SATSANG
with
Swami Dhyan Giten
March, 12, 2014,
in Stockholm
|
|
“The fragrance of meditation
is enlightenment.”
– Swami Dhyan Giten
I would never like to be without the Satsang evenings
with Giten. Now it is becoming really interesting.”
– Toshen, Stockholm
“I appreciate the Satsang evenings with Giten.”
– Lech Dulny, vice head of the School for the Arts in
Stockholm, which organizes courses in music, theatre,
dance, art, media and dramatic arts in Stockholm
The last Satsang evening on the theme Seven Levels of Consciousness on March 12 was a very strong Satsang, which Giten began by lecturing on the 6th and 7th level of consciousness, Vision and Unity. Giten also lectured on enlightenment during the evening.
The lecture was recorded live and will be available for free download in Swedish on YouTube and Grooveshark. Below you will also find two articles in English on the same topics, which are excerpts from Giten’s books.
Giten was also invited during the evening to the School for the Arts in Stockholm by the Satsang-participant Lech Dulny, vice head of the School for the Arts in Stockholm. Lech Dulny invited Giten to the School of Arts
“to spread his light”. School for the Arts organizes courses in music, theatre, dance, art, media and dramatic arts in Stockholm.
Giten ended the Satsang by informing that the Satsangs will continue during March, April and May in Stockholm on Thursday evenings on the theme “Tantra – The Way of the Heart”. Tantra – The Way of the Heart is the spiritual path of love, joy, trust, devotion and surrender to life. The first Satsang is on Thursday, March 20, 19.00pm – 21.00pm. There will also be a 1-day Satsang Intensive on April 12 on the theme Tantra-The Way of the Heart.
6. Vision
– Learning to Know Our Self
An excerpt from Giten’s books Presence – Working from Within: The Psychology of Being (available at international book store Lulu: www.lulu.com/spotlight/Giten
The sixth chakra or level of awareness is called vision. It is placed in the middle of the eyebrows. It is also called the third eye. The theme for this chakra is to dissolve the feeling of being a separate “I” and to unidentify ourselves with the ego.
When the sixth level of awareness is not developed, there is still identification with the ego, with the separate “I”, and a feeling of separation from Existence.
On the sixth level of awareness we stand on the threshold of physical existence, where all duality and opposite tendencies, for example masculine and feminine, light and darkness, intellect and intuition and life and death, begins to dissolve and disappear. Through awareness and understanding, we can see beyond the personality to our inner being, to our essence and authentic self. We discover the inner being, the silent place within ourselves, which is the inner watcher of the drama of the outer life, and where nothing ever happens.
The physical body manifests the duality of life and of opposite tendencies through two pair of legs, arms, ears and eyes, while the position of the third eye indicates the dissolution of the duality of life.
On the sixth level of awareness, meditation becomes a thirst in our heart and being. It is a thirst after truth.
When we begin to open the third eye, our thirst and commitment increases to discover our inner being, to understand the ultimate mystery of life, and to become one with Whole.
I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friends that I trusted, and I had money to do what I wanted. But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole, and that no relationships and things outside of myself could ease this pain.
On the development level of the Vision chakra, love is no longer a relationship. Love becomes a presence and a quality of our being. Love becomes a natural quality in our aura. It is no longer a question of loving a certain person, we simply are love. We are unconditional love.
The sixth level of awareness also relates to ordinary logical thinking with capacity to handle a lot of facts and information. The sixth level of awareness is also the center for intuition and awareness. It relates to a specific form of intuition, which is called clairvoyance. Clairvoyance means clear seeing and is described in Patanjalis book Yoga Sutras as one of the siddhis or psychic powers that a devoted meditator develops. Clairvoyance is a form of intuition, which is not limited in time and space. Through clairvoyance we can remember past lives, which can help us understand unconscious psychological patterns from past lives, and give us a broader perspective of life.
Another psychic quality that is developed on the sixth level of awareness is a telepathic perception and sensitivity, which gives us the insight that no man is an island in the ocean of consciousness. We are all parts of the same whole, we are all small individual rivers on our way towards the same ocean and on the inner plane we are continuously in contact with each other.
Working with people is basically a question of presence, awareness and energy and chakras also relates to working with people. On the fifth level of awareness, the focus expanded to include the planet. On the sixth level of awareness, the focus expands from the planet to include the cosmos.
The difference between an artist that has developed his creativity to the awareness level of Communication, and a mystic on the awareness level of Vision, is that the artist has both his eyes focused outwards to the outer world, while the mystic has one eye focused outwards to the outer world, and one eye focused inwards to the inner world. An artist is not a mystic, but a mystic can also be an artist.
7. Unity
– Opening to Universal Consciousness
The seventh chakra or level of awareness is called Unity. It is also called The Crown Chakra. It is placed on top of the head. Unity relates to opening to universal consciousness, to receive the ultimate wisdom.
The seventh level of awareness relates to learning to know God. It relates to truth, unconditional love, to enlightenment and to the experience of being one with the Whole.
The experience of the seventh chakra is an experience beyond words. It is an experience of joy and freedom beyond words. It is to be everything and nothing at the same time. It is to discover that we have really never been separated from life. It is to be in a deep unity and harmony with Existence. Our separate little individual river has finally joined with the ocean of consciousness, with the Whole.
When we have began to open the seventh chakra, the thousand petaled lotus flower opens. We have learnt the lesson of life. Our inner tree has given fruit. We have become spiritually mature.
The word ”religion” originally means ”to return to the source”. It means to rediscover the contact with our inner being, with the source of life within ourselves. The deepest pain in our heart is that we are disconnected from our inner being, that we are separated from life. The deepest thirst and longing in our heart is to return to our being, where we are one with life.
The goal of meditation is enlightenment. In the depth of our being, we are already enlightened. We are an inseparable part of Existence, but we have forgotten our true nature. We have forgotten our inner Buddha.Meditation is the way to discover our inner being, our authentic self, our inner Buddha. Enlightenment is the fruit of meditation. It is to realize the highest attainment in human consciousness. It is to climb the inner Mount Everest.
I was 9 years old when I had my first glimpse of wholeness. It was early Christmas morning and I was standing in my pajamas in the living room, and looked out of the large windows. Outside the windows, white snowflakes effortlessly and slowly singled down towards a silent, snow-clad landscape. Suddenly I was filled with a feeling of being one with the slowly dancing snowflakes, one with the silent landscape. I did not understand then that this was my first taste of meditation, but it created a deep thirst and longing in my heart to return to this natural and effortless experience of being one with the Whole.
Each human being is unique; each human being contains a divine spark, an aspect of God. We are much more than we think we are. The mystery of life is that it is impossible to understand, but we can live life. We can never really understand life, but we can become one with life. We can become one with the dance of life, one with the ultimate mystery of life.
I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day just consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, there was suddenly a silent explosion within me, and my whole perception of reality changed. In a single moment, everything changed – although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see, and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees, and one with the people that I meet on my walk. My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of: ”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are a part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being, and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave me a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity. In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university. Wisdom is basically the understanding that we are all a part of the Whole. We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really our innate birthright, and that small children already lives in this mystical unity with the Whole.
This unity with the Whole does not mean that our unique individuality disappears. It means that the richer our life experience is, and the more qualities of our being that we have developed, the richer the quality of our enlightenment becomes.
When we realize that we are one with life, the world becomes our home. We are at home everywhere.
Enlightenment
– One with the Whole
An excerpt from Giten’s book The Silent Whisperings of the Heart (available at international book store Lulu:
What is enlightenment? The word ”religion” originally means ”to return to the source”. It means to rediscover the contact with our inner being, with the source of life within ourselves. The deepest pain in our heart is that we are disconnected from our inner being, we are separated from life. The deepest thirst and longing in our heart is to return to our being, where we are one with life.
”The most beautiful experience is the mystical”, says Albert Einstein in the book Living Philosophies. The goal of meditation – if you can talk about a goal in connection with meditation – is enlightenment. In the depth of our being, we are already enlightened. We are an inseparable part of Existence, but we have forgotten our true nature. We have forgotten our inner Buddha. Meditation is the way to discover our inner being, our authentic self, our inner Buddha. Enlightenment is the fruit of meditation. It is to realize the highest attainment in human consciousness. It is to climb the inner Mount Everest. The brilliant philosopher Emmanuel Kant was once asked what enlightenment is and his short answer was: ”to grow up.”
What the Japanese Zen-tradition call ”satori” is a short glimpse of enlightenment. It is like when the lens of a camera opens for a split second and lets the light in. It is a glimpse of the light, of the Whole, which exists as a possibility in each and every moment of life.
I was 9 years old when I had my first glimpse of wholeness. It was early Christmas morning and I was standing in my pyjamas in the living room and looked out of the large windows. Outside the white snow flakes silently singled down towards a snowclad landscape. Suddenly I was filled with a feeling of being one with the slowly dancing snowflakes, one with the silent landscape. I did not understand then that this was my first taste of meditation, but it created a deep thirst and a longing in my heart to return to this natural and effortless experience of being one with the Whole.
Each human being is unique; each human being contains a divine spark, an aspect of God. We are much more than we think we are. The mystery of life is that it is impossible to understand life, but we can live life. We can never really understand life, but we can become one with life. We can become one with the dance of life, one with the ultimate mystery of Existence.
I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted. But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain.
The inner being is the undefinable within ourselves. The inner being is so undefinable that we can experience it, but we can not explain it in words. We can become one with it, but we can not understand it. The inner being is the ultimate mystery of life.
We originally come from the invisible existential source and it is to this source that we return when we die. Death is the unconscious way to return to this original source, while enlightenment is the conscious way to return to this source. Death means to still believe in our separation from life and enlightenment means to realize our innate oneness with Existence.
When I did a therapist education in USA 1984, one of the course leaders – who had given personal and spiritual guidance to thousands of seekers of truth all over the world and who I consider one of the best spiritual therapists in the world – said that I was going to get enlightened, that I would ”disappear into the silence”. I did not really understand what he meant then and it was totally absurd for me when other course participants congratulated me afterwards. The thought that I was going to be enlightened was totally absurd for me. For me enlightenment was something that happened to special and chosen persons like Osho, Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu and Krishnamurti. I did not feel either special or chosen. I did not feel worthy of being enlightened.
Enlightenment is really as simple as drinking a glace of water. But because enlightenment is so simple, it is easy to miss. Enlightenment is so close to us that it is easy to miss. It is about realizing that the door to enlightenment has never been closed. It is our own effort and restlessness that keeps it closed.
In love relationships with another person, we can experience short moments of unity and wholeness. But these moments are always followed by separation again, since relationships are a continuos balance between love and freedom, between meeting and parting, between independence and being together and between separation and wholeness. Enlightenment means to discover this wholeness, this harmony with life, within ourselves, without being dependent on anybody or anything.
Enlightenment does not mean to be special or to have an idea to be especially spiritual. There is nothing special about being enlightened. To be enlightened does not mean to be higher than somebody else – in the same way that a large tree is not higher or better than a little bush or a rose is not more beautiful than a tulip is. Enlightenment just means that we have discovered our authentic inner being, our innate belongingness with life, while somebody else will realize this when the time is ripe. To be enlightened is to be totally ordinary, so ordinary, in fact, that we are nobody at all, we are nothingness, an emptiness. To be enlightened is to be a medium for Existence; to be enlightened is to be a spiritual healer. It is to be a medium for Existence, so that the Whole can sing and dance through us. We become a flute on the lips of Existence through which the existential music can flow.
Existence tries in every moment to give us exactly what we need with more love, compassion and creativity than we can ever imagine. When we trust life, we can relax and allow life to guide us to meet the people that we need to meet, to make the experiences that we need in order to take the next step in our spiritual development.
We think that we are separated from life, but in reality we are already one with life. We are an inseparable part of life. We belong to life.
Existence supports us totally in our thirst and longing to return to the original source. Existence tries in every way to help us to get enlightened, to realize that we are already one with life.
Spiritual healing means to heal the split between our idea of being a separate “I” and all that which we already are. Spiritual healing means to heal our separation from life. Spiritual healing is to become a healing Buddha.
One evening when I meditated out in nature, my separation from life suddenly disappeared and changed into a unity with life. Suddenly I was one with life. A joy without reason filled my heart. I was suddenly one with the divine dance. It was a deeply healing experience, a feeling that I was Ok as I am and that Existence loves me. It was a feeling of belonging to Existence. It was an experience of coming home.
When we realize that we are one with life, the world becomes our home. We are at home everywhere.
Enlightenment is like throwing everything up in the air – all our ideas, dreams, expectations, our separate goals, our previous spiritual experiences, all our ideas of who we are – and see what comes down again – if anything.
We all seek enlightenment – independent of if we are aware of it or not. We all seek love, joy, acceptance, silence, truth, freedom and oneness with life. Some people seek enlightenment in unconscious ways through work, power, status, success, money, relationships, and sex or through becoming famous, but it is all the same basic search for enlightenment.
Enlightenment is not only about individual enlightenment, it is also about collective enlightenment. Collective enlightenment means an expansion of consciousness. It means to begin to think in terms of “we”, rather than “I”. To think only in terms of “I” is to act out of the personality. The personality is a separation from life. To think in terms of “we” means to be in contact with the inner being, with the authentic self, with the meditative quality within ourselves, with the inner capacity to surrender to life. To think in terms of “we” means to be in contact with the inner “yes”-quality. It means to cooperate with that which is larger than ourselves. Collective enlightenment could also be called for spiritual globalization – in contrast to the economic globalization, which is only good for the few and bad for the many. When we realize that all living beings seek enlightenment, that all living beings seek love, joy, truth and freedom, we can develop a sense of compassion for all living beings.
The seventh level of consciousness is placed on top of the head. It is called Unity or chrownchakra and relates to open for universal consciousness, to attain the ultimate wisdom.
The seventh level of consciousness relates to learning to know God. It relates to truth, unconditional love, enlightenment and the experience of being one with the Whole. It is a freedom and joy beyond words. The experience of the seventh chakra is an experience beyond words, which is hard to describe in words. It is to be nothing and everything at the same time. It is to discover that we have never really been separated from Existence. It is to be in a deep harmony with Existence. Our separate little river has finally united with the ocean of consciousness, with the Whole.
When we begin to open the seventh chakra, the thousand petaled lotus flower opens. We have learnt the lesson of life. We have grown up. We have become spiritually ripe and our inner tree has finally grown fruit. This unity with the Whole does not mean that our unique individuality disappears. It means that the richer our life experience is and the more qualities we have developed, the richer the quality of our enlightenment becomes.
A seeker of truth must take the last steps towards enlightenment himself without relying on any outer crutch or authority.
I took a quiet cup of coffee at a coffee shop and when I left the shop, one of these precious moments happened. Suddenly my whole perspective of reality changed from separation to wholeness. I experienced a unity and belongingness with all people that I meet. I experienced that I was one with all people and that all people come from the same invisible source. People have their own unique individuality, but they come from the same source. It is diversity in unity. It was a sheer joy to walk around and experience that I was one with all the people that I meet.
Divine love is to realize that we are one with life. Real love is to realize that in our essence, we are one with the other person, one with the stones, one with the trees, one with the earth and one with the blue sky. It is to realize that all of life is God.
I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day only consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, a silent explosion suddenly happened within me and my whole perception of reality changed. In a single moment, everything had changed, although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees and one with the people that I meet on my walk. My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of: ”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I also saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are a part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity. In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university. Wisdom is basically the understanding that we all are part of the Whole. We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really our innate birthright and that small children already lives in this mystical unity with the Whole.
Enlightenment is a total ”yes” and acceptance of ourselves.
It is to love ourselves as we are.
Enlightenment is to live, love and be from the inner being, from the inner life source.
Enlightenment is to discover our authentic inner being, our unique flavor and quality, our true individuality. It is not about trying to imitate somebody else.
Enlightenment is the phenomenon of ”disappearing” into the Whole, to become so one with the larger flow of the Whole that it starts to sing and dance through us.
When we live in contact with our inner being, we find ourselves in an alive, intimate and expanding relationship with Existence.
Enlightenment is not a static phenomenon; it is to say ”yes” to the truth of the moment. It is to embrace the living reality of the moment. Enlightenment is a dance with life, a dance of eternity.
Enlightenment is not an end; it is a new beginning, which has no end. It just means that we realize that we are one with life – and that life is a dance of joy.
The dimension of being is a love affair with love. It is to return to the original source. It is to be one with life. It is to come home.
Enlightenment is to be in intimate contact with the healing ocean. It is when the drop disappears into the ocean, into the Whole.
The Giten Blog 