Dream Interpretation

Everyone dreams. It is a regular occurrence. Several times each evening you go through a series of sleep cycles and you dream. Many people get into the interpretation of the dream - what does this mean? What does that symbolize? And there is certainly nothing wrong with that and many insights may be had from the process.

But what if there is another even greater purpose of the dream? What if the main purpose of the night time dream is to show you that you can have what appears to be an entirely concrete reality - you can live in that reality, experience all kinds of things in that reality, and that everything in that reality is, in fact, not reality at all. It's a dream. Even, you, the dreamer disappear from that dream when you wake up! What if the purpose of the dream, more than figuring out ways to make our daytime better, are, rather, to show us that the daytime drama is nothing but another dream, and that we can awaken from that dream as well?

During the evening dream, you are entirely convinced that it is real. These things are factually happening. You don't question it, no matter how bizarre the incidents in the dream are. Then, you wake up snug in your bed and go, "Oh, THAT was just a dream. Now I'm back in the real world!" And then we spend every moment ignoring the lesson of the dream that, this too, is just another dream.

Most people, at least those that would be reading this, have heard the story of the old monk who wakes up and says, "I was just dreaming I was a butterfly. But now, I'm not sure if I am a monk thinking he had a dream of being a butterfly, or if I am a butterfly dreaming that I am now a monk." We immediately assume that the night dream is unreal and the daytime one is real. Even if we theoretically 'understand' that they might both be dreams, we act on a different level - that the night dream is unreal but the day dream is real.

Numerous scriptures and saints have pointed out that the only difference between the night dream and the day dream is time (i.e. 8 hours versus 16 hours). Right now, as you are reading this, you could suddenly WAKE UP in your bed and go, "Oh, I was just dreaming I was reading a blog by somebody named Aja (the 'Unborn'). Ha Ha. There's nobody named Aja, but that was interesting. Now let me get on with my REAL life." And then you wake up from that one too.

The Yoga Vasistha is a wonderful book wherein you have characters living in dreams within dream within dreams - awakening from one into the other and totally unsure which if any are real. Many Buddhists practice asking themselves, "Is this a dream?" during the day, in order to help facilitate lucid dreaming at night, so that they might have more time to practice their meditations (yes, while they are "asleep and dreaming"). Buddhists often call this whole shebang the dream of Buddha. The Bhagavatam calls this the dream of Vishnu. And yet, every night the Guru of Dreaming shows us that what appears to be real is, in fact, a dream, and every morning we awaken, ignore the instruction, and go on acting as if the daydream is some type of all important concrete reality!

Hmmm... I guess we're just slow learners, eh?!

"Wake Up, Neo.....

The Matrix has got you!"

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The Magazine

My wife holds out a buddist magazine.
"Here is a Buddhist magazine. Would you like to read it?"

With some hesitation, if not outright trepidation, I take it.
"Thanks."

I'm hesitatant, not because I'm not Buddhist, but because I know where this goes. I am not patient. I am not compassionate. I am leery. I glance through the table of contents. Just as I suspect - a lot of articles that seem more aligned to making people feel good, than to get them to dump all the crap in their minds.

We are all the same. We would rather talk about surrender than to actually surrender. We would rather read about someone who has 'made' it, than to 'make' it ourselves. We'd rather study the intricacies of the teachings than to put them into practice. We would rather argue about (or even agree about) the variations of the Great Teachings than to whole-heartedly give ourselves to them. Or we might want to keep struggling to find the perfect teaching, just a little better, a little closer, than to recognize the Infinite, Absolute and totally Ordinary Divinity of NOW.

Virtually every thought is a distraction, unless it points dead-on at the Truth. Every idea is a diversion unless it is showing you your Own Face. Every teaching is a pile of crap unless it makes you go..."Ah, Ah, Ah" as you dive into the immediacy of the Divine.

There is ONE infinite Ocean. What you experience as you is but the water of one wave. You fret and strut as the one wave - paying attention to the shape and form and floaters in yours and the others waves, ever neglecting the immediacy of the waterness, which ultimately leads to the immediacy of ALL waterness.

There is ONLY GOD, the ONE, the Absolute. Yes, all argumentation, all thinking, all concepts are also That, but in looking at them, we run the risk of identifying with them and lose our identification with the REAL-ness of the Divine.

The mind is like a prism which breaks up the light of the ONE, and turns it into the colors of the many. The colors are just the one, but we pick and choose between them. The prism, the mind, will NEVER, put the colors back into the ONE. It, sadly, only breaks them apart. Let go of the mind. Smash the prism. Rest in the ONE.

Sarvam khalvidam Brahma - All This is indeed the Absolute

Vasudevah Sarvam - All is God

Om Purnam adah purnam idam - That is the Wholeness, This is the Wholeness

Only God IS. There is nothing else. Every moment IS GOD.

Rest in that and forget the rest.... especially this magazine...

So, in the end, having glanced through a number of self-aggrandizing and self-effacing articles (amidst one or two okay ones) I turn to the back cover....

It reads:

"Is Your Investment Strategy Sustainable?"

Oh good Lord!!!!!

God is the only investment strategy I have.

Utter Simplicity

I am guilty. Guilty of the Sin of complication. We all are, cuz that's what our minds tend to make us do...Complicate things.

Here is the simple answer to everything:

1. Love what you have,
2. Love who you're with,
3. Love God.

Not necessarily in that order.

Belief IN vs. Belief ABOUT

Recently, I came across the following quote, "Belief IN God is Faith; Belief ABOUT God is Religion (or Theology).".In attempting to find the original source, all I came up with was Freemason documents. But the point is excellent. While ultimately all beliefs are primarily habits of the mind, within the phenomenal scope of things, certain beliefs are beneficial. One is a belief in a higher Good, God, Truth, the Absolute... something!!! It spurs us on to investigate, to explore Truth, and to be open to going deeper. On the other hand, belief ABOUT God or the Absolute, predefines what it should look like. It causes us to hold on to old patterns, and to only see through our own filters of what God or the Absoloute IS or SHOULD BE, and how to recognize or realize that with our own direct experience. Today some huge percentage of Americans claim to be "Spiritual, but not religious," and yet still hold onto ideas about what Awakening or Enlightenment or Reality is or should be. As they begin to investigate, they often find that their original ideas were waaaayyyyy off. That's part of growth. But more often than not, there is a place where people get stuck, because where they are is somewhat comfortable (or comfortable enough) and to go any further would require letting go of more of the beliefs 'about', while holding onto the 'faith in'. Faith is not a bad thing. You could perhaps replace it with the word 'trust'. Every time you leave your home, you have faith (conscious or not) that you will find your way back. Each night as you go to sleep, you have faith that you will wake up in the morning. You have faith that your body will digest your food, your heart will continue beating, the sun will continue to shine, and so forth. If you had to worry about all of these things, you'd probably go mad. Similarly, there are many small things that we do worry about, that DO tend to drive us mad. Don't worry ABOUT; have faith IN. You know there is something more about it all, or that you are 'bigger' or 'greater' than your mind allows you to realize, or that there is a Being or Presence or Absoluteness of which the little you is a part. You really don't need to define it much, in fact it's best not to. As you begin to define it, you are creating a belief ABOUT. You really can't know, just as a teacup dipped into the ocean can't experience the nature of the totality of the ocean - only a small flavor of it. But without that faith IN, we are stuck, by our mental habits, to a place of bondage, rather than one of total freedom.

How To Live Happily - More or Less

I was never a huge 'Seinfeld' fan, altthough I recognize a certain existentialism that at times was appealing, and once in a while, a true teaching. For instance, those who ARE fans will certainly remember the episode in which George decides to do the opposite of whatever his initial tendencies are. Sitting with Jerry in the cafe, he sees a pretty girl and wants to approach her, but then remembers that basically everything he tries fails. (If you're a real die-hard fan, forgive me if I don't have it exactly right and just follow along.) Jerry suggests that whatever he thinks he should do or tell her, that George should do exactly the opposite. So instead of feeding her some line of bullcrap, how about just telling her the truth. George decides that might just work, and so going to the young woman says, "Hi, I'm George. I'm totally unmotivated, am unemployed and live with my parents." And, of course, the woman immediately turns to him, smiles, and with obvious interest, replies, "Really?!"

Essentially, any unhappiness is caused by not getting what we think we want. What we think we want is a product of our ego or our sense of individualized and separated "I". The mind and intellect (manas and buddhi in Sanskrit) decipher what are the objects of awareness, (not a problem), but then the label them as desirable or undesireable. The sense of "I" wants what it deems as desireable and rejects what it sees as undesireable. Thus causing the unhappiness.Nisargadatta said something to the effect of... "You are unhappy because you want what you don't have and don't want what you do have. Just turn that around - Want what you have, and don't want what you don't have." The simplicity of it is overwhelming, however, the practice is often another thing. We are trained, especially by our present day culture, that we should be able to have whatever we want. Our entire culture is geared around the fact that we should have exactly what we want, when we want it. We deserve it. We are entitled to it. Forget what anyone else wants, or what impact our wanting has on anyone or anything else. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

One of my semi-surrogate grand-daughters was over the other day with her 14 month old baby girl, and she mentioned that her new favorite word is, "MINE". She'll pick something up, anything, and boastfully proclaim, "MINE!" Is this not what everyone is trying to do?When I was around 11, my parents signed me up for piano lessons with the local piano teacher, Mrs. Merciel, an older widow who lived at the end of the block, and I think had been teaching piano since it was the harpsichord. I remember almost nothing of what she taught me (and still can't play piano worth beans), but one thing has stuck with me over the nearly half century. Nearly everyone has heard this, but it was the first time I had heard it, I have noo remembrance of the context of why she said it, but it was...

"The more you know, the less you know."

While an obvious Truism, it is also a teaching.

So, another way of looking at Nisargadatta's statement is switch 'more' for 'less'......

The less you know, the more you know.

Want more Money? Try wanting less money
Think you are more special? Recognize you are less special.
Think you should do more? Try doing less? (Or try Be-ing more)
Want more people to like you? Try wanting less people to like you. (or Want to like others more)Think you deserve more. Consider that you deserve less. (or be grateful for the more you have).
Think you need more knowledge? Trying needing less knowledge.

I think you get the picture. Simply see when some sort of unhappiness or resistance or desire arises which says you want more (or less) of something, and try turning it around. What would it be like to have or want the opposite in some way. Recognize who or what it is that is desiring that, and inquire into the very reality of that "I" which is desiring. Recognize that when there is no desiring, but rather a satisfaction with what is, then there is peace, and from peace comes happiness.

So, how to live happily, more or less? Try the opposite. It just might work.

Happy Rebirth

Yesterday, my wife says to me, "Tomorrow is Easter" and my response is something like, "And...?", as if that is supposed to mean something to me. (Generally, I like to get a new bonnet, but don't let anyone know.) The truth is, I wasn't born Christian, I never practiced Christianity, and of course, neither do most of the people that enjoy Easter. Easter really has very little to do with Christianity - it's about Rebirth, and Rebirth is something that all of us are continuously experiencing.

Our Easter, much as we know it, is said to be stolen from the elusive group called the Pagans, as if they were some kind of specific group that weren't there, then were, and now aren't again. Most think that that the word Pagan relates to those anti-Christian types, but many believe that originally the word, coming from the Latin Paganus, actually just meant a forest or country dweller, a hick, a 'country bumpkin' so to speak, rather than a civilized type. But in any case, the idea of Easter, Christian or otherwise, is really about death and rebirth.

Death and rebirth is all around us. We are death and rebirth. We live on a planet that is continuously dying and being reborn - our days, our seasons, the plants. Everything is in this ongoing cycle of dying and being reborn. Many believe that we, too, die and are reborn through reincarnation. But, this is not about that right now. Right now, I want to simply talk about this life.

In the Christian perspective, Easter is about Christ dying on the cross and rising, reborn, on Easter, when he is spotted by some of the disciples, and later shows up for them in a locked room. It is about the Arisen Christ. Each of us, has the opportunity, in EVERY moment, to be Reborn, to expand our Arising Christ-ness. However, for that to happen, we also MUST DIE.

Being reborn is dependent on dying. You can't have the one without the other, and therein lies the rub. No one wants to die. Everyone wants to hold on to the old AND have the new. It is what is traditionally called, "having the cake and eating it too", which again, I will point out if people said it the other way around (i.e. eating the cake and still having it too). Christ's death and rebirth was said to be on a physical level - the body died on the cross and was miraculously reborn in the sepulchre. And our bodies (cells, etc.) die and are reborn constantly. More importantly than this, however, is the death and rebirth of our mind, intellect, our beliefs, our faith.

Right now, for instance, I feel and believe, as do many others, that our entire planet is going through a death and rebirth process, which is why it feels so strange. Dying isn't necessarily pleasant or unpleasant, but is generally seen as such if we feel a need to hang on to the old. If people try to continue their old ways and lifestyles, it's gonna hurt. That's resistance to what is. However, if we all simply let go of the old and allow for the new, it's relatively painless.

Nearly every tradition has some sort of initiatiatory process - a Christian baptism, the Vedic diksha, the Jewish Bar Mitzvah, the Native American vision quest. Some are more symbolic, and others are much more experiential. Truly, we are going through a death and rebirth process every time we actually have a very deep insight or real-ization into the way things are. Myself, I can count many rebirths through this life, two of the most prominent being when I was ordained as a monk and Priest in the Vedic tradition, and far more so, when I REAL-ized the Self or awoke to pure consciousness in 1990. But that is/was not the end. There are ever more and more awakenings and rebirths, and although we like to focus on what was 'gained' we have to recognize that nearly always, something was 'lost' or rather given up or, perhaps, even better, outgrown.

If you want to cross the lake on a boat, you have to leave the one shore to get to the other. You can't expect to hold onto the old ways of thinking and being and expect to make much progress. This is much like Einstein's quote, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." We have to give up the old thoughts and ideas. Intiations, in many traditions often include a name change (I became Aja - the Unborn One). Very often, I see people taking a new name, and then going back to the old one. Perhaps better would be to take a new NEW name - moving forward instead of backwards. But I digress.

Our opportunity is contiuous dying and rebirthing - an unfoldment into a deeper and more expansive Presence. But concomitant with that is the dying. We mustn't forget that. So recognize what you are holding onto now and willingly and lovingly give it up to expand into a greater place. Be willing to 'die daily' and be 'reborn' as a new you. And then you can be...

In your Easter Bonnet
With all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest lady
In the Easter Parade

So...Happy Easter....
Happy Dying
Happy Rebirthing!

God Or Mammon - Love or Profits

"The spiritual world and material world do not go well together." Srila Prabhupada

"The realer the world, the greater the misery. The realer the Self, the greater the joy." - Lester Levenson

"If the the time spent thinking about objects NOT the Self were spent inquiring into the Self, Self realization would be achieved very quickly." Ramana Maharshi

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." - Jesus

[First, in my ignorance, I never knew what 'mammon' was. Finally, I looked it up. Mammon basically means wealth.]

Okay, I think you get the picture here. There is a very common approach going on now that says I want to enjoy the world and have total spiritual realization. That is not an impossibility, the difficulty is, most people are not ready for that. In other words, once you have recognized the complete illusory nature of the material world, and no longer have ANY attachments for it, can recognize that it is ALL God happening, then, and only then, can it really be enjoyed. But at that point, it will no longer be a material phenomena, it will also be GOD.

The other day, while in the garden with my son, he was looking out at the empty field and I asked what he was doing. "Envisioning abundant gardens," he said.
"Wonderful" I responded, "and the people?"
"No people, just plants."

Now, I love that he was envisioning abundance, but I also know that part of this (not all by any means) is to make a lot of money. Unfortunately, this is too often the case with people's interest in 'spirituality' - they want it to have a better 'material' life. "When I'm enlightened, then..." There are innumerable ego issues in here - control, fame, wealth, enjoyment, etc. etc. etc. You can have all the food in the world or all the money in the world or all the sex in the world or all the anything in the world, but if you don't have true knowledge of the Self, true re-cognition of Spirit, of God, of the Absolute, there will never be happiness.

Like our current economic crisis. The government is throwing trillions upon trillions of dollars away to try to save something which was a bust in the first place - a false economic lifestyle. I recognize that most people (nearly all) still believe that it is and should be salvaged. This is NOT the case. The entire economic system itself is a ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. If you do not understand this, study it a little bit. Money=Debt. All this money is created by the banks, and every dollar they create is attached to interest. So how does this work.

The bank loans me $100
(It is understood that I now owe them $110 with interest)

In order to pay that loan back, I must go to other people who similarly got their money from a bank (to whom they owe a principle AND interest)

(Banks win, you lose)

Oops, now nobody has any money, so I borrow MORE money (from the bank) to pay back the original loan (with additional interest of course)

Now the banks have outstanding lots of money and lots of money supposed to come in. But nobody has any money, so they keep borrowing "money" from the banks who happily keep printing it up.

(Banks keep winning... you keep losing)

Now this is obviously a pretty simplistic explanation, but it gives you the idea. I recently read that if you had invested $1 at the year Zero A.D. that one dollar would now be worth (at normal interest rates) of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (One septillion dollars), which is of course more money than the world has ever seen. It is an impossibility. It is like trying to blow up a rubber balloon infinitely. At some point it has to give. It has to break. We are now at the breaking point. So even on the 'material' level, what we need is not money, not a change in economy, but a total reversal of the way we see and do things. The material world is NOT where it's at. We need to live in away that facilitates spiritual awakening and not material enlargement. Our purpose here is NOT (contrary to many people's opinion) to make more money, or to be happy and comfortable, but to awaken to who we are. You are either serving your ego, your selfish individualistic sense of self, or you are serving the One Self, God, the All. Even serving society or serving your family is a big improvement over simply serving the little self. So ask yourself, how much of my time is spent thinking about how to get more money (or ???) for ME? How much of your time is spent working toward helping others or toward Self or God REAL-ization? The answer to this question will give you a true assessment of how really successful you are!