My Spiritual Practices

[Buck Edwards]

12 stages of consciousness 

 

Edited October 6 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

 

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

 

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Kundalini and the naga 

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Kundalini and the naga 

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Siva - the Absolute 

Sadasiva - the Eternal 

Isvara - the deity 

Vidya - pure knowledge 

Maya - Illusion 

Kala - skill and art 

Niyati - self restraint and tradition 

Purusa - the living form as man 

Prakriti - inner nature of the Absolute man and Divine 

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

I also look at spirituality from a masculine feminine perspective. 

I think the feminine is surrendering and receptive. Whereas the masculine is understanding, disciplining, providing Containment and deeply spiritually grounded. 

These themes also came up during Satan meditation. Being treated roughly. Being fucked so that I'm more receptive. I confessed a lot during these weird practices. It helped me open up. The Satan acted like a punisher and I was the punished. 

The feminine is also free, child like, freedom loving and innocent trying to please the masculine. 

                             

 

Sambhava upaya 

Saktopaya 

Anava upaya 

 

Madhyam dhatva 

 

Apara Shakti

Para Shakti 

Parapara Shakti 

 

                                   

 

The Ajapa mantra 

 

 

 

 

                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

I think as a feminine I should devote, surrender and submit to the divinity and spirituality of the masculine. This is my inner calling. 

[Buck Edwards]

I consider 4 things as very elusive to me and I like to study them as much as possible. 

• Psychology and the human subconscious
• Masculinity and femininity
• Sex 
• Spirituality 

I think I'll spend the rest of my life studying these. I love studying esoteric stuff. 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Sounds good. 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Sounds good. 

 

[Buck Edwards]

The nine avaranas are the nine concentric layers or enclosures that compose the Sri Chakra, a sacred diagram in Hinduism. They represent different levels of consciousness and energy, leading to the central bindu, the ultimate source of divine consciousness. Each avarana has its own unique characteristics, including the number of triangles, petals, or lines, as well as associated deities, mudras, and mantras.

Here's a brief overview of the nine avaranas:

Bhupura: The outermost layer, representing the physical world and the gross aspects of existence.

Trilokya Mohana Chakra: The second layer, representing the subtle realms of existence, including the mind and emotions.

Sarvasamkshobana Chakra: The third layer, representing the causal plane, where the seeds of creation and destruction reside.

Sarvatasiddhi Chakra: The fourth layer, representing the plane of fulfillment, where all desires and aspirations can be realized.

Sarvamadhyama Chakra: The fifth layer, representing the intermediate plane, where the balance between creation and destruction is maintained.

Sarvaloka Mohana Chakra: The sixth layer, representing the plane of illusion, where the mind can be deceived by appearances.

Sarva Mangala Chakra: The seventh layer, representing the plane of auspiciousness, where blessings and prosperity can be attained.

Sarva Sadhana Chakra: The eighth layer, representing the plane of accomplishment, where spiritual practices and meditation can lead to enlightenment.

Bindu Sthana: The innermost layer, representing the ultimate source of divine consciousness, the pure and infinite being.

The nine avaranas are not just abstract concepts, but are also depicted in the Sri Chakra, a beautiful and intricate diagram that is believed to be a powerful symbol of divine energy and consciousness. Meditating on the Sri Chakra can help to awaken the spiritual potential within oneself and connect with the divine.

 

 

[Buck Edwards]

Sat chit Ananta. 

 

Love this. 

 

Edited October 6 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

Yoga Paramhansa Yogananda.

 

[Buck Edwards]

 

 

I liked his point. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

 

 

Nuggets from this video - 

• Only if you are liberated, you can liberate others. 
• He was traveling different realities and meeting different beings. 
• Bhakti marg 
• Love for the divine. 
• Om chanting 
• We need the Guru 
• Or else we get stuck in the maze 
• Transcending the Ego 
• Path of happiness is a choice 
• Don't pay attention to negativity 
• Get out of the glory mindset 
• Appreciate what you have 
• Devote your life to the collective 
• Give the credit to God 
•  

 

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

 

Beautiful quotes from osho books. 

You feel that the The ground underneath is dissolving. 

Being twice born. 

The disciple must be in feminine receptivity. 

I'm existence and they perfectly understand me. 

 

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

From Osho's book on Tantra —

So Tantra says, accept whatsoever you are. You are a great mystery of many multidimensional energies. Accept it, and move with every energy with deep sensitivity, with awareness, with love, with understanding. Move with it! 

From page 40 

Tantra says there is no duality; it is only an appearance. So why help appearance to grow stronger? Tantra asks, why help this appearance of duality to grow stronger? Dissolve it this very moment! Be one! Through acceptance you become one, not through fight. Accept the world, accept the body, accept everything that is inherent in it. Do not create a different center in yourself, because for Tantra that different center is nothing but the ego. Do not create an ego. Just be aware of what you are. If you fight, then the ego will be there.

So it is difficult to find a yogi who is not an egoist. And yogis may go on talking about egolessness, but they cannot be egoless. The very process they go through creates the ego. The fight is the process. If you fight, you are bound to create an ego. And the more you fight, the more strengthened the ego will be. And if you win your fight, then you will achieve the supreme ego.

Tantra says, no fight! Then there is no possibility of the ego. If we understand Tantra there will be many problems, because for us, if there is no fight there is only indulgence. No fight means indulgence for us. Then we become afraid. We have indulged for lives together and we have reached nowhere. But for Tantra indulgence is not “our” indulgence. Tantra says indulge, but be aware.

 

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

From page 42,

Tantra says that these same energies are to be transformed. It can be said in this way: if you are against the world, then there is no nirvana — because this world itself is to be transformed into nirvana. Then you are against the basic energies which are the source.

So tantric alchemy says, do not fight, be friendly with all the energies that are given to you. Welcome them. Feel grateful that you have anger, that you have sex, that you have greed. Feel grateful because these are the hidden sources, and they can be transformed, they can be opened. And when sex is transformed it becomes love. The poison is lost, the ugliness is lost.

The seed is ugly, but when it becomes alive it sprouts and flowers. Then there is beauty. Do not throw away the seed, because then you are also throwing the flowers in it. They are not there yet, not yet manifest so that you can see them. They are unmanifest, but they are there. Use this seed so that you can attain to flowers. So first let there be acceptance, a sensitive understanding and awareness. Then indulgence is allowed.

One thing more which is really very strange, but one of the deepest discoveries of Tantra, and that is: whatsoever you take as your enemies — greed, anger, hate, sex, whatsoever — your attitude that they are enemies makes them your enemies. Take them as divine gifts and approach them with a very grateful heart. For example, Tantra has developed many techniques for the transformation of sexual energy. Approach the sex act as if you are approaching the temple of the divine. Approach the sex act as if it is prayer, as if it is meditation. Feel the holiness of it.

That is why in Khajuraho, in Puri, in Konark, every temple has maithun, intercourse sculptures. The sex act on the walls of temples seems illogical, particularly for Christianity, for Islam, for Jainism. It seems inconceivable, contradictory. How is the temple connected with maithun pictures? On the outer walls of the Khajuraho temples, every conceivable type of sex act is pictured in stone. Why? In a temple it doesn’t have any place, in our minds at least. Christianity cannot conceive of a church wall with Khajuraho pictures. Impossible!

 

Modern Hindus also feel guilty because the minds of modern Hindus are created by Christianity. They are “Hindu-Christians” — and they are worse, because to be a Christian is good, but to be a Hindu-Christian is just weird. They feel guilty. One Hindu leader, Purushottamdas Tandon, even proposed that these temples should be destroyed, that they do not belong to us. Really, it looks like they do not belong to us because Tantra has not been in our hearts for a long time, for centuries. It has not been the main current. Yoga has been the main current, and for yoga Khajuraho is inconceivable — it must be destroyed.

Tantra says, approach the sex act as if you are entering a holy temple. That is why they have pictured the sex act on their holy temples. They have said, approach sex as if you are entering a holy temple. Thus, when you enter a holy temple sex must be there in order that the two become conjoined in your mind, associated. Then you can feel that the world and the divine are not two fighting elements, but one. They are not contradictory, they are just polar opposites helping each other. And they can exist only because of this polarity. If this polarity is lost, the whole world is lost. So see the deep oneness running through everything. Do not see only the polar opposites, see the inner running current which makes them one.

For Tantra everything is holy. Remember this, for Tantra everything is holy; nothing is unholy. Look at it this way: for an irreligious person, everything is unholy; for so-called religious persons something is holy, something is unholy. For Tantra, everything is holy.

One Christian missionary was with me a few days ago and he said, “God created the world.” So I asked him, “Who created sin?” He said, “The devil.”

Then I asked him, “Who created the devil?” Then he was at a loss. He said, “Of course, God created the devil.”

The devil creates sin and God creates the devil. Then who is the real sinner — the devil or God? But the dualist conception always leads to such absurdities. For Tantra God and the devil are not two. Really, for Tantra there is nothing that can be called “devil,” everything is divine, everything is holy. And this seems to be the right standpoint, the deepest. If anything is unholy in this world, from where does it come and how can it be?

 

So only two alternatives are there. First, the alternative of the atheist who says everything is unholy. This attitude is okay. He is also a nondualist; he sees no holiness in the world. Then there is the tantric’s alternative — he says everything is holy. He is also a non-dualist. But between these two are the so-called religious persons, who are not really religious. They are neither religious nor irreligious because they are always in a conflict. Their whole theology is just to make ends meet, and those ends cannot meet.

 

If a single cell, a single atom in this world is unholy, then the whole world becomes unholy, because how can that single atom exist in a holy world? How can it be? It is supported by everything; to be, it has to be supported by everything. And if the unholy element is supported by all the holy elements, then what is the difference between them? So either the world is holy totally, unconditionally, or it is unholy; there is no middle path.

 

Tantra says everything is holy, that is why we cannot understand it. It is the deepest non-dual standpoint — if we can call it a standpoint. It is not, because any standpoint is bound to be dual. It 1s not against anything, so it is not any standpoint. It is a felt unity, a lived unity.

 

These are two paths, Yoga and Tantra. Tantra could not be so appealing because of our crippled minds. But whenever there is someone who is healthy inside, not a chaos, Tantra has a beauty. Only he can understand what Tantra is. Yoga has appeal, an easy appeal, because of our disturbed minds.

 

Remember, it is ultimately your mind which makes anything attractive or unattractive. It is you who is the deciding factor.

 

These approaches are different. I am not saying that one cannot reach through yoga. One can reach through yoga also, but not through the yoga which is prevalent. The yoga which is prevalent is not really yoga, but the interpretation of your diseased minds. Yoga can be authentically an approach toward the ultimate, but that too is only possible when your mind is healthy, when your mind is not diseased and ill. Then yoga takes a different shape.

For example, Mahavira was on the path of yoga, but he was not really suppressing sex. He had known it, he had lived it, he was deeply acquainted with it. But it became useless to him, so it dropped. Buddha was on the path of yoga, but he had lived through the world, he was deeply acquainted with it. He was not fighting.

Once you know something you become free from it. It simply drops like dead leaves dropping from a tree. It is not renunciation; there is no fight involved at all. Look at Buddha’s face — it doesn’t look like the face of a fighter. He has not been fighting. He is so relaxed; his face is the very symbol of relaxation... no fight.

Look at your yogis. The fight is apparent on their faces. Deep down much turmoil is there — right now they are sitting on volcanoes. You can look in their eyes, in their faces, and you will feel it. Deep down somewhere they have suppressed all their diseases; they have not gone beyond.

In a healthy world, where everyone is living his life authentically, individually, not imitating others but living his own life in his own way, both are possible. He may learn the deep sensitivity which transcends desires; he may come to a point where all desires become futile and drop. Yoga can also lead to this, but to me yoga will lead to it in the same world where Tantra can lead to it — remember this. We need a healthy mind, a natural man. In that world where a natural man is, Tantra and Yoga also, will lead to transcendence of desires.

In our so-called ill society, neither Yoga nor Tantra can do this, because if we choose Yoga we do not choose it because desires have become useless — no! They are still meaningful; they are not dropping by themselves. We have to force them. If we choose Yoga, we choose it as a technique of suppression. If we choose Tantra, we choose Tantra as a cunningness, as a deep deception — an excuse to indulge.

So with an unhealthy mind neither Yoga nor Tantra can work. They will both lead to deceptions. A healthy mind, particularly a sexually healthy mind, is needed to start with. Then it is not very difficult to choose your path. You can choose Yoga, you can choose Tantra.

There are two types of persons basically, male and female. I do not mean biologically, but psychologically. For those who are psychologically basically male — aggressive, violent, extrovert — yoga is their path. For those who are basically feminine, receptive, passive, non-violent, Tantra is their path. So you may note it: for Tantra, Mother Kali, Tara, and so many devis, bhairavis — female deities — are very significant. In Yoga you will never hear mentioned any name of a feminine deity. Tantra has feminine deities; yoga has male gods. Yoga is outgoing energy; Tantra is energy moving inwards. So you can say in modern psychological terms that Yoga is extrovert and Tantra is introvert. So it depends on the personality. If you have an introverted personality, then fight 1s not for you. If you have an extroverted personality, then fight is for you.

 

But we are just confused, we are just in a mess; that is why nothing helps. On the contrary, everything disturbs. Yoga will disturb you, Tantra will disturb you. Every medicine is going to create a new illness for you because the chooser is ill, diseased; so the result of his choice will be illness. So I do not mean that through Yoga you cannot reach.I emphasize Tantra only because we are going to try to understand what Tantra is.

 

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards

[Buck Edwards]

In these one hundred and twelve methods there will be nothing about surrender. Why has Shiva not said anything about surrender? Because nothing can be said. Bhairavi herself, Devi herself, has reached Shiva not through any method. She has simply surrendered. So this must be noted. She is asking these questions not for herself, these questions are asked for the whole humanity. She has attained Shiva. She is already in his lap; she is already embraced by him. She has become one with him, but still she is asking.

So remember one thing, she is not asking for herself; there is no need. She is asking for the whole humanity. But if she has attained, why is she asking Shiva? Can she herself not speak to the humanity? She has come through the path of surrender, so she doesn’t know anything about method. She herself has come through love; love is enough unto itself. Love doesn’t need anything more. She has come through love, so she doesn’t know anything about any methods, techniques. That is why she is asking.

So Shiva relates one hundred and twelve methods. He also will not talk about surrender because surrender is not a method really. You surrender only when every method has become futile, when you cannot reach by any method. You have tried your best. You have knocked on every door and no door opens, and you have passed through all the routes and no route reaches. You have done whatsoever you can do, and now you feel helpless. In that total helplessness surrender happens. So on the path of surrender there is no method.

But what is surrender and how does it work? And if surrender works, then what is the need of one hundred and twelve methods? Then why go into them unnecessarily? — the mind will ask. Then okay! If surrender works, it is better to surrender. Why go on hankering after methods? And who knows whether a particular method will suit you or not? And it may take lives to find out. So it is good to surrender, but it is difficult. It is the most difficult thing in the world.

Methods are not difficult. They are easy; you can train yourself. But for surrender you cannot train yourself... no training! You cannot ask how to surrender; the very question is absurd. How can you ask how to surrender? Can you ask how to love?

Either there is love or there is not, but you cannot ask how to love. And if someone tells you and teaches you how to love, remember, then you will never be capable of love. Once a technique is given to you for love, you will cling to the technique. That is why actors cannot love. They know so many techniques, so many methods — and we are all actors. Once you know the trick how to love, then love will not flower because you can create a facade, a deception. And with the deception you are out of it, not involved. You are protected.

Love is being totally open, vulnerable. It is dangerous. You become insecure. We cannot ask how to love, we cannot ask how to surrender. It happens! Love happens, surrender happens. Love and surrender are deeply one. But what is it? And if we cannot know how to surrender, at least we can know how we are maintaining ourselves from surrendering, how we are preventing ourselves from surrendering. That can be known and that is helpful.

How is it that you have not surrendered yet? What is your technique of non-surrendering? If you have not fallen in love yet, then the real problem is not how to love. The real problem is to dig deep to find out how you have lived without love, what is your trick, what is your technique, what is your structure — your defense structure, how you have lived without love. That can be understood, and that should be understood.

First thing: we live with the ego, in the ego, centered in the ego. I am without knowing who I am. I go on announcing, “I am.” This “I-am-ness” is false, because I do not know who I am. And unless I know who I am, how can I say “P? This “T” is a false “I.” This false “T” is the ego. This is the defense. This protects you from surrendering.

You cannot surrender, but you can become aware of this defense measure. If you have become aware of it, it dissolves. By and by, you are not strengthening it, and one day you come to feel, “I am not.” The moment you come to feel “I am not,” surrender happens. So try to find out whether you are. Really, is there any center in you that you can call your “T’?. Go deep down within yourself, go on trying to find out where is this “I,” where is the abode of this ego.

Rinzai went to his master and he said, “Give me freedom!” The master said, “Bring yourself. If you are, I will make you free. But if you are not, then how can I make you free? You are already free. And freedom,” his master said, “is not your freedom. Really, freedom is freedom from you. So go and find out where this ‘I’ is, where you are, then come to me. This is the meditation. Go and meditate.”

 

So the disciple Rinzai goes and meditates for weeks, months, and then he comes. Then he says, “I am not the body. Only this much I have found.” So the master says, “This much you have become free. Go again. Try to find out.” Then he tries, meditates, and he finds that “I am not my mind, because I can observe my thoughts. So the observer is different from the observed — I am not my mind.” He comes and says, “I am not my mind.” So his master says, “Now you are three-fourths liberated. Now go again and find out who you are.”

 

So he was thinking, “I am not my body. I am not my mind.” He had read, studied, he was well informed, so he was thinking, “I am not my body, not my mind, so I must be my soul, my atma.” But he meditated, and then he found that there is no atman, no soul, because this atma is nothing but your mental information — just doctrines, words, philosophies.

 

So he came running one day and he said, “Now I am no more!” Then his master said, “Am I now to teach you the methods for freedom?” Rinzai said, “I am free because I am no more. There is no one to be in bondage. I am just a wide emptiness, a nothingness.”

 

Only nothingness can be free. If you are something, you will be in bondage. If you are, you will be in bondage. Only a void, a vacant space, can be free. Then you cannot bind it. Rinzai came running and said, “I am no more. Nowhere am I to be found.” This is freedom. And for the first time he touched his master’s feet — for the first time! Not actually, because he had touched them many times before also. But the master said, “For the first time you have touched my feet.”

 

Rinzai asked, “Why do you say for the first time? I have touched your feet many times.” The master said, “But you were there, so how could you touch my feet while you were already there? While you are there how can you touch my feet?” The “I” can never touch anybody’s feet. Even though it apparently looks like it touches somebody’s feet, it is touching its own feet, just in a round-about way. “You have touched my feet for the first time,” the master said, “because now you are no more. And this is also the last time,” the master said. “The first and the last.”

Edited October 7 by Buck Edwards