The Buddha said: You do not understand the Way - because the Way cannot be understood by the body-oriented mind, and the Way cannot be understood by the mind-oriented mind.  Neither can it be understood through time, nor can it be understood through experience.

The Way is beyond time and beyond experience.

The Buddha gave us Ten Grounds, and if you practice these ten grounds, you will attain to the ultimate!  I would like to give these ten grounds, these ten bhumis. They are very practical.   Practicing these you will grow in spiritual strength.

The first bhumi is pramu-gita: It means joyousness.  Unless you are joyous you will never reach to the truth.  Joyousness, delight, celebration; that is the meaning of pramu-gita.  It means be joyous for no reason at all. 

The second ground is vimal. It means innocence, purity, simplicity.   Never lose your childlike-ness.  Remain innocent, purity, simple.

The third ground is prabhakhari.   It means luminousness, light.  Feel yourself as a flame, live as if you are an inner burning light, move with the inner flame!  Do whatsoever you do, but always feel yourself as if you are made out of light.  And by and by you will see luminousness arising around you.  Man is  made of bio-electricity; everything is made of electricity!  Buddha says man is light.  Light means electricity - cooperate with it and you will become a great light!

The fourth grounding is arsimati: radiance, aliveness, vitality.  The religious seeker should not be dull and dead.  Buddha says be alive!  Because it is only on the wings of life that you will reach to truth.  If you are dull you are lost.  Be radiant!  Burn the torch at both ends.

The fifth is sudurjaya: It means adventurousness, courageousness, challenge-welcomingness.  Whenever there is a challenge, welcome it, don't avoid it.  And whenever there is an adventure, don't escape.  Go on the journey, go on the trip!  Nobody ever loses anything by being adventurous!!!! 

Ordinary people accept the life of security, of no adventure; a good job, a good house, a good wife, a good husband and good children - and people are satisfied.  People are satisfied in living and dying comfortably, as if comfort is the goal.

Buddha says: Don't be confined to the comfortable, to the familiar, to the secure; don't base your philosophy on the promises of a life insurance company.  Have a little more courage, MOVE INTO THE UNKNOWN.   

And the sixth grounding is abhimukhi: immediateness, face-to-faceness, encountering that which is.  It means don't bother about the past and don't bother about the future.  Face the truth as it comes, encounter the fact as it comes, and with no preparation, with immediateness.  A personal usually lives in preparation in constant rehearsals....Abhimukhi means be alert and let the response come in the moment.

The seventh is durangama - far goingness, accepting the call of the beyond.  There is a beyond everywhere.  We are surrounded by the beyond.  Ordinarily when one looks into this abyss, they start to tremble, they go on looking in another direction.  Durangama means be available to the beyond.  Never remain confined to the boundaries.  ALWAYS TRESPASS BOUNDARIES! Make the boundaries if you need them, but always remember you have to step out.  Never make imprisonments.

The eight is achala:centering, grounding, immovability.  The Buddha says one should learn to be centered, unmoving, grounded.  Whatsoever happens, one should learn how to remain unwavering.  Let the whole world go into disappearance, let the whole world dissolve, but you go on sitting, being centered, unmoved.  No matter what upset comes, you go on being unmoved!

The ninth is sadhumati: intelligence, awareness, mindfulness.  It means sagely intelligence.  Not only intelligence, but sagely intelligence. Develop the intelligence that will lead you beyond, that will lead you to freedom!

And the tenth is dharma-megha:  grace showering, becoming a cloud of truth, love and grace.  Whatsoever you get you have to share; then you will get more.  Whatsoever you have, you have to shower, you have to give it to others, you have to distribute it.  All that you attain in your being has to become your compassion. Then you will get more.  The more you become spendthrift of your inner energies, the more space will be created for God to descend in you, for truth to penetrate you.  whatever gifts you have, give them!  This is dharma-megha.

The truth is given in different ways: some dance, some sing, some play music, some teach.  Buddha went on teaching for forty-two years.  His students would say, you go on talking constantly and you teach us silence.  I loved buddha's statement:  He said, "I have to talk to teach you to be silent.  Be silent, so that one day you can also talk."

These ten grounds will give you energy, light, love and intelligence.  The ten grounds!  Walking upon them you come upon the ultimate!  The ten beautiful bhumis!

The word Maya has been interpreted to mean 'illusion.'  This is not exactly right.

Maya means that which appears to be and yet it is not.  But it is not exactly an illusion.
That which is eternal, timelessly there, has always been will always be, never was a time when it was not - this is called real.  Exactly opposite of this that which never was, never will be is unreal.  Just between these two is Maya.

Maya is equivalent to dreaming.  At night you dream.  You cannot say that the dream is unreal.  When the dream is there it is real.  You experience the dream. But you cannot say it is real upon awakening.  Where did it come from?  It had come from your own unawareness.  It was a projection.  It was not outside of you.  And upon awakening, the projection is withdrawn and you can see it was unreal.

We cannot exactly call this dream unreal, yet we certainly cannot call it real.  The projection in time we call maya.

Maya is like magic.  It is something that which is not but can be made to appear as if it is.  It shows you something about you.  A dream shows something about the dreamer.  Say for example, you are dreaming of riches and women, it is showing me something about you, that you desire woman and riches.  That this is repressed desires being projected in the dream.

This is happening exactly the same in the waking state.  We think we are awake, but the same dreaming is going on.  The same unawareness is happening.  Desires are being projected.  All that you come to experience in life is nothing but your own desires.  Because you want to experience it, your mind conjures it up.  Just like in a dream.  Mind is a great magician.  If you want to see something, the mind will give you a convincing show.  This is called Maya.

Mind is the origin of Maya. Just watch and you can see the mind conditions you towards things.  Some people believe in many wives and husbands.  Some tribes believe woman are the stronger sex.  How to define what is?  You create what you want to believe.  This is maya.  That which appears to be but is not.

Mind is the Great Magician.  And if you watch it, it is amazing and beautiful to watch.  It creates dreams, dramas. It produces whatever you desire.  The Great Genie in the Bottle!  If you become aware and watch, by and by the dreaming subsides.  And one day it will disappear.

When the mind disappears ~ the show of maya disappears ~ and you are looking through your body and soul, this is called enlightenment.  To see things as they truly are without mind, without maya, is called enlightenment.

To see things as they truly are without mind, without maya, is called enlightenment.

Freedom is to authentically live the life you realy want to live. Not try to be somebody else, live somebody else's life.   




Freedom means not to be split, not living in conflict within you.  When you are fighting with yourself, you become miserable, because you can never win against yourself, you will always feel defeated.  And then you feel guilty because you know you are not being an authentic being.  A deep feeling of unworthiness within is felt.  So the first Freedom is from the conditioning and authority figures we carry around inside.  Becoming free from all the so-called authorities, the religions, the conditioning.  Whatsoever teaching that has taught you to reject any part of yourself - your body, your sexuality, your own mind, freedom to decide for yourself.  Just dropping what everyone else 'thinks' about life.  Come fresh with your own eyes. Learn of yourself with no rules and regulations.  Then you can begin to enjoy everything, your body, sexuality, begin to see life from your own eyes, decide for yourself, become mature, not needing 'others' to tell you what life is. Let your own heart guide you. You are free to enjoy everything in this life!  Everything that is outside of you can be enjoyed and you can also then come to enjoy everything that is within you.  

Yet freedom from something is not true freedom.  And the freedom to do anything you want is not freedom.  Freedom is the courage to be yourself.  Then you can begin to be creative, to live the life you really want.   

And there is a risk to being yourself.  If you become true to yourself, if you become authentic, nobody knows if relationships will be capable of understanding the truth of you, whether the relationship will be strong enough to stand the reality of you, the authentic you.  And because of this risk people remain trapped.  You remain guarded, just hoping some miracle will happen.  And this miracle never does happen.  Unless you gain the strength to live truthfully, living your authentic truth, you will remain false.  No miracle will happen.

Risk losing everything, test your life. If you remain clever and go on safeguarding and protecting yourself, the essential center in you remains unknown, you never come to know your birthright, you never taste true freedom, the joy of being authentic, the thrill of knowing yourself and living the joys of this gift.

Everyone thinks they are free.  But nobody is free.  It takes a very couragous person to become free.  And if you remain false, nothing is possible. Deep down we are all afraid. We don't know if our lives can stand our truth. But how can we know unless we test our life? So don't be afraid, go into it. If a relationship survives your authentic truth, it will be beautiful.  If it dies, then too it is good because a false relationship has ended.

Live to do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of. Anything done halfheartedly never brings joy to life, brings freedom. It only brings misery, anxiety, torture, tension. Whenever you do something halfhearted you are dividing yourself, you are split.

Freedom is to experience all of life, from happiness to sadness, Fully. Life has to be lived in all its dimensions, only then is life rich. You may have to experience a deep suffering to gain your authentic self.  And we are afraid of the dark side of life. We don't want to be sad, or to be dark, we don't want to be in agony. But only if you can experience the darkness can you experience the ecstasy. Life contains both. Freedom is the courage to experience all of life. Freedom is the courage to face whatever comes, whatever cost you must pay to be authentically yourself.