a talk given by
Mark Griffin December 19, 2009
Hard Light Center of Awakening • Transcript from God Guru & Self Intensive
Hello, everyone. I would like to welcome all
of you with love to the intensive. Today we are
scheduled for a very unique and special day, as
this is the last intensive of the teaching cycle
of 2009; thus, this makes this a completion
intensive. Completion is a very powerful term,
and it reads in the spirit and feel of totality,
the touch of the truth. These past ten days, the
lead-up to the intensive, have all been of the
nature of completion. Very much like we do
at the end of the year, just before the beginning
of the new year, we begin to cycle and wrap up
all of our details. And in this way, in the idea
of completion, we do this both in the world of
appearance, and also internally in the spiritual
world.
What I would like to do is dive right in with
the opening meditation, so that we can connect
with the inner reality of completion, and the
essence of the truth. As we begin, I would like
to ask that everyone begin to establish their
seat, and begin the cycling of the profound
SoHam. Everyone please give rise to love, as
love is the speech of the truth.
You know, the truth arises as a form of
consciousness so inconceivable, that it
cannot even be approached by the mind.
And it takes the form of consciousness and
unconsciousness. The nature of consciousness,
the nature of the truth is so profound, so subtle,
that the condition of being that we describe as
emptiness, a concept of consciousness that is
totally void of qualities, arises as the object of
consciousness. Emptiness is consciousness,
object. Because we see that once we even
define emptiness, which is a condition beyond
any frame of imputed terms, either dependent or
absolute, we consider consciousness luminous
as its capacity to know. But in this sense, we
could also call or consider consciousness, God
– That.
There is a slogan in spiritual training that
addresses this idea that God, Guru and Self
are one: they are a single thing. Slogans are
often useful as they crystallize the mind,
they crystallize the idea of something that
cannot exist in an idea; in other words it’s a
handle, a way in. Consciousness: God, Guru
and Self arising as a single thing, God being
consciousness, Guru being consciousness, Self
being consciousness. It’s a powerful idea, and
a very direct idea, difficult to grasp, in that once
we are drawn in to this kind of contemplation,
we begin to use the mind. The movement
of the fabric of mind itself is conscious, but
at the same time, unconscious. So there’s a
kind of substance of unconsciousness seeking
to conceive of itself as conscious. In other
words, if God were an orange or consciousness
were an orange, we would be forever turning it
inside out for eternity, trying to find its center,
its essence.
There’s a subtle inference to this expression of
God, Guru and Self, that God arises as That. The
quality of its expression of creation goes through
a series of events: consciousness, the throb of
creation, the vibration of unconsciousness that
expresses infinite multiplicity, first as sound,
as mantra, and then oscillating into countless
forms – the universe and all its objects. In some
way, consciousness exploded into the creation.
Why did this occur? Nobody knows. It is said
that it occurred as a whim. It can be said that
it occurred out of love, out of God’s desire to
experience Himself, to know Himself, for no
other reason than for a whim. We all know
that love is very direct, very instantaneous,
very swift.
In this extraordinary impulse to know or to be,
the creation arose. And in that instant, the first
being arose, with total knowledge, as the creation.
This being was a spontaneous combination of
consciousness and unconsciousness; and in
this instant the first Guru appeared. The word
“guru” means infinite consciousness, gu-,
and infinite unconsciousness, -ru. Matrica is
always informative. There’s an impulse that
arose at the creation.
Then we must imagine a kind of manifestation
of countless cycles of consciousness arising
as unconsciousness, cycling, and producing
a kind of momentum, a kind of operation of
wheel. As this incredible throb arises from
consciousness to unconsciousness, there begins
to appear, in countless forms, a manifestation
of increasingly subtle and increasingly base
terms; and they begin to manifest both as
vibration, mantra, and formation, mudra. In
this we begin to see the creation of what we
call the three worlds: the expression of pure
consciousness and awareness that we know
as mind becoming energy, that we know as
mantra; and finally becoming form, as mudra
– all of which arise simultaneously.
Countless forms of consciousness arise in this
expression. There are beings that exist in the
mental fields and the mental worlds that only
have the form of mind. They do not take the
form of energy, they do not take the form of
matter – they live in a purely mental sphere.
At the same time, you can say that there are
forms of consciousness that live and arise as
pure energy. They’re like electrical forms.
There are countless universes of pure mind,
pure energy. The smallest envelope of this
throb of creation is matter.
Human beings are unique in that we are one
of the forms of life, of existence, that have
an aspect of our being in the world of pure
mind. We have an aspect of our being that is
in the world of pure energy; and we also have
an aspect of our being that is in the form and
world of pure matter, our physical bodies. Not
only that, there is a part of our being that is
hard-wired into pure consciousness. Each of
these bodies exist in each of these components
of creation. This is said to be the unconscious
aspect of consciousness and unconsciousness,
because once it starts to become involved
with multiple components of assembly, these
multiple components of assembly of mantra and
mudra, vibration and formation, matter, begin
to act as veils to the supremely subtle nature of
the truth, that has never gone anywhere.
It arose simultaneously, and you yourself were
created at that moment. Simply put, what I’m
saying is that you have a layer of matter that is
your physical body, you have a layer of energy
that is your subtle physical body, you have a
layer of mind that is your causal body. And you
have a component of being that arises as That,
as the Self, as Truth. It is the fourth body, the
fourth state, the Atman, the Blue Pearl. Thus
you exist simultaneously in four bodies, four
worlds. It produces an unusual effect.
Our existence is fantastic. And our potential
of relative experience is absolute. We can see
everything from every aspect. The point I’m
driving at is this idea of creation exploding
into a throb of consciousness, and that throb
of consciousness of creation producing an
infinite being of total self-knowledge, because
there was no second reality. That reality that
arises as God, at the moment of creation,
we call the Guru. I always speak of it as an
eternal and infinite spirit. It is the first impulse
of the creation – all that consciousness
manifesting as form, completely and totally
conscious, beginning its cycles of density,
from consciousness, to awareness, to energy,
to matter.
Inasmuch as your very substance arises from
the origin of God, it’s inconceivable awareness.
In the very matter of your personal creation,
that impulse of total knowledge, that impulse
of the pure Guru, arises within you, as you.
You have this inconceivable consciousness,
expressing itself out of love into the force of
the creation, being totally aware, taking on
the veil of unconsciousness simultaneously,
in that it’s manifesting into a kind of cyclic
existence. The seed that it assembles around
is the Guru – energy that is half conscious and
half unconscious, which perfectly describes
your condition.
This idea of cycling, pure consciousness
exploding into unconsciousness, manifesting
as the creation: the very first impulse produces
the completely perfectly conscious being
that has form and vibration; in other words it
has qualities the second it begins to manifest
in qualitative form. We are speaking of the
nothing, the mirror-like phantasmagoria of
the creation, the unconscious. This is the
place we find ourselves here and now. We
are simultaneously unconscious of our true
nature, yet we are completely conscious. We
arise, we are born with the completely total
consciousness of the Guru within us. We arise
knowing ourselves to be God; at the same time,
we are unconscious of this fact. In this way we
begin to speak of ourselves. We can describe
ourselves as both conscious and unconscious.
We are born with three relative bodies of body,
speech, and mind, and the fourth body that is
absolute and unchanging. It’s present within
us; it’s not something that you have to invent
or project or visualize – it’s there.
The original being essentially became the
first Guru, because of its nature of total
consciousness and total unconsciousness.
This is in a kind of cyclic chain of movement
between consciousness and unconsciousness,
between birth and death, countless forms
coming into existence, widening their base
and then dissolving into non-existence. In
this same way, the three relative bodies, those
manifestations of the unconsciousness that
appear in the relative forms of mind, relative
forms of consciousness, of energy or body,
that come and go.
This is the underlying meaning, the import of
this very beautiful and simple slogan, that God,
Guru and Self arise simultaneously and as one.
When we consider the meaning of it, it becomes
very powerful. It’s also very instructive. It
is this principle that is the essence, the basis
of spiritual training, spiritual awakening,
and unfoldment and enlightenment. In other
words, nothing is being created, nothing is
being added to you; but this idea of awakening
to your true nature, your true Self, your true
condition, is everything. It’s so simple, it’s a
fruit in your hand. It’s so simple to see beyond
it, that in a glance you miss the point.
One of the things that also seems to happen
is that in this cyclic energy of creation, is
that sentient beings move into the frame of
awareness, existence. There’s a concept
of evolution; in other words, a point where
coming into existence becomes a kind of zero-
point. At that point you enter the frame of the
wheel, the relationship between consciousness
and unconsciousness. You manifest as God, as
Guru, and as Self, somewhere along the chain
of evolutionary phylogeny.
Maybe you start over here, maybe you start
over there in countless universes. Maybe you
start as a human being, maybe you start as an
animal. Maybe you start as a human being in
one of the two thousand planets of this universe,
within a hundred light-years of thirteen-of-
twenty-five – not that many human-based
planets. But thirteen-of-twenty-five, this
planet, is significant because it is selected as
a cycle-point for our particular form, human
beings – an extreme minority: so, so, so minor,
minor, minor in numbers of formations of
consciousness. Another slogan that’s always
very informative: to see a human being is as
rare as seeing a star at midday – there’s just
not that many of us. But we are a tribe; and we
all, as human beings, immediately experience
the dynamic of birth, life, death, then rebirth.
It’s one of the hallmarks of our form of
consciousness. All forms evolve. And there’s
the idea of starting at one level, and evolving
upwards. In other words, you begin to manifest
at a higher and higher vibration. More and
more of your system, of your physical body,
your subtle physical body, your causal body
are infused with light and experience, with the
numbers of incarnations that we’ve generated.
Life is great.
Oftentimes, though, when you run into a
self, they are very aware of their immediate
experiences: their sensory fields, contact,
their desires their attachments, their forms of
yearning; and aware of to what degree they
have fulfilled their desires, and to what degree
their desires have not been fulfilled. That
produces an enormously powerful field of
experience. Sensory experience is an incredible
experience of a kind, but it is basically locked
into experience that is connected to the body,
mostly. But there is also an entire frame of
experience that is connected to the subtle
physical body, the field of pure energy, the
causal body, the body of pure mind, and the
fourth state, the fourth body, the experience of
pure consciousness, all of which are as much a
part of you as anything.
I don’t like to frame the idea of opening up, of
awakening, as something that must overcome
the experiences of life, the experiences of the
senses; but what I do say is that they’ve become
too dominant. The way they’re hard-wired into
the brain, they produce a kind of fog, where
subtler forms of consciousness, subtler forms
of experience, are blotted out. You could say
that it’s a design flaw. The senses are hard-
wired into the brain, and just forces the brain
into a constant turbulent churn, which is one of
the reasons why, in spiritual training, we make
an effort to slow the mind down, make an
effort to stop the mind. It’s a skill; and it’s an
important skill because it gives you the ability
to calm the waters of the mind down. Just like
turbulent water, you can’t see anything. It just
reflects everything back, and you can’t see
into its depths. It becomes still and limpid and
you can gaze into its depths – same concept
with all forms of spiritual training: stilling and
slowing, and stopping the mind, so that you can
see deeper into the matter of your own nature.
Because, let’s face it: most human beings have
very little experience of their subtle physical
body, surface experiences of their mental
body; and ninety-nine point nine per cent
of their entire life force is dealing with the
constant call and response of the senses and
the physical form. This is in addition to the
fact that you forgot that the Guru arises within
you as you, as much as anybody; and even
more so, that you yourself are God. So we see
this effect of confusion, that arises from the
constant churning of desire, the operation of
the senses and dynamic emotions.
This produces a kind of forgetfulness; so much
so, that human beings can begin to believe that
they can fulfill themselves if they fulfill their
desires – desires which are a kind of combination
of thoughts and feelings that are based on past
thoughts and feelings, even forgetting the
concept of self-knowledge, seeking to know
one’s own true nature. There’s another slogan
that’s very informative: the way to happiness
is knowing who you are. It’s simple.
It’s true: your life is assembled out of the force
of who you’ve been, what you’ve done, and
all those incredibly complex forms of cause
and effect have produced and assembled this
opportunity in this life that we occupy now.
All of us have set in motion powerful energies
in our lives of cause and effect, what is called
karma. These ripen with irresistible force,
bringing us benefit and experience of this life,
becoming the experiences of this life, some
happy, some sad. Thus we can begin to see
the nature of the wheel. It’s easy to see how
people get confused, get misdirected. But it
is this framework of God, Guru, and Self that
is the essence of spiritual training, and it is
the basis of spiritual training here in the Hard
Light Center of Awakening.
Just keeping the frame inside the human race,
there have been beings that have entered this
field of regard, taken birth, and begun the
process of awakening. They begin to open up
their system, see through the lens of their own
nature, their own life. They begin to see through
the qualities of cause and effect in their material
lives, of the world, into the subtle physical
world of pure energy. They begin to see the
impulse of awakening arising as that throb of
force of creation, what we call the kundalini;
and that energy flowing into the causal body,
widening its field of apprehension, illuminating
it. They come to see within themselves that
the very heart of their existence, this incredible
unborn energy, without origin, without end, of
pure consciousness, what we call God, arising
within themselves as themselves, and they
awaken. It’s like waking up from a dream.
It is said that the manifestation of the creation
produced the first manifestation of the Guru,
a form of consciousness that was assembled
within itself. It was the entire creation, but it
was half conscious and half unconscious. That
was the first manifestation of the Guru. But it
implies that there was a second manifestation
– that the first manifestation of the Guru
translated its knowledge of consciousness and
unconsciousness. Thus there was a second
form of the Guru, and a third and a fourth.
This is the idea of cyclic existence and this
quality of awakening, taking place in the three
worlds of pure consciousness, pure mind, pure
energy.
This takes place in the nature of human beings,
beings so complex, they exist in all the three
worlds and have a foot in the fourth world,
pure consciousness. You only need to be
pushed a little bit: hey – wake up. You’re
already God, already arising as the Guru, and
you’re expressing yourself as the Self; but
you are trapped in a dream. It’s like you’ve
been captured by the dream of the senses and
the flow of cause-and-effect that has caused
you to take countless births. Out of some
impulse, as subtle and remote as the first whim
that generated the creation, this movement of
the Guru begins to flow through all forms,
manifesting as the impulse of awakening its
very Self. It is the incarnation of awakening,
what we call Shaktipat. It is universal, but it
is kind of like being struck by lightning. It
seems to strike like lightning. Sometimes it’s
here, but it’s not there.
One of the reasons why this planet system,
thirteen-of-twenty-five, is so important, is
that out of about two thousand planets that
carry human life – in other words, one head,
two hands, two feet, two eyes, one nose, one
mouth – here in this world system, Shaktipat
exists. You could almost say that it is the point
of Shaktipat for the tribe of human beings.
Because Shaktipat exists, it manifested very
profoundly, and was organized into seven
planes, between the firmness of the earth
and pure consciousness; the firmness of the
earth being in the first plane and the pure
consciousness being in the seventh plane. And
lo and behold, all seven planes are hard-wired
into the human form. What’s going on here?
– a lot more than meets the eye. This is how
evolutionary energy, phylogeny, a concept that
suggests that forms evolve into increasingly
complex forms – the more complex the form,
the more its capacity. And it’s an absolute
principle.
We see evidence of long-term spiritual activity
here in this world-system; and particularly
Jambudvipa – it’s one of its names. I
particularly like that one because it translates
as “endurance”, “the bearable”. It’s called “the
bearable” because of the existence of Shaktipat.
When we look at our recent history, and I talk
about recent history going back some 50,000
years, what do we see? We see the detritus of
very powerful spiritual forces that have now
kind of oscillated and become fossilized into
religions and spiritual beliefs, and have gotten
completely mixed up in various social and
structural components of various civilizations
through time. But what’s important is that
we see long-term spiritual activity. In other
words, this has been a place where Shaktipat
has been operating for quite some time.
Every single religion that we can name on our
ten fingers, represents a training project, that
came from the highest authority, high-end
beings that have gone through this incredible
awakening process, incarnated in human form,
and started acting and operating in an awakened
way. They were all different projects,
designed for unique times; and they have
this extraordinary life-span. It’s interesting:
they start out positive; then as they begin
to fossilize, they become very destructive,
thus generating the need for a renewal in the
project. I’m just digressing through this idea
of evolutionary cycle of spiritual training. But
all of them, without exception, take as their
basis, this concept of God, Guru and Self,
arising as a singularity. You, the Self, are the
Guru; you, the Self, are God. It’s not poetic,
it’s not positive thinking.
Sometimes people will say, “Oh God – God
is all good, and this is all bad. And I want to
stay away from everything that’s bad, and I
only want to do good.” But it doesn’t really
work that way – it all arises as one thing. Its
all conscious or unconscious. Yeah, there’s
scary stuff, especially in the unconscious. But
it’s not a second thing; it’s just consciousness
in the form of unconsciousness – that’s all
it ever is. There are modalities of behavior
and activity that bring out the nature of God.
There are modalities of behavior and activity
that bring out the nature of increasingly dark
forms of unconsciousness. And yes, we have
to address that.
We can’t objectify it away from ourselves.
We’ve already objectified God away from
ourselves. We’ve objectified God as something
way out here, and we’re all the way over here.
It’s a fundamental mistake, it’s a fundamental
error. God, which arose as pure consciousness
and unconsciousness, the Guru, is simply
consciousness and unconsciousness arising
simultaneously. It’s what you are, assembled
as the Self.
The original form, the original manifestation
of consciousness and unconsciousness was the
first Guru. The second being came into contact
with the first Guru and realized everything.
The third being came into contact with the
second Guru and realized everything. The
fourth being came into contact with the third
Guru and realized everything, etc. Even though
there is a multiplicity of bases of operation, it
doesn’t mean that there are one, two, or three
Gurus – they’re just manifestations of the
same energy. But beings that go through this
process become very unique – awakening to
themselves.
The way it always happens is that you, as
a being, have gone through the cycle of
evolution so many times – you’re pushing,
pushing, pushing. The struggle of evolution is
dynamic, extremely stressful, and you come up
against great resistance. There’s times where
you just need a push – you’re so close, you’re
so close. Then something comes along, and
somehow those obstacles seem to dissolve;
you’re pushed through an open door and you
move into a higher form of evolution. You do
this countless times.
You could say that the Guru is the incarnation
of the evolutionary spirit. It is the energy
between consciousness and unconsciousness,
where unconsciousness, having become
unconscious, must become conscious again.
It’s exploded as a whim, out of love, to know
itself, into countless forms; but it must always
reconcile its origin with consciousness. In
other words, there’s no conscious thing that
can just exist unconsciously at peace; it’s in
a state of disequilibrium. And this constant
struggle of awakening is evolution itself – it’s
what drives the evolutionary process. It is this
struggle to always improve your condition...I
mean just look at everything that you’ve done
in your life: everything you’ve done, you’ve
done to try to improve yourself. All of your
desires are seeking to fulfill some form of
perceived lack. The process of education is
evolutionary. The process of lifetime after
lifetime is evolutionary. It is the Guru within
you; it is the Guru Shakti that is always seeking
to push this upward evolutionary mode. We’ve
been trained in this particular time and space to
objectivize and rationalize away the truth that
we are God, to rationalize and objectify the
fact that the Guru arises within us, as a constant
force of evolutionary upward movement. All
of this takes place in eternity, because this
really does go on forever, eternally.
Eternity is a reality. There are fantastic vacation
spots, there are great destinations. You know
how when you’re driving on vacation, you
have a great destination, and you really want
to get there, you’re really looking forward
to getting there. But then you get there, and
you do what you’re going to do. It’s not over.
Then you have something else to do. Existence
is like that. Everything that you think of as a
destination now, is just a great destination; but
it doesn’t end. It takes getting used to, I know;
which brings us to another great slogan: life is
not the destination, it’s the journey. Because
as we go through these countless journeys, we
gain experience. We finally begin to get some
insight into our nature, we begin to find out
who we are as people.
Somewhere along the line, we gain the ability
to, instead of a constant chain of external
destinations, we gain the ability to look
inside. We add to our force of evolution, a
new energy, which I like to call involution.
In other words, the same impulse that drives
us around the planet, drives us through one
activity after another, seeking to fulfill one
desire after another, having those experiences,
learning those lessons – all that has to happen.
You can’t tell anybody anything, they have to
learn it for themselves. It’s a really interesting
thing: you take a person that’s started looking
inside, and you’ve got the beginnings of an
interesting person. Well, people are always
interesting; but it’s a noted turn when they
begin to look inside, begin to unravel the
energies and forces of their own substance,
come to some understanding and insight into
themselves.
Because this takes place in eternity, what you
begin to see is that there’s this whole new effect
in the field of the Guru – that dynamic from the
very original Guru, infinite consciousness and
unconsciousness exploding along countless lines
of impact – we begin to see beings coming to
total consciousness and total unconsciousness,
simultaneously. In other words, they exist in
total consciousness, but they also manifest
in total unconsciousness; which is to say that
they have a body. The three relative bodies
of physical, subtle physical and causal, in the
case of human beings, become flooded with
consciousness; and the unconscious becomes
consciousness. Inasmuch as that occurs, they
begin to manifest the energy of Guru, infinite
consciousness and infinite unconsciousness.
Over eternity, countless, countless beings
have had this experience; to the point where
they have multiple incarnations of arising,
totally unconscious and totally conscious,
simultaneously. They tend to move from
project to project, planet system to planet
system; but if you come to understand human
history, you can see their fingerprints on the
shaping of society and civilization, in countless
ages and in countless times. Not only that,
you can see individual operators, beings that
have operated totally consciously and totally
unconsciously, say, here on earth for many,
many, many times, in countless different
personalities, different times, different places.
So thus they have arisen as the Self, they have
totally realized, “Oh yes, I am the Guru.” And
even more, they have totally realized that “I
am God”.
In almost all cases, especially on thirteen-
of-twenty-five, when you see a being that
is awakened, you will always see that they
have come into contact with one of these
manifestations of the Guru Shakti. It is
just that contact, that touch, that produces
the wave of awakening that sets the ball in
motion, and begins an impulse of very rapid,
very aggressive evolution inside that person.
When that occurs, something unbelievably
revolutionary has happened to you. You come
into contact with the full force of God, Guru
and Self, outside of yourself; in other words,
it’s walking around in a body, walks up and
talks to you, contacts you and touches you.
When that occurs, the event of Shaktipat has
taken place, the dynamic of awakening. The
impulse of the kundalini is set in motion, and
a course, a path of very aggressive evolution
will begin to take place inside you. It’s the
way it works.
But it’s not some power that comes from
the Guru, necessarily, that’s other than you.
Remember, the Guru is already inside you –
you are the Guru, as much as the Guru will
ever be seen. But you’ve forgotten, you’re
unconscious. So we have a situation where
what Nityananda called the Guru of cause
and the Guru of action. It’s not two Gurus.
The Guru of cause is the generation of the
Guru Shakti that is manifested, perhaps gone
through a given being, and is operating in a
world system as a Guru, infinitely conscious
and infinitely unconscious. When you come
into contact with them, what happens is that
the Guru of cause speaks to the Guru within
you. That’s what generates the Shaktipat, the
way of awakening. It is the Guru of action
that begins to flow inside that self, that jiva,
that was in the condition of being in the bound
condition of forgetfulness, being addressed
to a very powerful course of recognition, of
remembrance, of realization.
And remember I said, this evolutionary force,
even under the impact of Shaktipat, can be
very dynamic, very stressful. Just think of the
energy of growth, just think of the effort it took,
to go from birth to childhood to adulthood. The
evolutionary force of Shaktipat is that, times
a million. It’s conscious, in that it will apply
itself to you, always pushing, but always inside
the tolerance of existence, the maintenance of
existence. Your life will change, your concept
of self will change, your identity will change
– your identity will change a lot, because it’s
really God. You’re set in motion to remember
all that inside you. It’s like the Guru-cause
pushes the button, or pulls the trigger, and
this process of the unraveling of incredible
samskaric accumulation of countless lifetimes,
begins to unravel. The raveling on of
countless lifetimes begins to unravel, dissolve.
Interestingly enough, the process of realization
is not so much as something being added to
you, that something you’re deficient in is being
given to you. You’re just being reminded of
who you are.
This idea of the operation of, the expression of
the Guru, is a form of grace. It is the way out.
It is the way of completion, it is the escape from
the wheel, and the pathway to self-realization,
recognition of your true nature, the experience
of yourself as God. The driving force of
this grace is the exact same force that on the
expression of a whim, infinite consciousness
exploded into unconsciousness and generated
the creation out of a desire to know itself. And
having entered that creation, taking the veil of
unconsciousness, that desire turns into the most
incredible yearning imaginable, to recover its
nature, and merge back into its true self. This
energy, this yearning set in motion by the whim
of creation, is what we know as love. It is that
energy of total attraction, that having, out of
a whim, generated the creation to know itself,
entered that veil of unconsciousness, and sought
to re-recognize its true nature, its true self.
That disequilibrium produces inconceivable
power of attraction and yearning, that filters
down into everything. That’s what love is –
infinite attraction between consciousness and
unconsciousness. That’s why we see it in
everything.
Why do we do anything? It’s out of love.
It’s the energy behind every action. It’s so
powerful, you almost have to learn how to use
it, because...you know. Where do we see this
idea of super-attraction, or love, go wrong, so
to speak? It can be seen in a manifestation of
greed. What is greed but love of wealth, love
of money, love of gold. Nothing wrong with
gold, but to love it too much will poison the
heart, poison the mind, and produce incredible
suffering. And it oscillates into what we would
call a negativity of greed. Greed is a kind
of evolutionary force, because we’re trying
out things we want. But what has happened
when greed has taken hold of our spirit, our
soul? We have lost balance. We love gold too
much, and we are willing to do anything to get
it. Thus we become greedy. But the energy is
still love.
One of the definitions of what we call evil is
basically things that are good, that have gotten
out of balance. Or maybe were true one time,
but are no longer true, haven’t gone away,
and are having an impact, producing negative
karma, negative fruition. Negative beings that
are attached to that karma. World systems are
born out of the projection of negativity. On
one hand, hell exists. It’s a place of incredible
suffering; it’s a sphere. But on the other hand,
we have beings that are operating as Gurus, that
are born as Bodhisattvas, that seek to be born
in hell so that they can alleviate the suffering of
hell. It’s not for everybody, but everybody gets
to that point somewhere. Some people will do
anything to avoid the suffering of hell; and it’s
a good idea. The next thing you know, you’re
incarnating in hell to alleviate suffering. this
is, after all, eternity. It’s like going through a
door and seeing the back of your own head.
So we have the infinite consciousness of God,
the truth, inconceivable beyond all conception,
that on a whim divides itself between
consciousness and unconsciousness, and seeks
to resolve itself. The very first expression of
the totally infinite consciousness and infinite
unconsciousness is the perfect expression
of the Guru. We also have the countless
manifestations of consciousness constructs, that
we call selves, or self. The expression of the
Guru, the perfect equilibrium of consciousness
and unconsciousness, is the manifestation
of awakening and impacts evolution across
countless world systems.
Here in Endurance, the world system that
we’re in, there are twenty-five worlds that
operate, and all have human existence on them.
On thirteen-of-twenty-five, this world system
is the only system where the Guru operates
as manifest, and Shaktipat is available. So
everybody has to move here. Ever wondered
where all these people are coming from? No,
it’s not just manifesting from the first man and
first woman that walked out of Eden. They’re
pouring on from multiple world systems,
because Shaktipat is here. It’s the only world
system available to the human tribe, with a
doorway. Is God not merciful?
All this by way of description of the
manifestation of the Guru Shakti as grace.
Here in Hard Light, that is driven by one
energy, and that is love. When you touch love
you know it. It can’t be mistaken. It operates
at every level of existence, from the base –
in the example we just gave of greed, as an
inordinate love of money – it’s still love, it’s
just out of balance. Up through the entire array
of desires, all of them are love. You have to
learn. Then we have this kind of division in
this whole capacity of love, that is seen: we
have personal love and we have divine love.
It’s simple: personal love is connected to all
the stuff – attachments, desires, all our forms
of yearning.
Divine love is able to strip out of love, all of
its objects; and experience the pure energy of
pure love, without connection to anything –
love for its own sake, love in its own nature.
As you gain knowledge of love, you gain
the capacity to shed lesser and lesser desires,
because there’s something about love that is a
form of food for the spirit.
When we gain the capacity to touch love and
experience love directly, we are healed of the
need for their objects; and we gain the ability to
live and flow and breathe in love. Attraction is
like a form of magnetism. It’s infinite energy,
endless energy. As we learn to increase our
capacity for love, we increase our capacity to
awaken.
The evolutionary force is one that expands our
capacity. We become more and more complex
life forms. So our power of experience is
increased, our influence is increased. But
involution is the beginning of learning the
subtleties of the totality of ourselves. We are
indeed complex, and our origin is obscure.
It takes a lot of wisdom to see where human
beings began and what they’ve been through.
All of the dynamics of training are here in the
Center, fundamentally simple: meditation and
learning the various disciplines of meditation:
pratyahara, the ability to stop the mind, the
ability to attend to the breath, a kind of quality
of concentration. These are all yogic skills
that serve this awakening process. They’re
like virtues of love. With love, your ability
to meditate will deepen and intensify very
rapidly, with incredible force. And with love,
you will have the courage to go through what
meditation will generate.
The effect of spiritual training, the effect of
awakening, is very profound, very powerful.
It’s the slightest drop and the arc of your
incarnations will change forever. Your
life will change right there in front of you.
You won’t recognize yourself, because this
evolutionary force has been driven inward and
you begin to evolve inwardly. With love, you
will have the courage to face this evolutionary
force. Oftentimes we see that when a person
gets Shaktipat and the evolutionary force of
awakening begins to act upon them and begins
changing so swiftly, they feel like they’re out of
control and become afraid. What you learn to
do as you gain experience, is first learn what’s
important. And as you learn what’s important,
you start to shed external attachments. It’s
not a requirement, it’s what you tend to do.
Because this involutionary evolution becomes
more important to you, you’re more interested
in not so much controlling your external life so
that your ego-centric identity feels happy and
safe. You start to realize that it’s a constant
effort that gets nowhere and never ends. But
if you begin to evolve internally, you begin to
manifest conscious awareness in every aspect of
life, every aspect of the world; your awareness
begins to expand into the other world of pure
energy and the other world of pure mind. In
other words, your sphere of experience begins
to really widen.
That becomes very exciting. At the same time
it’s a little bit daunting. You should understand
that when you’re feeling fear, when you’re
feeling that daunted feeling, it’s the ego-
centric aspect of your identity that is sending
you that signal, the ego-centric “I”: “How
can I control all this? I was barely keeping
up with what was going on before. Now you
want to change the entire basis?” – a familiar
argument. You’ll find inside that your love is
kind of on a switch. When it’s externalized to
objects and externalized desire, it will tend to
manifest on a scheme of supporting the ego-
centric identity. But when you internalize,
you begin to exist in pure love, and you begin
to feel touches of Divine love; which, simply
put, begins to shed the external objects of
desire. So you say, “Where should I put my
love?” You put your love on the Self, your
true love on the Guru, put your love in God.
And you’ll find this force, because love is
dynamic. It begins to pull these incredible
spheres of being, together. You begin to feel
the interconnection between yourself, you
begin to feel a connection with the Guru, and
you begin to feel a direct connection to God.
As those hook-ups begin to bear fruit, they
begin to blur into a single thing. It co-mingles
with the dynamic of Shaktipat, that is grace,
and produces an irresistible force of awakening
and internal involution and awakening,
understanding and enlightenment. You begin
to see the interconnection of all things. As
you see them, you begin to gain knowledge
and understanding of them, and your action
begins to change. It is this process of grace,
Shaktipat, and love that is the driving force of
the awakening process. It’s the fuel that drives
the underlying truth of the singularity of God,
Guru and Self.
The energies of your sadhana, I say, “Be
mindful of the breath. Watch your breath.
Meditate. Work on pratyahara, learn to
stop the mind.” The spheres of blessing and
transmission from the yoga tantra are like
subject matter in a great university. They are
virtues, these energies of God, Guru and Self,
grace and love, underlying force. If you want
to get anything done, you’ve got to keep it
simple. I want to conclude with this one last
thought: you were born, and so you’re free; so
happy birthday.
This fulfills and brings to a conclusion the
completion cycle of the intensive. This has
been an extraordinary year, across the board –
great movement in the spirit and the ripening
of dharma in all of your lives. My life has been
extraordinarily impacted. Very interesting
day: completion sessions are always extremely
powerful and complex – so much must occur
so swiftly. The teaching cycle of 2009 is
complete to my total satisfaction, a wonderful
and extraordinary year, and good work on all
your parts. Keep it up.
The Hard Light Center of Awakening is an organization founded and directed by Mark
Grifin as a forum for the study of spirituality and meditation. Mark Grifin is a Meditation
Master who is irmly established in the advanced samadhi states — rare strands of
consciousness that lead to remarkable perception and spiritual accomplishment.
The Center is made up of a broad assortment of people from all walks of life and all
levels of accomplishment. Both newcomers and veterans continually inaugurate and
deepen their practice through the very same format.
Thanks to the many people who have done transcription work for the Center over the
years, and to those who continue to do so.
Special thanks to Ann Brockway for her transcription of this intensive.
Formatted by PodPublishing; this transcript is un-edited, and presented in its entirety.
