The Supernatural Backdrop Of The World

This talk, from a Satsang given in January 2023, addresses the supernatural dimension of Reality that our lives are embedded within. This talk highlights the dimension of life that is not normally available to our ordinary sensitivities.

Transcript

The spirit of meditation is a spirit of discovery,

A spirit of radical discovery.

If we're using meditation to simply help some part of our life,

It's good.

Don't get me wrong,

It's good.

But our interest will wane over time.

If we're simply using meditation to feel a little more calm,

Or a little less anxiety,

Or be a little more productive,

It's good.

But our interest over time will wane and we'll find ourselves moving out of meditation.

Or we'll find that a growing disparity arises between our meditation and the rest of our life,

Where we're starting to feel more and more that we can't translate them into each other.

But when a meditation is approached in the spirit of discovery,

Radical discovery,

It becomes a phenomenal journey that we're going on,

Not from here to somewhere else,

But into deeper and deeper dimensions of ourself.

And naturally,

As we encounter deeper and deeper dimensions of ourself,

We begin to encounter deeper and deeper dimensions of reality,

Or truth,

Or life,

Which sometimes has unbelievably practical application.

I mean,

It dawns on us suddenly how to approach a situation in our life that we've been struggling for answers to.

And sometimes it answers the most profound questions,

Like what is life for?

What is the meaning of existence?

Those sorts of things.

But of course,

As this knowledge dawns,

It's not intellectual knowledge.

It's not that a voice starts speaking to you in your head and says,

This is the meaning of life,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Now go tell everybody.

I guess sometimes that can happen.

But more often than not,

It's a subtle sense.

And so our meditation,

If it's accompanied by this radical sense of discovery,

It's informing that sense of this discovery of the subtle.

Because there's a whole world present.

There's a whole mystical and metaphysical background to life that we are ordinarily disconnected from.

We don't see the deeper dimension of life.

We don't feel it.

We don't see it.

We don't hear it.

We don't taste it.

But the moment that that radical discovery opens up in us in a way that is profoundly mystical,

And I mean these words like genuinely,

Not in some kind of new age fashion,

Mystically,

Metaphysically,

Supernaturally,

We begin to experience that there's a whole other dimension of life that we are just simply missing.

And we don't have to have any guilt or remorse or sadness about that.

It's just suddenly like,

Whoa,

I didn't realize it was so colorful here.

I didn't realize it was so vibrant.

I didn't realize there was so much to hear and see.

Beyond even anything we can imagine.

But we will have to be willing to dispense with our reluctance to encounter that deeper dimension of life.

And we are reluctant,

Most of us,

Because it's unfamiliar.

It's unfamiliar.

And what's unfamiliar we tend to encounter as scary or hard.

When we begin to perceive the supernatural metaphysical nature of existence,

Our meditation will no longer,

Our meditation or spiritual practice will no longer be exclusively about how to make our life work better in the material realm.

I don't want to deny that either.

Our life needs to work in the material realm.

We need to be able to make money,

Have relations,

As long as we're living in the world,

Have relationships,

Make money,

Be healthy,

Get sleep,

All of it,

Right?

It's all necessary.

Without frying ourselves and losing it.

We need to be able to do that.

But as the supernatural metaphysical mystical dimension of life opens up to us,

We realize this is about something far more important than just how to make my life work in material ways.

Right?

Both are welcome and necessary.

But unless we have that taste,

Even just a glimpse of that metaphysical nature of existence,

Our interests will see it very wanes.

This is why people don't,

I honestly believe this is why people don't maintain spiritual practice.

Because they haven't gone deep enough to see why it matters.

Because once you get involved in spiritual practice,

You can pretty quickly find out that this doesn't really impact my life practically in any way.

So it becomes hard to tell like why you should keep practicing.

Why you should sit down to meditate each morning.

You know,

When I first moved to,

This is a funny story.

When I first moved to Hood River,

Flo,

When we were downtown,

Had a little gathering.

And I didn't know anybody.

And a guy approached me and he said,

Hey,

What's your name?

You know,

Whatever.

I had just started teaching at Flo.

And he said,

What do you do?

And at the time I was living in a spiritual center.

I didn't know what to say.

I was like,

Well,

At the time I was unemployed,

Too.

I was like,

Well,

I pretty much meditate,

Work,

Eat,

Sleep.

He just looked at me like I was crazy.

Like,

What,

What do you mean?

You know,

And he's like,

What do you say?

He said,

About meditation,

He said,

That's it.

Just meditation is like,

What's the point of meditating?

What's the point?

And in that moment,

I just froze.

I mean,

I was like,

28 years old,

Whatever.

I didn't know what to say.

I was like,

I didn't even know where he was coming from,

Really.

But he's asking me what the point of meditation was.

And it occurred to me in that moment,

I'm never going to be able to convey to this person what the point of meditation is.

Because the only way to convey what the point of meditation is,

Is to taste it,

To taste the point.

And the moment we've had that taste,

Something in us is lit.

It's lit up.

It's awakened.

It's illuminated.

And from there,

Once we have that little taste,

Everything proceeds to grow and expand beyond that.

It's as if we've discovered a secret room in our house that we didn't even know was there.

And now we've seen it.

And it's like,

I just want to go back into that room and find out what's there.

Right.

All these treasures are there.

You know,

You discover you had a basement.

You didn't even know you had a basement.

Right.

And so my hope is,

In conveying this,

That it's inspiring in us something more than a typical American mindset of I just want to quiet my mind so that I can be a little less anxious.

And,

You know,

That's good.

I'm not saying,

You know,

It's great.

I practice that way,

Too.

But there's another dimension possible.

And it's an exciting dimension.

And it's what satsang is for.

It's what this gathering is for,

Is to inspire that,

Encourage that,

Support each other in that,

Tease each other a little bit in that,

Challenge each other a little bit in that,

And find those areas where the supernatural dimension of life starts to become a little more apparent to us.

And in that,

We may find temporarily that it seems highly impractical.

Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching,

He says,

People find my teaching lofty and impractical.

Right.

Because someone who doesn't understand the supernatural dimension of life looks at Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching,

Reading the Tao Te Ching,

Is like,

What good does this do me?

Like,

This doesn't tell me how to make my relationships work or how to make more money or how to get better health.

It doesn't tell me any of that.

So there's a reluctance that occurs in us.

But if we have the eyes to see,

The ears to hear,

The heart to penetrate,

That world opens up to us.

It's a mystical world.

This is not.

.

.

How should I say this?

Water is not water.

The sun is not the sun.

A flower is not a flower.

Right.

It's not what we've been told and learned it is.

Right.

We learn about elements and chemicals and all these things and we think this is life.

This is what is.

.

.

We have lost the mystical dimension of life.

The child still sees the mystical dimension of life.

Everything is wondrous and magical.

Just go look at water for a moment and marvel at what an incredible thing water is,

That it even exists.

And it's water.

It's the most ordinary thing you could possibly imagine.

Right.

But it's wondrous.

We don't see that,

Though,

Because we are out of touch with that supernatural dimension of life.

What we want to open up in our practice is at least a taste of that.

So that water becomes magical and the tree becomes magical and we,

Each other,

Become magical.

Right.

Only when we think that we already know everything about life.

.

.

As soon as we know everything about life,

Life is dead.

Krishnamurti said this.

He said,

You know,

Once you've told the child that that bird they see is a robin,

They'll never see a robin again.

All they see is that description.

All they see is that learned information.

We stop seeing the supernatural world.

The supernatural world is open to the child.

That's why Christ says you have to become as a child again,

So that that world is open up to you.

It's wondrous.

It's amazing.

And I don't mean just physically.

I don't mean just the scenery that we encounter or the relationships,

The whole entourage of experience.

Right.

Even our boredom at a certain point can become phenomenally interesting to examine.

What is this thing called boredom?

It feels scratchy.

It feels bland.

It feels dull.

So meditation then can evoke our interest and allow us to actually become interested in life in the way that the child is interested in life and encountering it deeply.

Have any questions or comments on anything I've said or anything that's in your mind,

On your heart?

Christy,

Would you mind just raising the,

I think in the middle switch there,

There's a dimmer.

Would you mind just pushing it up slightly so we have just a little more light?

Perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah,

That's good.

I can get a little too sleepy.

The light's low.

Okay.

Reviews

Delightful talk and reminder. I love spending time time with my three-and-a-half year old grandson for the aliveness he is at every moment. Supernatural is a lovely way to name that quality. 🙏

It is this way for me yes