| Selections |
| Selections on 'Truth'
February 2010 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, The bondage of certainty. To believe that you know the truth is to live in a prison. From there there can be no further movement. Perhaps you know that all is One. Perhaps you know you do not exist or that everything is an illusion. All you are convinced you know is true are the shackles that restrict your ability to live freely. It IS the way of things. But occasionally comes the courage to escape. A crack opens in the cell wall and you dig through it toward the light beyond. It is however a narrow passage and to squeeze through it you must leave everything behind. To walk naked in a world where most everyone else is clothed takes courage indeed. May it find you now. With much love, Wayne
June 2009 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves,
I am very pleased to have my new book, Enlightenment Is Not What You Think, coming out this month. If it is at all successful in dispelling some of the myths about Enlightenment, I will be gratified. In the Living Teaching it is recognized that seeking Truth is infinitely more valuable than finding it. The search is alive and vibrant. Once you think you have found it, the resulting knowledge is dead. Knowledge is acquired. Truth is revealed. The nature of this revelation is an absence rather than a thing that is to be gained. Of course, it is impossible to describe an absence... we can only describe something that has properties. The impossibility of the task of describing Enlightenment, combined with the insatiable thirst on the part of the seeker to know what it is, has produced an incredible array of pointers. The inevitable fate of such pointers is that people hear them as descriptions and then take them to be Truths in and of themselves. It would be an endless and thankless task trying to point out the fallacy in each belief about Enlightenment. I have contented myself with presenting a broader perspective on the subject, in which a new and deeper insight may be found. I hope you find it valuable. As always, we shall see what happens. With love, Wayne
April 2008 A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) Planets, solar systems and nebulae appear and disappear; energy is transformed into matter and matter is transformed into energy, but there is something which does not appear and disappear but is eternal and that is the great cosmic ocean of Consciousness, from and into which come all forms of energy. This is what modern science tells us, confirming the intuitive insight of the mystic. December 26, 1989
March 2008 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, This Living Teaching is right here, right now. It is, in fact, as close to you as your breath. When you look deeply into yourself you may be able to see that there is, in this moment, a quality of aliveness that is animating you that is not philosophical and is not abstract. It's there! It is coursing the blood through your veins, it is animating your breath, it is what makes it possible for you to think and speak and see and hear. This is something that is essential and fundamental and true. It's independent of what you think about it, what you believe about it and what you feel about it. It is here, and with Grace you dissolve into it. You recognize your true self in it. It is this living force, this animating force that has manifested into the complexity we call Life. It is this living force that has manifested into this being which you call yourself. It is at once wondrous and simply obvious. With much love, Wayne
December 2007 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, For those of us who remain so spiritually backward that time and space still exist for us, another year is drawing to a close. It is an opportunity to stop for a moment and reflect on the miracle that is this Livingness. Within the Livingness are the polaric opposites... birth and death, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, inhalation and exhalation... and it is the continuous movement between the polarities that is the EXPERIENCE of being alive. Some people believe that death is the end of the Living, when in fact death is simply the end of a particular experience within the Livingness. The Livingness continues even after a particular point of experience is extinguished. When birth and death are known for what they are -- linked opposites within the Livingness -- much of the fear and drama drain out of the process. Sometimes this Living Teaching facilitates an extraordinary insight: What you TRULY are is not limited to a particular point of experience. What you TRULY are is the Livingness itself. Happy New Year to ALL! With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) To suppose that realization can be attained by accepting and repeating formulas is like expecting to climb the Hamalyan peaks by repeatedly studying the relevant maps. While a map is indispensable as indicating the direction which the traveller must set out, one can never forget that maps are essentially symbols, and not the most accurate or adequate ones at that. September 12, 1989 August 2007 A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) Perhaps it may be because so much hypocrisy prevails among the supposed religious people and because organized religion has turned it into a rigid frame of ritualistic do's and don'ts - whatever may be the reason - it is a matter of fact that when the word 'God' is mentioned a certain uneasiness arises among the company present, even among people who really have no reason to think disparagingly of themselves. And the beauty of the matter is that the truly religious people are aware that there is no need to refer to 'God' -- it is enough to be aware of Him. July 1, 1990
May 2006 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, To judge something you need a scale and since everyone has their own scale, judgments of the same thing often vary. The question then becomes, whose scale is RIGHT. The human mind has a hunger for certainty. It is as if it senses its own inherent limitations and seeks to overcome them with concepts such as Absolute Truth, Absolute Goodness, Absolute Love, Absolute Beauty etc. The traditional method of certifying the RIGHTNESS of these Absolutes is divine revelation, meaning God tells you either directly via a 'vision' or a 'voice' (with or without 'spiritual' drugs and practices) or indirectly via the recorded accounts (scriptures) of someone else's interaction with God. Modern variants on this theme seek to use scientific or pseudo-scientific methodology to determine the properties of the Absolute, but as with the religious methods agreement is impossible to come by. There is an inherent arrogance associated with believing you know the Truth. It is the ego's ultimate empowerment. For me, the beauty of this Teaching is that it does NOT claim to be the Truth. It is simply a collection of pointers. It directs the student to look for him or herself into the Mystery that is the essence of existence. It is often a frightening journey without an Absolute scale by which to measure your progress. In the end, however, the Understanding reveals itself in a humility that is at once transcendent and sublime. With much love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) There is the thought 'I'. There is the vocal 'I'. There is the 'I' that acts. Behind all the 'I's that think, that talk, that act, behind all thoughts, words, acts, is the WITNESS of every single thing. The only way to know oneself is to be aware of one's own awareness -- here and now. Dec. 11, 1989
March 2005 A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) The only truth is that 'Truth' is beyond all forms of mental activity. The Truth is the absolute absence of any kind of relative knowledge.
February 2005 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves,
With love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) True religion means living with all one's daring, with full awareness of the harmony of the whole.
Hermosa Beach, 6 January 2005 Webcast Transcript Excerpt ...Seems like this teaching does have certain, I don’t know if they’d qualify as postulates, but something like the law of interconnected opposites. It seems so useful as a tool to help understand some of these sort of seemingly odd happenings, like these imbalances that you talk about. Wayne: I would say it is in fact a very useful tool. But to call it a law is going a little further than I would be comfortable with. I would say it is a way of ordering the universe to talk about it in terms of interconnected opposites. And for some, in some cases, this is a very useful way of understanding it. But it is not a truth, it is not a law. It is a tool. So is there a hazard in viewing it as a truth? I mean, I don’t see, I haven’t been able to see it. I mean I don’t know how to put it; it seems for me just recently it seems like this, it’s almost omnipresent, it’s like it's something that’s been just circulating in me as these questions come up for me. And it seems like and I’ve been treating it almost as an explanation. It’s seems there’s no, it seems like it’s irrefutable. It seems like it’s just apparent. So I guess I have been, I would consider it, even though presumably nothing that we talk about here is a truth. It seems so compelling. It seems like it’s just true. Wayne: OK. So we can say, what we can certainly say is that "it feels like a truth to me." Fine, I have no problem with that at all. It feels like a truth to me. That is your experience. That is how it feels now. Which is different from this is how it IS. And there’s a curious kind of humility in the realization that this is how it seems to me and it feels very true. But it isn’t a universal truth – this is my truth. It’s the only one that I have at the moment and, but in the recognition that it’s mine, not universal, there is a fundamental humility. And you’re much less likely to take up your saber and defend it when you realize that yes others may well have as equally a profound truth. So this doesn’t then qualify, cause you said the other day that this teaching has no doctrine. Wayne: Right. So literally the kinds of things that came to me, well isn’t the law of – it’s not described as a law, I understand that, but it seems so close to a doctrine the doctrine of interconnect opposites I’d not even considered that prior to this teaching. Not in the way I do now. And it came through this teaching. So, its just another pointer, another concept that can be argued by some? Wayne: Clearly. Mmm Hmm. And the nature of my mind wants to have these anchor points or something to order the universe so currently, I’m ordering it using these concepts? Wayne: Yes. Does Advaita believe in affirmative prayer? Wayne: Advaita doesn’t believe or disbelieve in anything. Because there is no doctrine, you see. No principle? Wayne: No principle at all. Advaita, as I talk about it, and there’s lots of different flavors, brands, denominations calling themselves Advaita. As I talk about it, has no doctrine, has no principle. It is a series of pointers, which always point you back to answer the question for yourself. You see. All of these statements are all pointers for you to question, for you to test. Self-inquiry then. Wayne: If we can call it - I even hesitate to call it self-inquiry because self-inquiry now we’ve labeled it, we know what it is and say "OK I did that and, I’ve been there done that got the t-shirt went to Ramanaashram and sat there, now I’ve self-inquired and now I’m on to whatever the next thing is." So it’s not self-inquiry in that way. It is a constant pointer back to the nature of what is...
Hermosa Beach, 21 September 2004 Webcast Transcript Excerpt ...Wayne, where does your knowledge come from? Wayne: The concepts that I’m articulating come from my experience; they come from my background, my education. The programming of this organism produces these utterances we call communication, these expressions of my knowledge. I’m not claiming to speak from a truth, meaning that I know something that someone else doesn’t. I have no such knowledge, because any knowledge has to be relative. If it’s relative, it can be argued, disagreed with. So, the only absolute knowledge or understanding is that which cannot be spoken and cannot even be known...
May 2004 MESSAGE FROM WAYNE Hello my loves, Since I often start my Talks with the admonition that what I am about to say is not the Truth, people frequently follow that up with the question: So why do you teach? In short 'I' do not teach. The teaching is expressed without any personal agenda. The expression may come forth as a result of a question from someone, or it may come forth as a burst of creative energy, as in the case of spontaneous poetry or these lines you are reading now. What is absent is the slightest shred of belief that what is being said or being written or being thought is the Truth. Any expression is understood at the most fundamental level to be a pointer, a relative teaching tool. That's why the sage is said to have a natural humility, because there is the total absence of the conviction that what is being expressed is the Truth. The humility comes from the deepest possible conviction that what is being expressed is relative. So, I personally have no trouble with anyone else's teaching. If one teacher says that you exist and another one says you don't exist, and this one says that you're God incarnate and this other one says that you're nothing, I don't care. They are all understood to be relative teaching tools. There is never a question of the hammer being Truer than the screwdriver. What I find objectionable (in an aesthetic sense) is when someone says, "What I am saying is the truth and what the other teaching is saying is bullshit." Such an assertion lacks the essential clarity of understanding that it's ALL bullshit, and that a given teacher's teaching is simply a matter of enculturation and personal programing that determine how their teaching is expressed. As you navigate the shifting reefs and shoals of the spiritual sea it may be useful to remember that that which is the most solid is also the most likely to sink you. With love, Wayne
A LIVING GEM FROM RAMESH (previously unpublished) If you are not content with one, you try for two; if you are not content with two, you try for three, if you are content with three, you have peace and harmony. If you are not content with three, it is likely that you will be discontent even with ten. Without peace and harmony you will want to 'do' more and more.
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