WEBVTT 00:01:14.450 --> 00:01:24.740 Samadhi 00:01:24.740 --> 00:01:30.640 is an ancient Sanskrit word, for which there is no modern equivalent. 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:38.210 There is a fundamental challenge with making a film about Samadhi. 00:01:38.210 --> 00:01:54.230 Samadhi points to something that can’t be conveyed on the level of mind. 00:01:54.230 --> 00:02:00.240 This film is simply the outer manifestation of my own inner journey. 00:02:00.240 --> 00:02:06.950 The intention is not to teach you about Samadhi, or provide information for your mind, but 00:02:06.950 --> 00:02:17.260 to inspire you to directly discover your true nature. 00:02:17.260 --> 00:02:29.200 Samadhi is relevant now more than ever. 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 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:43.700 what we forgot. 00:02:43.700 --> 00:02:54.834 This forgetting is Maya, the illusion of the self. 00:02:59.331 --> 00:03:11.061 Part 1: Maya (The illusion of the self) 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 00:03:34.239 --> 00:03:42.439 are, why we are here, or where we’re going. 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 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:56.980 - that which is beyond name and form, beyond thinking. 00:03:56.980 --> 00:04:01.520 As a result we believe we are these limited bodies. 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:10.870 We live in fear, either conscious or unconscious, that the limited self structure that we are 00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:25.630 identified with, will die. 00:04:25.630 --> 00:04:30.890 In today's world the vast majority of people who are engaged in religious or spiritual 00:04:30.890 --> 00:04:39.750 practices such as yoga, prayer, meditation, chanting or any kind of ritual, are practicing 00:04:39.750 --> 00:04:42.340 techniques which are conditioned. 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:49.530 Which means they are just part of the ego construct. 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 00:04:55.479 --> 00:05:01.260 external form is the problem. 00:05:01.260 --> 00:05:07.350 Spirituality in its most common form is no different than the pathological thinking that 00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:10.680 is going on everywhere. 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:14.050 It is a further agitation of the mind. 00:05:14.050 --> 00:05:19.480 More human doing, as opposed to human being. 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:28.840 The ego construct wants more money, more power, more love, more of everything. 00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:37.610 Those on the so-called spiritual path desire to be more spiritual, more awake, more equanimous, 00:05:37.610 --> 00:05:43.380 more peaceful, more enlightened. 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 00:05:53.141 --> 00:06:01.130 more dangerous is that your mind might think it has acquired Samadhi. 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 00:06:06.270 --> 00:06:08.120 at work. 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:17.850 Samadhi is not about attaining or adding anything to yourself. 00:06:17.850 --> 00:06:26.830 To realize Samadhi is to learn to die before you die. 00:06:26.830 --> 00:06:32.360 Life and death are like yin and yang- an inseparable continuum. 00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:37.440 Endlessly unfolding, with no beginning and no end. 00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:42.630 When we push away death, we also push away life. 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 00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:51.030 or death. 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 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:12.719 slaves to the deeper unconscious biological craving and aversion that governs our choices. 00:07:12.719 --> 00:07:16.360 The ego construct is nothing more than the impulse to repeat. 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 00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:33.190 path again, whether it is positive or negative for the organism. 00:07:33.190 --> 00:07:39.760 There are endless levels of memory or mind, spirals within spirals. 00:07:39.760 --> 00:07:46.530 When your consciousness identifies with this mind or ego construct, it ties you to social 00:07:46.530 --> 00:07:54.750 conditioning, which you could call the matrix. 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 00:08:00.940 --> 00:08:13.370 archaic wiring, the primal existential fears, that are actually driving the whole machine. 00:08:13.370 --> 00:08:18.649 Endless patterns of grasping towards pleasure and avoidance of pain are sublimated into 00:08:18.649 --> 00:08:31.089 pathological behaviours .... our work.... our relationships.... our beliefs, our very 00:08:31.089 --> 00:08:37.150 thoughts, and our whole way of living. 00:08:37.150 --> 00:09:08.120 Like cattle, most humans live and die in passive subjugation, feeding their lives to the matrix. 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:12.200 We live lives locked into narrow patterns. 00:09:12.200 --> 00:09:17.460 Lives often filled with great suffering, and it never occurs to us that we can actually 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:25.990 become free. 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 00:09:34.300 --> 00:10:08.300 the one that is waiting to come forth through the inner world. 00:10:08.300 --> 00:10:20.800 We were all born into this world with biological conditioned structures, but without self awareness. 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. 00:10:29.280 --> 00:10:36.510 The person one grows into is a mask worn over consciousness. 00:10:36.510 --> 00:10:54.260 Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". 00:10:54.260 --> 00:11:04.290 In an awakened individual, consciousness shines through the personality, through the mask. 00:11:04.290 --> 00:11:08.960 When you are awake, you don't become identified with your character. 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:17.030 You don't believe that you are the masks that you are wearing. 00:11:17.030 --> 00:11:29.700 But nor do you give up playing a role. 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:47.160 When we are identified with our character, our persona 00:11:47.160 --> 00:11:53.140 this is Maya, the illusion of the self. 00:11:53.140 --> 00:12:01.840 Samadhi is awakening from the dream of your character in the play of life. 00:12:12.780 --> 00:12:19.050 Twenty-four hundred years after Plato wrote the Republic, humanity is still making its 00:12:19.050 --> 00:12:25.430 way out of Plato's cave. 00:12:25.430 --> 00:12:36.680 In fact we may be more transfixed by illusions than ever. 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, 00:12:42.600 --> 00:12:44.220 facing a blank wall. 00:12:44.220 --> 00:12:50.480 All they could see were shadows projected on the wall by the things passing in front 00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:53.440 of a fire which was behind them. 00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:56.960 This puppet show becomes their world. 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:06.560 According to Socrates, the shadows were as close as the prisoners would ever get to seeing 00:13:06.560 --> 00:13:11.100 reality. 00:13:11.100 --> 00:13:16.370 Even after being told about the outside world they continued to believe that the shadows 00:13:16.370 --> 00:13:19.430 were all that is. 00:13:19.430 --> 00:13:24.400 Even if they suspected there was something more they were unwilling to leave what was 00:13:24.400 --> 00:13:36.000 familiar. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:40.800 Humanity today is like the people who have only seen the shadows on the cave wall. 00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:44.260 The shadows are analogous to our thoughts. 00:13:44.260 --> 00:13:47.779 The world of thinking is the only world that we know. 00:13:47.779 --> 00:13:52.150 But there is another world that is beyond thinking. 00:13:52.150 --> 00:13:55.029 Beyond the dualistic mind. 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 00:14:03.380 --> 00:14:16.390 of who you are? 00:14:16.390 --> 00:14:22.371 In order to experience Samadhi it is necessary to turn attention away from the shadows, away 00:14:22.371 --> 00:14:25.900 from the thoughts towards the light. 00:14:25.900 --> 00:14:40.640 When a person is only used to darkness then they must gradually become accustomed to the 00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:49.330 light. 00:14:49.330 --> 00:14:55.240 Like acclimatizing to any new paradigm it takes time and effort, and a willingness to 00:14:55.240 --> 00:15:16.680 explore the new, as well as shed the old. 00:15:16.680 --> 00:15:30.330 The mind can be likened to a trap for consciousness, a labyrinth or a prison. 00:15:30.330 --> 00:15:39.779 It is not that you are in prison, you are the prison. 00:15:39.779 --> 00:15:48.270 The prison is an illusion. 00:15:48.270 --> 00:15:54.330 If you are identified with an illusory self, then you are asleep. 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 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 00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:07.820 a nightmare. 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:19.440 You will be chasing and running from shadows forever. 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:26.570 Samadhi is awakening from the dream of the separate self or the egoic construct. 00:16:26.570 --> 00:16:38.610 Samadhi is awakening from identification with the prison that I call me. 00:16:38.610 --> 00:16:47.690 You can never actually be free, because wherever you go your prison is there. 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 00:16:53.601 --> 00:16:58.860 not identified with it, then you can experience the play of life more fully, enjoying the 00:16:58.860 --> 00:17:03.700 show as it is, without craving or fear. 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:09.880 In the ancient teachings this was called the divine game of Leila: the game of playing 00:17:09.880 --> 00:17:22.039 in duality. 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:25.549 Human consciousness is a continuum. 00:17:25.549 --> 00:17:31.169 On one extreme, humans are identified with the material self. 00:17:31.169 --> 00:17:37.559 On the other extreme is Samadhi, the cessation of self. 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:46.470 Every step we take on the continuum towards Samadhi, brings less suffering. 00:17:46.470 --> 00:17:51.610 Less suffering does not mean life is free from pain. 00:17:51.610 --> 00:17:58.909 Samadhi is beyond the duality of pain and pleasure. 00:17:58.909 --> 00:18:04.299 What it means is that there is less mind, less self creating resistance to whatever 00:18:04.299 --> 00:18:22.309 unfolds and that resistance is what creates suffering. 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. 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:34.570 To see that there is something other than the material world and self interest. 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, 00:18:41.309 --> 00:18:51.020 no self, no duality yet there is still the I am, annata or no self. 00:18:51.020 --> 00:19:01.059 In that emptiness is the dawn of prajna or wisdom- the understanding that the immanent 00:19:01.059 --> 00:19:10.820 self is far beyond the play of duality, beyond the entire continuum. 00:19:10.820 --> 00:19:18.440 The immanent self is timeless, unchanging, always now. 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:24.509 Enlightenment is the merging of the primordial spiral, the ever-changing manifested world 00:19:24.509 --> 00:19:34.269 or lotus in which time unfolds, with your timeless being. 00:19:34.269 --> 00:19:41.700 Your inner wiring grows like an ever-unfolding flower as you disidentify with the self, becoming 00:19:41.700 --> 00:20:09.580 a living bridge between the world of time and the timeless. 00:20:09.580 --> 00:20:14.539 Merely realizing the immanent self is only the beginning of one’s path. 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:20.530 Most people will have to experience and lose Samadhi countless times in meditation before 00:20:20.530 --> 00:20:24.629 they are able to integrate it into other facets of life. 00:20:24.629 --> 00:20:32.220 It is not unusual to have profound insights into the nature of your being during meditation 00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:39.990 or self inquiry, only to find yourself once again falling back into old patterns, forgetting 00:20:39.990 --> 00:20:53.750 the truth of who you are. 00:20:53.750 --> 00:21:00.950 To realize that stillness or emptiness in every facet of life, every facet of one’s 00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:23.619 self, is to become emptiness dancing as all things. 00:21:23.619 --> 00:21:27.600 Stillness is not something separate from movement. 00:21:27.600 --> 00:21:30.799 It is not opposite to movement. 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:42.159 In Samadhi stillness is recognized to be identical with movement, form is identical to emptiness. 00:21:42.159 --> 00:22:02.440 This is nonsensical to the mind because mind is the coming into being of duality. 00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:09.649 Rene Descartes, the father of western philosophy, is famous for the saying “I think therefore 00:22:09.649 --> 00:22:11.139 I am”. 00:22:11.139 --> 00:22:18.340 No other phrase more clearly encapsulates the fall of civilisation and the full scale 00:22:18.340 --> 00:22:23.109 identification with the shadows on the cave wall. 00:22:23.109 --> 00:22:32.460 Descartes’ error, like the error of almost all humans, was the equating of fundamental 00:22:32.460 --> 00:22:36.740 being with thinking. 00:22:36.740 --> 00:22:51.309 At the beginning of his most famous treatise, Descartes wrote that almost everything can 00:22:51.309 --> 00:23:03.340 be called into doubt; he can doubt his senses, and even his thoughts. 00:23:03.340 --> 00:23:09.991 Likewise in the Kalama Sutra the Buddha said that in order to ascertain the truth, one 00:23:09.991 --> 00:23:17.320 must doubt all traditions, scriptures, teachings and all of the content of one’s mind and 00:23:17.320 --> 00:23:19.919 senses. 00:23:19.919 --> 00:23:28.350 Both of these men started with great scepticism, but the difference was that Descartes stopped 00:23:28.350 --> 00:23:35.059 inquiring at the level of thinking, while the Buddha went deeper- he penetrated beyond 00:23:35.059 --> 00:23:39.739 the deepest levels of the mind. 00:23:39.739 --> 00:23:46.859 Maybe if Descartes had gone beyond his thinking mind, he would have realized his true nature 00:23:46.859 --> 00:23:52.970 and Western consciousness would be very different today. 00:23:52.970 --> 00:24:00.889 Instead, Descartes described the possibility of an evil demon that could be keeping us 00:24:00.889 --> 00:24:04.039 under a veil of illusion. 00:24:04.039 --> 00:24:10.940 Descartes did not recognize this evil demon for what it was. 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 00:24:19.409 --> 00:24:22.250 us an illusory dream world. 00:24:22.250 --> 00:24:27.399 In the movie, humans lived out their lives in the matrix, while on another level they 00:24:27.399 --> 00:24:32.960 were merely batteries, feeding their life force to the machines which used their energy 00:24:32.960 --> 00:25:06.720 for their own agenda. 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:11.399 People always want to blame something outside of themselves for the state of the world or 00:25:11.399 --> 00:25:12.799 for their own unhappiness. 00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:20.100 Whether it is a person, a particular group or country, religion or some kind of controlling 00:25:20.100 --> 00:25:27.999 Illuminati like Descartes’ evil demon, or the sentient machines in the Matrix. 00:25:27.999 --> 00:25:35.139 Ironically, the demon that Descartes envisioned was the very thing that he defined himself 00:25:35.139 --> 00:25:36.139 by. 00:25:36.139 --> 00:25:42.759 When you realize Samadhi, it becomes clear that there is a controller, there is a machine, 00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:48.379 and evil demon leaching your life day after day. 00:25:48.379 --> 00:26:01.250 The machine is you. 00:26:01.250 --> 00:26:08.230 Your self structure is made up of many little conditioned sub-programs or little bosses. 00:26:08.230 --> 00:26:21.190 One little boss that craves food, another craves money, another status, position, power, 00:26:21.190 --> 00:26:25.679 sex, intimacy. 00:26:25.679 --> 00:26:28.799 Another wants consciousness or attention from others. 00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:34.879 The desires are literally endless and can never be satisfied. 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 00:26:40.679 --> 00:26:47.019 our masks, and feeding the little bosses, making them more powerful. 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. 00:26:56.710 --> 00:27:04.729 The path to freedom is not self improvement, or somehow satisfying the self’s agenda, 00:27:04.729 --> 00:27:12.999 but it’s a dropping of the self’s agenda altogether. 00:27:12.999 --> 00:27:18.309 Some people fear that awakening their true nature will mean that they lose their individuality 00:27:18.309 --> 00:27:20.429 and enjoyment of life. 00:27:20.429 --> 00:27:28.519 Actually, the opposite is true; the unique individuation of the soul can only be expressed 00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:36.240 when the conditioned self is overcome. 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 00:27:41.649 --> 00:27:57.899 wants to express. 00:27:57.899 --> 00:28:05.479 The path to Samadhi involves meditation, which is both observing the conditioned self; that 00:28:05.479 --> 00:28:14.429 which changes, and realizing your true nature; that which does not change. 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 00:28:22.450 --> 00:28:28.100 without any insistence on how your outer world has to change. 00:28:28.100 --> 00:28:38.429 Not my will, but higher will be done. 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 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 00:28:49.299 --> 00:28:51.940 the reflection. 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 00:28:58.330 --> 00:29:05.590 to realize the you that is the authentic source of the reflection. 00:29:05.590 --> 00:29:11.229 Once you realize the authentic self, it doesn’t mean that anything on the outside necessarily 00:29:11.229 --> 00:29:13.860 needs to change. 00:29:13.860 --> 00:29:20.789 What changes is the conscious, intelligent, inner energy or prana which is freed from 00:29:20.789 --> 00:29:30.019 conditioned patterns and becomes available to be directed by the soul. 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 00:29:35.210 --> 00:29:58.269 self and its endless pursuits, and let them go. 00:29:58.269 --> 00:30:03.590 In Greek mythology, it was said that the gods condemned Sisyphus to repeat a meaningless 00:30:03.590 --> 00:30:06.529 task for all eternity. 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. 00:30:12.010 --> 00:30:24.830 The 00:30:24.830 --> 00:30:31.609 French existentialist and Nobel Prize winning author, Albert Camus, saw the situation of 00:30:31.609 --> 00:30:35.399 Sisyphus as a metaphor for humanity. 00:30:35.399 --> 00:30:47.009 He asked the question, ‘How can we find meaning in this absurd existence?’. 00:30:47.009 --> 00:30:55.389 As humans we are toiling endlessly, building for a tomorrow that never arrives, and then 00:30:55.389 --> 00:31:09.289 we die. 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 00:31:15.629 --> 00:31:32.700 egoic personas, or we will awaken and become free. 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 00:31:37.809 --> 00:31:39.789 world. 00:31:39.789 --> 00:31:45.759 The cosmic joke, the absurdity of the situation becomes clear when there is a complete and 00:31:45.759 --> 00:32:15.090 utter failure of the egoic self to awaken through its futile pursuits. 00:32:15.090 --> 00:32:23.700 In Zen there is a saying, “Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. 00:32:23.700 --> 00:32:35.019 After enlightenment chop wood, carry water”. 00:32:35.019 --> 00:32:41.019 Before enlightenment one must roll the ball up the hill, after enlightenment one must 00:32:41.019 --> 00:32:44.840 also roll the ball up the hill. 00:32:44.840 --> 00:32:47.450 What has changed? 00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:51.749 The inner resistance to what is. 00:32:51.749 --> 00:32:58.679 The struggle has been dropped, or rather the one who struggles has been realized to be 00:32:58.679 --> 00:33:00.929 illusory. 00:33:00.929 --> 00:33:14.649 The individual will or individual mind and divine will, or higher mind, are aligned. 00:33:14.649 --> 00:33:27.690 Samadhi is ultimately a dropping of all inner resistance - to all changing phenomena, without 00:33:27.690 --> 00:33:28.879 exception. 00:33:28.879 --> 00:33:36.409 The one who is able to realize inner peace, irrespective of circumstance has attained 00:33:36.409 --> 00:33:39.190 true Samadhi. 00:33:39.190 --> 00:33:45.070 You drop resistance not because you condone one thing or another, but so that your inner 00:33:45.070 --> 00:33:50.179 freedom is not contingent on the outer. 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 00:33:57.580 --> 00:34:04.169 mean that we stop taking action in the world, or we become meditating pacifists. 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 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 00:34:17.300 --> 00:34:30.030 energy behind us. 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 00:34:35.810 --> 00:34:39.899 harder against our perceived enemies. 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. 00:34:48.659 --> 00:34:55.489 These days there is a war against everything: a war against terror, a war against disease, 00:34:55.489 --> 00:35:00.540 a war against hunger. 00:35:00.540 --> 00:35:13.369 Every war is actually a war against ourselves. 00:35:13.369 --> 00:35:17.150 The fight is part of a collective delusion. 00:35:17.150 --> 00:35:23.400 We say that we want peace, but we continue to elect leaders who engage in war. 00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:29.400 We lie to ourselves saying that we are for human rights, but continue to buy products 00:35:29.400 --> 00:35:31.960 made in sweatshops. 00:35:31.960 --> 00:35:36.309 We say we want clean air, but we continue to pollute. 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 00:35:42.660 --> 00:35:45.670 that make us more likely to be sick. 00:35:45.670 --> 00:35:50.589 We delude ourselves that we are promoting a better life. 00:35:50.589 --> 00:35:57.569 We don’t want to see our hidden parts that are condoning suffering and death. 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 00:36:06.690 --> 00:36:13.030 by our own thinking and behaviour, actually lets us continue to delude ourselves that 00:36:13.030 --> 00:36:18.589 we don’t have to change the way that we operate on this planet. 00:36:18.589 --> 00:36:23.700 The inner world is where the revolution must first take place. 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 00:36:30.589 --> 00:36:33.950 alignment with the Tao. 00:36:33.950 --> 00:36:41.990 Until then, anything we do will add to the chaos already created by the mind. 00:36:41.990 --> 00:36:49.369 War and peace arise together in an endless dance; they are one continuum. 00:36:49.369 --> 00:36:53.029 One half cannot exist without the other. 00:36:53.029 --> 00:36:58.910 Just as light cannot exist without dark, and up cannot exist without down. 00:36:58.910 --> 00:37:07.079 The world seems to want light without darkness, fullness without emptiness, happiness without 00:37:07.079 --> 00:37:19.770 sadness. 00:37:19.770 --> 00:37:38.339 The more the mind gets involved, the more fragmented the world becomes. 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, 00:37:44.430 --> 00:37:52.950 and the solution becomes an even greater problem than what it was trying to solve. 00:37:52.950 --> 00:38:07.540 What you resist persists. 00:38:07.540 --> 00:38:14.819 Human ingenuity creates new antibiotics only to find nature getting more cunning as bacteria 00:38:14.819 --> 00:38:16.839 gets stronger. 00:38:16.839 --> 00:38:24.500 Despite our best efforts in the ongoing fight, the prevalence of cancer is actually increasing, 00:38:24.500 --> 00:38:32.740 the number of hungry people in the world steadily grows, the number of terrorist attacks worldwide 00:38:32.740 --> 00:38:36.270 continues to rise. 00:38:36.270 --> 00:38:45.200 What’s wrong with our approach? 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, 00:38:50.890 --> 00:38:56.109 but do not have the wisdom to wield it. 00:38:56.109 --> 00:39:03.230 The problem is that we do not understand the tool that we are using. 00:39:03.230 --> 00:39:18.010 We do not understand the human mind and its proper role and purpose. 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 00:39:24.130 --> 00:39:35.000 experience life. 00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:41.510 Our rationalism has robbed us of our ability to recognize and experience the wisdom of 00:39:41.510 --> 00:39:48.059 many ancient cultures. 00:39:48.059 --> 00:39:54.670 Our egoic thinking has robbed us of the ability to feel the depth and profound sacredness 00:39:54.670 --> 00:40:02.760 of life, the numinosity of life, and to realize entirely different levels of consciousness, 00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:11.289 which are now almost lost to humanity. 00:40:11.289 --> 00:40:17.529 In the ancient Egyptian tradition, Neters were archetypal forms whose characteristics 00:40:17.529 --> 00:40:23.420 could be embodied by those who purified their physical and spiritual bodies in such a way 00:40:23.420 --> 00:40:27.630 that they were fit to house higher consciousnesses. 00:40:27.630 --> 00:40:38.790 The original Neter, or the divine principle of this wisdom was known as Thoth or Tehuti. 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 00:40:44.750 --> 00:40:49.090 of all knowledge and wisdom. 00:40:49.090 --> 00:40:55.720 Thoth could be described as the cosmic principle of thinking or thought. 00:40:55.720 --> 00:41:04.010 Thoth gave us language, concepts, writing, mathematics, and all the arts and manifestations 00:41:04.010 --> 00:41:05.940 of the mind. 00:41:05.940 --> 00:41:15.170 Only those who had gone through special training were allowed to access Thoth’s sacred knowledge. 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 00:41:26.030 --> 00:41:27.319 realm. 00:41:27.319 --> 00:41:32.710 Legend tells that Thoth’s knowledge was deeply hidden in a secret place within every 00:41:32.710 --> 00:41:42.390 human being, and was protected by a golden serpent. 00:41:42.390 --> 00:41:48.579 The archetypal or perennial myth of the serpent or dragon guarding a treasure is one that 00:41:48.579 --> 00:42:02.250 permeates many cultures and has been called by names such as kundalini shakti, chi, holy 00:42:02.250 --> 00:42:06.110 spirit, and inner energy. 00:42:06.110 --> 00:42:12.779 The golden serpent is the egoic construct which is bound in the inner energies and until 00:42:12.779 --> 00:42:19.450 it is mastered and overcome, the soul will never be able to attain true wisdom. 00:42:19.450 --> 00:42:24.869 It was said that the book of Thoth brought nothing but suffering to any individual who 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 00:42:32.380 --> 00:42:34.869 within the stars. 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 00:42:42.500 --> 00:42:45.420 ego that tried to control it. 00:42:45.420 --> 00:42:53.859 In the Egyptian tradition awakened consciousness was represented by Osiris. 00:42:53.859 --> 00:43:00.410 Without this awakened consciousness, any knowledge or understanding obtained by the limited self 00:43:00.410 --> 00:43:08.240 would be dangerous, disconnected from higher wisdom. 00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:15.849 The eye of Horus had to be open. 00:43:15.849 --> 00:43:21.480 The esoteric meaning that we find here is similar to the more familiar story of “the 00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:23.710 fall” in the garden of Eden. 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 00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:41.960 were tempted to eat. 00:43:41.960 --> 00:43:49.200 Humanity of course has already eaten the forbidden fruit, already opened the book of Thoth, and 00:43:49.200 --> 00:43:54.910 has been cast out of the garden. 00:43:54.910 --> 00:44:01.980 The serpent is a metaphor for the primordial spiral that extends from the microcosm to 00:44:01.980 --> 00:44:06.730 the macrocosm. 00:44:06.730 --> 00:44:11.549 Today the serpent is living as you. 00:44:11.549 --> 00:44:18.800 It is the egoic mind expressed as the manifested world. 00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:22.589 We have never before had access to so much knowledge. 00:44:22.589 --> 00:44:30.130 We have gone deep into the material world, even finding the so-called God particle, but 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 00:44:37.420 --> 00:45:28.430 understand the mechanism by which we create suffering. 00:45:28.430 --> 00:45:32.230 Our thinking has created the world as it is now. 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 00:45:37.529 --> 00:45:44.050 to the coming into being of egoic structures or self interests. 00:45:44.050 --> 00:45:51.000 The solution is not to fight for peace or conquer nature, but to simply recognize the 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:59.670 truth; that the very existence of the ego structure creates duality, a split between 00:45:59.670 --> 00:46:10.730 self and other, mine and yours, man and nature, inner and outer. 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. 00:46:19.660 --> 00:46:24.180 Without ego there is no war against anything. 00:46:24.180 --> 00:46:30.940 There is no hubris, there is no overreaching nature to create profit. 00:46:30.940 --> 00:46:38.970 These external crises in our world reflect a serious inner crises; we don’t know who 00:46:38.970 --> 00:46:41.329 we are. 00:46:41.329 --> 00:46:48.000 We are completely identified with our egoic identities, consumed by fears and are cut 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:50.670 off from our true nature. 00:46:50.670 --> 00:47:00.880 Races, religions, countries, political affiliations, any group that we belong to, all reinforce 00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:04.900 our egoic identities. 00:47:04.900 --> 00:47:10.220 Almost every group that exists on the planet today wants to claim its perspective as true 00:47:10.220 --> 00:47:15.010 and correct, as we do on an individual level. 00:47:15.010 --> 00:47:21.130 By claiming the truth as its own, the group perpetuates its own existence in the same 00:47:21.130 --> 00:47:29.920 way that an ego or self structure defines itself against other. 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:35.970 Now more than ever different realities and polarized belief systems are co-existing on 00:47:35.970 --> 00:47:36.970 earth. 00:47:36.970 --> 00:47:42.559 It is possible for different people to experience completely different thoughts and emotional 00:47:42.559 --> 00:47:48.529 reactions to the very same external phenomena. 00:47:48.529 --> 00:47:56.720 In the same way, samsara and nirvana, heaven and hell, are two different dimensions occupying 00:47:56.720 --> 00:48:00.119 the very same world. 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. 00:48:11.839 --> 00:48:17.319 So what is becoming obvious is that your external circumstances don’t have to affect your 00:48:17.319 --> 00:48:22.480 inner world in any particular way. 00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:31.369 To realize Samadhi is to become a self-propelled wheel, to become autonomous, a universe unto 00:48:31.369 --> 00:48:36.490 oneself. 00:48:36.490 --> 00:48:44.780 Your experience of life is not contingent on changing phenomena. 00:48:44.780 --> 00:48:50.609 An analogy can be made with Metatron’s cube. 00:48:50.609 --> 00:48:57.160 Metatron is mentioned in various ancient Christian, Islamic and Jewish texts, and is archetypally 00:48:57.160 --> 00:49:05.300 related to the Egyptian Neter Thoth, as well as Hermes Trismegistus of Greece. 00:49:05.300 --> 00:49:10.339 Metatron is intimately connected with the tetragrammaton. 00:49:10.339 --> 00:49:17.400 The tetragrammaton is the fundamental geometric pattern, the template or primordial emanation 00:49:17.400 --> 00:49:25.960 of physical reality, which has been called the word of God or Logos. 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, 00:49:31.990 --> 00:49:35.519 you see a three D cube. 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 00:49:41.849 --> 00:49:46.240 dimension to your seeing. 00:49:46.240 --> 00:49:52.009 Dimensionality or one’s perspective is simply a matter of becoming habituated to a new way 00:49:52.009 --> 00:49:56.319 of perceiving the world. 00:49:56.319 --> 00:50:03.960 Upon realizing Samadhi we become free of perspective, or free to create new perspectives, because 00:50:03.960 --> 00:50:12.549 there is no self invested in or attached to a particular viewpoint. 00:50:12.549 --> 00:50:23.250 The greatest minds in human history have often pointed to levels of thought beyond the limited 00:50:23.250 --> 00:50:25.099 self structure. 00:50:25.099 --> 00:50:31.980 Einstein said “The true measure of a human being is determined primarily by the measure 00:50:31.980 --> 00:50:38.250 and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.” 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 00:50:46.230 --> 00:50:53.540 tool when the mind is in service to the heart. 00:50:53.540 --> 00:51:06.359 In Vedanta it is said that the mind makes a good servant but a poor master. 00:51:06.359 --> 00:51:13.950 The ego perpetually filters reality through language and labels, and is constantly judging. 00:51:13.950 --> 00:51:17.700 Preferring one thing over another. 00:51:17.700 --> 00:51:23.850 When the mind and senses are your master, they will create endless suffering, endless 00:51:23.850 --> 00:51:32.460 craving and aversion, locking us into the matrix of thinking. 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 00:51:39.519 --> 00:51:45.790 who you are prior to thought, prior to the senses. 00:51:45.790 --> 00:51:57.309 When all labels are dropped then it is possible to see things as they are. 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 00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:07.690 never see a bird again. 00:52:07.690 --> 00:52:52.259 They only see their thoughts. 00:52:52.259 --> 00:52:57.609 Most people think that they are free, conscious and awake. 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 00:53:04.539 --> 00:53:08.930 what you believe you already have? 00:53:08.930 --> 00:53:16.130 Before it becomes possible to awaken, it is necessary to accept that you are asleep, living 00:53:16.130 --> 00:53:20.430 in the matrix. 00:53:20.430 --> 00:53:25.920 Examine your life honestly, without lying to yourself. 00:53:25.920 --> 00:53:32.140 Are you able to stop your robotic, repetitive life patterns if you want to? 00:53:32.140 --> 00:53:40.079 Can you stop seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, are you addicted to certain foods, activities, 00:53:40.079 --> 00:53:41.519 pastimes? 00:53:41.519 --> 00:53:49.309 Are you constantly judging, blaming, criticizing yourself and others? 00:53:49.309 --> 00:53:56.490 Does your mind incessantly seek out stimulus, or are you completely fulfilled just being 00:53:56.490 --> 00:53:59.329 in silence? 00:53:59.329 --> 00:54:02.200 Do you react to how people think about you? 00:54:02.200 --> 00:54:06.410 Are you seeking approval, positive reinforcement? 00:54:06.410 --> 00:54:12.130 Do you somehow sabotage situations in your life? 00:54:12.130 --> 00:54:17.859 Most people will experience their lives the same way today as they will tomorrow and a 00:54:17.859 --> 00:54:22.829 year from now, and ten years from now. 00:54:22.829 --> 00:54:29.390 When you begin to observe your robot-like nature you become more awake. 00:54:29.390 --> 00:54:34.809 You begin to recognize the depth of the problem. 00:54:34.809 --> 00:54:41.690 You are completely and utterly asleep, lost in a dream. 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 00:54:47.500 --> 00:54:55.529 capable of changing their lives because they are attached to their familiar patterns. 00:54:55.529 --> 00:55:02.500 We go to great lengths justifying our patterns, burying our heads in the sand rather than 00:55:02.500 --> 00:55:05.680 facing the truth. 00:55:05.680 --> 00:55:12.300 We want our saviours, but we are not willing to get up on the cross ourselves. 00:55:12.300 --> 00:55:19.740 What are you willing to pay to be free? 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. 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 00:55:32.470 --> 00:55:39.869 comes. 00:55:39.869 --> 00:55:45.119 The first step to awakening is to realize that we are identified with the matrix of 00:55:45.119 --> 00:55:49.670 the human mind, with the mask. 00:55:49.670 --> 00:55:55.249 Something within us must hear this truth and be roused from its slumber. 00:55:55.249 --> 00:56:18.349 There is a part of you, something timeless, that has always known the truth. 00:56:18.349 --> 00:56:31.749 The matrix of the mind distracts us, entertains us, keeps us endlessly doing, consuming, grasping, 00:56:31.749 --> 00:56:39.160 in a cycle of craving and aversion with constantly changing forms, keeping us from the flowering 00:56:39.160 --> 00:56:47.829 of our consciousness, from our evolutionary birthright which is Samadhi. 00:56:47.829 --> 00:56:58.380 Pathological thinking is what passes for normal life. 00:56:58.380 --> 00:57:06.329 Your divine essence has become enslaved, identified with the limited self structure. 00:57:06.329 --> 00:57:15.720 The great wisdom, the truth of who you are is buried deep within your being. 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 00:57:27.039 --> 00:57:39.759 profoundly sick society.” 00:57:39.759 --> 00:58:03.080 Identification with the egoic mind is the sickness and Samadhi is the cure. 00:58:08.010 --> 00:58:16.450 Next Film - Samadhi Part 2, "It is not what you think" 00:58:16.960 --> 00:58:25.680 The saints, sages and awakened beings throughout history have all learned the wisdom of self-surrender. 00:58:25.680 --> 00:58:45.089 How is it possible to realize the true self? 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?