front of me, and I'm like, "No, you can't do that." But they don't know because they can't see the energy. They don't have that sense of etiquette. Japan has very good etiquette. I love Japan.
Selective exposure is a way of curating our mind. We choose certain things that we want to expose ourselves to. We also choose things that we avoid exposure to. You have to do both: bring exposure to some things and avoid exposure to other things.
We're going to go over a few ways to do this, along with some considerations. I recommend that each one of you sit down and write about it. Maybe make two columns and say, "Okay, I'm going to expose myself to more of this and less of this," and see how it changes you.
If you sit and watch CNN all day, you're just being programmed, man. You are being programmed by a narrative around the world. That's not just the world. That's what they choose to think about and how they choose to think about those things. There's a lot of negativity and a lot of stress. But if you go and sit with the squirrels, it's a completely different life, right?
Reading and Association with Truth
One of the most effective ways to build positive selective exposure is reading. In the practice hall, I've suggested, or I guess more than suggested, that the routine element of the month be 15 minutes a day of reading.
You grab a book like this and open it up for 15 minutes, and guess what? You and Ramana Maharshi get to be in that energy. You get to be in the energy of this author.
It's important to understand a little bit about how this works. I don't know if you guys know the word "entrain." To entrain yourself to something is to get into its frequency.
You entrain your mind to the mind of somebody who is very powerfully established in a certain paradigm and energy. Ramana Maharshi is a perfect example. You open the book, read two sentences, and you are beginning to entrain yourself into that frequency, into that energy.
But here's the key: your reading should be of the original sage, saint, prophet, or author. You have to read the original words. Don't read what they said about Einstein. Read what Einstein said. Don't read what they said about Ramana Maharshi. Read his words. If you can read them in the original language in which he spoke them, that's even better.
You're trying to connect with the subtle authenticity of those verbal structures. There are subtle paradigmatic transmissions that occur when you read the way somebody says something.
In my words right now, there's a great deal of that. You're getting a little dose of mathematics because I have so much mathematics in me. It's in the structure of my language, in the way that I relate to ideas.
We're like a tabula rasa. That means a blank slate. We're like a computer without any software on it, and we can run the software. Well, what software do you want to run? That's your choice, actually. We use selective exposure to curate the software environment of our computer selves.
There's a book list on the practice hall with eight books on it, and then there's the book of the month, which is Autobiography of a Yogi. When you read these, it doesn't necessarily take a lot of reading. It's the consistency.
You might feel like you just interacted with somebody who thinks about the world in a certain way you don't really like. Open the book, read a couple of sentences of Ramana Maharshi, and you'll get a nondualistic perspective on existence, right? You'll start to feel the detachment, the love, the gratitude, and the absorption.
This is a big issue with Jesus, actually. With Jesus, you want to read his original words. You don't want to read what they said about him because then you're going way too much through Christianity and the different ideas around Christianity.
The same goes with any religion, but this is something religions tend to do. They tend to move away from the pristine transmission of the state of mind that gave rise to them.
If you read Jesus' original words, they're really amazing and very pure. It's the same with Osho. Osho gets a bad rap, but if you listen to his words, he's just speaking beauty constantly. Ignore everything else. What did he say? Osho says absolutely incredible things. For those of you who don't know who Osho is, he was a spiritual leader in the seventies and eighties in Oregon.
Another person I highly recommend reading is Krishnamurti. You have to read a lot of Krishnamurti to really get what he means. Stick with it. With Krishnamurti, you have to get to maybe three books before you start to understand. Don't take my word on that one. You probably get a lot in the beginning, but the more books you read, the more you start to understand what he actually meant because he says it from a lot of different angles.
This is the benefit of reading: you could read anything, really, and use it to entrain your mind. When it comes to spirituality, it's good to focus on people who were experiencing samadhi. They had access to Nirvana in some aspect.
Paramahansa Yogananda did. Bruce Lee did. I've got a whole collage of enlightened beings on the practice hall. You can look at those. I haven't put all their names up there, but there are all kinds of beings from all different walks of life: musicians, artists, engineers, rocket scientists, sages, prophets, and writers. So many went into samadhi, and out came truth.
In samadhi, we clear the film of selfhood, and we become a torrent, a river of truth. When you read these people, you're entrained to that, and you are engaging in selective exposure.
What does satsanga mean? It means association with truth. It's very much about exactly that. We need to associate with others who get what we aspire to inwardly.
Even the word samadhi is a very unusual word. It's nice to hang out with people who know what samadhi is and want to experience samadhi. Satsanga means connecting with people who are living this life and have some interest in it. Most people haven't even encountered the possibility, and very few people have an interest in enlightenment.
Although, I think there are millions. There are millions of people. It's a small percentage, and I think a lot of people would love it if they really encountered it, right? Not just Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is running a special right now. I'm not saying anything bad about Tony Robbins, but he's more in the self-help direction, and this is a little bit more advanced, although it's the greatest self-help.
Thanks, David. I appreciate you, man.
Relationships Media and Spiritual Education
Be friends with each other. Talk about enlightenment. Get together and do things in enlightened ways. I wish Ali were here today. Ali and I used to go and have dinner, and we wouldn't speak a word. We would just be so mindful. Then we'd go into light, and then we'd meditate. It was lovely. He and I did that about ten years ago.
Relationships, that's another one.
Another is to be part of a community that centers on enlightenment, which is very much what we're doing here. But there are also perhaps other communities you can find. You can be part of multiple communities. Kira is part of the Rama community, which was a little bit more of a place you could go to before, but you still have that community, right? There are different communities that center on enlightenment, meditation, or something like that.
Gosh, time flies. Let's quickly wrap this up.
Next is what to avoid. You can avoid consuming content that is harmful to the spiritual paradigm. Movies, Instagram, and scrolling can be very bad. Scrolling is very bad, and it's very easy to do because you can't check your messages without seeing at least something, right? It's designed that way on purpose, which is not the wisest decision by certain people in leadership.
You can watch films that really help. You can also watch films that hurt you. That's why I have the Mythic Study Room on the practice hall. Those are a few films that will help you attune to an enlightened perspective.
Be selective about who you spend time with. Sometimes you can't help but spend time with certain people. But sometimes you can, and sometimes you can be careful around them.
Some people will entrain you to a certain mind state that is not very good for your progress. Take a look at your relationships and ask, "How do I feel when I interact with these people? Do I start to feel selfish and ambitious, or do I feel generous, benevolent, loving, and humble?" These are all different qualities that you may notice in different relationships.
We could go on a lot longer, but I wanted to stop in one minute. I'd love to see if anybody has a comment or two, or a question or two, related to what I've shared.
David P Hey, everyone. Perhaps not for an answer right now, but I would like to start sharing this with my kids. I have two kids, 14 and 10.
Adam Wes Nice.
David P But I don't think explaining this as we're talking right now would be well received. They're stepping into the world of what they see, the movies they see, and the content they're consuming.
This is very relevant to the education I want to give. I won't be able to help them avoid any suffering at all, but perhaps I can give them tools that I've been learning so far. Perhaps this is for a future discussion, but that would be very interesting for me, at least.
Adam Wes Yeah, that's a big one. I wouldn't underestimate the possibility of what you can do for your kids. Osho is actually a great example. He was exposed to enlightenment from a very young age, apparently. I think lots of teachers came to his house all the time, and he became enlightened when he was 23 years old, or liberated.
When I was a teenager, I hungered for it. I was looking for real teachers and contemplating philosophy by myself into the night. This is what I was. I wouldn't put it past a kid to have that predilection.
You can also inspire that predilection by saying, "Okay, I'll have them watch Contact, for example." Sometimes it's a little hard to penetrate the words of certain authors. It's a little too dense for a teenager, but there are other ways and other things that are much easier.
I think you can gauge their receptivity and curate something that will be palatable for their predisposition. I highly recommend that. If they're open to reading, that's great.
You can also let them try different things. "Okay, here's Taoism." They don't want Taoism. "But here's shamanism." Okay, they're really into that. Find out what draws them into that deeper, deeper contemplation of life.
Love it, David. Get them started. It's a good age. It's an important age to do it. I would definitely do that if I had kids that age.
Let me know if you have any suggestions, ideas, or challenges around that when you try it. Even getting something like incense can help. Give them some incense. They're like, "What is this? That smells good. It's kind of cool. What is it?" It helps them tap into the yoga paradigm without saying anything. Things like that.
All right, we've done pretty well. I wanted to stop at 6:25. It's 6:28, not bad.
Dissolution and Spiritual Absorption
Let's begin the meditation. For today's 40-minute meditation, we will do dissolution meditation. Dissolution meditation is what we did prior to the meeting today.
Dissolution is to be absorbed. It's to go beyond technique, beyond energy work. You're trying to allow yourself to become absorbed in the unknown, to go beyond selfhood, to go beyond becoming, to go beyond identity and technique, and become absorbed in the unknown.
The word is absorption. My Paramguru, my teacher's teacher, would use this word. I found it very powerful, the way he said it. Look, as I'm speaking about it, do you see what's happening to me?
In absorption, the mind sees, and then it doesn't see. It goes from seeing to no world.
Some of the techniques are to allow yourself to be washed away by the power. There's a power inside of us. The light is a power. The kundalini is a power. Let it carry you. Let it wash you away.
There's no meditator. You're being meditated. Watch out. The universe will meditate you if you don't resist it. We're allowing ourselves to become meditated by the universe.
There's no meditator because who should meditate? There's no doer anymore when you become absorbed.
By the way, I think some of you are taking notes. I love that. I don't know if you saw, but I'm releasing a transcript of this, so I'll release a transcript and you can go through it. But feel free to take notes if you'd like. I did a transcript for last week already. It's on the practice hall.
Be absorbed. Think of yourself as dust in the wind. It's a little bit scary for some people to do this because what you're doing is becoming nothing.
But when you become nothing, you become what you unassailably, immutably are, always and eternally. Do you understand? You can't become nothing. You can only become what you are.
The surface of the ocean can become flat, but it's the water, right? The waves of the ocean become still in absorption. You become what you are, the substance of consciousness itself.
You have to figure this out. It's a math equation. It's a cosmic equation inside of you. You have to figure out how to do it. Selective exposure helps. Light helps.
Eventually, you'll go and sit down to meditate, and two hours will go by, and you didn't do anything. But you feel so profoundly renewed. When you come out of it, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to become me again."
It's amazing. You're like, "Wow, I'm about to become illusion again, and everybody else is illusion. I can't believe this. There are billions of people in illusion, and they think they know what they're talking about."
You have leaders of countries, and they really think they know what they're talking about. You come to see from a vantage point of no self. There's this kind of transition mode when you come out of it, and you can see that.
Let's see how deep we can go. Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. Shall we tumble down the rabbit hole together, Kira? You know, Alice in Wonderland.
I'll play different music for us today too. Om chanting, 432 hertz. You're going to love this one, Dad.
We'll maybe have one or two people share and then stop because we'll run out of time.
You can always start by feeling your heart chakra. We're going to go from there to absorption. Let's start with our usual song, actually. It opens the heart. The heart has to really open to do this.
Regenerate the heart. Love helps us submerge into absorption.
Allow yourself to become absorbed.
Spiritual absorption.
Feel the ambient power within you.
Let it carry you to the unknown.
You're letting go.
Allowing a moment to be.
You can use the light.
Become absorbed.
Allow selfhood, that sense of identity, to fizzle away, so all that's left is what you unassailably are.
This is the humility of dissolution.
Be what you are.
Nothing to do.
There's no one to be.
Finally returned.
The self merges into eternity, the changeless essence of all things at all moments.
Try to invite absorption.
Give yourself.
Make sure to keep your posture straight with all this dissolution. Come into a deep centering in the heart.
Reflections on the Meditation
Namaste, everybody. Namaste, Mom. Would you like to share from your experience?
Colleen Thank you, Adam. It was nice to be in a group meditating again.
Adam Wes Yes, yes. Welcome back.
Colleen Thank you. I did see a couple of colors, purple and green, and then near the end, a red fountain and a different kind of green as well. But I just feel nice and relaxed. It's good to be back. Thank you.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Namaste. Did you feel the absorption combined with the color?
Colleen Did I feel the what?
Adam Wes Absorption.
Colleen Yeah, I do think I did, yes.
Adam Wes Nice. You can use the light to become absorbed in the light, as the light, and beyond the light, which is the deeper light.
Thank you. Namaste. Welcome back. Yay.
How about you, Andrea?
Andrea P Hi. I still can't see the light, but I like this type of meditation because it's easier for me to get absorbed, just to not see anything. It was nice.
Adam Wes Beautiful. You were able to feel the absorption and get into that state?
Andrea P Yes, yes. That's getting easier.
Adam Wes Wonderful. Namaste, Andrea. Nice to see you.
How about you, Ariella? Would you like to share?
Ariella Can you hear me?
Adam Wes Yes.
Ariella I don't really know if I'm understanding the word absorption, but that's it. I felt very expansive and light. Not colors, but just light.
Adam Wes Luminosity? Light can appear as white. It always has to be a color, even if it's clear or black. But it has to be visual. There has to be some visual element to it. Otherwise, we start to get into the metaphor of light, which is not what the light is.
But I think you experienced the deeper qualities with it.
Ariella I think so.
Adam Wes Well, you seem very high. I'll let you stay there. Namaste, Ariella.
Praveen, would you like to share just briefly, and then we'll hop off?
Praveen S I did not see light, but what I was feeling was a change, a momentum shift, if you may call it that way. The weight is moving. That was very unique, but I still have a long way to go.
Adam Wes Don't say that. It could surprise you in an hour. Just be ready for it.
With the light, I don't want to make anybody feel like they're lacking or they're not there yet. If you see the light, that's great. It helps to be in person with the light and also do gazing.
In the meantime, just work on the kundalini if you feel the kundalini. If you don't feel that, don't worry about it. Stillness, stopping. We're taking the step from where we are.
Think of it this way: there's a top of the mountain. Wherever we are on the mountain, we're moving up. It doesn't matter. Don't judge it either. Don't judge it at all.
Praveen, namaste. Thank you. Good job.
All right, I have to hear from David, just because he's too smiley over there.
Hi, David. So happy to be here, man. This is wonderful.
David P I am very, very happy. I tend to feel as if I am in outer space, just floating.
Adam Wes Like in the fountain.
David P I have this feeling that I am just huge, really immense and beautiful. It makes me laugh. It's like a giant. It's like I'm a giant laughing. That's how I feel right now.
Adam Wes Beautiful.
Absorption and expansion have a relationship where you expand, and then you become everything, and then you become nothing, right? Expansion is related because there's no separativity.
But expansion can dissolve into nothing as well. It's good to be everything or nothing. Those are both better than being something. It could be everyone. It could be no one. But being someone is not as deep as being everyone and no one.
All right, namaste, everybody. Thank you. Good job today. Make sure to use the practice hall, do your meditations this week, read the book, and practice the routine element and the mindfulness principle.
Namaste, everybody. Thank you. Good job!