Essay Edition
The Nature of Spirituality
What is spirituality? What does it mean to live a life consecrated to something spiritual?
Spiritual obviously means pertaining to spirit. Within us, within all of existence, there is an essence. We are interested in the essence and a way to live yoked with the universe, yoked with eternity, connected with it, merged with it. There is a passion in spirituality for a feeling.
Why would one go through renunciation? Why would one go through disciplined practice, sit and meditate for hours upon hours, or live giving everything away? How do these benefit us? Or do they benefit us? What do they benefit? Why would one engage in these? There is a sense that if we are doing it, we are doing it for a reason, and there must be some form of benefit.
Now, who benefits is perhaps part of the question.
In spirituality, we center on erasing ourselves. By erasing ourselves, we develop a kind of dissolution and freedom from limitation, freedom from sorrow, freedom from separativity. As a sentient being, as a thinker, as a being of consciousness, we are presented with a choice. Shall we live on behalf of becoming, of selfhood? Or shall we live in trust, in freedom, in unity? These are some of the polarities that one can find within that word, spirituality.
A lot of people pursue spirituality when they go through a great deal of pain, a great deal of suffering. That is not always the cause, but something clicks in them and they have had enough with being a human. Not being alive as a human, but being an ego, being an identity. They want to let go of the things that cause them pain, the attachment. This is a very Buddhist perspective on it, or a Buddhist emphasis on it.
In spirituality, we are perhaps, in the most essential way, trying to become free of personality. We want to be the spirit that we are, not the form that we are. When we become that spirit, forms emerge, but those forms are forms directed by spirit, not by ideation, not by ego. There is this gracefulness in them.
Why feel gratitude? In gratitude, there is detachment. There is a recognition of the blessings. There is a state of acceptance. Why feel kindness? In kindness, I feel I am the other. There are the same themes wrapped through all of this. These things are spiritual because they dissolve the circumference of self.
If you think of us as a circle with a circumference, it has a center and it has a circumference. But when the circle opens up and its radius gets very large, eventually it is a straight line. There is no circle anymore. There is no circumference.
We dissolve the circumference of self by removing that center and that self-centered orientation with many of these principles. This is a whole collection of principles and virtues, but they all come from that same soil of spirit.
Why do we go into the light? What is that light? It is the essence of spirit. We are actually saying that we can merge in spirit through our mystical capacity. We recognize how to let go and enter into the energy of essence.
That is Raja Yoga. When we experience the light, we dissolve that separativity, that form, and we leave a form that is pure, a form that is directed by Dharma, something bigger. Dharma means truth. It means duty. It is the entire universe and our place in the universe without the idea of self, without the imposition of idea and its illusory effects.
Renunciation and Inner Freedom
What does it take to let go? What does it take to overcome the hurdle of selfhood? This is part of spirituality.
There was a time when it was absolutely essential for me to have a $10,000 stack in my closet, just because of backup. I needed backup. But what is it like to wander in the desert without knowing where your next sip of water comes from, and to stand free and naked to possibility, to the elements, trusting in some sort of destiny that will unfold and that you will be given what you need?
How do we undergo a transformation that makes us free of these limitations, free of that seemingly habitual response? We are so responsive. You can say not to feel fear, but that does not work so easily. You can say not to think, but that does not work so easily either.
One of the things in spirituality is to stop thinking. What essentially is thought? When I think, I am protecting my interests. I am in control. I am my past, my likes and dislikes, my previous experiences, acting in the now as a response to the present conditions.
Not thinking is a very precarious state, or it is a state of freedom, a state of trust, a state of love. There is another element, which is to be without ambition, to be without self-importance.
Do people like me or not? Who cares? Who cares what people think? Why do we have to walk around with the baggage of recognition and respect, which is always extremely limited?
What is respect based on? Most people respect things for the wrong reasons. Why does one person respect somebody? A lot of times, it is very corrupt. If you were to look inside, they wanted to get this thing from them, or they were scared in that way. It is all a big web of complexity that is part of the personality.
In spirituality, we simplify. We melt down the personality and distill it so that we can abide in love, in light, in truth, in power, in eternity, in peace. We get all these beautiful benefits. We get all these jewels of the universe, little treasure chests of jewels. A ruby is love, and a diamond is clarity and truth.
You could be a very successful person outwardly and lack this inner richness. You could have all this inner richness and have nothing outwardly. It is good to have both. It is good to live in an abundant society where we are well cared for, and our inspirations can live in the moment, in freedom, in love. Not as ego, but as the innocence of a child who wants to live their life. There is nothing impure about that. There can be all of those beautiful spiritual qualities there.
This is spirituality. We recognize that we are attached to the $10,000, and maybe we need to face that attachment. One by one, face the attachments. Do not do it when you are not ready. Do not do it without gentleness and kindness. Just recognize when you see the opportunity in renouncing something, in giving something away.
Krishnamurti says something beautiful: “Become anonymous to yourself.” That frees us from suffering and sorrow.
There is this whole idea that I have to be worthy for some reason. We are worthy. We are children of the universe. If I am worthy for a reason, then I am living in a paradigm where everything is worthy for a reason. But nothing should be worthy for a reason. We are worthy because we are consciousness.
That is a loving orientation. Everything matters. Every flower petal matters. Every human being matters equally. They perform different functions. Not everybody can be the CEO of Apple, but that is not a value statement on who they are. That is just a recognition of their capacity to fulfill a function.
Spiritual Community and Devotion
When you look at the saints and the sages, they had a fervency, a commitment to something. Sometimes it is hard to find that commitment. You may even want the commitment. You know you have a sincerity inside of you to be as spiritual as you can be, but you do not feel it right now. You feel the ickiness of society, and it is coming through you. You want to attune yourself and entrain yourself to the sentiments of the saints, the sages, the prophets, and the people who gave everything to God, or enlightenment, or eternity. They are all basically the same thing. How can you do that?
A lot of what Sangha is about is reminding each other. I may feel so deep in this and share it. One day, maybe I will fluctuate down and feel less connected, and I will see someone else who connected with it. We all act as a support system.
It is like a weighted average in mathematics. If you have a lot of investments in the stock market, they can fluctuate, but as a group they keep a weighted average. We buffer our risk in that way. Sangha has that effect.
Spreading the light, spreading the Dharma, spreading love makes it easier for the random teenager who hops on Instagram and sees all the nonsense, and is so far from spirituality because they are being brought into a world that is not necessarily promoting that. A whole value system is being transmitted that is not necessarily spiritual.
In spirituality, there is something inside of us that wants to return home to the center of the universe, which is everywhere. It is inside of us. Everything is inside of us. We want to go home to the eternal reverberation of freedom.
What made Jesus so sincere? What made Buddha so sincere? What made Osho, Krishnamurti, Paramahansa Yogananda, Anandamayi Ma, and Sun Tzu so sincere? Even Bruce Lee. I would say he belongs in that group.
Then there are people like Shakespeare. When he says, “To thine own self be true,” he is speaking from the same sincerity, as far as I can tell. There are artists, writers, and musicians who did it too. Mathematics can be an act of devotion. Art can be an act of devotion, in the sense that we are giving away our pride.
Ask yourself: How can I be the most spiritual person? What does that even mean? How can I consecrate myself to something greater than my ambitions, my pleasures, and my securities, and go beyond? Something higher, something better, something deeper, more valuable.
It is the heart and spirit.
When we are around spiritual people, they love us for who we are. You can feel that. You can feel that unity. When we focus on them, we can feel empathically that we are doing something different, something pure, beautiful.
Meditation and the Heart
There are a number of ways to meditate, but ultimately there is only one result. In meditation, there is a state of samadhi, a state of dissolution, a state of freedom. A lot of times in society, there are all the techniques. But meditation begins when meditation ends. Meditation begins when we stop being the meditator and become what we are.
There is a level of cultivation of the astral body, of the mind, and of the physical body that happens. If we meditate on our heart, we get to generate love. We actually move toward the deepest state of meditation, but we also gain in form more love. When we do light, we gain what light offers. When we do a dissolution, that is very direct.
These techniques can be very fast. You can sit down, and within ten seconds you are gone. There is no technique anymore. You are just there. Or if you are in Sahaja Samadhi, which is the perpetual state of enlightenment, you never stop. You are always there. You can sit and meditate, but you are never out of that state of awakening.
Spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which means breath. Breath is what sustains us. Spirit is what sustains us. Breath is that most subtle aspect of life force, life in physical manifestation. It points to a subtlety, something that sustains us that is etheric.
In the center of the chest there is an energetic vortex. Usually, if you were to identify yourself and point to your chest, you would point right to that spot. When you focus on it, you awaken it. This is the heart chakra, called Anahata in Sanskrit. It is the middle dantian in Chinese.
When we feel the spot and center there, we can also expand from there. There is the center of this vortex, but then there is the field of it, the expansion of it. Meditating on the heart can include feeling the heart expand, which is a very important aspect of the energetics.
It can include just trying to wake it up because there is a chi there, and you might not be able to feel it. You can tap the spot. You can focus there. Even if you put your finger there and hold it there, it wakes something up.
Feel your heart. Can you feel your heart? Can you listen to your heart? These are all capacities.
If you were to spend the next month completely focused on your heart, if you did not prioritize anything else and decided that no matter what you were doing, you were trying to fuel your heart and remember your heart, it would undergo quite a huge transformation. You can take it to the extreme, or just do it over a number of years.
Another thing you can do energetically is generate heat. There is a kind of chi that you can intend that feels like warmth in the heart. You feel a warm heart generating in you, and it is a really lovely feeling. It changes your demeanor because your heart is warm and full and fuzzy and nice. How are you going to treat people when you feel like that? Beautifully, of course.
One of the ways to feel the heart chakra is to be, do, have. Step into the being. Just become loving. Energetically, we are feeling the heart, but we are also giving away all those impediments. It is an element of giving up resistance, surrender, compassion, forgiveness.
You can use the light. Make every meditation a light meditation, if you can connect with it. Light and love and heart altogether. It is an eternal part of us. Come home to the center of the universe. Let your heart shine. Let it radiate.
Take a moment to feel your heart, to notice the eternality of the moment, the expanse of samsara, creation, the innocence of the viewer, spirit, deepest self. Notice the light, the inner light.
Mystical Experience and Interpretation
The light renews you. It is a divine shower of light. It renews the spirit, and it washes us. Explore the images you have. They may have significance in the symbology. You can look at yourself and ask why you saw that, and what energy you were interpreting that is present.
The whole idea of Raja Yoga, or Bhakti mysticism, which would be a heart-centered version, is to use the light to awaken to enlightenment. The light really does that for us.
When you go away and are not aware of anything, explore how deep that is. Kensho, in Japanese, means a glimpse of eternity. You would not be aware of anything. But when you come out of it, you try on your personality again. It is kind of like you are naked and then put the personality back on.
There are different kinds of white light. It may have an iridescent quality, or feel milky white, opalescent, or pearl-like. Sometimes the white light might have a gold quality in it. Sometimes the white light has a black quality in it, which is not really black. It is more like clear, which is a very deep quality. Eventually, everything becomes black, and that is the deepest light. It is not black. It is so bright that it makes everything become clear. It is like the gold light becomes so bright that it does that.
All the light is good. Any light is good.
Persistence and Transformation
Be patient. Just continue your practice. This is how transformation happens.
Keep reading. Keep meditating. Keep living in kindness. Keep prioritizing freedom. Keep prioritizing humility. Keep studying these things. Keep coming to Sangha, this Sangha or another Sangha. Keep attuning to enlightened sentiments, individuals, and writings. Keep doing Tai Chi, Kundalini Yoga, energy work, and living healthily.
Just keep going. Over time, you undergo a transformation. You will have a complete overhaul of your karma eventually, if you persist.
It may take one Jupiter cycle, which is twelve years. That is actually quite common. Jupiter is part of the cycle for these transformations. It might take a lifetime, but it does not matter.
You will be taking steps toward the beloved freedom, sacredness at the top of the mountain. Every time we take a step toward our beloved, we are happy because we are stepping in the right direction.
Just keep doing the practice. The transformation happens through routine. How do you clear a computer? You have to go through it line by line. Even if the computer is fast, it still has to update those files, and it takes time.
The issue with karma is inertia. It is momentum. There can be instantaneous enlightenments too, but those usually are not up to us. They can happen as part of your practice, instantaneously, like a mango dropping from a tree. It ripens for many years, and then it drops when it is ready.
Full Transcript
Adam Wes Namaste, everybody.
We need Ariella and Andrea.
Colleen Text Ariella?
Adam Wes Did you?
Colleen I will.
Adam Wes Okay. David, can you text Andrea? Thank you. Oh, there she is.
Opening our attention to our heart center to start. Listen to the heart.
Namaste, everybody. Welcome. Hi, Praveen. Hi, David. Welcome, Dori. Hi, Andrea. Hi, Mom.
Jacob and Kira cannot make it today.
David, how has your practice been? Good to see you.
David P Solid.
Adam Wes Did you start doing it in the morning?
David P No. Do you hear me well?
Adam Wes I guess I did not hear you the first time. Can you say it again?
David P Sólido. Solid.
Adam Wes Oh, solid. Nice. Beautiful.
David P Every day, but during the morning. Not so much in the afternoon.
The Nature of Spirituality
Adam Wes I would like to talk about spirituality today. I can feel the strength of your practice, which is why I wanted to focus on that. The sermon for today is spirituality in general. What is spirituality? What does it mean to live a life consecrated to something spiritual? What does that even mean?
I think there is value in focusing on a recognition of what delineates the spiritual from the nonspiritual. What does it mean to have a spiritual life?
Spiritual obviously means pertaining to spirit. If it is spiritual, it is pertaining to spirit. So what is spirit?
Within us, within all of existence, there is an essence. We are interested in the essence and a way to live yoked with the universe, yoked with eternity, connected with it, merged with it.
There is a passion in spirituality for a feeling, and that is what I would like to talk about today.
Why would one go through renunciation? Why would one go through disciplined practice, sit and meditate for hours upon hours, or live giving everything away? How do these benefit us? Or do they benefit us? What do they benefit? Why would one engage in these? There is a sense that if we are doing it, we are doing it for a reason, and there must be some form of benefit.
Now, who benefits is perhaps part of the question.
In spirituality, we center on erasing ourselves. By erasing ourselves, we develop a kind of dissolution and freedom from limitation, freedom from sorrow, freedom from separativity.
As a sentient being, as a thinker, as a being of consciousness, we are presented with a choice. Shall we live on behalf of becoming, of selfhood? Or shall we live in trust, in freedom, in unity?
These are some of the polarities that one can find all within that word, spirituality.
A lot of people pursue spirituality when they go through a great deal of pain, a great deal of suffering. That is not always the cause, but something clicks in them and they say, "I have had enough with being a human." Not being alive as a human, but being an ego, being an identity. "I want to let go of the things that cause me pain, the attachment." This is a very Buddhist perspective on it, or a Buddhist emphasis on it.
In spirituality, we are perhaps, in the most essential way, trying to become free of personality. We want to be the spirit that we are, not the form that we are.
When we become that spirit, forms emerge, but those forms are forms directed by spirit, not by ideation, not by ego. There is this gracefulness in them.
Oh, Rafael is here.
Why feel gratitude? Well, in gratitude, there is this detachment. There is a recognition of the blessings. There is a state of acceptance.
Why feel kindness? Well, in kindness, I feel I am the other. You see, there are the same themes wrapped through all of this. These things are spiritual because they dissolve the circumference of self.
If you think of us as a circle with a circumference, it has a center and it has a circumference. But when the circle opens up and its radius gets very large, eventually it is a straight line. There is no circle anymore. There is no circumference.
We dissolve the circumference of self by removing that center and that self-centered orientation with many of these principles. This is a whole collection of principles and virtues, but they all come from that same soil of spirit.
Why do we go into the light? There is this light. What is that light? It is the essence of spirit. We are actually saying, "I can merge in spirit through my mystical capacity. I recognize how to let go and enter into the energy of essence."
That is Raja Yoga. When we experience the light, we dissolve that separativity, that form, and we leave a form that is pure, a form that is directed by Dharma, something bigger.
Dharma means truth. It means duty. It is the entire universe and our place in the universe without the idea of self, without the imposition of idea and its illusory effects.
What do you think, Praveen?
Praveen S I am unable to say anything, but hearing you makes it feel a little easier than what it actually seems like.
Renunciation and Inner Freedom
Adam Wes I like this nice comment. What does it take to let go? What does it take to overcome the hurdle of selfhood? This is part of spirituality.
There was a time when I was terrified not to have a $10,000 stack in my closet, just because of backup. I needed backup. I would not say terrified, but there was a time when that was just absolutely essential, bottom line, normal for me.
But what is it like to wander in the desert without knowing where your next sip of water comes from, and to stand free and naked to possibility, to the elements, trusting in some sort of destiny that will unfold, and you will be given what you need?
How do we do that? Thank you, Praveen. I am so glad you said that, because the other part of spirituality is: How do we undergo a transformation that makes us free of these limitations, free of that seemingly habitual response?
We are so responsive. You can say, "Well, do not feel fear." "Okay, I will not feel fear." No, that does not work that easily. "Do not think."
One of the things in spirituality, what I was going to say earlier, is to stop thinking. What essentially is thought? When I think, I am protecting my interests. I am in control. I am my past, my likes and dislikes, my previous experiences, acting in the now as a response to the present conditions.
Not thinking is a very precarious state, or it is a state of freedom, a state of trust, a state of love.
When I do not think, I am not... There is another element, which is to be without ambition, to be without self-importance.
Do people like me or not? Who cares? Who cares what people think? Why do we have to walk around with the baggage of recognition and respect, which is always extremely limited?
What is respect based on? Most people respect things for the wrong reasons. Why does one person respect somebody? A lot of times, it is very corrupt. If you were to look inside and say, "Well, they wanted to get this thing from them. They were scared in that way." It is all a big web of complexity that is part of the personality.
In spirituality, we simplify. We melt down the personality and distill it so that we can abide in love, in light, in truth, in power, in eternity, in peace.
We get all these beautiful benefits. We get all these jewels of the universe, little treasure chests of jewels. Each one is like: a ruby is love, and a diamond is clarity and truth.
David, do you remember my document, "The Treasures"?
David P Yesterday, I read the whole thing again.
Adam Wes Oh, I love that!
David P Yeah.
Adam Wes It means a lot to me that you are looking at that. Wonderful. I gave it a lot of thought, like which jewel would be which value. It is spiritual value. I delineated a number of values, like truth, peace, love. The things that we get from spirituality.
David P Freedom.
Adam Wes Freedom, yes. Freedom, exactly. You could be a very successful person outwardly and lack this inner richness. You could have all this inner richness and have nothing outwardly.
It is good to have both. It is good to live in an abundant society where we are well cared for, and our inspirations can live in the moment, in freedom, in love. Not as ego, but as the innocence of a child who wants to live their life. There is nothing impure about that. There can be all of those beautiful spiritual qualities there.
Praveen, how do we experience this? This is spirituality. We are saying, "Okay, I am attached to the $10,000. Maybe I need to face that attachment." One by one, face the attachments.
Do not do it when you are not ready. Do not do it without gentleness and kindness. Just say, "Oh, right now I see the opportunity in renouncing something, in giving something away."
Krishnamurti says something beautiful. He says, "Become anonymous to yourself." That frees us from suffering and sorrow.
There is this whole idea of, "Oh, well, I have to be worthy for some reason." Well, we are worthy. We are children of the universe. If I am worthy for a reason, then I am living in a paradigm where everything is worthy for a reason. But nothing should be worthy for a reason. We are worthy because we are consciousness.
That is a loving orientation. Everything matters. Every flower petal matters. Every human being matters equally. They perform different functions. Not everybody can be the CEO of Apple, but that is not a value statement on who they are. That is just a recognition of their capacity to fulfill a function.
This is a little bit of a broad sermon today. I am just suggesting: What does it mean to live a life consecrated to spirituality?
Spiritual Community and Devotion
When you look at the saints and the sages, they had a fervency, a commitment to something. Sometimes it is hard to find that commitment. You may even want the commitment. You are like, "Well, how can I find that commitment? I want to feel it. I know I have a sincerity inside of me to be as spiritual as I can be, but I do not feel it right now. I feel the ickiness of society, and it is coming through me. I want to attune myself and entrain myself to the sentiments of the saints and the sages, and the prophets, and the people who gave everything to God, or enlightenment, or eternity. They are all basically the same thing. How can I do that?"
A lot of what Sangha is about is reminding each other. I may feel so deep in this and share it. One day, maybe I will fluctuate down and feel less connected, and I will see Praveen. He connected with it, and then we all act as a support system.
It is like a weighted average in mathematics. If you have a lot of investments in the stock market, they can fluctuate, but as a group they keep a weighted average. We buffer our risk in that way. Sangha has that effect.
We have just a few more minutes, and then we will begin the meditation.
Ariella is very, very spiritual, and it is very impressive how Ariella does it because she does not live around a lot of spirituality. No offense to your family. But she knows this. She just is it anyway.
That is a very special thing. Sometimes it is harder for people to do that. It is wonderful when there are people like Sadhguru, for example. Sadhguru has created this giant wake of spiritual interest and a large community. Thousands, millions of people. Millions of volunteers, apparently, in his organization. Millions of volunteers. That is crazy.
Spreading the light, spreading the Dharma, spreading love. This all makes it easier for the random teenager who hops on Instagram and sees all the nonsense, and is so far from spirituality because they are being brought into a world that is not necessarily promoting that. A whole value system is being transmitted that is not necessarily spiritual.
This is the value of what Sadhguru is doing. He is putting tons of content on Instagram and YouTube and has billions of views. That makes a big difference.
Then we have Ariella. She just knows. She knows the spirit matters. She feels that. She lives with gentleness. What was that?
Ariella What you are talking about just really resonates with me.
Adam Wes Yeah, you just know.
You may find yourself at a spiritual party, and some of it may not feel so spiritual. But then you may find the one or two people there who are very sincere. Sometimes a spiritual party is the best party to go to if you like spirituality. Nonetheless, sometimes you might find a wonderful spiritual one with lots of sincere people.
In spirituality, there is something inside of us that wants to return home to the center of the universe, which is everywhere. It is inside of us. Everything is inside of us.
We want to go home to the eternal reverberation of freedom.
What made Jesus so sincere? What made Buddha so sincere? What made Osho, Krishnamurti, Paramahansa Yogananda, Anandamayi Ma, and Sun Tzu so sincere? Even Bruce Lee. I would say he belongs in that group.
Then there are some people like Shakespeare. When he says things like, "To thine own self be true," that beautiful phrase, he is speaking from the same sincerity, as far as I can tell. There are some artists and writers and musicians who did it too.
I guess the homework for this week, or the suggestion for this week, is to ask yourself, if you want to: "How can I be the most spiritual person? What does that even mean? How can I consecrate myself to something greater than my ambitions, my pleasures, and my securities, and go beyond? Something higher, something better, something deeper, more valuable."
It is the heart and spirit.
Any questions or comments before we start the meditation?
Mathematics can be an act of devotion. Art can be an act of devotion, in the sense that we are giving away our pride.
Somebody has to share. Just one. How about you, Mom? Sorry. You know you do not like me always calling on you.
Colleen I just know when I am around spiritual people because they make you feel... They just have a warmth and a kindness, and they are true to whatever. You just feel it. I can recognize a few people, and one of those is Ariella.
Adam Wes And yourself.
When we are around spiritual people, they love us for who we are. You can feel that. You can feel that unity. When we focus on them, we can feel empathically that we are doing something different, something pure, beautiful.
Meditation and the Heart
All right, let us meditate on the heart. Let us meditate on spirit, perhaps.
There are a whole bunch of ways to meditate. I have Rafael and Dori here, and I want to share this. There are a number of ways to meditate, but ultimately there is only one result.
In meditation, there is a state of samadhi. Perhaps you already know this, but there is a state of dissolution, a state of freedom. A lot of times in society, there are all the techniques. But meditation begins when meditation ends. Meditation begins when we stop being the meditator and become what we are.
There are a number of ways that are more than meditation. There is a level of cultivation of the astral body, of the mind, and of the physical body that happens.
For example, if we meditate on our heart, we get to generate love. We actually move toward the deepest state of meditation, but we also gain in form more love.
When we do light, we gain what light offers. When we do a dissolution, that is very direct, actually.
These techniques can be very fast. You can sit down, and within ten seconds you are gone. You are gone. There is no technique anymore. You are just there.
Or if you are in Sahaja Samadhi, which is the perpetual state of enlightenment, you never stop. You are always there. You can sit and meditate, but you are never out of that state of awakening.
David P I was just checking the definition of spirit. It says it comes from the Latin spiritus, which means breath.
Adam Wes Right.
David P It is interesting because it is, in a way, connected to pranayama, perhaps, and to prana and chi. I think that we have kind of lost the idea of what the spirit is, at least in the Western world.
Adam Wes I think in the East as well. What do you think, Praveen? Does everybody connect with this all around you just because they are in India?
Praveen S Not really, Adam. It is difficult, yeah.
Adam Wes There are more saints and sages in India, but they are still few and far between. It is like a higher concentration gas. It is still mostly empty space, but there are more particles. India is just more dense.
David, I am sorry. Did I interrupt you?
David P No. It is very funny that you are talking about spirituality when this morning I was saying to myself, "What is spirit? I have to look at the dictionary."
Adam Wes Oh, you actually looked it up this morning?
David P Yeah.
Adam Wes Wow! I thought you did it right now. That is amazing!
David P No, it was this morning. I have been into meditation and talking about spirituality, but the word spirit, I did not know where it came from.
Adam Wes I might have actually picked up the sermon from you, then, because it was very spontaneous. I was actually trying to meditate to see what the focus should be today because there are a million things you could focus on.
Hey, I see a cat tail! Watch out! That is funny. Maybe that is just its head. No, that is the tail. Hello. Aw.
David, I feel that definition is somewhat metaphorical. Breath is what sustains us. Spirit is what sustains us. That is my interpretation of the etymology.
Breath is that most subtle aspect of life force, life in physical manifestation. It points to a subtlety, something that sustains us that is etheric.
But perhaps there are other influences, like pranayama, as you said. That is interesting. Maybe it means the ambient energy.
All right, today let us meditate on a super heart day. Super heart day. Let us do it. We will do a lot of heart energy.
Right here, in the center of the chest. Your physical heart is not in the center of your chest, but in the center of the chest there is an energetic vortex. Usually, if you were to say, "I am so-and-so," and point to your chest, you are pointing right to that spot.
When you focus on it, you awaken it. Sometimes we do not focus on our heart chakra. This is the heart chakra, called Anahata in Sanskrit. It is the middle dantian in Chinese. In Judaism, it is one of the Sephiroth. Sephirah. I need to look that up. I do not know as much about that terminology, but it is there, as far as I recall.
When we feel the spot and center there, we can also expand from there. There is the center of this vortex, but then there is the field of it, the expansion of it. Meditating on the heart can include feeling the heart expand, which is a very important aspect of the energetics.
It can include just trying to wake it up because there is a chi there, and you might not be able to feel it. You can even tap the spot. You can focus there. Even if you put your finger there and hold it there, it wakes something up.
Feel your heart. Can you feel your heart? Can you listen to your heart? These are all capacities.
If you were to spend the next month completely focused on your heart, if you did not prioritize anything else and said, "No matter what I am doing, I am trying to fuel my heart and remember my heart," it undergoes quite a huge transformation. You can take it to the extreme, or just do it over a number of years.
Another thing you can do energetically is generate heat. There is a kind of chi that you can intend that feels like warmth in the heart. You feel a warm heart generating in you, and it is a really lovely feeling.
It changes your demeanor because you are like, "Oh, I am good. My heart is all warm and full and fuzzy and nice." How are you going to treat people when you feel like that? Beautifully, of course.
Let us meditate on the heart. We have 25 minutes or so to do so. I will be the DJ. I am going to start with the song we were listening to when you guys came in.
One of the ways to feel the heart chakra is to be, do, have. Step into the being. Let the music inspire you. Just become loving.
Energetically, we are feeling the heart, but we are also giving away all those impediments. It is an element of giving up resistance, surrender, compassion, forgiveness.
You can use the light. Make sure every meditation is a light meditation, if you can connect with it. Light and love and heart altogether.
It is an eternal part of us. Come home to the center of the universe. It can help us connect with love.
Let your heart shine. Let it radiate.
Take a moment to feel your heart, to notice the eternality of the moment, the expanse of samsara, creation, the innocence of the viewer, spirit, deepest self.
Notice the light, the inner light.
Namaste.
Mystical Experience and Interpretation
Mom, would you like to share your mystical experiences?
Colleen Yes. Thank you, Adam. That was very nice. The red light always comes to me immediately when I close my eyes. Today I had orange with green spots in front of it as well, which is very strange.
I was also having some strange visions. Somebody was trying on wedding veils. Somebody was buying something. I cannot remember them, just quick little dreams.
Adam Wes First of all, it is beautiful that you are experiencing the light. Make sure to use the light. Let the light renew you. It is a divine shower of light. It renews the spirit, and it washes us.
The fact that you connect with the red light so easily and consistently means that...
Colleen You are sort of feeling inner peace. When you see it, you relax right away.
Adam Wes Beautiful.
Colleen Thank you, Adam.
Adam Wes You are welcome. Namaste.
Explore those images you have. They may have significance in the symbology. You can look at yourself and say, "Okay, why did I see that? What energy was I interpreting that is present?"
Namaste, Mom. Thank you.
How about you, Dori? Do you want to share? You do not have to. You can always pass if you want to, but I would love to hear from Dori.
Dori It was a little hard to focus at first because I have my windows open, and a neighbor happened to be outside on the phone.
While I was connected to the heart and connected to everyone else, I imagined the distractions leaving. A huge gust of wind came by, and I guess it was enough to make them go inside because then they went away. I no longer heard their conversation, and I was able to focus a little more.
That was the most profound thing, the weather effects. Overall, the light for me is usually purple. I was thinking a lot about personal friends with issues and solutions for them. That is what came to me today.
Adam Wes Nice. You experienced the purple light?
Dori Yes. In meditations, I normally do.
Adam Wes I love that. Congratulations. I love that.
Dori Thanks. It is more like a mist or a fog.
Adam Wes Yep. Perfect. That is what it is. Purple light is a great experience.
Part of the reason this is called the Love Light Sangha is because we love light. We also love love. The whole idea of Raja Yoga, or Bhakti mysticism, which would be a heart-centered version, is to use the light to awaken to enlightenment. The light really does that for us.
Wonderful. How about you, Ariella? Thank you, Dori, for being here. Then we will stop because it is seven after.
Ariella It was just an amazing meditation. I did not see a color. I just saw light. Then I call it spacing out. I do not know if it is falling asleep. I am just not aware of anything.
Adam Wes Explore how deep that is, actually. Did you go away? If you are not aware, it sounds like you are having a Kensho experience every time.
Kensho, in Japanese, means a glimpse of eternity. You would not be aware of anything. But when you come out of it, you try on your personality again. It is kind of like you are naked and then put the personality back on.
By the way, when you say you did not see colors, but you saw light, that is interesting. If you saw light, what did you see? Could you describe it? It does not have to be a color. Light is always some color of some kind.
Ariella It is sort of a whitish color.
Adam Wes Okay. What qualities are there in the white?
Ariella This gradient.
Adam Wes Okay. Does it have an iridescent quality? What does it feel like? Does it feel milky white, or does it feel opalescent, pearl-like white light? There are different kinds of white light.
Ariella I will have to think about that.
Adam Wes Yay! Sometimes the white light might have a gold quality in it.
Ariella Yeah.
Adam Wes Sometimes the white light has a black quality in it, which is not really black. It is more like clear, which is a very deep quality. It is the deepest quality.
Ariella Oh, wow.
Adam Wes Eventually, everything becomes black, actually, and that is the deepest light. It is not black. It is so bright that it makes everything become clear. It is like the gold light becomes so bright that it does that.
But all the light is good. Any light is good. Namaste, Ariella. Thank you. Good job. Beautiful.
Persistence and Transformation
I wanted to say to everybody, and I am thinking of you, Praveen, especially right now: Be patient. Just continue your practice. This is how transformation happens.
Keep reading. Keep meditating. Keep living in kindness. Keep prioritizing freedom. Keep prioritizing humility. Keep studying these things.
Keep coming to Sangha, this Sangha or another Sangha. Keep attuning to enlightened sentiments, individuals, and writings. Keep doing Tai Chi, Kundalini Yoga, energy work, and living healthily.
Just keep going. Over time, you undergo a transformation. You will have a complete overhaul of your karma eventually, if you persist.
It may take one Jupiter cycle, which is 12 years. That is actually quite common. Jupiter is part of the cycle for these transformations. It might take a lifetime, but it does not matter.
You will be taking steps toward the beloved freedom, sacredness at the top of the mountain. Every time we take a step toward our beloved, we are happy because we are stepping in the right direction.
Just keep doing the practice. The transformation happens through routine.
It is like, how do you clear a computer? You have to go through it line by line. Even if the computer is fast, it still has to update those files, and it takes time.
The issue with karma is inertia. It is momentum. There can be instantaneous enlightenments too, but those usually are not up to us. They can happen as part of your practice, instantaneously, like a mango dropping from a tree. It ripens for many years, and then it drops when it is ready.
Namaste, everybody. Thank you for being here. I hope this was transformative, healing, and special for you. We are only five minutes over, so I think that is fine.
Good to see you. Namaste. Do your practice. Meditate every day. Okay, bye, everybody.