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#1437 - Thursday, May 22, 2003 - Editor: Jerry  

THE SHAUMBRA SYMPTOMS
Twelve Signs of Your Awakening Divinity

By Geoffrey Hoppe and Tobias
http://www.crimsoncircle.com/  

Body aches and pains, especially in the neck, shoulder and back. This is the
result of intense changes at your DNA level as the "Christ seed" awakens
within. This too shall pass.

Feeling of deep inner sadness for no apparent reason. You are releasing your
past (this lifetime and others) and this causes the feeling of sadness. This
is similar to the experience of moving from a house where you lived in for
many, many years into a new house. As much as you want to move into the new
house, there is a sadness of leaving behind the memories, energy and
experiences of the old house. This too shall pass.

Crying for no apparent reason. Similar to #2 above. It's good and healthy to
let the tears flow. It helps to release the old energy within. This too
shall pass.

Sudden change in job or career. A very common symptom. As you change, things
around you will change as well. Don't worry about finding the "perfect" job
or career right now. This too shall pass. You're in transition and you may
make several job changes before you settle into one that fits your passion.

Withdrawal from family relationships. You are connected to your biological
family via old karma. When you get off the karmic cycle, the bonds of the
old relationships are released. It will appear as though you are drifting
away from your family and friends. This too shall pass. After a period of
time, you may develop a new relationship with them if it is appropriate.
However, the relationship will be based in the new energy without the karmic
attachments.

Unusual sleep patterns. It's likely that you'll awaken many nights between
2:00 and 4:00 AM. There's a lot of work going on within you, and it often
causes you to wake up for a "breather." Not to worry. If you can't go back
to sleep, get up and do something rather than lay in bed and worry about
humanly things. This too shall pass.

Intense dreams. These might include war and battle dreams, chase dreams or
monster dreams. You are literally releasing the old energy within, and these
energies of the past are often symbolized as wars, running to escape and
boogiemen. This too shall pass.

Physical disorientation. At times you'll feel very ungrounded. You'll be
"spatially challenged" with the feeling like you can't put two feet on the
ground, or that you're walking between two worlds. As your consciousness
transitions into the new energy, you body sometimes lags behind. Spend more
time in nature to help ground the new energy within. This too shall pass.

Increased "self talk." You'll find yourself talking to your Self more often.
You'll suddenly realize you've been chattering away with yourself for the
past 30 minutes. There is a new level of communication taking place within
your being, and you're experiencing the tip of the iceberg with the
self-talk. The conversations will increase, and they will become more fluid,
more coherent and more insightful. You're not going crazy, you're just
Shaumbra moving into the new energy.

Feelings of loneliness, even when in the company of others. You may feel
alone and removed from others. You may feel the desire to "flee" groups and
crowds. As Shaumbra, you are walking a sacred and lonely path. As much as
the feelings of loneliness cause you anxiety, it is difficult to relate to
others at this time. The feelings of loneliness are also associated with the
fact that your Guides have departed. They have been with you on all of your
journeys in all of your lifetimes. It was time for them to back away so you
could fill your space with your own divinity. This too shall pass. The void
within will be filled with the love and energy of your own Christ
consciousness.

Loss of passion. You may feel totally disimpassioned, with little or no
desire to do anything. That's OK, and it's just part of the process. Take
this time to "do no-thing." Don't fight yourself on this, because this too
shall pass. It's similar to rebooting a computer. You need to shut down for
a brief period of time in order to load the sophisticated new software, or
in this case, the new Christ-seed energy.

A deep longing to go Home. This is perhaps the most difficult and
challenging of any of the conditions. You may experience a deep and
overwhelming desire to leave the planet and return to Home. This is not a
"suicidal" feeling. It is not based in anger or frustration. You don't want
to make a big deal of it or cause drama for yourself or other. There is a
quiet part of you that wants to go Home. The root cause for this is quite
simple. You have completed your karmic cycles. You have completed your
contract for this lifetime. You are ready to begin a new lifetime while
still in this physical body. During this transition process, you have an
inner remembrances of what it is like to be on the other side. Are you ready
to enlist for another tour of duty here on Earth? Are you ready to take on
the challenges of moving into the New Energy? Yes, indeed you could go Home
right now. But you've come this far, and after many, many lifetimes it would
be a shame to leave before the end of the movie. Besides, Spirit needs you
here to help others transition into the new energy. They will need a human
guide, just like you, who has taken the journey from the old energy into the
new. The path you're walking right now provides the experiences to enable
you to become a Teacher of the New Divine Human. As lonely and dark as your
journey can be at times, remember that you are never alone.

The Global Spiritual Network  

Photo from Fireceremony's Live Journal: "Beautiful sunset in a Silent Hill diner."
More photos from Silent Hill at http://www.livejournal.com/users/fireceremony/284757.html#cutid1  

Five Steps to Enlightenment  

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/books/mws/mws_ch-13.html  

Step by step, practice withdrawal of the mind and look inward.
One by one, you will witness the myriad good things within.
Now and here below, you may meet the Lord for whom the ancient
Veda still searches everywhere.  

Tirumantiram 578  

Step One: Attention  

The grand old man of the East who ordained me, Jnanaguru
Yoganathan, Yogaswami of Jaffna, used to say time and time
again, "It was all finished long ago." It's finished already.
The whole mind is finished, all complete, in all stages of
manifestation. Man's individual awareness flows through the
mind as the traveler treads the globe.  

Now we come to the real study, and this applies right to you
and to you personally: the five steps on the path of
enlightenment. What are they? Attention, concentration,
meditation, contemplation and Self Realization. Those are the
five steps that awareness has to flow through, gaining
strength each time, on the path to enlightenment. When we
first start, awareness is flowing through many areas of the
mind. And if it is a mature awareness, we will say it's a
great big ball of light, flowing through the mind. And if it's
not a mature awareness, it's like a little ping-pong ball,
bouncing around. The little ping-pong ball awareness is not
going to walk the path of enlightenment, so to speak. It's
going to bobble around in the instinctive mind, incarnation
after incarnation, until it grows to a great big ball, like a
great big beach ball. Then finally it will have enough
experiences flowing through the mind to turn in on itself.
When this happens, certain faculties come into being. One of
them is willpower. And we learn to hold attention. We learn to
hold awareness at attention. Awareness: attention!  

What is attention? Attention is the first of the five steps on
the path, that is, holding awareness steady, centralized in
only one area of the mind, and the area that we choose it to
be in, not the area that someone else has chosen it to be in.
Our awareness is moved around by other people through the mind
at such a fast rate that we think we are moving awareness
ourself, so to speak. That's a funny way to talk because I'm
saying we move awareness as if awareness is something else,
other than us. But awareness and energy and willpower are all
the same thing. So, we will just call it awareness from here
on out. When other people move awareness through one area or
another, we call that distraction, or worldly distractions.
The mission is to move awareness yourself. How do you learn to
do that? By holding it at attention.  

How does attention work? Attention is awareness poised like a
hummingbird over a flower. It doesn't move. The flower doesn't
move, and awareness becomes aware of the flower -- poised. The
entire nerve system of the physical body and the functions of
breath have to be at a certain rhythm in order for awareness
to remain poised like a hummingbird over a flower. Now, since
the physical body and our breath have never really been
disciplined in any way, we have to begin by breathing
rhythmically and diaphragmatically, so that we breathe out the
same number of counts as we breathe in. After we do this over
a long period of time -- and you can start now -- then the
body becomes trained, the external nerve system becomes
trained, responds, and awareness is held at attention.  

Step Two: Concentration  

Then we automatically move into the next step, concentration.
The hummingbird, poised over the flower, held at attention,
begins to look at the flower, to concentrate on it, to study
it, to muse about it, not to be distracted by another flower
-- that is then awareness moving. Awareness distracted, here,
is awareness simply moving to another flower, or moving to
another area of the mind.  

Give up the idea that thoughts come in and out of your mind
like visitors come in and out of your house. Hold to the idea
that it is awareness that moves, rather than the thoughts that
move. Look at awareness as a yo-yo at the end of a string. The
string is hooked to the very core of energy itself, and
awareness flows out and it flows in. Awareness might flow out
toward a tree and in again, and then out toward a flower and
then in again, and down toward the ground and then in again.
This wonderful yo-yo of awareness -- that is a good concept to
grasp in order to become more acquainted with awareness.
Awareness held at attention can then come into the next
vibratory rate and concentrate.  

Take a flower and place it in front of you. Breathe deeply as
you sit before it. Simply look at it. Don't stare at it and
strain your eyes. But simply become aware of it. Each time
awareness moves to some other area of the mind, with your
willpower move awareness back and become aware of the flower
again. Keep doing this until you are simply aware of the
flower and not aware of your body or your breath. Then begin
to concentrate on the flower. That is the second step. Think
about the flower. Move into the area of the mind where all
flowers exist in all phases of manifestation, and concentrate
on the flower. Move from one area to another -- to where all
stems exist, to the stem of that particular flower, to the
root that that particular flower came from, and to the seed.
Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate on the flower. This is
what concentration is -- remaining in the thought area of the
particular item that you are aware of and flowing through the
different color and sound vibrations of the thoughts. How does
it work? The powers of concentration -- it is only a name.
Actually, what is happening is you are flowing awareness
through the area of the mind which contains the elements which
actually made that particular flower, and you are perceiving
how all those elements came together.  

Step Three: Meditation  

After we are able to hold awareness hovering over that which
we are concentrating upon, we come into great powers of
observation. We are able to look into and almost through that
which we are concentrating upon and observe its various parts
and particles, its action and its reaction, because we are not
distracted. Even observation in daily life, as a result of
regular participation in the practice of concentration, comes
naturally. We are able to see more, hear more, feel more. Our
senses are more keen and alive. Observation is so necessary to
cultivate, to bring awareness fully into the fullness of
meditation.  

This leads us then into our very next step, meditation.
Meditation and concentration are practically the same thing,
though meditation is simply a more intense state of
concentration. The state of meditation is careful, close
scrutiny of the individual elements and energies which make up
that flower. You are scrutinizing the inner layers of the
mind, of how a flower grows, how the seed is formed. You are
observing it so keenly that you have forgotten that you are a
physical body, that you are an emotional unit, that you are
breathing. You are in the area of mind where that flower
exists, and the bush that it came from, and the roots and the
seed and all phases of manifestation, all at the same time.
And you are seeing it as it actually is in that area of the
mind, where the flower is that you first put awareness at
attention upon, then began to concentrate upon. Then you are
meditating on the actual inner area of the mind where, in all
stages of manifestation, that particular species actually is
within the mind.  

Step Four: Contemplation  

Out of meditation, we come into contemplation. Contemplation
is concentrating so deeply in the inner areas of the mind in
which that flower and the species of it and the seed of it and
all exist. We go deeper, deeper, deeper within, into the
energy and the life within the cells of the flower, and we
find that the energy and the life within the cells of the
flower is the same as the energy within us, and we are in
contemplation upon energy itself. We see the energy as light.
We might see the light within our head, if we have a slight
body consciousness. In a state of contemplation, we might not
even be conscious of light itself, for you are only conscious
of light if you have a slight consciousness of darkness.
Otherwise, it is just your natural state, and you are in a
deep reverie. In a state of contemplation, you are so intently
alive, you can't move. That's why you sit so quietly.  

Yogaswami once said, "I went in and in and in, so deep within,
that a bird was sitting on my head." That is the type of
teaching he would give to cause people to think that the
physical body was so quiet, and quiet for so long, that a bird
was just sitting on his head, didn't even know it was a man
sitting there -- "I went in and in and in and in so deeply
that a bird was sitting on my head." Go in and in and in and
in so deeply that a bird could sit on your head, through the
stages of attention, concentration, meditation and
contemplation of the inner energies of the universe itself.  

When you are in the mind of energy, in that rarefied
consciousness, you are not conscious of the Earth or any
planets. You are just conscious of the stratum of energy that
runs through Earth, space and planets. It's not even really
energy. We are only conscious of energy when we are conscious
of something that seems to be not energy. However, this is
contemplation, the very source of that which is within and
running through form.  

Step Five: Self Realization  

This, then, leads to samadhi, the very deepest samadhi, where
we almost, in a sense, go within one atom of that energy and
move into the primal source of all. There's really nothing
that you can say about it, because you cannot cast that
concept of the Self, or that depth of samadhi, you cannot cast
it out in words. You cannot throw it out in a concept, because
there are no areas of the mind in which the Self exists, and
yet, but for the Self the mind, consciousness, would not
exist.   You have to realize It to know It; and after you realize It,
you know It; and before you realize It, you want It; and after
you realize It, you don't want It. You have lost something.
You have lost your goal for Self Realization, because you've
got it.   I realized, went through that deep samadhi, right through
these steps. I was taught these steps at a very young age:
attention, concentration, meditation and contemplation, and
then into the very deepest, deepest samadhi. After I went
through that, I came out into contemplation, into meditation,
into concentration, and thought, "How simple. Where was I,
wandering around all this time, not to have been able to
perceive and be the obvious?" The Chhandogya Upanishad
expresses it so beautifully: "The Infinite is below, above,
behind, before, to the right, to the left. I am all this. This
Infinite is the Self. The Self is below, above, behind,
before, to the right, to the left. I am all this. One who
knows, meditates upon and realizes the truth of the Self --
such a one delights in the Self, revels in the Self, rejoices
in the Self. He becomes master of himself and master of all
the worlds. Slaves are they who know not this truth. He who
knows, meditates upon and realizes this truth of the Self
finds that everything -- primal energy, ether, fire, water and
all the other elements, mind, will, speech, sacred hymns and
scriptures, indeed the whole universe -- issues forth from it"
(7.25.1-2; 7.26.1, UPP, P. 118.) 

SVCS
I Am  

Can someone here tell me that on practicing
self-enquiry what are the changes that a person undergoes?

Namaste Kapil,

Thank you for the question. There are indeed some changes a person
undergoes on practising self-enquiry. However the changes vary from
person to person. For example, if we discuss about how ppl like a
movie. For this illustration let's take the movie 'Signs'. Some
people absolutely love it. Some people are die hard fans. Some people
think it's an 'okay' movie. Some others think it's stupid.

For any movie as a matter of fact, you'll have die hard fans, ppl who
love it, people who think it's okay, and ppl who think it's lousy.
The success of the movie depends on the ratio of each category. The
more love the movie, the more the movie is a hit and vice versa.

If we observe in the above illustration, the movie remains the same.
However the way people like it depends on their temperament.
Depending on each one's temperament, their perspective changes, and
consequently their liking too changes, in spite of the movie
remaining unchanged to all the viewers.

So too, the truth is the same. However the changes that are seen in
us and the way we react to it varies from person to person and
depends on various factors like :
1. purva vasanas (latent inherent tendencies)
2. present mental make up
3. tenacity
4. how serious and sincere we are in our practise
5. the intensity of the practise etc

Thus we can never say what changes a person can inculcate on
practicising self-enquiry. However, the final destination is the same
for all, i.e Self- Realization.

I also wish to add one of Maharshi's answers to a devotee. ( I cannot
trace the text, so I'm writing the following in my own words)
Devotee: Bhagavan, I'm practising self-enquiry for so many years, yet
I do not see any progress.
Bhagavan : How do you know that there is no progress? There is a
progress but it may not be discernable.

Saying so Maharshi encourages him to continue his practise.

On another occasion Maharshi said:
People who look for specific results from meditation but do not get
them, become discouraged and conclude that meditation has done them
no good; to them the Sage says: "It does not matter at all whether
these results are attained or not. The attainment of steadiness is
the main thing; it is the great gain. Anyhow they must trust
themselves to God and wait for His Grace without impatience. The same
rule applies to japa also; japa uttered even once does good, whether
the person is aware of it or not."

What is more important is the practise itself. If the work is done
well, the changes will come on their own accord.

Hari Aum !!!

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