ShaktipatMeditation

Karma & Shaktipat

2012-02-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

All the impressions from all our lives are stored within us as karma. This karma acts like a cloud or fog which limits us to operating within the system of the senses, binding us to the wheel, and perpetuating the generation of more and more karma. Shaktipat, the liberating impulse, sends a signal to the individual soul for this karmic information to begin to unwind from the system.

The daily bread of spiritual life is the unraveling of these karmic impressions, and they must be unraveled down to the very last thread. Spiritual training and practice serve as the support system for this process of purification. All the spiritual disciplines are designed to help speed up the unraveling of karma.

Shaktipat

2012-01-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

When the instruments of awareness are kindled and accelerated through Shaktipat, the impact is sometimes dramatic and sometimes subtle. The language of this communication is vibration; a very subtle vibration between the teacher and the student. The process of awakening does not rest on an understanding of concepts; it goes deeper than that. The force of it flows by touch from those who are awakened to those who want to be awakened.

This way of awakening people, this transmission of vibration, is ancient and unfailing. Once planted within your system it can only do one thing—awaken. Once the seed of awakening has been planted, it only awaits the accumulation of needed qualities—the ability and the desire of the student to undergo the process. Its most potent food is the hunger to know God.

Shaktipat

2011-12-24T16:32:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

In essence, the Intensive is a day-long conversation with the Guru, a day-long conversation with the force of Shaktipat. The very form of the Intensive is the instrument of Shaktipat, that energy which when transmitted into your system, carries the signal of awakening. Only a single atom of this energy is required for each person.

Shaktipat, once given, cannot fail. It's not a matter of if you will awaken, but when. It is only regulated by your own skill, the intensity of your nature, and what you are capable of enduring in the transformation process. Whether it happens fast or slow doesn't matter. The intensity, spread out over time, does not decrease the impact of its force.

Soham Mantra

2011-12-13T11:35:00.001-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

As you come to recognize that the vibration of Soham is not your voice, but the voice of God, and you learn to watch the vibration of the speech of God within, you'll notice that it's one unbroken stream; the quality of consciousness at the point of individual identity and the quality of consciousness at the point of union with God are the same. It's just your attention which interprets them differently.

Having received shaktipat, the transmission of God's grace, the entire spectrum of attention becomes open to you. It's just an issue of learning to listen. Listening is the key; meditate and listen to what's inside.

Soham Mantra

2011-11-19T15:04:00.001-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

With each and every breath, the Soham mantra vibrates within the sushumna, the central nerve that runs from the root chakra at the base of the spine to the crown chakra at the top of the head. This mantra is the spontaneous vibration of God resonating within the human form; it is not produced by the sound of your voice or your mind. This divine vibration within your being opens the gate at the base of the spine and at the crown of the head so that the light of infinite consciousness can flow in; when this happens, the vibration of the Soham goes higher and higher, raising your attention.

This is a profound mystery, and it is the way of awakening. In this way you will make the journey from the lower depths, where you have taken false refuge in confusion and ignorance, obsessed with the belief in your individual identity, to higher and higher frequencies of connection with God. In the end, your attachment to a personal identity will dissolve, and you will surrender the identity of your individual nature completely, merging with the universal nature of God.

The Ego

2011-11-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The ego is a despotic ruler and defines existence so very narrowly. You've gone through lifetime after lifetime wrapped so tight that your head's about ready to pop off your shoulders if anything happens to you that the ego can't take. The smallest upset causes a psychic seizure; you clench up and wall yourself off from the flow of your own truth, your own Self.

The study of the relationship of the spinal cord to the earth is one that you must learn to do at all times and all places. After a while you'll feel how the tension around the spine begins to release, restoring the flow of vitality within. It's like awakening from some strange dream. The experience of the Self is broad, generous, and fearless.

Arise Spontaneously in the Self

2011-10-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The bellows breath is the best method to release and surrender the spine to the draw of earth's gravity. This is especially important in times of intense pressure and transformation.

The ego-based identity attempts to hold the spine away from its basic relationship with the earth, and this breaks the flow of energy between the spine and the brain. The ego has as its fundamental nature the reflex of separation, and attempts to control the flow of consciousness at the level of the body because the body is the ego's basis of identity.

The whole idea of spiritual life, the whole idea of meditation, is not to form a belief system, but to arise spontaneously in the Self, to directly experience the subtle vibration of God within. It is the instrument of your being that has this experience, and relaxation is the key.

Red & White Bodhicitta

2011-10-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

If you've studied yourself closely, you'll notice that there are two primary energies in the body. They are characterized by the red bodhicitta and the white bodhicitta. The red bodhicitta is analogous to the ida, the energy channel located on the left side of the spine. It is the feminine vibration that is the foundation of energy and mind capacity. The white bodhicitta is analogous to the pingala, the energy channel on the right side of the spine. It's the energy that produces the creation and dynamic of the world.

The interaction between these two energies gives rise to all the dynamics of the architecture of the human form. The human form is an inconceivably complex equilibrium of these yin and yang energies. This equilibrium arises in the seat of the bodhicitta at the heart. It is the anchor and foundation of your existence. It is a deep, gravitational center that holds the atoms of consciousness into the collection of the appearance of your existence – physically, energetically, and mentally.

Four Bodies

2011-09-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The primary nature of enlightenment is empty. It does not have a point of origination where it comes into existence, nor does it ever cease to exist. It is neither infinite nor finite, as these would be qualities. Yet we see that the idea of enlightenment has a resonance in all of the dynamics of perception within a human being.

We as human beings are not a single body with a single perceptive field or point of view. The hard-wired architecture inside the human form manifests itself in four bodies: the physical body of matter; the subtle physical body of energy that animates the physical body; the causal body of mind and mental formation; and the atman, infinite consciousness.

Enlightenment comes into contact with these four tiers of human consciousness, comes into view, through the very act of perception itself. Yet it remains completely empty.

The Nature of Perception

2011-08-22T11:36:00.001-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

When you have interruptions of attention, you have to recognize them and analyze them. The nature of an object will constantly change when observed, revealing more and more of itself.

This is one of the basic tenets of quantum mechanics: an object is changed by our observation or perception of it. This idea is fundamental to advanced yoga.

Uninterrupted Attention

2011-08-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

It takes a while to learn how to use forceful, uninterrupted attention to squeeze a subject down to the point where you can manipulate extremely subtle layers of consciousness. That's why you have to sit around meditating for a few years.

You'll go through a period of time where you experience interrupted attention. One moment you'll be experiencing uninterrupted attention and then you'll touch a place and a huge throb of karma will release all kinds of wild emotions, and your attention will fly off in nine different directions. This is a typical experience when you're going through a phase of strong purification. Sometimes the blast of purification will be so strong that a couple of days will go by before you'll say, Wow, what happened? I was doing this and now I'm doing this and I don't remember changing.” Then you bring your mind back onto the object of your attention and you continue to squeeze it.

Once you fasten on to your thread you have to learn how to use forceful attention to hold the line; lots of details must be accounted for at the level of thought, mind, speech, and action until an uninterrupted chain of attention is fulfilled.

It's the same thing with everyday life. If you want to get anything accomplished in this world you have to clearly discern what it is that you want to do and pursue it in an uninterrupted, forceful line of attention and action. People who've mastered uninterrupted attention seem to be able to accomplish anything in life; whatever it is they want to get done, gets done. On the other hand, people who are easily diverted and interrupted can make a thousand great starts but just a short way down the road they wander off the path unable to remember what they were doing.

The Speech of Dharma

2011-07-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The world turns on kindness. The presence of kindness eventually draws the presence of dharma, and the possibility of liberation. There are world systems that do not have dharma. The evolutionary turn to get to that place where dharma would appear for the very first instant for the first time in any eternity changes everything for every single being in that world system.

There’s a very powerful... what you would call battle between the forces of light and darkness. A million acts of treachery and a million-and-one acts of kindness – that one extra act of kindness makes the difference. It’s the speech of love, the speech of dharma. The force of dharma is strong in this world. There is a rhythmic visitation to this planet by the Original Soul – incarnating physically. When He’s not present He leaves an army of servants behind. That’s a kindness.

See the Truth of Any Situation

2011-07-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Nine times out of ten, a given situation will be afflictive by its very nature; it will involve the suffering of any number of beings. But that doesn't mean the quality of truth is not unfolding within that setting.

The ability to see through to your obligation in any situation, to see the truth of any situation, is the dynamic expression of uninterrupted attention. Uninterrupted attention allows you to be present without diminishing yourself or withdrawing into fear. At the same time, you must not demonize others and place all blame on those around you while letting yourself off the hook.

You have to squeeze a subject long and hard to get to the heart of it. There is a very vivid and hair-raising space of awakening in every situation wherein the truth can be recognized. It is the flow of uninterrupted attention within oneself that makes this recognition possible.

Warrior

2011-06-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

In spiritual life you are a warrior. You will become capable of placing your attention on any subject, even if it's painful, fearful, threatening or dangerous. This is a form of attention that all warriors must become trained in, because they must be able to place themselves intelligently into the proximity of danger, death, and injury, and yet keep their mind very clear and do what needs to be done.

This is why people are drawn to the life of a warrior; they love the challenge of being able to express uninterrupted attention in the face of the most terrifying situations. As a spiritual warrior, you will be called upon to face extremely intense situations; these will come in the form of information, knowledge and truth about yourself, about others, and about the world. You have to awaken to the fact that you are surrounded by universal suffering.

Karma

2011-05-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

You can carry issues with you for years and years that you don't address. Because of fear, aversion, or afflictive emotions, every time you touched a difficult subject the mind was interrupted. And now suddenly you're old, and still you haven't addressed it. Then you die without having addressed it, and this just means that you'll have to reincarnate to deal with it.

Sooner or later, all these issues will have to be dealt with. They are the rocks, roots, weeds, and tree trunks that you'll most certainly run across as you plow the field of your life. Where do you get the energy to offset the obstacles in your life, to give you the courage so you can address these difficult areas? By giving rise to love of the enlightened condition, you draw energy from the very center of your being. It is a well of infinite consciousness, and a resource of infinite energy that will give you the power to deal with the problems and issues of your life.

Bodhicitta

2011-05-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The practice of Bodhicitta is a fundamental part of your daily spiritual training. By giving rise to love of the enlightened condition and sensing the presence of the spontaneously arising enlightened mind at the seat of the heart, you will experience the truth that enlightenment is not something outside of yourself, but exists within you as you.

Bodhicitta is the ultimate power of attraction that draws the infinite points of Self to a single place, encompassing the totality of the human experience in a single gesture. It posits the existence of the human form and its emptiness at the same time, expressing both the conditioned aspects of limited existence and the infinite consciousness of enlightenment.

It is the presence of enlightenment within that pervades all conditioned reality. As you bring your mind, energy, and attention to bear on the Bodhicitta, expressing it consistently, again and again, you establish a karmic connection to the ocean of enlightenment that exists within you.

Attention

2011-05-05T15:28:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

You'll often find that when you bring your mind to bear on a particular topic, perhaps studying some painful part of your life, that in some uncontrollable way your attention is interrupted; the mind jumps and skips the subject. You'll think, "What was I thinking about?"; and you can't remember.

This is just how the mind works, and as dharma practitioners you must become accustomed to it. Ultimately, the mind is a machine and it can be trained to do anything. You must learn to recognize the interruption of attention and forcibly bring your mind back to the subject. This is the only way that you'll begin to see all the reasons why you didn't want to address the subject. This is how you process through a problem or an issue.

Nature of Attachment

2011-04-18T10:55:00.001-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Look around at the objects in your house, in your life. Look inside your closets. See what's there. Examine the emotional and psychological content of all these things. Is their vibration positive, having come about through generosity or love, or is it negative, having come from an attachment or aversion?

Perhaps many of your clothes are an attachment to an identity you seek to maintain, a way you thought of yourself at one point in your life, but which doesn't represent you now. You may not have worn many of your clothes in a long time, but they remind you of a good period in your life, and you don't want to give them up. So it goes with all your possessions.

It's actually easier to get rid of these things, remove them from your life, and clear up that psychic space; because you're connected to them, and even though you don't recognize it consciously, the connection holds you in the grip of all of those emotional states from the past.

Nature of Attachment

2011-04-12T12:13:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The poisons of attachment, aversion, and delusion produce an endless stream of negative behavior. The karma generated by this behavior is like an enshrouding blanket of negativity, making it impossible to see the truth of a given situation.

What was your thinking like the last time you felt anger, jealousy, envy, greed? What were you like when you were under their spell? You always ended up acting like some kind of demon. And afterwards, what did you feel? You felt shame, you felt guilt. And now you had to carry that around. Nothing is furthered by this kind of negative behavior.

The quality of love, all the higher angels of behavior, draws you into life with incredible force, and you see clearly. Your life becomes fantasy-free; you no longer live in some kind of fairy tale. You see the truth of things as they are.

Moving to a Condition of Clarity and Awakening

2011-04-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

All negative thoughts, emotions, and behavior arise from one of three states: attachment, aversion, or delusion. Attachment is grasping, aversion is a form of fear, and delusion is a form of ignorance. These three dynamics define the separation between oneself and all others.

All the higher angels of behavior have as their essence love: the infinite power of attraction; the inclusion of oneself and all others into one's own identity. Any act of kindness, generosity, patience, compassion, or humility leads to the dissolution of the barrier of the false identity that separates us.

Over time, as you include these positive angels of behavior within yourself, and eliminate the poisons of attachment, aversion, and delusion, you will move from a condition of madness and insanity, to a condition of clarity and awakening.

Give Rise to Love

2011-03-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

When you recognize the suffering of another, that knowledge can go in one of two ways.

You can be judgmental and feel that the person is getting what they deserve. When you do this you give rise to a lower, base energy. Whatever it is that this person has done or that they're going through, you've certainly gone through the same thing yourself. But through a process of self-denial, you refuse to see the interconnection of all life as it resists the forces of ignorance and struggles toward the light.

The person can be just on the verge of coming to some new understanding of themselves and their suffering, and you slam them with judgment, locking down the situation and knocking them back into their pattern of behavior. Their moment of awakening is lost.

Or, through an act of will, you can give rise to love. Giving rise to love can be something as simple as not giving way to judgment. Judgment is a heavy load, both for the person who judges and the judged. Not passing any judgment gives the situation an opportunity to breath and produces a kind of spiritual uplifting.

Love is an act of will

2011-03-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Love is an act of will, and it takes skill to be able to remember to give rise to it in all conditions. You have to practice it. You'll find yourself giving way to negative habitual behavior more frequently than you'd think, especially when you start to watch for it.

When you give rise to the lower energies, you commit the totality of your being to that energy, and you transmit it to everyone around you, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. This is how we all hold ourselves collectively in a state of darkness and obscuration.

The Witness

2011-03-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The impressions of everything we have ever done over countless lives are stored within us and act like an encumbrance upon our system of consciousness, locking us into a wheel of cyclic repetition. This is the fruit of behavior that is founded on the desire-based patterns of confusion, obscuration, fear, and ignorance.

There's a spiritual state known as the Witness wherein you engage and observe these patterns of your behavior. Over time, you learn to recognize and become familiar with all the chemical, biological, and energetic changes that occur within yourself and give rise to an endless stream of habitual responses.

Having gained access to a higher source of light through your spiritual practice, you must learn how to assert your will upon that point which you recognize as the seed of a negative pattern of habitual behavior; you learn to resist and transform it into a positive movement of energy towards the higher angels of your nature.

Karma

2011-03-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The seed emotions and thoughts of everything you have ever done are stored within you. These seeds, through the medium of your personal will, gave rise to an action which in turn became the seed for more action. This is the endless cycle of cause and effect, karma. And all this is stored in you. This is the basis for memory and is what is responsible for the habitual patterns of your behavior.

The entire point of spiritual life is to gain access to a new source of light outside of the system of your own karma in order to offset the force of these habitual behavior patterns. The transmission of grace introduces large quantities of light into your system that physically clear the karma from you. This process is called purification.

Path of Dharma

2011-02-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Through the grace of the guru we are brought onto the path of dharma and into direct contact with the light of consciousness. This light acts as a spiritual fire, generating a profound heat that reduces us to our purest qualities.

This process of purification is the daily bread of spiritual life. We experience it as a deep and profound pressure that flows into every place within our being. This is inevitable and cannot be avoided. Everything we have ever been or will be dissolves into the light of consciousness.

The transmission of grace is like a force of nature

2011-01-13T14:56:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The inherent fear of being extinguished is natural, and can't be avoided. We naturally fear being non-existent. I've seen this in all of you. You'll be meditating along, doing beautifully, and just as you're about to plunge into the ocean the fear will seize you, and you'll jump back out. You open your eyes, get up, walk around; try to avoid it. I see you do this all the time.

The transmission of grace is like a force of nature, like the weight of the ocean, an indescribable and unbearable pressure arising from all points. You can't resist it. It's important for you that you find a way to deal with that ever-increasing presence of truth and light within you. Find a way to align with it. When it bumps against one of those nodules of pain and fear, don't recoil. Just breathe deeply around it. The fear will be released.

There is no causal relationship between your actions and the enlightenment process.

2010-12-26T13:31:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

As we move into the third millennium, we're actually getting to the outer stretch of civilization. Life is becoming very complex—technology, the structure of society, everything.

The impact of enlightenment doesn't stop just because it's not twelfth century India, where you sit under the Bodhi tree and become enlightened. Nobody's going to do that anymore because the landscape of modern life just isn't shaped that way. You'll probably be sitting in your kitchen or at a bus stop or on the freeway going to work, and you'll get enlightened.

It doesn't matter. There is no causal relationship between your actions and the enlightenment process. At some moment in time you brushed up against the seed of awakening, and the seal of your personal identity began to crack. From there on, it's just a matter of time. Don't kid yourself. The complete annihilation of personal self is an absolute. Not just sort of; or kind of or maybe; It really does happen.

It's better to have true ideas of your own

2010-12-19T10:43:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

It turns out we enjoy being existent. Nobody wants to stop existing, however painful it may be. Existing is cool. The idea is just to not be trapped like a rat in a maze, always having your choices handed to you, and being forced to think that those choices are yours. It's better to have true ideas of your own.

How to Survive Enlightenment

2010-12-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

You're actually living a multitude of lives simultaneously. Your senses are bound to this life and thus you think this is the totality of life. This is the life of the body but the mind is more like a hologram.

In fact, most of your spiritual practice is taking place in alternate lives. We use the life of the body to produce a magnetic force powerful enough to anchor the force of the totality of life. Once the transmission of grace occurs, the ocean of consciousness pours in and affects all your lives. You'll start to have memories of events that you don't remember doing because they actually happened in alternate lives.

All of what we call yoga is not designed to get us to enlightenment; it's designed to help us survive enlightenment. Spiritual life is a way of keeping up with what's happening to us during the process of awakening, finding a way to deal with it. That's why you meditate.

Conditioning

2010-12-06T15:11:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

We as perceivers are so absolutely affected by everything it is inconceivable. The template that you declare to be the open portal through which you view your existence is so radically conditioned by past action that the entire framework of your present experience is based on what you have already experienced.

What happened to us before completely conditions how we experience what happens to us now, which will so utterly condition the possibility of what will happen to us in the future.

Transmission of Grace

2010-12-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

We have produced such an irrational fear of the death experience that we hold ourselves back from the onslaught of enlightenment, desperately clinging to the very identity that binds us to the wheel. When enlightenment appears in your life, it begins to wipe everything away. It doesn’t say, “Well, this is a good thing so we’ll preserve this, and this is a bad thing so we'll get rid of this.”

It’s as if you were an egg floating around in the ocean, an infinite ocean of consciousness. The enlightenment process is like someone coming along and unscrewing the top of the egg; the ocean just starts to pour in. It conducts itself through the entirety of your being. It's only a matter of time before everything is reduced down to its most basic components—electrons, protons, atoms.

This is the transmission of grace. You are brought back into touch with the ocean of consciousness. What you’re afraid of is that when the ocean of consciousness pours in, it zeroes out everything you’ve ever been, everything you are, everything you'll ever be. Everything dissolves back into the ocean, extinguished. You exist, and yet it's as if you never existed. So you ask, “Why would I want this to happen?”

Enlightenment is a Calamity

2010-11-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Your identity is built upon a string of memories and their associated emotions. You carry this identity with you like a passport and everything that you experience in your life checks itself off against this passport. It is your face to the world. You use it to define yourself to yourself, to define yourself within society. Your attachment to this definition of yourself is so great, that you will destroy yourself before you will change your idea of who and what you are.

The process of enlightenment is the annihilation of this passport, the annihilation of your personal identity. It destroys all links that you have to yourself. It destroys all links that you have to the world. This why it has been said that enlightenment is a calamity; yet this fear of enlightenment is irrational and only arises from the extreme attachment that you have to the lists of qualities on your passport.

Liberation from the Wheel of Samsara

2010-11-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

We refer to enlightenment as liberation from the wheel of Samsara; the eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth. This idea of liberation implies that there is a sequence of events, a subtle pathway through the maze that leads to an exit, to freedom from the wheel. Thus the idea that some kind of action—positive actions of goodness, of generosity;will lead one to liberation.

Yet there is no perceivable causal relationship between action of any kind and enlightenment. The process of enlightenment lies somewhere at the intersection of what we would call intent and luck. Enlightenment is something you catch by running into it, propelled by a complex weave of chance and the dynamic of destiny, the intention of existence.

There is only one mind

2010-11-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

There is only one mind. There are not two minds. There’s not one mind that is universal in which everything arises simultaneously and spontaneously, and another mind that is relative in which everything arises linearly. Mind is a singularity that operates at different frequencies.

For the person deep within ecstatic equilibrium, everything arises simultaneously with no relativity. From the point of view of the individual identity within mundane consciousness, everything’s relative. This is where the idea of phenomena arises.

There has to be a second thing to observe a first thing. A perceiver has been carved out of infinite consciousness, and the perceiver begins the chain of events called perception. Perception produces a product. That product is called phenomena.

Kundalini Awakening

2010-10-30T14:58:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

As the kundalini rises it begins to change the vibration of your being, both expanding and accelerating your awareness. As it illuminates the chakras, the chakras begin to switch on and vibrate, sending powerful surges of energy and vibrations up the spinal column into the brain.

These vibrations stimulate the brain which operates with increasingly greater efficiency. The brains ability to detect subtle phenomena expands. Like a very compressed program of evolution, the brain operates in increasingly powerful ways, experiencing reality at increasingly subtle levels. Rather than observing the surface of things that is the report of the senses, you begin to experience reality at its vibrational essence.

What we call yoga, spiritual life, is the experience of the kundalini rising and stimulating the brain, causing it to evolve in its operations. Meditation is the essence of yoga and calibrates this process.

Karma

2010-10-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

One of the first basic concepts you come into contact with in the world of spiritual training is karma. You're directed to become aware of the fruits of your actions and then become responsible for their cause, understanding that you yourself will experience the effect.

This is a very powerful teaching. If honestly approached and dealt with, it gives rise to a very high level of attention; you begin to notice that the fabric of your behavior, the fabric of your consciousness is a very complex weave that is constantly going up and down in the frequency of its vibration.

Over the course of an hour we can experience the most sublime thoughts of kinship, friendship, kindness, generosity, and yet on the other side of the coin give rise to acts of jealousy, greed, envy, and anger. Every day we go up and down this mountain countless times.

If this is done unconsciously, we become enslaved to an underlying force of spiritual cause which is the anchor of all suffering—ignorance of our true Self, our true identity.

Kundalini Awakening

2010-10-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Because of the shortness of the lifespan in these times, the awakening impulse involves the kundalini. The movement of the kundalini back into the spinal cord and up into the brain can, in the course of a single lifetime, produce self-realization. How long it takes is based on a person's skill, ability, and courage. But it is the animation of the brain by the kundalini which sets the process of evolution on a hyper-accelerated path.

When the kundalini hits the body it’s a very powerful and demanding event. But the spirit comes upon you when and where it will. You have to accept that. It can't be controlled. You have to have strength of heart, strength of will, and strength of body to endure the impact of the kundalini. You must be fearless, giving rise to love with every breath—love of God, love of Guru, love of Self.

This is why you should keep things as simple as you can: a solid routine of daily meditation, your daily work where you fulfill the responsibilities of your life, exercise, a good diet. As you deal with the dynamics of awakening and the power gets greater and greater as it moves into full force, you will most certainly have your hands full.

Patience

2010-10-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Oftentimes to improve a situation, the quality you must have in the greatest abundance is one of patience. Why? Because it is in the dynamic of patience where the truth, true insight, is finally glimpsed.

If you're always shooting from the hip and acting impulsively, chances are you're going to miss the mark. You won't gain access to all the information that a situation has to offer. The truth is rarely found on the surface of things.

It takes wisdom and experience to read the truth of a situation. And wisdom and experience are the fruit of patience—patience of heart, patience of mind. You must gain the ability to become quiet and listen without making demands on a situation before you can fully grasp its true nature.

All beings seek joy

2010-10-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The entire dynamic of life, the reflex that draws all sentient beings into life and, ultimately, to dharma, is joy. All beings seek joy. That’s why they do what they do. It's as simple as that and that’s what makes us all the same.

When this is recognized, the seeming complexity of behavior disappears. Yes, karma builds up over countless lives, acting as a filter and veils of obscuration. People act out in this life formations of karma that were formed countless lifetimes ago. But when all is said and done, what is always being sought is happiness.

People engage in all manner of behavior, finding both good and bad fortune: the fulfillment of their wishes, the crushing of their dreams. But both these conditions are fleeting and transitory. The only source of true joy lies within. It is a simple message, constantly repeated by all beings who have spent any time on the subject. The source of all happiness, all wisdom, and all joy arises from the Self. It is the Self that is sought down every turn, down every road, down every alley. In every form, we seek the Self.

True Wisdom

2010-09-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

What the guru tells us, what the wise tell us, is that there is no way around difficulty. There is no way around suffering. You can only go through them.

Assuming the responsibility for all the difficulties that beset us is a sign of wisdom, a sign of maturity, a sign of understanding. Experience teaches us that if we truly have our own well being at heart and genuinely seek to avoid suffering, then taking responsibility is where the action is.

The true path of healing must begin with the direct address of all the problems and difficulties that trouble us.

The true path of healing

2010-09-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The power to change and transform our lives

2010-09-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

In the West, the assigning of blame is a psychological concept that is very dear to us, and is something we do very intensely. Our entire sense of social order and justice is one of assigning blame. It's always somebody's fault. But the act of assigning blame away from ourselves is a denial of the truth of a situation.

Spiritually speaking, all qualities, everything that has ever happened to us or will ever happen to us, has as its point of origin one place ourselves. If we psychologically displace the blame away from ourselves and onto something outside of ourselves, we give away the most valuable thing we have the power to change and transform our lives.

Transmission of Grace

2010-09-05T13:58:00.001-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The transmission of grace is like lightening, striking straight into the deepest part of one's nature. Its light is infinitely subtle and all-pervasive; it's the light of God in the form of liberation. Once having entered, there is no holding it back; it will travel to the full depth of every issue at all times.

One of the realities of this grace is the acceleration and deepening of purification. As the grace pours in, it becomes more challenging to maintain balance within the framework of your life, and you must learn to walk the razor's edge while in constant change.

It's like learning how to drive a high-performance vehicle; it's not at all like driving an ordinary car. Just the process of keeping it in a line on the road when driving at higher speeds is challenging. Precision instrumentation requires that you gain a whole new level of capabilities to deal with the increased swiftness of the fluctuations.

Remain in connection with all situations

2010-08-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

At first, the individual seeks completion in their personal happiness, and will make choices based on this. Like a child that has not understood the situation to any depth or degree, when faced with a negative situation, they will attempt to shield themselves from it, hoping to avoid its impact.

By generating action based on a reaction to a negative condition, by attempting to shield them from it, the individual guarantees the experience of the negative event to its fullest degree. Having cut themselves off from it, they will remain uninformed of its true nature.

As the individual matures, they come to understand that judging events is completely subjective; unless you are very wise, you're going to be wrong about the true nature of an event when it occurs. Time and again you come to see that things that seem negative in the beginning end up being the greatest blessings, and vice versa. So you learn not to react to events that appear to be negative; you remain in connection with all situations. Being present with them and feeling them, you learn from the information they provide, and in so doing, you are uplifted by them.

The Breath

2010-08-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

One of the primary training instruments of yoga is absurdly simple—the breath.

The life-force, the prana that animates us is carried on the breath, and this life-force emerges directly out of the fabric of Ishvara, infinite consciousness, and arises inside the breath of every living thing. Infinite truth arising within us, as us, with every breath.

Twenty-one thousand breaths every day—if every breath is conscious, you can unleash unimaginable spiritual force within yourself. That is the training. To consciously draw the awakening principle into yourself with every breath, to feel it capture the form of your very being, infusing the dynamic of truth into every cell. The gravity that arises from this tells you that you have found the thread of the truth within your self.

The energy of Ishvara is an all-pervasive ocean of consciousness

2010-08-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The concept of Ishvara addresses the idea of infinite truth and the dynamic of creation;the formless and that which has form;arising simultaneously. The energy of Ishvara is an all-pervasive ocean of consciousness out of which countless forms emerge.

We ourselves emerge as an expression of Ishvara. We arise as the indescribable, infinite truth and the formation of individual being at one and the same time. We arise as a vessel of truth, from truth, as truth.

That infinite truth unfolds through us as us brings to light a very essential principle: truth must take a form, must arise inside a vehicle, in order to express itself and operate as truth.

The struggle we face in becoming fully awakened human beings

2010-07-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

On the spiritual path, the time will come when life's possibilities and opportunities have reached a wider breadth than you can comfortably deal with. The anguish of a being that has begun to cultivate an inner life is well known. It is much more comfortable to go through life happily shallow and blissfully ignorant, because the instant you try to examine and deal with what's going on inside, you run into paradox after paradox, and no single solution covers the entire situation.

This dynamic is largely based on the complexity of the human form. Part of the struggle we face in becoming fully awakened human beings lies in our capacity to master our form. The more that is awakened within us, the wider the span of possibilities becomes, and the more responsibility we have for mastering our full range of capabilities as human beings.

God is already present within you.....

2010-07-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The essence of the path is relaxation of body, relaxation of mind, relaxation of heart. God is already present within. Truly, we are the drop being pervaded by the ocean.

The dynamic of awakening is not restricted by a specific philosophy or system of belief; it is like a force of nature. This is something one comes to understand only as the inner mystery begins to reveal itself layer by layer, going through one level after another, each more subtle than the previous.

As you relax deeper and deeper, as the stillness of heart and mind and spirit sinks farther and farther into your system, you will become aware of a force drawing you within. Starting as the smallest of threads, it will become a torrent. You must attune yourself to this presence and let it pull you in; it will take you to a place deep within yourself. In this way, everything happens.

The Space Between the Breath

2010-07-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

What is the essence of a deep, slow breath? Self-acceptance. The acceptance of one’s situation, the acceptance of one’s condition. In the space between one’s breath one finds profound stillness. Any one of these points becomes a gateway, an aperture into the infinite Self.

The Descent of Grace

2010-06-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

There is a fellowship among those who seek the truth—those seeking the truth, and those that have sought the truth and come to the completion of human destiny, completed their cycle as human beings and thus gone on. When a person begins to hunger for the truth of things, there is an immediate psychic contact with the fellowship of the thus gone—spiritual masters, gurus, yogis, gods, goddesses—all having seen through the surface of things and struck through to the heart of the matter.

As you turn away from the external phantasmagoria of the dream, a resonance with this fellowship emerges out of your very being. And within this fellowship something utterly profound occurs—the descent of grace. We use the word grace because it is a gift. It is not something you’ve earned, it is undeserved favor. And this gift of grace is made available to you within yourself, as a part of your being. The essence of this gift kindles the spiritual force of awakening within you, changing you at the deepest level of being, at the deepest level of spirit.

A human being is composed of four bodies

2010-06-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

A human being is composed of four bodies, like a series of layers: the physical body, matter; the subtle body, energy; the causal body, mind; the supracausal body, infinite consciousness. All vibrating at different speeds, yet present in the same form. They’re so distinct from each other that they might as well be different planets, yet in reality they are different vibrational aspects of our very own Self.

Yoga is about establishing the points of connection between these layers, and love is the fastest and surest way to connect all points within the Self in an instant and bind them together. Love is the ultimate power of attraction that draws the infinite points of our Self to a single place. This is a profound form of pure mysticism wherein the container of body, mind, and spirit are fused together and transformed into something greater than the sum of the parts. It is the philosopher’s stone, the transformation of lead into gold.

Love is a Power

2010-06-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Love is a power. Of all the powers of the creation, love is the power that pervades all powers. It is dangerous and swift.

A life lived in love is profound and does not just happen. It is an act of will. As an act of will, you give rise to love everyday. Love for its own sake, without expectation, an act of complete abandon. You draw the power of love into yourself and it begins to operate in your life beyond all expectation. It changes you in ways you never imagined.

Love will overcome reason, overcome the mind – this is its danger. Your life will be drawn down the path decided by love. But imagine a life without love. What would be the point?

The surrender of the drop to the ocean

2010-05-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The essence of love in human nature takes root in the relationship between the individual identity and the universal identity. In the relationship between limited self and supreme Self, the dynamic of the expression of love occurs, and this is surrender—the surrender of the drop to the ocean.

The experience of surrender is difficult to describe. It is a willingness to unmask the heart and let it be touched; a willingness to let the heart sit open and unprotected. It is not necessarily a large experience; it’s actually quite personal, quite small, like a yielding, a softness inside. And it is in this softness, in this yielding, that the idea of sacrifice occurs.

In this moment, the raft is abandoned and the ocean is attained. It need not be a huge action. It’s as if you were holding onto a raft and you simply let go. You don’t know what will happen next; it is a moment of absolute trust, of absolute humility. It is a moment of total abandon.

There is only the moment

2010-05-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Karma is the action that is generated by the ego through the operations of the senses. Data comes in through the senses and the ego, along with the list-making capacities of the mind, creates its own closed universe in which it can rule, a false kingdom in which it is trapped.

The false identity of the ego takes the power of infinite consciousness and runs it through the senses, and a river of desire-based activity is produced. The karma that is generated from this activity is the foundation of the cycle of death and rebirth.

During meditation the senses are switched off, the mind stops functioning in a linear fashion and moves into its natural state, universal mind, in which truth spontaneously begins to arise. When this happens, the light of reality arises within, dissolving the fabric of the false kingdom which the ego has held together with its desire-based activity. The ego is obliterated and the Self arises.

Until this happens, you’re trapped in the past, trapped in time. But as the light of the Self gets stronger and stronger, it dissolves all karma. The idea of past, present and future is erased. There is only the moment.

Death is inside you at all times

2010-05-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Death is inside you at all times. It’s part of you, not separate, but a simultaneous event. It is the vibration of “not life.” Like the dark side of the moon, it's always there, you just can't see it.

The longer you live in your body, the easier it is to see death. At first, the newness of the body is overwhelming, and because your mind operates in a linear state, dominated by the senses and the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep, you can't see death within you. But as you become familiar with your body as you wear through the fabric of your life, your awareness will change, and your death will make itself more evident to you.

Like a wind, death matches the circadian rhythms of the planet, moving through your body and striking you once a day. When you are still and totally present, and your mind moves into its universal state where it begins to operate according to the spontaneous truth, you will be able to see death within you and witness the event of being struck by its rolling force. When death strikes your body at just the right point, it will kill the body. The event we technically characterize as death is the separation of the mind and the soul from the body. How you manifest the illusion of your death matches your karma—by illness, by accident, by decay.

Law of Dharma

2010-05-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Always seek to establish a presence of emptiness and humility. This is the whole idea of spiritual life; you listen intently to every situation. No presupposition, no judgment, no set of expectations about anything.

When you see a person and they have three thousand dollars worth of clothes on, you don’t make any judgment about that. You see another person, a homeless person pushing a cart down the street; you don’t make any judgment about that. Because if there's one thing for sure in this world it's that nothing is as it seems on the surface, not a single thing.

The law of dharma that defines right from wrong is very deep and very simple and very direct. If you listen, you can feel what’s right and what’s wrong; you won't need anybody to tell you.

Humility is one of the greatest tools of dharma

2010-05-03T18:57:00.001-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

Arrogance is a psychological posture that serves as a defense mechanism of the ego. You cut yourself off from reality by defining a situation in a way that glosses over its true nature so you don't have to deal with it. You generate a definition of a situation so that you can control it, cause the world to serve you in some way. By placing this template onto a situation, reality is displaced; you override and blur the simple suchness of a situation that is always vivid and apparent.

The immediate antidote to arrogance is humility. Humility is one of the greatest tools of dharma, the great Tai Chi; you are listening to what the great light is saying and aligning yourself with that, without presupposition, without agenda. This listening and sensitivity unveils the presence of truth in any situation. By aligning with the infinite light of creation to the depths that you can observe it, you serve it, and you will find that all situations and circumstances will naturally unfold through and around you, annihilating all false agendas of the personal will.

You Are the Path

2010-04-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The path exists within you as you. Everyone is always looking—looking here, looking there trying to find the path. It's so close that if it were a snake it would bite you because you, yourself, are the path. You arise as the path.

This is something very difficult for everyone to get, especially Westerners, because they are so linear minded. You cannot see the path because you are the path itself. It's as if you were trying to see your own eyeball; it can’t be done. You can see it in a mirror, but that's only a reflection. What you see of the path is just its reflection—the drama of your life as it unfolds.

Being a Yogi

2010-04-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING
Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The average human being operates their attention almost exclusively through the senses. The life force is entirely committed to desire-based activity connected with the senses. This behavior produces a churning within the atmosphere of one's internal theater of awareness which makes it difficult to turn the attention within. It's as if through the operation of the senses you were constantly throwing pebbles into the water, constantly churning the water, making it basically impossible to see past the phantasmagoria of the surface.

One of the first movements of attention whereby a human being is characterized as being a yogi is when, by discrimination, intelligence, and insight, the primary focus of the attention is shifted away from the operation of the senses to the internal seat of consciousness. The yogi seeks to take control of all the dynamics of their behavior and life force. When they seek to dampen desire-based action, they are simply seeking to allow the surface of the water to settle and clear so they can turn their attention within.

Samadhi, to put it simply, is the conscious passing through the membrane between life and death

2010-04-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

As each soul transmigrates and reemerges into the stream of illusion, the ocean of infinite consciousness out of which it emerges is forgotten. It is as if there is a wall between the experience base of the embodied consciousness, what we call life, and the disembodied consciousness, what we call death.

The yogi awakens to this situation and becomes aware of the endless wheel of transmigration. The inability to operate consciously on both sides of the membrane separating life and death finally becomes an issue for them. They seek to pass through this membrane and remain conscious, once and for all merging the two poles of the inherent nature of the human being: individual identity and universal identity.

Samadhi, to put it simply, is the conscious passing through the membrane between life and death. This is the final aim of the entire science of yoga and meditation;the conscious merging of individual identity with the infinite.

Samadhi - Intuitive Knowledge of the Highest State

2010-04-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

HARD LIGHT CENTER OF AWAKENING

Excerpt of a talk by Mark Griffin...

The word Samadhi essentially means intuitive knowledge of the highest state. There are a multitude of classifications of Samadhi, but they can be broken down into two fundamental streams or conditions: Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa. Savikalpa means with form, with identity, with thought. Nirvikalpa means without form, without identity, without thought.

There are many stages of attention within both of these states, but what is fundamentally taking place is the contact of the individual identity with the universal identity, the substance of the infinite creation. The drop of water is dropped into the ocean; the totality of the ocean is in the drop, and the totality of the drop is in the ocean. The platform of identity moves from a point of individual and separate self to the utterly merged and commingled Self.

This is something that occurs naturally at the event we call death. The dropping of the shell of individual self—the body, life force, and mental formation—leads to a revelation of totality and utter independence. This experience is so profound, so dramatic that for the unprepared mind—one unconditioned by yoga, meditation, and the conditions of Samadhi—it simply goes white noise at the end of each life as the mind collapses in the face of totality.

Are you serious about Awakening in this very lifetime?
Deepen Your Practice

God, Guru and Self

2010-03-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

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.