Namaste everyone.
What is the spiritual food that sets you free?
What feeds you in life?
Without food the body perishes,
The body dies without food,
Water,
Nourishment.
But what is the food of liberation?
What is the food that sets you free from the turmoil of your mind?
There's an ancient story of mana,
The food of God.
And mana came down from heaven to feed the people of Israel once they escaped slavery,
Once they escaped the bondage of the pharaoh,
Right?
This is the ancient story of Moses,
The exodus,
Right?
So the food that they needed was provided by God.
Mana is the bread from heaven,
The bread from the invisible omniscience,
Right?
And what's interesting about the story is the bread could not be saved.
If you tried to keep the bread,
The mana,
It would rot.
It would be filled with worms the next day,
Moldy,
No good.
So it was only good in the moment.
So each day they had to collect the mana and trust that it would be provided the next day.
So it's a teaching.
Mana is of the moment and it's total trust in the omniscience to nourish.
And in this case it was nourishing the physical,
The physical body.
It's what they survived on for 40 years in the desert,
Right?
Until they made it to the Promised Land.
And Martin Luther in his famous sermon said,
I have climbed the mountain and I have seen the Promised Land,
But I might not get there with you.
And he's really talking about this mana,
This total trust in the omniscience.
And Jesus is famous for saying,
Well,
Your elders ate mana in the desert,
But they died.
The bread that I am offering you leads to eternal life.
I am the bread.
So is he talking about himself?
What is he talking about?
The bread of life.
I am the bread of life.
Eat this and you will have eternal life.
And this bread is my body.
And this wine is the life,
The eternal life.
So he's also talking about an exodus.
So Moses was freeing the people from the bondage of slavery.
Jesus manifested to free everyone from the bondage of the mind,
The bondage of the senses,
The bondage of the intellect.
This is the same teaching as Ramana Maharshi.
The difference is Ramana is the code breaker.
You've heard me say that before.
He's the code breaker.
If you apply the teaching of self-inquiry,
And that includes the mantra,
That includes meditation,
And that includes the question,
Who am I?
All of it is an inquiry into the source.
The source is the bread of life.
So I am is the name of God.
I am that I am.
And Ramana said this name is the perfect name for God.
I am that I am.
This is what Moses heard on Mount Sinai.
And this is an ancient event.
It's actually more than a story.
An event is something that happened that is eternal.
It was a realization,
A revelation of God.
The revelation of God is eternal.
Your own revelation of this bread that leads to eternal life in your heart sets you free from the bondage of your own mind.
This is the great gift of Ramana.
It's not about religion.
It's about realization.
What is it that sets you free from the suffering of your mind?
What is it that you long for?
There is a longing in every human being for happiness.
And that longing initially leads us out into the world to get,
To get whatever it is we think we want,
Position,
Title,
Power,
Money,
Things.
But all of that is the land of bondage.
It keeps you trapped in the ego mind,
The genetic mind,
The ego,
The senses,
Right?
It doesn't produce any lasting happiness.
Even if you have profound moments of joy that last for a while,
They have a beginning,
A middle and an end.
So really this bread of life in your own heart is eternal if you eat of this bread.
So how do you eat bread that lives in your heart?
It's not like a loaf of bread sitting on a shelf or a manna falling down from the sky,
Right?
What is the bread of life in your heart?
And how do you partake of this?
And to eat the bread of life is to recognize that you are the life.
When you ingest bread,
When you eat bread,
There is an alchemy,
Right,
Of the human body,
A natural alchemy that transforms the bread into life.
Without bread,
Without food,
You would die.
And you can live and also die in the trap of your senses,
The ego and the genetic mind.
So really what Ramana is saying is eat this living bread of the heart by recognizing instantly that you are that living essence.
You are that which is the alchemy,
Right?
You are that which is the alchemy that frees you from the bondage of your mind,
The bondage generated by your ego and the genetics of mind or genetic mind,
Which is this fight to be right,
The fight to survive,
The pursuit of pleasure comes from the genetic mind.
But the food that feeds you eternally is this living presence,
The living bread,
The presence of God in the heart.
And this is really what Jesus was talking about because the name I AM is God,
Pure presence,
Omniscience.
So I AM is everything.
It is the omniscience,
The living presence in your heart.
And Ramana just reveals in a very profound and simple way that you are that.
And to ingest that is to let go of the mind,
Stop giving your mind attention,
Stop believing your mind.
Everything the mind thinks ultimately is a lie that leads you away from the bread of eternal life which lives in your heart.
So to partake of that offering of love,
This bread of life,
Is to give your attention fully,
Completely to your own heart.
And the question,
Who am I,
Takes you directly to the source,
Directly to the source of the mana in the desert and the mana that's in your own heart,
The living bread,
The eternal presence.
And one bite of this bread sets you free and this is Ramana's gift,
The instant realization that you are the eternal life,
Present in your heart,
Deeper than the feeling I AM me.
You are the living eternal light that is not separate from anything or anyone.
You are the living bread that sets you free from the bondage generated by your mind and your belief in your own mind.
It's this inner dialogue that can happen so fast you don't even realize you've had a thought.
All you know is that you're angry,
You're unhappy,
You're sad,
You're mean,
You're frustrated,
You're rude,
You're judgmental,
You're gossiping.
But does gossiping feed you deeply,
Intimately?
Does it satisfy the longing for God,
The longing for freedom,
The longing for happiness?
Does anything in the world satisfy that deep inner longing?
And this is part of the inquiry that you must ask yourself.
Is the longing satisfied by stuff in the world,
By money,
By power?
Is the longing satisfied with thought?
Is the longing satisfied with gossiping and judging other people?
Is it satisfied by being rude and arrogant and mean?
What satisfies the longing is the love in your heart,
But not as a love that you seek in the world or physical union with other.
The love,
The eternal bread is who you are,
Deeper than name and form.
And when you realize this intimately,
Deeply for yourself,
There is such joy,
Happiness,
Love,
Peace,
Compassion as that.
So you're not trying to be compassionate because you are compassion.
You're not trying to get love because you are love.
You're not trying to get peaceful because you are peace.
And from that flows the natural compassion of love in the heart.
Really Christ,
Jesus,
Was an avatar,
An embodiment,
A divine master of love.
The convergence of sat,
Chit,
Ananda,
Sat,
Existence,
Chit,
Consciousness,
Ananda,
Joy.
Joy beyond all ideas of joy because the joy that is revealed when you eat the mana of your heart,
This love that you are,
When you recognize you are love,
This is the alchemy of salvation.
Realizing the love that you are in the core.
That love is unaffected by any circumstance,
Any drama unfolding in your life,
Any problem,
Any bill,
Any fear,
Any anger.
It's free of all of that.
This is the great exodus of now.
To live as mana,
The bread of life.
And this is what Jesus came to offer,
What Buddha came to offer as emptiness,
Sunyata,
Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
This is the mana of the Buddha,
The holy bread.
And love is the essence of the realization,
The revelation of who you are.
This is Ramana's gift.
Don't toss it away as if it's an empty shell or a pebble that can be known or recognized as an object.
It is not an object that can be seen.
It is the omniscience of all that is alive in you,
As you,
As heart,
As the living mana of now.
This living mana satisfies the longing.
Om shanti,
Shanti,
Shantihe.
Om shanti,
Shanti,
Shantihe.
