WEBVTT

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What we are going to describe

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has been called ‘The Secret Of Secrets’,

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the esoteric wisdom that leads to samadhi.

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Samadhi is the goal of all spirituality,

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its union with the source.

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the truth of who or what you are.

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The truth that transcends the limited mind,

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cannot be seen by means of the limited mind.

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The still point cannot be reached

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by means of movement. If you want to

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realize the still point beyond thinking,

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let go of all interest in thoughts and sensations,

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all preferences, all phenomena

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generated by the mind and senses,

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and rest in naked awareness.

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There are two fundamental dimensions

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to existence in this moment.

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There's that which is changing

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and that which is unchanging.

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Thoughts and sensations are a field

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of constantly changing phenomena.

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What is unchanging is the awareness

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of that field of change.

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We are usually so caught up in the field

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of change, fixated on its objects, that we

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ignored the dimension of awareness.

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So we start our investigation by

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becoming aware of awareness,

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being conscious of Consciousness.

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The challenge with resting in awareness

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for long periods of time, is that

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most people have not cultivated

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the concentration and equanimity

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to stay in awareness.

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We are addicted to comfort

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and the limited mind will want

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to escape from this exercise,

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it will find it profoundly uncomfortable

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and will create every type of

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hindrance or distraction.

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There are two primary knots that

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bind us to ego identification.

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The body is attached to comfort

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and the mind wants to know.

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If we continue to seek the comfort

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of the body and continue to seek

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knowing with the mind,

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we will never move beyond the

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limited mind and body.

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We will remain like a herd animal,

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a creature that craves pleasure

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and avoids pain, endlessly responding

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to stimulus, endlessly doing,

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and unaware of the dimension of being.

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To be aware, to be fully attentive to

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what is happening, without the mediation

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of egoic conditioning, without concepts,

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without controlling, manipulating

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or distortion, without the filtering

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of the limited mind,

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is to be present without choosing.

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Present without choosing, and therefore

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without a chooser.

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Every time the mind moves without your

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willing, even the tiniest movement,

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it is due to filtering through the

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conditioning of the self-structure.

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The path leads to cessation of

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the entire whirlpool of mind.

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To realizing all levels of self as empty.

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How do I drop all doing,

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how do I drop mind activity?

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Listen closely, this is the paradox.

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The limited egoic mind hears that

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question and wants to know how,

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but that limited mind can't do it.

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The mind will always fail in any attempt

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to realize stillness, because 
the mind is movement.

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The mind itself is movement,

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it is an endless process of doing.

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We have to make the shift from doing

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to BEING.

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The you that you think you are is a

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process a constant movement,

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a collection of patterns.

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That YOU has to die.

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The pathological pattern of you

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has to end for Samadhi to be realized.

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Let that sink in...

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Spiritual teachers have given

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the instruction to reach Samadhi.

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Be still and know.

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Be still and know the True Self.

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Primordial Awareness beyond name and form.

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Be still and know that you are God.

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What exactly do they mean?

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What is it that becomes still?

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Obviously no one's physical body can

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become absolutely still,

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existing within time and space.

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Because time-space itself is movement.

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Time-space is mind,

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the Universe is big mind or Logos.

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The first Hermetic principle is that

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The All is mind, the Universe is mental.

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If the Universe is mind and mind

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is movement, how can I be still and know?

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How can you be still on a globe spinning

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a thousand miles per hour around its axis,

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spinning 67 000 miles per hour 
around the Sun,

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moving 500 000 miles per hour 
around the Galaxy,

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and millions more through the Universe?

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Your heart is beating, 
cells are moving inside,

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food digesting, the brain 
producing brain waves.

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Your blood is pumping, energy is moving,

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how can we be still?

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When the spiritual Masters say 
'be still and know',

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they must be talking about something else,

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something Beyond time and space,

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something beyond the physical and mental.

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What is meant by stillness is something

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that we have no word for in our 
modern language system.

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The Sanskrit language, the language

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of the yogis, has more precise terms

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which point to the non-dual.

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The term 'shunyata' is often translated

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as ‘voidness’, stillness or emptiness.

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It is what is used in connection

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with 'anata' or no-self,

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the realization of Buddha nature.

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Stillness is maybe the closest 
English word,

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but it is inadequate to describe something

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that is not of this dualistic world.

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What is actually realized is the 
Primordial Consciousness,

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which is beyond stillness and movement,

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beyond time. It is eternal,

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the ground of your being,

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the essential nature of reality

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that does not change. 
Actually it is beyond

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change and the changeless.

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When our true nature is realized

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it becomes obvious that stillness 
and movement

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are a duality created by the Mind,

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silence and noise are a duality 
created by the mind.

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Everything is already inherent within

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that primordial stillness, the movement

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of the world is identical to stillness.

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Be still and know,

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be in motion and know.

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It is all emptiness dancing.

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This is not something philosophical,

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but an entirely different way

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of interfacing with the world.

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Actually it's about dropping 
the interface,

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dropping the reducing valve which is

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the self-structure, and experiencing
your true nature

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unmediated by the limited mind.

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The so-called outer world is transcended

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by realizing stillness, 
which when realized,

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includes that which it transcends.

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The duality of stillness and 
movement collapses.

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Realizing samadhi, this great awakening

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is just the beginning of the path.

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Patanjali says that the entire endeavor

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of yoga is aimed at the cessation

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of the whirlpool of the mind.

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'Chitta vritti nirodha'.

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You could say it is the cessation 
of karma,

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the cessation of deep unconscious patterns

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on many different levels.

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When we realize our true nature,

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we temporarily cease our identification

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and reaction to the mind.

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It's like pulling the plug on a fan.

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When we pulled the plug on a fan,

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inertia of the Fan's blades keeps it

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keeps it going as long as we don't

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plug the fan back in,

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it will eventually come to stillness.

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Karma is simply the tendency for energy

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to follow established pathways.

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When Consciousness slips back
into pattern,

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it's like plugging in the fan.

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Energy follows Consciousness.

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Energy goes back into the old patterns.

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Another way of describing it,

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is through the law of inertia.

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A mind in motion stays in motion,

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unless acted upon by an outside force.

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In the matrix of the conditioned mind

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that we call the Universe,

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energy and thought cycle through fractal

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labyrinths that exist on a Continuum,

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for micro to macro levels,

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branching and exploring endlessly

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All spiritual practice is an intervention,

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an outside force,

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a Consciousness which diverts energy

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from flowing in the conditioned pathways.

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You have to be willing 
to change your life.

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Someone can do all the meditation

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in the world but if they go back to their

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same old patterns,

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their same old routine,

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then the wiring remains in place.

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Our unconscious motivations must be

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excavated and faced.

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If through great perseverance and

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determination, we managed to not plug in

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the fan, then there is an actual

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cessation of the 'vritties'.

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A profound silence that is born

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within the self-structure.

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Every time we identify with and react to

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some preference produced by the mind,

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we plug the fan back in.

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The longer we remain in awareness,

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the more of the samskaras are purified.

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The more the fan slows down,

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and the human vessel becomes

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more permeable to awareness,

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the more we become empty of self.