Experiencing oneness is spoken of often in spiritual language. Yet, really, it is a rare experience. Only those sinking into deep silence and have practiced for many years might come to this experience. And the reason is that in deep silence the ego cannot exist. So how to come to experiencing oneness in our daily lives?

It will be helpful to understand where to ego comes from, to understand its roots.

The roots are in early childhood.  A child is born absolutely helpless. No other creature is as helpless as the human child. The human child must depend on others for years. The child is helpless and depends totally on the other. But the ignorance of the mind of the child interprets this dependence as if he is the center of the whole world. And the child is perfectly right to do so. This is a reality for the child. The child cries and the mother comes running. The family revolves around the child's needs. And from the child's perspective, he or she lives like an emperor. The child does not interpret this as dependence. No! The child begins to feel "I am the center of the world." And from this experience the child becomes more and more egotistic. The egotistic view is born.

Of course, this is not the reality. The child is completely dependent, it is totally contrary to what he or she is thinking. But the child is totally ignorant. This cannot be know by them, that they are helpless. They begin to think themselves a dictator!

And this goes on for the whole of life! The individual never comes to realize that they are not the center of the world. And this story is true for all individuals. Millions of egos running around feeling they are the center, Napoleons, Alexander the Greats. Everyone is just like you, feeling their life as if they are the center. Everyone trying to control, maneuver, dominate. And spiritual teachers are speaking of ‘oneness.'....what oneness the ego will ask? It has never known oneness. The ego has only known "I am the center of the universe." And this situation is true for everybody. Nothing can be done about it. It happens to us all!

So what to do? You simply start dropping this childish perspective. Relax into the understanding that you are not the center of the universe. The ego may scream, you will begin to lose the feeling of control, of being the prince dictator.  You may begin to feel unprotected. There is fear. If you cannot begin to drop this ego that the child gathered, you will never know the oneness, love, you will never know the other, nor will you come to feel the oneness. The ego will constantly urge "what about you! Look out for yourself!" And you miss the beauty of the soul and the interconnections of us all.

Dropping the ego, the idea of being the center, opens a whole new dimension of life. Your eyes fill with another vision. When the ego's voice is not constantly demanding, in conflict, trying to get for itself, dominating every thought towards itself, you enter another reality, the eyes become empty of ego and love is felt, oneness dawns upon your heart and soul. For the first time you are alive, living oneness. The other becomes just as important as you. You live from an entirely different center. One is filled with love, understanding, giving, because you know - maybe for the first time - there is no separation. This experience is reality. You will not have to try and feel it. It will suddenly come to you, because the ego is not interfering with reality.

Don't seek this experience....it will come to you more and more as you drop the ego.

Sometimes we have felt a great trauma in relationship and we need to be by ourselves, to keep close to our own soul.  We feel fear at the idea of being in relationship again.  This is not always wrong.  People get the idea that the fear means something is wrong. Sometimes the fear is perfectly right.  It is simply saying to you, "Don't get involved right now."  It's not that you fear the new relationship, not at all.  The fear is being misinterpreted.  The fear is simply saying if you get involved in somebody else's energy, you will lose the centering which is growing within you.

You are becoming more centered after the trauma, you are settling into your being.  You are coming to terms with your aloneness.  If you fall into a relationship, that will drag you out of your center again.  Relationships create contradictions and possibly you are not centered enough at the moment for this.

Fear can be really helpful.  It might be telling you to stay to yourself right now.  Remain alone.  It is perfectly alright.  When the fear is gone, and you have settled, THEN you can affort to go out!  Simply wait.  Listen to your fear.  It will disappear on its own.  And when your energy is ready to go out, you will suddenly be moving with somebody and there will be no fear.  Your whole being will be with you.

Until then, it is okay to avoid relationship.  It's okay.

Man/Woman needs to be needed.  Unless we feel cared for we start to die!  Unless we feel significant to someone we feel our whole life is meaningless.  The whole world needs therapy, because the whole world is missing love, is missing feeling significant.  Giving someone a hug is a beautiful gesture of love, warmth, caring.  The very feeling of warmth that comes from the hug goes deep into the other person and immediately starts a healing process, melting away ego, even certain illnesses.

Every man and woman has a little child in them.  We are like an onion, layers upon layers, but if you peel the onion soon you will find the fresher layers inside.  The same with people.  Go on searching someone deeper and deeper and you will find more and more fresher layers.  When you come deep inside anyone, you will come to find the innocent child.  The innocent child is still there in every person.  And a hug deeply touches that child.  It is very therapeutic.  Hugging gives you an immediate contact with the child.

If you hug somebody and your whole heart is involved, your heart is flowing through the experience, you come into contact with the innocent child.  And when the innocent child is touched for even a moment it is very therapeutic.  Immediately a healing process is triggered.

Hugging is one of the most important, simple and innocent ways to heal, to give someone love.  Simply hugging....simply loving.

Big HUG!!!!

The picture above is of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi of India, better known as "Amma" or the "Hugging Saint".

Tantra uses sexuality to make you whole, to bring your total energy system in balance, completion.  But for this to happen you must be very meditative.  For this experience to happen, you must remain very alert and aware during the sex act - not in control.  Alert and aware does not mean control.  Just the opposite must happen.  Forget all that was given to you about sex.  Drop the studies, the church, the religion.  Come to the sexual experience completely innocent, with no mind.  

And if you come to sex act with no mind, it might look as if you've gone mad. The no-mind state looks mad!  When you drop mind, you become whole as if like an animal.  Man and woman has lost this innate instinct.  The mind is always controlling the energy, controlling the experience and you miss the experience of sheer joy and bliss of being totally like an animal.  If you can lose mind and come to sex total, you will be thrown down into the deepest biolocial center within you - you will become whole!  You whole energy system, your whole body will become energized.

In this overflow of energy we usually will seek release, seek ejaculation.  Tantra says avoid this!  Do not seek ejaculation during the sex act.  But because we are not used to this overflow of energy, it will be difficult in the beginning not to wish to throw the extra energy off, to seek release from the excitement.  When you release this energy, you whole system will relax, will become weak.  But this relaxation is just a negative relaxation.  If you relax just by throwing this energy off, it comes at a great cost.  Because then it cannot go deeper and it cannot become spiritual.

So don't be in a hurry, that's the first thing.  And don't hanker after the end.  Remain always with the beginning.  Every second during the sex act be present, be alive, be with the experience, feeling the energy flowing. Relax with the lover, touching, loving.  Forget the end completely.  Do not seek the end, the ejaculation.

In tantra there are three possibilities of how lovers come together - three geometrical possibilities.  It is represented in three geometric figures.  One figure is a square, another figure is a triangle and the third figure is a circle.

Ordinarily when you are in the sex act, there are four persons, not two, and this is a square: four angles are there because you yourself are divided in two- into the thinking part and the feeling part.  Your partner is also divided in two; you are four persons.  Two persons are not meeting there, but four, creating a square.  It looks like a meeting, but there is no meeting.  No commune has happened.  No energy between the two has happened.

The second meeting is like a triangle.  You are two - two angles of the base.  For a sudden moment you become one, like the third angle of the triangle.  For a sudden moment your two-ness is lost and you become one.  This is better than a square meeting because at least for a single moment there is oneness.  That oneness give you health, vitality.  You feel alive and young again.  But it is only momentary.  You will continually have to seek the experience again and again.

But the third is the best and the third is the tantric meeting - you become a circle. There are no angles, and the meeting is not for a single moment.  The meeting has no time in it.  And this can happen only if you do not seek ejaculation. If you seek ejaculation, then it is a triangle meeting.  But if you do not seek ejaculation, if you are there moment by moment, touching, loving, making love to your partner, every second is felt, shared, with no seeking ejaculation, then this becomes a circle.

Tantra says, do not try and escape sexuality.  Do not be so violent with yourself.  Rather, use nature itself to trancend.  Don't fight; accept nature in order to transcend it.  If this communion with your lover is prolonged with no end in mind, then you can just remain in the beginning, remain with the energy, the excitement.  Soon this way of love making opens you to another dimension of a higher relaxation which is very positive.  Normally we release the energy in ejaculation and we feel a negative relaxation, nothing was accomplished.  But if both partners melt with each other, giving vital energy to each other, they become a circle of energy, a flow of energy, giving life to each other, renewing life.  No energy is lost.  Rather, more energy is gained because through the contact with the opposite sex your every cell is challeneged, excited.

If you can enter this experience without ejaculation, it becomes a meditation, and through it you become whole.  You transcend.

And once you've had this beautiful experience with another, once you felt the circle of energy within you, once your own circle has developed, you can simply remember the act and enter into the energy.  Even then the other person is not needed.  But first you must have the experience with someone.  Then you do not have to depend on the other.  You can simply feel the circle of energy and you can go and behave just as if the other is there, scream, shake, be wild - do all the things you would do as if the lover is there, move, tremble, whatsoever you would normally do, and again the circle of energy will begin to give you trancendence.  The other was simply the door, an opportunity. If you feel the sexuality and the other is not there, simply enjoy it alone.  Go and be utterly the same as you would be as if the other is there. This can be done even without the other.   The whole existence becomes the 'other.'   And once you realize you can do this without the other, you suddenly begin to realize you can have this communion, this circle in many dimensions.  You can commune with the air, stars, trees - a circle of energy can be shared on many levels, many dimensions.  It is good to start with another human.  It can be easiest felt here.  But remain meditative so that you are not dependent.  And soon you become a lover of the whole, of the whole universe. 

And once this circle of energy is developed, you can become a true celibate.  When this circle of energy is created inside, you are freed.

Tantra says: Sex is the deepest bondage, yet it can be used as a vehicle for the highest freedom!

Be free!  Enjoy!  Become a lover of the Whole Existence!

The seeker has to go this journey alone.  It is not an outward path, otherwise someone would be able to go with you.  Truth is at your innermost core.  Only you can penetrate it, only you can travel it. 

Buddha has said: Appo deepo bhava - Be a light unto yourself.

Only your light will help you in the dark night, so rely on yourself.  Rely on your own consciousness.  Remain alert, let that be your light, because nobody else's light can help you.  And there are certain behaviors, certain provisions, that can assist you on this inner journey.  Buddha has called them parmita. 

Parmita is a beautiful word.  It means: that which can lead you beyond. 

When you leave this shore, you will be left alone in a great and wild ocean, and you will have to fight the ocean, and find your own way.  And the way is absolutely unique and individual.  No two people come to the truth in exactly the same way.

Buddha has said these parmitas, these qualities, will help us get to the other shore, will assist us on our journey.

The first parmita is dana: Generosity, sharing.  Sharing has to be learned.  While on this shore, learn as much as you can about sharing.  The quality that can take you beyond is sharing.  It does not matter what you share, because it is not important what you share - a dance, a song, your love, your experience, your meditation, your money, clothes, house.  That's not the point, the point is to share.  You cannot take anything with you.  But you can take a sharing mind, you can take your love and compassion with you.

The second is shila. Shila means discipline. Shila means grace in living. It means to live a graceful life, a life that has grace in it, elegance.  Patanjali calls it 'self-regulation', live a life with regularity.  Not running here and there, wasting life and energy.  Live a balanced, disciplined life with love, compassion and gratitude, non-violent.  Not forcing and being violent with yourself and others.  Be graceful within and the outer life will be graceful. 

The third is shanti.  Shanti means patience.  The journey is vast, and you cannot hurry.  O, how I wish!  If you are in a hurry you will never make it to the other shore.  Great patience is needed, infinite patience is needed.  How much time it takes depends on how much patience you have.  The more patience, the less time.  The less patience, the more time is needed.  Forget all about how long and continually enjoy the moment, being totally in it, one day suddenly it is there.

The fourth is vidya.  Vidya means energy, it means courage.  One has to be continuously aware that one's life energy should not be wasted unnecessarily.  Infinite energy is given to us, but we go on wasting it useless activities.  Zazen, learning the art of doing nothing.  You are the strongest when you do nothing, sitting silently gathering energy, and that energy starts rising higher and higher until it reaches a peak.  Energy rushes and touches the sahasrar, the crown!  And you become a flower, an opening, a divine perfume.

The fifth is dhyana.  Dhyana means meditation, silence, sitting, doing nothing.   Whenever you have time, whenever you have nothing to do, just sit silently, watching life flow by.  Look at the trees, the oceans, rivers, your feet, the grass.  Or just close your eyes and watch the inner thoughts or sit in the silence.  The idea is just be.  If you learn to sit daily, just being, a whole new quality of being starts to grow inside of you.  You become more centered, collected, fulfilled. Just sitting.

The sixth is pragya.  Pragya means wisdom.  Wisdom is different than knowledge. Knowledge is not based on your experience.  Wisdom is that which you know from your own experiences.  Don't rely on anything else, otherwise you will be lost.  No other person's 'truth' can be your truth.  Even if it is his truth.  Anything that you have gathered from others throw it!  Truth is only what you have experienced.  Wisdom is what you have experienced.  Only take that which is truly yours.  Drop all knowledge.  It is only a weight, and live from your own wisdom.  What is truly yours will light your way on this journey.

The seventh is upai. Upai means skillful means.   What is meant by skillful means is that you can drop the method when it has served you.  Do not cling to methods.  When the time has come to get out of the boat, GET OUT OF THE BOAT.  This is skillful means - not to cling to methods.  People can cling to methods, even when they have reached the shore.  By and by all methods must be dropped, all meditations, disciplines.  This is skillful means.

The eighth is pranihan.  Pranihan means surrender.  Pranihan means to be in a let-go.  Do whatsoever that you can do, then let go, relax.  Surrender your efforts.  Now, remember that you must put forth effort.  And when you have done everything that you can do, then relax, nothing more can be done. 

The ninth is bala. Bala means power.  Energy and power are not the same.  Energy is human, power is divine.  Divine power.  When you have surrender, when you have dropped your ego, suddenly you are full of unknown power.  You will become filled with an unknown power.

The tenth is ghyana.  Ghyana means to see into the nature of things.  When you have power, you are able to penetrate into the nature of things and you encounter a vision, a realization of the true nature of existence.

These are the ten parmitas.  They have to be practiced - they are sweet.  Sweet like honey.  They bring forth much fruit on the way.

The Lord Buddha has said:

Those who study the doctrine of the Buddhas will do well to believe and observe all that is taught by them.  It is like unto honey; it is sweet within, it is sweet without, it is sweet throughout; so is the Buddha's teaching.

May all sentient being reach the other shore!

Home.

Buddha left what is called "The Eightfold Way".  If you can understand and follow the eightfold way, the Way will open up right in front of you.  The Way leads an individual victoriously to reality, to seeing life as it really is in eternity. It is right there in front of you, but you do not even see it.  The Eightfold Way reveals a light upon which you can walk.  They are indicators of how to come to that ultimate state of awareness where one can take the leap.  Practicing the Eightfold Way and you will begin to feel you are disappearing and the Tao is everywhere, the Divine is revealed.   It is a profoundly beautiful practice. 

The Lord Buddha has said:

Those who follow the Way are like unto warriors who fight single-handed with a multitude of foes.  They may all go out of the fort in full armor; but among them are some who are faint-hearted, and some who go halfway and beat a retreat, and some who are killed in the affray, and some who come home victorious.

O, Monks, if you desire to attain enlightenment, you should steadily walk in your Way, with a resolute heart, with courage, and should be fearless in whatever environment you may happen to be, and destroy every evil influence that you may come across; for thus you will reach the goal.

The eight fold Way was given as a compassion for those wishing to reach the goal.

The first is: Right View.  Right may give you the idea there is a wrong.  But this is not exactly correct.  Right means that which you cannot invent.  Right is what does not depend on you.  Right is that which is not your invention.  It is already there.  If you go away from what is already there, then you have moved away from right view.  If you go away from what is then you are wrong.  If you come close to what is then you are right.  Right view has nothing to do with what is 'wrong'.  No.  Right view does not concern itself with wrong.  Right is not something you have to do - you were born right.  It's when you move away from this that wrong appear.  Staying with what IS is right view. Move away from that and you are wrong.  Again, wrong is your invention of what is.  Right is simply what is.

The second step is:  right intention. Right intention is the intention to move with reality moment by moment.  Jesus demonstrated right intention with his statement "not my will, but thine be done."   When you hold no private desire towards nature, towards your life, and you are one with what the universal brings, this is called right intention.  One beautiful story of a monk traveling demonstrates right intention.  The monk was traveling for three days with his disciples and they could find no food, no shelter and the traveling was hard.  The monk was praying, thanking god.  A disciple heard him and thought this unbearable, 'How could you pray and thank god?  We are starving! Tried!"  The monk's rely, "I thank god because these days I have needed to be hungry, I needed to strive.  Much has happened inside of me because of this and I am thankful for God.  God knows what I need.  And it comes to me."  - - This is an example of right intention.  To hold no goal outside of what life brings you.  Don't move against life.  Be intent on being present with what comes and allow this to have its work on you.  Allow the present circumstances to be what you need.

The third is: right speech: Say only that which is.  Never say what is not true.  Only say that which is true and real.  Never talk about others' experiences. Right speech means: don't be fictitious, don't be esoteric.  Just be absolutely honest and authentic.  Have very sincere speech.

The fourth is: right morality. Morality is that which comes from within you, not outside of you.  And morality can happen only if you are absolutely free. Not because of fear should you be moral.  If you are not stealing, sleeping with wives and husbands because of fear of it being wrong, this is not morality. This 'morality' will not transform you. You are not free.  Morality is to look into things and out of your awareness a responsibility arises.  If it is because of an outside source you are not doing something, this is not morality.  It is better to move into experiences that give you the awareness that bring you true understanding and responsibility.  That which comes from your own consciousness is morality.  Morality may be totally different for each person.  One person may do something from his own consciousness that is immoral for another to do.   Right morality comes from within.  

The fifth is: right livelihood.  Life should be simple, not complex.  Life should be based on needs, not on desires.  Needs are perfectly okay.  You need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship.  Needs can be fulfilled.  It is perfectly good.  But desires are basically unfulfillable.  Desires are complex.  They create complexity in life because you can never fulfill them.  Desires are like chasing a shadow.  Right livelihood is to use your life energy to fulfill your needs and then simply be, enjoy, love the simple.  

The sixth is: right effort.  Never strain and never be lazy.  This is right effort.  A person must be balanced between the two. You do, but you don't strive painfully beyond.  Like children playing.  You do, but with grace.  This is right effort.   

The seventh is: right mindfulness.  Mindfulness means you should always be alert, watchful.  You should always remain in the present.  Not a single thing should be done in sleepy state of mind.  Buddha used to say not even your breath should be allowed to go out and in without your consciousness.  I recall the Bodhidharma speaking of how when mind and breath are continuously connected you will awaken to divine reality.  Right mindfulness is meditation. Meditation cannot be separate from life.  Continuously aware of all activities is right mindfulness.  

And the eight step is: right samadhi: O, I love this one!!!  Even your samadhi must be right.  You can go into wrong samadhi.  One can go so deeply inside that you forget the outside.  This is very tempting when practicing deep meditation.  Normally we are only aware of the outside and we are totally unaware of the inside.  Wrong samadhi is the same in reverse: you are totally inside and you have forgotten the outside.  It's the same unconsciousness as daily life, just reversed.  Right samadhi is when you are totally aware in and out.  Your light is burning so bright it fills you with light, and this light is outside too.  In fact both inside and outside are not different in right samadhi.  This is the most glorious experience of the human consciousness. Ah!  Right Samadhi!  I sit.   I sit.  

These eight steps are of great help to those seeking the experience of enlightenment.  But because people cannot gather their energy, they never become integrated.  Practicing these eight steps brings you home to the very center of existence.    Samadhi is a beautiful word.  It means now everything is solved.  It means samadhan, everything is achieved. You have come home.

You have come home.  You have come home.