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Let Your Ears Discover the Magic of Full AudiobookRama Speaks: The Teachings of Rama-Dr. Frederick Lenz Audiobook by Lawrence BorokListen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/freeID: 692582
Title: Rama Speaks: The Teachings of Rama-Dr. Frederick Lenz
Author: Lawrence Borok
Narrator: Lawrence Borok
Format: Unabridged
Length: 12:53:29
Language: English
Release date: 05-26-23
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Genres: Non-Fiction, Health & Wellness, Philosophy, Mindfulness & Meditation, Naturopathy & New Age
Summary:
Dr. Frederick Lenz (1950-1998), known to his students as Rama, taught over a thousand people he accepted as direct students an unusual blend of spiritual practices for 20 years. It was a combination of insights and techniques shared by Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Vedanta and Yoga, and Native American mysticism...2023-05-2612h 53
Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - The Enlightenment CycleEnlightenment is the complete awareness of life without any mental modifications. It is perfect light, light that has always existed, exists now and will always exist. It's the light that exists beyond darkness. It's the core and the center of all things, and it's in all things and beyond all things.
Enlightenment is a state of consciousness, I suppose. It's a way of talking about it. It's something that we attain -- if we attain things.
There's a mountain. I'd like to climb to the top of it. There's something very beautiful, very wonderful on top of it -- so...1994-06-2132 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - Intermediate MeditationMeditation is concentration in the beginning. It's a focus. Then, in the intermediate stage, it's an opening, a deepening of one's awareness but with a focus towards the planes of light. In intermediate meditation, you're touching light more deeply than in introductory meditation. In advanced meditation, you become light. You transcend self, ego, time, space, dimensionality. You merge with the clear light of reality or return to samadhi, and you go beyond this world.
Your ideas, your feelings, your needs, your wants, your loves, your hates, your ups, your downs-you go beyond it all and you become God. You become...1992-06-2100 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - MiraclesEnlightenment initially appears to be subtle, it's just out of your field of vision. If you're meditating, if you're practicing every day, you don't necessarily see the changes that are taking place in your life because you're so close to them. You don't remember how limited your awareness field was 6 months ago or a year ago, let alone yesterday, before this mornings meditation. The real miracle, obviously, is the transformation of consciousness from limitation and pain to enlightenment and ecstasy.
But in order to get to a appreciation, a belief, in order to inspire practice, teachers sometimes do miracles, or...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - ReincarnationReincarnation is a dance. Its a movement of life to the rhythm of the universe. The idea is simple. There is spirit and there is matter. And they join together; one as one dancing partner and one as the other. The two together make a partner. They're together for a time while they're on the dance floor and then they separate and go their individual ways for a while and then they come together once again. And it goes on forever.
Spirit, the eternal part of our being is indescribable and limitless. We are eternal spirits. As spirits, we have...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - Personal HappinessHappiness is the most elusive thing, it seems, for human beings to find. Happiness is something that everybody wants, or professes to want, so it must be a very difficult thing since so few people, relatively few people, seem to ever experience it. And if they do experience it, they sure don't seem to experience it for long. I'm the happiest person I've ever met. Plain and simple.
The reason I'm happy is because I have a very good relationship with life. My happiness is not dependent upon what happens to me, today or tomorrow or what happened yesterday. My...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - EnlightenmentEnlightenment is the complete awareness of life without mental modification. enlightenment is a state of awareness we reach when our consciousness is one with infinity with the infinite consciousness of life itself. Enlightenment is not a state of mind. Although all states of mind are contained within it. It is the best of all things, the brightest of all lights, it is union with immortality. Timelessness and with the temporal. Of all the myriad worlds, planes, and things that simply can't be put into words.
Enlightenment exists within everything. There is nothing that can be separate enlightenment. But when I...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - WisdomWisdom. Wisdom is the ability to do two things at once. To be in the world and of it and enjoy it, participate in it fully and successfully, and at the same time to not be here at all. To be in realms of light. To be in the superconscious state, to be in samadhi, beyond all this, that true wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to take care of your life properly, to know what's right for you. To have assessed what is the right path and follow it with heart, with your full spirit and your full mind and...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - BalanceBalance. Spiritual balance is the ability to be happy in spite of circumstances. Spiritual balance is the obvious answer to the obsession that sometimes accompanies religious practice, occult practice, philosophical understanding. The obsession, the assertion that one is right. That something you're doing is better than something someone else is doing. The way you're doing it is better than the way someone else does it.
Spiritual balance is how you deal with opposition. Opposition outside yourself and opposition within yourself. Spiritual balance is Tai Chi. It's the center of things. It's the place where yin and yang meet, where all...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - PowerPower. Power is the active force in life. It is the force of life that makes awareness. Power is seen in the wind, in fire, in movement, physical movement, emotional movement, mental movement. Power is awareness. Power in Buddhism is defined, very precisely, in many different ways. There is no singular word that can encompass all the different aspects of power. The general term for power, spiritual power, the power of awareness, is Kundalini. Kundalini is the energy of life that creates life. Life is awareness. It's movement, it's sentient.
Life is the power to perceive. Without perception, there is...1992-06-2159 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - BuddhismBuddhism. It's presumptuous for me or anyone to talk about Buddhism. 'Cause it's so vast and so complete and there are so many aspects of it. So without being presumptuous, I will talk about Buddhism. I'm an Enlightened teacher and my name is Rama. I've been teaching Buddhism for lots of incarnations. And I teach it in this incarnation. But none of us really teach Buddhism. Buddhism is a way of life. It's Yoga and we practice it. People can watch us practice it. They can learn how to practice it by watching, by observing, by listening, by becoming sensitive...1992-06-2129 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Enlightenment Cycle - MeditationMeditation is a process of expanding your awareness. When you meditate you get in touch with the deepest part of yourself. You know from your own point of view, what's right, what's wrong, what you should do and shouldn't, in any situation. Meditation makes you tough, makes you strong, conscious, happy, and eventually enlightened. Meditation is a process of silencing your thoughts. Beyond the world of thought and sensorial impressions, there are planes and dimensions of perfect light, knowledge, and radiant perfection. Meditation is simply a process of moving your awareness field from the awareness of this world, from the...1992-06-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - LightThere is only black light, between the stars. It may seem that it's darkness, but it's really black light. There's no such thing as darkness. Darkness is a human concept. There's only black light between the stars.
There is no evil, there's no bad, there's no good. These are human ideas. There's no creator, there's no creation, there's no God, there's no nirvana, there's no perfection. These are ideas. Everything is transient. That's an idea. Everything is perfect. That's an idea. Everything is imperfect. That's an idea.
Beyond ideas there's reality. That's not an idea-that's real. There's no way to...1990-06-0114 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Buddhist YogaThe essence of all practice is to be cool. Life is not worth getting excited about because whatever you perceive is an illusion. If you like getting excited, then you can get excited. But if your excitement is anything more than enjoyable, then you're making a mistake. The essence of all practice is to be relaxed, to be at peace with yourself. Now, you can't really be at peace with yourself if you're trying to hold onto things that are illusions.
Think about it for a second.
Nothing lasts. Consider everything that you've gone through and experienced thus far. How...1990-06-0138 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - TenacityNaturally, people who are involved in peak experiences are not what you might think. In other words, the way of humanity is to turn everything into a marketable product, and religion and enlightenment are no exceptions. But when we turn something into a marketable product, it loses something. Christianity is a marketable product. It has very little to do with Jesus Christ. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ at all, what that experience was like to be around the guy when he was walking around, for the three years he was teaching. This has nothing to...1990-06-0133 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Solstices and EquinoxesWe're coming into a very interesting time. The summer solstice is approaching, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the summer solstice. There are four times of tremendous power that occur every year. There are others that occur at different times, but there are four that you can count on, and those are the solstices and the equinoxes. Without going into the structures of why that is so -- it just is -- I'd rather look at what it means.
The summer solstice is the time in the physical world of greatest light. The winter solstice...1990-05-011h 03Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Peak ExperiencesI am a seeker of what I call perfect moments. I'm not going to define that because, why? There are all kinds. Perfect moments are moments when we, as I said, go beyond ourselves and we touch something immortal. And there are many ways to do it. They involve pretty much the same structural approach, though. These moments don't occur particularly rhapsodically. They occur from a lot of discipline, a lot of pragmatic approach, through building up our power. And if you know how to do it in one place, you can apply that structural knowledge to doing it in...1990-05-0132 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - TransienceMeditation is different. It has nothing to do with reincarnation. Meditation is when we go beyond incarnation, beyond all cycles, to immortality, to something that is not transient, to that which is eternal. When we meditate we stop our thought. When your thought stops, the mind is perfect. There is no transience. No thought, no transience. That's what is eternal -- when there is no thought, no sense of self and no impressions. That's eternity -- what you feel, that reality that you are. That's eternal. That's beyond transience. That's what we really are, of course.
Yet, surprise -- we...1990-04-0120 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Path of NegationThe path of negation is the path of understanding. The path of affirmation, which is the first portion of the self-discovery path, is a path in which we don't seek to understand, we seek to escape. We want to escape the pain of life, the pain of our minds, the pain of our bodies, the pain of the world. We don't really want to ask a lot of questions; we just want to know a way out-and the way out is through avoidance. We don't eat meat, we don't have sex, we don't deal with money, we don't deal with...1990-04-0133 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Buddhist EnlightenmentThe essence of Buddhism is simply that the mind is forever. And that there are endless states of mind. And that we are always experiencing different states of mind in one form or another, in one body or another, in one life or another, forever. And that there are states of mind that are painful and unpleasant, there are states of mind that are wonderful and ecstatic. But there are only endless states of mind -- viewpoints, plateaus of seeing life..
Most people exist in very clouded states of mind. That is to say, their minds are very clouded. It's...1990-04-0119 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Bhagavad-GitaIn the Bhagavad Gita is a discussion-conversation between enlightenment and that which unknowingly seeks enlightenment. Enlightenment is represented by Sri Krishna who is said to be an avatar, which is a human way of trying to define 'very big.' That is to say that Sri Krishna is not from the local area network, but he has come from a world that is different because his mind is different. He glows.
He doesn't experience the normal round of circumstances inwardly that most people do. He doesn't experience depression. He doesn't really experience elation as human beings would know it. He...1990-03-0144 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - A Clean RoomThe answer is to clean your room. And if your room is clean, that's about that. We seek to do that as Buddhists when we meditate and when we breathe and when we live and when we talk and when we interact and when we're alone. Because we like the way it feels when the room is very simple and very clean because there's no clutter. It isn't that we appreciate that there's no clutter. No clutter opens the window so we can see outside and see eternity, which is very full and very beautiful. But if there's too much...1990-03-0125 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - MetaphysicsWe have a sense that we are participating in metaphysics and the metaphysical experience voluntarily. We're doing it because we're doing it. We've chosen to do it.
As you go much further in metaphysics, you discover that that's not true at all. The reason that you're engaged in metaphysics is -- there's no reason, you just don't have any choice. You couldn't stop, no matter what you did. You're held by power. Now, this is a very different view of life. In other words, we believe that we are all people are created equal and we have free choice and...1990-03-0140 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Best Meditation I Ever HadThe best meditation I ever had, I haven't had yet. It's in the future, which as anyone knows doesn't exist -- anyone who meditates knows. But yet, I'll have it some day.
The best lifetime I've ever experienced hasn't occurred yet. I've had billions of lives. I've been around the universe almost as long as the universe, I think. I remember my lives; you don't. Or you remember a few. I remember a billion. And I've had wonderful lives. I've had wonderful lives, beautiful lives, lives of struggle, lives of battle, lives of ecstasy. I've had beautiful lives, and this...1990-02-0120 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Professional MeditationWhen a person has become used to meditating on a regular basis and the practice has become a part of your life, we reach a kind of threshold that some people don't cross. Initially, when you begin to meditate, it's challenging, it's difficult just to get yourself to sit down once or twice a day to do it. Then you begin to see results. There's more energy in your life, your mind works better, your body feels better, things appear to be brighter, you have more enthusiasm, your awareness shifts, you start to become a little bit clairvoyant, you can...1990-02-0126 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Focus and MeditationThe practice of meditation is emptying the mind. When the mind is empty, completely empty, it's perfect meditation. It's really that simple. There are a variety of different approaches to emptying the mind. All of them work equally well. We can just stay with one; we can use a number of them. It really doesn't matter; it's a question of personal choice. What we're doing is stopping thought. But really, before that, we're learning to control thought. And really, before that, we're learning just to sit down and focus on something.
I have a simple prescription method for learning how...1990-02-0125 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Awareness of MeditationMeditation is the art of breathing-breathing out and breathing in. The universe, which is beyond understanding and description, is always breathing out and breathing in. It breathes in our lives and then it breathes them out. It breathes in dimensions, beings, feelings, understandings, mind itself. It breathes it in and breathes it out. We could say that life is a cycle, but that implies there's something that is observing it or that's outside of the cycle. There's really only breathing. It's very simple, really.
Meditation is a process in which we're essentially, at first, breathing out. We're exhaling. We're taking...1990-02-0133 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Computer ScienceI like computers. I've got a few of them, and I keep them around the house. Sometimes they're turned on, sometimes they're turned off. I like them as much when they're off as when they're on. I just like computers. They're like pets -- but you don't have to feed them too much, a little electricity once in a while. But they're nice. Sometimes I get different ones just because I like the way they look. They're just fun to have around the house. I like their aura. I like their energy. I like the energy of computers.
Computer science...1990-01-0119 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - BuddhismThe thing about Buddhism is that it stresses attainment of something ineffable, and I think this is where it differs from other religions in that it's more correct. We live in a world with promises of paradise. Everyone is telling us that if we will only have a certain experience, amass a certain amount of belongings, become rich and famous, whatever it is, we will be happy. And there are people who tell us that just the opposite is true -- if we give up all that and we live a life of chastity, simplicity, poverty -- sort of doing...1990-01-0131 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Path of AffirmationThere's a feeling that occurs sometimes when you're standing at sunset looking out into the horizon, where you just slip away from all of this and all of that. You're at a party. It's Christmas. Everybody's busy, everybody's having a good time and they're celebrating. For a moment you go out on the balcony and the sun is setting and you just look at the sky. You slip away from all the noise, all the good times, all the beautiful men and women. You just go outside by yourself and you slide the glass door behind you and you just...1990-01-0139 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Nexus of All PathwaysThere are two ways to become enlightened -- the easy way and the hard way. I suppose that could be true of anything. The easy way is through a complete focus on that which is most positive. The hard way is through a focus on that which is negative. Both positive and negative come from the same source. So if you follow either path, the path of affirmation or negation, eventually you'll come to the source, if you follow them to the source.
But positive and negative, what we call yin and yang, light and dark, are circles. In the...1990-01-0155 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - PossibilitiesAstrology is the science of time and space. It is the science of karma. It has to do with places in which you locate your body and energy fields that affect you. What we seek to do is push all energy fields away from our bodies so that we can perceive life perfectly and clearly.
Astrology is an indicator of karma. You're born in a certain geographic place, in a certain dimension. At the moment of your birth, a variety of energies are present and they lock at the moment of birth for you. From that moment on, there are...1989-12-0126 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Self-EffortSpirituality is breaking the link between the mortal and the immortal consciousness. The mortal consciousness is the awareness of time and space through a body and a perceptual sensorial field. The immortal consciousness is nothing that can be described in words.
Divinity does not require humanity's understanding. It exists because it exists because it exists. Humanity is terribly limited in its understanding of anything and everything. As long as humanity chooses to avoid divinity, it suffers. But divinity does not. Since it is immortal, pure and perfect, it is beyond suffering. Its self-luminescent light propels itself through infinity without any...1989-12-0124 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - EnlightenmentI've read a lot about enlightenment and thought about it quite a bit, and I find that it doesn't have much to do with enlightenment. Now fortunately, I can see both sides of the coin since I happen to be enlightened and I've gone through that training process that culminates in the dissolution of the finite self in the white light of eternity. But at the same time, I'm an avid reader and I like to ponder things, so it's kind of fun to step in and out. And I notice that the two are not really the same. The...1989-12-0127 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - FreedomOur subject is freedom. It's always the same. How do we become free, free from the limitations of dimensionality? The way we become free is simple, and it's complicated. It's simple in theory, that is to say, all we have to do is stop our thoughts. When thought stops, a doorway opens into dimensions that are pure and unassociated. They're nonbinding realities. They're non-samskaric, which simply means that they're beautiful, they're ecstatic. The consciousness of the worlds that we can get to through thought-those dimensions are very limited. They're limited by time and space, a sense of past, present and...1989-12-011h 17Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Natural StateThere's no end to enlightenment. That's the good news, of course. We call the Buddha someone whose mind has become so integrated with the deeper levels and structures of infinite mind and infinite being that there is only reality for them. There is no delusion of any type. Yet they come into a body, take on an incarnate form, experience the joys, the sufferings, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, all that sort of thing.
In Buddhism we like to talk about our Buddhas. We've named our 'ism' after one. But the theory is that we are...1989-11-0146 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - The Mature MonkThe universe is in your hands. It's in your hands, it's in your eyes, it's in your feet, it's in your breasts, it's in your back, it's in your body. There's a wonderful scene in 'The Last Temptation of Christ' where Christ is on the ground and he's writhing and God is inside him. And it's not pleasant; it hurts. This is a very different point of view than we get in the usual stories about Jesus in the Bible. It has upset some people, but there's some truth to it.
Spiritual growth and development is at times very painful...1989-11-0131 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Six WorldsThere are six worlds. There's the world of enlightenment, the world of the unmanifest, the world of good intentions, the world of desire -- that's this world, the human world. There's a world of astral spirits and beings that are very, very unhappy, and then there's a world of such complete nescience, of such complete darkness, that one doesn't even recognize that it's a world.
The world of enlightenment is not a world per se in that, obviously, we're discussing nirvana. It's nonstructural, nonbonding, noncausal, nonatomic -- no chemical makeup. It's the extant portion of that which is. That's where...1989-11-0142 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzTantric Buddhism - Tantric BuddhismWhen you look into a pond or a lake, if there's no wind, then it's a mirror. It's perfectly still. If we throw a rock in, then ripples in concentric circles extend outward. The image changes.
Enlightened mind is often compared to a lake, a pond without ripples. But I don't think that that's completely correct. Because I think enlightened mind also is a lake or a pond with ripples.
We throw a rock into a lake and the pure serenity is disturbed. The ripples cascade; they come and go and then everything becomes still again. I think that's better...1989-11-0137 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - WinningHow do you become a winner? What is the Zen of winning? Well, the Zen of winning starts out, of course, as all Zen practice does, with a central idea or reality, if you prefer, of nothing. Everything is nothing. The way of nothingness is the way of Zen, or we could say the way of everythingness is the way of Zen. It's just a term. The contemplation of nothingness or everythingness is where everything starts.
There's a still center to the universe. Within that still center are all things, all achievements, all losses, all gains, all states of mind...1986-06-2146 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - How To Be A Successful StudentWhat is it to be a student, albeit a successful student? A student is someone who looks at life with curiosity. There's a sense of eagerness and particularly, I might add, a sense of newness. You see, when you're a student you're always learning something. Therefore, you have to be new at it. There's always something new to learn. You're learning a new language, you're learning a new type of mathematics, you're learning a new way to meditate. You're learning how to ski for the first time. You're learning martial arts. You're learning how to sail, how to dance, whatever...1986-06-2159 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - The Zen of Sports and AthleticsZen of sports and athletics. How to make the body and soul one. Running those miles, shooting those arrows, working out, getting strong, getting stronger. That point of intersection when there's no separation between the dancer and the dance. Between the ball and the player.
Sports. Teamwork. One unit, one mind, one body out there on the court.
Preparation of the mind. All athletics, and success in sports and athletics, from the Zen point of view, comes from the mind. If your mind isn't disciplined, integrated, free and one-pointed, how can you possibly do well in athletics? No matter what...1986-06-2144 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Advanced Meditation PracticesIn advanced meditation, you're going to step beyond your role as perceiver of the view, perceiver of your life, perceiver of your death. That's just a way of looking at things in duality. Instead, you are going to merge everything into the flux. You're going to go to stillness. When that happens, the world collapses. There's no time, no space, no viewer, no viewing, no object in view. Beyond the ten thousand states of mind is the still point. It exists within them all -- this is the riddle -- yet it's beyond them. It's not affected by them. It...1986-06-2159 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Rapid Mental DevelopmentWhat do I mean by rapid mental development? Well, rapid mental development is the escalation of consciousness. Mental development is not really IQ, per se. IQ is based upon a series of tests that are given to a person, really not to evaluate their intelligence but their ability to learn certain socially endorsed skills -- reading, writing, grammar and so on. Intelligence is not limited to one's ability to function in a predefined world, in my opinion. Plants are very intelligent; I don't think they'd do very well on an IQ test. So are porpoises.
Intelligence is something that's not...1986-06-2143 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Overcoming FearsThis morning I'd like to talk with you about overcoming your fears, whether they're small fears or large fears, fears that you're aware of or subconscious fears, fears that you don't know you have. What is fear anyway? It's a feeling that we feel in the pit of our stomach, in our body. It's very physical, isn't it? And when we experience that feeling, it really cuts us off from our strength, our power. It cuts us off from knowledge and experience. It's a guillotine that falls and separates.
Fear is an interruption in the normal flow or routine of...1986-06-2143 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Managing and Increasing Your EnergyManaging and increasing your energy. Everything that we do involves energy, personal power. The more energy we have, the more we can accomplish, whether it's things that you wish to accomplish physically - career-related, athletic things -- or whether your goal is to enlighten your mind, to raise your awareness, to become conscious of God, of eternity, of everythingness and nothingness.
Life is wonder. Endless, ceaseless wonder. When you're in a high state of attention, you see that. Now naturally, if your energy level is low, then everything is gray, two-dimensional, boring, frustrating, unhappy.
Happy people, enlightened people, successful people...1986-06-2139 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Developing WillpowerWillpower. You have two choices, and only two that I'm aware of. One choice is to be a human being. To be a human being is to be frustrated, unfulfilled, and there are lots of them around. A human being is someone who's bound by emotion, as opposed to reason -- a person who is enslaved by their desires, a person who is never really at peace with themselves or fulfilled or happy because they live in the spectrum of the human consciousness, which is endless craving, endless desire. Pleasure is followed by pain, loss by gain, love by the...1986-06-2154 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Tantric ZenWhat I term Tantric Zen, I could also refer to as old Zen, the original face of Zen, or new Zen, contemporary Zen practice -- no mind, the mirror of existence. Tantric Zen is Zen in its essence.
Bodhidharma, who brought Zen from India to the Orient, taught a very pure type of Zen, in that it was -- pure Zen. Zen is meditation, the actual experience of life -- directly, immediately, with no buffers.
Over the course of time, different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders of Zen. There have been lots of Zen...1986-06-2147 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Zazen: Concentration and MeditationConcentration and meditation are practices that enable you to alter your state of mind. Within a state of mind, the state of mind you're in now, there are different possibilities. There's a higher end to the state of mind and a lower end. The higher end -- let's call it the right side of that state of mind, which leads or borders the next state of mind that has a better view -- has more light in it. The lower end has less light. If you spend enough time at the lower end of a state of mind and if...1986-06-211h 03Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Psychic DevelopmentEveryone is psychic. You are psychic. Psychic is not a particular talent; it is an ability that we all have. Everybody has a left foot. Some people may just walk with that foot, some people may drag it, some may learn to dance with it. Everyone is innately psychic. It's a part of your mind.
What does it mean to be psychic? Essentially it means to feel, rather than to think all the time. There are two general modes of perception. There are many, but there are two that we see most frequently in this world, and that's thinking and...1986-06-2148 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - KarmaHi there. Zen Master Rama here, talking with you about karma and reincarnation today. The poignancy of life. Incarnation. The intersection of different spheres of existence in time and space, matter and energy -- life.
We are alive, for a brief moment. And there are many, many wonders to see. And sometimes we think that life is random. We just go through life without a plan, without a direction. Things seem chaotic.
Chance. Is there chance? No. There's karma. Karma causes all things to happen. It makes the sun come up every day; the moon go through its 28 phases; it...1986-06-211h 05Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - ReincarnationWell, what it means is that you are experiencing right now -- I mean right now -- your past. Everything that you have done has led up to what you are now. That's the theory of reincarnation. Everything you do now will lead up to what you will be. That's the theory of reincarnation. The wave that's moving along the top of the ocean has a certain formation. The reason it has that formation is because of what it has been through up until this moment. What it will go through will cause it to change form.
So you are...1986-06-211h 25Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - EnlightenmentThe most noble of all pursuits -- to become all that you are, all that you have ever been -- is to be enlightened, to know truth, to have knowledge and yet be beyond even truth and knowledge, to be God.
You are God. To be conscious of that, not from just the point of view of the human form. To be endless and beginningless, perfect being. Infinite awareness, beyond pain, beyond frustration, beyond birth and death -- that's enlightenment. A part of it, anyway. And we call the study of enlightenment, self realization or self-discovery. There are many paths...1986-06-211h 18Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Overcoming StressHow do you cope with stress? Well, from my point of view, from the point of view of Zen, of course, it's good to understand what it is you're dealing with. We want answers. We want quick relief. That's why we take the quick relief pills. The quick relief pills may give us some quick relief, but when the little pill goes away, the relief is gone because we didn't take a larger look at what it was we were dealing with and try to understand it.
Zen is the study of mind in all of its manifestations and permutations...1986-06-2156 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - HappinessOur subject today is happiness. And the koan is, happiness is a warm puppy. As opposed to a cold duck? You're in the magical world of Zen, where anything can happen and usually does because it's your life! And in your life, just about everything happens all the time.
So sit back if you're driving in your car, or your car's driving you, or your mother's hitting you on your head, or, just about anything could be happening, I mean it usually is. Your wife left you, your kid just went to jail, you went to jail, they smuggled you...1986-06-2147 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Career SuccessNext to meditation itself, next to the practice of zazen, I really can't think of anything more important than the development of your career -- because nothing has a greater effect on your awareness level. Whether your career is in the work force or your career is retirement and hobbies, looking after a family, a nation, a universe, it's all the same. We're talking about the major focus of your life, your time. Whether it's 40 hours a week, 60 hours, 80, 20, your career affects your awareness far more than you realize.
It is very important to be successful, successful in the sense...1986-06-2145 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzZen Tapes - Personal PowerWhat is power anyway? Power, as I define it -- personal power -- is something that's not necessarily visible. We can see its effects, but we cannot see power itself in the same way that the wind blows, and we can see the effect of the wind. We can see it moving a wind turbine or perhaps blowing the trees. If it's strong enough, a tornado or hurricane can blow a house over, capsize a ship. We can feel the wind against our bodies and in our hair. But we can't actually see the wind. We see its effect. Because...1986-06-2159 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Transcendentalism - Walden Pond, MassachusettsThe initial step that a person must make in transcendentalism is to come to realize that the perceptions that they're having at this time are not so much created by choice as by a field of attention, a room that we've walked in. In other words, we're very happy, we're bright, we're in a good mood, and we walk into a room that's kind of dirty -- it's got a lot of rubbish around it, the curtains are old, the couch is faded and maybe a lot of unhappy people have been there and we can feel their energy. The...1985-08-1546 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Power - Continental Divide, ColoradoPower. Power is what's required to change the universe -- to change yourself into what you might like to be. If a rocket seeks to put a space ship, a satellite, whatever it may be, into orbit, it has to have power. The more velocity it has, the higher the orbit will be of the satellite or the space station or the space ship. A great deal of power is required to go above the earth's gravitational field. If there's enough power, then an orbit is gained above the earth, above the world. Eventually gravity will pull the object back...1985-08-0745 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Kundalini Yoga - Haleakala, MauiKundalini yoga is the yoga of transmutation. The principles are simple. At the base of the spine there's an access point that leads into another world, another plane of attention, another dimension. It's possible to access the energy through that secret doorway, that lowest chakra, and bring that energy and power up through yourself into your being. And as you bring it into your being, it will spread and radiate throughout your entire body.
There is a particular path that the kundalini follows -- the shushumna. The shushumna, as I mentioned before, is an astral nerve tube. It's the central...1985-08-0146 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Electronic Tribe - Nantucket, MassachusettsA network is a tribe. And a tribe, as I mentioned before, is connected by its secrets. A tribe is not a loose collaboration of beings who just get together in a powwow, who live together or work together. A nation is not a tribe. A family is not a tribe. A racial or ethnic group is not a tribe. Ancestry does not create a tribe, at least not bloodline. What creates a tribe is a bond, a sharing of secrets. Not a secret that could ever be told in any words, but a secret that's much too wonderful for...1985-05-2945 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Magic - Lake Tahoe, NevadaThe school of awareness is the school of mysticism. Mysticism is the experience of eternity, of that which lies beyond the physical phenomenal experience. Not that that is even what it appears to be. Taking a walk isn't really taking a walk, taking a shower isn't taking a shower, living isn't living, dying isn't dying. It only appears to be that way because of the centering of our awareness.
So the school of awareness is really perception. Everything is perception. And perception, as you know, is limited by the way that you think. When I say 'think,' I don't...1985-04-2547 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Unity - The Big Island of HawaiiNow, here's an interesting point. Awareness becomes aware of itself. Awareness perceives itself, but not always completely. Awareness can think of itself, feel itself, speculate about itself, correctly or incorrectly. It depends on what level or gradient of awareness we're dealing with.
You're aware. You're aware that you're seeking power, you're seeking energy. And it's been my experience as one who has sought awareness and continues to do so, that in the beginning, at least, awareness is something that appears to be outside of us. We have the sense that we will be aware when we have traveled, when we...1985-03-3046 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzOn the Road with Rama - Neutral Density - Continental Divide, ColoradoThere's no sense as you walk along this road of going anyplace or having been anyplace because this road changes constantly. It's not a road that leads through the hills and you can walk on the road today and tomorrow you'll walk on it and see the same things. It's simply not like that. This is a road that changes every moment. Thousands of realities come in and out of it. In one step you can go through a thousand shifts of attention. And you can't ever take that step again. You can turn around and what you saw behind...1985-02-0646 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - The Sorcerer's ExplanationA person is made up of awarenesses. These awarenesses all exist in the unknown. Now, of course, we're moving to what don Juan calls 'the sorcerer's explanation,' or it's the explanation of life. All of the awarenesses that have ever been or will ever be exist, he says, like barges floating in the ocean. It's a nice analogy.
They're all just floating out there, the only difference is they're not solid barges, and as they're floating in that ocean out there they can actually pass through each other. So you can have 20 barges and they're floating along, but they're...1983-12-211h 35Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - The TruthTonight I would like to talk to you a little bit about spiritual metamorphosis or transformation. Self-discovery is a process of dissolution and creation. We're dissolving what we know to create what we don't know. Dissolution means envelopment in eternity. Creation is bringing into focus new awareness.
In self-discovery, as in life itself, we believe that we know who we are. This knowledge changes as we change and develop. One day we think that we're one type of person with certain tendencies, feelings, very emotional perhaps. Another day we feel that we're very cold and aloof. But as we meditate...1983-11-211h 15Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Tibetan Yoga and Secret DoctrineWhen you meditate, always try and be hopeful, it's very important. It's necessary to realize the infinite possibilities that life offers you at any moment. Most people are engaged in a limited dharma. They are traversing in a given lifetime through a sequence of possible events, but the events are not too widely chartered in the sense that the possible variations within that sequence are limited. Meditation offers us the prospect of changing that. The suggestion is that instead of staying with the destiny that you have now, that you've incurred through previous karmas, actions in this life, and other...1983-11-141h 44Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Love - The Fourth Level of EcstasyAll of the various forms of self-discovery, ranging from Zen and Tibetan tantra on through Christianity, Buddhism, whatever it may be, all of them are based on love. While in some forms of self-discovery, love may not be discussed a lot, it's understood to be the basis of all spiritual and religious practice. It is the essence of being and living. When a civilization, a race, a people, a society, when they lack love, they are soon destroyed. Gandhi realized this. Love makes you immortal because it connects the world of mortality that we live in now to the immortal...1983-11-011h 56Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Why Don't More Women Attain Enlightenment ?In addressing this particular topic tonight, you might say I'm addressing all topics because I feel that all topics are found in any singular topic. Once you've learned the art of problem solving, for example, you can solve any problem. The method is transferable. So I feel if we can correctly understand this one subject, we will understand all subjects, whereas if we fail to understand this one subject, we will fail to understand any subject because I feel all subjects in our world are predicated upon this subject. I feel it is that important.
Why don't more women attain...1983-08-091h 12Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - The Non-Doing of MeditationI think it would be a good idea, as you're setting your sails for the land of meditation, to consider wisely, o nobly born, before you venture forth into the bardo of experience, what it is that you're trying to do. Not so much why, because I think the why eludes us all. We may come up with reasons as to why we meditate, why we live, why we die. But ultimately those reasons will not effect what occurs. Those are just panaceas, things that perhaps make us feel better, inspire us. They're neither good nor bad, it depends on...1983-08-0245 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - How To Make Friends With GodGod is limitless awareness. There. Now I just told you everything I know about God. A lot of good it did you. You probably knew that already. But do you really know what limitless awareness is? Oh, sure, you can hear me say, "God is limitless awareness." But immediately when you think of God, you have a preconceived cultural notion of who and what God is.
Since the time you were born, you were taught about God. If you were taught to believe in God, you were taught what to believe, that God is a certain way and not another...1983-07-1343 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Spiritual CrossroadsThe spiritual process is not at all arbitrary. It's not necessarily sensible, from a structured point of view. But it's not at all arbitrary. A lot of people in self-discovery have this sense that they're involved in some process that they don't understand. That one can't understand. They feel that they're climbing a mountain that never ends. That self realization and liberation is something that will never occur to them, it's some mysterious process. They don't know quite what to do.
This is not a helpful way to think or see. Because really, quite the contrary is true. Self-discovery to...1983-07-051h 09Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Modular Mysticism: Dress For PowerOne's progression along the spiritual path is a very, very intricate matter. This evening I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the structure of your being and how this process actually works, with specific recommendations as to what you can do to radically alter your current state of knowledge and awareness. In essence, then, this is a technique-oriented presentation, but I'd like to begin with a consideration of the dynamics of this process.
To begin with, the process of self-discovery normally involves, in mysticism, a teacher and a student. In some forms of mysticism, there are two...1983-06-2846 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Sophisticated SexualityI found that the breakthroughs for me, as I went through school, junior high school and high school, came through sexuality, came through explorations of consciousness, in reading, and loving, through friends. Through time alone in nature, through yogurt (laughter) and through psychedelic experiences. I had been pretty well made a prisoner by school, by society. I had been given this description which I couldn't accept and it's projected from the televisions, the radios. The images of the world, the teachers. Now, I must say, I've been very fortunate, and I can only thank all of those who I have...1983-06-221h 13Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Instant EnlightenmentEnlightenment, from my point of view, does not involve going into samadhi a few times or having a few satori experiences. Over a period of years of going into samadhi day after day, night after night, for hundreds and thousands of hours, enlightenment takes place. The way I define it is self realization. That is to say, enlightenment doesn't simply mean that you've gone up a few times and seen the white light of eternity and merged with the all. I would say that's a basic level of samadhi. Enlightenment has to do with the erasure of the samskaras, the...1983-06-1444 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Modular Mysticism: SeeingThis evening I'd like to talk to you about seeing. Seeing is the ability to tell what really is. There are many different forms of seeing. Some forms of seeing involve apprehending that which is occurring in the world. Other forms of seeing are more esoteric, and they involve the perception of perception itself. Without seeing, it's very difficult to practice self-discovery. You're quite blind. Most people of course, think of seeing as the thing that we do with our eyesight. We're using the word 'seeing' not in that sense at all, but as a metaphor, almost a mixed metaphor...1983-05-3144 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzInsights - Modular Mysticism: Storing PowerWhat causes us to change? Sometimes a piece of music causes us to change. Sometimes the way the light falls on a particular day. Someone says something - it opens a doorway for us. We find it happening without knowing why. Very often we try and reason existence. We try and calculate it; to discover it. And while we can certainly discuss portions of existence and we can discover layers of reality, yet we find ourselves straying very far from existence itself in its absolute form. We're out playing in the world of self-discovery. We're looking at different pictures in...1983-05-2643 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Spiritual Teachers and the Enlightenment ProcessI would like to address what I consider to be the most difficult topic for a person who seeks enlightenment to deal with. There are different types of spiritual teachers. The ultimate spiritual teacher is life. Life is constantly teaching us, if we'll only open our eyes and observe. Because we have so much, such a large self, such developed personality and persona, we don't really see. We see ourselves. We're always basing everything that we see in life on a comparison with our own views, our feelings, our ideas.
It's only after the self has been swept away that...1983-03-2156 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Occult Body, Auras and The ChakrasThe occult body is a field of attention. A human being is composed of various parts: the physical body; the subtle physical body or the etheric body; the occult body; the psychic body; the mind; the ego; the life force; and of course the jiva or the soul or what they call in Buddhism the anatman, that eternal spark which is the ultimate perceiver or non-doer. The occult body is not a body in the sense that it has a shape. It's shapeless. The occult body is a field of attention. It's an avenue of awareness. It's a wind tunnel...1983-03-2147 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Zen, Taoism and BuddhismThere are many different pathways that lead to spiritual awareness, consciousness and perfection. Certainly three of the most frequently traveled pathways are the pathways of Zen, Buddhism and Taoism. Today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about these ways, not so much from a historical perspective but from the perspective of one who, in other lifetimes, has practiced and taught these three ways. If you'd like historical information on the evolution of Zen, Buddhism or Taoism, there's a wealth of information at your local library or in a metaphysical bookstore.
But my interest is the essence of...1983-03-2142 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Spiritual Experiences, Dreams and VisionsThe pathway to enlightenment is for most of us very experiential. While you may accept the philosophical concepts that are handed down with meditation-a belief in the reincarnation of the soul; the stateless state of nirvana; a sense of dharma, that there is a code of right and that when we follow the highest good we become the highest good; cycles and theories of cosmic evolution; the different lokas and planes of reality-while we may acknowledge that all of these things exist to some extent, what really brings us forward on the pathway to enlightenment is the need for spiritual...1983-03-2156 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Inaccessibility and AttachmentAttachment creates pain and frustration. Attachment is the thing that we seek to overcome in self-discovery. Attachment creates pain, and if you don't like pain and suffering, frustration and misery, you must overcome attachment. Attachment on a basic level means not getting caught up in desires. Desires pass through us like the wind passes through the leaves on a tree. The wind moves the leaves to and fro. So desire passes through us and can create movement, a stirring, a rustling within the self.
Desire is neither good nor bad. It just has a simple result. Some people feel in...1983-03-2144 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Women/Men and Self RealizationIt is much easier for women to attain spiritual liberation than it is for men to do so. A woman's subtle physical body accepts light in this world much more readily than does a man's. It seems a curious fact then that throughout the short-lived history of spirituality in this world there have been very few self realized, enlightened women. There are a number of reasons for this, and whether you are a man or a woman it is essential that you understand these reasons, accept them and utilize them. As a man you can further the realization of all...1983-03-2154 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Subtle Physical BodyThe subtle physical body is a body of light. It is a much truer body, it is closer to what we are really like than our physical bodies are. The subtle physical body is composed of strands or luminous fibers of energy that interconnect different planes and times. The times are what we would refer to as the past, the present and the future. And the planes of consciousness are the seven principal planes of awareness, of existence. They're all interconnected through the chakras or gateways that are in the subtle physical body along the spine.
From the base of...1983-03-2156 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - How To Achieve Spiritual BalanceWhen you enter into the spiritual process, you change. Your rough edges are sanded away, your outer covering falls away, and you find that you're not exactly a person any more. After many years of meditation and spiritual practice, you will discover, rather, that you are a field of light, that you have no definite form, shape or color. While you can remember a past history of yourself to some extent-you can remember what you did when you were in the fourth grade, or when you were 15 or you were 20-while there are certain recurrent memories, there is little or...1982-09-2144 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Pleasure, Pain and The SensesOur journey today concerns illusion, the nature of illusion and the way out of illusion. Illusion is a state of mind. It's a way of seeing things that is not exactly correct. Everything that we see with our eyes, feel with our bodies, taste, touch, hear, everything that we think, everything that we feel with our emotions, all things that we are drawn to because we consider them to be pleasurable, all things that we seek to avoid because we consider them to be painful, these are all a product of illusion.
Illusion comes in many different forms. Illusion means...1982-09-2157 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Living and Working in The WorldThe greatest challenge awaiting you is living and working in the world. Traditionally, seekers of the infinite light have renounced society and gone into places of solitude to meditate, pray, fast, practice various spiritual arts and to gain a sense of community, a fellowship with others who speak a kindred language.
If we look back at the history of spirituality, we see that the great, enlightened souls were often very reclusive. They lived on top of the high Himalayas, in caves and forests. Very few of them really entered into the world, or if they did live in somewhat of...1982-09-211h 10Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Tibetan Rebirth ProcessThe Book of the Dead was intended as an advanced spiritual guidebook for persons who had reached the end of their evolutionary cycle and who were ready to make the jump to light speed; who had practiced spiritual disciplines in hundreds and thousands of lifetimes and now they were learning the very, very fine points of the rebirth process; who had spent their lives studying, their current life, with an enlightened teacher who would teach them these fine points.
The Book of the Dead at that time was not a book of the dead. They were the secret oral teachings...1982-09-211h 04Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Caretaker PersonalityThe caretaker personality is a way that has been evolved whereby you can deal with the world, your families, friends, your own emotions, while you exist in the world. When it's not necessary for you to use the personality form, you can put it on the shelf and let it rest and you can just be absorbed in the all-blissful light. You can be in complete awareness, in other words, using every part of your mind, every part of your being, absorbed in its ultimate purpose.
The caretaker personality is a way of choosing what you wear, not simply in...1982-09-2153 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Samadhi and The Supraconcious StatesAccording to Brahmananda, one of the advanced students of Sri Ramakrishna, the spiritual life can be divided into two phases. The first section or phase is separated from the second section or phase by a person's entrance into samadhi. So the second phase of self-discovery begins with the entrance into samadhi.
I'd like to consider with you for a few minutes what the nature of samadhi is, examine the concept behind the samadhis, and try and gain an understanding of not only why an individual seeks to go into samadhi, and how that occurs, but what the result of this...1982-09-211h 08Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Death and ReincarnationDeath is like the ocean. We stand on the shore of life looking out into something that we cannot see the end of. Death appears to be endless. We see its vague beginnings as a person leaves this world, as their consciousness leaves the body at the time of death. They enter into the ocean; they go beyond the horizon. We see them not. We know not where they have gone. Strain our eyes though we may, we cannot see beyond the horizon of this life. Death is a hidden country, It is a land beyond sight, beyond sound, beyond...1982-09-211h 01Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - NirvanaNirvana is an endless expanse of unused consciousness and awareness. Nirvana is something that we eternally are. Nirvana is reality. Nirvana is not a time or a place or a dimension, although it includes times and dimensions and places. Nirvana is beyond the ocean, beyond the sky, beyond eternity itself.
We are alive, we believe, we think, act, conceive, rebel, oppress, liberate. We are alive. We do things without knowing why, inventing answers that satisfy our minds, projecting reasons into the sun and the sky. Long before we came into this world, long before this world, nirvana existed, empty of...1982-09-2129 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Spiritual AbsorptionThe purpose of life is to be absorbed in spirit. Spirit is an undefinable reality that exists within us, around us and beyond us. Spirit is the essence of all existence. When we see life or the world, time, matter and experience, we feel that life is solid, that it's visceral, that it has meaning. In the world of matter we're born, we grow, develop, decay, decline and die. In this world that's all there is-growth, maturation, decay and death. We are all on the wheel of time. Time gives us birth, time gives us death and time gives us...1982-09-2131 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Yoga of Mysticism and PowerThere are four principal pathways that lead to self realization. Mysticism is the hidden way. The mystic practices the art of intentionality. Intentionality is the awareness of being in all of its profundity and a gentle humor, a not-so-serious view of our existence, a pure love of life in both its finiteness and its infiniteness.
Mysticism uses power to unite us with our eternal self. When we practice mysticism, we deal with two sides of ourselves: that which is seen and that which is unseen. The part of our being that we see is the island of the first attention...1982-09-211h 02Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Yoga of DiscriminationThere are four major paths to self realization. Of the four, jnana yoga, from the point of view of the beginner, is the most difficult. Jnana yoga is the graduate school of self-discovery.
Discrimination means seeing that which is real and knowing that which is unreal. That which is real is that which is eternal, that which lasts forever. That which is unreal, or less real we might say, is that which is transitory, temporal, that which does not last, but erodes in time. The yoga of knowledge is a way of reflection. The central question that we ask ourselves...1982-09-211h 02Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Yoga of Selfless GivingWhy aren't you happy? Why aren't all of you happy when there's so much to have and so much to be? The reason is very simple. At the root of all problems we find one causal answer-self-giving. The reason you're not happy, the reason the world lacks peace, the reason that we cannot find ourselves, is that we lack happiness-happiness that comes from self-giving.
We have two choices in life. These are the north and south poles of our existence. One choice in life is to fulfill ourselves, the limited self, to do things that make us feel better, to...1982-09-211h 03Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - The Yoga of LoveThere are four principle pathways that lead to enlightenment: the yoga of love, the yoga of service, the yoga of knowledge and the yoga of mysticism. Each of the yogas is a way to eternity, to eternal realization. In the course of an individual being's evolution we will practice each of these yogas. In one incarnation, in one lifetime, we may just focus on the path of love, in another the path of service, perhaps in another knowledge or mysticism. One path is not superior to another. Each path has something special to offer. It is a way, a bridge...1982-09-211h 01Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - HumilityHumility is the conscious awareness and acceptance of eternity as your own body. Humility is the time that you spend in love-in love with existence itself. When you don't love existence, you feel that you're separate from existence, you're separate from this world and you stand back from it. You hide.
Humility is courage in that it's the open acceptance of your own perfection. Humility is the ability to see through darkness and perceive light, not only on the other side of darkness but in darkness itself. Humility means that we're willing to take tremendous chances with our life, with...1982-09-2130 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - PurityTonight I'd like to talk to you just a little bit about purity and its importance in the inner life. Purity is meditation. When you meditate, purity radiates through you. Purity is light. Not just an ordinary light that we see in the physical universe, but a transcendental light. Without purity it's impossible to realize God. To realize God means to see your own eternality in all things, in all places, at all times.
We have a lot of different ideas about what self realization is, what God consciousness is, but in order to go beyond ideas to direct realization...1982-09-2131 minDharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick LenzThe Lakshmi Series - Introductory and Intermediate MeditationMeditation is the art of life. All of life is meditation. Meditation is not simply a practice. It is an experience, an awareness, a way of perceiving and also a way of life. All of life, from the personal point of view, is dependent upon our perception. When we can perceive life as it really is, then no emotional cloud or discordant melody from the world can distract us from our own original, perfect being. If we trace life back to its source, we find perfection.
Life itself, in essence, is light and consciousness. Beyond this world and other worlds...1982-09-211h 01