Bhashya on "Merging With Siva: The Story of Awareness." "We can put awareness, which we are, into the state of consciousness we choose to put it in if we keep control of our mind." Shum images that describe awareness and awareness traveling in the higher dimensions are discussed with readings from Gurudeva's writings. Experience simshumbisi: "Where you both have a means of travel and a destination."

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

Fortunately the Trilogy's in three books otherwise othewise it would be hard to pick up.

So in our Master Course daily lesson, today starts Chapter Five in "Merging With Siva: The Story of Awareness." Certainly one of the most central chapters. I thought I'd read from it and comment.

"The average person who is not a mystic lives two-thirds in the external area of the mind and one-third within himself. The within of himself can be, and sometimes is, very foreboding. He doesn't understand it. He is a little afraid of it and prefers to involve himself with external things. Possibly he's had some inner experiences, some emotional unhappinesses, and he shuns anything that is inner."

So, this is a very interesting state of mind, being two-thirds in the external mind and looking at the inner as foreboding. Sometimes people get, you can see that people that are in that state of mind, they don't like silence. A room with silence is a problem. You have to have music going or the TV going all the time to kind of prevent you from seeing the within of you. The within of you has certain unresolved problems that, so you don't want to face the problems so, you always have to keep yourself externalized. Takes a lot of energy. That's a common one, constantly hear music, constantly playing the television, always have to go to movies; avoiding silence. So, of course, one of the important aspects of Gurudeva's teachings are that whatever our state of mind we can change it. That's the important thing. There's some aspect of our mind that we're not happy with, we don't have to simply accept it. We can change it. Sometimes the change is slow, sometimes it's quickly, depends on exactly what it is. So one of the main tools that Gurudeva gives to us for getting rid of unhappinesses from the past is the vasana daha tantra. Writing things down, you know, burning them up. And often we can get rid of most everything in that simple way. Of course you do it on a regular basis. So, it's useful to start when you're young otherwise there's a lot to do. Maybe overwhelming, to do it all at once, if you wait until you're sixty or seventy.

"The mystic lives, and is taught to live, two-thirds within himself and only one-third in the external. In learning how to do this, the mystic is taught to become consciously conscious, or aware that he is aware. He learns to separate awareness from that which he is aware of. The person who is not a mystic, living two-thirds in the external mind, says, 'I am happy,' meaning, 'I am aware of a state of mind called happiness, and I am in that state, so that is me.' Or, 'I am unhappy. Unhappiness is me.' The mystic living two-thirds within himself says to himself, 'I am flowing through the area of the mind that's always unhappy.' He doesn't change; he is a pure state of awareness."

So, that's an amazing idea and you've heard me use this explanation before but it's the best one I've found so far, now I'll repeat it.

I was listening to the bird, it's a very interesting; I used to think birds flew all over the place and then I began to realize that some do, but some stay in a very small area so you know that bird will come out every morning at the same time and start singing. You know, tend your territory. So, anyway we listen to the bird song (keep singing) stops.[...??] Musical sound, we're talking about him and he stops. We were hearing it. So, we say to ourselves: "You know, I hear the bird song." How many of us thinks: I am the bird song? None of us, right? In other words, what a ridiculous statement. Of course I'm not the bird song. So, we look at the book. I see "Merging With Siva." How many of us think we are "Merging With Siva?" None of us, right? But, we experience the state of mind, happiness, unhappiness and we say: "I am happy. I am unhappy." Well it's no different from saying: "I am the book," really. Through our senses we're perceiving the book. Our eyes, through our ears we're perceiving the bird sound. Through our awareness we're perceiving a state of mind. No different but yet we've been taught to look at it differently. You know we're taught, we're not the physical objects, we're not the sounds but we are the state of mind. But it's not parallel, absolutely not parallel.

So, it's the beauty of Gurudeva's teaching. Once you catch the idea that we're not the state of mind, it gives us a great control of the mind just from that one idea. Because then, if we end up in a negative state of mind and we have a terrible day, things go wrong and one more thing goes wrong, and one more thing goes wrong, you know, ready to give up, you know, we don't get stuck in that state of mind necessarily. We realize, well this has been a rough day. Look where my awareness ended up. Went here and went there, went there and ended up way over here. What a terrible state of mind I've ended up in. What can I do to change it? So you know if we detach enough from the state of mind we're experiencing through realizing we can move out of it. And that's a big difference. But lots of people don't think that way. It's a rough day and we end up in a distressed state of mind that's just who you are. There's no ability to move awareness out of that because haven't caught the idea. So of course, when that happens we're subject to the events of the day. The events of the day determine if we're happy or sad. That's not a good situation to be in you know. Some days we're happy, some days we're sad. That's because of what happens in the events of the day. So, a better approach is to claim a state of consciousness no matter what happens. Why not? It can be done, you know just claim your state of consciousness and if things go wrong, you know, don't worry about it. Why should it change your state of consciousness?

Areas of life that tends to upset us the most is when people mistreat us. That they don't do what we think they should do. We have a concept: This person should do this, this person should treat me this way. And when they don't behave the way you want them to, or they treat you some way you don't like, that ruins your day. Well, how silly! You know why should you lose a good state of consciousness just because of what someone else does? Seems rather arbitrary but, that's the way we choose to live because, that's the way we've been raised. We haven't really thought about it. Gurudeva is challenging us to think about it and put awareness in the state of mind we want it to be in regardless of what's happening to us during the day. It's a good day, it's a bad day, doesn't make any difference. We can put awareness, which we are, into the state of consciousness we choose to put it in if we keep control over our mind.

So, that's a very profound idea.

"Visualize a little ball of light. We'll call that man's individual awareness, and that light is shining right out from his eyes, and this little ball of light is going through the mind. It's going through the area of the mind that's always unhappy. It's going through the area of the mind that's always dreaming, the area of the mind that's delightfully happy, the area of the mind that's in absolute bliss, the area of the mind that's absolutely in jealousy all the time, the area that's in fear all the time--many people live in this area of the mind; it's quite crowded with lots of balls of light there. This ball of light flows through the area of the mind that's in resentment. It's like a churning ocean. It's a delightful place to be in, especially if you're a little ball. You get bounced all around. Then there's the area of the mind that is completely peaceful and has always been peaceful. No mood or emotion has ever been in it to ruffle it, because that's the peaceful area of the mind. The one who meditates seeks out this area to become aware in. Man's individual awareness is just like this little ball of light, and it's like a camera. It photographs. It registers. It understands. It is pure intelligence. Man knows where he is in the mind, but the first step in awakening on the path of enlightenment is to separate awareness from that which it is aware of."

Well, that's a good phrase to remember. It is "pure intelligence." Intelligence that registers everything, but it is different than everything it registers. Just like we're different than the bird chirp or the book.

Well there's a Sanskrit verse, I think it's in the first sloka of "Dancing With Siva" at the bottom. The eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, remember that one? So, that's another way of describing this idea of awareness. So, if you think of the ears and then the bird the faculty that hears is awareness. So the ear of the ear, the intelligence of the ear. Or the ear without hearing anything is awareness. The eye of the eye. It's the intelligence of the eye. Or the eye without seeing anything. So it's the faculty which uses the eye or uses the ear. The intelligence which uses it is another way of describing awareness.

So, I brought some Shum to read. This is a nice Bhashya. I decided that to read this if there's enough people present who understand it. We have too many guests decided to skip the Shum cause can't explain it.

OK, for one of the, many of you are familiar with Shum, the way it was developed back in the 1970's and the system Gurudeva recently upgraded it to. In the current system every word has to have two separate letters, called images. Can't just have one. So there used to be a word ing, for the external ego. It's now it's in.ing so that it has two letters.

"In.ing, the external ego, does not refer in any way to the being of man nor does it indicate that impersonal identity of the intuitive states of expression of man. I own a car, I have to go now, I am going to be late; are some of the expressions of the ego functioning totally in the externalized expressions of the mind in the second and third dimension. When the ni.imf-- which is one form of awareness--when the ni.imf becomes conscious of the interaction between the action of the second and third dimension the ni.imf is called in.ing. However, when we refer to consciousness traveling within the fourth fifth and sixth dimensions with the absence of the second dimension and aware of, but not in, the third dimension we use the ni.imf. This is without consciousness of the physical body. As soon as ni.imf becomes conscious of the physical or the second dimension is called in.ing.

I won't test you on that. [he laughs] But the idea is that, said simply, in the, say we've been meditating and identifying with awareness and getting inside ourselves, when we get externalized sufficiently, we become aware of our ego, our external personality which we are temporarily not aware of when we turned in. So, the two things are not, don't coexist. The sense of ego and the sense of awareness as ni.imf. So, something, we come out of meditation on purpose or we get externalized, we, something happens in the room and we become aware of physical body in the room it's like our awareness is sucked right into the ego. Whoosh. The ego's very magnetic. You know, concept of who we are. So then we would have to work again to internalize it.

"When ka.if, awareness aware of itself, ceases to contemplate itself and consciousness begins to become externalized, the ka.if becomes ni.imf. The ni.imf flows through the nerve currents of the actinodic body, astral and physical bodies. Ni.imf is the thread of consciousness that the ka.if becomes when consciousness no longer contemplates itself. When consciousness becomes conscious of something other than itself, it is ni.imf. Ni.imf is the watcher while traveling through experiences. Only that in.ing and m.ming (m.ming is the subconscious mind) m.ming can experience without watching consciousness traveling through the nerve currents. When ni.imf is traveling through one area of the mind it changes it's name to the area it becomes conscious in. For example, ni.imf when traveling through ba.li.ka.na, is then called ba.li.ka.na. And when traveling through the experience of sim.shum.bi.si. it is named that."

So, that's a useful concept that for experiencing awareness aware of itself, ka.if, then there's not even a sense of ni.imf or awareness traveling anywhere or watching anything. We're simply awareness aware of itself. As soon as we come out of that state or start to become aware of various states of mind then we're the ni.imf, or awareness traveling through the various states of mind. And then once we settle in a mind, state of mind, state of consciousness, we are that state of consciousness such as inner light. So, awareness aware of itself, and awareness aware of itself traveling and then awareness identified with a state of consciousness such as inner light.

"The ni.imf constantly changes it's name while traveling and is only called ni.imf when it is the thread of consciousness traveling or in between one of the names of awareness and another. The ni.imf is constantly watching and experiencing when it is a watcher traveling it is ni.imf. When experiencing it takes the name of the area or areas of consciousness in the fourth and fifth dimension experienced as it travels through them.

"Each Shum word is the name of an area of consciousness. The ni.imf can travel from the seventh to the fourth dimension. It's home is in the fifth and fourth dimensions but usually resides in the fourth, looking at the third."

So, the idea is, as we talked about in the basic lesson, you know once we have been able to separate awareness from consciousness, then we gain certain abilities. So long as we can't do that, our ability to experience in the mind is very limited. So, when we say that: "I am happy" or "I am unhappy" there's not much we can do. When we say: "I as awareness, experiencing happiness" or "experiencing unhappiness" then we immediately can build a concept that we can experience something else, if we don't like where we are, and that awareness can move and the idea of meditation through the use of the Shum language is to improve our ability to move around in the inner mind. We are earning ours in travel and where different things are. So, in other words it's like a map of city you don't know. You get lost very easily so you know, you are constantly looking at the map or if you're computerized you've done your map quest printout, right? Before you go you know can I go here then I turn left and then I go two miles and I turn right.

So, map quest printout is kind like a Shum meditation. OK first we go to sim.shum.bi.si and then you go up oh a couple of miles to this state of mind and you turn left and you experience that one. Sort of like a, you learn to move from one to another in a certain sequence by learning how to find one and learning how to get from that one to another. So, it's a lot like a map quest in that you're moving from one known destination to another known destination, you know it's not just all vague. Can you know, go there. Well, "I don't know how to get there." Well go somewhere you know how to get and maybe it's nearby. That's the idea of Shum. So, it's a, as Gurudeva says in the quote I was using. "Can be a means of travel and a destination." So, Shum provides us with both. Travel is a certain series of practices. First you do this, then you do this, then you do this. That's the means of travel. Destination, you know where you're going, you're trying for sim.shum.bi.si. So you do this this and this and you should end up experiencing sim.shum.bi.si. Where you both have a means of travel and a destination in context of the shum language.

Aum Namah Sivaya

Have a great week.

[End of transcript.]