Akali H.H.

So the programme which spiritual people have of letting the ego dissolve into a unified reality is a constant struggle, and having met a number of spiritual people all over the world in my life I can say it’s a real struggle, in a way it can never be successful because they don’t go together. Because the ego is a form and the universal energy has no form, it includes on some level all forms, or behind each form there’s a place that comes from that formless place, but moment by moment.

We recognize as spiritual people, that love doesn’t necessarily have to look like what what other people call love. When you’re fighting like mad with your partner, that can be love. When somebody has really hurt you, that can be love. The mind says no. The head on top of the head says no. Let’s see what happens out of that. Maybe it was the gift. Maybe I can’t see it right now, what a gift it was, but I can see maybe give it time and realize that what was painful, which I objected to, which I resisted, which I said no to was a great gift because I allowed it in and I see by allowing it in what has happened inside me. That it was a great gift. Some great gifts aren’t always recognized as such, as they’re felt to be the opposite. But then if you don’t put that in a box you can see later that Ah… that hit the nail right on the head.

What is the solution to the situation of living a life in a spider’s web and rushing from one part to another, waiting for something to happen, some new food, a new attraction, a new situation, new offer, new possibility, and dealing with it, rushing to the area that’s been touched and trying to solve, complete, or understand what’s going on?

One of the wonderful statements which come from Zen, of which I seem to have picked up very many, is, “Don’t add anything to life.” Now, that is a very strong and comprehensive statement because all the time almost everybody is trying to do that, to add something, to gain something, to get somewhere, to achieve something, to grow, to develop, to acquire, but when Zen says don’t add anything to life it doesn’t mean that you should be naked in whatever way you can interpret that English word.

To use a metaphor of God; God out of love arranged for this planet to give life to all sorts of creatures, and that was an act of love, but the act of love that came from beyond was not part of this world. Love brought the action but then the action cannot be the same as the love that brought the action, it is secondary, it’s an extension, it’s a projection, it’s a setup that came from love. That love is all around the projection but cannot be included in the projection, otherwise the projection will disappear, and that is a terrible dilemma for people who have a feeling about love and the beauty of love and the need for love and the wish for love, the desire for love, the love for love. It’s a terrible thing yet they yearn for it. You can find it but you cannot really live it for the world will take it away from you. That doesn’t mean that there’s no love in the world, that you cannot have a great love for people, but not the essence that is love which blows everything else away. It’s like the sun, true love is like the sun, it burns everything away, and one can glimpse it, one can connect with it, one can hold its hand, but you cannot live a life that’s expressing that intense and extreme state of love which burns you up because it has such power.

'Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself.' That has come to me hundreds of times and when it does I’m in that space, you know, where I do nothing and nothing needs to be done. This is what I teach but I don’t think that it can always be the case. It can’t always be the case that you can apply the teaching because we are applying the teaching to a species that has come so far through evolution, that has so many different states and has had such a turmoil in itself of past experiences, and this is what I mean by the organic state.

There are many statements that you can read, and which I’ve read thousands of, by Zen masters. One that I now recall is that somebody asked a Zen master “What is the most important word in Zen training?” The master said Yes. “And what is the second most important word?” and the master said Yes. “And the third?” Again Yes.

There was this prophet, well-known to everybody here I’m sure, his name was Jesus. He said many great things, and I’m a great fan of Jesus and his time with us a long time ago. One of the statements that he made during his time was, “When two or three of you are gathered together in my name, I will be there.” Every time I do a seminar, wherever it is in the world, then I know that something like that is there.

Q&A Porto Venere 9th of April 2017 18th in the series ‘Continuity’   https://michaelbarnett.net/mp3/tom/2017/20170409_Who_Ages.mp3   Tashara: If we are energy, why do we grow older? But we don’t, only the body does. The body is not just universal energy, we need all sorts of other energies to live our life on this earth, and those energies are not timeless. The spiritual path leads to the timeless, and if you find the timeless and then the part of you that is in time, which is the body, dies, the timeless part of you will not die. The timeless part of you [...]

We search, we see a glimpse of something, the glimpse becomes stronger and we jump in, maybe to that which we glimpsed, and we feel good and then we want to hold on to it, don’t we? And then when it all tumbles down, and maybe we find ourselves even so down that we are on the floor, then we feel terrible and wonder what happened to that great state we found. That’s the big trap, but what is a description of that trap, anybody knows?