Session Opening and Participant Check In

Adam: Welcome, everybody.

Namaste, Raphael. Nice to see you.

Rafael Franco: I was going to say, it is an honor.

It is great to have you here. Hi, Kira.

So, just a refresher on what we did last week.

I am going to switch to desktop.

We talked about Sanskrit. I do not know if anybody had a chance to review… Review this, here is the transcript.

Full transcript, we have… Video and the audio recording, adapted essay, mostly verbatim.

There is a study guide.

It is a great thing to look over.

Kira, how was your Sanskrit study this week?

Nice.

There she is.

And, let us see… Namaste, Ariella. Welcome!

Sanskrit Vocabulary as Practical Awareness

So today, we will talk about knowledge and silence. This is a very central part of enlightenment. In fact, when you read Krishnamurti, sometimes it seems as if he is speaking about nothing but this.

Let us just take one more moment. I would like to hear from someone. Let us connect a little before we start.

Would anyone like to share about their week?

Related to, not randomly, but related to enlightenment or the practice.

Kira: Sure, I can share. Or, Raphael, were you going to share?

Go ahead.

Yes, I just realized, after we reviewed the Sanskrit last week, it is like, I knew what karma was, but when we actually put our focus on it, then throughout the week, it really brought it to light… I was able to see karma at play. I was able to inhibit or discontinue some negative karmic behavior, whether that is mental or otherwise.

Bye, karma.

Kira: What did you say?

Bye, karma.

Kira: Bye, karma, yes. That actually really helped, just having awareness of the word.

Yes.

It allowed me to have awareness in my life about that, so I was able to stop certain negative karmic activity. And then also, on the contrary, I could see the opportunity for creating positive karma and how that relates to the other words. So, it did not take much effort—it was simply that we looked at the words and had awareness of them, and then it blossomed quite naturally.

Thanks, Kira. Wonderful. Yes, exactly. So, Andrea, you asked last week, what is the benefit of this? Well, when we have a word for something, we become aware of it. It becomes interwoven into our life.

So if you are even just aware of this word karma, or just aware of the word shakti, or aware of the word sangha, these things… I mean, you could just literally read the list before bed every night.

It will take you 20 seconds. Read a list of Sanskrit words, just to stay attuned to something deeper than the superficialities of the world as we mostly encounter it.

So… Beautiful. Thank you, Kira.

Alright, so today we will be talking about knowledge… oh! Colleen.

Colleen: I just wanted to say, I looked at the words last week, and I chose Shakti, because I like what it stands for—power, energy, to be able to do something. What is the other one? Was… to have power, to be able, and I felt like that is how I wanted to be this week.

Beautiful, thank you for sharing. You said it was Shakti, that was the one you chose.

Colleen: Shakti.

Beautiful. Wonderful. Raphael, did you want to share anything? Everyone, welcome Raphael. He… I went live… for Raphael, the universe said there is somebody out there, and we found each other, and he showed up on time with such beautiful sincerity. It was really adding so much, so I am very grateful to see you here. Thank you.

Rafael Franco: It is an honor to be with all of you. Like, wow, this is really special to me, I guess. It was a synchronicity—you all know how synchronicities go—so it just aligned, like the stars, and I am here, and I have my mind empty like a cup, and…

That is beautiful.

Rafael Franco: …to learn from you all. I had a question about karma and dharma, that is it. Is not karma… Dharma the opposite, right? Or… can you—

No, so, by the way, you should take a look at the… here, I will just show you the practice hall. So, and this is open, and currently open to the public. If you go to spirituality on the website, Practice Hall, there is a Sanskrit—Essential Sanskrit down here. And it just so happens Dharma and karma are right next to each other. So, karma means action. Dharma means truth.

Rafael Franco: Oh, okay, got it.

But there are subtleties within a spiritual context. So, karma means the effects of actions that we take, and the way it informs our minds leads to liberation or to bondage.

Dharma means the ultimate unfolding of reality, the truth. There is a suchness, a reality that we are all a part of, which is what that word is pointing to. Sometimes it is described as, or translated as, duty. And if you think of it that way, the truth is, I am a techie math person who loves spirituality. That is just what I am, that is the truth of it. And my duty then becomes to live that, to be that, as a part of the totality.

So, each of us has a Dharma, and we live within the totality. Dharma has—let me see, what did I call it here?—truth and the natural unfolding of what is. It is a subtle word. You could contemplate this word for your entire life and continue to deepen your connection with it.

Rafael Franco: Understood.

Thank you for the question. So, yes, welcome, Raphael.

Knowledge and Silence as a Way of Knowing

Let us get started, as we have about fourteen minutes. The goal is not to keep the sermon too long. Perhaps we will go two minutes over, since we will have some discussion, but then we will have a thirty-minute meditation afterward.

So, knowledge and silence. I am very excited to share this with all of you. It is a very special topic.

We live in a world addicted to information. Even when we get to know each other, we say, "Oh, Andrea, I am going to get to know you." But what is actually happening when I get to know you? I have this collection of data points: Andrea is this, she is nice, she is smart, she does something with business and the commerce people in Mexico, and I have built up this whole image of you.

There is something nice about having an image of somebody. We get to know each other in a way through time, but there is a different kind of knowing. That is a collection of information. Knowledge means I look with my heart, with empathy, and I notice the whole energy of you—even the way your finger is on your mouth and you are thinking, right? Because that is what we do when we are thinking. The body language. We apprehend the energy of somebody.

To know somebody does not require the accumulation of past experiences. That is just two images interacting with each other. To know somebody is to see them as they are, right now.

So, knowledge—I am trying to reposition knowledge by differentiating with words. Information versus knowledge. Knowledge is always in the moment. Information is always in the past. Knowledge is from the heart. You know by becoming the other. You know by feeling and describing the feeling and the field of consciousness that you become while perceiving.

The perceiver and that which is perceived become one in perceiving. That perceiving is a form of knowing. Information is in the head, and understanding is usually a descriptor.

If I wrote a poem that is beautiful and deep, and it alludes to something ineffable beyond words, when I write this poem, I am using beautiful linguistic syntax, metaphor, imagery. I have the capacity to put it into words, just as a musician has the capacity to play notes on their instrument. There is a technical element, but what are we transmitting?

The transmission is something so much more. This is the substance of life. It is the depths of our heart. Do we have something to share, something to say? Did Mozart have something to share? It was not just that Mozart was brilliant with music theory. He had something to share that touched you, that moved you—something that came from another dimension.

So, how does something come from another dimension? Well, it requires silence. Knowledge equates to listening. Information is the past.

Listening means I am empty. I liked how Raphael said, "My cup is empty." Well, my cup is empty, too. I think we have to stay empty, right? An empty cup is one who can apprehend, who can see, who is always ready to learn and to empty all the things we learn from moment to moment.

We are like a millionaire who makes a million dollars every second and gives it all away. We are constantly making a million and giving it, making and giving it, so we stand naked to the universe. We are totally free.

This happens in meditation, when we sit down and meditate formally. We are learning to empty the mind and listen, and to deepen our capacity for knowledge. Knowledge and beauty go together.

Our capacity to perceive beauty, to become beauty in the perception of it, requires stillness, requires listening. Then, we also structure our minds beautifully so that we can hold those states, that we can describe those states, that we can transmit those states.

This morning, I had a beautiful experience meditating, because I meditate every morning, as we all do, right? And I was silent, and when I go silent, all of a sudden, answers come to me.

What should I be doing? How should I do this? Oh, that is how I do the code. Oh, that is the answer to the math question. Oh, that is the business thing that I need to do. Oh, that is the problem in my friendship right there. They come to me.

In fact, all kinds of interesting knowledge can come to you beyond just those epiphanies. They come out of silence.

As long as we are thinking in the grooves of whatever—healthy or unhealthy patterns—like, "I cannot do this, I cannot do that," then you never do it. Or, "I am the greatest, I am the greatest," and then you miss something else that is meant for you. As long as we are in these grooves of habitual thought, how can we know?

How can we make the quantum leap? My Param guru, my teacher's teacher, says the shortest distance between two points is not a line. He says it is your mind. It is an interesting thing he was conveying.

He was actually saying this—he was saying…

Rafael Franco: That…

Interestingly enough, he was talking about how computer science cultivates enlightenment. He was literally talking about computer science, believe it or not. This is the lineage I come from: enlightened being, Moksha, Jiva Mukti. He was saying, how do you realize that the system architecture of a computer program—well, you have to see the solution.

It is not a modification in continuity. You do not take it and mold it, mold it, mold it from here to there. From one point to another, there is a line between, but there is no continuum of molding. It is a flash of insight. It is lightning in the sky. It comes from nowhere. It comes from silence, because the sky is silence, it is emptiness.

So, when we sit and meditate, if you have things you need to see, things you want to know, go into silence. Become emptiness. Become knowledge. And then your words can describe what you are seeing.

It is a completely different epistemology. That is a great word in philosophy—epistemology means the study of knowing. What is the epistemology of mathematics, of physics? How can we know something? How do we know there is a star or galaxy out there? This is all relevant to epistemology. How do we know there is a god, or an energy, or… right? So this is a field of philosophy.

Clearly, that word relates to our topic today. Boom.

We are always so rushed to speak in our relationships. It is never about the space between the notes. If you are standing before somebody and you go silent for 30 seconds, they will feel very awkward. Why? Why can we not be in silence and let knowledge come of its own accord? Words come through us when they are ready to.

Part of the practice is to become silent and notice the chattering momentum of our karma. That is what karma is—it is a momentum. It is an inert momentum. There is an inertia to it. Shakti is the opposite of inertia. It is the capacity to change.

In physics, an asteroid may glide through space to the Bootes Void, which is a giant void in space where there is nothing for light years and light years and light years. It just glides through, inert. It means it is not alive; there is no change, there is no transformation.

Karma is inertia. We have a momentum and a direction, and nothing will change unless we do something about it. Shakti is that transmutive energy to become something more.

What is the difference between Krishna and a sinner? And Jesus and a sinner, or Buddha and a sinner, or some enlightened being, Ramana Maharshi, or somebody? Well, they have transmuted themselves. They have become something more. They have changed their momentum. They have used power.

And actually, Newton described this very beautifully. He said, unless there is a force—Newton's first law—everything in motion continues in motion unless acted on by an outside force. Force and acceleration are actually the same thing, essentially. They are proportional—more mass means less acceleration for a given force—but think of them as the same thing. Momentum is just velocity; no acceleration, no change in velocity.

So, karma… I am speaking in the physics because Jacob is here. It is also because I like it. You connect with that, Jacob? You see why I am saying Newton's laws are very much human laws. They are part of life. They apply to matter, they apply to life, the human condition.

So I am becoming silent to see if there is anything else I should share about this.

Knowledge and love go together. Love is, in a very trite description—and a very correct description—love is union. But in what sense? In love, we become the other. We become the other because we know the other. We know the other because we have expanded our circumference of self to not be me and you, separate.

In love, there is empathy, naturally, because I feel for you, you feel for me, we are one. We become the Dharma, we become the totality of truth, the concurrence of the universe evolving. We are one… Super Soul.

There is an underlying field of consciousness that makes us all one. And in meditation, we can become love. And in becoming love, we come to know things beyond what we can read in a book. A book can allude to these things.

But… and that is why I read these books so much.

I read a lot of my books over and over again. Sometimes it is to really understand what is being said, and sometimes just to attune to such a beautiful wavelength.

So, we have this book. Colleen, Mom, thank you for ordering this. Let me just flip it open to a page.

You can always just read a single page before bed, that sort of thing. It will tune you to it.

Dumb. Alright, any questions? We will talk for a couple of minutes, and then we will get started.

We could talk about this for hours, by the way. There is a lot here. In Greek, there is a word, gnosis—G-N-O-S-I-S.

The ultimate knowledge, of course, is enlightenment. There is a knowing of the most quintessential layer of reality that is inside of everything.

If you get still enough, you can know these things. You can know Nirvana.

And there is a knowing where there is no self anymore. You are knowing so much that there is no reflection of "I am knowing." That would only obscure the knowledge.

Why do you have to add on the knower when knowing is enough?

So there is no idea of "Oh, Adam is knowing something." There just is not.

This has a lot to do with enlightenment.

Ethical Action and Practical Guidance for Daily Practice

Rafael Franco: Since you—pardon me. Since… I do not know if I am lagging, can you just… can you hear me? Right? Yes.

It is a little laggy, but you are coming through fine.

Rafael Franco: Okay, so… Since you mentioned the book, this book…

I do not know if you can see it, can you read it?

It is a little blurry.

Rafael Franco: They are blurring? Hold on.

Read the title to us.

Rafael Franco: It is called… it is called… oh, I am sorry, it is called Lamb by Christopher Moore.

Okay.

Rafael Franco: Lamb by Christopher Moore.

I think I have heard of that, actually.

Rafael Franco: And it is about, actually, Jesus' best friend, Biff. It is a fictional story about Jesus. So Biff tells the story of Jesus, but from his own account, right, as his best friend. And it is super funny. But what you just said just now—the book literally covers that.

Beautiful.

Rafael Franco: Yes.

Yes, a lot of this—when Jesus says, "love thy neighbor as thyself," he is actually talking about this. I mean, it is my interpretation, but there is a reality that we can look at, and he is looking at something. I think he is looking at the same thing, which is:

If you know your neighbor as yourself—meaning, whatever I behold is my very self, and I know it, and I am it through love and knowledge—then why would I act for me alone, and not for what is righteous, what is good, what is on behalf of all?

You have to be quite bold to go this way, because you might change your diet. You might change your career. You might change many things if you truly feel that you are the animal you are eating.

Usually, I do not go there. But just consider it, right? Do whatever you like, but keep in mind that whatever we do in life either allows us to feel one with all, or creates a sense of dissonance. There is a natural karmic repercussion to our actions.

I may want to make a great deal of money, and if I do it in a way that does not help anyone, then I have to live with that, right? If it hurts someone in some way, or if I eat an animal—perhaps I needed to, perhaps I did not, perhaps I simply wanted to—but what are the karmic repercussions? So this is personal. It is not about some sort of morality imposed upon you; it is about the act and its result. That is karma.

And we live with that. If you give everything away and live like Mother Teresa, there is a beautiful karma that comes to you as well. You might live like Nelson Mandela, with forgiveness, or like Mother Teresa, with her hard work and the squalor she endured, meeting people, sick people, and starving babies.

So, this is why these saints—this is saintly action, right? They actually benefit greatly. We benefit from giving, because we learn to become the other.

And… so, yes, and business is important, too. We feel that we are holding people in freedom, and we are simply, you know, the business on the corner. They do business, they hold space for people to come, and they do their best to represent themselves accurately—all of those things.

And speaking of food, I wanted to make a very special suggestion this week. If anyone is interested, tomorrow is the full moon. This is a powerful time to go further, to dive into the depths of the universe.

Right? So… Kara is diving in. If you eat, make it a goal every day—this is just a suggestion—to eat seven pieces of fruit. An apple, an orange, a banana, a handful of blueberries—seven servings of fruit each day. It does not matter what else you eat.

You can have your steak, your ice cream, whatever you like—it does not matter. But if you eat seven pieces of fruit, this positive focus can introduce something very powerful, a wavelength of sattva. Fruit is very harmonious, and it is also very light on the body, so it supports deeper meditation and greater energy flow. And beyond all of that, it is extremely healthy.

Instead of saying, "Do not do this," you are saying, "Do this." It is a different approach to dietary transformation.

Anybody like that?

Nice. Organic fruits.

Colleen: I think Jacob had a question.

Yes, Jacob, thank you. Hi, Jacob!

Mr Jacob: So, connecting back to what you said about Newton's second law, or Newton's laws from physics. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. And also, what you said about all the decisions that we make that make us who we are—Newton's second law, the sum of your actions makes you.

Absolutely. Maybe, Jacob, contemplate that, really go into that. That is beautiful.

Yes. I only mentioned the first and second law. Jacob is like, "Adam, you are forgetting the third law." It literally is the third law that he just mentioned. That is funny.

Alright, let us meditate! Okay! Not too bad. So, we will do a 25-minute meditation.

This meditation will be—well, how do we achieve silence? Right? You need to become absorbed in spirit. I know that is a very esoteric suggestion, but we are going to seek to focus on spirit, to become absorbed in spirit. Spirit is the power that is within everything.

The fragment of the mind cannot steal from the other fragments of the mind; it just keeps activity going. You have to become nothingness. Become power. Become impersonal.

So, focus on the light. Focus on your heart.

Raphael will—we do a form of light meditation. In fact, what I am going to do is gaze with everyone. We open our awareness very wide, and it is not like staring. I am not looking at the screen; my eyes are centered on the screen, but I am seeing everything.

In doing that, I expand my field of awareness. Everything becomes a part of my awareness field, and I soften my hold on it. Instead of fixing it in a physical form of solidity, I allow it to become light. Everything is made of light.

Just a suggestion might be enough for you. Also, there is a kind of empathic transmission that occurs. So try to see light. Now, when you see any sort of blurring or mistiness, that is the light happening.

That light starts to become so intense that it washes through your body. You can feel it—it is a remarkable experience of an energy that is coming from another dimension, washing through your body. It is a divine, sacred energy, and it purifies you.

It subdues the mind so that one can enter into the silence and apprehend knowledge. So let us do it.

Alright, can you hear the music? You are welcome to close your eyes, or gaze with me. If your eyes are closed, try to focus on the light—as the light. We do not see it with our eyes, exactly, although it is a visual experience.

Kara, I will look at you a little bit, because…

We are doing silence. Yes, I will do something else.

So we allow the momentum to settle. The first step is simply to become aware. Perhaps it is the only step.

If you do not feel still, just observe yourself as you are. You are not reacting. We are observing.

There may be thoughts, there may be blissful silence. Whatever it is, just observe.

And if you are keeping your eyes closed, just notice the field of awareness. Reach—reach out. Expand your field.

The light emerges in gentleness, in subtlety. Soften.

A fixation on manifestation—let everything become fluid, turn to light. Just focus on the light, the ambient energy, vitality, and luminosity permeating existence.

Do you feel you have the capacity to direct the light? Ensure that it is washing through your astral body, your spine, the astral tube in the front called the Shashumana, your chakras, and your physical body as well.

Do not take it from the environment around you—just make sure that it is an ocean of light that you are inside of. The ocean of light.

Let us make sure to bring attention to the heart center while we do this. In the middle of the chest is Anahata, the heart chakra. Always stay connected to the heart.

Let us take a moment and bring our attention to the third eye. That seems like an appropriate focus for today's talk. The third eye is right in the forehead.

A little bit above. And you want to try to feel the vitality, the magnetism.

In this location, you can…

Hover your finger without touching your head. You can touch your head as well. There is a vortex of energy here. It is good to activate it. It may seem strange, but—

If you look at me, I am going to activate it very intensely. There is a sort of entrainment, a pattern recognition of the energetic structure. Do it, and think of it as a—

Word. Transmission of something that is beyond words.

Yes, Praveen, do it with me.

Heal this. Just throw away.

Feeling the third eye. Why is my hand here? I am actually making a connection with my middle finger.

So this will be our final song. You will feel your heart, your third eye, and the light at the same time.

Just take a moment and become aware of the sky, society, the stars. Let us reach out. Expand your scopes as Ariella did last week. Feel your heart.

Alright, namaste, thank you.

Alright, Colleen, Mom, I would love to hear your share. How was your meditation?

Colleen: Good. Is Kira okay?

Kira is in another dimension right now. That is…

Colleen: Yes, I go straight into the red light, but today something interesting happened. It felt as if somebody opened the blinds and turned on the light.

Oh. Were you meditating on your third eye, or your crown when that happened?

Colleen: No, much earlier.

Okay. Amazing.

Colleen: And then it lasted for quite a bit, and then it went away. And then I had my usual purple, pink, green colors coming on.

Wonderful. I love that you experience the red so consistently. That is such a farm, heart-centered energy.

Colleen: Happens immediately.

That is very special. I would imagine… Yes, you are welcome.

Colleen: Namaste.

Thank you, thank you. Rafael, how about you?

Rafael Franco: So, I saw images, imagery, like I was in a house—I have no idea where that house was—and then I saw a dog that I have never seen before. It was a German Shepherd, but it was in a different location from the other one. And I saw… what else did I see? I saw things, I…

Colors, purple color, like something zooming in like that.

Oh, tell me about this. You are saying it was going like this?

Rafael Franco: The opposite way. Inward, inward, yes.

Okay, so you were…

Rafael Franco: Picture a blob like that, and then it just closes in, like a fractal. And it was like a fractal.

And did it look like little colored clouds, or a little watercolor?

Rafael Franco: It looked like a cloud, but it is… I could… it was very prominent in the eyes. It would just close like that, and it would come back again like this, and it would…

Okay, so this is fantastic. What color was it?

Rafael Franco: Purple.

Okay, fantastic. Fantastic. Have you seen that before?

Rafael Franco: Yes.

Very good. Okay, great. So, what he is describing actually has a name in Sanskrit, it is called Soma. And soma, etymologically, means a transmutive force. That is the energy you want, because it will wash through you. Just sit in the soma when it comes. If you have the soma going, nothing else matters.

Rafael Franco: And…

You are just—sorry, I will be late for whatever is coming up. I am in the soma now, right? God has opened the door for me, right? So that is quite literally opening the door to heaven. This is the metaphor, is it not? And I am in the Soma.

And let that Soma wash through, because it is a little different than the pure Shakti, which is the luminosity. And it is different than Kundalini, which is formed energy—it is astral structural energy. It has structure, and yet it is Shakti-like.

And so, this is the transmutive force, and it comes from the causal into the astral plane, washing you clean. Namaste, Jacob. We are going to stop in a few minutes anyway, everybody, but Jacob has a student. I will see you tomorrow, Jacob. Thank you. Namaste.

So, wonderful, Rafael, good job. I would recommend you meditate twice a day on the Soma, if you can access it, or any of those astral experiences. I call them astral experiences—those images that you are seeing—that could be an occult metaphysical ability that is accompanying it. I would not—

That is an interesting thing to cultivate. You might be doing remote viewing, you might be having energetic perceptions of things that are being symbolically represented.

My mom, Colleen, she usually sees interesting things, like a stadium of people wearing green and red shirts. You know, where does this random stuff come from, right? A donkey with roller skates, strange things like that. So, yes.

Wonderful. Well, namaste, Rafael, thanks for being here. And, Ariella, do you want to share really quickly? I have to hear from you, and then we will stop.

Ariella: Yes, that was an amazing meditation. Thank you, Adam.

You are welcome.

There were lots of different things that happened.

I did, for the first time ever, I saw…

Green and purple for a short time.

Beautiful.

And, oh, there were a bunch of other things, but I am not even remembering them at the moment.

Yes, yes, it is…

I spaced out for a short time, and—oh, I do not know why I cannot remember that.

That is part of knowledge. If we do not write it down, it fades away—and that is all right. Sometimes, we simply need to stay with the flow, allowing the moment to be complete in itself. There is no need to carry anything forward. Just keep returning to it, and it will always feel new and fresh.

It will be like a brand-newborn baby every single time.

Oh, one of the things I noticed was when you had us hold our hand up. There was a connection, and my middle finger was vibrating.

Interesting, yes. Was it tingling, or—

I could not feel tingling, but I could see that it was moving.

Oh, that is interesting. Yes, that is possible. Your nervous system is affected by your astral body, and your astral body is influenced by your causal body. It is all connected—a full-spectrum cosmology of our biology.

There are different layers. We are not just—there is more than what biology currently understands, of course, and there always will be. We have come a long way in 200 years, but there is still further to go.

Well, namaste, everyone. Thank you, good job. Ariella, I am not sure if you saw that I emailed and texted you, so—I just wanted to mention that.

I just saw it before I joined you, so I will go back and check.

Great, wonderful. I thought you might have missed it. I will see everyone next week, Tuesday, same time. Look, we are only four minutes over—I think that is—

That is all right. Goodbye, everyone! Happy full moon! Eat your fruit.

Thank you. Goodbye, Raphael, it was so good having you.

Rafael Franco: Good thing is, honoring…

Yes, yes, it was an honor having you here. Thank you. Goodbye, Mom.