Essay Edition
Presence and Mindfulness
In mindfulness, we want to bring our attention to the moment. That means we are not planning. We are not thinking about what we can gain from the moment. We are liberated from the past. We are not tethered to the past, and we bring our attention to what we are doing.
There is an element of sweetness and gratitude in that, almost a romantic quality, in having dinner together and being totally immersed in the moment. There is nothing but now. There is nothing but the flavor. There is nothing but the eye contact. There is nothing but the candles and the music. Everything can be like that.
This is an abnegation of habitual thinking. In Zen, mindfulness is part of the practice. We give our full attention to what we are doing, and we do one thing at a time. In Japan, they have a tea ceremony where they spend hours drinking tea in a very inefficient way. But it is so efficient inwardly because it is cultivating spaciousness in the mind, romance in the space, and the magic of existence.
We want to fall in love with existence. When we fall in love with existence, we are apprehending the beauty of the moment. Everything we do, we do through the lens, the pinhole focus, of our own mind and our own capacity to feel beauty and presence: eye contact, tasting food, being in the moment in all the myriad ways that one can be.
One thing you can do is focus on the five senses. Pay attention to colors. Pay attention to sensations of various kinds: touch, texture, tastes, mathematical structures. Notice everything. There is an observing quality that is required to be here now.
I think the most important part, though, is the inspiration to be here now. One has to long for the beauty of the moment, the beauty of connecting in the moment.
All of this is very much related to meditation. In meditation, we are so good at being in the moment that everything falls away and we enter a timeless state. It is a state that is not only timeless, but impersonal. There is nobody to imagine is experiencing it. You become that thing that is incontrovertible and unassailable, that essence of yourself that cannot go away even if you do not think of yourself.
If we are to cultivate energy and light between meditations, we need to have a strong attention field. To maintain the light and maintain the heart chakra while we are eating dinner, driving, making music, dancing, doing mathematics, or whatever it might be, we need to be extremely mindful.
Cultivating Presence in Daily Life
What happens when we just do not feel present? That is a very real experience. Even if you have done the practice, you can fall back into a little bit of a lack of presence. If you are getting in your head about how you are not being here now, you are really not being here now.
Love is very powerful. If we bring gentleness and love into our being, it is almost as if presence will come to us instead of us trying to create it.
It is a practice. It is something I would recommend really practicing, because when we are dividing our attention, we are interfering with our karma. The inner state that is conducive to meditation is not possible when we are constantly dividing our attention. You can always start from where you are and say, I am going to be present with what I am doing.
I think a big part of the difference between mindfulness and being here now is that a lot of times, it is with others. We share a moment together and give each other eye contact. It is the deepest level of respect to listen to another person without judging or interpreting them, but just to listen with full acceptance of what they are in the moment.
Listen to the moment without trying to use it for some sort of future moment. When we are constantly bombarded with becoming, with needing to be something or needing to achieve something, it is difficult to be loving and respectful of the moment itself.
There is a lot of love in trusting that the future will take care of itself, enjoying the moment now, and curating it into a beautiful experience. It could be taking a shower, making dinner, going for a walk, or setting up your meditation corner. Whatever it might be, really be with that.
Look at the two words. It is a space-time definition. Here is the spatial factor, and now is the temporal, the time factor. We are not creating images or ideas that are not present directly in the moment. This is a way to connect with the suchness of the universe and deny those thoughts that are constantly occluding the divinity and beauty in the moment.
What does it mean to live a consecrated life dedicated to the divine, to Christ consciousness, to light? Being here now is essential to that. If you are constantly dividing your attention and being erratic, you are not creating the conditions for greater consciousness.
It is hard to meditate if you do not live a certain way. This is one of the elements that helps us maintain access to light. You need to do light meditation. By itself, mindfulness is a beautiful thing too, but when you bring them together, it is very powerful. Meditation and mindfulness, as being here and now, are an important pair. They go together.
A great way to practice this is while you are eating. Pick up the food, look at the food, taste the food, notice how your body changes when you experience the food, and notice its flavors and textures. While you are chewing, put the spoon or fork down so that your hands are free. Otherwise, you are doing two things at once, and you do not want to do two things at once. Those things interfere with our ability to experience.
Otherwise, you end up having dinner in your stomach, and you do not even know what happened. You missed the whole thing. You missed the show. That is very much what happens in life. Life just goes by, and we miss it if we do not finally make the moment sacred to us and give it our full attention.
This is also a way to cultivate attention in any sort of intellectual endeavor. If we are doing mathematics and our mind is divided, it is hard to see all the moving pieces and what is going on mathematically. Imagine somebody who is really in command of themselves and super present. That person obviously has more potential to be an outstanding mathematician, or to excel in any intellectual endeavor.
Preparation for Light Meditation
How do we go into light? There are a few ways. I recommend gazing, but you do not have to gaze. You can easily do it with your eyes closed.
Gazing holds the mind very steady. It is a visual method of keeping the mind steady. We look broadly, using peripheral vision. We rest our eyes in some central location, but we are not looking at or concentrating on that location. We are just being aware of everything.
Reach out with your energy and feel the whole space. Really soften the energy. Be very gentle. Let physicality melt. Do not lock onto it so much, especially your body and your nervous system. The spine can become very fluid and almost holographic.
Think of it as meditating in a very etheric way: ether, space, emptiness. When we do that, everything can emerge into light, or the light emerges itself.
Light is this luminosity. It is not imagining light. It is a phenomenal experience, as real as if smoke or mist were moving through the room. It is a very real thing. You may or may not experience the light. If you do, it washes through. It can actually feel physical. You can feel it in your nervous system and in your aura. Maybe you will start to feel your aura as a mode of sensing space.
Part of a mystical teaching process is to feel the embodiment that the teacher is cultivating, focus there, and empathically attune to learn that subtlety. Then you can go on, try to bring it back, maintain it, and make it part of your own consciousness repertoire.
Guided Meditation and Attunement
Bring attention to the heart. Pull the energy very broad. We are waiting for the light. There is not much to do other than be very receptive.
Let everything get a little bit misty. Soften. As we meditate longer and longer, we are shedding layers of density until we are in more etheric states.
Notice any visual perturbations, brightness, or mistiness. This is the light I am talking about, and it changes its quality. As we go deeper, it might turn from misty white to colorful, gold, black, and all those other qualities.
If you have a nice awareness of your chakras, you can focus on your third eye. The heart and third eye are a great combination. They help us navigate the planes of light. Always generate love from the heart center while doing this.
The body is just part of our mind. The attention field is expansive.
A few phrases might help: focus into the light. Use the light. Use the light to clear your space, your chakras, your brain, and your nervous system. Surrender to the light. Let it carry you away.
There is a strong interplay between the way the chakras are activating and the way we navigate. Really softly. So gentle. Let it all go. Bring attention into the chest. Try to listen with your empathy.
We are not looking as much as we are looking broadly. There is an awareness in the periphery, and it is blurring the vision. Reach out with your attention and allow any density to become fluid-like. We are becoming etheric. Keep your attention on the heart center, especially.
Let go. Let the light carry you. Let your heart break open and shine. Release all its tensions. Soften.
From this space of luminosity, just look and see that there is a now. You are that now. You were always in the now, and there is an eternal witness. You are also the here.
The light gives us the freedom to see correctly, here and now.
Moving Through Fear
The light can bring up a lot of fear. It is such self-honesty, and it can be very intimidating initially. There is nothing about it intrinsically that is like that. It is just pure love and pure vitality. But there is that obstacle of moving through those initial things.
I would encourage you to confront that. Move through it. It is like washing a greasy plate. Initially, the grease is meeting the detergent, but eventually it goes away and you have a nice, shiny plate.
It is okay if thoughts are occurring. Those thoughts will slow down naturally. Just focus into the light. Keep focusing back into the luminosity.
If you do not see light, that is okay. Not everybody sees it the first time. Once you develop it as something you can access, it is a very powerful thing to do because it will make you feel peaceful, once you move through all the fears.
Really interesting things happen when you go into the light. You will see astral things. Astral is the subtle physical energy plane.
Shared Practice and Spiritual Community
There is an impersonal Brahman. That is Brahman, the Supersoul. When we go there, it is this golden black-gold, or white-gold, love. Every religion has a different pointer to that ontological reality.
It is like physics. We do not do one physics in Japan and another physics in America. Physics is physics. These states are part of the cosmology of subjectivity, of the sub-self, and we can go through them.
It would be great if people partnered up and did one or two meditations a week together. That is really part of sangha. Sangha is not just coming together, sharing, and meditating with a teacher. It is also about connecting with one another.
Full Transcript
Presence and Mindfulness
Adam Wes Let's begin with a short meditation while we wait for people. Can you guys hear the music?
Initially, we're just clearing the space so that we can feel the moment without that baggage.
Welcome, everybody. Namaste.
For people who haven't been here before, I give a sermon on a topic related to enlightenment and meditation. Then we have a mystical meditation together, where we get high on light. We clear our space, renew our spirit, and immerse ourselves in the light of the soul.
I'm really excited about today's talk. The topic is very dear to me. I'm actually surprised I don't have a sermon on this up on the website. There are 49 on the website now, so I was going through them, trying to see if I did.
There are two different ways to name this sermon. They're kind of separate, but you'll see. Today, we'll be talking about "Be Here Now."
"Be Here Now" is a phrase well known because of the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, whom some of you may know. What's very synchronistic is that I was thinking about doing a sermon on this, and then somebody messaged me and told me that he had just finished Ram Dass's book called Be Here Now. That person is not here, but I thought, "Okay, better do it."
The other name for this is mindfulness, which is a little bit of a different topic. Intrinsic to being here now is mindfulness. There's an element of mindfulness that's needed. I'd like to tie all of this back to light and mysticism, because every single one of these talks is really about love, light, and enlightenment. We wouldn't be talking about it if that weren't the case.
You're funny, Loren. You have to excuse me. I'm feeling really high today. It might be because of the new moon or something. It might be hard for me to put the sermon together as well as I usually do, but I'll do my best.
So, be here now. In mindfulness, we want to bring our attention to the moment. That means we are not planning. We aren't thinking about what we can gain from the moment. We're liberated from the past. We're not tethered to the past, and we bring our attention to what we're doing.
There's an element of sweetness and gratitude in that, almost a romantic quality, in having dinner together and being totally immersed in the moment. There's nothing but now. There's nothing but the flavor. There's nothing but the eye contact. There's nothing but the candles and the music. Everything can be like that.
This is an abnegation of habitual thinking. I wore my extra Zen thing today. This is my extra Zen robe here. In Zen, mindfulness is part of the practice. We give our full attention to what we're doing, and we do one thing at a time.
In Japan, they have a tea ceremony where they spend hours drinking tea in a very inefficient way. But it's so efficient inwardly because it's cultivating spaciousness in the mind, romance in the space, and the magic of existence.
We want to fall in love with existence. When we fall in love with existence, we're apprehending the beauty of the moment. Everything we do, we do through the lens, the pinhole focus, of our own mind and our own capacity to feel beauty and presence. Eye contact, tasting food, being in the moment in all the myriad ways that one can be.
One thing you can do is focus on the five senses. Pay attention to colors. Pay attention to sensations of various kinds: touch, texture, tastes, mathematical structures. Notice everything. There's an observing quality that's required to be here now.
I think the most important part, though, is the inspiration to be here now. One has to long for the beauty of the moment, the beauty of connecting in the moment.
All of this is very much related to meditation, of course. In meditation, we're so good at being in the moment that everything falls away and we enter a timeless state. It's a state that is not only timeless, but impersonal. There's nobody to imagine is experiencing it. You become that thing that is incontrovertible and unassailable, that essence of yourself that cannot go away even if you don't think of yourself.
Also, if we are to cultivate energy and light between meditations, we need to have a strong attention field. To maintain the light and maintain the heart chakra while we're eating dinner, driving, making music, dancing, doing mathematics, or whatever it might be, we need to be extremely mindful.
I'd love to open a short discussion. Does anybody have any comments on being here now?
Cultivating Presence in Daily Life
Kira Hi. As you were speaking, I was doing my best to live more of what you're saying, so it was very experiential. While you were talking, I was also attuning to the flow of breath moving through my nose and into my body. I think the breath can also be a portal for presence.
Adam Wes Yes.
Loren I was just going to say that when you can't be here right now, forgive any interference from emotions or thoughts popping up, and don't try so hard.
Adam Wes Yes. That's definitely one of the things I should talk about. How do we be here now, and what happens when we just don't feel present? That's a very real experience. Even if you've done the practice, you can fall back into a little bit of a lack of presence.
First of all, as Loren is saying, if you're getting in your head about how you're not being here now, you're really not being here now. How do we prevent ourselves from doing that? Love is very powerful. If we bring gentleness and love into our being, it's almost as if presence will come to us instead of us trying to create it.
It's a practice. It's something I would recommend really practicing, because when we're dividing our attention, we're interfering with our karma. The inner state that is conducive to meditation is not possible when we are constantly dividing our attention. You can always start from where you are and say, "Okay, I'm going to be present with what I'm doing."
I think a big part of the difference between mindfulness and "Be Here Now" is that a lot of times, it's with others. We share a moment together and give each other eye contact. It's the deepest level of respect to listen to another person without judging or interpreting them, but just to listen with full acceptance of what they are in the moment.
Listen to the moment without trying to use it for some sort of future moment. When we're constantly bombarded with becoming, "I need to be something. I need to achieve something," like what we were talking about earlier today, Kira, it's difficult to be loving and respectful of the moment itself.
There's a lot of love in saying, "Okay, I trust that the future will take care of itself, and I'm going to enjoy the moment now and curate it into a beautiful experience." Whatever that might be, it could be taking a shower, making dinner, going for a walk, or setting up your meditation corner. Whatever it might be, really be with that.
Let's look at the two words. It's a space-time definition, right? "Here" is the spatial factor, and "now" is the temporal, the time factor. We're not creating images or ideas that are not present directly in the moment. This is a way to connect with the suchness of the universe and deny those thoughts that are constantly occluding the divinity and beauty in the moment.
Like I said, I'm feeling really high right now, so I'm not bringing this through as ideally as I usually would like. Does anybody want to say anything? We'll have a longer meditation today too. What do you think, Scott? Also, this is good for math practice.
Scott J I think it's interesting. Being here now and presentness definitely run through the Enlightenment studies I've done, from both the Eastern and Western paths. I was in a group yesterday where we talked about this.
With Christ consciousness, the idea you're supposed to grasp from it is absolute presence in the moment, or staying with that form of light that is the highest form of light. In one interpretation, they said it through the lens of Christ consciousness. That's what I feel and can see in the parallels between it all.
Adam Wes Christ consciousness and the light are quite synonymous in my definition of them.
Scott J I think so too.
Adam Wes What does it mean to live a consecrated life dedicated to the divine, to Christ consciousness, to light? "Be Here Now" is essential to that. If you're constantly dividing your attention and being erratic, you're not creating the conditions for greater consciousness.
It's hard to meditate if you don't live a certain way. This is one of the elements that helps us maintain access to light. You need to do light meditation. By itself, mindfulness is a beautiful thing too, but when you bring them together, it's very powerful.
Meditation and mindfulness, as being here and now, are an important pair. They go together. Hi, Ariella.
AriellaShira L Hi. One of the times I find myself being very mindful is when I'm eating. I pray and bless the food. For dessert, I like to have two blueberries, one raspberry, one blackberry, and half a strawberry. I really am in the taste of all those things. I think that's a very mindful time for me.
Adam Wes Beautiful. It shows. I think that is part of your practice. That's your tea ceremony. In Japan they have the tea ceremony, and this is your berry ceremony.
Thank you for that, Ariella. A great way to practice this, and perhaps one of my main ways over the years, is while you're eating.
A few things I would do are pick up the food, look at the food, taste the food, notice how my body changes when I experience the food, and notice its flavors and textures. While I'm chewing, a lot of times I would even put the spoon or fork down so that my hands were free. Otherwise, I'm doing two things at once, and I don't want to do two things at once. Certainly don't talk with your mouth full. Those things interfere with our ability to experience.
Otherwise, you end up having dinner in your stomach, and you don't even know what happened. You missed the whole thing. You missed the show, right? That's very much what happens in life. Life just goes by, and we miss it if we don't finally make the moment sacred to us and give it our full attention.
For any of you who like mathematics, this is also very much a way to cultivate attention in any sort of intellectual endeavor. If we're doing mathematics and our mind is divided, it's hard to say, "Okay, I can see all the moving pieces here and what's going on mathematically."
This is very relevant for anybody in the course who is working on getting better at mathematics. Just imagine somebody who's really in command of themselves and super present. That person obviously has more potential to be an outstanding mathematician, or to excel in any intellectual endeavor.
Let's meditate. Are there any questions or comments before we shift to the meditation?
It should be nice to meditate with this sentiment, just feeling the magic of July and the presence of each other. We'll go into light, but that energy of "Be Here Now" will be here even more.
Preparation for Light Meditation
How do we go into light? There are a few ways. I recommend gazing, but you don't have to gaze. In fact, you can easily do it with your eyes closed. Mom, if you'd like to do that, that's fine. Ariella, I know you like to do that.
If anybody wants to gaze, what it does is hold the mind very steady. It's a visual method of keeping the mind steady. We look broadly, using peripheral vision. We rest our eyes in some central location, but we're not looking at or concentrating on that location. We're just being aware of everything.
In fact, it's good to reach out with your energy and feel the whole space. Really soften the energy. Be very gentle. Let physicality melt. Don't lock onto it so much, especially your body and your nervous system. The spine can become very fluid and almost holographic.
Think of it as meditating in a very etheric way: ether, space, emptiness. When we do that, everything can emerge into light, or the light emerges itself.
Light is this luminosity. It's not imagining light. It's a phenomenal experience, as real as if smoke or mist were moving through the room. It's a very real thing. You may or may not experience the light. If you do, it's a very real experience that washes through. It can actually feel physical. You can feel it in your nervous system and in your aura. Maybe you'll start to feel your aura as a mode of sensing space.
We'll gaze and attune to the energy. I'll be in the light, and many of the people in the class will be in the light. If you focus on me, there's an attunement that occurs. Part of a mystical teaching process is to feel the embodiment that the teacher is cultivating, focus there, and empathically attune to learn that subtlety.
Then you can go on, try to bring it back, maintain it, and make it part of your own consciousness repertoire.
Let's get started. Any questions about the light?
I'm so excited that Loren is here. Loren, we're going to blast off. Loren and Kira, you guys should meet each other. I feel like you would have fun talks.
Let me get some music. I like to meditate with music. It gives us a sort of audio yantra. It holds a frequency. I've chosen songs specifically because I feel they're helpful for having a meditative experience. This is a super heart-centered one to start.
All right, we have 30 minutes. Let's do it.
You know what I actually want to do? I want to meditate individually with people. You can pass if you want, but essentially, I'll pin you and we'll gaze together. Everybody else can meditate with us.
Imagine we're in a room and I face one person, then face another person, but we'd still be meditating together. This will be a wave too. That's what I usually do in person anyway, so maybe that's why I'd like to do it. Loren, I'll pin you.
Guided Meditation and Attunement
Also bring attention to the heart while we do this. Pull the energy very broad.
We're waiting for the light. There's not much to do other than be very receptive.
Let everything get a little bit misty. Soften.
As we meditate longer and longer, we're shedding layers of density until we're in more etheric states.
Notice any visual perturbations, brightness, or mistiness. This is the light I'm talking about, and it changes its quality. As we go deeper, it might turn from misty white to colorful, gold, black, and all those other qualities.
Thanks, Loren. Keep going with that. Sweet. Thank you.
Andrea, would you like to? I'll try that.
If you have a nice awareness of your chakras, you can focus on your third eye. The heart and third eye are a great combination. They help us navigate the planes of light. Always generate love from the heart center while we're doing this. Let's try to get them all going.
The body is just part of our mind. The attention field is expansive.
A few phrases might help: focus into the light. Use the light. Use the light to clear your space, your chakras, your brain, and your nervous system. Surrender to the light. Let it carry you away.
There's a strong interplay between the way the chakras are activating and the way we navigate.
Really softly. So gentle. Let it all go. Really bring attention right here, into the chest. Focus on me. I'm going to show you where this is. We have to get you connected with this. You'll love it. Try to listen with your empathy.
It seems to be working, though. I'm going to go to Ariella. All right, let's do it.
Nice. There's something very serious about it, in a very chill way. Sincere.
Wonderful. Scott, let's meditate, man. Let's get some Christ consciousness going here.
We're not looking at each other as much as we're looking broadly. There's an awareness of each other in the periphery, and it's kind of blurring the vision.
Reach out with your attention and allow any density to become fluid-like. We're becoming etheric. Keep your attention on the heart center, especially. Keep going.
You may start to see me morph in a different way. Let go. Let the light carry you. Lots of soma.
Let's keep the gazing going for about five more minutes. Let's really end big on the heart. Let your heart break open and shine. Release all its tensions. Soften.
From this space of luminosity, try to just look and see that there is a now. You are that now. You were always in the now, and there's an eternal witness. You're also the here.
The light gives us the freedom to see correctly, here and now.
Namaste. When you're ready, you can come out of the meditation.
Gosh, I've got these molten waves of gold light. It's pretty epic. Less articulate, but more light today.
Meditation Experiences and Reflections
Hi, Mom. Do you want to share your experience?
Colleen I noticed something today. If I really concentrate, then I see the light. But if I don't, I go into this twilight zone and have these images, dreams, or whatever you want to call them. Then I come out of it, realize what's happening, and pay attention to the light. Then it's there again.
Adam Wes It's like you're in the light, but you're not directing it. Those dreams you have, I think they're somewhat psychedelic. You see strange things, like a stadium of people wearing red and blue shirts. I remember that one.
Colleen I don't remember what just happened, but it wasn't like normal dreams.
Adam Wes Okay. How was your meditation with me? I felt we went really deep into the light there.
Colleen Yeah, that was good.
Adam Wes What colors did you see?
Colleen Today, just purple and red.
Adam Wes Nice.
Colleen Thank you.
Adam Wes Namaste, Mom. Thank you. How about you, Loren?
Loren I was releasing a lot of fear. The more I gave into that, the more I could see. I also noticed more light when we were doing it together.
I did take the liberty of going around and using everybody else's screen. I was looking at you as well, all of you. That was really fun.
Adam Wes That's funny. It's interesting. The light can bring up a lot of fear. It is such self-honesty, and it can be very intimidating to people initially. There's nothing about it intrinsically that's like that. It's just pure love and pure vitality. But there's that obstacle of moving through those initial things.
Sometimes I've noticed, perhaps even today, that some people feel really intimidated by it. I would encourage them to confront that, like you were doing. Move through it. It's like washing a greasy plate. Initially, the grease is meeting the detergent, but eventually it goes away and you have a nice, shiny plate.
Hi, Praveen. It started an hour ago, but welcome.
Praveen K My apologies. Namaste.
Adam Wes Namaste. I'm glad you still showed up for the very end here. That's cool.
Loren, it was wonderful meditating with you. I'd love to do more of that.
Loren Okay.
Adam Wes Namaste. Thank you.
Okay, Scott. It's interesting, with Scott I felt a lot of navel center. The navel center is one inch below the belly button. It's one of the three primary chakras you can use. It's like a tripod that stabilizes you when you're navigating the planes of light.
Scott J That makes sense. A lot of my meditations are based on Taoist practices, so it's all centered around that.
Adam Wes I felt you doing that toward the end. It was great, actually. I was like, "Oh, this is cool. I like that." I usually do a lot with the primary heart center, but it's good to have all of them going. Kira, I told you to do the crown. I felt like the crown was a really good addition, doing all four.
Did you see any light this time?
Scott J Yeah. I'm a pretty active daydreamer, so I definitely get a lot of visuals and experiences. They kind of related to thoughts I'd had throughout the day. I had a lot of monkey mind there.
When I could really connect to my breathing and the more empathic energy, it became more like direct light, or a more concentrated experience. But for the most part, I jumped here, there, and everywhere.
Adam Wes It's okay if thoughts are occurring. Those thoughts will slow down naturally. Just focus into the light. Keep focusing back into the luminosity.
If anybody didn't see light today, that's okay. Not everybody sees it the first time. Once you develop it as something you can access, it's a very powerful thing to do because it will make you feel peaceful, once you move through all the fears.
Namaste, Scott. Thank you.
Praveen, would you like to share? I'm glad you made it. I guess you didn't get to meditate with us. Do you want to say anything?
Praveen K I just hopped on because I figured you guys were reviewing how everyone felt. I wanted to see how everyone was experiencing the time and just check it out. Unfortunately, I got caught up in something else, so I couldn't actually join. As I was mentioning, I was probably going to be late anyway. Then I realized there were five minutes left, and I figured I could join in.
Adam Wes Where are you joining from?
Praveen K North Carolina.
Adam Wes North Carolina, okay. Welcome. We do this every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., so maybe you can plan for it next time.
Praveen K Yes, I shall.
Adam Wes Thank you for being here. Namaste. Ariella, do you want to share?
AriellaShira L There we go. In the beginning, when I was doing the gazing, there wasn't any light. But when I closed my eyes, I was in the light.
When I did it with you, first I saw light radiating out from you. Then there definitely was more light, so that made a big difference for me.
Adam Wes That was a powerful meditation with you. I enjoyed that. We need to do that in person sometime.
AriellaShira L You bet.
Adam Wes Namaste. What color was the light you saw?
AriellaShira L White and a bit yellow.
Adam Wes Was it yellow or gold?
AriellaShira L Gold, yeah.
Adam Wes White gold. I think that's more like what you were doing. Beautiful. It's a good quality. Namaste, Ariella. Thank you.
Jenna, would you like to share?
Jenna W Thank you. Sorry, it took me a second to unmute. Just gratitude for the reminder of presence, love, and connection, as always. Thank you.
Adam Wes You're welcome. Namaste.
Jenna W Namaste.
Adam Wes Andy, a quick share, and then we'll be off in a moment.
Andy I don't get to see the light so strongly. I see it more, but this really calls me and I go deep inside. It's hard for me to gaze. I get a little distracted, so I go from gazing to closing my eyes.
But I'm getting the hang of gazing. Last time, I really saw a bright light coming from you. It was really weird.
Adam Wes It is weird, right?
Andy Yeah. It was like, "No, this is not happening. This is way too weird." I was thinking, and then it went away. When I stopped thinking, it came again. It's weird. I'm getting there, but not yet.
Adam Wes It's a good sign if you're seeing things that are weird. I remember my mom, Colleen, and I were meditating a while back. She said, "Oh, no. Stop, stop, stop," because I was turning into different people.
Andy Okay.
Adam Wes Really interesting things happen when you go into the light. You'll see astral things. Astral is the subtle physical energy plane.
Andy Yes.
Adam Wes Namaste, Andy. Thank you.
Shared Practice and Spiritual Community
Kira, a quick share.
Kira Throughout the meditation, I noticed that when the light increases to a certain point, it's like it permeates my hands. I can see a blurry, glowing form of my hands, but they don't feel solid anymore.
I really appreciate those nudges to let the light permeate through the body as well, because then you have a deeper experience of it.
Loren, it's so funny that you said that, because I was looking at you and thinking, "I want to meditate with you." Then I thought, "I'm not going to say anything," because I didn't want to interrupt the flow of everybody. But I started meditating with you, and I guess you were meditating with everyone, so that was awesome.
It inspired me to think that as we all develop our abilities to enter into these states, we can do these one-on-ones with you, Adam, but perhaps we could also partner up. We could pin each other, and you could guide us through that. We could see what might unfold from meditating in pairs during the meditation.
One more thing I have to share for Scott. Scott, I want you to know, because you brought up the Christ energy, that there have been moments when Adam and I have meditated and gone so deep into these beautiful states of light.
All of a sudden, you feel the Christ presence come through in those states. From my interpretation, that's the frequency Christ was on. When you enter that, he's there. You can feel some kind of resonance. Christ is in an eternal state, so when we go into that eternal state, it's like, "Oh, hey. Hey there."
Adam Wes I also want to translate Kira's interpretation in one other way. There's an impersonal Brahman. That's Brahman, the Supersoul. When we go there, it's this golden black-gold, or white-gold, love. Every religion has a different pointer to that ontological reality.
It's like physics, right? We don't do one physics in Japan and another physics in America. Physics is physics. These states are part of the cosmology of subjectivity, of the sub-self, and we can go through them. I just want to offer a little bit of a bird's-eye view on the topic. Thanks for sharing that, Kira. Wonderful.
I really feel it would be great if people partnered up and did one or two meditations a week together. Imagine if Ariella and Andy had a call and meditated together. That's really part of sangha.
Sangha isn't just us coming here, me sharing, and you meditating with me. It's also about connecting with one another.
Kira We could start in pairs live, during these sessions. That way, we could establish working or meditating in pairs.
Adam Wes Let me think about how to do it, and then we'll come back to it. We'll talk about that.
Andy, I'm going to mute you because your yawns are just ridiculous. Andy has had a busy week. She was telling me.
All right, everybody. Thank you. Sorry we went over. Namaste. Happy new moon. It happened last night in the middle of the night. I wish to see you all again soon.
Thank you. Bye.