Looking for spiritual places advice

samvita

Pearl of Wisdom:

Illusion and delusion both must stop.

Sadhana path is inner directed.

Spend the minimum energy in outside worldly ( unnecessary) activities to increase your potential.

Peripheral personality- Central personality-- core.

Keep your mood in check.You are the maker of your mood and destiny.

There is body- brain-mind complex.
Keep happy and always have positive thinking.
There are five sheaths:
1. annamay kosh( Physical sheath)
2. Praanmay Kosh( Vital sheath)
3. Manomay kosh( mental sheath)
4. Vigyaanmay kosh( Intellectual sheath)
5. Aanandmay kosh( Bliss sheath).

The luminous entity is beyond these five sheaths.

Farhana

I've read through the thread and found many points interesting.

I have been a spiritual tourist myself.

I've spent the last 6 years experiencing: hatha/kundalini yoga, deep meditation (daily and yearly in a cave for about 6 weeks with a group), being a client and a connector for past-life regression sessions, participating in leadership programs, performed rituals, seen non-physical beings... and... after all those seconds of seeking and yearning to know, reading through Autobiography of a Yogi, to the Geeta, to visiting the Matri Mandir to attending an Isha Yoga Satshang, to deciphering "I am That", to daily ashtanga and hatha and the yoga institute, to unraveling the sidereal system of Astrology and reading charts to seeing the golden-gates where the wanting was to leave the body...but it wasn't time.

What would I say today?

I'd say there is no greater way of knowing then through experience. Reading something on the net or in a book can never replace the experience of the very experience itself. Studying the way a "tree pose" benefits my body can never replace the benefit of actually standing in the pose itself.

Ekhart Tolle writes about the "Here and Now". His books reveal moments that convey Presence. Those moments occur over a few pages sporadically scattered throughout the book.

I have come across A BEING on Earth who I feel is at the forefront of something totally new. She is a Maharishika which means a great ‘Seer’.

The greatest experience of the 'here and now' has been during the weekends of 'PRESENCE’ three hours outside of Bombay in a seaside village called Kashid.

If anyone asks me to point towards a final direction in a seeker's journey. This is the direction.

To date, I have not heard anyone speak of living the way this 'Seer', has. She answers questions during 'PRESENCE'. All my questions... the big ones... have been answered.

"Who am I?", "Why am I here?"... "What is the highest form of Love that can be experienced between a Man and Woman or Anyone on Earth?"..."How do I truly forgive?"

These are only a few of the myriad of questions I’ve had answered. The answers have first come in the form of a concept and then the experience of it.

I’m really not sure how you can get in touch with the organizers besides sending me a private message for now. I don’t even think there is a website up about it.

Doerethy

Most of the gurus who pose to be one may not be authentic.I have also been lucky when I was in tulasidalam ashram to meet person who is enlightened and liberated still living a very simple person.

Golden Chapati

lol I'm interested, what were the answers?

Farhana

Dear Golden Chapati,

I could go into great detail about the answers to the questions in a few simple sentences. But it wouldn't do anything for you or anyone else.

The thing is that for each person, the answers will be different because we are individuals with very specific and precise ways that we function. And how I transform and what is to be transformed first and the way that transformation unfolds is in the hands of my Guru.

The answers I receive will be very much specific to me.

When you seek yourself, the answers you receive maybe quite if not totally different. At the same time, there is Grace in action in being in the physical proximity of a Master. Sometimes the words themselves are only but a small part of what is being received. Transformation takes place at various levels including the cellular level.

The beautiful thing is often in the very simple way answers are received. It's truly spectacular.

Sincerely,
Farhana.

Golden Chapati

I'm just genuinely interested. I never really pondered the question 'Who Am I?', I'm just an arbitrary amalgamation of atoms on one level, and someone called Ross on another, at least according to my passport. I travelled to a few Ashrams in India and spent time around people seeking 'enlightenment', of course I'm sceptical but highly interested in their perceptions. A question I noticed came up a lot, is the 'who am I?' question. I'm trying to understand the significance of this in terms of how and why people are seeking to define themselves.

sharadskumar

Hey,
I suggest you must try to come in Nashik - a spiritual piligrimage near Mumbai

Paleface

Aap con hai? Who are you. Is Ross you, is your job or career what defines you or me. It's this question which is the foundation of Indian thought and philosophy. What is there to be skeptical of? In this question no one is laying on any view, or dogma or religious law. The question leaves it all up to the questioner - the questioner can search the answer, which is Yoga, or choose not to. Choice is the operative action in this one. Either way, choosing or not, is a choice - an action, either way there will be a reaction.

__________________
Only a mediocre person is always at his best. Somerset Maugham.

pratapt

Try out in Shirdi (MH)
U can find peace in the foot of baba

Golden Chapati

No such thing as an action. Free will is illusionary and I hate to say that, but causality is bulletproof. Everything is always a reaction since all we have now is predetermined by what came before it. Anyway I digress.

Job or career can define you in the eyes of others I think, even unto yourself 'I'm a doctor, so I'll dress in a white coat' or whatever is distinctive to that role in a given society. Some argue we simply cannot define 'us' without 'them'.

My point of interest is why the question so frequently arises in conversations or practices between people seeking 'enlightenment' or spirituality. In 'finding' themselves, what is achieved? I fail to understand the value or meaning of this. Are people looking for their limitations. Is this the premise behind taking a vow of silence?

Just to be clear, I hope I do not come across as being negatively critical, as I said, I'm just very interested in this for my work.

kullukid

[quote=Golden Chapati;857374]No such thing as an action. Free will is illusionary and I hate to say that, but causality is bulletproof. Everything is always a reaction since all we have now is predetermined by what came before it. Anyway I digress.

My point of interest is why the question so frequently arises in conversations or practices between people seeking 'enlightenment' or spirituality. In 'finding' themselves, what is achieved? I fail to understand the value or meaning of this. Are people looking for their limitations. Is this the premise behind taking a vow of silence?

QUOTE]

If everything is always a reaction then who is the reactor??
By asking "Who Am I" people don't find themselves, it's quite the reverse, they lose themselves, they find out that the idea of "me" as a seperate self is phantasmagoric & they don't actually exist. What they find is Absolute Self (Brahman).
Tat Tvam Asi! KK

Paleface

Oh you know it's being colloquial, chemical reaction, strike action. Causality is a slippery one and KK knows well about that. Everything is always a reaction or a cause revealed, whereas what you do now is an effect tomorrow - concealed, anyway roundabouts.

Job or career can define you in the eyes of others I think, well i suppose but what if i am not in the least interested in what anyone does, but who they are, we would need to dig deeper to find that, as you say we are random atoms the same in each of us, that 'ol oneness, defining us without need of a them - thus illustrating that name, job, rank etc are purely superficial signposts.

I'm told what Enlightenment might be, but it's an awfully slippery slope that i am not brave enough to attempt to define right now, leave it at a lightening of a burden. Spirituality on the other hand is about how i do my work in life. But you must have some idea of what these things are, and it's interesting that you need to research the understanding for your work. This brings us to what the nature of work is? Can Job/career be delineated so easily, most meditate about the well being of their job/career, when in leisure time, like there's no switchoff moment. So perhaps work is not the timepass thing until one retires, perhaps work is thinking, as that cannot be switched off and all are compelled to think, then act or react to those thoughts and events physicalise, and so the life unfolds. Thinking is the work in a life, that causes the physical, because nothing else does. So in this way the thinking defines the person, and there's only two ways to step into the next moment, REACTIVE or CREATIVE, what it's to be illustrates the degree of transformation or not that the individual is undergoing from the illusion of diversity to unity, divergence to toward convergence, prejudice to love, that's not a difficult one as who would not wish for peace and partnership - call it a spiritual path. Of course it has nothing to do with religion.

Golden Chapati

[quote=kullukid;857410]Well the only pure action I can think of would be what is known as the 'big bang', since if the science is true, a reaction can not logically occur from nothing, if you get my meaning. Everything else that was, is, or will ever be is merely a consequence of that.

So in your opinion what is absolute self? The only time I ever really thought about the question, it felt like my brain cracked, I just couldn't rationalise or quantify my own existence; it was as though my brain was dividing by zero. So I don't really bother anymore.

Brijwasi

Check

http://www.dhamma.org (Vipassana/insight Meditation)

http://www.artofliving.org

Farhana

Dear Golden Chapati,

It's not at all negative. The question came up for me first when I was 14. It was one starry summer night in Australia and the entire family was asleep. I couldn't sleep that night. For the first time, I didn't quite identify with the family. Meaning, there was a slight sense of not belonging. It was at that point that I guess I became interested in understanding who I am and what this living is all about.

Seekers often ask this question because when one becomes aware of the suffering they experience, there is a kind of need to understand it. Generally speaking, the difference between seekers and non seekers is the awareness of the suffering.

"In 'finding' themselves, what is achieved? I fail to understand the value or meaning of this. Are people looking for their limitations." Quote from Golden Chapati.

When one finds themselves. There is a new position that emerges to the experience of living. And this position is not static. Meaning, the position continues to blossom. So the previous experience of suffering changes. The suffering does not appear or is seen as it was before. There is a reduction in suffering as a result. At the same time, and to me, this is vitally as important, there is a sharp increase in the experience of joy in everyday living. And this is not some textbook thing. Because there is a lessening of the grip of the suffering, one is more free to really live. The moments, the miracles, the interactions happening all the time. It becomes more of an experience of an ongoing miracle and less of a seeker seeking to understand. There is surrender.

Farhana.