Here John takes a look at the different ways that different religious paths approach the same goal of inner connection and inner awakening. And what is interesting to understand is that religions have sprung up over the centuries to offer guidance to the human journey and, though they may seem quite different one to another, they are all still only facets of the one thing that is going on in creation. We’re all individual, so each of us must find our own way. Religions just offer a pathway in, and a process to overcome what prevents us. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: Well, that’s why you have the elements, and the Naqshband accentuates the Earth element and the Earth element is going to have a certain dourness that’s apt to come up because of the heaviness of things that’s perceived in a physical orientation reflective outer.
And you have to go behind that, but in going behind that you can’t leave the physical behind, and there is no intent of leaving the physical behind in terms of the Naqshband process, but there is a little contamination that is slipped into the equation by saying that how things are in the outer is somehow or another poisoning the inner.
Well, the reason why it appears to be poisoning the inner is that you can sense that there is a gap or a distance in terms of fully grasping things in the outer and, therefore, there is the same gap or distance in terms of fully comprehending the inner. And the answer for that is, it’s not inclusive; something is being left out.
And this thing seems very, very difficult, which shows that you have to make some sort of huge leap that can only be made in a type of deep, deep innerness because if you were try to look at this from the standpoint of a discussion of the breath, you could say, okay, well, you know, the Earth element effect upon life, which there are say four elements that you have to contend with, Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.
The Earth effect is a breathing in the nose, out the nose, and the Water effect, which is a Chisti orientation that works with traits, and tools, and characteristics that break through things for flow purposes, and uses music and ceremony therefore, as well, because they are closely correlated; that recognizes the importance of sound, which is an aspect of flow, which is an aspect of water, which is an aspect then of music and is correlated with how physical manifestation is because it was created out of sound.
If you look it just that way so you’ve got then the breathing in the nose, and out the mouth. But then you need to be able to catch up with a greater fullness beyond that which, let’s say, is Fire and Air.
And the Air quality is an expansiveness that you just experience somewhere. Well that’s a breathing in the mouth, and out the nose. Well that’s a little unnatural in a way if you think about it. Visualize yourself going around using a tool like this, a breathing in the mouth, and out the nose. Or let’s say you’re just trying to do a Fire aspect of things. That’s breathing in the mouth and out the mouth. I don’t think that works. I don’t think you see people going around doing that.
And so some part of me has kind of understood this from long, long ago because I came to look at these traits in terms of a certain way in which they root themselves, how they root themselves, and that you catch up with the inner through a certain groundedness in the physical.
And that even though the physical is dense in its nature, you ground into the physical and that’s why, I understood, 20 years ago I understood but didn’t know what it was that I really understood then, and it was me trying to grasp what Raj yoga was really trying to do and what it was about, and it was an observation in terms of the experiences I was having under it, was that within a vibration of something, which is described as the Word in terms of the Bible and all things were created out of the Word, within that vibration, which is like a flow, which you could say is like a sound if you were the Chisti talking about it, that is like a noun.
A noun is something of which you have modifiers to it, and the modifiers to the noun have parts and the parts are music, which would be the sound characteristic of this noun, light, which again is another characteristic of this noun, and then there was like even a taste, a nectar that made you really high and ecstatic, that could give you this whole Fire and Air element rising up inside of you that was an aspect of this noun.
And the way the practices were oriented for someone doing Raj yoga was you had these four techniques, and one of them was the rootedness we’ll call it. The other worked with sound, the other with music, and the other with this ecstasy that was like a nectar. And the way they would explain this nectar was that it was what sustained Jesus when he was in the desert wandering for 40 days, you know without food or whatever.
And he accessed this quality inside of his beingness. And the way that another one of those techniques is revealed has to do again with what Christ portrayed at the Last Supper, in which he portrayed something, he opened up something to them that is depicted in the Bible as being like rushing waters, or there’s other depictions of that and that was the inner sound.
So anyway, each of these characteristics and traits I came to find out were automatically there when you held to the noun. We’ll call those other three like adverbs that modify the noun. And if you held to the rootedness of things, the others were naturally there.
And what I have recently come to realize, and I was coming to realize that in terms of the limitation of what I was trying to do under Raj yoga was that in trying to focus upon anything specific – like these other three modifiers as if they were all equal – caused something to be missing, caused something to be missing.
And so I didn’t know what to make out of that. All I knew is if I held the noun, the others could be there and the way the techniques were taught was you spent 15 minutes on each one. You didn’t make one more than the other, but I tended to notice that holding the noun part the others were there, and that when you focused on just the light, or focused on just the sound, which is the music, or focused just on being this highness, this expansive quality highness, that you had to abstract that from the whole. And holding the noun, the others were there.
And so what I have come to notice is one day I was talking and I was explaining an experience that I was having, and he says, “That’s all I do, I just sit and listen to the sound.”
And I go, “Really? Really, that’s all you do?” Well, that isn’t all that I do. It used to be that I might have to listen to the sound to calm myself, or to quiet myself, and to a certain degree that’s what the nature of sound is, just like the nature of light is to burn off a certain density or samskara of active thoughts that get in the way of letting go.
And so it used to be that I used to do that, but then I came to realize that my mind can sit in this lullaby of the sound, and so the sound is there just like I’m doing the noun. The sound is there and I let go of that sound, in other words, I don’t focus intently upon that sound, and I go somewhere.
If I focused intently upon that sound I would still have a certain quality of mind/sense awareness that would still be trying to figure something out in relationship to sound then, or in relationship to light, or in relationship to being high.
And then as a consequence then I then fell into a total stillness, a total emptiness deep, deep, deep within.
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