Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

In the Bhagavad Gita is a discussion-conversation between enlightenment and that which unknowingly seeks enlightenment. Enlightenment is represented by Sri Krishna who is said to be an avatar, which is a human way of trying to define 'very big.' That is to say that Sri Krishna is not from the local area network, but he has come from a world that is different because his mind is different. He glows. He doesn't experience the normal round of circumstances inwardly that most people do. He doesn't experience depression. He doesn't really experience elation as human beings would know it. He doesn't experience the kind of grayness and deadness of the human condition. Instead he lives in a perpetual sunrise. He's self-effulgent. The light that he seeks is not external. He doesn't have to turn to the sun for light, or towards another being or towards a God, because he is self-effulgent radiance. Arjuna, who is the fearless warrior in the story, on the other hand is a very worldly individual, we assume with high pas

The answer is to clean your room. And if your room is clean, that's about that. We seek to do that as Buddhists when we meditate and when we breathe and when we live and when we talk and when we interact and when we're alone. Because we like the way it feels when the room is very simple and very clean because there's no clutter. It isn't that we appreciate that there's no clutter. No clutter opens the window so we can see outside and see eternity, which is very full and very beautiful. But if there's too much clutter in your room, you can't see the room anymore. You see the clutter, you see. If you've ever seen the mind in its immaculate state, in its perfect state, you really don't want to have it all cluttered up because you just see all the clutter. Now, I ask you, do you see your minds? Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

We have a sense that we are participating in metaphysics and the metaphysical experience voluntarily. We're doing it because we're doing it. We've chosen to do it. As you go much further in metaphysics, you discover that that's not true at all. The reason that you're engaged in metaphysics is -- there's no reason, you just don't have any choice. You couldn't stop, no matter what you did. You're held by power. Now, this is a very different view of life. In other words, we believe that we are all people are created equal and we have free choice and all that sort of thing. I like independence and I like that idea, but to be honest with you, in metaphysics, we see as metaphysicians, we perceive that it isn't really we who ever decide anything. It's power that decides things. It's power, if I can enter into the world of the American Indians for just a little bit here, who believe that there's a force that binds life together. There's something that makes everything what it is, and we call it power. In Buddhism,

The best meditation I ever had, I haven't had yet. It's in the future, which as anyone knows doesn't exist -- anyone who meditates knows. But yet, I'll have it some day. The best lifetime I've ever experienced hasn't occurred yet. I've had billions of lives. I've been around the universe almost as long as the universe, I think. I remember my lives; you don't. Or you remember a few. I remember a billion. And I've had wonderful lives. I've had wonderful lives, beautiful lives, lives of struggle, lives of battle, lives of ecstasy. I've had beautiful lives, and this is a beautiful life I'm in now. It's a hard life, as they go, but it's a beautiful life. But I haven't had the best lifetime yet. It's around the corner, I know it is. It hasn't occurred yet because things get better in infinity as we get better. And in each lifetime we get better. The universe is always ecstasy and it's always perfect. But we don't perceive it that well. And if we keep doing our yoga in every lifetime, we perceive it more correctl

When a person has become used to meditating on a regular basis and the practice has become a part of your life, we reach a kind of threshold that some people don't cross. Initially, when you begin to meditate, it's challenging, it's difficult just to get yourself to sit down once or twice a day to do it. Then you begin to see results. There's more energy in your life, your mind works better, your body feels better, things appear to be brighter, you have more enthusiasm, your awareness shifts, you start to become a little bit clairvoyant, you can see inside people, see inside yourself and you just see there's a rise of your power. Everything in your life begins to come together. Then what happens is the practice becomes a practice. It becomes something that is a routine, and each meditation may be fulfilling and you don't stop because if you did, you'll notice the days are not as bright. So meditation becomes something that we have to do because the loss of it reduces our energy level. But it's not something

The practice of meditation is emptying the mind. When the mind is empty, completely empty, it's perfect meditation. It's really that simple. There are a variety of different approaches to emptying the mind. All of them work equally well. We can just stay with one; we can use a number of them. It really doesn't matter; it's a question of personal choice. What we're doing is stopping thought. But really, before that, we're learning to control thought. And really, before that, we're learning just to sit down and focus on something. I have a simple prescription method for learning how to meditate, which, if you do it, works very, very well. The main thing that you need is not really creativity but consistency. Creativity is a nice quality but it doesn't have much to do with learning to stop thought. Consistency does. Consistency really involves just doing something once, each time, and not thinking about time or space or repetition. You just live it once. Forever. And that's consistency. That's perfect consisten

Meditation is the art of breathing-breathing out and breathing in. The universe, which is beyond understanding and description, is always breathing out and breathing in. It breathes in our lives and then it breathes them out. It breathes in dimensions, beings, feelings, understandings, mind itself. It breathes it in and breathes it out. We could say that life is a cycle, but that implies there's something that is observing it or that's outside of the cycle. There's really only breathing. It's very simple, really. Meditation is a process in which we're essentially, at first, breathing out. We're exhaling. We're taking all the thoughts, impressions, feelings, vibrations, understandings, all the self-importance, attitudes, desires, loves, hates, passions, dispassions, meanings, lack of meanings, confused states, illumined states, bored states-we're taking everything-the concept of everything, that which perceives everything, that which is beyond perception, that which is beyond perceiving-everything must go. We

I like computers. I've got a few of them, and I keep them around the house. Sometimes they're turned on, sometimes they're turned off. I like them as much when they're off as when they're on. I just like computers. They're like pets -- but you don't have to feed them too much, a little electricity once in a while. But they're nice. Sometimes I get different ones just because I like the way they look. They're just fun to have around the house. I like their aura. I like their energy. I like the energy of computers. Computer science is very interesting from an occultist's point of view because it has to do with zeros and ones -- it has to do with analysis. In order to experience enlightenment, in order to be enlightened, to be enlightenment, in order to raise into upper gradients of pure celestial light, it is necessary to refine the mind completely. The issue is style. There is style in fashion, but there is style in states of mind. Some people are connoisseurs of states of mind, just as some people are conno

The thing about Buddhism is that it stresses attainment of something ineffable, and I think this is where it differs from other religions in that it's more correct. We live in a world with promises of paradise. Everyone is telling us that if we will only have a certain experience, amass a certain amount of belongings, become rich and famous, whatever it is, we will be happy. And there are people who tell us that just the opposite is true -- if we give up all that and we live a life of chastity, simplicity, poverty -- sort of doing penance -- that creates happiness. Those two schools of thought are very prevalent. But Buddhism endorses both of those schools and says, sure, you can go through that path of giving things up, and it will create a certain momentum and discipline for you to go beyond the limited perceptions that you currently have or, you can have it all and go beyond the limited perceptions that you now have. Buddhism's focus, in other words, if it's advanced Buddhism, is really not on how to live

There's a feeling that occurs sometimes when you're standing at sunset looking out into the horizon, where you just slip away from all of this and all of that. You're at a party. It's Christmas. Everybody's busy, everybody's having a good time and they're celebrating. For a moment you go out on the balcony and the sun is setting and you just look at the sky. You slip away from all the noise, all the good times, all the beautiful men and women. You just go outside by yourself and you slide the glass door behind you and you just look outside, and for a moment, the noise, the excitement, the hubbub vanishes, and there's a stillness. The stillness isn't the end of things, it's the beginning. It's always the beginning. You step into that stillness and you just go away. There's a feeling that comes up which cannot be expressed in words, and that feeling transports you beyond this world to other worlds, other realms, to different places inside your mind, maybe. And that feeling is so perfect and so complete, it's b

There are two ways to become enlightened -- the easy way and the hard way. I suppose that could be true of anything. The easy way is through a complete focus on that which is most positive. The hard way is through a focus on that which is negative. Both positive and negative come from the same source. So if you follow either path, the path of affirmation or negation, eventually you'll come to the source, if you follow them to the source. But positive and negative, what we call yin and yang, light and dark, are circles. In the Far East, we look at life in terms of circles. In the West, they look at life more in terms of squares and rectangles. We look at life more as circles. In the West when you talk about yin and yang, people normally think of yin and yang as something that's linear. There's a single line, which is yin, and juxtaposed to it is a single line, which is yang. But in the East we tend to think of yin and yang as circles. They're two circles that actually can lie on top of each other, yet they re

Astrology is the science of time and space. It is the science of karma. It has to do with places in which you locate your body and energy fields that affect you. What we seek to do is push all energy fields away from our bodies so that we can perceive life perfectly and clearly. Astrology is an indicator of karma. You're born in a certain geographic place, in a certain dimension. At the moment of your birth, a variety of energies are present and they lock at the moment of birth for you. From that moment on, there are only the various choices one can make from that location, from those energies, with whatever you enter an incarnation with, which is karma--with the knowledge you have, with the knowledge you don't have, with the tendencies you have and the tendencies you don't have. Astrology offers us the possibilities. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Spirituality is breaking the link between the mortal and the immortal consciousness. The mortal consciousness is the awareness of time and space through a body and a perceptual sensorial field. The immortal consciousness is nothing that can be described in words. Divinity does not require humanity's understanding. It exists because it exists because it exists. Humanity is terribly limited in its understanding of anything and everything. As long as humanity chooses to avoid divinity, it suffers. But divinity does not. Since it is immortal, pure and perfect, it is beyond suffering. Its self-luminescent light propels itself through infinity without any abrasion. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

I've read a lot about enlightenment and thought about it quite a bit, and I find that it doesn't have much to do with enlightenment. Now fortunately, I can see both sides of the coin since I happen to be enlightened and I've gone through that training process that culminates in the dissolution of the finite self in the white light of eternity. But at the same time, I'm an avid reader and I like to ponder things, so it's kind of fun to step in and out. And I notice that the two are not really the same. The description and the reality are very different. Enlightenment is a timeless void. It's an emptiness that's filled with the most excellent light. That light is suffused through every part of your being. It is your being. There's no sense of separation between yourself and the light. There's no self but the light. That's enlightenment -- timeless, stillness, perfection. It's not in the words, it's in my voice. It's in the voice of anyone who has crossed that frontier of self, taken a big machete and gone afte

Our subject is freedom. It's always the same. How do we become free, free from the limitations of dimensionality? The way we become free is simple, and it's complicated. It's simple in theory, that is to say, all we have to do is stop our thoughts. When thought stops, a doorway opens into dimensions that are pure and unassociated. They're nonbinding realities. They're non-samskaric, which simply means that they're beautiful, they're ecstatic. The consciousness of the worlds that we can get to through thought-those dimensions are very limited. They're limited by time and space, a sense of past, present and future. We seek a freedom we haven't experienced yet, and we seek an ecstasy we haven't known. Mostly, I think, we seek our own innocence, a state of joy in which we don't feel age, a body, desires or aversions. There's a very pure feeling of beingness, of aliveness that's always there. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

There's no end to enlightenment. That's the good news, of course. We call the Buddha someone whose mind has become so integrated with the deeper levels and structures of infinite mind and infinite being that there is only reality for them. There is no delusion of any type. Yet they come into a body, take on an incarnate form, experience the joys, the sufferings, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, all that sort of thing. In Buddhism we like to talk about our Buddhas. We've named our 'ism' after one. But the theory is that we are all incarnate Buddhas. We just have not realized deeply, not simply philosophically or in thought, we have not moved the mind, what our friend Don Juan calls the assemblage point, to that deep a level. The idea is that you can move the assemblage point, where the mind joins together and creates life, to deeper and ever deeper points of understanding and perception. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The universe is in your hands. It's in your hands, it's in your eyes, it's in your feet, it's in your breasts, it's in your back, it's in your body. There's a wonderful scene in 'The Last Temptation of Christ' where Christ is on the ground and he's writhing and God is inside him. And it's not pleasant; it hurts. This is a very different point of view than we get in the usual stories about Jesus in the Bible. It has upset some people, but there's some truth to it. Spiritual growth and development is at times very painful. At times it's difficult, like any growth and development. But there needs to be a recognition of who we are and what we are and what the truth is. The truth is that the universe is in our hands and it's in our body. Self-discovery and enlightenment is not something that is outside of us physically. It's here. We are it, and it's in everything. Everything is the eye of God. God is in everything, and God is everything. To not see that is to be blind. There's a resonance inside us, a sense of

There are six worlds. There's the world of enlightenment, the world of the unmanifest, the world of good intentions, the world of desire -- that's this world, the human world. There's a world of astral spirits and beings that are very, very unhappy, and then there's a world of such complete nescience, of such complete darkness, that one doesn't even recognize that it's a world. The world of enlightenment is not a world per se in that, obviously, we're discussing nirvana. It's nonstructural, nonbonding, noncausal, nonatomic -- no chemical makeup. It's the extant portion of that which is. That's where I happen to reside and come from. I've come from there to here, into a physical formation. But where I come from, there are no sunrises and sunsets, there are no todays and tomorrows and yesterdays. There's none of this. There's no duality. There are no other worlds. It's a timeless, perfect, extant, non-bonding reality. Non-bonding means non-karmic. No cause and effect. No structural basis for anything. Buddhis

When you look into a pond or a lake, if there's no wind, then it's a mirror. It's perfectly still. If we throw a rock in, then ripples in concentric circles extend outward. The image changes. Enlightened mind is often compared to a lake, a pond without ripples. But I don't think that that's completely correct. Because I think enlightened mind also is a lake or a pond with ripples. We throw a rock into a lake and the pure serenity is disturbed. The ripples cascade; they come and go and then everything becomes still again. I think that's better. It's more like enlightened mind. Enlightened mind is not just serenity. Serenity is an idea. Enlightened mind is beyond ideas. No matter what we think about or how we conceptualize enlightened mind, we're always going to be looking at an image or a picture, not enlightened mind. In all the scriptures it says that enlightened mind is beyond the mind's knowledge. You can't know intellectually what it is. You can't imagine what it is. It's beyond knowing, beyond imagina

How do you become a winner? What is the Zen of winning? Well, the Zen of winning starts out, of course, as all Zen practice does, with a central idea or reality, if you prefer, of nothing. Everything is nothing. The way of nothingness is the way of Zen, or we could say the way of everythingness is the way of Zen. It's just a term. The contemplation of nothingness or everythingness is where everything starts. There's a still center to the universe. Within that still center are all things, all achievements, all losses, all gains, all states of mind. Everything and nothing exist there. When you place yourself in harmony with that, that is to say, when you become aware, consciously, of the still center of being, you've won. All that stands between you and that are your uncontrolled thoughts, uncontrolled desires, attachments, aversions, your conceptions, your sense of a past, ideations of the future, your sense of self, tendencies from this and other lives. When all those things are erased, there is nothing but