Beyond Self-Remembering: The Khwajagan’s Four Stages of Fanā

[00:00:02]Hello everyone.

[00:00:04]Welcome to our other talk within the ninesighted circle. I am your host Nor Kyle >> and I am her faithful sidekick Mushak Ali.

[00:00:14]>> Yes. And we are here with you on our Saturday Sunday morning, our uh other talk that we do every third Sunday of each month to accommodate those of you who can't join us at our usual weekly time. So right now it is our 10:30 a.m. session.

[00:00:37]Usually you can meet us on Zoom if you want to join our live recordings at 6:30 p.m.

[00:00:45]Got to remember the time zone Pacific time. So, if you'd like to join us, you can either join our Facebook group or our email list and uh you can pop in for free and and actively participate in the lovely conversations that we have where essentially not only are we learning together, but we are teaching together.

[00:01:09]and Mushak and I are so glad to be able to steward the community that we've built together here, all of us together. So, I guess we go right into our topic and at some point we'll be doing our spiel.

[00:01:26]Thank you for being patient with us while we communicate with you the important things that go on behind the scenes that you can participate in. So, let's get into our topic this morning, shall we? Mushak, >> why not? What is our topic this morning?

[00:01:40]Nor >> ah we are going back to a fun one. It's a very important one for us because it is kind of the underpinnings of of our teaching here. And this is fa specifically four levels of fa that are maybe less common than the ones that are typically talked about. And so we'll be exploring those four and giving our perspective on fa and its place in the work.

[00:02:19]Where should we begin mush?

[00:02:24]We should probably begin by talking about the larger more popular model that we reject and the smaller most people have never heard of it model that we follow. Let's also define what phen means, right?

[00:02:40]>> Yeah. [snorts] Phen fa means annihilation. It means extinction. It means passing away.

[00:02:46]>> Yes. So this is >> an Arabic term that is very commonly found in Sufi context and it has a lot in common with the idea of sometimes it's considered enlightenment like the moment of enlightenment is when you are annihilated into the one or the ego who is annihilated.

[00:03:18]So, we'll be exploring what that means exactly to be annihilated a bit at a time.

[00:03:29]>> Yeah.

[00:03:30]By the time we're done with you today, there may be nothing left.

[00:03:34]>> You never know.

[00:03:36]>> You never know.

[00:03:38]So JG Bennett made an interesting distinction between southern Sufism and northern Sufism. I think that it this is a serious generalization and does not hold true everywhere, but it's a useful distinction.

[00:03:57]Uh I tend to think of it more of the mainstream and the hidden teachings.

[00:04:06]So in the mainstream of pana, this is the one that everybody knows if you've been hanging around Sufis for any amount of time where you go through these they either do three or four stages and we're going to look at the four stages because it it makes sense to do so. Um when you find your teacher, they say you must annihilate yourself and your teacher. They call this fa the annihilation in the sheh.

[00:04:40]And this is where you try to give up your own ego and take on the ego of the sheh.

[00:04:50]And it it has many different forms that it takes like uh oh you never do anything without your shake's permission. you uh imagine your shake talking to you all the time, watching you. you put a lot of energy uh in almost worshiping the sheh and eventually the the thought is that you uh if you submit deeply enough to the teacher you will achieve an annihilation in the teacher which gets you to the second stage which is the fafil pier the pier is the usually the founder of a particular lineage. So if you're a Mev Levy, you try and annihilate yourself in the personality of Roomie.

[00:05:46]If you are Kadiri, you annihilate yourself in Abdul Kadar Galani.

[00:05:53]After you do a bunch of that, you move to the stage of phenasul which is annihilation in the personality of the prophet.

[00:06:10]You want to be absorbed into the spiritual reality of the prophet.

[00:06:19]The person the personal model is no longer the teacher or the founder but the messenger himself as a complete human being.

[00:06:30]After you've hung out there for a while you finally get to fafila annihilation extinction in God and all separate identity disappears in the realization that God alone is real.

[00:06:47]This is a path of love, devotion, surrender, and identification.

[00:06:52]The student loses his or herself in something higher than themselves.

[00:07:04]And the sequence is the ordinary person disappears into the teacher. The teacher disappears into the lineage, the lineage disappears into the prophet. and the prophet disappears into God.

[00:07:19]This wonderful ascentive movement and it's also from the view of some of the central Asian schools kind of risky.

[00:07:37]The difficulty is the ego has [laughter] a remarkable ability to survive its own funeral.

[00:07:47]Here you are trying to extinct your ego and it's your ego who's trying to extinct your ego. Therefore can never happen.

[00:07:59]Does that make sense? The idea of oh I have achieved enlightenment.

[00:08:06]Look at how cool I am. It's kind of that.

[00:08:14]Any questions so far?

[00:08:21]>> Okay.

[00:08:27]So, oftent times what you get with somebody on this path is The ordinary ego becomes a spiritual ego.

[00:08:41]It becomes identified with the teacher, the tradition, the teaching, the community, the robe, the vocabulary, the giant turban, uh the seating arrangement or the fact that it has successfully stopped being identified. That's the most interesting thing to identify with.

[00:09:05]Now the central Asian Sufis specifically the uh begin elsewhere.

[00:09:18]They don't ask with whom or what should I identify. They begin asking what is the activity or of the identification itself.

[00:09:34]So the quajigan approach is very very different.

[00:09:44]And again there are four stages to it.

[00:09:50]They're called aal fa isat and faat using the Persian pronunciation because that's how it was passed down.

[00:10:12]So these have nothing to do with anybody's personality and the first stage.

[00:10:22]So let's talk about what the words mean.

[00:10:25]Yeah, let's start there.

[00:10:28]>> Yeah. So, akam means a judgment, a ruling.

[00:10:35]Uh it's the the plural of hookum.

[00:10:40]Uh which is lit. It can be any kind of uh legal ruling or that sort of thing.

[00:10:48]Uh while can you can you clarify this a little bit for us?

[00:10:53]>> Yes. No, absolutely.

[00:10:56]Comes from which is to rule, to govern. So, uh you're you're you're very accurate that although they you said they're Persian.

[00:11:12]>> Yeah, that Persian Persian pronunciation the the words are Arabic. Yeah.

[00:11:17]>> Right. They're perfect. Absolutely perfect.

[00:11:21]>> Yeah. So with aam it's not that you get rid of laws it's that you become disillusioned with your own internal laws with your own connections to the world through your own rules is these the heruristics we're always going on about the rules of dumb.

[00:11:55]>> The rules of dumb [laughter] >> often. Absolutely.

[00:12:02]>> Yes.

[00:12:03]>> So, this refers to seeing that you are a conditioned stimulus response meat robot and not being happy with it.

[00:12:17]And the the specific rules that this talks about, the laws are the laws of your own conditioning. So it's not like traffic laws. You don't give up traffic laws.

[00:12:35]Does that make sense?

[00:12:45]L means your acts, your your actions, your deeds.

[00:12:59]And when you touch upon this, you see that your actions, your deeds, your movements in the world are all determined by this conditioning.

[00:13:19]So these two in a sense go together.

[00:13:27]Some people say that aam is not a true phen.

[00:13:32]But I say who cares?

[00:13:34]>> You still got to go through it, right?

[00:13:36]>> Yeah. And going through it is still really hard.

[00:13:42]But you when you realize that uh your actions, your your deeds are determined by your programming.

[00:13:56]Then uh it it can be jarring.

[00:14:18]So with after disillusionment with the outer world you look at your inner world that's fa aal and you notice [laughter] it almost excuse me all Almost none of your actions and deeds come from uh true will. They come from your programming.

[00:14:54]Yeah. The the asked, do we produce our thoughts or are they produced for us through our own conditioning, through our own identification?

[00:15:08]Can you decide not to think for 30 seconds?

[00:15:15]Can you choose your emotional reactions before they arise?

[00:15:21]That's a big one.

[00:15:24]You can't say that you have free will if you are at the effect of your emotional reactions.

[00:15:34]Can you choose your mood?

[00:15:40]Can you change your mood just by simply issuing an internal order?

[00:15:57]And it becomes tricky to begin to separate from that because we are conditioned to think that we are that.

[00:16:11]Does this make sense so far?

[00:16:16]You can always ask questions if you feel like we're just blathering on or um offer your thoughts.

[00:16:24]>> Yes, we want your questions. We want your thoughts. We're not the only smart ones here.

[00:16:32]>> Okay. I I don't want to go off at too much of a tangent here, but one of the things I've been wondering since I read the blurb for this talk is I wonder if you could comment on the relationship of this if any to the idea of samscaras.

[00:16:52]Yes, there is a relationship to them and you begin to deal with the samscaras at this point. For those of you who don't know, a samscara is a Sanskrit word that refers to the subliminal memory traces that exist that exist just below the level of consciousness that are our true motivations for action in the world without us even knowing.

[00:17:24]You some people say your samscaras will go with you your whole life. They'll even go through reincarnations and you'll be stuck with them forever until you figure out how to get rid of them.

[00:17:37]We were just talking about that the other day.

[00:17:40]>> Mhm.

[00:17:41]>> Yeah.

[00:17:42]>> That's why I asked the question because I've been thinking about that for the last few weeks.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah.

[00:17:49]>> And when I read the blurb, it seemed, oh, this has to be related to Samaras in some in some way.

[00:17:56]>> Yeah. And you're absolutely correct.

[00:17:59]Um, you know that the thing about the observation of samscara is that it is pretty objective once you begin to explore it. It's not something that's made up. It's something that's real.

[00:18:18]>> Yeah. I've been noticing that more and more. Um, it's been quite fascinating.

[00:18:26]>> Yeah.

[00:18:30]Thank you for making that connection, Ian.

[00:18:34]It just goes to show how, you know, as we've been saying the past few weeks, everything is connected.

[00:18:45]Any other thoughts before we go on? If you guys don't stop talking, start talking, it's going to be a short talk today.

[00:18:53]Michael, >> hi. Yeah, I just wanted to add something to the uh samscara thing. Would it be accurate to call uh samscara a scar because the scar is in the word itself as a way to remind yourself of of like it said scratch on a record or something. It's that deep. We keep playing over and over again.

[00:19:16]Samcara kind of like a scar. Would that be >> I mean, yeah, that could that could work. I've never thought of it that way, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a good metaphor for it.

[00:19:27]>> Right. I just wanted to check because I think it it helps me remember what those samscaras are. They're they're kind of etched in there very deeply. Like a scar.

[00:19:39]>> Yeah.

[00:19:40]>> That reasonable.

[00:19:42]>> Yeah. Why not?

[00:19:44]>> Okay.

[00:19:45]which is not to say they can't be met somehow, you know, >> whether that's to be amilarated, you know, in terms of things that are really deep wounds. And then you have things that are like, you know, I think I'm equipped enough to over time decrease the the sway that this wound has over me or whatever it is, you know, >> and I think >> Yeah. So, thank you, Michael.

[00:20:28]>> Okay.

[00:20:29]>> Yeah. And some scars do not have to appear negative.

[00:20:34]They can appear positive >> but what they always are is mechanical.

[00:20:40]>> You know in the the yoga sutras they say u they describe it as klesa acca which is painful bad negative not painful bad negative.

[00:20:55]Ian what do you think? Yeah, I just wanted to expand a little bit on that because the thing that really started me thinking about this in a different way was a couple of talks ago when you mentioned that words are samscaras and of course that like broadens the whole scope of everything.

[00:21:21]Um uh and I've been thinking it also clearly must include all memories.

[00:21:29]>> Yep.

[00:21:31]>> Yep.

[00:21:34]>> So it's kind of all in an all-encompassing thing about uh conscious thought.

[00:21:49]So, uh, James makes an interesting observation here if you would, Nor.

[00:21:56]>> Sure. James says, "I spent a lot of time learning how to block or sort of freeze feelings and behaviors, but not choose new ones."

[00:22:10]>> Okay.

[00:22:11]Uh, I'm not sure what you mean exactly by this and if I project my own meaning on it, I'll probably get it wrong. Um, >> like throughout my life, I sort of learned how to sort of clamp down inside and not go with various feelings or behaviors for various reasons.

[00:22:39]And after a while, I felt sort of I'll say comfortably numb.

[00:22:45]>> But um it's just alluding to what you mentioned earlier about can you choose a mood or stuff. And I sort of felt for a while it was kind of like a freedom in a certain sense, but it was a really just a very negative inhibited. Yeah, it reminds me uh >> Ramdas made an observation some years ago. He said, "I spent years thinking I was detached and then one day I realized I was just dissociated."

[00:23:20]>> Yeah.

[00:23:21]>> Yeah. So, clamping down, stopping is not the way to go. That produces dissociation and you don't want that.

[00:23:31]>> Yeah.

[00:23:31]>> You don't want to freeze inside. You want you want everything to flow and you want to notice feelings. Feelings arise.

[00:23:38]They come up. They pass through you and then they dissipate unless you grab onto them, identify with them and use them to beat yourself or others over the head with >> that, too. Yeah.

[00:23:52]>> Yeah. Mostly beat yourself over the head with you. But uh >> I know.

[00:24:00]>> Yeah. You should stop that. get a new hobby.

[00:24:04][laughter] However, I think that that's in alignment with what many people do, especially >> I think all of us start out doing that because we don't quite have a grasp of what it means to hold difficult or overwhelmingly powerful emotional stuff or physical stuff and stay stable in that holding, you know, stay grounded in that holding or to thrive even as we hold all that stuff.

[00:24:46]That takes some learning to do. That's not necessarily I think for most of us that's really not something we innately know how to do.

[00:25:00]RM says, "Is the state of Aam unstable?"

[00:25:14]Yeah.

[00:25:18]Struggle in staying in the awake state.

[00:25:22]>> Yeah. A state of a has nothing to do with being awake basically.

[00:25:26]>> Yeah. you're kind of not there yet. Or does [clears throat] it happen after enough practice of self-remembering that you're able to keep the awake state?

[00:25:39]>> Aam is more like realizing that you are mechanical. Realizing that you don't have free will. Realizing that you do not choose most of your actions, behaviors, words, thoughts that they are uh programmed into you.

[00:25:57]>> That the world runs you.

[00:25:59]>> Yeah. And this is one of the things that makes the path so hard is that nobody wants to realize that.

[00:26:12]Mr. Gerief used to to enjoy pointing out to people that they were just robots and watching them freak out over it cuz most people do. When you go up to somebody and say there's nothing about you that's real. You are just a stimulus response meat machine sleeping through life.

[00:26:41]get over yourself.

[00:26:45]>> And we talk about this all the time. So, you know, some of us might be a little numb to that kind of language by now, but that numbness in itself is the roboticism at work.

[00:26:58]>> Yeah.

[00:27:00]And Adrian asks like NASA laamia, which is the the blaming >> NFSA.

[00:27:08]Yeah.

[00:27:09]>> Yeah. And yes, like that, >> the commanding self, the commanding ego.

[00:27:19]>> Yeah. When you realize this, you you actually do move into the blaming self where you're you're going, you idiot.

[00:27:26]Look at you being a robot.

[00:27:29]>> Self-critical.

[00:27:30]>> Yeah.

[00:27:32]self and analyzing which has its you know it's it's double age double-edged qualities to it but it is a start katana naps says So we talk about the third stage alifhat and is ceasing to claim your own qualities.

[00:28:27]So, sifat refers to the qualities or attributes manifested through a person.

[00:28:34]In theology, it often refers to the divine attributes. But before you can get to the divine attributes, you have to deal with the human attributes, which are again robotic.

[00:28:51]So, what does that mean? Attributes.

[00:28:55]What do you think? Nor >> attributes.

[00:28:59]It's like the things about yourself that you believe make you who you are.

[00:29:07]>> Yeah. You claim your qualities as personal possessions.

[00:29:13]And so this is where it starts getting complicated because we've rejected these external and internal heruristics or we're in the process of doing that all this inner and outer programming that we become aware of and we're like okay well not that but how about this? I love all these qualities about myself. I would love to bring those to the four and have that be who I am instead of all this other stuff that makes me feel like I'm a robot.

[00:29:45]And then we realize, oh, these qualities that I want to claim and make my whole self, I am also experiencing those as a trap.

[00:29:57]>> Yeah. The moment you say I am, you've trapped yourself. So if you say I am compassionate, you claim that compassion is part of your essence.

[00:30:10]Or I am intuitive or one of my favorite, I am unusually free of spiritual vanity. [laughter] >> Or you know even I am awake can be a sticky trap.

[00:30:25]>> Yeah. If you're saying I am awake, you're not because you've created a once removed from the the the awake state.

[00:30:39]So what this means is that your ego is now quite refined.

[00:30:45]Instead of identifying with external objects or passing reactions, you identify with the qualities.

[00:30:54]It's it's a arguably it could be a step in the right direction if you're really moving.

[00:31:03]>> Yeah. And it's a step that you have to let pass away from you.

[00:31:06]>> Yeah.

[00:31:10]>> Because the qualities do not belong to you.

[00:31:16]All qualities pass through your being.

[00:31:20]None of them reside there.

[00:31:22]They reside someplace uh a little more intimate.

[00:31:33]And when you when you are working on this state, you become calmer, clearer, more perceptive, more compassionate. And people will notice and that will feed your ego.

[00:31:54]Audrean says as Iben Ari's heart galp that becomes so malleable that it can assume any form.

[00:32:05]>> Yeah.

[00:32:11]>> Do you want to say more about that?

[00:32:12]Audre, you're good. Okay, there you are.

[00:32:19]as a as uh I mean it because of of this polishing of the heart by the work that allows you to give up any any association to to that characteristics as you were saying I didn't know this this uh actually this is new material to me I never heard that she thought qualities attributes characteristic yeah so You don't don't attribute yourself any of those qualities, attributes and characteristics. But then you know that's a that's a state I imagine of emptiness that uh then allows you to reflect reality uh in its whole right so that you don't don't uh don't become attached to any form but you assume any form or the heart assumes any form you are not even part of it right >> yes Yeah, it's an interesting thing because the Nakshbandi for instance this this teaching used to be part of that tradition and it seems to have vanished.

[00:33:38]I don't know where but uh we don't see it anymore.

[00:33:44]>> Oh. Oh, it it for from my perspective and experience Yeah, it's still there.

[00:33:51]is just that maybe it's there's a as we spoke recently Mushak so there there's part of the of the teaching that is pretty much I don't know I didn't I didn't invent [clears throat] that or anything I suffer that more than anything [laughter] you know but uh it's really led to you to perceive and and and learn from it So once you you you start scratching that surface then you you can see that there's some there there and if not then not you know so it's pretty much like doing it yourself which is very disheartening sometimes I agree but this it is there you know and that that uh that particularity of the no particularity >> [laughter] >> Yeah. So it sounds like it's a very it's a subtly taught in kind of an indirect sort of way.

[00:35:02]>> It it has to be by the right experience that is provided by the work and the practice.

[00:35:08]>> Yeah.

[00:35:10]>> That's true. and commitment because if you if you keep bullshitting yourself and allowing yourself permitting yourself and yourself yourself then it's you know it's yourself [laughter] right I'm so glad you elaborated thank you [sighs and gasps] all right so um I loved how you mentioned and Adrian the malleability that comes with this and I think that there can be that can be a little scary as as you mentioned it's like you know there's an emptying or there's a a letting go of the foundation that we've built for our security and our sense of I'm a better person now whatever it might be but It opens us up to be responsive to the moment, to become what the moment needs. And sometimes that might be demanding a quality of us that we would not choose that we might be like h I I don't that's a part of myself I don't want to bring to the four or even that in my saying it's a part of myself again that's an identification that we need to be digging into even interrogating dating.

[00:36:51]>> What does the moment need?

[00:36:53]>> I wish I could say something beautiful, brilliant, but you know what you say. Yeah, it is. It can it appears to be terrifying because then there is no safety net.

[00:37:12]That is the removal of the mere concept of safetiness. There's not such a thing.

[00:37:18]And then [clears throat] maybe it was never there anyway, right?

[00:37:24]You just thought it was. You constructed a thing that was very comfortable and something and say, "Oh yeah, I can decide things. I can I can be here and there. I can work in this emergency of this uh uh of this state or the other state, you know, and control that. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you're controlling things really, are you really really really there or you're still controlling trying to to command stuff and attribute then those characteristics that we were talking before, right?

[00:38:07]So you're still trying to stick to things to it desperately.

[00:38:12]Oh no, I stick things so that I can grab them. They're grabbable.

[00:38:18]There's no grabable. Oh No. What a pickle, right?

[00:38:26]That maybe that would be the puzzle.

[00:38:28]That the bewilderment that you say, "Oh, there's there's nothing there. There's no there there's not even me there.

[00:38:38]That's [laughter] I'm very scared.

[00:38:43]>> So I decide for myself to just stick stuff so that I can you know feel feel better again. You know, >> oh no, I'm I'm safe again. No, >> I don't know. This is this fascinating.

[00:39:00]I don't know that there's another thing that uh I don't know if it this this comes to to this particular uh line of thought or what you you had which is time.

[00:39:13]Time is is a crazy thing because uh what what you guys are saying is implying an eternal now, right?

[00:39:29]This is an eternal now >> Yes.

[00:39:33]>> Right. And I heard you guys talking about the now and the now of the now and [laughter] a couple of times. Maybe it would be a good topic to revisit. Please.

[00:39:49]>> That's a good thought for next week.

[00:39:54]>> Thank you, Adrian.

[00:39:57]It's pretty fun talking about the uh the fray of it all. I mean, it's it's miserable being in it, but it's kind of funny to talk about it.

[00:40:11][laughter] All right. So, >> support group. [laughter] >> What?

[00:40:18]>> It sounds more like a support group.

[00:40:21]>> Oh, yeah. It can be.

[00:40:26]What else are we good for? You know, if not that.

[00:40:31]Michael says, [sighs] he quotes Papa G in saying, "Don't land anywhere. Don't even land in not landing." Quote unquote.

[00:40:44]And RM says, "Loved it. What does the moment need? I was thinking about this concept this morning."

[00:40:52]Glad to hear it. RM Ian.

[00:40:57]>> Yeah, I was just going to comment that regarding uh uh the now. If I recall correctly, that was in one of the talks about Iban Arabi. Not so many months ago.

[00:41:09]>> Not so many months ago. This is true. we have we have uh mentioned now frequently in our talks.

[00:41:22]>> I'm certain we will again.

[00:41:25]>> Yeah, I think even couple weeks ago.

[00:41:37]Yes. How long is now?

[00:41:40]It's always a good question. Any other thoughts before we move on?

[00:41:47]>> Yeah, because we got the last one.

[00:41:48]>> We got one more which was kind of the it's it's uh I don't even know where I was going with that thought. Anyone else have any thoughts before we move on?

[00:42:06]All right. Shall we?

[00:42:10]>> The fourth stage. Were you unmuting?

[00:42:12]Okay. The fourth stage, >> the fourth stage is called FA Alzat.

[00:42:23]Uh, it's spelled in a lot of the world as z, but if you're actually pronouncing the real Arabic, it's more d a t.

[00:42:37]Again, a sound that we don't usually use. And it means annihilation of the essence.

[00:42:46]>> I would love to hear what else say if he'll indulge me.

[00:42:51]>> That it is a difficult one to to >> to use for that.

[00:43:03]>> Thank you.

[00:43:06]So this is the realization that you don't have an essence.

[00:43:17]That the only essence is the divine essence of which you partake in. Of which your [laughter] being in consciousness swims in like a guppy swims in an ocean.

[00:43:34]But only if the guppy is made out of seawater.

[00:43:41]So the idea of here's me separate from the rest of reality. I have my own little island of I and this is all well and good and as long as I have that I'm safe.

[00:43:59]But the moment you realize that you have to let that go and recognize that uh other than Allah does not exist.

[00:44:18]What does that even mean?

[00:44:23]This is what room or not room what Iban Otterby talks about or his students talked about when they talked about uh al-waj the oneness of of being that at the most fundamental level of reality there is no separation.

[00:44:46]Separation is an illusion that we create for ourselves so that we can play in this wonderful sandbox that we call life.

[00:45:14]And this is the last annihilation.

[00:45:18]The annihilation of the idea of yourself as a separate essence.

[00:45:41]But this is not the destruction of functional individuality.

[00:45:48]Most people think, oh, it must be that.

[00:45:50]But it is not that.

[00:45:53]A person who achieves this llak, this liberation um will still speak, still go to work, still make decisions, fulfill their obligations, remember where he left his shoes.

[00:46:10]But there is a difference.

[00:46:18]What disappears is the conviction that the individual exists as an independent source of being and will.

[00:46:28]Personal will no longer is no longer experienced as separate from the greater will.

[00:46:35]And uh Bennett suggests that this is the union of the individual will with the absolute will, which is a way of saying it.

[00:46:48][sighs and gasps] But this doesn't mean passive fatalism.

[00:46:53]This is not what the the non-duel bros talk about when they talk about, oh, nothing need be done and you can just sit and yeah, Audrean has a term that is worth bringing into the conversation. And do you want to say more about >> that is the pause of the heart.

[00:47:41]>> I'm not familiar with this term. So I would love to hear. This is this is the for us it's the 11th precept for you guys as you >> Oh yeah.

[00:47:53]>> The one of the three-fold the last the ninth wukov. Yeah. Bukali is when when when your uh you have the the practice and the the experience that uh what you wish or what you will your will is no what you will and What has to be are the same.

[00:48:33]>> They are unified. They in the same they are the same. They have no difference.

[00:48:39]They become the same or they were always the same. You just had the illusion that there was agency other than that.

[00:48:50]So >> they're recognized to be the same.

[00:48:53]>> Yes. That's this the the practice and recognition and then the experience of that.

[00:49:03]>> Yeah. And that's exactly what we're talking about.

[00:49:07]>> Yeah. I think of these as layers of of or levels of stripping away of what is not to reveal what is.

[00:49:29]And this speaks to that this idea of recognizing what was there all along.

[00:49:41]And many things get cleared away in the process of that recognition because that's what this whole thing is, right? It's a process of learning to recognize what is true.

[00:50:01]RM says and thank you for bringing that in. It's really lovely.

[00:50:08]>> We will come back to that in a second.

[00:50:10]Let's get this >> yes >> other comments in.

[00:50:13]>> RM says individuality is the other side of the coin of universality. That's how I see it. The prophet was the perfect example.

[00:50:25]>> And you ain't wrong. Individuality and universality are two poles in the same field.

[00:50:38]Think of it as a magnetic field. You have a positive and a negative pole.

[00:50:45]You cannot cut that field in half and end up with one pole. Those two poles are always there.

[00:50:56]And you need to be able to move through the individual and you need to be able to move through the universal.

[00:51:05]>> Yeah. I was talking with someone about this recently and we were talking this is sort of tangential and I want to be clear that we don't want to go too far a field but over this process you are cultivating a healthy ego as well as getting out from under it.

[00:51:31]>> Yeah.

[00:51:33]Yeah. One of my first teachers said, "When you achieve fa when you're ego is annihilated, this only lasts for a second."

[00:51:50]Because if you are existing without that ego for any length of time, your body will die because it has nothing to keep it going.

[00:51:59]So what happens is that Allah gives you a new ego that is a mirror of his own which is to say um purified clarified u >> able to do.

[00:52:17]>> Yes.

[00:52:19]>> Isn't that a whole grievian thing?

[00:52:21]That's that's the same thing though.

[00:52:23]It's the same thing.

[00:52:26]Then there was another comment that we must address.

[00:52:29]>> Yes, we have some fun ones. So, Aia offers the lovely idea, the beautiful Sufi metaphor of the stripping of the veils perhaps.

[00:52:40]>> And it's exactly that.

[00:52:41]>> Yes.

[00:52:44]Audrean says to be and not to be, that is the question.

[00:52:50]>> I like that. [laughter] >> I see lots of heads nodding. Yes. Yes.

[00:53:07]Any um inspirations or questions other than these awesome ones we've had?

[00:53:18]>> What? Oh, >> I was um I was I raised my hand but then Mushtak quickly mentioned the point of we have to remain functioning in this world. Right.

[00:53:33]>> Yes.

[00:53:34]>> And that does require it requires it requires everything that we're talking about annihilating.

[00:53:47]So for example, when Adrianne plays music, where is that music coming from? When I when I teach my martial arts or when a writer writes or when a singer sings there is a part of me there and I I guess the beautiful part is that it's coming through me. So can you say a little bit about how how practically we can live this? How can we practically ascend through these fams um whilst remaining in the world functioning and and celebrating and for somebody like myself creating and expressing?

[00:54:38]Are those two even possible?

[00:54:44]And the answer the answer as is usual with these things is a little complicated.

[00:54:53][laughter] You can sit and play music from your ego.

[00:55:03]We see it all the time.

[00:55:07]And at the same time you can let m music move through the essence that is you and you get a completely different different thing. Gjief made the distinction between subjective and objective art.

[00:55:27]And so egoic music, egoic paintings, egoic poetry, uh they're all subjective.

[00:55:39]They come from one person's ego and strike another person's ego in whatever way affects them because of their own uh programming.

[00:55:49]Objective art comes from the essence and speaks to the essence of other people.

[00:55:57]and creates a whole different resonance.

[00:56:00]In martial arts, [laughter] when we get there, it's called flow.

[00:56:08]When you're playing music, you know when it happens.

[00:56:32]>> Okay. Ian, did you have something to share about that?

[00:56:36]>> No. Uh, let Adrianne go. Sure.

[00:56:40]>> Yes.

[00:56:48]>> Yeah. I was just remembering Pat Mthani the guitarist. He was saying that was the first person that I that I heard outside my own little experience. You know, he was talking about himself him observing himself playing while he was playing and I said, "Oh, that's that's that's it, right?"

[00:57:15]>> Yeah.

[00:57:16]>> You're not you're not playing. You are co-articipating with a play, but you know, you are meaning you are you are doing it. You are but you are observing it from almost like a someone were was commenting it as as being aulous that was created which is another metaphor for the same phenomenon. No.

[00:57:46]So I don't know about the the martial art thing, but I think that there's there's so much in common between between this the martial you guys martial artists and music because both are arts from the moment. both have like a very they depend on a on a very refined uh uh corporeal physical response and to the and and both have also the the very strange against the time how how long is now right?

[00:58:28]>> Yes. that you mentioning because that now becomes like a chewing gum and when you while you're playing and then you listen to the recording you say oh my goodness I remember when I was playing that but while I was doing it felt different right well I don't know that my that's my two bands >> yeah I had some thoughts too. But I will um >> Yes. Um Adrianne, I didn't catch who who you mentioned at the beginning of that.

[00:59:10]>> Pat Mini.

[00:59:12]>> Oh, Patmi.

[00:59:14]>> Yeah, you should.

[00:59:16]>> Yeah.

[00:59:23]Okay.

[00:59:25]>> Yeah. Go ahead. Um this is actually it it's funny because RM posted her question which is where is our vocation originating from um just after I decide I wanted to speak on something that I think has some bearing on that because that's also something I've thought about uh a whole lot and not made a lot of progress on um [clears throat] but one of the things that occurred to me sort of during this talk because I was thinking about this broad aspect of the mechanical mind and one and what we were talking about sort of much earlier on about well it's the is the ego the the thing that's trying to control the ego and all those sort of paradoxes.

[01:00:28]One of the things that occurred to me is um the this whole body of teaching is kind of building up an alter. It's like we start off with sort of our model of the world um that we just get from everyday life, but then this body of teaching is building up something else within us that can act as a counter to that.

[01:01:01]But then it needs [clears throat] also the experiences to complete the triad of things that are operating as we go through this journey.

[01:01:18]Does that make sense?

[01:01:23]>> Yeah. Think >> you're on the right track.

[01:01:34]When you say the triad of things, I'm personally not sure I follow, but please help me understand. Yeah. Well, we've got the the the whole mechanical self >> and there's a world view that is associated with that which as we dis discovered earlier is really all the same scars and so on. But then what we learn with this body of teaching is also an intellectual framework and a world view. But it is counter to that mechanical worldview.

[01:02:15]And so those two are kind of in opposition.

[01:02:20]But the intellectual framework that we learn from this teaching is obviously not going to be sufficient in order to do anything. So it we also need the practice [gasps] to get the experiences that help to make the whole thing actually work instead of just being a an intellectual exercise.

[01:02:47]>> I mean I get Yes.

[01:02:49]>> Yeah. It's like if you just read a Spensky for example, but you don't do any practice. You've just got another intellectual thing.

[01:02:59]>> You've just added a whole other layer of ways to construct your mechanicalness and and perpetuate it. Right.

[01:03:08]>> Right.

[01:03:10]>> Yes. So there is kind of an the learning kind of needs to eat itself.

[01:03:24]Yes, thank you for pointing that out.

[01:03:26]And um yes, this is going to what I'm going to say is going to tie into what Adriana is is mentioning in the chat, which is as I I've been reflecting on this lately, what in relation to your question of like how do we who are we in the world then? What are we doing? How do we walk through all this? And I was thinking of the metaphor of the prism.

[01:03:55]And I think over the process of doing the work we we are the prism and we are always reflecting let's say divine light. We are always having divine light shine through us. And the way that it is refracted, the way that it shines in the world happens by way of that light shining through the prism that we are. And of course, God is both the light and the prism, but every prism is unique.

[01:04:44]And the clearer that prism can be, the clearer the light that shines through it, the less scattered that it is, and the more rich it is, the more vibrant it is, the more welldirected it is.

[01:05:10]Does that make sense?

[01:05:13]Yeah.

[01:05:19]So, Audrean says, "Work on attention as the polishing of the heart.

[01:05:27]Fewer assumptions and more and more objective perception until the observer, this observer becomes purely the observer observing creation."

[01:05:40]That's a Yes, that is another way of saying what we're talking about. Yes.

[01:05:47]Well said.

[01:05:51]Where is our vocation originating from?

[01:05:54]You say RM. I think that vocation is a very human way of talking about it. I think it's very in a sense goal oriented and there is something beautiful in that and it is something that helps gives give direction to life. If we can figure out something that we want to give our whole selves to.

[01:06:30]>> Yeah. When you look at the uh the usage of a vocation from some hundreds of years ago. It is referred to uh for instance [laughter] if you go into the priesthood it is said you have a vocation and the idea is that God puts it in your heart that this is what you should do and that's one of the uh meanings for this.

[01:07:06]So the answer for that kind of vocation where you know this is what you are meant to do u if it's true then God puts it in your heart. Sometimes it's not true.

[01:07:21]Sometimes it comes from your ego and you think oh wouldn't I be cool if I could do this?

[01:07:27]>> That's right. That's what I wanted to get at was it, you know, that's the humanness of it is that it can come from your ego. It can come from the polishing of the heart of the prism that we are.

[01:07:50]And that's why we have to be conscientious in the process of learning how we want to spend our life energy, our time.

[01:08:04]Time is limited after all, at least on this plane, in this body.

[01:08:15]>> Yeah. And there's various ways to discover one's vocation from time to time, assuming that one actually has one.

[01:08:25]But I also think it's misleading to talk about a vocation once we start talking about >> letting go of identifications and and attributes and characteristics because >> true vocation has nothing to do with that.

[01:08:42]>> Yeah.

[01:08:44]Right. So that may be a topic that we I mean I think we have talked about v vocation in one talk or two but I'm sure again we will revisit it at some point.

[01:08:57]Ah so AA says it's like in general you're welcome RM it's like having a closer and closer walk with the essence or the divine as in self-observation is like this until we become dissolved in it.

[01:09:22]I like that. Yes.

[01:09:26]walking with is a beautiful metaphor as well.

[01:09:31]Ian.

[01:09:33]Yeah, I was just going to comment that for me um instead of vocation to me it relates to what Geriff calls magnetic center which I think it's still a bit at least for me it's kind of mysterious where that actually comes from but I think it's definitely that something that does develop At least in my experience.

[01:10:18]I think there's something to that. Yeah.

[01:10:20]I mean that brings in the whole the whole other domain of talking about this and the refinement of the ego and the clearing away of the detritus so that we can be witness to what emerges from there.

[01:10:43]>> Well, for for me, I think I see the magnetic center as the thing that draws us to the to uh >> Oh, yeah.

[01:10:53]>> to find the work and or a teacher in some form or fashion.

[01:11:02]And and and the the fascinating thing for me is why do some people develop that and what and others don't? And I have no idea how to answer that.

[01:11:23]Yeah, definitely food for thought. I mean, I'm still wiggling around in this, too, you know.

[01:11:31]So, we can do that together.

[01:11:35]Thanks, Ian.

[01:11:41]What do you think, Bush?

[01:11:45]>> What do I think?

[01:11:47]>> Yeah.

[01:11:47]>> What me think?

[01:11:51]Um, I think that we can sum this up with four steps.

[01:12:04]First, notice when you are deriving your being from circumstances >> and stop it. Just stop it.

[01:12:16]>> Cut that out. Huh?

[01:12:18]>> Yeah.

[01:12:20]Second, stop assuming that every thought, feeling or action is I.

[01:12:31]Observe the machinery.

[01:12:34]Third, stop claiming qualities as personal possessions.

[01:12:42]Don't be talking I am intelligent. I am courageous. I am compassionate. Uh I have patience. Um don't construct a spiritual identity from qualities.

[01:13:03]>> And the fourth step is to stop treating personal preference as the center of reality.

[01:13:16]Yeah.

[01:13:17]>> Your job is to be available to a greater purpose, whatever that is. And we ain't going to tell you what it is cuz we don't know what it is for you.

[01:13:30]>> The moment tells you what it is.

[01:13:32]>> Yeah.

[01:13:39]So you want to be able to act but relinquish ownership to the action.

[01:13:48]This is Krishna's great advice to Arjun in the Bhagivad Gita.

[01:13:59]Act but do not be identified with your actions.

[01:14:10]So in a nutshell that's the four steps.

[01:14:19]So the the create this path as a path of subtraction.

[01:14:27]It doesn't ask you to acquire impressive spiritual identity. It doesn't ask you to see through the identities you have already acquired.

[01:14:37]Uh it asks you uh to discover that the outer world cannot tell you who you are.

[01:14:45]Then discover that your inner world cannot tell you who you are.

[01:14:50]And then discover that all of the qualities that you've been cultivating to show your friends uh don't actually belong to you.

[01:15:01]And then finally the one who has been conducting the investigation is themselves called into question.

[01:15:12]What remains is not a blank and it's not unconsciousness.

[01:15:17]It and it's not pacivity.

[01:15:20]Uh it becomes a condition of presence.

[01:15:39]It's basically it asks you to observe carefully enough to discover what is real and what is merely habitual.

[01:15:52]And the method is severe. This is why somebody came up with an easier method, I think.

[01:16:03]And it's not asking you to destroy your ego by force. You don't destroy your ego. You just put it in its proper place.

[01:16:14]And so that's what we have to say about this.

[01:16:23]And Michael makes a very important observation which is E prime. If you're an English speaker, E prime is English without the is of identity.

[01:16:37]>> It's worth a shot as a practice.

[01:16:39]>> It's a fun fun little practice.

[01:16:43]>> So it's a language, right? Like it's a way of speaking.

[01:16:46]>> It's a way of speaking. It sounds a little bit funny until you get the hang of it.

[01:16:52]Uh, and it changes the way you think.

[01:17:05]So, I'm going to switch us over to uh Brady Bunch mode.

[01:17:11][laughter] >> Adrianne says, "Hi, Octane meeting."

[01:17:14]Thank you, friends. Awesome. Cool, cool, cool. So, I am going to do the spiel because we didn't do it during this.

[01:17:25]>> Oh yeah, do the spiel.

[01:17:26]>> Yeah. So, thank you for all of that awesome hard work that brain sweat we just did talking about this. And for those of you who are watching, if this has been a fun time for you, then you can join us. Like I said, you can join us uh by joining our Facebook group. You can join us by joining our email list, which I always recommend because if hits a fan with social media, sometimes just keeping it simple and old school is the way to go. We don't do a whole lot of spammy stuff. I'm still intending to write more, do the email list, newsletter kind of thing.

[01:18:05]And uh we also have opportunities to work one-on-one or two-on-one with me and Mush. We have reasonable reasonable rates for that in which we can do work like this but with you and with your special concerns in your life.

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[01:18:27]But if you want to support our work in other ways, you can get some swag like what Mush has been wearing today. You want to show us?

[01:18:36]>> Check it out.

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[01:18:43]We're not trying to go brand.

[01:18:44]>> We're not advertising us. We're letting the symbol speak for itself.

[01:18:49]>> You can be mysterious that way.

[01:18:52]>> And everybody should have one.

[01:18:54][laughter] >> Yes.

[01:18:58]The mysterious bug shirt. This says James. Yeah, cuz everyone wonders if it's a a wasp in the middle. We promise it's not. It's a hieroglyph of a beat.

[01:19:08]And there is very special meaning in that. So what else? Uh we also accept donations if you'd love to support our work in other ways. If you're feeling like, man, I don't need a one-on-one, but I really would love to contribute.

[01:19:23]We welcome that as well. And it is a huge help to us in our work. So feel free to do so through coffee, which allows for repeated, you know, monthly donations. Um, you can do friends and family through PayPal, which we certainly appreciate. So, the fees are decreased that way, and Stripe, which seems to work for most people. Both of those are available through coffee, but coffee takes like an extra fee. So, do whatever works for you. We certainly appreciate appreciate the support. And for all of the you who have been donating and uh doing one-on- ones with us, you have no idea what it means to be able to be of service.

[01:20:05]Thank you for allowing us to do that and for uh keeping us going. So I guess I don't have anything to add.

[01:20:13]And uh thank you to all of you who have been here spending this time with us.

[01:20:17]Yes, Ian.

[01:20:19]>> Yeah. I I just wanted to ask you about that friends and family thing with PayPal.

[01:20:23]>> Mhm.

[01:20:24]>> I'm not familiar with it. How does it work?

[01:20:26]>> So, it's not available to everybody, but if you use our PayPal link, I think it will say it's for goods and services or it's like a friends and family gift. And if you do it as a gift, as a friends and family gift, then the fees aren't tacked on.

[01:20:47]But if that's not available to you or if you'd rather have the taxes involved, you feel some kind of ethical thing about that, that's totally fine.

[01:20:57]And let us know. You can always email us if you have questions on that.

[01:21:01]>> Yeah, I don't believe I've seen that.

[01:21:04]>> Okay, that's all good.

[01:21:07]>> Interesting to know, though.

[01:21:08]>> Yeah, thank you for asking, Ian.

[01:21:11]All right, so I won't keep you guys any longer. Thank you so much for being here and for uh spending time with us so we can wave to each other. Wave to everybody watching on the replay. Be well and we'll see you next week. Bye.