Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

A network is a tribe. And a tribe, as I mentioned before, is connected by its secrets. A tribe is not a loose collaboration of beings who just get together in a powwow, who live together or work together. A nation is not a tribe. A family is not a tribe. A racial or ethnic group is not a tribe. Ancestry does not create a tribe, at least not bloodline. What creates a tribe is a bond, a sharing of secrets. Not a secret that could ever be told in any words, but a secret that's much too wonderful for that -- a secret that can only be told by the unfolding of one's life, specifically, your life. This message is addressed to those of you who are part of the network, the tribe of awareness. Those of you who seek to find yourselves. You lie in other dimensions. You live there. This is only a small fraction of your being that's here in this body, in this time and space, on this planet. There are different members of the tribe. The tribe is, of course, divided into male and female in this world. What is male and fe

The school of awareness is the school of mysticism. Mysticism is the experience of eternity, of that which lies beyond the physical phenomenal experience. Not that that is even what it appears to be. Taking a walk isn't really taking a walk, taking a shower isn't taking a shower, living isn't living, dying isn't dying. It only appears to be that way because of the centering of our awareness. So the school of awareness is really perception. Everything is perception. And perception, as you know, is limited by the way that you think. When I say 'think,' I don't simply mean word thoughts -- ideas that come through your mind in terms of language -- I am speaking, and you're hearing my voice. But there's also a language that takes place not only in the conscious mind but in the subconscious. It is a language of categorization -- always trying to fit your experiences into a little box to make everything work out, to make everything seem uniform. Now, magic is not categorical. It is not really uniform. That is wh

Now, here's an interesting point. Awareness becomes aware of itself. Awareness perceives itself, but not always completely. Awareness can think of itself, feel itself, speculate about itself, correctly or incorrectly. It depends on what level or gradient of awareness we're dealing with. You're aware. You're aware that you're seeking power, you're seeking energy. And it's been my experience as one who has sought awareness and continues to do so, that in the beginning, at least, awareness is something that appears to be outside of us. We have the sense that we will be aware when we have traveled, when we have experienced something, when we've met someone, when we've interacted with something or someone. But awareness really is within. Not within the body, certainly -- it's within itself. Awareness is itself. And the way into awareness, well, it's the way into anything and everything, since anything and everything is awareness. Did you know that everything has awareness? Rocks have awareness. Plants have awa

There's no sense as you walk along this road of going anyplace or having been anyplace because this road changes constantly. It's not a road that leads through the hills and you can walk on the road today and tomorrow you'll walk on it and see the same things. It's simply not like that. This is a road that changes every moment. Thousands of realities come in and out of it. In one step you can go through a thousand shifts of attention. And you can't ever take that step again. You can turn around and what you saw behind you before is gone; now turn back to where you just were and there's something else there. You look at yourself and it's someone else -- continuous permutations of the self -- not one ring but many. Now of course, inside the ring there's nothing, and outside the ring there's nothing. The ring is the idea that you hold of yourself. So the thought then, oh nobly born, is to be very, very careful of not being who you are. And the litmus test, the way you can tell that it's happening to you, is ve

A person is made up of awarenesses. These awarenesses all exist in the unknown. Now, of course, we're moving to what don Juan calls 'the sorcerer's explanation,' or it's the explanation of life. All of the awarenesses that have ever been or will ever be exist, he says, like barges floating in the ocean. It's a nice analogy. They're all just floating out there, the only difference is they're not solid barges, and as they're floating in that ocean out there they can actually pass through each other. So you can have 20 barges and they're floating along, but they're so light and so fluid that they can actually go through each other. They are all the time, but they're not in any fixed order. There is no order, it just is, and that's what reality is. It's just infinite awareness, infinite consciousness. At the time of birth, an ordering takes place. Those awarenesses come together. They join and they become specific. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Tonight I would like to talk to you a little bit about spiritual metamorphosis or transformation. Self-discovery is a process of dissolution and creation. We're dissolving what we know to create what we don't know. Dissolution means envelopment in eternity. Creation is bringing into focus new awareness. In self-discovery, as in life itself, we believe that we know who we are. This knowledge changes as we change and develop. One day we think that we're one type of person with certain tendencies, feelings, very emotional perhaps. Another day we feel that we're very cold and aloof. But as we meditate and we go within and still the mind, stop the subterfuge of thought, we become aware of awareness. We see that we're really not one component being, but we're really composed of bodies of awareness, distinct selves. The surface personality, in other words, is only the beginning of what we are. So as we meditate and we still that surface personality, we can see beyond it, and we see that we encompass multitudes Ple

When you meditate, always try and be hopeful, it's very important. It's necessary to realize the infinite possibilities that life offers you at any moment. Most people are engaged in a limited dharma. They are traversing in a given lifetime through a sequence of possible events, but the events are not too widely chartered in the sense that the possible variations within that sequence are limited. Meditation offers us the prospect of changing that. The suggestion is that instead of staying with the destiny that you have now, that you've incurred through previous karmas, actions in this life, and other lives, family, social position, economic or religious background, racial background, it's possible to transcend all of that and within the structure of a lifetime to be born again many times. The Tibetan doctrines are far reaching. They are really very similar in essence, I think, to the doctrines of yoga, Buddhism of different types, Taoism, the very early American Indian religions. There seems to be a common t

All of the various forms of self-discovery, ranging from Zen and Tibetan tantra on through Christianity, Buddhism, whatever it may be, all of them are based on love. While in some forms of self-discovery, love may not be discussed a lot, it's understood to be the basis of all spiritual and religious practice. It is the essence of being and living. When a civilization, a race, a people, a society, when they lack love, they are soon destroyed. Gandhi realized this. Love makes you immortal because it connects the world of mortality that we live in now to the immortal kingdoms of higher existence. Love comes in two forms -- higher love and lower love, or let us say advanced love and the beginning of love.

In addressing this particular topic tonight, you might say I'm addressing all topics because I feel that all topics are found in any singular topic. Once you've learned the art of problem solving, for example, you can solve any problem. The method is transferable. So I feel if we can correctly understand this one subject, we will understand all subjects, whereas if we fail to understand this one subject, we will fail to understand any subject because I feel all subjects in our world are predicated upon this subject. I feel it is that important. Why don't more women attain enlightenment? Why don't more men attain enlightenment? More men than women attain enlightenment. This suggests an imbalance. I would like to address the question-why don't more women attain enlightenment-this evening. But in addressing that question, I'm also addressing the question, why don't more men attain enlightenment? Why don't we live in an enlightened and happy world? Because I feel one is wrapped up in the other and one cannot be

I think it would be a good idea, as you're setting your sails for the land of meditation, to consider wisely, o nobly born, before you venture forth into the bardo of experience, what it is that you're trying to do. Not so much why, because I think the why eludes us all. We may come up with reasons as to why we meditate, why we live, why we die. But ultimately those reasons will not effect what occurs. Those are just panaceas, things that perhaps make us feel better, inspire us. They're neither good nor bad, it depends on their usage. Think of meditation as a summer night. The crickets are chirping, life is going on, with or without us, within or without us. Life is going on, on the stage of life in front of our eyes and senses. In the house next door that we may not be aware of, life is going on-in countries other than our own, in worlds other than ours, distant galaxies. Life exists in the sub-atomic regions, in the quasars. Life is all there is. That's meditation. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundat

God is limitless awareness. There. Now I just told you everything I know about God. A lot of good it did you. You probably knew that already. But do you really know what limitless awareness is? Oh, sure, you can hear me say, "God is limitless awareness." But immediately when you think of God, you have a preconceived cultural notion of who and what God is. Since the time you were born, you were taught about God. If you were taught to believe in God, you were taught what to believe, that God is a certain way and not another way. If you were taught that God doesn't exist, then you were taught about God. Our society dwells on God. God is mentioned on our currency, on the money that we carry in our wallets. God is everywhere, but no one knows about God. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The spiritual process is not at all arbitrary. It's not necessarily sensible, from a structured point of view. But it's not at all arbitrary. A lot of people in self-discovery have this sense that they're involved in some process that they don't understand. That one can't understand. They feel that they're climbing a mountain that never ends. That self realization and liberation is something that will never occur to them, it's some mysterious process. They don't know quite what to do. This is not a helpful way to think or see. Because really, quite the contrary is true. Self-discovery to a certain point is very understandable. Beyond that point it's not understandable, it's knowable. And beyond that point it's something that you become, to the point of dissolution and back again. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

One's progression along the spiritual path is a very, very intricate matter. This evening I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the structure of your being and how this process actually works, with specific recommendations as to what you can do to radically alter your current state of knowledge and awareness. In essence, then, this is a technique-oriented presentation, but I'd like to begin with a consideration of the dynamics of this process. To begin with, the process of self-discovery normally involves, in mysticism, a teacher and a student. In some forms of mysticism, there are two teachers for a student. One is referred to as the teacher, one is the benefactor. The idea is that the teacher prepares the tonal being, the conscious being, whereas the benefactor prepares the superconscious side of one's being, or the nagual. In your case, you have one teacher who does both. There are teachers who teach both sides. Some only teach one. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more informatio

I found that the breakthroughs for me, as I went through school, junior high school and high school, came through sexuality, came through explorations of consciousness, in reading, and loving, through friends. Through time alone in nature, through yogurt (laughter) and through psychedelic experiences. I had been pretty well made a prisoner by school, by society. I had been given this description which I couldn't accept and it's projected from the televisions, the radios. The images of the world, the teachers. Now, I must say, I've been very fortunate, and I can only thank all of those who I have known, because many of the teachers I had were exceptional. All of the teachers, it seems, were exceptional. But I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that all teachers were not like the teachers that I had known. In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom which I didn't see at Woolworths. And so I was drawn to the arts. Because I sensed that I was by nature Bohemian, and yet, ver

Enlightenment, from my point of view, does not involve going into samadhi a few times or having a few satori experiences. Over a period of years of going into samadhi day after day, night after night, for hundreds and thousands of hours, enlightenment takes place. The way I define it is self realization. That is to say, enlightenment doesn't simply mean that you've gone up a few times and seen the white light of eternity and merged with the all. I would say that's a basic level of samadhi. Enlightenment has to do with the erasure of the samskaras, the past life tendencies, after you've gone into samadhi for hundreds and thousands of hours, many, many times over a period of years. This described, let's say, in the biography of Ramakrishna. You know, Ramakrishna didn't suddenly become enlightened. We had years of him meditating, seeking, crying to Mother Kali, going in and out of samadhi, and he would never have referred to himself as enlightened, certainly, in those early stages. But after many years of this

This evening I'd like to talk to you about seeing. Seeing is the ability to tell what really is. There are many different forms of seeing. Some forms of seeing involve apprehending that which is occurring in the world. Other forms of seeing are more esoteric, and they involve the perception of perception itself. Without seeing, it's very difficult to practice self-discovery. You're quite blind. Most people of course, think of seeing as the thing that we do with our eyesight. We're using the word 'seeing' not in that sense at all, but as a metaphor, almost a mixed metaphor, for knowing. Perhaps 'knowing' is a better word. It's a little bit of both. Conditioning is responsible for what our life is. The totality of your life at this time is dependent upon what's happened to you. What's happened to you is your awareness now. Your current awareness is a reflection of everything that has occurred to you since the time you were born. Your awareness is a reflection of the people you've known; the experiences your bo

Tantra is a reconciliation, a joining together. In this universe there appears to be opposition. Opposition is a point of view. Everything is one. There's only one eternal reality. Yet there are two. Man and woman, sun and moon, dark and light, morning and evening, day and night, forward and back, in and out. Tantra is the reconciliation of opposites. Seeing that opposites are complements. Mysticism is the experience of eternity. Beyond the body, in mysticism, a person experiences the spirit world, the alternate planes of reality. Mysticism also is the study of the physical world, but not from the physical perspective. The study is inside out. Everything is viewed from within. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The awareness of liberation is not liberation. The awareness of time is not liberation. The awareness of place, space or condition is not liberation. The smoke from the fire passes through the building and the soot affixes itself to the walls. The smoke passes through the air and keeps going. Liberation. You can't say what it is, but you can sure say what it isn't. And yet everything is in it. If you choose to be free, if you choose to be liberated, if you choose to be what I am, then you've chosen freedom. You can do this. That's my sole purpose in life, just to sit here today and tell you that you can do this. In any life. You can do this in one of your past lives, in a future life, or right now. I prefer now. You have to refine your being. You have to go through all the stages and steps of erasing yourself. Through service to others, with purity, humility, integrity, by going through the things that life gives you to go through, happily. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more informatio

What can you do when all the remedies fail, both spiritual and worldly? What can you do? Well, at such a time, there is a form of yoga you can practice that will enable you to destroy everything, including yourself and your conceptions. And from this destruction will arise a creation, a new force; an energy will enter your life. This yoga is, I suppose, the most dangerous of the yogas. But then again, you get to a point where it really doesn't matter. One can get to a point where nothing is working. We're headed off the cliff, plummeting to the bottom, so why not try one last thing? When you've sunk as low as you can get--or so you think because there's no end to the depths to which you can fall as there is no end to the heights to which you can rise--when you feel, as my grandfather used to say, "lower than a snake's ass,' at such a moment, when everything and nothing works, it's time to practice tantra. Tantra is the left-handed path, meaning it is the road less taken. Tantra comes from the Far East. And

Dharma is the truth. And there are three types of truth. There's the truth of the physical world; there's the truth of the subtle physical world, the astral world; and there's the truth of the superconscious. Truth means everything is in place. Everything fits. In meditation we clean the mirror of the self. The mirror of the self has been covered up with layer after layer of dust. And almost nothing reflects. The mirror in the physical world is not as delicate as the mirror in the subtle physical world. In order to perceive that which lies beyond the physical, we must first understand the physical. Then we can move into the subtle physical. As long as the first mirror is obscured, we will never see the second mirror, let alone the third mirror, which is eternity itself, which is both the mirror and that which we see in the mirror. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.