If... ??

If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be.

- Yogi Berra

I am Big Mind

With meditation, we are gradually marrying the fifth dimension of consciousness with the four dimensions of time and space...

"...With meditation, we are gradually marrying the fifth dimension of consciousness with the four dimensions of time and space, so all five dimensions come to coexist together. Our nervous system is gradually cultured to give us the experience of all five dimensions simultaneously.

This has profound implications in our everyday life. Before meditating, everything we did was in time and space. All our action, our problem solving, was limited to the four dimensions. The options we saw before us were always time and space limited. With meditation, we are bringing in an additional dimension, consciousness. It makes a big difference. Now we see situations in ways we could not see before. We are able to influence the course of life in ways we could not before.

Imagine you are trying to solve a puzzle lying on a table. You are looking at it in two dimensions, on the flat surface of the table. Try as you may, the pieces won't fit together. Then a friend walks into the room and says, "Try this." She picks up two edges of the puzzle and curls them together above the table, and they fit together perfectly. By moving into the third dimension, the space above the table, the puzzle has been solved easily. Life is like that. Dealing with it only in time and space, four dimensions, it is often an unsolvable puzzle. We go round and round, never quite getting the pieces to fit together. When we begin to meditate, we are adding a new dimension, a new perspective. Then the pieces start to fit together, and it all begins to make sense."

Advanced Yoga Practices #36

What is enlightenment?

"...as our attention comes to reside naturally in the omnipresent, undulating blissful silence in all things, we become that ever-present harmony. We find our own self to be the essence of all things. This is the experience of unity, union, enlightenment. The world does not disappear. It becomes transparent. Boundaries become like veils, thinly covering the essence of life, which we have come to know as an expression of our own nature. Can we still act in the world? Yes, but our motives are different than before when we could only see ourself as separate. We now act in the interest of a broader self. In doing so, we may seem to become selfless. The truth is that we always are acting for our own self-interest. But our self has become universal, so our interest is for the whole of humanity, and for the whole of life."

Advanced Yoga Practices

Naked Through The Gate

"Some people who have come to me have been disappointed to discover that I have no supernatural powers to transmit, no magic wand to wave, no extraordinary knowledge to dispense which can make them instantly wise, loving, and happy. 'Who, then, are you?' they ask. 'What's your secret?' My secret can be summed up in one word: Selflessness. Selflessness is the Truth. Selflessness is the Way. Selflessness is the Fruit. In reality, there is no 'you' nor 'I' nor any 'self' whatsoever. There is only Consciousness Itself—the One True God—which is what we are. All that is necessary is to Realize This, because to Realize This is Wisdom, to Live This is Love, to Be This is Happiness. So, if you really want to know my secret, look to your 'self'. In finding the source of your 'self', you will find Consciousness Itself, and nothing else. Then, you, too, will be free of your self and all its sufferings."

- Joel Morwood

http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/practices.html

Since the Center was founded in 1987, Joel Morwood has served as the spiritual director and primary teacher for our community of practitioners. Joel's first book, Naked Through the Gate, tells the story of his own spiritual path, culminating in Gnosis, or Awakening, in 1983.

I hit upon this site and this book a few years ago. Both are very much worthy of your perusal. It is a real-life chronicle of the journey of a man of our age, and our culture, into enlightenment.

There is much to be learned here.

It was during that period also that a wonderful thing became clear to me: There are living masters among us.

Not just one or two, but many. The magic of the internet now makes them easy to find, and easy to reference. Even among those who are no longer in the physical, many have written books which are still in print. – And most of these books are either written in, or available as translation in, modern English.

What? I don’t need to read Sanskrit or Greek? -- No, you don’t. You just need to be an honest seeker.

-- Which, of course, you are.