This site is maintained by the Waking Down Community Network. It is offered as a support for those involved in the work of Waking Down in Mutuality (WDM), but because the bulk of the material here is not written or reviewed by WDM teachers, the content should not be assumed to represent WDM dharma.
This is my first post but I've been reading the contributions on this forum for a while now. While re-read old(er) journal entries, I came upon an interesting exchange between Gill and Bapa about meaninglessness which I would like to follow up on.
In a comment, Bapa voiced his/her concerns about Gill's situation/perception of life: "I know that in one of your posts here, or perhaps on Ted's site you write about suicide and how you have thought about it. I think you also say you won't do it, but I see three warning signs in your writing:
1) you have mentioned thinking about suicide
2) You live in constant physical/emotional pain
3) You say life has no meaning
I see those factors and I hesitate to greenlight you to both stay in your pain AND stay with your perception that life has no meaning. Because meaning does reduce or eliminate the suffering around pain and makes it bearable, even more than bearable, even OK. If nothing you do has meaning, and you hold no hope for finding meaning, then why go on living? "
Part Five The Urgent Need for this Approach Today:
The main thing that stands in the way of ego transcending its limits is ego not being allowed to be (limits). What you resist persists. So rather that resisting or even worse denying being (or having) an ego, we live as consciously inviting and allowing being an ego (and a body) and that is what I mean by "embodying ego".
We consciously choose to be egos as well as bodies. We recognize that we've resisted being here as both the body and ego, even as we've been "forced" to (not quite) be here by virtue of our physical birth. We have resisted being what we are, and now we embrace the whole thing.
The consequences of the denial of the reality of having ego can be devastating. This is seen nowhere more clearly as in the spiritual world that has unfolded in the West in these last five decades.
We are a Post-modern (or post-post-modern) all-inclusive tantric school that embraces the (recently arisen) individuated ego of human beings today.
We embody the ego and have no desire to eliminate it; we want to grow it up.
As I understand it, like the Trika tantric tradition Waking Down in Mutuality transcends limits by embracing them just as they are because they are real in their own right. They are real in that they are actually experienced by sentient beings.
They may not be ultimately real in the sense that they will at some point become something that they are not now (everything changes) but they are real in that they are exactly what they are now (as experience) and must be embraced now on their own terms.
... a lot of our "spiritual DNA" is from the Trika source and it shows in the way we naturally embrace matter and ego. Saniel Bonder's radical embrace of Life as the Goddess seems to have been inherent in the natural working out of his realization. It was not a choice of his mind, but a revelation of what awakened in him.
It's helpful to know a bit about that particular Tantric tradition in order to understand how our transmission is both the same and different from most other non-dual teachings.
Part Three
Some of our Roots, One Ancient Tantric View:
There were historically a number of different Hindu tantric traditions that we can roughly put into three basic kinds:
1) Some tantric schools were dualistic, teaching that the ultimate truth is that we live to be surrendered to the Divine and enjoy its grace and love-bliss.
2) Some tantric schools were kinds of qualified-dualists that taught that while there are ways that we are separate from the Divine there are also ways that we aren't.
3) Some tantric schools were non-dualists that taught that only the divine exists and nothing else.
Where they seemed to disagree is where much of Indian philosophies tend to disagree: In what way is the experience of separateness or limitation real... or is it not real at all? If it's real are we stuck with it? If it's not real then why do we experience it?
This was originally written as a response to a gentleman who wrote asking about comparing different realizations and the way that ego is held in WDM as compared to other teachers and schools.
Part Two
Our Transmission Lineage:
Saniel Bonder founded Waking Down in Mutuality relatively recently and in that sense it is a new teaching. It is being developed further still by teachers and practitioners even now... this stuff is alive!
Yet I deeply feel that it's important to recognize that it has precedents and connections to more ancient sources.
This was written as a response to a gentleman who wrote asking about comparing different realizations and the way that ego is held in WDM as compared to other teachers and schools.
Part One
WDM and Teachers of Other Schools:
Without mentioning specific teachers or schools we can pretty much say that in most cases teachers recognize the danger of the ego. What they are mostly concerned about is an ego that remains fixed in on itself in its own separateness and does not feel or recognize the effect that it has on itself or other beings as it acts out from it's contracted sense. The differences are in how they deal with this.
The Core Mystery is at the heart of existence: it is beyond solution, but is not actually a problem. Because we are not consciously living as it, we suffer from it, and live a life in denial. By making conscious the confusion of our lives it becomes the Mystery of Love. This wound of love is compassion beyond mind.
A Weekend with Saniel & Linda in Portland
July 16-18
Friday 7 pm - Sunday, 4 pm
Space is strictly limited to 16 participants so reserve your spot as soon as you can.
To register for the weekend email: genie@Sanielandlinda.com 1-877-783-3873
Or go to: saniellinda.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=4&i=p399
Price: $497 Some scholarship assistance may be available. Installment payment plans can be generated at the full fee price; contact us at info@sanielandlinda.com.
I am attending Saniel and Linda's upcoming event in Portland on July 16-18, and I am looking for a place to stay over night for the 16th and 17th. So if there is anyone in the Portland area who would be up for housing me for those nights it would be greatly appreciated.
To respond, please email me at jrdnpaige@gmail.com.
Thanks!
Visiting the graves;
The old dog
Leads the way. (Issa)
This Haiku by Issa has always spoken to me so deeply, and perhaps today (I mean this Sunday, not in this day and age) more than ever before. Relaxed visualization get us there. How many times has this sweet old dog visited the human dead already? And what of those following him or her?
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Eduardo's colorful and informative magazine Mutuality Matters can be downloaded below. These are print-ready PDF's—enjoy.
