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Hello Christopher,
David Hawkins’ books seem to be well regarded by a lot of people. I have not read any of them yet. In reviewing his form he was clearly on the spiritual path. He was not a liberated soul nor spiritually advanced, which Meher Baba describes as attaining levels 5 or 6 of the 7 levels of the spiritual path. Take care.
Hello Stephen,
I hope you are well. Thanks for your inquiry about the second book.
Over the last few years the US economy has been purposely destabilized by a small group of people intent on creating a totalitarian global government. As a result, I’ve been forced to allocate more time to making a living and less time to editing the second book and posting blog articles. In 2022, I will endeavor to place more attention on the second book and, with God’s grace, complete it.
Hello Stephen,
Thanks for your interest. The second book should be released this year. It is much different than the first book.
The goal of the first book, Into the Formless, is to provide seekers an overview of the spiritual journey based on the teachings of enlightened masters. So they can find their own unique spiritual path. It is relatively short at around 37,000 words.
The second book is an unfiltered account of my spiritual path as recorded in journal entries over a span of 14 years. It reads like a novel. It describes the very real obstacles that any seeker may encounter and how they are overcome through faith and the grace of enlightened masters. It will be around 250,000 words in length.
Unfortunately I can’t provide a definite answer regarding chakras above the crown. There are people who talk about them. Yet I would need to read about such chakras in an enlightened teaching before I would give them any credence.
You are on a good path now. It is certainly a blessing.
The ego creates a false sense of separateness from the divine. The ego is formed by past conditioning (or karma) that is accumulated over countless prior incarnations. The spiritual journey is the process of dissolving the karma that forms the ego.
Most people identify with the ego to such an extent that they mistake it for who they are. They are unaware of their true, deeper identity–the soul that is always one with the divine.
According to Meher Baba, there are three planes of creation: mental, energetic, and physical. Once a seeker learns to perceive the energetic plane they begin the spiritual journey. As past conditioning dissolves the ego weakens, and a seeker progresses along the seven stages to liberation. When all karma is dissolved the ego is destroyed and a person attains liberation.
Mother Meera brings down the Paramatman light as a means of helping people to draw closer to the divine. The Paramatman is the formless aspect of the divine that exists throughout creation. The energetic form of the Paramatman vibrates at the highest most subtle level.
At this point, I have received 41 darshans from Mother Meera over 13 years. I found her grace to be profound yet act in an almost imperceptible way. For instance, you look back at your life over the last six months and realize you have changed dramatically. Yet you were not consciously aware of the change while it was happening.
The point is that Meera’s grace is subtle. Yet you are noticing a shift in your physical body.
Meera’s enlightened presence and the Paramatman light she uses in her darshans vibrate at the highest level. The vast majority of spiritual teachers are not enlightened. The energy they use vibrates at a lower more course level. So most seekers have not been exposed to energy vibrating at the highest level–whether from being in the company of a spiritual teacher or reading spiritual books.
The Paramatman light may be dispelling lower vibrating energy from your system. Or perhaps your energetic body is reacting to being exposed to energy vibrating at such a high level for the first time.
Perhaps a personal story will illustrate what it is like to be exposed to a profound enlightened presence. My favorite enlightened teaching is God Speaks by Meher Baba. It has the most powerful transmission of grace that I’ve found from a spiritual book. In case you are interested, two other books that are also very powerful are In God’s Hand by Meher Baba and Guru Vachaka Kovai by Muruganar.
The first time I read God Speaks I could only read about 10 pages at a time. The energy coming off the pages was such that I would become unable to concentrate on the words to continue reading. My energetic body was unaccustomed to being exposed to energy that was strong yet also vibrating at the highest level.
After reading God Speaks many times I become accustomed to the energy. Perhaps you just need to become accustomed to being exposed to the Paramatman light.
Each of us is constantly being confronted with obstacles. They are part of God’s design of creation.
The person who is controlled by the ego is not spiritually prepared to deal with the challenges that arise in life. The ego tends to react unconsciously to a situation it doesn’t like. Then the ego-controlled person creates suffering for himself or others.
A spiritual practice empowers you to deal with the obstacles that arise in the best way possible. You can connect with the deeper reality and avoid falling under the ego’s influence. You are given a level of detachment or space between yourself and the event arising on the surface of your life.
Let us look at surrender and acceptance as two different spiritual practices.
SURRENDER
Ramana Maharshi emphasized two spiritual practices: self-enquiry and surrender. David Godman wrote an excellent book about Ramana Maharshi’s teachings titled Be As You Are. There is a section on surrender in the book. Here is a short excerpt of Godman’s description of surrender :Completely surrendering all responsibility for one’s life to God or the Self. For such self-surrender to be effective one must have no will or desire of one’ own and one must be completely free of the idea that there is an individual person who is capable of acting independently of God.
I believe that your question relates more to acceptance than surrender.
ACCEPTANCE
Eckhart Tolle teaches about the spiritual practice of acceptance. He explains that the majority of suffering that we experience is not caused by the inevitable challenges of life but instead by our mental attitude toward them.Tolle’s teachings revolve around the Zen practice of entering the present moment. When dealing with a challenge he would advice you to ask yourself, “Is there anything that I can do about this problem right now?” Most situations are not a life-threatening emergency. So the answer is, “No.” You may need to take steps to deal with a challenging situation, but nothing needs to be done right now in this moment.
Acceptance frees you from the suffering caused by the ego and the thinking mind. Instead of having your awareness trapped within the thinking mind and worrying about a situation, you can instead connect with the deeper reality. Or as Tolle would say you, “enter the present moment.”
Once you are in the moment you have greater access to your intuition. Then you can come up with the best way of dealing with a challenging situation.
Acceptance is not a passive resignation to what is happening in your in life. There is not a choice between accepting and acting. You use both approaches to deal with a challenge. You accept what is in this moment, and then you take steps to deal with the situation.
You’ve asked an important question. I wrote a blog post on spiritual practices that hopefully addresses it.
There are basically three types of spiritual teachers: those that are not spiritually advanced, those that are spiritually advanced but not enlightened, and those that are enlightened.
Ramana Maharshi said that an unenlightened spiritual teacher is like the blind leading the blind. For the most I agree.
You will receive the most benefit by being in presence of an enlightened spiritual teacher. You will learn simply by being in his company. A liberated soul emanates an enlightened presence that your energetic body will perceive even in you are not consciously aware of it. Through repeated exposure to the enlightened presence you energetic system will learn how to attune to that state even when you are not in the presence of the enlightened teacher.
A spiritually advanced teacher can connect with the deeper reality and emanate an energy that vibrates at a high level. And seekers at a lower state can benefit by being exposed to such a high-vibrating energy.
Unfortunately most seekers cannot tell if a spiritual teacher is spiritually advanced or enlightened. They are guessing. Only some who has reached an advanced spiritual state can discern the spiritual state of someone else. That is why I created a list of enlightened people.
You can read another post to find out more about how to tell is a spiritual teacher is enlightened.
