About Me
- Rudy and Sharon Bauer
- Rudy Bauer is a clinical psychologist and practioner of phenomenology and dzogchen awareness. Sharon is a psychotherapist and has practiced and taught meditation for 30 years.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Phenomenology of Timeless Awareness as Vajra Kumara
1. The Guhyagarbha Tantra is a source in Dzogchen Nyingma tradition. Its essence is that all awareness is awakened awareness and all phenomena are awakened phenomena. Awareness is enlightened, and all phenomena are enlightened. The divinity of awake-ness-- awareness… primordial awareness-- is within us as us and within the world as awakened phenomena. As Shaivite sutras declare, “The bliss of samadhi is the bliss of the world. The bliss of the world is the bliss of samadhi.” There is no separation between being and the phenomena of all the infinite beings. All beings are the manifestation of pure being-- pure awareness. Pure awareness is being and being is not a being. All beings are the manifestation of pure awareness as awareness. All phenomena is awareness-- luminous awareness.
2. Or as Swami Muktananda would say: “God dwells within you, as you;” “See God in each other;” “God is not an entity;” and “God is within you as you. Not hidden within you. Not a seed (garbha) within you, but you.” God is pure awareness as your own awareness, as your body and as your mind. In the Guhyagarbha tantra, the aggregate of the function of your mind is divine. The dakinis are the aggregate, divine functions, and the elements are the Buddhas. Elements are the lights of awareness.
3. Of course you may not experience this, and so you do not think it is true for you. This awaken-ness is the openness of being itself. Awareness is openness. Being is openness. Being is the dharmakaya. Being is Shiva. All human beings are openness. This openness of awareness, this openness of awareness, is manifested as our very own subjectivity itself-- our consciousness itself. This openness allows us to know and experience both within and around us, to know directly (gnosis) and also indirectly through symbol, words, letters and even gestures. This awareness allows us to communicate directly-- awareness knowing awareness within one’s self and others. This openness is the great expanse.
4. This dynamic is both microcosmic and macrocosmic. This dynamic is of awareness becoming aware of awareness. In Shaivism, Shiva, who is not a blue guy with a blue girl named Shakti, is awareness-- pure awareness becoming aware of awareness. This is-ness of being is not a thing. The sense of being is awareness-- invisible awareness is being (openness) and is maha sukha (bliss). This process of awareness becoming aware of awareness is infinite and infinitely creative. I am that and that I am… as Shiva becomes aware of himself, awareness, the experience is ahum (I am) and continues in spiraling vortexual-ness. “I am,” “that I am” and self-recognition creates worlds within worlds.
5. In Buddhist language, the dynamic is the same. The dharmakaya, which is pure self-awareness, manifests the worlds as sambhogakaya-- rapture, luminous rapture-- and nirmanakaya-- luminous desire. The dharmakaya is not a thing. The dharmakaya is not is-ness alone, as some would think, but awareness alive-- awareness intrinsically knowing itself as knowing-ness. This is the great compassion that generates out of the radiance of self awareness as us… an us that is a given-ness, which is the same as the giver-- there is no difference whatsoever. This dharmakaya is pure potentiality, and the same potentiality is you-- that which manifests you is you. Of course you do not have to believe this and probably do not think it. You do not think that your very own awareness is completely pure openness and timeless in time.
6. The Dzogchen masters say your awareness is the vajra kumara… indestructible youthfulness. You simply have to experience what is there already. You simply have to become aware of your own awareness and you will experience the protection of the great compassion, which is actually the only protection. THIS GREAT COMPASSION IS RADIANCE AND THE GENERATIVE RADIANCE WHCH IS LOVE, WHICH IS GENERATIVITY…EXTENSION. THE GREAT COMPASSION IS NOT SIMPLY RECEPTIVITY TO THE PAIN OF THE WORLD, INTERNALIZATION OF PAIN AND THE ATTEMPT TO TRANSMUTE PAIN THROUGH OUR OWN BODIES. COMPASSION IS NOT THE INTERNALIZATION OF MISERY, AS SOME SUGGEST. IT IS ACTION THAT TRANSMITS LIGHT AS LOVE…RADIANCE. COMPASSION CREATES TIME AND CREATES THE WORLD.
7. You really do not have to go far, as even Husserl the philosopher of phenomena would say: “What is the wonder of all wonders? Pure awareness and the doorway is our own subjectivity”.
8. Of course as time passes you may experience with your awareness the sense of timelessness, vast spaciousness, and pure presence. But I bet you think you’re getting a vision-- sort of peeping through a key hole and having an experience by chance or by luck, or because the gods are really being good to you. But actually, as you experience timeless awareness, that timeless awareness is you, and time is in timeless awareness… the time that you are, the phenomena that you are, which is time, is in timeless awareness.
9. This is really great because when you know this directly and have some confidence, you will completely lose your fear of death. Rather then being annihilated you know that timeless awareness, which is in time, and time, which is in timeless awareness, will always be. Timeless awareness is not lent to you. It is not a borrowed shoe. It is you, and timeless awareness manifests in time and in the various dimensions of time. The timeless awareness that manifests as your singularity, with all its quirks and doubts, will continue as you-- ongoing continuity of being different forms, different histories of incarnation.
10. And so Dzogchen is a story of timeless awareness-- divine awareness-- incarnating over and over again in different dimensions and different worlds. In its own way, Christianity is also a story of incarnation over and over again. If you understand that, the Christ consciousness is in you as you.
11. There is a kind of nihilism-- an empty nothing… the great cessation that dominates religious thought— that dominates forms of Buddhism for sure, dominates certain forms of Vedic rigidity for sure, and certain forms Christianity with its insistence on mediation through belief alone and church-ness, rather then the direct perception of your own knowing-ness contemplating knowing-ness itself-- belief substituting for mystic life. Of course, as Des Cartes so well knew, belief and doubt are in oneness... or to believe is not seeing and seeing does not need believing.
Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.
Edited by: Jasmine Chehrazi
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Muktananda..Transmission through Touch
Catskills. Shree Muktananda Ashram. Summer of ’79. I’m sitting cross legged in the serenely cool and dark Meditation
Hall waiting for Swami Muktananda to walk down my aisle and give blessings with his wand of peacock feathers. I am surrounded by 1000+ people who have gathered to receive Shaktipat from a true and qualified Master of meditation. He is about to transmit and awaken the Kundalini energy in each person present. I soon began to catch a glimpse of a real potential to evolve my understanding, and discover a spiritual connection that I previously had not known.
I don’t really know how I came to be here in this strangely holy environment.. a 28 year old small town girl from Pennsylvania, now in the company of a man whose mere presence was so compelling that I was paying several hundred dollars a weekend, of my hard earned money, for three meditation intensives this “Guru” held there that beautiful and very hot summer. Two long days, 8am through 5 or 6 pm of teachings, chanting and meditation presented by a brilliant, fun and wise holy man from India. Having never heard of a Guru, I learned that the sanskrit syllable Gu meant darkness, and Ru, light. It seemed to me that there was a larger meaning in this title, something beyond the man called Baba’s personhood. If I were to describe what he was like, I'd first say he seemed to be made of a combination of love, light, compassion and devotion all wrapped up in a body of grace. Gradually and gratefully, I was able to piece things together a bit as the summer and subsequent years of study and practice unfolded. I did know the instant I saw him that I had much to gain by hanging out with this lovely and most kind gentleman...this exquisite being who taught me about my own true nature and the divinity that dwells within. He was definitely on a mission to transform everyone’s experience and sought to inspire us to look beyond the “face value” of our lives.
The wand of peacock feathers he carried with him was scented with some deliciously intoxicating oils from India. As Muktananda approached me during one of these sessions, I could smell the scent become increasingly heavy, and sensed the expansion of the Kundalini Shakti energy. The whole hall seemed to be encapsulated in a protective cocoon of blessings as Baba showered each person with Shakti. There was alot of energetic movement, shifting, and loud emotions expressed; laughing and crying and other classic auditory expressions of the awakening Kundalini. It was a big unnerving. But, I was glued to my seat.
During the afternoon session of the first day, Muktananda finally arrived and stood behind me. He stroked my face lightly and lovingly with his hands. After a short while, he moved on to the next person. It had been an unprecedented caress, very intimate, but pre-personal. Like, I wasn’t Karen at this point. As he was standing directly behind me, he couldn’t see my face. I couldn’t see him at all. I just felt his hands on my face.
It was an incredibly powerful and mysterious experience. So amazingly simple but so other worldly. I was totally present in my body in a way that I had never felt before. In a state of surrender, my personality was erased momentarily, and something very deep and very healing happened. In those luminescent moments, my face was sculpted anew by someone who was certain of my true identity, and it wasn’t who I’d thought I was. As old traces and samskaras were left behind and I was introduced to a love that was empty of concepts and duality, a love whose nature was pure and golden compassion and bliss. It wasn’t just a sensual, physical or elemental experience but a combination of all of the kayas and realms, of both heaven and earth. Only the singular presence of the lover and the beloved and the profoundly divine space that existed between us remained. From that day, my experience of myself in my body has been transformed and an alchemical process which began to integrate this awakened consciousness, has never stopped. He taught with his word, transmitted through his will, his thought and his touch. Muktananda not only said “God dwells within you as you”, he masterfully willed this experience to the receiver.
written by Karen Ferguson
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Muktananda Retreat
Thursday, April 26, 2012
PRACTICE
Friday, April 6, 2012
ALONE
Friday, February 24, 2012
In Between
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE PATH OF YOUR AWARENESS AS NATURAL LIBERATION
Dudjom Rinpoche would say: Know the one thing that frees everything, your own awareness.
It is also important to know the difference between your mind and your awareness. Your mind is your thoughts, your affects, your sensations, your fantasies, and your memory. Your mind is your ego and it is really good to have one. You, the essential you, is awareness; the innermost awareness that is within your mind and your body and the mind-body continuum. Primordial awareness is your basic self, your subjectivity, your awareness. Awareness is non conceptual knowingness…the knowingness of knowingness within yourself as yourself and your knowingness of knowingness within others, and within the world. Awareness is direct and not always mediated through the mind although it can be. Mind is really important, and awareness is really really important. You really want to know the difference because in that sense of difference lays mastery, esoteric mastery. If you only know your mind, only conceptualize your mind: your thoughts, affects, sensations, memories, fantasy, desire, you have a great skill but you must go further.
It is useful to free yourself from you mind temporarily, to suspend your mind just a bit to actually know this awareness. As you focus within awareness as awareness on awareness you will experience space or openness, or even at moments a void, vast and space without reference, sky-like space or even nothingness as no thingness or emptiness. Initially, this is not always easy, but to have this base of spaciousness as your self is so freeing, and un-containing. This experience of spaciousness becomes the base of your experience, base of arising thoughts, feelings, sensations, memory, fantasy and the base of the dissolving of experience. This base of awareness is your essential self. We might even consider that you are a place, the place of awareness in time and space. Awareness is not a thought, or affect, or sensation, or memory, or fantasy. Awareness is a place. For you to be aware of the place of awareness is to be grounded in awareness. Awareness, the space of awareness is ground, is place.
This place that you are, this ground that you are is unbound and is actually a field. It is not a thing, or little entity. This field goes beyond the body boundaries, that is so amazing. Its horizons can extend and extend, your base, this original ground is actually infinite in its horizons and even multi-dimensional. This space, this openness, this non conceptual knowingness is also light, or luminous, namely, it illuminates itself and illuminates your experience. Light or illuminosity is another way of speaking about knowing, consciousness. Knowingness is openness.
This space is a sense of potentialities. There are no fixations in this space, it is unformulated spaciousness. To remain in this place of awareness is to experience potential in an un-fixated way. This unformulatedness, or unfixatedness is both great and scary. And this awareness is also energy, energy arises and emanates from within this place, this space, this essential you is more you than your thoughts, sensations, memories and fantasy, more essential than your affective states, more essential than your history, your story. Your story, your history , this narrative is actually experienced from within this place of awareness, of openness, energy, and light.
This spaciousness is the path of natural liberation. Liberation is not a function as some would think of having a perfect mind, perfect thoughts, perfect feelings, memories, sensations. Liberation is not simply a moral issue, an issue of conscience, of being better, gooder, smarter. Religion can be really useful and fun, but liberation is not limited to religious framing. Liberation can take place within religions, but liberation is the very nature of awareness and is independent of religion.
To live within the place of awareness, to experience the unfolding experiences of your life, is the method of liberation, natural liberation. Liberation is the embodiment of awareness, the heart essence. You get a glimpse and then you habituate the experience. You liberate through experience. Liberate means becoming free, unbound, untied, locked down,
There are many methods. I will describe one method by guru rinpoche, Padmashambhava.
Do not think or focus on the past experience, do not live in the past, and do not think about the future, do not live in the future, no repetitious remembering and no obsessional futuring, such framing takes you out of awareness. Sometimes within awareness the past may manifest and even at times the sense of the future may manifest, but being in your mind about the past and being in your mind about the future, takes you out of potential space, dharmakaya. Do not focus on past thoughts, or chase after the future. Stay within the sense of awareness and experience the arising of everything within this awareness field, remain in the place of awareness. And experience not only the arising but the dissolving of experience-becoming an expert and master of arising and dissolving, appearing and disappearing of phenomena. Become a master of the arising of affects, arising of sensations, arising of memory, arising of fantasy, arising of conceptualizations and the dissolving of sensations, dissolving of memory, dissolving of fantasy, dissolving of affective states. Living in a spacious awareness field is very very lucky.
By being in indeterminate space everything is possible; do not conceptualize desire as hope or hopelessness. Live in awareness, the place of awareness which is unfixated, unformulated, less organized by your mind, that moment, that duration is dharmakaya, or that moment is timeless awareness, self liberated awareness in time. This timeless awareness will in time illuminate your mind your thoughts, your affective states, even your memory, enhancing your sensations, enhancing your feelings……
Equally important, there is past, present and future, through the present we experience the 4th time, timeless awareness, you will stabilize in timeless awareness. Within awareness you will not internalize other peoples’ affective states- this is also liberation. You will know what is happening within and without, but in knowingness you will be free of the internalization of other people’s affective states- then you will have uncluttered inner space-the space is actually your own continuum.
Finally this awareness is not uni-dimensional. It is actually multidimensional and as you live in awareness ,this place of awareness, the dimensions reveal themselves to you, you will experience the dimension of pure potentiality, the archetypical dimension of energies, luminous vortexes, symbolic elaboration of powers or shakties of awareness field and you will experience nirmanakaya as luminous flesh, luminous earth.
Written by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.
Edited by: Skip Ellis, MSW