Peter Horttanainen

Be As You Are – The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

PART ONE – The Self

That in which all these worlds seem to exist steadily, that of which all these worlds are a possession, that from which
all these worlds rise, that for which all these exist, that by which all these worlds come into existence and that which is
indeed all these – that alone is the existing reality. Let us cherish that Self, which is the reality, in the Heart.

Chapter 1 – The nature of the Self

The essence of Sri Ramana’s teachings is conveyed in his frequent assertions that there is a single immanent reality,
directly experienced by everyone, which is simultaneously the source, the substance and the real nature of everything
that exists. He gave it number of different names, each one signifying a different aspect of the same indivisible reality.
The following classification includes all of his more common synonyms and explains the implications of the various
terms used.

1 The Self
This is the term that he used the most frequently. He defined it by saying that the real Self or real ‘I’ is, contrary to
perceptible experience, not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness. It is not to be
confused with the individual self which he said was essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind which
obscures the true experience of the real Self. He maintained that the real Self is always present and always
experienced but he emphasized that one is only consciously aware of it as it really is when the self- limiting
tendencies of the mind have ceased. Permanent and continuous Self- awareness is known as Self-realisation.
2 Sat-chit-ananda
This is a Sanskrit term which translates as being-consciousness-bliss. Sri Ramana taught that the Self is pure being, a
subjective awareness of ‘I am’ which is completely devoid of the feeling ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’. There are no
subjects or objects in the Self, there is only an awareness of being. Because this awareness is conscious it is also
known as consciousness. The direct experience of this consciousness is, according to Sri Ramana, a state of unbroken
happiness and so the term ananda or bliss is also used to describe it. These three aspects, being, consciousness and
bliss, are experienced as a unitary whole and not as separate attributes of the Self. They are inseparable in the same
way that wetness, transparency and liquidity are inseparable properties of water.
3 God
Sri Ramana maintained that the universe is sustained by the power of the Self.
Since theists normally attribute this power to God he often used the word God as a synonym for the Self. He also used
the words Brahman, the supreme being of Hinduism, and Siva, a Hindu name for God, in the same way. Sri Ramana’s
God is not a personal God, he is the formless being which sustains the universe. He is not the creator of the universe,
the universe is merely a manifestation of his inherent power; he is inseparable from it, but he is not affected by its
appearance or its disappearance.
4 The Heart
Sri Ramana frequently used the Sanskrit word hridayam when he was talking about the Self. It is usually translated as
‘the Heart’ but a more literal translation would be ‘this is the centre’. In using this particular term he was not implying
that there was a particular location or centre for the Self, he was merely indicating that the Self was the source from
which all appearances manifested.
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman
5 Jnana
The experience of the Self is sometimes called jnana or knowledge. This term should not be taken to mean that there
is a person who has knowledge of the Self, because in the state of Self-awareness there is no localised knower and
there is nothing that is separate from the Self that can be known. True knowledge, or jnana, is not an object of
experience, nor is it an understanding of a state which is different and apart from the subject knower; it is a direct and
knowing awareness of the one reality in which subjects and objects have ceased to exist. One who is established in
this state is known as a jnani.
6 Turiya and turyatita
Hindu philosophy postulates three alternating levels of relative consciousness – waking, dream and deep sleep. Sri
Ramana stated that the Self was the underlying reality which supported the appearance of the other three temporary
states.
Because of this he sometimes called the Self turiya avastha or the fourth state. He also occasionally used the word
turiyatita, meaning ‘transcending the fourth’, to indicate that there are not really four states but only one real
transcendental state,
7 Other terms
Three other terms for the Self are worth noting. Sri Ramana often emphasized that the Self was one’s real and natural
state of being, and for this reason, he occasionally employed the terms sahaja sthiti, meaning the natural state, and
swarupa, meaning real form or real nature. He also used the word ‘silence’ to indicate that the Self was a silent
thought-free state of undisturbed peace and total stillness.
Q: What is reality?
A: Reality must be always real. It is not with forms and names. That which underlies these is the reality. It underlies
limitations, being itself limitless. It is not bound. It underlies unrealities, itself being real. Reality is that which is. It is
as it is. It transcends speech. It is beyond the expressions ‘existence, non-existence’, etc.
The reality which is the mere consciousness that remains when ignorance is destroyed along with knowledge of
objects, alone is the Self [atma]. In that Brahma-swarupa [real form of Brahman], which is abundant Self-awareness,
there is not the least ignorance.
The reality which shines fully, without misery and without a body, not only when the world is known but also when
the world is not known, is your real form [nija-swarupa].
The radiance of consciousness-bliss, in the form of one awareness shining equally within and without, is the supreme
and blissful primal reality. Its form is silence and it is declared by jnanis to be the final and unobstructable state of true
knowledge [jnana].
Know that jnana alone is non-attachment; jnana alone is purity; jnana is the attainment of God; jnana which is devoid
of forgetfulness of Self alone is immortality; jnana alone is everything.
Q: What is this awareness and how can one obtain and cultivate it?
A: You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you.
Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of
other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is
the Self.
Q: If the Self is itself aware, why am I not aware of it even now?
A: There is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the ego and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a
subject and an object, whereas the awareness of the Self is absolute and requires no object.
Remembrance also is similarly relative, requiring an object to be remembered and a subject to remember. When there
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman
is no duality, who is to remember whom? The Self is ever-present. Each one wants to know the Self. What kind of
help does one require to know oneself? People want to see the Self as something new. But it is eternal and remains the
same all along. They desire to see it as a blazing light etc. How can it be so? It is not light, not darkness. It is only as it
is. It cannot be defined. The best definition is ‘I am that I am’. The srutis [scriptures] speak of the Self as being the
size of one’s thumb, the tip of the hair, an electric spark, vast, subtler than the subtlest, etc. They have no foundation
in fact. It is only being, but different from the real and the unreal; it is knowledge, but different from knowledge and
ignorance. How can it be defined at all? It is simply being.
Q: When a man realises the Self, what will he see?
A: There is no seeing. Seeing is only being. The state of Self-realisation, as we call it, is not attaining something new
or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have
been. All that is needed is that you give up your realisation of the not-true as true. All of us are regarding as real that
which is not real. We have only to give up this practice on our part. Then we shall realise the Self as the Self; in other
words, ‘Be the Self. At one stage you will laugh at yourself for trying to discover the Self which is so self-evident. So,
what can we say to this question?
That stage transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see anything. The seer who is seeing all this now
ceases to exist and the Self alone remains.
Q: How to know this by direct experience?
A: If we talk of knowing the Self, there must be two selves, one a knowing self, another the self which is known, and
the process of knowing. The state we call realisation is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming
anything. If one has realised, one is that which alone is and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that
state. One can only be that. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realisation, for want of a better term. How to ‘realise’ or
make real that which alone is real?
Q: You sometimes say the Self is silence. Why is this?
A: For those who live in Self as the beauty devoid of thought, there is nothing which should be thought of. That which
should be adhered to is only the experience of silence, because in that supreme state nothing exists to be attained other
than oneself.
Q: What is mouna [silence]?
A: That state which transcends speech and thought is mouna. That which is, is mouna. How can mouna be explained
in words?
Sages say that the state in which the thought ‘I’ [the ego] does not rise even in the least, alone is Self [swarupa] which
is silence [mouna]. That silent Self alone is God; Self alone is the jiva [individual soul]. Self alone is this ancient
world.
All other knowledges are only petty and trivial knowledges; the experience of silence alone is the real and perfect
knowledge. Know that the many objective differences are not real but are mere superimpositions on Self, which is the
form of true knowledge.
Q: As the bodies and the selves animating them are everywhere actually observed to be innumerable how can it be
said that the Self is only one?
A: If the idea ‘I am the body’ is accepted, the selves are multiple. The state in which this idea vanishes is the Self
since in that state there are no other objects. It is for this reason that the Self is regarded as one only.
Since the body itself does not exist in the natural outlook of the real Self, but only in the extroverted outlook of the
mind which is deluded by the power of illusion, to call Self, the space of consciousness, dehi [the possessor of the
body] is wrong.
The world does not exist without the body, the body never exists without the mind, the mind never exists without
consciousness and consciousness never exists without the reality.
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman
For the wise one who has known Self by diving within himself, there is nothing other than Self to be known. Why?
Because since the ego which identifies the form of a body as ‘I’ has perished, he [the wise one] is the formless
existence-consciousness.
The jnani [one who has realised the Self] knows he is the Self and that nothing, neither his body nor anything else,
exists but the Self. To such a one what difference could the presence or absence of a body make?
It is false to speak of realisation. What is there to realise? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new
or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create
a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling
the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the agelong samskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine
alone.
Q: But how to do this and attain liberation?
A: Liberation is our very nature. We are that. The very fact that we wish for liberation shows that freedom from all
bondage is our real nature. It is not to be freshly acquired. All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that we
are bound. When we achieve that, there will be no desire or thought of any sort. So long as one desires liberation, so
long, you may take it, one is in bondage.
Q: For one who has realized his Self, it is said that he will not have the three states of wakefulness, dream and deep
sleep. Is that a fact?
A: What makes you say that they do not have the three states? In saying ‘I had a dream; I was in deep sleep; I am
awake’, you must admit that you were there in all the three states. That makes it clear that you were there all the time.
If you remain as you are now, you are in the wakeful state; this becomes hidden in the dream state; and the dream
state disappears when you are in deep sleep.
You were there then, you are there now, and you are there at all times. The three states come and go, but you are
always there. It is like a cinema. The screen is always there but several types of pictures appear on the screen and then
disappear. Nothing sticks to the screen, it remains a screen.
Similarly, you remain your own Self in all the three states. If you know that, the three states will not trouble you, just
as the pictures which appear on the screen do not stick to it. On the screen, you sometimes see a huge ocean with
endless waves; that disappears. Another time, you see fire spreading all around; that too disappears. The screen is
there on both occasions. Did the screen get wet with the water or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the
screen. In the same way, the things that happen during the wakeful, dream and sleep states do not affect you at all; you
remain your own Self.
Q: Does that mean that, although people have all three states, wakefulness, dream and deep sleep, these do not affect
them?
A: Yes, that is it. All these states come and go. The Self is not bothered; it has only one state.
Q: Does that mean that such a person will be in this world merely as a witness?
A: That is so; for this very thing, Vidyaranya, in the tenth chapter of the Panchadasi, gives as example the light that is
kept on the stage of a theatre. When a drama is being played, the light is there, which illuminates, without any
distinction, all the actors, whether they be kings or servants or dancers, and also all the audience. That light will be
there before the drama begins, during the performance and also after the performance is over. Similarly, the light
within, that is, the Self, gives light to the ego, the intellect, the memory and the mind without itself being subject to
processes of growth and decay. Although during deep sleep and other states there is no feeling of the ego, that Self
remains attributeless, and continues to shine of itself.
Actually, the idea of the Self being the witness is only in the mind; it is not the absolute truth of the Self. Witnessing
is relative to objects witnessed. Both the witness and his object are mental creations.
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman
Q: How are the three states of consciousness inferior in degree of reality to the fourth [turiya]? What is the actual
relation between these three states and the fourth?
A: There is only one state, that of consciousness or awareness or existence. The three states of waking, dream and
sleep cannot be real. They simply come and go. The real will always exist. The ‘I’ or existence that alone persists in
all the three states is real. The other three are not real and so it is not possible to say they have such and such a degree
of reality. We may roughly put it like this.
Existence or consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking, we call waking.
Consciousness plus sleep, we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on
which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it. Because by long habit we
have been regarding these three states as real, we call the state of mere awareness or consciousness the fourth. There is
however no fourth state, but only one state.
There is no difference between dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both
are the result of the mind. Because the waking state is long, we imagine that it is our real state. But, as a matter of fact,
our real state is turiya or the fourth state which is always as it is and knows nothing of the three states of waking,
dream or sleep. Because we call these three avasthas [states] we call the fourth state also turiya avastha. But is it not
an avastha, but the real and natural state of the Self. When this is realised, we know it is not a turiya or fourth state, for
a fourth state is only relative, but turiyatita, the transcendent state.
Q: But why should these three states come and go on the real state or the screen of the Self?
A: Who puts this question? Does the Self say these states come and go? It is the seer who says these come and go.
The seer and the seen together constitute the mind. See if there is such a thing as the mind. Then, the mind merges in
the Self, and there is neither the seer nor the seen. So the real answer to your question is, ‘They neither come nor go.’
The Self alone remains as it ever is. The three states owe their existence to non-enquiry and enquiry puts an end to
them. However much one may explain, the fact will not become clear till one attains Self-realisation and wonders how
one was blind to the self-evident and only existence so long.
Q: What is the difference between the mind and the Self?
A: There is no difference. The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world.
Cotton made into various clothes we call by various names. Gold made into various ornaments, we call by various
names. But all the clothes are cotton and all the ornaments gold. The one is real, the many are mere names and forms.
But the mind does not exist apart from the Self, that is, it has no independent existence. The Self exists without the
mind, never the mind without the Self.
Q: Brahman is said to be sat-chit-ananda. What does that mean?
A: Yes. That is so. That which is, is only sat. That is called Brahman. The lustre of sat is chit and its nature is ananda.
These are not different from sat. All the three together are known as sat- chit-ananda.
Q: As the Self is existence [sat] and consciousness [chit] what is the reason for describing it as different from the
existent and the non-existent, the sentient and the insentient?
A: Although the Self is real, as it comprises everything, it does not give room for questions involving duality about its
reality or unreality. Therefore it is said to be different from the real and the unreal. Similarly, even though it is
consciousness, since there is nothing for it to know or to make itself known to, it is said to be different from the
sentient and the insentient.
Sat-chit-ananda is said to indicate that the supreme is not asat [different from being], not achit [different from
consciousness] and not an anananda [different from happiness]. Because we are in the phenomenal world we speak of
the Self as sat-chit-ananda.
Q: In what sense is happiness or bliss [ananda] our real nature?
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman
A: Perfect bliss is Brahman. Perfect peace is of the Self. That alone exists and is consciousness.
That which is called happiness is only the nature of Self; Self is not other than perfect happiness.
That which is called happiness alone exists. Knowing that fact and abiding in the state of Self, enjoy bliss eternally.
If a man thinks that his happiness is due to external causes and his possessions, it is reasonable to conclude that his
happiness must increase with the increase of possessions and diminish in proportion to their diminution. Therefore if
he is devoid of possessions, his happiness should be nil.
What is the real experience of man? Does it conform to this view? In deep sleep man is devoid of possessions,
including his own body. Instead of being unhappy he is quite happy. Everyone desires to sleep soundly. The
conclusion is that happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes. One must realise the Self in order to
open the store of unalloyed happiness.
Q: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of consciousness and as identical with the Self.
What does the Heart exactly signify?
A: Call it by any name, God, Self, the Heart or the seat of consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be grasped is
this, that Heart means the very core of one’s being, the centre, without which there is nothing whatever. The Heart is
not physical, it is spiritual. Hridayam equals hrit plus ayam; it means ‘this is the centre’. It is that from which thoughts
arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and they shape the
universe. The Heart is the centre of all. That from which beings come into existence is said to be Brahman in the
Upanishads. That is the Heart. Brahman is the Heart.
Q: How to realise the Heart?
A: There is no one who even for a moment fails to experience the Self. For no one admits that he ever stands apart
from the Self. He is the Self. The Self is the Heart.
The Heart is the centre from which everything springs. Because you see the world, the body and so on, it is said that
there is a centre for these, which is called the Heart. When you are in the Heart, the Heart is known to be neither the
centre nor the circumference. There is nothing else apart from it.
The consciousness which is the real existence and which does not go out to know those things which are other than
Self, alone is the Heart. Since the truth of Self is known only to that consciousness, which is devoid of activity, that
consciousness which always remains attending to Self alone is the shining of clear knowledge.

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Awakening the Third Eye

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Introduction
A systematic method
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
6:22
This book describes a systematic process to open the third eye.
It has been written for those who cannot be satisfied with only an
intellectual understanding of spiritual realities and who wish to
gain access to direct experience.
The development of spiritual vision requires the patient building
of some new ‘organs’ of energy, of which the third eye is an
essential member. These new structures are not physical,
nevertheless they are very real and tangible. Once fully developed,
the perceptions coming through them appear clearer, sharper and
far more substantial than those coming from the physical senses.
A number of techniques will be described which aim at a
methodical cultivation of this new form of perception.
Our approach always emphasizes the superiority of experience over
mental concepts, of first-hand knowledge over belief. Truly, it is
not what you presume or accept as true that will bring about a
spiritual regeneration but what you experience directly. Therefore,
the reader is not asked to believe what is written here but to
practise the exercises.
No former spiritual training or background is expected before
starting the practices. I suggest that you temporarily forget all
you know so that you can engage in the techniques with fresh
awareness. Having shared this knowledge with hundreds of
students in the courses run by the Clairvision School in Sydney, I
know that it is not always those who have meditated for years
who enter the field of perception most easily. To some, spiritual
knowledge gives wings and provides keys to open all the doors; but
to others it is more like chains preventing them from absorbing
anything new. The more you are able to drop any preconceived
ideas, the easier it will be to ‘see’.
It should be clearly understood that our aim is not to develop the
blurry atavistic clairvoyance of trance-medium psychics but to
10
step towards the vision of the Self. Even though several extrasensory perceptions will arise as you practise the techniques, the
purpose is clearly to find the Self and to learn to see the world
from the Self instead of seeing it from your usual mental
consciousness.
This book should be taken as an introduction, a first thread,
towards a completely different mode of perception and thinking.
It has been written to serve the vast number of human beings who
are presently ready to connect with spiritual realities and to step
into a new form of consciousness. The techniques it offers are
designed for people who are part of the world. They do not invite
you to withdraw from your daily activities but to start
performing them with a different awareness and a new vision,
thereby implementing the line of Proverbs 3:6: “In all your ways
know Him”, said by the Talmud to contain the entire essence of
the Torah.
After saying these words it may be important to state that the
Clairvision School is not a ‘New Age’ organisation. Its methods and
techniques are based on quite different principles from those
usually found in the New Age movement. In particular at no time
do the Clairvision techniques use any channelling, creative
imagination or positive affirmations. No hypnosis or
autosuggestion is used either. The techniques of the Clairvision
School are based on a direct awakening of the body of energy, and
the philosophy and background of the school are to be found in
the western tradition of esoteric knowledge. If you happen to
experience intense openings and realisations while putting our
techniques into practice, it is quite possible that you too have a
connection with this tradition. In particular it is expected that
many will have clear awakenings in the third eye while reading
the book.
Awakening the Third Eye is one of the introductory books to the
Clairvision Corpus, the body of knowledge which is the
background of the Clairvision School. The Clairvision Corpus
contains both experiential and theoretical knowledge in the field
of consciousness and the mysteries of human nature, with a special
focus on transformation and inner alchemy. Alchemy can be
defined as the art of raising the level of vibration of matter.
Inner alchemy therefore refers to a form of spiritual development
in which the ultimate purpose is not to abandon any connection
Introduction
11
with the manifested creation and dissolve oneself, but to build up
a vehicle in which the fullness of the Self can be experienced
permanently, even while living in the physical world. This body of
immortality corresponds to what the Christian tradition has called
the glorious body and to the paramam vapuḥ of the Upanishads. It
is similar in many ways, if not identical, to the lapis
philosophorum or philosophers’ stone of the alchemists, and to the
Grail, heart of the western esoteric tradition.
Awakening the Third Eye lays the foundations for an experiential
approach to a work of inner alchemy. Many of the techniques
given in the beginning are not to be regarded as ‘alchemical’ in a
strict sense, but as a necessary preparation without which the
more advanced phases of the work would not make any sense.
Rather than first developing theoretical aspects at length,
indications will gradually be given throughout this book and the
following ones to clarify the purposes and principles of a work of
inner alchemy. The nature of our topic will also provide ample
opportunities to develop various aspects related to subtle bodies.

Chapter 1 – Principles and Method of the Work

1.1 Do not force, do not concentrate, just be aware
Any authentic spiritual work has finding the Self as a primary
aim, and the Clairvision techniques are no exception. The essential
purpose of the process is to ‘be more’. It is common to hear that
human beings are only using a small fraction of their potential.
Their lives are confined within a limited range of thoughts,
emotions, sensations and other modalities of conscious existence,
and yet in most cases they remain completely unaware of these
limitations. Plato’s myth of the cave, even though formulated 24
centuries ago, remains perfectly relevant: if you have always lived
inside a dark cellar, to you this cellar is not a cellar, it is the
whole universe. You can’t even conceive of the wonder waiting for
you if you were to step out and walk in the real world. The work
suggested in this book is all about stepping out of the cellar and
starting to behold the magnificence of the world as seen from the
third eye.
In India, the coconut is considered to be of deep symbolic
significance and is used in fire rituals (yajñās) because it has ‘three
eyes’. Two of these are ‘blind’, meaning they can’t be pierced to
reach the milk, while the third one, in the middle, opens to the
inside of the fruit. Similarly, the third eye is fundamentally the
gate that leads to the inner worlds. Therefore this eye allows you
to know yourself to a depth that surpasses all conventional
methods of psychotherapy or any method based on analysing with
the discursive mind.
Developing the third eye is a direct way of expanding your
conscious universe and discovering your essential values, so that
you may fathom your own mystery. Moreover, it is simple. Simple
does not necessarily mean easy, but this work does not require
complicated theories or lengthy discussions. Its direction is
essentially experiential, for the purpose is clearly to be more. And
being is the most simple thing in the world. A constant
preoccupation while writing this manual was to relate theory to
experience and to give techniques and keys to enable you to
perceive for yourself.
13
The first three chapters are devoted to getting into the main
aspects of the practice. The remaining chapters are more or less
independent of each other, so that it is quite possible to read them
in the order that feels most natural to you.
Before starting the first technique let us give some basic advice
regarding the principles and method of the work.
You should not be confused by the fact that our purpose is a new
clairvoyance, or vision of the Self. Truly, the Self is already there,
waiting for you in the background of yourself. You are not going
to ‘build’ the Self and its vision, you are going to reveal them or
rather allow them to reveal themselves. Spiritual development is
certainly a fight, but the main weapon in this fight is letting go.
In this perspective of opening it is not appropriate to concentrate,
to try hard or to force. If you were to do so, what would happen?
You would operate from your ordinary mind, meaning that
fraction of yourself with which you presently think – the
discursive mind that goes on talking in your head all the time. You
have been conditioned from an early age to do everything from
the mind. Therefore if you try to ‘do’ the perception business, you
are likely to remain caught in your talking mind – a layer which
is notoriously unfit for any form of spiritual perception.
Stop doing. Be fully aware, but just aware. Allow what is hidden in
the depths to come through and be revealed to your consciousness.
Don’t do anything, let things happen. Flow with what comes.
In the physical world when you want something you have to strive
for it. But in the spiritual worlds everything is reversed, as on the
other side of a mirror. If you want something you have to let it
come to you. It is a new skill which has to be developed. It could be
called ‘active letting go’ or ‘creative letting go’. It is the capacity to
be transparent and to let states of consciousness be revealed
through you.
Just be aware, and everything will happen.
1.2 No creative visualisation, no imagination, just
awareness
In the context of the Clairvision techniques it is advised that you
never try to visualise or imagine anything. If images, lights,
spiritual beings or anything else comes to your vision, that is fine.
But don’t make them up, don’t try to induce them. Do not actively
visualise any pattern into your field of consciousness.
Chapter 1 – Principles and Method of the Work
14
One of the reasons is: suppose an angel comes to you, truly. If you
have been trying to visualise angels every morning for a few
months how will you know whether it is a true angel or one that
you have made up.
The problem is not to get into the perception of images or lights.
If you put the techniques into practice, visions will come. The real
problem is, once these visions come to you, how to discern what is
real from what is a fancy of the mind. So the advice is: be
spontaneous! Never plan or try to attract a vision. Just practise
the techniques and then see what comes. This will make it much
easier to reach the stage where you can rely on your vision.
This approach should not be understood as a criticism of the paths
that use creative visualisation or imagination. There are many
ways. What is true in the context of one particular system of
development does not necessarily apply to others. In the Clairvision
style of work the motto is “just awareness”.

Grasping is the nature of the mind

What is the part of yourself that retracts when you do the
exercise indicated above (section 5.9)? It is the layer of ordinary
mental consciousness, which corresponds to the astral body of
Clairvision language (and of Steiner’s language), and to the manas
of the Indian tradition. It is a layer that functions through
reaction. The Tibetan masters use an excellent word to describe
this: grasping. Watch how your mind usually operates. A thought
comes to your mind, about your fridge, for instance. Immediately
the mind grasps the thought and chains another to it. It is like a
reaction to the previous thought. You think, “I have to go to the
supermarket, to fill up the fridge.” And then another grasping
takes place, another thought is linked to the former one: “I also
have to go to the bank”… and so on. A chain of thoughts is woven,
taking you far from the original thought.
During eye contact, your own experience will confirm how
relevant the word ‘grasping’ is, to describe this quick little
reaction that makes you lose your perception of the blurry image,
and projects you back into the sharp physical image. When this
happens, you definitely feel a kind of little contraction – not a
physical one, but a grasping of the mind.
Subtle perception requires letting go, and that is exactly what the
ordinary mental consciousness, the manas-mind, cannot cope with.
The mind has to grasp, that is its very nature. The manas-mind
grasps you back into the physical image, just as a muscle of the
physical body becomes tense in a situation of emotional stress.

Chapter 5 – Seeing

It is essential that you keep watching this process carefully. Go
back into the focus in the third eye and into the seeingness, let
the image become altered again… and suddenly, another grasping
of the mind takes place, and all the perceptions disappear. When a
master like Sri Aurobindo says that a silent mind is a prerequisite
for higher yogic experience, nothing else is meant than an
eradication of those graspings. The more you watch the graspings,
the more they will appear to you as something superimposed on
your natural perception.

5.11 Which state of perception is the altered one?

Let us develop this last point, because it has immense repercussions
on the way we see the world.
When people start working on themselves, they usually have an
implicit preconception: They consider that the world, the way
they see it every day through their mind, is the ‘real one’. And
they infer that auras and spiritual beings can be superimposed on
this vision of the physical reality, through some sort of additional
perception.
Now this exercise (5.9) demonstrates exactly the opposite. It is the
sharply outlined mental image that appears as an artificially
constructed reality. As soon as you let go of the graspings of the
mind, the image explodes into a fluid multitude of astral colours.
It is not when you see auras, spiritual beings, etc. that something
is added – it is when you see through the mind! The mind
contracts and adds a facade of rigid contours on top of the fluid
reality. The more you get to see the functioning of your mind,
the more you realize that it is a kind of cramp. Release the cramp
and the sharp physical reality disappears: the non-physical worlds
open to you.
All this is a gradual process of course, it is not going to happen
overnight. The mind is tenacious, it is not going to let go of you
too quickly. Nevertheless, when you do the work, a new perception
slowly develops. From time to time, you find yourself just ‘being’.
It is a very simple and innocent state of consciousness. And in this
simplicity, auras and other worlds are perceived.
Most of the time you are caught in the usual functioning of the
mind. But as you advance, the mind appears more and more like a
crust on top of your being. It becomes obvious that the mind is
something added, superimposed. It is only by clinging and grasping
that it can operate. So you automatically start to regard the sharp
Chapter 5 – Seeing

images as something artificially constructed by the mind, and the
fluid level of lights and colours as the reality behind it. You begin
to be more and more interested in seeing the world the way it is,
and not the way your mind makes it up.
One of the reasons I insist on this point is that it is not a
philosophical theory but something you can observe easily in
yourself, through the practice. As you keep on working with
exercise 5.9, the graspings of the mind will become more and more
obvious to you.

The work on the etheric body

Before resuming our exercises on the channels of the etheric body,
let us dwell on some of the aims of this part of the work. You
must have noticed, and there is nothing surprising about this, that
a strong awareness of the third eye tends to reinforce the
vibration along the channels. The more you are in the eye, the
more you feel the vibration in the meridians. This is very logical
since the eye is the main switch of the body of energy. By
operating the switch, you activate circulations of vibration all over
the body.
But the opposite is also true! When you awaken a strong vibration
in the meridians, you can feel the vibration in your eye better.
Often, just by rubbing your hands and stimulating the tingling
energy in them, an immediate boost can be felt in your eye. The
eye appears more tangible, denser, more ‘crystallised’ and more
active.
There is a profound mechanism behind this simple finding. The
etheric layer is not a bunch of disassociated patches, it is a
coherent layer. It has a unity. All its parts are much more directly
interconnected than the different parts of the physical body.
Because of the fluid nature of the etheric body, any wave of
vibration in one of its parts will resonate with the whole layer. So
when you shake or rub your hands and awaken a strong vibration
in them, the whole of the etheric layer is stimulated and,
therefore, so is the etheric part of your third eye. One of the
results will be a boost to your clairvoyance.
The third eye is made of different parts. One of its parts belongs
to the astral layer, another to the etheric layer. It is only when all
the parts are fully built and communicating with each other that
your clairvoyance becomes reliable. Imagine a one metre long pipe.
If even one millimetre of this pipe is blocked, then neither water
nor air can flow through. You can’t even see through the pipe.
This is why, in order to develop your vision of non-physical
realms, it is so valuable to proceed in this work of developing the
etheric body. While implementing the practices on ‘seeing’
84
(Chapters 5 and 7), it is a good idea to do a few channel releases at
the beginning and in the middle of the sessions.
Later on, in the process of building the body of immortality,
channel release will be resumed on a higher mode. The purpose will
then be to infuse the consciousness of the Higher Self into the
etheric layer, in quest of the Life-Spirit or trans-substantiated
etheric body, one of the cornerstones of the glorious body. The
present phase of channel release, even though humble, has a value
in preparing for these summits to come, by initiating a connection
between the etheric and your conscious self.

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Table of Contents
Introduction
A systematic method
Chapter 1 – Principles and Method of the Work
1.1 Do not force, do not concentrate, just be aware
1.2 No creative visualisation, no imagination, just awareness
1.3 Trust your experience
1.4 Don’t analyse during an experience
1.5 Psychic protection
1.6 Practise, practise, practise…
1.7 Why delay?
1.8 Play with the techniques
1.9 Remain relative
Chapter 2 – The Mysteries of the Larynx
2.1 Throat friction
2.2 Purposes and effects of the throat friction
2.3 The mysteries of the larynx
2.4 Humming sound and the magic of bees
Chapter 3 – Awakening the Third Eye
3.1 What is the third eye?
3.2 First opening
3.3 Various experiences
3.4 Experiential references
3.5 If you are not feeling any vibration at all
3.6 More about the third eye
3.7 Third eye meditation
3.8 More humming/buzzing
3.9 How to organize your practice
3.10 The mysteries of the space
Chapter 4 – Channel Release: Let It Flow!
4.1 Channel release
4.2 Connected shaking
4.3 Connected rubbing
4.4 Vibration = etheric
4.5 General advice concerning the work on the meridians
4.6 Shou jue yin, ‘Heart Constrictor Meridian’
4.7 Shou shao yin, ‘Heart Meridian’
4.8 Shou tai yin, ‘Lung Meridian’
4.9 More details on the paths of the meridians
4.10 The different levels of perception of energy circulations
4.11 Practice
4.12 Releasing negative energies
Chapter 5 – Seeing
5.1 The path of the seers
5.2 Concerning the practices of eye contact
5.3 Reconnection with the space
5.4 Eye contact with focus in the eye and ‘seeingness’
5.5 To end any practice of eye contact
5.6 To blink or not to blink
5.7 A few common experiences while practising eye contact
5.8 What to do with your experiences
5.9 Watching the graspings of the mind
5.10 Grasping is the nature of the mind
5.11 Which state of perception is the altered one?
5.12 Atlantean climax
5.13 Eye contact, full technique: the triple process of vision,
including the vision of the heart
Chapter 6 – Channel Release 2
6.1 The work on the etheric body
6.2 Zu shao yang, ‘Gallbladder’ Meridian
6.3 The full technique of channel release on a meridian
6.4 Variation without rubbing
6.5 The sound of the vibration
6.6 Zu tai yang, ‘Urinary Bladder’ Meridian
6.7 The cosmos in your hands
6.8 Gestures of energy
6.9 The energy between your hands
6.10 Cosmic antenna
6.11 Ribcage practice
6.12 Zu yang ming, ‘Stomach’ Meridian
Table of Contents
6.13 Jnāna-mudrā and the energy in the lungs
Chapter 7 – Seeing (2)
7.1 The use of darkness
7.2 Use more candles and oil lamps, less electricity
7.3 In quest of the ultimate wall rendering
7.4 The white shawl
7.5 The basic technique for seeing an aura
7.6 Where exactly should you look while doing eye contact?
7.7 Channel release from time to time
7.8 Working on auras
7.9 Aura testing
7.10 Vata, pitta, kapha
7.11 Trans-verbal communication
7.12 More about seeingness
7.13 Intermezzo: which eye are you?
7.14 The yes/yes technique
Chapter 8 – Practices on the Etheric Body
8.1 The etheric layer as a whole
8.2 The life ether
8.3 Exploring different qualities of the etheric
8.4 Exploring the limits
8.5 Exploring the circulations of the etheric
8.6 The etheric vibration outside your body
8.7 Vibration meals
8.8 The vibration in your bath
8.9 Etheric excretion at the end of a bath
8.10 Loo practice
8.11 Releasing into the earth
8.12 Tree hugging
8.13 Crying
8.14 Sucking the citrus
8.15 Yawning
8.16 The right side of the ring
8.17 A note about wrist watches
Chapter 9 – Awareness
9.1 Centredness through vigilance in the eye
9.2 Inner alchemy
Table of Contents
9.3 Permanence in the eye
9.4 The harvest of permanence
9.5 Practice
9.6 Practice
9.7 Practice
9.8 Test
9.9 Intermezzo: changes in vision
9.10 The eye-heart awareness
9.11 When to start?
Chapter 10 – A Few Experiences on the Way
10.1 Tingling in various body parts
10.2 Let things come and go
10.3 If a meditation experience becomes too intense…
10.4 Feeling vibration higher up than between the eyebrows
10.5 Feeling heat
10.6 The breath stops
10.7 The pressure in the eye becomes uncomfortable
10.8 Controlling headaches
10.9 Other possible causes of headaches
10.10 Dizziness
10.11 Getting fed-up or emotional
10.12 Hearing sounds
10.13 When there is no energy, the energy is somewhere else!
10.14 After sattva: tamas. To fight tamas: rajas.
Chapter 11 – The Art of Tuning In
11.1 Tuning in
11.2 Drinking colours
11.3 Flowers, plants and elemental beings
11.4 Fighting mental rigidity
11.5 Trees
11.6 Practice
11.7 Sexually-related feelings
11.8 You are what you eat
11.9 A few suggestions on how to communicate with angels
Chapter 12 – Ley Lines, Earth Lines and Energy Wells
12.1 The first reflex whenever you hear cancer
12.2 Commonly observed facts about the lines
Table of Contents
12.3 Ley lines and earth lines
12.4 What are these lines?
12.5 Energy wells
12.6 Lines and spiritual practice
12.7 Dowsing the lines: the gear
12.8 Learning the eye-belly attitude for dowsing
12.9 Dowsing technique
12.10 Dowsing the lines: do’s and don’ts
12.11 The belly signal
12.12 Feeling the lines without rods
12.13 Seeing the lines
12.14 The aura of the dowser
12.15 Diagnosing geopathic stress
12.16 Finding energy wells
12.17 Can one neutralise noxious earth lines?
12.18 A geography of enlightenment
Chapter 13 – Night Practice 1: Theoretical Aspects
13.1 Critical times
13.2 Initiatory death and the mystery of the threshold
13.3 Sleep and subtle bodies
13.4 Angels and the chiselling of the organs of clairvoyance
13.5 Night practice and the etheric body
13.6 Night practice and awareness in the eye (1)
13.7 Third eye flaring – a possible experience
13.8 Night practice and awareness in the eye (2)
13.9 Allow enough normal sleep
Chapter 14 – Night Practice 2: Instructions for the
Technique
14.1 If you are reading the instructions for friends
14.2 If you do not have much time
Chapter 15 – Night Practice 3: The Whys and Hows of
the Technique
15.1 Preparation
15.2 Phase 1: exhaling
15.3 Phase 2a: circulating in the body parts
15.4 Phase 2b: awareness and seeingness of the organs
15.5 Phase 3: awareness of the breath and countdowns
Table of Contents
15.6 Phase 3c: vibration in the nose while inhaling
15.7 Phase 4
15.8 Phase 5: recalling the images of the day
15.9 Phase 6: spontaneous images
15.10 Experiences during night practice
15.11 Taking the night at both ends
15.12 Morning sharing
15.13 A symbol used as a bridge
15.14 Keep recalling your dreams across the buffer zone
15.15 Use the memory of the third eye
15.16 If you can never remember anything
15.17 Variation for acupuncturists
Chapter 16 – Complementary Techniques
16.1 Neti
16.2 The use of rhythms
16.3 Fasting for openings
16.4 Proper management of sexual energies
16.5 Vaccinations
16.6 Telephone
16.7 Moxas on bai hui (Governor 20)
16.8 Pony tail
16.9 Blind walking
Chapter 17 – Protection
Protection level 1: Reinforcing the structure
17.1 Simple things first
17.2 Get enough sleep and rest
17.3 The right diet
17.4 The right physical exercise
17.5 Be happy!
17.6 Alcohol and spiritual work – a dangerous mixture
Protection level 2: Correct management of energies
17.7 Choose your colours
17.8 Find your spot
17.9 How to purify a room
17.10 Work in harmony with the Moon cycle
17.11 Frequent use of running water
17.12 Releasing energies into the elements
Table of Contents
Chapter 18 – Protection: Sealing the Aura (1)
18.1 The fight or flight reaction
18.2 Sealing the aura: why and when
18.3 Opening and closing the aura, introductory practice
18.4 Protection through being in the eye
18.5 The will centre
18.6 Practice
18.7 Eye-belly awareness
18.8 Walking from the belly
18.9 Stimulating the fire
Chapter 19 – Baby Work
19.1 The aura of a pregnant woman
19.2 The aura of a newborn baby
19.3 Babies are very aware in their eye
19.4 Watching baby fall asleep
19.5 Your baby as a meditation teacher
19.6 A few words to the travellers
19.7 How long does it last?
19.8 The fabulous babies
Chapter 20 – Protection: Sealing the Aura (2)
20.1 Where are you speaking from?
20.2 Speaking from different levels
20.3 What if you have to display authority?
20.4 The eye-belly power
20.5 Inhaling/exhaling
20.6 Closing the aura through deep exhalation
20.7 Drawing energy in and out
20.8 Exhaling when facing a crowd
20.9 The same protection using normal breathing
20.10 Sealing the aura
20.11 Practice
20.12 What if nothing works?
20.13 Permanent awareness in the will centre
20.14 Continual abdominal breathing
20.15 Stambhāsana
20.16 Practice
Chapter 21 – There Is No Real Protection But the Power
of Truth
Table of Contents
21.1 Power of Truth
Chapter 22 – Glimpses of What Comes Next
22.1 ISIS, the Clairvision techniques of regression
22.2 The vision of thought forms
22.3 The transformation of thinking
22.4 The quest for the Grail

The Power of Now. A Guide to SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT

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1. YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND
2. The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment
   Enlightenment – what is that?
   A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a
   stranger walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically
   holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then
   he asked: “What’s that you are sitting on?” “Nothing,” replied the beggar. “Just an old
   box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.” “Ever looked inside?”
   asked the stranger. “No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in
   there.” “Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open
   the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with
   gold.
   I am that stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look
   inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside
   yourself.
   “But I am not a beggar,” I can hear you say.
   Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being
   and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have
   great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment,
   for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only
   includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
   The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some super-human
   accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural
   state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something
   immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially
   you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and
   form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation,
   from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself,
   consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflict within
   and without becomes the norm.
   I love the Buddha’s simple definition of enlightenment as “the end of suffering.”
   There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition, it is
   13
   incomplete. It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what’s left
   when there is no more suffering? The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies
   that you’ll have to find out for yourself. He uses a negative definition so that the mind
   cannot make it into something to believe in or into a superhuman accomplishment, a
   goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite this precaution, the majority of
   Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the Buddha, not for them, at least not
   in this lifetime. You used the word Being. Can you explain what you mean by that?
   Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that
   are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep
   within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means
   that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don’t
   seek to grasp it with your mind. Don’t try to understand it. You can know it only
   when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and
   intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To
   regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of “feeling-realization” is
   enlightenment. When you say Being, are you talking about God? If you are, then why don’t you
   say it?
   The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of
   misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who
   have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that
   word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or
   they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse
   gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as “My or our God
   is the only true God, and your God is false,” or Nietzsche’s famous statement “God is
   dead.”
   The word God has become a closed concept. The moment the word is uttered, a
   mental image is created, no longer, perhaps, of an old man with a white beard, but
   still a mental representation of someone or something outside you, and, yes, almost
   inevitably a male someone or something.
   Neither God nor Being nor any other word can define or explain the ineffable
   reality behind the word, so the only important question is whether the word is a help
   or a hindrance in enabling you to experience That toward which it points. Does it
   14
   point beyond itself to that transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to
   becoming no more than an idea in your head that you believe in, a mental idol?
   The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the
   advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite
   entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive
   possession of Being. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you
   as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I
   am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.
3. What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?
   Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not
   to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because
   almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant
   mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable
   from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and
   suffering. We will look at all that in more detail later.
   The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental
   truth when he made his famous statement: “I think, therefore I am.” He had, in fact,
   given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with Being and identity
   with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state
   of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and
   conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.
   Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being “at one” and therefore at peace. At
   one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and
   life unmanifested – at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering
   and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful
   enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!
   Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels,
   images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes
   between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between
   you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the
   illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate “other.”
   You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances
   and separate forms, you are one with all that is. By “forget,” I mean that you can no
   longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. You may believe it to be true, but you
   no longer know it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own
   experience, however, does it become liberating.
   15
   Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance.
   For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body,
   but when this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate
   and we have disease.
   Note: The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it
   becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use
   your mind wrongly – you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease.
   You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken
   you over. I don’t quite agree. It is true that I do a lot of aimless thinking, like most people,
   but I can still choose to use my mind to get and accomplish things, and I do that all
   the time.
   Just because you can solve a crossword puzzle or build an atom bomb doesn’t
   mean that you use your mind. Just as dogs love to chew bones, the mind loves to get
   its teeth into problems. That’s why it does crossword puzzles and builds atom bombs.
   You have no interest in either. Let me ask you this: can you be free of your mind
   whenever you want to? Have you found the “off” button? You mean stop thinking altogether?
4. No, I can’t, except maybe for a moment or
   two.
   Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you
   don’t even know that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without
   knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of
   freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity – the thinker.
   Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the
   thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize
   that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny
   aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter –
   beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to
   awaken.
   Freeing yourself from your mind
   What exactly do you mean by “watching the thinker”?
   When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my head,” he or she
   will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way,
   16
   virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the
   involuntary thought processes that you don’t realize you have the power to stop.
   Continuous monologues or dialogues.
   You have probably come across “mad” people in the street incessantly talking or
   muttering to themselves. Well, that’s not much different from what you and all other
   “normal” people do, except that you don’t do it out loud. The voice comments,
   speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn’t
   necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be
   reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future
   situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is
   called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or “mental
   movies.” Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in
   terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which
   is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you
   inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a
   totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person’s own
   worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously
   attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold
   misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.
   The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only
   true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in
   your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought
   patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps
   for many years. This is what I mean by “watching the thinker,” which is another way
   of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
   When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not
   judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the
   same voice has come in again through the back door. You’ll soon realize: there is the
   voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of
   your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind. So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also
   of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has
   come in. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence – your deeper
   self – behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power
   over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind
   through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and
   17
   compulsive thinking. When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the
   mental stream – a gap of “no-mind.” At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds
   perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a
   certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state of
   felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. With practice, the
   sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will
   also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.
   It is not a trancelike state. Not at all. There is no loss of consciousness here. The
   opposite is the case. If the price of peace were a lowering of your consciousness, and
   the price of stillness a lack of vitality and alertness, then they would not be worth
   having. In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake
   than in the mind-identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational
   frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.
   As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in
   the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own
   presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your
   physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in
   comparison to it. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond
   what you previously thought of as “your self.” That presence is essentially you and at
   the same time inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may
   sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express
   it.
   Instead of “watching the thinker,” you can also create a gap in the mind stream
   simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely
   conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way,
   you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in
   which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of
   meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity
   that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it
   becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in
   your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even
   your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all
   the sense perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the
   movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your
   car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your
   breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain
   18
   criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace
   that you feel within.
   So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn
   to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the
   light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling
   at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that
   you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self
   does not depend on it.
   Enlightenment: Rising above Thought
   Isn’t thinking essential in order to survive in this world?
   Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when
   the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of
   most people’s thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its
   dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your
   mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy.
   This kind of compulsive thinking is actually an addiction. What characterizes an
   addiction? Quite simply this: you no longer feel that you have the choice to stop. It
   seems stronger than you. It also gives you a false sense of pleasure, pleasure that
   invariably turns into pain.

Why should we be addicted to thinking?
Because you are identified with it, which means that you derive your sense of self
from the content and activity of your mind.
Because you believe that you would cease to be if you stopped thinking. As you
grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and
cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind
activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means
different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created
by unconscious identification with the mind.
To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are
considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the
ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past
alive, because without it – who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to
ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It
says: “One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at
19
peace.” Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the
present that it sees: It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the
eyes of the past. Or it reduces the present to a means to an end, an end that always
lies in the mind-projected future. Observe your mind and you’ll see that this is how it
works.
The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present
moment as long as you are your mind.

I don’t want to lose my ability to analyze and discriminate. I wouldn’t mind learning
to think more clearly, in a more focused way, but I don’t want to lose my mind. The
gift of thought is the most precious thing we have. Without it, we would just be
another species of animal.
The predominance of mind is no more than a stage in the evolution of consciousness.
We need to go on to the next stage now as a matter of urgency; otherwise, we will be
destroyed by the mind, which has grown into a monster. I will talk about this in more
detail later. Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a
small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but
consciousness does not need thought.
Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to a level below
thought, the level of an animal or a plant. In the enlightened state, you still use your
thinking mind when needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than
before. You use it mostly for practical purposes, but you are free of the involuntary
internal dialogue, and there is inner stillness. When you do use your mind, and
particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so
between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness
without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in
that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer
connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren,
insane, destructive.
The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other
minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information – this is what it is good at, but it
is not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place
of no-mind, from inner stillness. The mind then gives form to the creative impulse or
insight. Even the great scientists have reported that their creative breakthroughs came
at a time of mental quietude. The surprising result of a nation-wide inquiry among
America’s most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out their working
methods, was that thinking “plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase
20
of the creative act itself.”1 So I would say that the simple reason why the majority of
scientists are not creative is not because they don’t know how to think but because
they don’t know how to stop thinking!
It wasn’t through the mind, through thinking, that the miracle that is life on earth
or your body were created and are being sustained. There is clearly an intelligence at
work that is far greater than the mind. How can a single human cell measuring
1/1,000 of an inch across contain instructions within its DNA that would fill 1,000
books of 600 pages each? The more we learn about the workings of the body, the
more we realize just how vast is the intelligence at work within it and how little we
know. When the mind reconnects with that, it becomes a most wonderful tool. It then
serves something greater than itself.

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A NEW EARTH. Awakening to Your Life`s Purpose

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THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner
flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of
plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beings
lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like
crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of
consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and
materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in
place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?
The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message
of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers – Buddha,
Jesus, and others, not all of them known – were humanity’s early flowers.
They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering was
not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely
misunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transform
human behavior, except in a small minority of people.
Is humanity more ready now than at the time of those early teachers?
Why should this be so? What can you do, if anything, to bring about or
accelerate this inner shift? What is it that characterizes the old egoic state of
consciousness, and by what signs is the new emerging consciousness
recognized? These and other essential questions will be addressed in this
book. More important, this book itself is a transformational device that has
come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts
presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more
than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place
within you.

This book’s main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs to
your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in
consciousness; that is to say, to awaken. In that sense, this book is not
“interesting”. Interesting means you can keep your distance, play around
with ideas and concepts in your mind, agree or disagree. This book is about
you. It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It
can only awaken those who are ready. Not everyone is ready yet, but many
are, and with each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective
consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others. If you don’t know
what awakening means, read on. Only by awakening can you know the true
meaning of that word. A glimpse is enough to initiate the awakening process,
which is irreversible. For some, that glimpse will come while reading this
book. For many others who may not even have realized it, the process has
already begun. This book will help them recognize it. For some, it may have
begun through loss or suffering; for others, through coming into contact with
a spiritual teacher or teaching, through reading The Power of Now or some
other spiritually alive and therefore transformational book – or any
combination of the above. If the awakening process has begun in you , the
reading of this book will accelerate and intensify it.

An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the
unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks and acts, as well as the
recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate
the unawakened state. That is why this book shows the main aspects of the
ego and how they operate in the individual as well as in the collective. This
is important for two related reasons: The first is that unless you know the
basic mechanics behind the workings of the ego, you won’t recognize it, and
it will trick you into identifying with it again and again. This means it takes
you over, an impostor pretending to be you. The second reason is that the act
of recognition itself is one of the ways in which awakening happens. When
you recognize the unconsciousness in you, that which makes the recognition
possible is the arising consciousness, is awakening. You cannot fight against
the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of
consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.

OUR INHERITED DYSFUNCTION
If we look more deeply into humanity’s ancient religions and spiritual
traditions, we will find that underneath the many surface differences there
are two core insights that most of them agree on. The words they use to
describe those insights differ, yet they all point to a twofold fundamental
truth. The first part of this truth is the realization that the “normal” state of
mind of most human beings contains a strong element of what we might call
dysfunction or even madness. Certain teachings at the heart of Hinduism
perhaps come closest to seeing this dysfunction as a form of collective
mental illness. They call it maya, the veil of delusion. Ramana Maharshi,
one of the greatest Indian sages, bluntly states: “The mind is maya.”
Buddhism uses different terms. According to the Buddha, the human
mind in its normal state generates dukkha, which can be translated as
suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery. He sees it as a
characteristic of the human condition. Wherever you go, whatever you do,
says the Buddha, you will encounter dukkha, and it will manifest in every
situation sooner or later.

According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of
humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly
misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient
Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the
mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of
human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and
cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and
misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human
condition.

The achievements of humanity are impressive and undeniable. We
have created sublime works of music, literature, painting, architecture, and
sculpture. More recently, science and technology have brought about radical
changes in the way we live and have enabled us to do and create things that
would have been considered miraculous even two hundred years ago. No
doubt: The human mind is highly intelligent. Yet its very intelligence is
tainted by madness. Science and technology have magnified the destructive
impact that the dysfunction of the human mind has upon the planet, other
life­forms, and upon humans themselves. That is why the history of the
twentieth century is where that dysfunction, that collective insanity, can be
most clearly recognized. A further factor is that this dysfunction is actually
intensifying and accelerating.

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When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of
the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when
humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. A depth
returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the
greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any
words, thoughts, mental labels, and images. For this to happen, you need to
disentangle your sense of I, of Beingness, from all the things it has become
mixed up with, that is to say, identified with. That disentanglement is what
this book is about.

The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things,
people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and
the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that
continuously unfolds within and around you. In this way, cleverness may be
gained, but wisdom is lost, and so are joy, love, creativity, and aliveness.
They are concealed in the still gap between the perception and the
interpretation. Of course we have to use words and thoughts. They have their
own beauty – but do we need to become imprisoned in them?
Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which
isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the
vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are
consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe
some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or
the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its
depth?

THE ILLUSORY SELF

The word “I” embodies the greatest error and the deepest truth, depending
on how it is used. In conventional usage, it is not only one of the most
frequently used words in the language (together with the related words:
“me,” “my,” “mine,” and “myself”) but also one of the most misleading. In
normal everyday usage, “I” embodies the primordial error, a misperception
of who you are, an illusory sense of identity. This is the ego. This illusory
sense of self is what Albert Einstein, who had deep insights not only in to
the reality of space and time but also into human nature, referred to as “an
optical illusion of consciousness.” That illusory self then becomes the basis
for all further interpretations, or rather misinterpretations of reality, all
thought processes, interactions, and relationships. Your reality becomes a
reflection of the original illusion.

The good news is: If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it
dissolves. The recognition of illusion is also its ending. Its survival depends
on your mistaking it for reality. In the seeing of who you are not, the reality
of who you are emerges by itself. This is what happens as you slowly and
carefully read this and the next chapter, which are about the mechanics of the
false self we call the ego. So what is the nature of this illusory self?
What you usually refer to when you say “I” is not who you are. By a
monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused
with a sound produced by the vocal cords or the thought of “I” in your mind
and whatever the “I” has identified with. So what do the usual “I” and the
related “me,” “my,” or “mine” refer to?

THE MAGIC IN YOUR MIND

FOREWORD

This book reveals a mental magic that assures success, that absolutely guarantees increased achievement, whether your profession
is in the arts or business, in science or sales, in sports, war, or politics. Here you will learn the secret way in which your mind is tied
to the source of all power; you will learn how you are capable of
becoming anything and doing anything you can visualize.
Every man’s consciousness is constantly changing, is trapped at
the knife-edge overlap of past and future, reacts rather than acts, is
incomplete and partial, eternally seeks itself, for since the mere
state of being throws no light on that state, consciousness learns of
itself through reaction to outside stimuli. If a man comes to believe
he is unsuccessful, it is because he carries the impression he has
been unsuccessful, and this conclusion, once adopted, inescapably
molds him into the shape of the thing he believes, locks him in a
prison of his own making.

The magic by which a man becomes free is imagination. By training himself to cast up mental pictures of the thing he desires, by resisting sensual stimuli, even envisaging the exact opposite, he
tends to assume a factual position in accordance with his vision,
for his vision then becomes his experience, rather than the sensual
stimuli that moved him before. Consciousness always assumes a
form to suit its knowledge of itself, and where such knowledge
breaks beyond the limits imposed by sensory experience, man begins to grow into the image of the Secret Self.

There is only one mind in all creation; that mind is in everyone, is
in its true state of being not confined to anyone, not confined to the
body. It is a central, knowing consciousness in which everything
dwells, which dwells in everything. In a bodily-confined state it assumes the limitations imposed upon it by the knowledge of itself
which it receives through the senses, but when bondage to those
4 senses is broken by development of an inner power to perceive and
know directly, then slavery to its embodiment is at an end.
Perfect action and perfect works stem from an inner conviction of
the mental cause behind all things. A man changes the state of his
outer world by first changing the state of his inner world. Everything that comes to him from outside is the result of his own consciousness. When he changes that consciousness he alters his perception and thus the world he sees. By coming to a clear understanding of the process and effect of mental imagery he is led irrevocably along the correct path to his goal.

By working with this cause of all things—his own consciousness—he achieves infallibility in works, for inasmuch as his mental imagery propels him into
action, that action is always true to the picture in his mind and will
deliver him its material counterpart certainly.
In this book you will find a program for training the image power
of the mind, so that a scene or situation cast up in consciousness
will arrive in three dimensions, with color and sound, pulsing with
life, as real for you as the outside world. Haven’t you ever dreamed
such dreams? Haven’t you sometimes in sleep become immersed
in a mental and spiritual world with such solidity and dimension
that you were certain it was real and the material world a delusion?
If ever you have known the overwhelming power of mental imagery to influence your attitude and perception, then you will
quickly see that the salvation of each of us is to train his image
power to obey him. In this manner it is possible to become free
from the promptings and urgings of nature, from death and disease
and destruction, from ineffectuality and frustration. For the man
whose inner power of vision transcends the constantly distracting
stimuli of the outer world has taken charge of his own life, is truly
master of his fate.

I give you the end of a golden string:
Only wind it into a ball,—
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall. (WILLIAM BLAKE)

Chapter 1

THE HIDDEN CAUSE OF ALL THINGS

SHAKESPEARE’S Hamlet in his famed soliloquy pondered,
“To be or not to be,” and thus faced squarely the primary challenge of life. Most people only exist, never truly are at all. They
exist as predictable equations, reacting rather than acting, walking
compendiums of aphorisms and taboos, reflexes and syndromes.
Surely the gods must chuckle at the ironic spectacle of robots fancying themselves free, but still, when finally the embodied consciousness rises above the pain-pleasure principle of nature, then the true meaning of freedom is made apparent at last.

ACTION VERSUS REACTION
We exist in order that we may become something more than we
are, not through favorable circumstance or auspicious occurrence,
but through an inner search for increased awareness. To be, to become, these are the commandments of evolving life, which is going somewhere, aspires to some unsealed heights, and the awakened soul answers the call, seeks, grows, expands. To do less is to
sink into the reactive prison of the ego, with all its pain, suffering,
limitation, decay, and death. The man who lives through reaction
to the world about him is the victim of every change in his environment, now happy, now sad, now victorious, now defeated, affected but never affecting. He may live many years in this manner, rapt with sensory perception and the ups and downs of his surface
self, but one day pain so outweighs pleasure that he suddenly perceives his ego is illusory, a product of outside circumstances only.
Then he either sinks into complete animal lethargy or, turning
away from the senses, seeks inner awareness and self-mastery.
Then he is on the road to really living, truly becoming; then he begins to uncover his real potential; then he discovers the miracle of
his own consciousness, the magic in his mind.

Mastery over life is not attained by dominion over material things,
but by mental perception of their true cause and nature. The wise
man does not attempt to bend the world to fit his way or to coerce
events into a replica of his desires, but instead strives for a higher
consciousness that enables him to perceive the secret cause behind
all things. Thus he finds a prominent place in events; by his utter
harmony with them he actually appears to be molding them. He
moves effortlessly through the most strenuous action, the most perilous times, because his attunement with the mental force that controls the universe guides him to perform the work that needs to be done.

ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MIND

This mental force that controls the universe may be called anything
you like and visualized any way you choose. The important thing
is to understand that it exists, to know something about how it
works, what your relationship to it is. It might, for instance, be likened to an enormous electromagnetic field. All conscious forms of
life then would be tiny electro-magnetic fields within the universal
field and finding positions within it, each according to the kind and
quality of its field. Where each individual field would wind up
within the main field then would be a matter of inexorable law and
absolutely unavoidable, as is illustrated by the millions of people
who perform the same tasks over and over with absolutely the
same results, almost as if following ritual. Perhaps they are always
sick, always defeated, “just barely misers,” perhaps always broke,
always out of a job. If we give just the slightest reflection to our
own lives we cannot help but be startled by how we seem dogged
by the same situation in all things, year after year, time after time.
This deadly recurrence is the source of most frustration and mental
illness, is the bottom root of all failure.

Yet it is avoidable. And the way by which it is avoidable brings
complete emancipation of the mind and spirit. For the tiny electro-
magnetic field has inherent within it the ability to change the kind
and quality of its field, so that it will be moved about within the
main field with all the power and sureness of the main field until it
arrives at the position its new quality of consciousness demands.
The important thing to remember about this illustration is that the
tiny electro-magnetic field does not move itself. It is moved by the
large field. And behind its movement lies all the power of the large
field. Any attempt by it to move itself is obviously futile since it is
held in place by a power infinitely greater than itself. And it is held
where it is because of what it is. The moment a change occurs
within itself, it is moved by a power outside itself to a new position
in the field, one in keeping with its new potential.

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FOREWORD

1. THE HIDDEN CAUSE OF ALL THINGS 7
2. DISCOVERING THE SECRET SELF 34
3. THE GREATEST MAGIC OF ALL 60
4. SELF-MASTERY 83
5. MIND OVER MATTER 105
6. MENTAL IMAGERY 127
7. THE POWER OF CHOICE 148
8. OVERCOMING OPPOSITION 168
9. DEVELOPING SKILLS 190
10. CREATING YOUR OWN TALENT 209
11. HOW TO USE YOUR SIXTH SENSE 230
12. THE MENTAL ATTITUDE THAT
    NEVER FAILS 245

Be Here Now: Open Your Mind to Spirituality

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