I just realised each of those paths has a predominance of a guna
Yoga is Rajasic because it is a path of expansion
Buddhism is Tamasic because it is a path of negation
Advaita is Sattvic because it a path of affirmation
Hello Surya Deva:
I believe you should trust what your heart says. I used to be into nondual teachings, and when such an approach is taken one might assume one is God.
The thing is, not everybody can be the “One Self,” and if the One Self viewpoint is true, I figure some being claimed the right to be this being long ago. Therefore, the future doesn’t look bright for the rest of us.
Fortunately, I eventually found that all of us are just small pieces of God, the One Self, the Creator, whatever name you use. We eventually obtain a state of being where we are one and many at the same time. Self anihilation isn’t necessary, rather self centered viewpoints need to be overcome. If we didn’t exist in a substantial way, we couldn’t share love and oneness in a substantial way.
I would never allow other people to treat me in a worshipful way, as if I am God himself. I don’t care how spiritually high I get, the thought of people treating me in such a way is repugnant. After years of looking into the matter I’ve found that people who do so tend to be quite narcisistic.
Albert Haust says…I would never allow other people to treat me in a worshipful way, as if I am God himself. I don’t care how spiritually high I get, the thought of people treating me in such a way is repugnant. After years of looking into the matter I’ve found that people who do so tend to be quite narcisistic.
I totally agree, I find it repugnant too…I do love being who I am, even when I make mistakes! and its nice if people appreciate me but thats as far as it goes.
I used to be a singer and hid in the dressing room between and after performances, because I couldn’t bear the flattery off stage…the reason was/is my ego was never that big to feel it needed feeding beyond the live performance.
After the above as I am now, I would like to add this…Here is what I believe…The Inner Guru resides in all of us and using the Ajna Chakra, you can find him seated. You then awake him and he joins you, he sits active in the brow area…the chakra is permanently open at this point. He will grow larger the clearer and brighter you maintain your mind…a feeling of love and happiness in all that you do. He can become lifesize.
When you have awoken him and he sits at the brow, tiny, your life begins to change. People are drawn to you without any effort on your part. Everything you do and think is perfect, by this I mean you make no mistakes in decisions. Everything you attempt to do is hugely focussed like never before. Everything you say is correct and impressive.
The larger he gets all of the above increases. I cant imagine what responses off people you would get if he were full size!!! Worship? most definitely yes.
I cant imagine what powers you would have, they would be immense!!
Without wishing to sound like some kind of nut bighead…I accidentally found the inner Guru after years of innocently practising with Ajna Chakra… I awoke him, he sat at my brow in Lotus position, he was as real as real is…a tiny man (I have harped on about this before) Buddhist in appearance…monks attire shaven etc…
During a period of about 18 months I never manged to see him other than double his original tiny self. That period of my life was unique. All of the above I have put happened in small scale…people drawn to me unusually…all I did focussed, correct, a feeling of great love surrounded me…I even had a bad tooth that healed itself…I was aware of a light.coming from my eyes and the strangest thing of all, I never told a soul about it till much later?
It isn’t difficult to find him and awake him… a very simple technique and when you recognise the format, you know to keep going. The difficulty is holding onto him and making him full size.
You have to maintain the right mind Buddhists talk about. You have to become childlike in thinking as expressed by the disciples ‘Jesus would appear as a child’, not literally but in his playful innocence.
So worship comes when I think the inner guru inside you is awoken, growing bigger and bigger and with the ajna chakra fully open permanantely because that is how you see him
I haven’t found any references you have made to this incredibly important subject Surya, why is this?
It is the thing that drives me in all that I do now…I feel I musnt go back to find him until my mind is in the right order, and I know the ingredients needed to keep him there and let him grow, next time…you have to have the right mind… a simple happy mnd, in short…not a complex one full of inner or outer arguments. Im not saying I am near this, as you can see.
Surya Deva, I would like your input on the above if you would be so kind
Namaste Karen,
I think the great Self is experienced by people in different ways. In your case it is a vision of a Buddha like person in the Ajna chakra increasing in size, others experience the Self as a vision of Kali, Jesus, Shiva, Vishnu or impersonally as infinite consciousness or infinite love.
The experience of the Self tailors itself to our linguistic prisms. Those who want to see a big white man with a beard will see a big white man with a beard, and those who want to see unending fractal patterns, will see that.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;39430]Namaste Karen,
I think the great Self is experienced by people in different ways. In your case it is a vision of a Buddha like person in the Ajna chakra increasing in size, others experience the Self as a vision of Kali, Jesus, Shiva, Vishnu or impersonally as infinite consciousness or infinite love.
The experience of the Self tailors itself to our linguistic prisms. Those who want to see a big white man with a beard will see a big white man with a beard, and those who want to see unending fractal patterns, will see that.[/QUOTE]
Thank you Surya i like the terms great Self ! because that is the potential we all hold within us that has been clouded heavily by insecurities.
And yes, according to your lineage is what you will be presented with using the Ajna chakra.
Lineage is something that one cannot ignore. I’m of mixed race and born in London, England, my major spiritual influence (of my own accord), was Christianity, I hardly knew anything about my ‘Indian’ side. so where you have written …[B]The experience of the Self tailors itself to our linguistic prisms. Those who want to see a big white man with a beard will see a big white man with a beard, and those who want to see unending fractal patterns, will see that[/B] …I know is not the case.
It has nothing to do with what you will…I would have expected a Jesus like figure, not a Buddhist, and in fact, knew nothing about Buddhism. The other point being that I had no knowledge of what I was doing when I started using the Ajna Chakra…everything I experienced was natural, uncluttered without conscious previous knowledge or expectation.
I don’t know why it was my fathers line I was presented with and not my English, Christian mothers line? another interesting subject, perhaps?
I was talking to a man from North East China…(his english was poor and he hadnt been here long) he was giving me a reflexology treatment. He was a Buddhist. I told him I was.
Without prompting, he told me that one day he came in from the garden after relaxing out there. He said that as he sat down, he was presented with a Buddha in the centre of his vision (between his eyes but ahead of them) he commented he was not life size, etc.
My ears pricked up at this and I told him about my experience. He said his Buddha had his hair tied up to a pony tail, Chinese Buddhist style, I told him, mine was bald…He had never heard anyone else who had experienced this, and just like me, he hadn’t had previous knowledge of this. So we concluded it is the lineage that is the common factor as to what you are presented with in terms of the inner Guru inside us.
When the inner Guru is visibly in front of you or seated at the brow, the voice of the Guru is not in his native tongue by this I mean there is no audible voice to pick up on, instead, you instantly know what he is relaying to you, telepathically…
When he is not visually active it is a set of instructions that interrupt you in your native tongue.
When a person realizes that “I am God”, it is not an ego blast. It’s an incredibly humbling experience, because then you realize that YOU are in complete control of your reality, you are what draws to you what you experience, you affect everything around you, you can do amazing things. Also that only YOU are to blame for the crap happening to you. This can get really deep though, so let’s just say it’s has to do with being like a magnet. You attract negative or positive depending on what you project. It can get super deep, because we are not always aware of our motives or motivations.
But you can see in the grossest sense how what you do affects outcomes when you take responsibility for your part in those outcomes and learn from them.
For example, my ex husband drove his motorcycle to his sister’s house though the tags were out, got stopped, and got a ticked we couldn’t afford. I could blame HIM for putting the burden on us, but I had to stop and say wait a minute - I knew the tags were out, but I didn’t stop him. Therefore, I am as much at fault for this burden as he is.
A simple example for an awakening I had. Just the beginning of seeing my responsibility for my reality.
But I got off track from the I am God discussion, I tend to do that, but its’ a deep subject and I think I got in an interesting aspect of it all! 
some very good points Joanna…Dont worry I too get off the track, frequently, they are very tolerent on this site!
I found these…
I am the infinite deep
In whom all the worlds appear to rise.
Beyond all form, forever still.
So am I
Ashtavakra Gita
Similar claims appear in Eastern traditions. The great Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi said:
“I am” is the name of God… God is none other than the Self.
In the twelfth century, Ibn-Al-Arabi, one of the most revered Sufi mystics, wrote:
If thou knowest thine own self, thou knowest God.
Shankara, the eight-century Indian saint, whose insights revitalized Hindu teachings, said of his own enlightenment:
I am Brahman… I dwell within all beings as the soul, the pure consciousness, the ground of all phenomena… In the days of my ignorance, I used to think of these as being separate from myself. Now I know that I am All.
This sheds new light on the Biblical injunction “Be still, and know that I am God.” I do not believe it means:: “Stop fidgeting around and recognize that the person who is speaking to you is the almighty God of all creation.” It makes much more sense as an encouragement to still the mind, and know, not as an intellectual understanding but as a direct realization, that the “I am” that is your essential self, the pure consciousness that lies behind all experience, is God.
This concept of God is not of a separate superior being, existing in some other realm, overlooking human affairs and loving or judging us according to our deeds. God is in each and every one of us, the most intimate and undeniable aspect of ourselves. God is the light of consciousness that shines in every mind.
I Am the Truth
Identifying God with the light of consciousness brings new meaning and significance to many traditional descriptions of God.
Whatever is taking place in my mind, whatever I may be thinking, believing, feeling or sensing, the one thing I cannot doubt is consciousness. Consciousness is my only absolute, unquestionable truth. If the faculty of consciousness is God, then God is the truth.
The same applies to other people. The only thing I do not doubt about you is that you are conscious and have your own interior world of experience. I can doubt your physical form–indeed, modern physics tells me there is nothing really there, no material thing, that is. All that I perceive of you is a projection in my mind. I can doubt what you say. I can doubt your thoughts and feelings. But I do not doubt that “in there” is another conscious being like myself.
Like God, consciousness is omnipresent. Whatever our experience, consciousness is always there. It is eternal, everlasting.
When I say “I am,” I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus. I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is and knows.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
God is omniscient, all-knowing. So too, consciousness is the essence and source of all our knowing. It lies behind all understanding.
God is the creator. Everything in our world, everything we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch; every thought, feeling, fantasy, intimation, hope, and fear; it is all a form that consciousness has taken on. Everything has been created in consciousness from consciousness. I, the light of consciousness, am the creator.
I am the God of my universe. And you are the God of yours.
God is Almighty. What greater power is there than the power of consciousness to appear as the myriad of forms we experience, everything in the world we see, hear, taste. touch and smell.
This pure Mind, the source of everything,
Shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection.
But the people of the world do not awake to it,
Regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind,
Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowing,
They do not perceive the spectral brilliance of the source of all substance.
Huang Po
A gram of practice is worth more than a tonne of theory.
YoganandaWell Thank You Oak333
Suryadeva ,your assertion buddhism , or the way of the dharma, is nihilistic is still lazy , what is the middle way about? what is the eightfold path about ? why have these concepts if buddhism is nihilistic.
surely any moral path ,right speech right action ,right livelyhood , that buddhism encourages would go against nihilism ?
I believe this argument is regarding different schools of thought in Buddhism
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;32915]Namaste,
This is one of the prevailing views in world spirituality today that the self is god or that god is nothing more than the human potential. In Advaita we are to realise our identity with god and meditate on the great sayings “I am god” To remind ourselves that we are the infinite, absolute and whole. I must admit that when I do this I feel very powerful and my entire being becomes energized, but at the same time a part of me kicks in that thinks that I am doing something very wrong by declaring this and actually pushing away from god by declaring myself as god. That I should be humble and instead say, “I am a child of god or I am one with god” but not actually say “I am god”
Now this has got me thinking why is it that great Hindu, Sufi and Christian mystics and sages have outright declared they are god. Do I really have any reason to believe there is a father up there in the heavens who is looking after me, loving me, and to whom I must return? If this was true then why is it that nothing good happens in my life unless I actually do something about it myself. Nobody bails me out, certainly not god, I have to make the effort myself to change my destiny. If there really was this great loving being then why would he allow all the suffering and evil on this planet? The more I look at this concept of some personal father god out waiting for his child to come back home, the more unfounded it seems.
What if the main reason we are lowly human beings is because we defer all our potential to some personal father god who is almighty and great and we are merely his children, servants or workers. What if this is the reason that we have not become gods ourselves. And what if we did start thinking of ourselves as gods and creators of our own destiny who are not accountable to anybody or anything. What would happen then?[/QUOTE]
Hello. I am new here, but I would like to share my feelings and experiences if I may.
The Advaitist terms ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ and ‘Tat Twam Asi’ are totally dichotomic and paradoxical statements in themselves as they imply that a objective/subjective or a dual relationship exists between the Atman and Paratman.
When one is seeking to merge with the Divine Consciousness, even the very desire for attaining Enlightenment and the mental notion that there’s a Divine Consciousness to be ‘merged with’ is the last obstacle on the path of the true sadhak.
This is also the defining point between Savikalpa and Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Whenever I meditate on the ‘I am God’ saying, I also apply reductionist logic to try and fool my ego. lol
I am God
I am
I
…
The experience of being totally ‘self-less’ is humbling to the extreme, but at what point does one keep it to themselves for fear of judgmental reprisal or share it with their fellow beings? I have struggled with this for a very long time.
Many people are also very quick to blame ‘God’ or something outside themselves for everything that goes ‘wrong’ or for all the ills of the world.
The very first thing that God did when He created human beings was to make a Divine Disclaimer introducing the concept of ‘free will’ into the contract, so that mankind could not hold Him directly responsible for anything.
Free Will + Maya + Karma = We are to blame for everything that happens to us.
I hope that I have contributed to this discussion in an acceptable manner and I look forward to reading/replying to many more topics in future. Thank You.
Nobody…from a little experience I have found that the self less state brings one in contact with the divine powers within us. You soon realise that the two go hand in hand. How you then use your divine powers is also important…always for the good…When you have reached the state of awakening the divine in you, everything you do is correct, people will see/know that in ways that you don’t have to tell them etc. No need for approvals, no insecurity, no doubting etc.
Wisdom walks with you, knowing all walks with you, you will heal those around you when they need it, in words and actions. You are divine in essence.
I hope this helps, its just my feelings on the matter
[QUOTE=kareng;39689]Nobody…from a little experience I have found that the self less state brings one in contact with the divine powers within us. You soon realise that the two go hand in hand. How you then use your divine powers is also important…always for the good…When you have reached the state of awakening the divine in you, everything you do is correct, people will see/know that in ways that you don’t have to tell them etc. No need for approvals, no insecurity, no doubting etc.
Wisdom walks with you, knowing all walks with you, you will heal those around you when they need it, in words and actions. You are divine in essence.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for those kind words of wisdom. I have decided it is time that I ‘opened up’ once more. <3
Seeing as how people have been posting inspirational poems and sayings in this thread to describe the Divine Experience, allow me to be slightly more ‘contemporary’. lol
[B]Inside Of You, In Spite Of You - ThouShaltNot[/B]
I am in the air now,
I am in your lungs.
I am written,
I am spoken by a million flaming tongues.
I’m the lens through which you see.
I’m the process,
I am the key.
I am synapses firing bullets from a gun.
I’m the world’s mystique.
I am the words you speak.
I am language,
I’m the hidden memories that you seek.
I am the sun before you see me rise,
I burn still when you close your eyes.
I am the soul that never dies when flesh is weak.
I am inside of you in spite of you,
With strength and sacred grace.
But for all you do,
I’ll carry you,
From this bitter place. (x2)
I am in your future,
I am in your past.
I’m the echo of your footsteps,
I’m your shadow cast.
I’m the heat you radiate,
I am the fury and the fate,
I am each beat within your heart from first to last.
I’m your action without thought,
I am the instinct born inside you.
I’m the bones from which you drape,
I am protective skin to hide you.
I’m the pull that the earth exerts,
I am the rain that stings and the snow that blinds,
I’m the architecture of your world and mind.
I am the dawn of ages.
I am the days seen through.
I’m final entropy,
I am inside of you.
I am the clouds that cover,
Your way into the blue.
I kiss with life to give,
All this in spite of you. (x2)
I love this Nobody…xx
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;32915]Namaste,
This is one of the prevailing views in world spirituality today that the self is god or that god is nothing more than the human potential. In Advaita we are to realise our identity with god and meditate on the great sayings “I am god” To remind ourselves that we are the infinite, absolute and whole. I must admit that when I do this I feel very powerful and my entire being becomes energized, but at the same time a part of me kicks in that thinks that I am doing something very wrong by declaring this and actually pushing away from god by declaring myself as god. That I should be humble and instead say, “I am a child of god or I am one with god” but not actually say “I am god”
Now this has got me thinking why is it that great Hindu, Sufi and Christian mystics and sages have outright declared they are god. Do I really have any reason to believe there is a father up there in the heavens who is looking after me, loving me, and to whom I must return? If this was true then why is it that nothing good happens in my life unless I actually do something about it myself. Nobody bails me out, certainly not god, I have to make the effort myself to change my destiny. If there really was this great loving being then why would he allow all the suffering and evil on this planet? The more I look at this concept of some personal father god out waiting for his child to come back home, the more unfounded it seems.
What if the main reason we are lowly human beings is because we defer all our potential to some personal father god who is almighty and great and we are merely his children, servants or workers. What if this is the reason that we have not become gods ourselves. And what if we did start thinking of ourselves as gods and creators of our own destiny who are not accountable to anybody or anything. What would happen then?[/QUOTE]
Your intellect will get you nowhere with this, my friend.
Why, bonemarrow ?
[QUOTE=kareng;40447]Why, bonemarrow ?[/QUOTE]
I assume you know that I was replying to the initial post? If not, you do now! 
Kareng, you and Nobody are both on the right path…
“Knowing god” is not an intellectual endeavor… as i’d think you’d agree.