Knowledge and Religion

Michael, do you want everyone to live in poverty?

You often hear me talk about finding happiness at its source, and its source is the place where you actually experience it. Happiness does not lie in the things that you see. So now you are asking, if people aren’t constantly hankering after more things, won’t we all be poor? After all our whole economy is based on buying and selling things like cars and houses etc.

Before I can answer this question we have to look into the purpose of life. It is of course to find happiness, coupled with the assurance that this happiness won’t slip away in the next moment. We accumulate more and more things with the hope that we can find the lasting happiness that we intuit life has in store for us.  In order to make sure that this happiness lasts, we build walls around our house and hire guards with the hope that thieves don’t snatch our happiness away.

We long for happiness that will not disappear
And yet the little things that snatch our joy away are insidious. They seem to attack us from inside of our walls. For instance no matter how thick the walls, they cannot keep out old age and diseases like cancer. No matter how much wealth we have, we cannot bargain with death. _____________________________________________________________________________________

Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is a guide to waking up to your innate freedom. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also, now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

 ___________________________________________________________________

Moreover we fear that the thoughts in our mind will invade our walls and sabotage our happiness; thus we attempt to keep our mind occupied by travelling the world, and piping music and four hundred TV channels into our living room. However we begin to find that no matter how much money we spend on travel and entertainment, we do not find the satisfaction that we want. We squirm as we lie by the swimming pool that we own, unable to relax in our own skin. And yet even in our dying days we long for the happiness that does not disappear.

The Secret to finding lasting happiness

The Source of Love

The other day I was talking with my wife, Brigit, and she described waking up as finding the source of love. This is a great way of describing the thing that can really only be described by your own experience. People often think that realization is a feeling of love or happiness that they find in their heart. Furthermore they blame that feeling on what they do, what they have, or on their environment. Then something happens and they lose that feeling. They exclaim, “Oh no, I lost my realization!” Indeed their feelings of love and happiness seem to come and go. So let’s see what happens:

Are you what you do?
First let’s look at the things that people do. They might identify as: “I’m a teacher,” “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m a doctor,” “I’m a policemen,” or “I help others, etc.” For the doer satisfaction depends on the results of their actions. Sometimes they go as planned and sometimes they don’t. For instance sometimes a doctor can save a patient and sometimes the patient dies. Sometimes the teacher succeeds in educating his or her students, and sometimes the students are just a ball of mischief. Similarly, sometimes a person is grateful for the help of a saint, and sometimes not. Identifying as the doer, when a person’s actions succeed, the person feels happy, when the person runs into one of the multifarious obstacles that come along with any action, the person feels apprehensive or unhappy. And thus people swing between happiness and misery.

Does love come from the people you love? _____________________________________________________________________________________

Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

 ___________________________________________________________________
Second, sometimes people depend on the things that they have and the people they relate to for love. The problem with blaming love on relationships is that too many moving parts have to line up. When the parts diverge, love seems to disappear. If you need proof, just look at the divorce rate in the United States. Once you notice all of the ingredients that have to come together to derive love from another person, you won’t be surprised by this high rate. 

First the person who is the object of your love has to be there and in the condition you expect; then the person’s desire and capacity to enjoy the relationship has to be there. Finally the person’s mind must be there. The same thing that’s true for the other person is true for you too. You must be there and in good condition (not a corpse etc.), your desire and capacity to enjoy the relationship must be there, and your mind also must be there. Isn't it a wonder that with the necessity all of these changing parts coming together, that a relationship can ever be the cause of your love?

Does love come from your environment?
Third, some people depend on their environment to find love in the form of peace. In order to find peace they move into a monastery or into a quiet place in the country. Everything goes well until the construction crew comes in and makes a racket as they chop down trees. Or the monks in the monastery go into the city to buy food where the bustle of the city seems to destroys their enlightenment. It turns out that even your environment is a moving part. Using it as a crutch, you will never find the constant flame of love.

Now here’s where it get more subtle. Love does not come from a feeling in your heart either. Where ever there’s a separate experiencer the experience of love will seem to come and go. So where is love anyway?

To a separate experiencer love seems to come and go.
You can see why people have trouble conceiving of love as a steady flame that supports the whole universe. Even though they crave this love, they think of it as the most nebulous, volatile and unpredictable thing in the universe. There are simply too many moving parts that have to come together in order to experience love. That is of course if you don’t know the secret of love. So here’s the secret: Love comes from what you are, not from what you do, what you have, or where you live. Here’s a practical way of stating the same thing: Love comes from the place where you actually experience it, not from the things you see and experience. Remember you don’t know love as a separate thing; rather you know love because you are love.

Take these words and use them as a pointer to find the love that you have to experience to know; the love that does not fit into the concepts conceived by your mind. Things that you experience are in constant motion going this way and that. But you are the steady flame that brings everything to its source in oneness. Like a moth is attracted to a flame, everyone is attracted to the flame of love. Not realizing that this love is what they are, they strive for it in the millions of things that they think and do. Once you discover this truth, you will know for sure that enlightenment is finding the source of love. Fortunately that is what you are!

Asking Questions
If this blog seems a little theoretical to you, ask questions. Then you will see how the explanations in this blog apply to your life. And the freedom that you find will be real. Questioning is the key to your freedom. You’ll see that when you question limitation, it falls away.

Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com.  I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it. When you can ask, you are well on your way to freeing yourself from the limitations that seem to cause your suffering. Of course, to preserve confidentiality your name will be left off.

Also for more detailed explanations and examples read through these blogs or get my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. 
 
Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

The Secret Meaning of Easter

You may wonder why we celebrate Good Friday and Easter. Shouldn't these days be days of morning? After all Jesus just died a gruesome death on the cross. I think that after reading this blog you will see that there is a secret meaning to dying and then rising up. Understanding this secret, you will know why we celebrate Good Friday and Easter.

The key can be found in the Nag Hammadi library. Although the Gospels in the Nag Hammadi library didn’t make it into the standard New Testament, they give a clear sense of the inner life of Jesus and his disciples; and most important they point to how anyone who desires this secret can find that which was never born and will never die.

I thought I would start this blog in celebration of Easter with Jesus introducing himself as he really is. He is not pointing to something that you can comprehend with your mind. You know the truth of these words in a more direct way. You understand these words because this is a description of what you are. Notice that Jesus is describing himself in the third person. Now from the Nag Hammadi Library:

Matthew said to him, “Lord no one can find the truth except through you. Therefore teach us the truth.” The Savior said, “The one who is ... is ineffable. No sovereignty knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor did any creature, from the foundation of the world, except himself.

For he is immortal. He is eternal having no birth; for everyone who has birth will perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. No one rules over him, since he has no name; for whoever has a name is a creation of another. He is unnamable. He has no human form; for whoever has a human form is the creation of another. He has his own semblance-- not like the semblance that we have received or seen, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the totalities.

It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. He is without end; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable, and has no likeness. He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is everlasting. He is blessed. He is unknowable, while he nonetheless knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishably blessed. He is the “Father of the Universe.

From: Eugnostos the Blessed
Translated by Douglas M. Parrott
The Nag Hammadi Library In English
Copyright © 1977 by E. J. Brill Leiden The Netherlands

The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. The texts were rescued just before they were about to get burned up for firewood. They were obviously edited out of the New Testament but contain the highest wisdom.

Death and Birth into your own Nature
Now, in celebration of Easter it is time to talk about dying and being reborn. Not in the physical sense because if Easter was about what happened to a man who lived 2,000 years ago it wouldn’t have much relevance for us today.

If on the other hand dying and being reborn is a description of the potential for each and every human being then it is relevant for us even today. So what is the nature of the death that Jesus was talking about? This death was dying to limitation. That’s when he discovered the truth that was before the universe, behind the universe, and the remainder when the universe perishes. As Jesus said: “He is without end; he is incomprehensible. He is ever imperishable, and has no likeness. He is unchanging good.”

Dying to limitation
By the end of this article you will see how it is possible to die to limitation. And when you die to limitation, you are automatically born to eternal life. Now you will understand why Easter is a celebration. That’s because even now you are unlimited. It is only an assumption that you are limited by the things that you see. Death is destroying this assumption and returning to what you really are so beautifully described by Jesus above.

The reason we seem to be limited is that we overlook our essential nature and take our identity to be limited to the objects that we see. That’s because all of our senses are directed outward towards the world; there is no sense that can look back and see our real nature.

You are the light that shines on limitation
So we have to know our self in a different way. This is by direct experiential knowledge. You know yourself because you are your self. In fact it is because you are Consciousness that you even know about limitation.

If I told you to go outside with a flashlight and look for the sun you would think that I was crazy. That’s because the sun is light. You do not need a separate light to see the sun. In the same way you are Consciousness; you do not need a separate consciousness or mind to know yourself. You can know yourself directly.

But you see your body and you see your mind, you see your roles in the world, and you take these objects to be yourself. And by their nature bodies are limited by birth and death, health and sickness. Your mind is also limited by its condition and its ability to know. But fortunately these objects are just that, objects in your Awareness. They are not you and they do not define you.

Are you just a thought?
The most subtle object that you see is the thought “I”. Just because you think a thought with “I” in the subject, doesn’t mean that the “I” is you. Here “I” is just another object that you see. This “I” is sometimes called the ego. The ego is also the little connection that attaches to limitation and makes it seem as if it is really you. When your ego dies there is no place left for limitation to rest. As for you, you can rest in your true home. Is this the inner meaning of the crucifixion?

Returning to your home
When by your deepest and most direct experience, you die to the limitations that you thought were you, you wake to your real identity which is the space like Consciousness that was never born and will never pass away. Here you get to abide as the source of wisdom and joy.

Now you see why we celebrate Good Friday with joy and not with the sadness of a funeral dirge. It is a celebration of dying to our assumed limitations where the ego falls away. And then Easter celebrates rising up to our innate freedom where we can rest in peace eternally.

Other resources available to you
If you need a more basic understanding of this Self-Knowledge or if you just want support for your practice, go to www.light-up-your-life.com and read down the main column. Also check out the different links that we provide as resources that can help sharpen the focus of your meditation practice.

Another resource that we have is the book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive , a step by step guide taking you from your everyday experience to the highest wisdom and truth. To find out more, click on the link below: http://www.light-up-your-life.com/wisdom.html. 

Asking Question
Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it.

Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman
www.light-up-your-life.com

On viewing a dead body

Last week my wife and I had the opportunity to attend the wake and final viewing of the body of a friend. The body was fixed up perfectly, his hands where red as if the blood was still flowing through them, and he even seemed to still be breathing.

Perhaps this final viewing is a symbol of the hope that we have that people don't really die. For us it was an opportunity to meditate on where does life come from and where does it reside; where does our sense of existence go when the body passes away? Is death more like a phone line getting cut, where the person remains at the other end.

Fortunately we know a secret so that we don’t have to approach this meditation on a mere mental level based on just hope or faith. This means that we can actually have the direct and immediate experience of what we know. It is not the discovery of something new. Rather it is the discovery of what we are.

Our aim is not to leave the body
At first it may seem reasonable that we are limited by the confines of the body. But if you are willing to investigate this a little, I think you will be amazed as to what you will find. It is just a flying rumor that we are limited by the body, which is just another object  that our senses capture. And even if everyone were to disagree with us, we still have the freedom to investigate this matter for ourselves, to see if we are really limited by the physical body.

Now the first thing that you should know is that we are not trying to get out of the body. Attempting to leave the body assumes that you are in it to begin with. No, just rest in your usual place and begin your exploration. Here are a few suggestions:

Meditate to discover how free you really are
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Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

 ___________________________________________________________________
First of all everyone reading this article has changed immensely since they were a tiny baby, then a child, a student and now some of you are adults and even advancing into old age. But for all of this change do you feel as if you have changed? When you look at your direct experience do you feel that you have grown up and are now old, or is there something about you that is always the same. Perhaps you can find this sameness in a quality of seeing, hearing or knowing that has not changed. In your meditation I think you will find that this feeling of sameness is closer to what you are than the ever-changing body.

Let’s try another experiment to see if the thing called a body, the thing that you are supposed to be, is the real you. We all know our experience is supposed to be that of a body. But let’s dive a little deeper and see if “supposed to be” is really true. In your meditation close your eyes. Do you really feel a body there? Of course you may feel a sore back or a stiff neck. But does that add up to a body? What do you actually feel? Although words may not be adequate to describe it, you will we pleasantly surprised by the depth of your actual experience.

The final viewing of an old friend
I know that many people conceive of spiritual experience as being way out there somewhere. But if you are willing to look afresh, you will find that the thing you value the most is right here. It is your true identity. Standing here in your new-found freedom, you will view your body like the final viewing of an old friend.

Asking Questions
If this blog seems a little theoretical to you, ask questions. Then you will see how the explanations in this blog apply to your life. And the freedom that you find will be real. Questioning is the key to your freedom. You’ll see that when you question limitation, it falls away.

Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com.  I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it. When you can ask, you are well on your way to freeing yourself from the limitations that seem to cause your suffering. Of course, to preserve confidentiality your name will be left off.

Also for more detailed explanations and examples read through these blogs or get my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. 
 
Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

On Atheism

The other day someone asked me what I thought of atheism. Some people believe that God is way up in the sky somewhere, and we are way down here and never the twain shall meet. And where God and people don’t meet, there’s nothing left but belief. And where there is merely a belief that cannot be backed by evidence, there is plenty of room for non-belief too. Belief and non-belief are both based on the same fictitious story.

But here’s a question for you: what if you didn’t have to hold your breath, put your reason aside, and just hope that God is somewhere up there? What if you could use your reason to find the direct and immediate experience of God? Wouldn’t that completely take you out of both sides of this faith verses non-faith argument?

Where is God not? _____________________________________________________________________________________

Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

 ___________________________________________________________________
It seems like reasoning is impossible for something that you can’t perceive, isn’t it? Fortunately there is a way out of this conundrum. If there is really One God as monotheistic religions claim, and everything is nothing but that God, then God would have to be you too, wouldn’t he or she? Here’s another way of putting it that might make this clearer: before there was anything, if God wanted to create a world, She couldn’t have gone to the local hardware store to get the necessary supplies She needed. That’s because hardware stores didn’t exist yet. So like a spider creates a web out of himself, God had to create the world out of Herself. Indeed even the stuff that you see created in this universe is nothing but God. 

In your quest for self knowledge be a sculpturer

The other day I heard an interview with an old friend and I kept on wondering, “What is missing here?” The words seemed right, but something appeared to be off. Then I realized what it was: you don’t go looking for yourself. After all who could stand separate to do that? You are already the Self and that is self-evident. But when you take your self to be an object that you see, your identity appears to be bound by limitation. So your job in this spiritual practice called self-knowledge is to chip away at the limitations that appear to belong to you. Even before the last shard of stone falls to the ground, you will wake up to what you really are, space-like and free.

To get a better sense of this practice, you are not a painter, painting over the canvas. Rather you are like a sculpture chipping away at a piece of stone until the image, hidden in the rock is revealed. In this same way, chip away at limitations until you find the freedom hidden right in their midst. The secret to self-knowledge is that when you see limitation as an object, and not as your identity, you are free of it. What you are doing is separating the subject, you, from the objects that you seem to identify with. This is called self-inquiry. So you may wonder how deep this inquiry can go. At the end when your true formless image is revealed, you are free of old age, disease, death and any type of suffering that can occur in your mind.

What do limitations look like?
So let me give you an idea of what a limitations looks like so you will be able to recognize them when you see them. Limitation is like the thief that you know. Once you see it, you will think, “I knew about this the whole time and just overlooked it.” For ease of understanding, I like to divide limitation into two categories:

Public limitations are the things that until we wake up we all agree with like happiness comes from the things that we want, we are what we do, we are limited to our physical body, and the thoughts in our mind. As you inquire, you will begin to notice that this is a list of objects that you see. This is not a list of what you are.

Then there are private limitations, the desires and assumptions that apply to us as apparent individuals. They govern how we act and react to various situations. Private assumptions often frame your view of the world, your mind, and your identity. An example of a private limitation is the thought, “I can’t do math,” a view of your mind. If you take this thought to describe reality, you might struggle with it and attempt to counter it with the thought, “I can.” But once you see that your thoughts will never come up with a good definition for “I”, you can just let both sides of this struggle go and look at math afresh.

There is more to you than you could have imagined
Will you now be able to do math …. Who knows; but at least you won’t be bound by your thoughts about math. When you can let go of the frameworks that seem to limit you, you will get to see life, the world and your mind afresh. In fact it will be so fresh that you won’t be able to predict what will happen. Here words and thoughts fall short. But you will know one thing for sure: there is more to the world, your mind, and your identity than you could ever have imagined. We stammer to come up with words like space-like and oneness to describe that which you have to experience to know.

And you’ll never again catch yourself babbling about your self-nature when you are still caught by assumptions and looking through limiting frameworks like a glass darkly. That means you will be standing in the place that you talk about. And even if you stammer as you try to find words to describe your experience, your words will describe what is true. That’s because you’ll be standing in your natural freedom. Then when you talk about your natural state, it will not seem like a bunch of unexamined concepts. Rather it will be your natural unbridled freedom, transmitted through your every pore.

Asking Questions
If this blog seems a little theoretical to you, ask questions. Then you will see how the explanations in this blog apply to your life. And the freedom that you find will be real. Questioning is the key to your freedom. You’ll see that when you question limitation, it falls away.

Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. Of course, to preserve confidentiality your name will be left off . I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it. When you can ask, you are well on your way to freeing yourself from the limitations that seem to cause your suffering.

Also for more detailed explanations and examples read through these blogs or get my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. 
 
Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

Where did the universe come from?

When reading a book on Modern Physics and Vedanta, I came upon this beautiful hymn from the Rig Veda. Did you ever wonder where this creation came from? From a state that existed before there was even one division between the seer and the objects seen; and now we have this multifarious universe. 

Without opposites, there is no way for us to conceive of the state that was before the universe came into being; or maybe there is a way for us to know what was before there was a was, and before the first second in universal time ticked by? How can we possibly conceive of such a state? Even now returning to our true identity as objectless Awareness, we become that which is free of the rising and falling of the universe. Now I will let these verses point to that which does not easily fit into words:

Nasadiya Sukta (Not the Non-existent)

1. At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.
There was not air nor yet sky beyond.
What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection?
Was Water there, unfathomable and deep?

2. There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;
of night or day there was not any sign.
The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.
Other than that was nothing else at all.

3. Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
and all was Water indiscriminate. Then
that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging,
stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.

4. In the beginning Love arose,
which was the primal germ cell of the mind.
The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom,
discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing.

5. A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing.
What was described above it, what below?
Bearers of seed there were and mighty forces,
thrust from below and forward move above.

6. Who really knows? Who shall declare it here?
Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation?
Even the Gods came after its emergence.
Then who can tell from whence it came to be?

7. None knows when creation has arisen;
Whether He made it or did not make it,
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
Only He knows, or maybe even He knows not.

Now we can return to that state which was before the world was. It is known and unknown both at the same time. Standing here we can enjoy that which cannot be put into words.

For more detailed explanations and examples read through these blogs or get my book, Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. Also feel free to ask questions. Questioning is the key to your freedom. You’ll see that when you question limitation, it falls away.

Asking Question
As always feel free to ask questions. It is only when you don’t ask that you get to live in assumed limitations. When you can ask you are well on your way to freeing yourself from the limitations that seem to cause your suffering.

Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it.

Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

How to die so that you can be born anew

To bring out the old year I thought I would write a blog on death and dying. That’s because the end of the year is the perfect opportunity to let go of the things that you accomplished, as well as everything that happened to you, both the good and the bad. By letting go of the things that happened on the surface, you afford yourself the opportunity to be reborn in the depth of your being, to wake up and find your real home. That makes for a really happy New Year.

I think you will be amazed by the feeling of letting go. It is so freeing. At first it may seem natural to identify with your accomplishments and the things that you do. For instance you may think I am a teacher, a doctor, or a policeman. To your family you may think, I am a father, a son and an uncle; a daughter, mother and aunt. You may also think: I am successful or I am a failure, I am rich or I am poor, I had a good year or I had a bad one. The sum of these definitions seems to comprise your identity. But they are really just definitions based on what you do and your relationship to your family and others.

The definitions that you think up are not the real you _____________________________________________________________________________________

Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

 ___________________________________________________________________
Did you know that the definitions that you think up are not really what you are? Now here’s another thing that might surprise you: all of these definitions embellish one little word, I. That I is also just a thought and not a definition for you either.

So now you might be really confused; you may think: Then who am I anyway. When everything is gone I am nothing. Here is where a meditation practice is necessary. That’s because your identity is deeper than words and thoughts can capture. But you can still know your identity because it is the one thing that you actually experience. Although words can point to the thing that you are, they never quite get it right. That’s because words are meant to describe objects, not your very essence.

You light up the world
Despite this limitation, here are a few pointers that will help you to meditate on your identity: You are the light that lights up the world; it is by your light that you know that the world exists. Your identity is pure Consciousness, which is a clear light.

Since the sun is light you don’t need a candle to find the sun. In the same way, because you are Consciousness you don’t need a separate consciousness or mind to know yourself. You know yourself because you are yourself.

You can die before you die and then you will live
When a terminally ill patient is about to pass away, he or she naturally starts to detach from the family and the world. That is when the patient finds peace. The patient discovers that although the world is about to disappear, existence remains the same. That’s when the patient finds that things are actually upside-down. You do not depend on the world to exist; rather the world depends on you.

The good news is that without becoming terminally ill you can find the meaning of these words. If you die before you die you will not taste death. This is the promise of Jesus and Sages that existed from before there was time. When you discover that your identity stretches beyond birth and death, your life will become very meaningful. In fact you will have discovered the secret meaning of life on this earth and you will be able to live and die in peace. So our message is to wish you a very happy New Year. We hope that you will let go and die in this way, so that even now while here on earth you can be born into the peace and happiness that is always there.

Asking Question
As always feel free to ask questions. It is only when you don’t ask that you get to live in assumed limitations. When you can ask you are well on your way to freeing yourself from the limitations that seem to cause your suffering.

Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it.

Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

 

 

 

On Occupy Wall Street

Somebody asked me about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I thought this question was a little unusual because I never broach into the political realms. But there are some spiritual aspects to this movement. I think that if the people in this movement are willing to consider these aspects, they will bring more focus to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Specifically there are three spiritual questions that can bring this focus to this movement:

First, what is value of a human being?

Second, what is the purpose of life?

And third, where can a human being find happiness?

By answering these questions I think that the participants in this movement will gain a better understanding of what they are rebelling against, and what they hope to achieve. So today let’s discuss the real value of being human:

Is the value of a human being the same as a corporation?
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Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.

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At first the value of a corporation seems quite obvious. Its value comes from its balance sheet. The more profit a company makes the more value it has. There are two ways that a company can increase its profits: by increasing its sales and investments, and by decreasing its expenses.

Notice that there is no place here for human values and needs. Also there is no room for compassion. For instance if it helps the corporation’s balance sheet to lay people off before Christmas, then your Christmas present will be a layoff notice. Also, a company will give to charity if the company feels it will help its reputation so that it can sell more products.  But the aim of the company is to cut down on a person’s buying resistance, not to help people.

Can our value be measured by our wealth?

On Returning to our Origin

We just got back from our trip to Philadelphia where my wife and I visited our family. In their nineties, my parents are moving towards the end of their lives. So what spiritual instructions could we give to someone of that age? Would you like to be a fly on the wall and listen to the instructions that will take them beyond birth and death? This is your opportunity. If you can catch the meaning of these words, you too will not taste death. And even in life you will live in peace.

Certainly a long and drawn out practice will not work for my parents. And, how are they going to focus on a difficult practice as if it were the razor's edge? Moreover if they depended on using their breath or taking drugs to calm their mind, the first thing they should know is when the body and lungs disappear, these techniques will no longer work. And if they think that meditation is a matter of controlling the mind and body they will also be in for a surprise. At the time of death the sense of I, as the one who controls is the first thing to drop out. That’s when they will come face to face with the things that they really take to be true.

You are the seer of thoughts; not the one caught in them
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Give the gift of enlightenment when you give Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory. See our fully revised second edition.

For more information go to:Amazon.com

Also now you can read this book on your Kindle or other electronic device. Please go to Amazon Kindle.
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But my parents should also know that at the time of death, no matter how strange their thinking becomes, they are the seer of their thoughts, not the one caught in them. If they simply stand as the Consciousness that they really are, things will come to perfect balance. They will return to the harmony that was there all along and just got overlooked. It is the harmony that comes right from their self-nature. And they will not have to worry one little bit.

The only quality that they need for the meditation that transcends life and death is freedom from self judgment. After all, it is judgment that takes us out of our natural state of awareness and draws us in until we mistake a state of mind for reality. By giving up self judgment we are free to return to our natural state.

You are the one thing that remains
So here’s it what I told my parents:

Just abide in your original nature as all seeing Awareness. Everything else comes and goes. That includes the body, mother, father, doer and enjoyer, the world, any state of mind, no matter how strange it may seem, and even the thought I, which attempts to impersonate you.

Although everything disappears, the thing that makes the world seem so real remains. That’s because reality comes from you, not from the world. In relation to the world your identity, Awareness, is the witnessing Consciousness. But in reality you are the all seeing eye of God. Remain here as you always were, always are, and always shall be and you will rest in peace.

And with those parting words we boarded our flight back to California.

Asking Question
Here questions about this article or other things going on in your life are always welcome; you can write us at michael@ananya.com. I love questions and try to answer them all in this blog. That’s because when you start to question limitation, you are on the verge of destroying it.

Please Tell Your Friends
Please tell you friends. Although we don’t have an advertising budget, we hope that everyone who wants to can find out about and wake up to this wisdom.

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman