Sri Vidya Tantra Lectures by Swami Rama

Four lectures by Swami Rama on Saundaryalahari, the Wave of Beauty, which is a prominent text of Sri Vidya Tantra. The wave of creativity, love and bliss of Shakti is one and the same with Shiva. The lectures contain practical advice on advanced meditation practices of Yoga, Vedanta, and Tantra. The four lectures are divided into a total of 41 parts for the YouTube presentation.
This remarkable lecture series is deep, clear and direct. For any aspirant to the development of the inner awareness and realization, Swami Rama’s lectures contain gems of wisdom from the sages of the Himalayas.

Yogachaitanya: New Yoga CDs

Sounds of Transformation

Yogachaitanya has created a CD set for yoga practice and sadhana, with Yoga Nidra as the first in the series. He explains the concept behind the CDs to Carol Sill, while discussing the practicality behind using the CDs for daily sadhana.

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Donald Grayston on Thomas Merton

Donald calls Thomas Merton his “spiritual advisor in absentia”. Merton’s ideas of contemplation & a contemplative life … his visit with the Dalai Lama, and most surprisingly … how Merton’s long-censored book on peace is startlingly relevant to the current Iraq situation.

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Aleksandra: Death Doesn’t Exist

Aleksandra shares her reflections on the meaning and process of death with Carol Sill. These ideas are based in her deeply devotional meditative experience, which has evolved over several decades.
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Aleksandra on Spiritual Evolution

Aleksandra talks with Carol Sill about the evolution that occurs in spiritual life, the awakening to the point where we wish to go further.
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Aleksandra on the Soul

Aleksandra continues her conversation, reflecting on the concept of the Soul.

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Aleksandra On Spiritual Life

Aleksandra talks with Carol about her experience and learning on the spiritual path, the benefits of the spiritual life and living the right life for you.

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The Soul and Balanced Mastery

In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation.

Lee Van Patten talks with Carol Sill

C: Hi, I’m Carol Sill and I’m here in Vancouver talking with Lee Van Patten about spiritual life and inner development and how that expresses in the world. So maybe you could just tell us something about your path, and what you are involved with right now?

L: I’ll tell you a little about my path. I think I really got going in my spiritual life back in the ‘70s. I studied for a while with a man who was involved in Indian guruism that had to do with a Swami in India and he was carrying on that tradition. I kind of fell into it by happenstance, and I wasn’t really attracted to it and I became disillusioned with guruism in general. I could see how it was not a balanced system that created a lot of problems among the people that were following gurus.

But at that time I also read the Ouspensky material, about George Gurdjieff, so I became interested in Sufism. And then I read some Idries Shah stuff as well, so I learned a little more about Sufism. Then I met some Sufi people in Toronto and studied with them for a while but there were some things I didn’t like about organizations, spiritual organizations in general.

Over time I came to feel that any organization that has to exist for a long period of time, maybe it’s based on a charismatic leader. The charismatic leader passes away but the organization continues on. But in order to continue on it usually attracts people that are bureaucrats basically, who are there for their own self-interest, to have a career. And the organization begins to lose the essence of the spirit from which it originally came. So I moved away from that as well, but I continued my own inner process to the best of my ability.

I’m almost 60 years old and what I’d like to convey here is a couple of things I’ve learned along the way. One is that I believe it’s wrong to think of ourselves as having a soul. I think it’s kind of the other way around, that we’re actually the soul, and we are manifesting through a physical form.

That change in perspective is important, because if you think that you have a soul, that is your ego owning the soul and essentially controlling it. And when people think of their soul in that context they often think of a child-like kind of a semi-formed entity that has feelings but no real power. In actual fact, when we come from the soul perspective, we have a lot of power, and we have a lot of creative energy.

In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation. When you’re in that space I think you’re really well connected with your soul. The minute you try and own your artwork or own anybody’s anything then you begin to lose that feeling and you go into the ego.

The other thing that I’ve learned over the course of my life is what I call the Inner Family. And that is that people don’t really grow up, in the sense that we think of growing up in our society, where you develop from a child to an adolescent to an adult. I don’t think it’s really like that. I think it’s more like these are developmental layers that pile on top of each other. That child persona or aspect of ourselves doesn’t go away, nor does the adolescent.

So therefore in order to be a balanced person at the adult stage we need to have a balanced inner family. It is our adult that provides the stability and security for those earlier aspects of ourselves that are still present and are still expressing. If we don’t have a balanced inner family, if say there are unmet needs at the adolescent level, that adolescent’s going to keep rebelling in our lives in our internal life and in our external life, regardless of how strongly developed the adult level appears to be.

That’s important in the spiritual sense because in order to bring through the soul and have that soul be able to express in a balanced and productive way, all of those aspects of ourselves have to be happy, with each other. And then that’s going to express in a really positive way. Without that, I guess an example would be like a person who meditates for several hours a day, and yet in the rest of their life they’re not happy, things aren’t working out for them. Well, that’s because there’s an overabundance of focus on spiritual practice, but they haven’t done the inner work that’s necessary to bring all of that into harmony and bring it into expression.

And that, I think, is the essence of being a spiritual master. Mastery is not in the sense of control but in the sense of skillful use of everything that comes to you in your life, that you have all of those things well-lined up with each other, and you have that inner peace that allows the soul to express. Without that you haven’t really gotten there yet, no matter how adept you are at one spiritual path or another.

C: Beautiful. Thank you.

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Soul Work (pt.2) with Forest Shomer

Soul Work involves speaking and living from the soul, and both group and individual process. Forest Shomer continues his discussion with Carol Sill, describing an upcoming gathering in central Argentina.

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Soul Work (pt.1) with Forest Shomer

A new depth of self-knowledge is available through exploring the realm of the soul. Forest Shomer talks with Carol Sill about how he became acquainted with the Soul Work.

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Light in the Darkness

…its just happening. It has nothing to do with my muscles or my cleverness, it has to do with so-called grace of God. Like the ripening of the apple on the tree. Nothing to do with human cleverness.

Andrew Jordan in conversation with Carol Sill

C: Hi Andrew, glad we can have another conversation here in Vancouver. It’s a rainy day today. And we’re talking about having a lot on your mind. You know, as we get into the fall and September happens and everybody’s getting anxious and getting started again, let’s talk about what happens when you’ve got too much going on or too much on your mind. What are some of the ways that you think about handling that?
A: Well, I’m aware that people around me .. in a sense of a mirror.. are complaining – it’s my complaints too, but I put it in their mouths. Friends and acquaintances complain that there’s too much on their minds, the to do lists are too long, and I hear comments like “I’m overwhelmed,” “I’m panicking” “Too much too much” “Time is too short” “Things are speeding up.” The reason I’m mentioning it is because I identify with it. So really it’s one way of talking about myself.
So indeed that’s the case. That predicament. Too much on the mind. Too much on the to do list. Now what do we do?

C: Right.

A: It’s crazy-making.

C: You know a couple of talks back we were talking about authenticity and being authentic in the moment. How is it possible to find that moment while everything is whirling around you? What do you do about that? I can hear, even now, sounds in the background at your place, where we’re talking, I know, we’re all enmeshed in our lives. What are some of the strategies that you use, if there are any? How do you sort yourself out?

A: I actually built myself a meditation room in a crawlspace in my house. Putting cushions, carpet, candles, even a sound system. So I can go there, and I do, I haven’t been there today, or yesterday I somehow missed it, but later today I will go there because I need it for my sanity. So I close the door in this crawlspace, I made it comfortable and cozy. Maybe I’ll light a candle, maybe I’ll sit in darkness, and I’ll do a meditation for about 20 minutes. And remind myself that all the noise, the craziness, the to do list (the to do list has validity for sure), and yet I need to tune into, find the place that has a higher validity than the high to do list. Because if the to do list is left till tomorrow most of the items will wait, even though it seems like they won’t, but they do. So should I be sick or have some legitimate reason for not attending to the to do list, seems like no big deal. Certainly there are deadlines and so on that have to be attended to.
But I do find this meditation room, which can be a corner or a cushion to sit on, and that’s an oasis, an escape from the madness that seems to be happening around me.

C: And then by going in there you then re-center, and you’re able to come out and actually engage more fully in your life in the world. It’s not just that you escape, and then wait for the next time you can escape. Right?

A: Right. I guess somebody might drink and get drunk to escape and then come back and find their problems have not decreased – quite the opposite. No, this is different. It is different from getting drunk or avoiding through a method like that. I think it’s almost like retreating to set the priorities straight. Because once I find myself in a state that seems like madness, that’s not good. Madness is not good for me.

C: How do you define madness? Madness is being at the farthest away from the center that you can be? Or – how do you sense that?

A: I’m okay with being busy. I don’t mind having a long list. I mind that feeling of panic that I can’t handle it. I don’t like that. That’s crazy. So that’s the signal to stop, look and choose. One method is to go and meditate, to get my priorities straight. And then I can come back, typically, and prioritize my list and do what I need to do. And that’s sane. And what I can’t do, I cannot do. But  the difference between a panicky state and a calm, efficient state ..[phone rings] It may ring again, and there’s a busy household behind that wall..

C: So you were talking about the difference between an efficient state, and a state when it gets out of control. We all know that it gets out of control. And if you’re a spiritual person you might think, “Oh no, I might not be on the path if all this stuff is happening to me and I’m finding more difficulty coping.” But don’t you feel that your additional sensitivity takes you to another level so you’re always required to learn more about incorporating peace of mind into your daily life.

A: Initially, the increased sensitivity seems to cause more trouble than not. More sensitivity, initially in myself and I noticed with others who I meet, gives almost the sense that I was better off before I was sensitive. Not that it’s a choice. Initially increased sensitivity causes trouble. Typically.

C: And then?

A: And then we pray. And then we pray because then it’s a question of taking responsibility for my state of mind. No more complaining, no more blaming. Taking responsibility which is easy for me to tell you, it’s hard for me to do it myself. And yet there is no choice, than the one choice, which is to choose to say yes to the responsibility. I am responsible for my state of equanimity as opposed to panic. Because initially with increased sensitivity panic increases. The propensity for panic increases.

C: I think that’s true. I know that, and that’s why people rely heavily on traditional methods: the meditations, the teachings, the following of maybe the scriptures, or something, anything to hold on to so that you can retain both that open sensitivity and the ability to still function in the world. Because it can get somewhat jarring sometimes and you have the sense that you should completely retreat. And yet it’s not necessarily the way to give the gifts to the world. It’s something to be reconciled.  Yearning for the cave, when in actuality maybe you have to give something in the physical. And when you have a family, that’s obvious – there is duty there, there’s dharma, right?

A: Yes. I wonder… I think this topic relates to this concept of death and rebirth. To die to the old paradigm, which is very hard to do, and to be reborn in the new paradigm which is a blessing, but that’s heavy duty process. I think that we hear metaphors like the caterpillar,  cocoon and then emerging as the butterfly, so there is this amazing transformation happening which is dying as a caterpillar and being reborn as a butterfly. …..this metaphor keeps repeating, coming up. […]

C: And when that happens, there is the pupa stage. When the caterpillar goes into the pupa, and doesn’t relate to anything and the transformation is occurring, without any contact, it’s like suspended animation, and while that’s happening transformation happens inside. And then, coming out as a butterfly. That’s actually very beautiful metaphor. But how..we..

A: You can say that ..

C: We think, but we don’t know how it actually feels. We can look at it from a distance, but I think it’s probably painful all the way through.

A: And it appears like there’s no end to it. It looks like pain forever. Until it changes. And indeed the pupa … death. And its just happening. It has nothing to do with my muscles or my cleverness, it has to do with so-called grace of God. Like the ripening of the apple on the tree. Nothing to do with human cleverness. That transformation has a mind of its own. Maybe that would take us to the topic of faith. [phone rings] “Emuna “ is the word in Hebrew for it,

C; Could you spell that for me?

A: In English I would spell it EMUNNA – but of course it’s spelled with a different alphabet. And in Sanskrit there is something similar, I don’t know the word right now, it’s faith. That deep knowledge that “Its Okay.” The apple will ripen on the tree, under the right conditions, the pupa will transform. And this is what I have to remember should I find myself in a painful place, where I cannot go back – much as I would like to in my ignorance, and fear. I know too much to go back and not enough to go forward. That’s a painful place.

C: I think that applying this way of thinking to busyness that can take us into a spin is really helpful. Because everything is part of our transformation, all these vortexes around us are part of our transformation, and our ability to handle greater and greater energy fields, and to allow God to handle greater and greater energy fields through us, and through our lives.

A: That sounds beautiful.

C: I think that would be a way to help understand a busy time as it starts arising.

A: Yes, and it looks like it’s an increasing complaint in the general  world, in the collective I find myself in.  And the reason I’m even talking about it or mentioning it, is because, should it happen to any one of us, we might think that I’m the only fool in town. Everybody else has got their acts together, only I am a disaster inside, under my masks. And it may not be so. It may be just part of the evolutionary process.  And it’s a tough one. We cannot look at our grandparents and say, I’m going to do what my grandfather did, which was the case, say, a few generations back., because of safety, and that helped sanity. It was clear, my father and grandfathers  were carpenters, that’s what I’ll be doing. Or shoemakers. There’s no question,  here – we have to invent, reinvent, we don’t know.

C: And so we have to be in touch with our intuition, we have to understand who we are a little bit, or at least be able to follow our inner guidance so we have clues as to what to do, because it is all new in the moment, isn’t it? We are involved, on another level, not just personal, in a time of transformation – socially, politically, in every way.

A: I think we are finding ourselves … the demand on us is to upgrade in a new world. And we are not ready. We don’t have the background, typically. That’s were we suffer. So what I’m addressing right now is that transformation is an ordeal, and what I want to suggest is  perhaps it’s okay. Yes ordeal, and it’s okay. Doesn’t mean that I have to commit suicide, doesn’t mean that I have to rush to antidepressant drugs because there is a cost to it that I maybe do not want to pay, in terms of giving up my sensitivity. I’m sure it‘s right for some people under some conditions, but  as an obvious solution, that could be wrong. So just to think that yes it’s tough, and it’s part of the territory, and it’s okay.

C: Right. And that you can learn to navigate and find your way. And if you have a retreat or a meditation space, a place that you’ve created for that particular attunement, it does help you. Over time going to the same place helps with the resonance of that place, doesn’t it?

A: Yes.

C: And I think many of us have personal spaces in our homes that we use for meditation purposes or just for quiet contemplation. It’s an important part of life. Or a personal altar, whatever it is, a place in your garden maybe.

A: The Buddhists call it a refuge, so to have a refuge is crucial. ….I have a refuge, it’s almost like I have secret, I’m not totally at the whims of…

C: So you can be a strong human being, no matter what the elements are doing around you.

A: I know that I have a place to retreat to. I have a place where I can be invulnerable. That is a good first step. Another step is to find like-minded colleagues, tribespeople, that’s how I define “tribe”. … to remember that I’m not the only lost fool, because I think there is some tendency to think that I’m a total mess-up. So retreat, and friends, so there are others like me. So that I’m not the only crazy person, hopeless, like my mother always suggested  - or whatever, or my teacher or somebody… So we find ourselves in difficult places, it’s not necessarily a disaster. It may be okay. To even consider that okayness is possible in the midst of a painful place,  that’s the beginning. That’s the beginning of the light. In the darkness.

C: That’s like in the Buddhist images, in iconography there is always a Buddha in absolutely every realm.  When you see the Tibetan Wheel of Life, and all the realms are outlined, there is a Buddha in each one of them. So it’s always there.

A: Even in the darkest dark. So there must be a seed of light even in the darkest dark. So to bring it to my table: should I find myself in a dark place psychologically  I can remember and trust that it’s okay, there is okayness in there somewhere, just to allow for okayness in the midst of the darkness – that’s the beginning of that light. To remember. So if I was speaking to a friend I would say, “Consider that okayness, a tiny bit of okayness in the midst of the darkness.” And if they get it, on some resonance level even if it doesn’t feel like it, that’s the beginning of the light. Which – even a little bit is enough.

C: Well I think that’s great, and as the season changes and we go into more darkness,  it’s really good to think about that light that’s in there, and we know that as the seasons change, it’s all okay. It does make a transformation. It’s a cycle that we recognize, so we can harmonize with that and recognize that we’re involved in a natural process.

A: To stick to, anchor in that okayness, even if it doesn’t feel like that. That’s faith, and I think it’s valuable.

See the video of this conversation.

On Soul and the Inner Family

“In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation.” Lee van Patten discusses the process of spiritual maturing, with emphasis on understanding the Soul, as well as explaining the concept of the Inner Family.

See the transcript of this video conversation.

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Peter Fenner: Non-Dual Awareness

Continuation of the conversation with Peter Fenner.

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Mantra and Meditation Quiz

This quiz is rated difficult. Some of the questions are quite tricky. The original questions here were inspired by the scholarly book Mantra and Meditation by Pandit U. Arya, a student of Swami Rama of the Himalayas.

Please feel free to enter your own questions to expand this quiz, and of course, we welcome your comments in the comment form below.