Women, Enlightenment and Tweeting

It takes a village.  Women's enlightenment will be inspired by the one and then many women attaining full enlightenment.  But to make the field ready, the inspiration and realization of many women working together to help each other figure out their own innate and natural power level will make a huge difference.

In my last blog, I wrote about "Miss Representation," the film (now available on Amazon and via Netflix, among other places) that is game-changing.  I then signed up to receive tweets from @representpledge.  Another game changer.  Perhaps you've been getting tweets about someone's trip to the dry cleaner or even the book they liked.  Pleasant but so what who cares.  The majority of the tweets from @representpledg are about other women and organizations networking to achieve the same goal, true gender equality and awareness of what has been going on for the last couple of thousand years, which is trash talk and the repression of women.

When you read about all the groups working together on this issue and see missrepresentation.org retweeting the information with dedication and persistence, you may bet the same underlying sense that I did:  this is going to work.

A couple of sites that I learned about through tweets that I think are of current, special interest involve teaching women to run for office.

http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/site/pages/2012Project.php

http://www.sheshouldrun.com/
 
Rutgers will assign you a coach if you are interested in working in the public service area.  Women should be running countries.  So let's get started!

MissRepresentation

I saw a screening of a brilliant film -- recommend it to all.  It's called "Miss-Representation."  The filmmaker interviewed hundreds of men and women of all ages in all walks of life, notably the media, and created an interesting, persuasive movie.  It's about how women, by misrepresentation in the media, are misrepresented to themselves and others, to the detriment of both men and women.

Here's the site:  http://www.missrepresentation.org/

Here's the DVD:  http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Representation-Cory-Booker/dp/B006GRWCF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335126285&sr=8-1

HIGHLY recommended!!  This film supports what Rama taught.

Global Women's Network

Here is a powerful video from Hillary Clinton.

The 21st century is when women will gain their full power.

http://www.aol.com/video/hillary-clinton-crusader-for-women/517284833/

Meditation Hikes in Places of Power

The power and stillness of nature, particularly in places of power on the earth, is a sacred gift that we, as meditators, can tap into.  When we meditate at a place of power (Marin Headlands in Sausalito is but one example), we are renewed!  Places of power are often millions of years old.  When we sit and meditate in such places, we can listen to the stillness.  Or the sound of the wind.  Or the waves breaking on the shore.

We approach places of power with respect.  When we hike in, we are silent, enjoying the beauty and energy of the place.  We bring our best selves on the hike  Before the hike, it's good to clean your room or home and take care of unfinished business.  Then, when you sit to meditate at a place of power, your mind can attune easily and naturally to the energy of the place, which will have its own, vibrant stillness. 


During the month of April, we are commemorating the Mahasamadhi of our American Buddhist teacher, Rama - Dr. Frederick Lenz.  Kyoto and I will be going for happy hikes up the lovely Marin Headlands trail and stopping at (slightly) off the beaten path spots to meditate.  Hope that many other meditators will join us!

Circle of Life

When Rama was teaching, haters were not well known as a concept and a reality.  Today it is understood and demonstrated in social media, tweets and comments that every well known or public person of every stripe has haters. 

It is a Buddhist teaching to love, not hate.  To respect, not dishonor. If you disagree with someone, that's fine.  If it's time to move on, move on.  Life has given you a valuable lesson. 

Mindfulness is so important.  Buddhism speaks of the three poisons -- anger, greed and jealousy.  Top three to avoid!


My teacher, Rama - Dr. Frederick Lenz, was an incarnation of love.  He was fully enlightened, immersed in nirvikalpa samadhi.  As one of my friends says, it was like standing next to Niagara Falls just to be physically near him.   So I tell folks the following:

Yup, Rama had haters.  Sorry!   Live with it!  :-)

If you'd like, listen to one of Rama's talks or read his books.   There is a clarity, humor and gentleness there that is rare to find on this planet.  Map your mind to that, and you'll be tapping the higher planes of awareness.

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Books and Talks for the Class

The Headlands

Free, downloadable music for meditation:

http://www.imeditate.com/rama/meditation_music.html

Helpful books (all available on Amazon):

Surfing the Himalayas by Frederick Lenz (I have copies for you)

Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda

Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda

Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by M.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The I Ching (Wilhelm/Baynes translation)

The Way of Life by Lao Tzu (Witter Bynner translation)

Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Paul Reps compilation)

When God Was A Woman by Merlin Stone

Hidden Journey: A Spiritual Awakening by Andrew Harvey

Talks by Rama – Dr. Frederick Lenz that you can listen to online or download for free:

http://fredericklenzfoundation.org/Free-MP3-Dharma-Talks-C7.aspx

This is the storefront of the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism – Free Dharma Talks.  All the talks by Rama are excellent, and you can listen to the titles that appeal to you in any order.  Here are recommended ones in light of this class:

Insights: Talks on the Nature of Existence

--- Why Don’t More Woman Attain Enlightenment

--- Sophisticated Sexuality

--- Dress for Power

Lakshmi Series

--- The Caretaker Personality

--- The Yoga of Mysticism and Power

--- Living and Working in the World

The Enlightenment Cycle

--- All!

Zen Tapes

--- All!

Women and Power

This post is for women.  Any woman who has felt stillness at a sunset or on the beach, or stillness in a perfect sports moment, or yoga, or a transcendent stillness when everything clicks or goes awry in your life in ways you could have never expected -- has meditated.  Which means you should 'get' this post.

What do meditative women need to know? What do all women need to know?  It is something that Rama first explained to his students in 1982, a fundamental difference between men and women.  The topic arose in the context of asking a question -- why don't more women attain enlightenment? 

All beings, in fact all things considered inanimate, such as a rock, have a field of energy that surrounds their physical presence.  The energy body that surrounds human beings is what is being observed when people say they see an aura around someone.  The ancient practice of acupuncture uses the energy meridians that are located throughout the subtle physical body to heal and energize.  A needle is inserted lightly into the skin to draw energy to a center that requires it.  The traditional depictions of the seven chakras that one finds in the literature of Asia come from different visions of the subtle physical body.

So there are energy bodies that surround men and women, and  they are different.

A woman has a very fluid and expansive subtle physical body.  It is conducive to conducting power.  A man's subtle physical is more grid-like and conducts energy more slowly.  Love and humility are the strongest natural traits for a man.  A woman, given the makeup of her subtle physical body or energy body should more easily attain enlightenment than a man. 

What does it boil down to?  My friends, drumroll, I will give it to you straight, as Rama taught it to us.  Alert!!  I'm giving away the secret now.

There.  I bow.  You have just received a high mystery school teaching and now you get to put it into practice in your life.

You start by observing.

Look, for example,  at a boy of 14 and a girl of 14.  If a girl hasn't had sex yet (more on that later) then both the boy's and girl's subtle physical should be in pretty good shape.  Notice how the boy's energy doesn't radiate out that far from his body and there is a natural inner constraint.  Notice how the girl's energy is more fluid and vibrates more quickly.  You don't have to see these things.  It's a feeling.
Realize too that because of the completely switched and wrong views of men and women that men and women still hold about themselves and each other, whatever you are observing about these 14-year-olds is a small subset of what is possible.  The 14-year-old boy could be ecstatic and glowing with love and humility. But in fact, since infancy, he's been programmed in an opposite way -- growing up to be a man means holding back your infinite love and developing a subtle superiority. The 14-year-old girl could be ecstatic with power, a towering wave of kundalini energy that can take any form and touch the highest states of awareness.  Instead, she's probably unconsciously thinking about how to cut off her power level to accommodate the boys she is now attracted to (assuming she is heterosexual) and following all the examples set for her by her friends and her own mother and media. 

When you observe, it is unlikely you will see male and female subtle physicals in their full, enlightened form, but you will see a huge number of women selling themselves short due to disinformation and ignorance about their most basic quality -- power.  And you will see a huge number of men living the life of a lie by cutting off their most loving feelings and cultivating a subtle -- or not so subtle -- machismo that is the opposite of their nature.

And the silliest part -- when a  women does not live up to her alleged role as a humble and loving partner, and the husband does not live up to his role as a power leader, both sides become disillusioned.  Many relationships end over the mix-up over who has the power, and who has the humility and love.  And of course, tragically, there are many cultures today where, if a woman displays even a tiny fraction of her innate power level, she is beaten down literally and metaphorically and robbed of the life that would allow her power level to help herself, others, her family, the environment and society.

Women are innately good dealing with vast amounts of power.  Men -- not so much.

Consider the nature of power.  In nature, it is is generated by rapid movement.  The movement of water over dams, of electrons colliding, of combustion, of tides.   This power, this fluidity, is innate in the subtle physical body of a woman.  In the human body, male and female, this power takes the form of kundalini energy, traditionally depicted as located along the length of the spine.  In the state of enlightenment, the full force of kundalini energy has risen from the bottom or root chakra (sanskrit term for energy center) up to the crown chakra, which is several inches above the head.  Both men and women have kundlini experiences,  But a shorter path to enlightenment naturally belongs to a female subtle body because of the power already conducted there.

Of course, as men and women progress towards enlightenment, a man will develop more of his female side (power) and women will develop more of their male side (love and humility).  Ultimately, in enlightenment, there is no gender.  But along the way, there are paths that are more suited for the two genders, and that is what we are discussing here.

As Rama explains in his talk, "Why Don't More Women Attain Enlightenment,"  the reason more women don't attain enlightenment, and are repressed, and do not comprehend how powerful they are, even a little bit -- is cultural.  It has to do with recent history (say in the last few thousand years) and mental programming.

There is another reason as well.  It is human nature, to destroy what one is threatened by.  Men, threatened by the power of women, have tried to destroy that power in every way possible -- economically, socially, spiritually.

This is how Rama explains it:

Women exemplify, from a spiritual point of view, power. The power of the kundalini energy, the energy of life, flows through them in a very different way than it does through a man, innately. In a fallen world, in a world of fear and darkness, men have reacted very negatively to the power that is inherent in women. Rather than realizing that that power is also indigenous to themselves, that they have the same power, only it manifests in other ways, they have rejected that power and sought to convince women of the exact opposite, that they are powerless. They have done this through sexual repression, economic repression, political repression, social repression, ideological repression and spiritual repression. Women have been given a description of the world that they are taught from childhood, which they believe is true, as are men. We are taught by our societies, by our parents, by the examples of those we see. 

There is really no such thing as a woman or a man. There is a physical body, a subtle physical body, a soul. But there is no such thing as a woman or a man. What we consider to be a woman is an idea. This idea has been formed through history, culture, politics, art, religion—the same is true of a man. These ideas are out of balance. They are not true or accurate. Women have been taught that they are not powerful, as a matter of fact, they've been given an opposite description—that they are, in fact, weak. The word “effeminate” implies weakness, stemming from feminine. Women have been taught that they are not particularly sexual. Who has taught them this? Men.

Men have taught them so in a world of darkness because they were afraid, because the thing they wanted the most they feared the most—power. When you wish to subjugate a people, you have to convince them of their own inherent weakness. If they believe that they are weak, they will not rebel. If they believe that they are strong and intelligent, they will rebel. So the social repression and ideological repression of women began with depriving them of education, political decisiveness, mobility and essentially [creating] sexual slavery—in marriage, through childbirth and in many other ways. 

Today, in our more liberated times (about the last 40 years, maybe), it seems that women are breaking through to new understandings.  But I don't see that at all.  I think women are making some progress, but the programming is still in place.  I see women with  the desire to get a certain amount of power and then they find ways to suppress it.  So today, women can be a six-foot wave. ( Some women, we know we have sisters all over the world are still repressed in every respect by men who fear their power.)  Where are the great powerful women, the women who live in a state of a tsunami fully risen, so vast and fluid is their energy?  Where are they?  Shouldn't we as women help each other to wake up and become who we are??

But back to power, and love, and humility.  Each one so powerful in its own right.  This blog post is not about bashing men.  How could anyone do that?  We are Buddhists, and we're seers.  The love and humility that is innate in men is beautiful to see, if one can find it.  But since this post is for women, ladies, you need to know that being close to/intimate with/under the influence of a man who harbors any negative feelings about women (and thinking that your power level is anything less than a tsunami fully risen is a negative feeling), then girlfriend, you are in a tough situation.  Because that beautiful fluid aura of yours is also more sensitive than a man's more grid-like energy body, and because of your sensitivity you will pick up the thoughts and feelings of that man you are close to so easily, you won't realize the feelings are not your own.   Suddenly, your energy is lower, your self-confidence is lower, your feeling that you  need to be protected is higher -- what?!?  You don't need to be protected!  If you have these thoughts, it means tht you and all women are still walking around with thousands of mental lines of programming.

 Examples of programming for women:

I need a man/partner to be happy
I need to find a man powerful than me (forget it, you never will!)
I need to get married
To be fulfilled, I must have children
Moderate success in a career will suffice for me
I am powerless or weak in some aspect of my life
I need to walk a certain way, talk a certain way, dress a certain way to attract men

I do not innately have vast amounts of power
If I show my power level, it will frighten away people I love

Because of past lives -- and if you are reading this blog, you have undoubtedly had thousands of them -- the programming goes much deeper. We are talking thousands of years of a programmed mindset where even being born as a woman was considered an inferior birth.  Where the only way a woman could survive was through a man.  Where gaining any form of spiritual teaching was a blessing, but in many cultures and religions, the 'higher teachings" were left to men.  Where showing any form of intuition or female solidarity could result in being burned to death.


Religions have also institutionalized the repression of women.  I was at a conference recently where Bernie Glassman, a Zen teacher, spoke of the "bullshit of the patriarchy."  What he was saying was that rigid, embedded teachings that have a flavor of male dominance are just that -- born of male ego.  Such teachings do not hold light.  They are not the dharma.  Women medititators should not feel they have to bow to patriarchal teachings.  Such teachings do not hold light or energy.


What does this mean for women seekers?  Enlightened teachers are the most fluid beings on the planet.  Whatever the gender of their body, they are fully male and female.  The transcendent quality of the path to enlightenment is meditation.  Women seekers have an affinity for achieving still, luminous, intensely ecstatic states of mind in meditation.  That is your nature, and you should realize it.  The pathway to enlightenment is different for women than what you may have been taught.  Women, as they embark on the pathway to enlightenment, should follow the path of power.


What is the path of power?


There are many types of power, but the highest power is the power of stillness and is achieved through meditating.  The power of the kundalini energy that rises up the length of the spine and opens the chakras (energy centers in the subtle physical body) is equally present in men and women, but the fluidity of a woman's subtle body is more resonant with kundalini energy.  So a woman is more suited to reach states of samadhi -- no thought - during meditation, and to progress with repeated experiences of samadhi towards nirvikalpa samadhi (full self-realization).


The first and primary step on the path of power is to meditate deeply and well, and to know innately that the intensity and focus you bring to your meditation practice is your true nature.  You were born that way.  From the practice of meditation, your power level will start to grow and you will start to experience more and more of your own true nature.  This is probably going to bring some surprising realizations and revelations.


Your power or internal energy -- chi -- will start to manifest in increased intuition, greater mental acuity, more humor, greater sensitivity.  You are going to start to notice who is smiling at you outwardly but burning you inwardly.  It happens!  It is very important for women to trust their intuitions and to start to become aware of energy levels in people, settings, events, furnishings, food, everything!  You will start to notice that there are places, situations and people that raise your energy level.  And those that lower it.


If you would like to succeed on the path to enlightenment, or even just lead a healthy, happy life, then you'll want to strategically cut out the places, situations and people that drain your energy.  And move towards things that build your power level.  Besides meditating for at least half an hour every day, here are some of the fun ways to build power --


Challenge yourself with constantly learning new skills, new sports
Break your routines -- go to new places
Regularly visit places of natural beauty where you can spend some time alone
Make your career part of your practice and excel at it
Earn more money
Go to funny or scary or intense films
Dance
Enjoy great music
Get your black belt in  martial art

Women meditators should be the most powerful women on the planet, for they meditate AND know about balance and laughter and are comfortable earning money in order to be able to live a comfortable life as well as help others.


Women trying not to make waves and looking drab and cultivating meekness -- you need to look at that and change it.  The symbol for your power level is a tsunami, risen, roaring.  The tsunami can take any shape.  It is infinitely powerful.   Not a metaphor, a fact.

Early Days of Study

Rama, Frederick Lenz said that every one of his students had a paper bag over their head of their own making. It is the student's job to remove the paper bag.  When I met Rama, I had a sturdy, thick sack over my head.  It was spiritual egotism.  Because the meditation group I had been involved with had an answer for everything.  Thoughts in the mind during meditation?  No problem!  You're releasing stress!  Having a tough incarnation?  No problem!  Just meditate enough with spacey thoughts racing through your mind and some day you will achieve "cosmic consciousness."  Uh huh.  Even when I met Rama I knew a lot of this was hooey, but still, I had so much to unlearn.

I was living up in L.A.  Rama was living in La Jolla, and I was driving down south once or twice a week to attend his talks.  Rama was speaking a lot at that time about selfless giving, and he had made an audio tape, "The Yoga of Selfless Giving," that you can click to follow the link or download here.   When I heard that tape, I thought to myself, OMG, I am soo selfish and soo eager to gain higher states of consciousness as QUICKLY as possible, that I had better jump-start my selflessness.  I was ready to move out of my abode in L.A., and it turned out that a friend of mind had an aunt who ran a medical clinic in Mexico, about one hour south of San Diego.  The aunt was looking for volunteers to help at the clinic.  I thought, PERFECT.  If I go help at the clinic, I will become selfless very, very quickly.

At the next meeting, without describing the details, I mentioned to Rama that I was thinking of moving south, and he smiled really sweetly and said he thought it would be a good idea.  A few days later, I packed up my old Volkswagen bug and drove to San Diego, crossed the border into Tijuana and followed a narrow highway into Baja.  The town was called Rosarito.  You don't realize how many tires there are that are unaffiliated with vehicles until you visit undeveloped areas.  The drive was rife with potholes, pottery stores and tires.  The medical clinic was perched on a hillside.  It was built out of stucco with small windows that retained dampness and cold, and it was winter -- not cold by arctic standards but still chilly.  I could hardly wait to get to work.

I set to work doing the tasks at hand. There were towels to be folded, supplies to be stored, bandages to be wrapped.  After several days, it was time to return to the U.S. to attend a meeting with Rama.  I was grateful to be back in the car and driving north again.

The talk that night was at the University of San Diego California campus.  About 150 people were present.  At one point, Rama asked for questions.  I raised my hand and he looked at me and nodded.  "Rama," I said, "I moved to Rosarito in Mexico to help a friend's aunt with her medical clinic.  I'm trying to learn about selfless giving, but all I'm doing is wrapping bandages.  I don't think it's working."

The room went still, as I patiently waited for Rama to tell me how noble I was.  

When Rama answered, it was with a roar accompanied by a sweeping wall of energy that pummeled my awareness out of my body and swept it up to the ceiling, where it hovered for the duration of his response.
"Selfless giving?" he roared.  "You know NOTHING about selfless giving.  Selfless giving has NOTHING to do with running away to work at a medical clinic.  This is NOT selfless giving.  You're running away.  You have no idea what selfless giving is."

You can see how hovering around the ceiling was attractive at this point.

"You are a writer," he continued, roaring.  "You have a talent for writing.  THAT is how you can help people.  Selfless giving has nothing to do with WRAPPING BANDAGES.  You have a gift for writing.  Make that your selfless giving."

Rama turned to the next person but I did not notice.  My ego was smashed in smithereens and falling gently from its height on the ceiling without wanting to get back into my body, which belonged to the person who knew nothing about selfless giving.  While true that Rama had complimented me on my writing skills, it was the roadside bomb blowing up my stuck awareness that dominated my sensations.  And in front of 150 other people too.

About twenty minutes later, there was a break.  My awareness was still cowering on the white ceiling of the auditorium, but I did manage to move my body to the ladies room.  There a fellow student complimented me.  "Isn't it great," she said.  "He said you are a writer!"

Over the next 17 years that I studied with Rama, there were several times when he would walk past me during a break, not stop, just say three little words -- "You're wrapping bandages."  And my awareness would fly out of my body with consternation and wham around the ceiling until I figured out that Rama was telling me that I was off -- running away in some manner -- and it was up to me to figure out how to get back on track.

"We have two choices in life. These are the north and south poles of our existence. One choice in life is to fulfill ourselves, the limited self, to do things that make us feel better, to do things that give us pleasure and not pain, to fulfill our desires, to get the things that we want each day, each year, to make ourselves happy. The other alternative is to make others happy, to forget ourselves, to ignore our wants, to not be concerned with whether we're happy or not, but rather to take the time and energy that we would utilize in fulfilling ourselves and use it to make others happy. These are our two choices.

From a logical point of view, it would certainly seem that the former rather than the latter is the best course to follow if one seeks happiness. It would seem that hours and hours spent in service to others would be drudgery, that we would become the slave of another person, that there would be very little fulfillment in always working for others. Whereas when we take the time to do the things that we like to do - to go to places we want to go, to be with whom we would like to be, to succeed at the things that we feel we should succeed at, to avoid the things that we consider painful - it would seem that this would be the proper way to become happy.

Strangely enough, it's not. It's just the opposite."
-- Rama  

Jai Rama

This blog is about one person's interactions with an enlightened teacher, Rama - Dr. Frederick Lenz.  Rama is no longer physically teaching.  But even though I studied with him for 17 years and sat in countless lectures and participated in many amazing journeys, it is only now that the teachings are starting to manifest in my awareness. 

Rama taught his students the full range of mystery school knowledge in a 21st century context.  What he taught was not simply words, although the words (preserved in tapes and books and available as free downloads) are brilliant.  What he taught and transmitted are states of mind -- luminous, precise and magical.  You have to learn to meditate well and stop thought, and in order to do that, you must leverage all the many ways Rama taught.

Like everyone who studied or currently studies with Rama, I have my own lens and access points that Rama instilled in me.  In this blog, my goal is to share these with you, the future students of Rama, so that you develop your own luminous connection with an enlightened teacher. 

Enlightenment is real.  Buddhist magic is real.  Mystery school teachings are precise and are doorways.  Rama taught higher Buddhist magic and expressed it in every fiber of his being.  All of the core teachings are beyond words but the words are pointers and may grab a filament of your being and spin you into higher vortexes of energy, as Rama did and continues to do for his students. 

There are many stories of power to tell, and they are still unfolding.  But to begin at the beginning... 

In the early 1980s I lived in Los Angeles.  It was a hotbed of spiritual teachers and dedicated aspirants.  I had been meditating for many years, using one of the popular methods.  I had become disenchanted with the Indian guru who was teaching the techniques and I was definitely not looking for a new teacher.  I had a friend, however, who was always cruising for the newest teacher.  She saw a poster for "Atmananda" (who later became Rama) and went to his talk.  Now this friend of mine saw auras -- the subtle physical body of energy around people.  After she heard Atmananda speak, she phoned me, quivering with excitement.  "Honey, you have GOT to see this man.  He's young and funny.  He has a beautiful golden aura.  I've never seen anything like it.  Honey, you have GOT to go."

Over the years I had been meditating, I had read widely.  I knew that golden light emanating from the subtle physical is a sign of enlightenment.  I could tell from my friend's voice that she was speaking the truth.  So I went to UCLA to hear what turned out to be the last in a series of talks Atmananda/Rama was giving for a while on that campus.  I told myself to be open minded -- neither cynical nor hopeful.

I sat about ten rows back in the lecture hall.  Atmananda walked in wearing a plaid madras shirt and corduroy pants.  He looked to be about 30 years old.  He had curly hair.  He spoke very easily about meditation, and I was enjoying the talk.  When it came time to meditate, he asked us to keep our eyes open and gaze at him with a light focus.  I had never meditated with eyes open before, but OK, whatever.  He put on some melodious electronic music.

So it's a few minutes into the meditation and I'm gazing at Rama as he sits there in a full lotus position on a professor's desk, the soles of his feet facing the ceiling, and all of a sudden, he levitates.  By this I mean that in total stillness, without moving a muscle, his cross-legged body rises into the air several feet and hovers there, and then gently, in stillness, without bodily motion, returns to the desk.  His eyes are closed and I see him doing this several times. 

I am pretty stunned but not that shocked in the sense that a)  the group I used to study meditation with claimed to teach meditation even though it was a bunch of people hopping like frogs around a mat and braying like donkeys; and b)  the literature of Vedanta speaks of levitation as one of the powers possible in advanced meditation and de facto in the state of enlightenment. 

The group I used to study with also claimed to teach people to disappear.  But no one, including the guru, ever did.  A few minutes after seeing Rama levitate, I'm still gazing in his direction and suddenly all I see is the desk.  No Rama.  The desk looks kind of old and scratched.  Behind the desk -- nothing, no Rama.  I kept gazing and about 20 second later, Rama reappeared -- no physical effort, all in profound quietness. 

This was great stuff, but still, I had a reference for it -- "siddha powers."  Nice to haves in the literature of seeking.  At the end of the talk, Rama stood at the front of the hall and spoke to people individually.  I decided to say hello and thank him for the talk.  When I walked up to him, Rama extended his hand and we shook hands.  That surprised me, as most teachers do not like to do that. 

We chatted for a few minutes, then I turned around and started up the stairs towards the large, beige metal classroom door.  As I walked, energy began pulsing up my back along the area of the spine.  The energy spun from my spine and filled my mind with a deep joy and recognition.  It was the most powerful and transformative experience I had ever had, and my feet were still walking upstairs.  I realized I had found my teacher, even though I had not been looking for one.  I knew, in the core of my being, I had studied with him before. 

My hand hit the bar on the metal doorway.  I kept walking.  It was an auspicious start.

Tonight, December 27th, is my birthday.  I want to write and share my continuing story with Rama in this blog.  I see many topics:

Teaching Meditation
Meditating
Travel & Places of Power
Work
Fellow Monks
Rama's Biography
Women and Enlightenment
Musings
Other!

Jai Ram and Cool Beans,

Kali