The Makings of Ignorance

To try not to think things is self defeating. When we push our thought away, mainly because if ramifies on our self image of who we are or what we should be according to popular standard, we are disowning ourselves in bits and pieces. We are living in denial of who we really are. When these ugly or unconventional sides of our person arise, instead of trying to push them away, we have to try toexamine them calmly for their emotional content. The problems with a crude pushing back are that these things still arise but they arise as unconscious behaviors that could get one into serious social, and, or, psychological trouble. Accepting oneself is to accept oneself whole and admit at least to oneself that everything is not so peachy. There in lives then the possibility and fact of growth.

Why Soma Ritual?

Someone put forth the assertion that "Soma Ritual" fell into disuse in yoga because the yogis found that it was possible to achieve complete emancipation without soma.

I say nonsense. If soma ritual disappeared then it was that it went underground because it is so easy to abuse intoxicants.
The following is my response to the author of the post's assertions: (I do not have permission and do not know it it would be cool if i published the author's original work.) :

I tend to somewhat disagree. Without speculating on the causes of the demise of the soma ritual, the soma ritual not only gives one pause to experience the bliss of samadi but also allows the practitioner to gain insight into the sources of the practitioner's tensions. Many people get "paranoia" when intoxicated with cannabis. One is led to believe that the source of the problem dwells in the taking of the intoxicant and that that fear is unreal. That fear is actually as real as your life. That fear is you knowing the imbalances of your life, on a more first hand basis. That fear is the reality of your karmic fate. It is not so pretty is it, perhaps? The experienced soma practitioner is able to not only use the samadi temporarily experienced in the soma induced state, but also the other portion of the experience can also be used, "what exactly are the problems and limitations that keep me from samadi?" And an experienced soma practitioner will be able to slowly take more control over his karmic trajectory and slowly uplift himself. (herself, just the same.) This does not abnegate the need to know other techniques, such as meditation. It is adjunctive to one's practice. When one is only chasing samadi through the use of intoxicants, one is hellbound for trouble. But the use of soma can be very beneficial. Might I also suggest that "soma" is a more or less generic name for intoxicants. That it is not really attached to any specific substance and it never was.

The Pointing Out Instructions To a Little Old Lady

These are called "The Pointing Out Instructions", as told by me.  These are not original ideas of mine but re-statement of the teaching of the Buddha and others more ancient than Guatama The Buddha.  These are ideas as old as philosophy and religion have existed.  For instance the Himilayan Hinduism of Shiva and Himilayan Buddhism have held these very teachings for about 9000 known years.

This is just the paradox of this life, from our side, the personal point of view, it is absolutely real. The suffering is real. The happiness is real. But if you want to dissect the experience of this life then all that can be said is that it is a play of consciousness. It is an arbitrary reality.

I want to go through the steps in discerning that this is so, that this is a play of consciousness and that any representational reality has an equal chance of existence. Firstly we look at ourselves and the world around us and each experiences a separate "MYSELF" that exists in this world. But what do we experience really? We experience a self surrounded by energies, like the energy that is the color of, lets say in this experience, the floor when you look at it. Whatever color you perceive. It should be pointed out that there is no ABSOLUTE color of the floor beneath my feet. In the light of the dawn and in the light of the lamps that light it at night, the color is approximately the same but definitely different if they were to be matched on paint chips. More over there are even changes due to shadowing, reflection, and even refraction. There is no fixed color but we still perceive "the floor". Not only that but the sensory channel that we perceive it with does not perceive the floor really, for instance the eye breaks down the form and color of the floor into its individual pixels of rod and cone nervous impulses and feeds them into the CNS, the CNS then SIMULATES "the floor" and we perceive these simulations. Now this is where I part with modern science. They say that IS "the floor" and it is, but it is experienced internally, by a consciousness, (Don't get me started on that.) by some simulation of self that is aware of what "the floor" means to oneself, ie do I walk on it into the next room, or do I be the "I" that sits in the chair typing while resting my feet on "the floor". Nevertheless it is experienced by an internal awareness. That awareness may not actually need to experience a "real floor", what the awareness needs to experience is a SIMULATION of "the floor" that is to that awareness, real. Therefore one can project a floor and share a commonality of experiencing a floor with beings who experience such similar projections, like my cat, who contrary to all belief, walks on the same "floor" as I do. As Chögyam Trungpa so aptly put it "Recognize this as your own projection." Does that make sense?

Karma: Carry it with you at all times (because you really cannot do other :)

I would like to talk about Karma from my personal perspective.  This is not the common take on Karma as so many know it, "As you sow, so shall you reap" AND Karma is "OUT THERE" like the Boogey man and gonna get you.

 As you respond to life, life responds to you.  You can use your Karma to uplift you or bring you to a lower level.  The "Rice Seedling Sutra" says Karma goes through 12 stages of production to ripening.  Karma truly is "As you sow, so shall you reap." but it is not going to come up in exactly the way it was when first created.  Karma comes up in the patterns of life.  But as they say "Names have been changed  to protect the innocent."  You will not recognize John or Jane from a past life because they are clothed in different bodies, their ages relative to yours or any other of whatever attributes can differ.  What is important is how you feel and react to the circumstances at hand.

Karma is a reflection of your internal feelings, your self ideation.  Your self ideation has everything to do with how you perceive the external world. Your self ideation reflects what you have been dealt in the world.  Your self ideation reflects your rebirth and what you were then and what you are now.  People change as they put on the years.  Body images change, attitudes change etc.  Your station and circumstances in life are your reactions to Karma.

Your rebirth was due to your resonance with your parents love, and your feelings toward them, especially your mother.  Freud knew that, and he was not completely wrong in his psychological modelings.  Like any of us there is mort to it than we can see or describe.   We each have to gradually develop a bigger picture by surrendering the little picture that we hold currently, and there is always a bigger picture.

We all sort of resonate feelings and those feelings are  gained from our exterior world but they are in response to what we carry with us already.  If you want to change your Karma change how you feel about the world around you.  Surrender your old feelings and let new feelings emerge.  To uplift one's self with Karma surrender the negativities you feel and try, if not to like what is going on, be neutral and work toward liking your life.  Negative Karma is sort of self hate.  We may say we hate this or that or that one is a nogoodnik because they did this that to us once upon a time.  It could well be that that nogoodnik did you a back handed favor by doing this or that.  They pointed out a flaw in your own personality and you did not recognize the favor.  Maybe they even saved you from a worse situation.   And really the person who feels the worst about us hating someone or something else is us.  We ourselves feel it first and more acutely than what someone else picks up about what we feel about them.  And the more we try to communicate our feelings of someone else to that someone, the deeper in we are.  Is that a bad thing or a good thing?  It just depends on us.

Balance

As Swami Chetanananda  so frequently pointed out.  Balance is a dynamic.  Trying to maintain ones balance without rebalancing is not feasible.  Balance, like trying to stay balanced on a bicycle is a good metaphor for the balance life demands.  It is dynamic and ever changing.  You balance on your bicycle and when it is time to stop riding you get off and shift to a new type of balance on your feet.  Not being able to effectively shift balance while riding or not being able to balance while ascending the bicycle to the earth in walking is dangerous.  And it is not a pose of balance to be bicycling or walking, but the dynamic of balancing and rebalancing, where if one were to pretend that one has a static pose that is perpetually balanced one is liable to bump his nose in a fall.  Balance is not dangerous. Imbalance could well be though.

Practices 01

My preliminary practice is to let my heart resonate loving kindness and compassion.  My practice is to let that loving kindness resonate with the universe around me.

A Short Interpretation of "Tayatha OM Gate, Gate, Paragate, Bodhi Swaha"

Tayahta OM gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi swaha.   One who is in this way uplifted, OM, gone, gone, beyond gone, beyond ultimately gone, the pure compassionate intelligence I am that.