1 00:01:14,450 --> 00:01:24,740 Samadhi 2 00:01:24,740 --> 00:01:30,640 is an ancient Sanskrit word, for which there is no modern equivalent. 3 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:38,210 There is a fundamental challenge with making a film about Samadhi. 4 00:01:38,210 --> 00:01:54,230 Samadhi points to something that can’t be conveyed on the level of mind. 5 00:01:54,230 --> 00:02:00,240 This film is simply the outer manifestation of my own inner journey. 6 00:02:00,240 --> 00:02:06,950 The intention is not to teach you about Samadhi, or provide information for your mind, but 7 00:02:06,950 --> 00:02:17,260 to inspire you to directly discover your true nature. 8 00:02:17,260 --> 00:02:29,200 Samadhi is relevant now more than ever. 9 00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:34,840 We are at a time in history where we have not only forgotten Samadhi, but we have forgotten 10 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:43,700 what we forgot. 11 00:02:43,700 --> 00:03:28,129 This forgetting is Maya, the illusion of the self. 12 00:03:28,129 --> 00:03:34,239 As humans most of us live immersed in our daily lives, with little thought of who we 13 00:03:34,239 --> 00:03:42,439 are, why we are here, or where we’re going. 14 00:03:42,439 --> 00:03:49,680 Most of us have never realized the true self, the soul or what the Buddha called annata 15 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:56,980 - that which is beyond name and form, beyond thinking. 16 00:03:56,980 --> 00:04:01,520 As a result we believe we are these limited bodies. 17 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:10,870 We live in fear, either conscious or unconscious, that the limited self structure that we are 18 00:04:10,870 --> 00:04:25,630 identified with, will die. 19 00:04:25,630 --> 00:04:30,890 In today's world the vast majority of people who are engaged in religious or spiritual 20 00:04:30,890 --> 00:04:39,750 practices such as yoga, prayer, meditation, chanting or any kind of ritual, are practicing 21 00:04:39,750 --> 00:04:42,340 techniques which are conditioned. 22 00:04:42,340 --> 00:04:49,530 Which means they are just part of the ego construct. 23 00:04:49,530 --> 00:04:55,479 The seeking and the activity isn’t the problem- thinking you have found the answer in some 24 00:04:55,479 --> 00:05:01,260 external form is the problem. 25 00:05:01,260 --> 00:05:07,350 Spirituality in its most common form is no different than the pathological thinking that 26 00:05:07,350 --> 00:05:10,680 is going on everywhere. 27 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:14,050 It is a further agitation of the mind. 28 00:05:14,050 --> 00:05:19,480 More human doing, as opposed to human being. 29 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:28,840 The ego construct wants more money, more power, more love, more of everything. 30 00:05:28,840 --> 00:05:37,610 Those on the so-called spiritual path desire to be more spiritual, more awake, more equanimous, 31 00:05:37,610 --> 00:05:43,380 more peaceful, more enlightened. 32 00:05:43,380 --> 00:05:53,141 The danger for you watching this film is that your mind will want to acquire Samadhi . Even 33 00:05:53,141 --> 00:06:01,130 more dangerous is that your mind might think it has acquired Samadhi. 34 00:06:01,130 --> 00:06:06,270 Whenever there is a desire to attain something you can be sure that it is the ego construct 35 00:06:06,270 --> 00:06:08,120 at work. 36 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:17,850 Samadhi is not about attaining or adding anything to yourself. 37 00:06:17,850 --> 00:06:26,830 To realize Samadhi is to learn to die before you die. 38 00:06:26,830 --> 00:06:32,360 Life and death are like yin and yang- an inseparable continuum. 39 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:37,440 Endlessly unfolding, with no beginning and no end. 40 00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:42,630 When we push away death, we also push away life. 41 00:06:42,630 --> 00:06:48,820 When you experience the truth directly of who you are, there is no longer fear of life 42 00:06:48,820 --> 00:06:51,030 or death. 43 00:06:51,030 --> 00:07:00,160 We are told who we are by our society and our culture, and at the same - time we are 44 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:12,719 slaves to the deeper unconscious biological craving and aversion that governs our choices. 45 00:07:12,719 --> 00:07:16,360 The ego construct is nothing more than the impulse to repeat. 46 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:22,880 It is simply the path that energy once took and the tendency for the energy to take that 47 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:33,190 path again, whether it is positive or negative for the organism. 48 00:07:33,190 --> 00:07:39,760 There are endless levels of memory or mind, spirals within spirals. 49 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:46,530 When your consciousness identifies with this mind or ego construct, it ties you to social 50 00:07:46,530 --> 00:07:54,750 conditioning, which you could call the matrix. 51 00:07:54,750 --> 00:08:00,940 There are aspects of the ego that we can be conscious of, but it is the unconscious, the 52 00:08:00,940 --> 00:08:13,370 archaic wiring, the primal existential fears, that are actually driving the whole machine. 53 00:08:13,370 --> 00:08:18,649 Endless patterns of grasping towards pleasure and avoidance of pain are sublimated into 54 00:08:18,649 --> 00:08:31,089 pathological behaviours .... our work.... our relationships.... our beliefs, our very 55 00:08:31,089 --> 00:08:37,150 thoughts, and our whole way of living. 56 00:08:37,150 --> 00:09:08,120 Like cattle, most humans live and die in passive subjugation, feeding their lives to the matrix. 57 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:12,200 We live lives locked into narrow patterns. 58 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:17,460 Lives often filled with great suffering, and it never occurs to us that we can actually 59 00:09:17,460 --> 00:09:25,990 become free. 60 00:09:25,990 --> 00:09:34,300 It is possible to let go of the life that has been inherited from the past, to live 61 00:09:34,300 --> 00:10:08,300 the one that is waiting to come forth through the inner world. 62 00:10:08,300 --> 00:10:20,800 We were all born into this world with biological conditioned structures, but without self awareness. 63 00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:29,280 Often when you look into a young child's eyes there is no trace of self, only luminous emptiness. 64 00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:36,510 The person one grows into is a mask worn over consciousness. 65 00:10:36,510 --> 00:10:54,260 Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". 66 00:10:54,260 --> 00:11:04,290 In an awakened individual, consciousness shines through the personality, through the mask. 67 00:11:04,290 --> 00:11:08,960 When you are awake, you don't become identified with your character. 68 00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:17,030 You don't believe that you are the masks that you are wearing. 69 00:11:17,030 --> 00:11:29,700 But nor do you give up playing a role. 70 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:47,160 When we are identified with our character, our persona 71 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:53,140 this is Maya, the illusion of the self. 72 00:11:53,140 --> 00:12:01,840 Samadhi is awakening from the dream of your character in the play of life. 73 00:12:12,780 --> 00:12:19,050 Twenty-four hundred years after Plato wrote the Republic, humanity is still making its 74 00:12:19,050 --> 00:12:25,430 way out of Plato's cave. 75 00:12:25,430 --> 00:12:36,680 In fact we may be more transfixed by illusions than ever. 76 00:12:36,680 --> 00:12:42,600 Plato had Socrates describe a group of people who lived chained in a cave all of their lives, 77 00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:44,220 facing a blank wall. 78 00:12:44,220 --> 00:12:50,480 All they could see were shadows projected on the wall by the things passing in front 79 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:53,440 of a fire which was behind them. 80 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:56,960 This puppet show becomes their world. 81 00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:06,560 According to Socrates, the shadows were as close as the prisoners would ever get to seeing 82 00:13:06,560 --> 00:13:11,100 reality. 83 00:13:11,100 --> 00:13:16,370 Even after being told about the outside world they continued to believe that the shadows 84 00:13:16,370 --> 00:13:19,430 were all that is. 85 00:13:19,430 --> 00:13:24,400 Even if they suspected there was something more they were unwilling to leave what was 86 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:36,000 familiar. 87 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:40,800 Humanity today is like the people who have only seen the shadows on the cave wall. 88 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:44,260 The shadows are analogous to our thoughts. 89 00:13:44,260 --> 00:13:47,779 The world of thinking is the only world that we know. 90 00:13:47,779 --> 00:13:52,150 But there is another world that is beyond thinking. 91 00:13:52,150 --> 00:13:55,029 Beyond the dualistic mind. 92 00:13:55,029 --> 00:14:03,380 Are you willing to leave the cave, to leave all that you have known to find out the truth 93 00:14:03,380 --> 00:14:16,390 of who you are? 94 00:14:16,390 --> 00:14:22,371 In order to experience Samadhi it is necessary to turn attention away from the shadows, away 95 00:14:22,371 --> 00:14:25,900 from the thoughts towards the light. 96 00:14:25,900 --> 00:14:40,640 When a person is only used to darkness then they must gradually become accustomed to the 97 00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:49,330 light. 98 00:14:49,330 --> 00:14:55,240 Like acclimatizing to any new paradigm it takes time and effort, and a willingness to 99 00:14:55,240 --> 00:15:16,680 explore the new, as well as shed the old. 100 00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:30,330 The mind can be likened to a trap for consciousness, a labyrinth or a prison. 101 00:15:30,330 --> 00:15:39,779 It is not that you are in prison, you are the prison. 102 00:15:39,779 --> 00:15:48,270 The prison is an illusion. 103 00:15:48,270 --> 00:15:54,330 If you are identified with an illusory self, then you are asleep. 104 00:15:54,330 --> 00:15:59,340 Once you are aware of the prison, if you fight to get out of the illusion, then you are treating 105 00:15:59,340 --> 00:16:06,820 the illusion as if it is real and you still remain asleep, except now the dream becomes 106 00:16:06,820 --> 00:16:07,820 a nightmare. 107 00:16:07,820 --> 00:16:19,440 You will be chasing and running from shadows forever. 108 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:26,570 Samadhi is awakening from the dream of the separate self or the egoic construct. 109 00:16:26,570 --> 00:16:38,610 Samadhi is awakening from identification with the prison that I call me. 110 00:16:38,610 --> 00:16:47,690 You can never actually be free, because wherever you go your prison is there. 111 00:16:47,690 --> 00:16:53,601 Awakening is not about get rid of the mind or the matrix, on the contrary; when you are 112 00:16:53,601 --> 00:16:58,860 not identified with it, then you can experience the play of life more fully, enjoying the 113 00:16:58,860 --> 00:17:03,700 show as it is, without craving or fear. 114 00:17:03,700 --> 00:17:09,880 In the ancient teachings this was called the divine game of Leila: the game of playing 115 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:22,039 in duality. 116 00:17:22,039 --> 00:17:25,549 Human consciousness is a continuum. 117 00:17:25,549 --> 00:17:31,169 On one extreme, humans are identified with the material self. 118 00:17:31,169 --> 00:17:37,559 On the other extreme is Samadhi, the cessation of self. 119 00:17:37,559 --> 00:17:46,470 Every step we take on the continuum towards Samadhi, brings less suffering. 120 00:17:46,470 --> 00:17:51,610 Less suffering does not mean life is free from pain. 121 00:17:51,610 --> 00:17:58,909 Samadhi is beyond the duality of pain and pleasure. 122 00:17:58,909 --> 00:18:04,299 What it means is that there is less mind, less self creating resistance to whatever 123 00:18:04,299 --> 00:18:22,309 unfolds and that resistance is what creates suffering. 124 00:18:22,309 --> 00:18:28,220 Realizing Samadhi even once allows you to see what is at the other end of the continuum. 125 00:18:28,220 --> 00:18:34,570 To see that there is something other than the material world and self interest. 126 00:18:34,570 --> 00:18:41,309 When there is an actual cessation of the self structure in Samadhi there is no egoic thought, 127 00:18:41,309 --> 00:18:51,020 no self, no duality yet there is still the I am, annata or no self. 128 00:18:51,020 --> 00:19:01,059 In that emptiness is the dawn of prajna or wisdom- the understanding that the immanent 129 00:19:01,059 --> 00:19:10,820 self is far beyond the play of duality, beyond the entire continuum. 130 00:19:10,820 --> 00:19:18,440 The immanent self is timeless, unchanging, always now. 131 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:24,509 Enlightenment is the merging of the primordial spiral, the ever-changing manifested world 132 00:19:24,509 --> 00:19:34,269 or lotus in which time unfolds, with your timeless being. 133 00:19:34,269 --> 00:19:41,700 Your inner wiring grows like an ever-unfolding flower as you disidentify with the self, becoming 134 00:19:41,700 --> 00:20:09,580 a living bridge between the world of time and the timeless. 135 00:20:09,580 --> 00:20:14,539 Merely realizing the immanent self is only the beginning of one’s path. 136 00:20:14,539 --> 00:20:20,530 Most people will have to experience and lose Samadhi countless times in meditation before 137 00:20:20,530 --> 00:20:24,629 they are able to integrate it into other facets of life. 138 00:20:24,629 --> 00:20:32,220 It is not unusual to have profound insights into the nature of your being during meditation 139 00:20:32,220 --> 00:20:39,990 or self inquiry, only to find yourself once again falling back into old patterns, forgetting 140 00:20:39,990 --> 00:20:53,750 the truth of who you are. 141 00:20:53,750 --> 00:21:00,950 To realize that stillness or emptiness in every facet of life, every facet of one’s 142 00:21:00,950 --> 00:21:23,619 self, is to become emptiness dancing as all things. 143 00:21:23,619 --> 00:21:27,600 Stillness is not something separate from movement. 144 00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:30,799 It is not opposite to movement. 145 00:21:30,799 --> 00:21:42,159 In Samadhi stillness is recognized to be identical with movement, form is identical to emptiness. 146 00:21:42,159 --> 00:22:02,440 This is nonsensical to the mind because mind is the coming into being of duality. 147 00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:09,649 Rene Descartes, the father of western philosophy, is famous for the saying “I think therefore 148 00:22:09,649 --> 00:22:11,139 I am”. 149 00:22:11,139 --> 00:22:18,340 No other phrase more clearly encapsulates the fall of civilisation and the full scale 150 00:22:18,340 --> 00:22:23,109 identification with the shadows on the cave wall. 151 00:22:23,109 --> 00:22:32,460 Descartes’ error, like the error of almost all humans, was the equating of fundamental 152 00:22:32,460 --> 00:22:36,740 being with thinking. 153 00:22:36,740 --> 00:22:51,309 At the beginning of his most famous treatise, Descartes wrote that almost everything can 154 00:22:51,309 --> 00:23:03,340 be called into doubt; he can doubt his senses, and even his thoughts. 155 00:23:03,340 --> 00:23:09,991 Likewise in the Kalama Sutra the Buddha said that in order to ascertain the truth, one 156 00:23:09,991 --> 00:23:17,320 must doubt all traditions, scriptures, teachings and all of the content of one’s mind and 157 00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,919 senses. 158 00:23:19,919 --> 00:23:28,350 Both of these men started with great scepticism, but the difference was that Descartes stopped 159 00:23:28,350 --> 00:23:35,059 inquiring at the level of thinking, while the Buddha went deeper- he penetrated beyond 160 00:23:35,059 --> 00:23:39,739 the deepest levels of the mind. 161 00:23:39,739 --> 00:23:46,859 Maybe if Descartes had gone beyond his thinking mind, he would have realized his true nature 162 00:23:46,859 --> 00:23:52,970 and Western consciousness would be very different today. 163 00:23:52,970 --> 00:24:00,889 Instead, Descartes described the possibility of an evil demon that could be keeping us 164 00:24:00,889 --> 00:24:04,039 under a veil of illusion. 165 00:24:04,039 --> 00:24:10,940 Descartes did not recognize this evil demon for what it was. 166 00:24:10,940 --> 00:24:19,409 As in the movie the Matrix, we could all be hooked up to some elaborate program feeding 167 00:24:19,409 --> 00:24:22,250 us an illusory dream world. 168 00:24:22,250 --> 00:24:27,399 In the movie, humans lived out their lives in the matrix, while on another level they 169 00:24:27,399 --> 00:24:32,960 were merely batteries, feeding their life force to the machines which used their energy 170 00:24:32,960 --> 00:25:06,720 for their own agenda. 171 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:11,399 People always want to blame something outside of themselves for the state of the world or 172 00:25:11,399 --> 00:25:12,799 for their own unhappiness. 173 00:25:12,799 --> 00:25:20,100 Whether it is a person, a particular group or country, religion or some kind of controlling 174 00:25:20,100 --> 00:25:27,999 Illuminati like Descartes’ evil demon, or the sentient machines in the Matrix. 175 00:25:27,999 --> 00:25:35,139 Ironically, the demon that Descartes envisioned was the very thing that he defined himself 176 00:25:35,139 --> 00:25:36,139 by. 177 00:25:36,139 --> 00:25:42,759 When you realize Samadhi, it becomes clear that there is a controller, there is a machine, 178 00:25:42,759 --> 00:25:48,379 and evil demon leaching your life day after day. 179 00:25:48,379 --> 00:26:01,250 The machine is you. 180 00:26:01,250 --> 00:26:08,230 Your self structure is made up of many little conditioned sub-programs or little bosses. 181 00:26:08,230 --> 00:26:21,190 One little boss that craves food, another craves money, another status, position, power, 182 00:26:21,190 --> 00:26:25,679 sex, intimacy. 183 00:26:25,679 --> 00:26:28,799 Another wants consciousness or attention from others. 184 00:26:28,799 --> 00:26:34,879 The desires are literally endless and can never be satisfied. 185 00:26:34,879 --> 00:26:40,679 We spend a lot of our time and energy decorating our prisons, succumbing to pressures to improve 186 00:26:40,679 --> 00:26:47,019 our masks, and feeding the little bosses, making them more powerful. 187 00:26:47,019 --> 00:26:56,710 Like drug addicts, the more we try to satisfy the little bosses, the more we end up craving. 188 00:26:56,710 --> 00:27:04,729 The path to freedom is not self improvement, or somehow satisfying the self’s agenda, 189 00:27:04,729 --> 00:27:12,999 but it’s a dropping of the self’s agenda altogether. 190 00:27:12,999 --> 00:27:18,309 Some people fear that awakening their true nature will mean that they lose their individuality 191 00:27:18,309 --> 00:27:20,429 and enjoyment of life. 192 00:27:20,429 --> 00:27:28,519 Actually, the opposite is true; the unique individuation of the soul can only be expressed 193 00:27:28,519 --> 00:27:36,240 when the conditioned self is overcome. 194 00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:41,649 Because we remain asleep in the matrix most of us never find out what the soul actually 195 00:27:41,649 --> 00:27:57,899 wants to express. 196 00:27:57,899 --> 00:28:05,479 The path to Samadhi involves meditation, which is both observing the conditioned self; that 197 00:28:05,479 --> 00:28:14,429 which changes, and realizing your true nature; that which does not change. 198 00:28:14,429 --> 00:28:22,450 When you come to your still point, the source of your being, then you await further instructions 199 00:28:22,450 --> 00:28:28,100 without any insistence on how your outer world has to change. 200 00:28:28,100 --> 00:28:38,429 Not my will, but higher will be done. 201 00:28:38,429 --> 00:28:43,649 If the mind only tries to change the outer world to conform with some idea of what you 202 00:28:43,649 --> 00:28:49,299 think the path should be, it is like trying to change the image in a mirror by manipulating 203 00:28:49,299 --> 00:28:51,940 the reflection. 204 00:28:51,940 --> 00:28:58,330 To make the image in a mirror smile you obviously can’t manipulate the reflection, you have 205 00:28:58,330 --> 00:29:05,590 to realize the you that is the authentic source of the reflection. 206 00:29:05,590 --> 00:29:11,229 Once you realize the authentic self, it doesn’t mean that anything on the outside necessarily 207 00:29:11,229 --> 00:29:13,860 needs to change. 208 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:20,789 What changes is the conscious, intelligent, inner energy or prana which is freed from 209 00:29:20,789 --> 00:29:30,019 conditioned patterns and becomes available to be directed by the soul. 210 00:29:30,019 --> 00:29:35,210 You can only become aware of the soul’s purpose when you are able to watch the conditioned 211 00:29:35,210 --> 00:29:58,269 self and its endless pursuits, and let them go. 212 00:29:58,269 --> 00:30:03,590 In Greek mythology, it was said that the gods condemned Sisyphus to repeat a meaningless 213 00:30:03,590 --> 00:30:06,529 task for all eternity. 214 00:30:06,529 --> 00:30:12,010 His task was to endlessly push a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll down again. 215 00:30:12,010 --> 00:30:24,830 The 216 00:30:24,830 --> 00:30:31,609 French existentialist and Nobel Prize winning author, Albert Camus, saw the situation of 217 00:30:31,609 --> 00:30:35,399 Sisyphus as a metaphor for humanity. 218 00:30:35,399 --> 00:30:47,009 He asked the question, ‘How can we find meaning in this absurd existence?’. 219 00:30:47,009 --> 00:30:55,389 As humans we are toiling endlessly, building for a tomorrow that never arrives, and then 220 00:30:55,389 --> 00:31:09,289 we die. 221 00:31:09,289 --> 00:31:15,629 If we truly realize this truth then we will either go mad if we are identified with our 222 00:31:15,629 --> 00:31:32,700 egoic personas, or we will awaken and become free. 223 00:31:32,700 --> 00:31:37,809 We can never succeed in the outer struggle, because it is just a reflection of our inner 224 00:31:37,809 --> 00:31:39,789 world. 225 00:31:39,789 --> 00:31:45,759 The cosmic joke, the absurdity of the situation becomes clear when there is a complete and 226 00:31:45,759 --> 00:32:15,090 utter failure of the egoic self to awaken through its futile pursuits. 227 00:32:15,090 --> 00:32:23,700 In Zen there is a saying, “Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. 228 00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:35,019 After enlightenment chop wood, carry water”. 229 00:32:35,019 --> 00:32:41,019 Before enlightenment one must roll the ball up the hill, after enlightenment one must 230 00:32:41,019 --> 00:32:44,840 also roll the ball up the hill. 231 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,450 What has changed? 232 00:32:47,450 --> 00:32:51,749 The inner resistance to what is. 233 00:32:51,749 --> 00:32:58,679 The struggle has been dropped, or rather the one who struggles has been realized to be 234 00:32:58,679 --> 00:33:00,929 illusory. 235 00:33:00,929 --> 00:33:14,649 The individual will or individual mind and divine will, or higher mind, are aligned. 236 00:33:14,649 --> 00:33:27,690 Samadhi is ultimately a dropping of all inner resistance - to all changing phenomena, without 237 00:33:27,690 --> 00:33:28,879 exception. 238 00:33:28,879 --> 00:33:36,409 The one who is able to realize inner peace, irrespective of circumstance has attained 239 00:33:36,409 --> 00:33:39,190 true Samadhi. 240 00:33:39,190 --> 00:33:45,070 You drop resistance not because you condone one thing or another, but so that your inner 241 00:33:45,070 --> 00:33:50,179 freedom is not contingent on the outer. 242 00:33:50,179 --> 00:33:57,580 It’s important to note that when we accept reality as it is, it doesn’t necessarily 243 00:33:57,580 --> 00:34:04,169 mean that we stop taking action in the world, or we become meditating pacifists. 244 00:34:04,169 --> 00:34:10,330 Actually the opposite can be true; when we’re free to act without being driven by unconscious 245 00:34:10,330 --> 00:34:17,300 motives, then it is possible to act in alignment with the Tao, with the full force of our inner 246 00:34:17,300 --> 00:34:30,030 energy behind us. 247 00:34:30,030 --> 00:34:35,810 Many will argue that in order to change the world and bring about peace we need to fight 248 00:34:35,810 --> 00:34:39,899 harder against our perceived enemies. 249 00:34:39,899 --> 00:34:48,659 Fighting for peace is like shouting for silence; it just creates more of what you don’t want. 250 00:34:48,659 --> 00:34:55,489 These days there is a war against everything: a war against terror, a war against disease, 251 00:34:55,489 --> 00:35:00,540 a war against hunger. 252 00:35:00,540 --> 00:35:13,369 Every war is actually a war against ourselves. 253 00:35:13,369 --> 00:35:17,150 The fight is part of a collective delusion. 254 00:35:17,150 --> 00:35:23,400 We say that we want peace, but we continue to elect leaders who engage in war. 255 00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:29,400 We lie to ourselves saying that we are for human rights, but continue to buy products 256 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,960 made in sweatshops. 257 00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,309 We say we want clean air, but we continue to pollute. 258 00:35:36,309 --> 00:35:42,660 We want science to cure us of cancer but won’t change our self-destructive habitual behaviours 259 00:35:42,660 --> 00:35:45,670 that make us more likely to be sick. 260 00:35:45,670 --> 00:35:50,589 We delude ourselves that we are promoting a better life. 261 00:35:50,589 --> 00:35:57,569 We don’t want to see our hidden parts that are condoning suffering and death. 262 00:35:57,569 --> 00:36:06,690 The belief that we can win a war against cancer, hunger, terror, or any enemy that was created 263 00:36:06,690 --> 00:36:13,030 by our own thinking and behaviour, actually lets us continue to delude ourselves that 264 00:36:13,030 --> 00:36:18,589 we don’t have to change the way that we operate on this planet. 265 00:36:18,589 --> 00:36:23,700 The inner world is where the revolution must first take place. 266 00:36:23,700 --> 00:36:30,589 Only when we can directly feel the spiral of life within will the outer world come into 267 00:36:30,589 --> 00:36:33,950 alignment with the Tao. 268 00:36:33,950 --> 00:36:41,990 Until then, anything we do will add to the chaos already created by the mind. 269 00:36:41,990 --> 00:36:49,369 War and peace arise together in an endless dance; they are one continuum. 270 00:36:49,369 --> 00:36:53,029 One half cannot exist without the other. 271 00:36:53,029 --> 00:36:58,910 Just as light cannot exist without dark, and up cannot exist without down. 272 00:36:58,910 --> 00:37:07,079 The world seems to want light without darkness, fullness without emptiness, happiness without 273 00:37:07,079 --> 00:37:19,770 sadness. 274 00:37:19,770 --> 00:37:38,339 The more the mind gets involved, the more fragmented the world becomes. 275 00:37:38,339 --> 00:37:44,430 Every solution that comes from the egoic mind is driven by the idea that there is a problem, 276 00:37:44,430 --> 00:37:52,950 and the solution becomes an even greater problem than what it was trying to solve. 277 00:37:52,950 --> 00:38:07,540 What you resist persists. 278 00:38:07,540 --> 00:38:14,819 Human ingenuity creates new antibiotics only to find nature getting more cunning as bacteria 279 00:38:14,819 --> 00:38:16,839 gets stronger. 280 00:38:16,839 --> 00:38:24,500 Despite our best efforts in the ongoing fight, the prevalence of cancer is actually increasing, 281 00:38:24,500 --> 00:38:32,740 the number of hungry people in the world steadily grows, the number of terrorist attacks worldwide 282 00:38:32,740 --> 00:38:36,270 continues to rise. 283 00:38:36,270 --> 00:38:45,200 What’s wrong with our approach? 284 00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:50,890 Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Goethe’s poem, we have taken hold of a great power, 285 00:38:50,890 --> 00:38:56,109 but do not have the wisdom to wield it. 286 00:38:56,109 --> 00:39:03,230 The problem is that we do not understand the tool that we are using. 287 00:39:03,230 --> 00:39:18,010 We do not understand the human mind and its proper role and purpose. 288 00:39:18,010 --> 00:39:24,130 The crisis is born of the limited conditioned way in which we think, the way we feel and 289 00:39:24,130 --> 00:39:35,000 experience life. 290 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:41,510 Our rationalism has robbed us of our ability to recognize and experience the wisdom of 291 00:39:41,510 --> 00:39:48,059 many ancient cultures. 292 00:39:48,059 --> 00:39:54,670 Our egoic thinking has robbed us of the ability to feel the depth and profound sacredness 293 00:39:54,670 --> 00:40:02,760 of life, the numinosity of life, and to realize entirely different levels of consciousness, 294 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:11,289 which are now almost lost to humanity. 295 00:40:11,289 --> 00:40:17,529 In the ancient Egyptian tradition, Neters were archetypal forms whose characteristics 296 00:40:17,529 --> 00:40:23,420 could be embodied by those who purified their physical and spiritual bodies in such a way 297 00:40:23,420 --> 00:40:27,630 that they were fit to house higher consciousnesses. 298 00:40:27,630 --> 00:40:38,790 The original Neter, or the divine principle of this wisdom was known as Thoth or Tehuti. 299 00:40:38,790 --> 00:40:44,750 Often depicted as a scribe with the head of a bird or Ibis, and represented the origin 300 00:40:44,750 --> 00:40:49,090 of all knowledge and wisdom. 301 00:40:49,090 --> 00:40:55,720 Thoth could be described as the cosmic principle of thinking or thought. 302 00:40:55,720 --> 00:41:04,010 Thoth gave us language, concepts, writing, mathematics, and all the arts and manifestations 303 00:41:04,010 --> 00:41:05,940 of the mind. 304 00:41:05,940 --> 00:41:15,170 Only those who had gone through special training were allowed to access Thoth’s sacred knowledge. 305 00:41:15,170 --> 00:41:26,030 The book of Thoth is not a physical book, but is the wisdom of the akashic or etheric 306 00:41:26,030 --> 00:41:27,319 realm. 307 00:41:27,319 --> 00:41:32,710 Legend tells that Thoth’s knowledge was deeply hidden in a secret place within every 308 00:41:32,710 --> 00:41:42,390 human being, and was protected by a golden serpent. 309 00:41:42,390 --> 00:41:48,579 The archetypal or perennial myth of the serpent or dragon guarding a treasure is one that 310 00:41:48,579 --> 00:42:02,250 permeates many cultures and has been called by names such as kundalini shakti, chi, holy 311 00:42:02,250 --> 00:42:06,110 spirit, and inner energy. 312 00:42:06,110 --> 00:42:12,779 The golden serpent is the egoic construct which is bound in the inner energies and until 313 00:42:12,779 --> 00:42:19,450 it is mastered and overcome, the soul will never be able to attain true wisdom. 314 00:42:19,450 --> 00:42:24,869 It was said that the book of Thoth brought nothing but suffering to any individual who 315 00:42:24,869 --> 00:42:32,380 read it, even though they would find the secrets of the gods themselves and all that is hidden 316 00:42:32,380 --> 00:42:34,869 within the stars. 317 00:42:34,869 --> 00:42:42,500 What must be understood is that the book brought suffering to any individual who read it, any 318 00:42:42,500 --> 00:42:45,420 ego that tried to control it. 319 00:42:45,420 --> 00:42:53,859 In the Egyptian tradition awakened consciousness was represented by Osiris. 320 00:42:53,859 --> 00:43:00,410 Without this awakened consciousness, any knowledge or understanding obtained by the limited self 321 00:43:00,410 --> 00:43:08,240 would be dangerous, disconnected from higher wisdom. 322 00:43:08,240 --> 00:43:15,849 The eye of Horus had to be open. 323 00:43:15,849 --> 00:43:21,480 The esoteric meaning that we find here is similar to the more familiar story of “the 324 00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:23,710 fall” in the garden of Eden. 325 00:43:23,710 --> 00:43:30,400 The book of Thoth parallels the book of knowledge of good and evil whose fruit Adam and Eve 326 00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:41,960 were tempted to eat. 327 00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:49,200 Humanity of course has already eaten the forbidden fruit, already opened the book of Thoth, and 328 00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:54,910 has been cast out of the garden. 329 00:43:54,910 --> 00:44:01,980 The serpent is a metaphor for the primordial spiral that extends from the microcosm to 330 00:44:01,980 --> 00:44:06,730 the macrocosm. 331 00:44:06,730 --> 00:44:11,549 Today the serpent is living as you. 332 00:44:11,549 --> 00:44:18,800 It is the egoic mind expressed as the manifested world. 333 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:22,589 We have never before had access to so much knowledge. 334 00:44:22,589 --> 00:44:30,130 We have gone deep into the material world, even finding the so-called God particle, but 335 00:44:30,130 --> 00:44:37,420 we have never been more limited, more ignorant of who we are, how to live, and we do not 336 00:44:37,420 --> 00:45:28,430 understand the mechanism by which we create suffering. 337 00:45:28,430 --> 00:45:32,230 Our thinking has created the world as it is now. 338 00:45:32,230 --> 00:45:37,529 Whenever we label something as good or bad, or create preference in our mind it is due 339 00:45:37,529 --> 00:45:44,050 to the coming into being of egoic structures or self interests. 340 00:45:44,050 --> 00:45:51,000 The solution is not to fight for peace or conquer nature, but to simply recognize the 341 00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:59,670 truth; that the very existence of the ego structure creates duality, a split between 342 00:45:59,670 --> 00:46:10,730 self and other, mine and yours, man and nature, inner and outer. 343 00:46:10,730 --> 00:46:19,660 The ego is violence; it requires a barrier, a boundary from the other in order to be. 344 00:46:19,660 --> 00:46:24,180 Without ego there is no war against anything. 345 00:46:24,180 --> 00:46:30,940 There is no hubris, there is no overreaching nature to create profit. 346 00:46:30,940 --> 00:46:38,970 These external crises in our world reflect a serious inner crises; we don’t know who 347 00:46:38,970 --> 00:46:41,329 we are. 348 00:46:41,329 --> 00:46:48,000 We are completely identified with our egoic identities, consumed by fears and are cut 349 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:50,670 off from our true nature. 350 00:46:50,670 --> 00:47:00,880 Races, religions, countries, political affiliations, any group that we belong to, all reinforce 351 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,900 our egoic identities. 352 00:47:04,900 --> 00:47:10,220 Almost every group that exists on the planet today wants to claim its perspective as true 353 00:47:10,220 --> 00:47:15,010 and correct, as we do on an individual level. 354 00:47:15,010 --> 00:47:21,130 By claiming the truth as its own, the group perpetuates its own existence in the same 355 00:47:21,130 --> 00:47:29,920 way that an ego or self structure defines itself against other. 356 00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:35,970 Now more than ever different realities and polarized belief systems are co-existing on 357 00:47:35,970 --> 00:47:36,970 earth. 358 00:47:36,970 --> 00:47:42,559 It is possible for different people to experience completely different thoughts and emotional 359 00:47:42,559 --> 00:47:48,529 reactions to the very same external phenomena. 360 00:47:48,529 --> 00:47:56,720 In the same way, samsara and nirvana, heaven and hell, are two different dimensions occupying 361 00:47:56,720 --> 00:48:00,119 the very same world. 362 00:48:00,119 --> 00:48:11,839 An event that may appear apocalyptic to one person, could be seen as a blessing to another. 363 00:48:11,839 --> 00:48:17,319 So what is becoming obvious is that your external circumstances don’t have to affect your 364 00:48:17,319 --> 00:48:22,480 inner world in any particular way. 365 00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:31,369 To realize Samadhi is to become a self-propelled wheel, to become autonomous, a universe unto 366 00:48:31,369 --> 00:48:36,490 oneself. 367 00:48:36,490 --> 00:48:44,780 Your experience of life is not contingent on changing phenomena. 368 00:48:44,780 --> 00:48:50,609 An analogy can be made with Metatron’s cube. 369 00:48:50,609 --> 00:48:57,160 Metatron is mentioned in various ancient Christian, Islamic and Jewish texts, and is archetypally 370 00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:05,300 related to the Egyptian Neter Thoth, as well as Hermes Trismegistus of Greece. 371 00:49:05,300 --> 00:49:10,339 Metatron is intimately connected with the tetragrammaton. 372 00:49:10,339 --> 00:49:17,400 The tetragrammaton is the fundamental geometric pattern, the template or primordial emanation 373 00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:25,960 of physical reality, which has been called the word of God or Logos. 374 00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:31,990 Here we see a two dimensional representation of the figure, but if you look a certain way, 375 00:49:31,990 --> 00:49:35,519 you see a three D cube. 376 00:49:35,519 --> 00:49:41,849 When you see the cube, nothing has changed in the figure, but your mind has added a new 377 00:49:41,849 --> 00:49:46,240 dimension to your seeing. 378 00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:52,009 Dimensionality or one’s perspective is simply a matter of becoming habituated to a new way 379 00:49:52,009 --> 00:49:56,319 of perceiving the world. 380 00:49:56,319 --> 00:50:03,960 Upon realizing Samadhi we become free of perspective, or free to create new perspectives, because 381 00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:12,549 there is no self invested in or attached to a particular viewpoint. 382 00:50:12,549 --> 00:50:23,250 The greatest minds in human history have often pointed to levels of thought beyond the limited 383 00:50:23,250 --> 00:50:25,099 self structure. 384 00:50:25,099 --> 00:50:31,980 Einstein said “The true measure of a human being is determined primarily by the measure 385 00:50:31,980 --> 00:50:38,250 and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.” 386 00:50:38,250 --> 00:50:46,230 So it’s not that thinking and the existence of the self is bad, thinking is a wonderful 387 00:50:46,230 --> 00:50:53,540 tool when the mind is in service to the heart. 388 00:50:53,540 --> 00:51:06,359 In Vedanta it is said that the mind makes a good servant but a poor master. 389 00:51:06,359 --> 00:51:13,950 The ego perpetually filters reality through language and labels, and is constantly judging. 390 00:51:13,950 --> 00:51:17,700 Preferring one thing over another. 391 00:51:17,700 --> 00:51:23,850 When the mind and senses are your master, they will create endless suffering, endless 392 00:51:23,850 --> 00:51:32,460 craving and aversion, locking us into the matrix of thinking. 393 00:51:32,460 --> 00:51:39,519 If you want to realize Samadhi, do not judge your thoughts as good or bad, but find out 394 00:51:39,519 --> 00:51:45,790 who you are prior to thought, prior to the senses. 395 00:51:45,790 --> 00:51:57,309 When all labels are dropped then it is possible to see things as they are. 396 00:51:57,309 --> 00:52:05,280 The moment a child is told what a bird is, if they believe what they’re told then they 397 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:07,690 never see a bird again. 398 00:52:07,690 --> 00:52:52,259 They only see their thoughts. 399 00:52:52,259 --> 00:52:57,609 Most people think that they are free, conscious and awake. 400 00:52:57,609 --> 00:53:04,539 If you believe you are already awake, then why would you do the difficult work to attain 401 00:53:04,539 --> 00:53:08,930 what you believe you already have? 402 00:53:08,930 --> 00:53:16,130 Before it becomes possible to awaken, it is necessary to accept that you are asleep, living 403 00:53:16,130 --> 00:53:20,430 in the matrix. 404 00:53:20,430 --> 00:53:25,920 Examine your life honestly, without lying to yourself. 405 00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:32,140 Are you able to stop your robotic, repetitive life patterns if you want to? 406 00:53:32,140 --> 00:53:40,079 Can you stop seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, are you addicted to certain foods, activities, 407 00:53:40,079 --> 00:53:41,519 pastimes? 408 00:53:41,519 --> 00:53:49,309 Are you constantly judging, blaming, criticizing yourself and others? 409 00:53:49,309 --> 00:53:56,490 Does your mind incessantly seek out stimulus, or are you completely fulfilled just being 410 00:53:56,490 --> 00:53:59,329 in silence? 411 00:53:59,329 --> 00:54:02,200 Do you react to how people think about you? 412 00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:06,410 Are you seeking approval, positive reinforcement? 413 00:54:06,410 --> 00:54:12,130 Do you somehow sabotage situations in your life? 414 00:54:12,130 --> 00:54:17,859 Most people will experience their lives the same way today as they will tomorrow and a 415 00:54:17,859 --> 00:54:22,829 year from now, and ten years from now. 416 00:54:22,829 --> 00:54:29,390 When you begin to observe your robot-like nature you become more awake. 417 00:54:29,390 --> 00:54:34,809 You begin to recognize the depth of the problem. 418 00:54:34,809 --> 00:54:41,690 You are completely and utterly asleep, lost in a dream. 419 00:54:41,690 --> 00:54:47,500 Like the inhabitants of Plato’s cave, most who hear this truth will not be willing or 420 00:54:47,500 --> 00:54:55,529 capable of changing their lives because they are attached to their familiar patterns. 421 00:54:55,529 --> 00:55:02,500 We go to great lengths justifying our patterns, burying our heads in the sand rather than 422 00:55:02,500 --> 00:55:05,680 facing the truth. 423 00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:12,300 We want our saviours, but we are not willing to get up on the cross ourselves. 424 00:55:12,300 --> 00:55:19,740 What are you willing to pay to be free? 425 00:55:19,740 --> 00:55:26,300 Realize that if you change your inner world, you must be prepared to change the outer life. 426 00:55:26,300 --> 00:55:32,470 Your old structure and your old identity must become the dead soil out of which new growth 427 00:55:32,470 --> 00:55:39,869 comes. 428 00:55:39,869 --> 00:55:45,119 The first step to awakening is to realize that we are identified with the matrix of 429 00:55:45,119 --> 00:55:49,670 the human mind, with the mask. 430 00:55:49,670 --> 00:55:55,249 Something within us must hear this truth and be roused from its slumber. 431 00:55:55,249 --> 00:56:18,349 There is a part of you, something timeless, that has always known the truth. 432 00:56:18,349 --> 00:56:31,749 The matrix of the mind distracts us, entertains us, keeps us endlessly doing, consuming, grasping, 433 00:56:31,749 --> 00:56:39,160 in a cycle of craving and aversion with constantly changing forms, keeping us from the flowering 434 00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:47,829 of our consciousness, from our evolutionary birthright which is Samadhi. 435 00:56:47,829 --> 00:56:58,380 Pathological thinking is what passes for normal life. 436 00:56:58,380 --> 00:57:06,329 Your divine essence has become enslaved, identified with the limited self structure. 437 00:57:06,329 --> 00:57:15,720 The great wisdom, the truth of who you are is buried deep within your being. 438 00:57:15,720 --> 00:57:27,039 J. Krishnamurti said, “It is no measure of one’s health to be well adjusted to a 439 00:57:27,039 --> 00:57:39,759 profoundly sick society.” 440 00:57:39,759 --> 00:58:02,810 Identification with the egoic mind is the sickness and Samadhi is the cure. 441 00:58:02,810 --> 00:58:25,680 The saints, sages and awakened beings throughout history have all learned the wisdom of self-surrender. 442 00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:45,089 How is it possible to realize the true self? 443 00:58:45,089 --> 00:58:52,520 When you peer through the veil of Maya, and let go of the illusory self, what is left?