greetings from AfricA . . .
I arrived on Sat morning after a VERY long series of flights. It had been a good 35 hours since I slept as I don't sleep on planes.
For those of you who have sent me mail while I have been gone, I am having real trouble with my e-mail here. So I will return all e-mail when I get home on the 25th of Nov, no worries.
I had some excellent reading materials with me on the plane this trip. Among them was a book recommendation from some friends called 'Teaching as a subversive activity'. Those of you with the Org know I have been recommending the book 'Coaching for performance' as required reading for SBGi Coaches for the better part of seven Years. And I can tell you know that this book is going on that list as well.
No teaching or coaching book has been as on the money with my thoughts and opinions regarding the subject as this one was. It's now covered in my notes, and highlights.
As we landed I had an epiphany regards an segment of drills which could bring home the reality of experiential learning, and the inquiry method. It came to me in about five minutes, would involve the whole seminar, and take about an hour to complete. I also thought it would be huge and powerful experiment. So I intend to teach it as a segment at the Spring Camp on March 26th.
I should note that when ideas like that happen, they just happen. There is not, and cannot be any plan, desire, or credit for it. The best that can be said for my part in the process is that I write it down on paper as it arises. . a transcriber, nothing more. And that is not said with any sense of false humility. . .it's just something I realize as truth regarding the creative process, and I am sure you as the reader have realized the same thing at times. The creative process takes place through us, not from us.
That morning Rodney told me I was scheduled to teach a three hour Coaches class. We thought I arrived Friday, and that would have given me a full day of rest before teaching. But we were in error. So a few hours later I was teaching the class, still minus sleep. Of course it worked out perfectly, and the first two hours were done SOLELY with the Q & A format. No notes, no curriculum, and one of the best classes I remember teaching in recent Months.
After about two hours the Jits questions where exhausted, and so I decided to take the last hour and try the series of exercises on experiential-inquiry coaching that came to me on the plane a few hours prior. It was an experiment, and it was great. I really think the message, and distinction in the teaching and coaching paradigms was brought home in a whole new way to those present, myself included. And so I can tell you absolutely that we will do the exact same thing at Spring Camp, and I think we will all enjoy ourselves.
I wont talk about the specifics of the excercises because I believe that will dimish the effect they will have at the time. The results will be FAR greater if nobody is allowed to prepare in advance.
Later that evening I was able to get to sleep after soaking in a really large and cool claw foot tub that's in my room. A nice feature to have in Africa.
As I wandered off into sleep that night I experienced a really terrible dream. As with most things i find so disturbing, it was not because of anything being done to me in the dream, but rather because of things i was doing in the dream, without any sense of concern or thought, for the others. I wont go into detail, but it disturbed me so much I woke from it at about 6am in a certain panic.
My early morning hours where totaly consumed not with what the dream meant to 'me'. . .doesn't that always strike you as a kind of egoic pursuit in the superficial?. . .but instead on why do we have such dreams? Where do these dreams come from? And why does my dream self seem ok with such actions? This really bothered me the most.
I guess it bothered me because of those actions within the dream. . .but also because it was something that is very rare for me, a dream which is so auspicious that it was imperceptible from reality, until you reach the waking state.
For the rest of the morning I sat with that, it was quiet, and a good state for me.
Then I realized something. . .
1- Dreams are automatic and effortless, and as such, they have to be the product of karma* as much as the waking experience is. *(the important point being that Karma is never PERSONAL, obviously)
2- Dreams come about involuntarily and end automatically. As such, no duty could be on the sleeper of the dream, me, to make any effort.
3- Experience in some dreams can appear as real as the waking state is. But while we feel the reality of the dream experiences while dreaming, once awake we look at them as unreal.
AND . . . the really beautiful part. . . . . . . if we experience a different reality from waking* (Turiya) we may see the unreality of those experiences we called "reality" previously, just as clearly. Not due to faith, belief, or dogma. But rather solely due to first person experiential fact.
So I walked out of my room that morning saying bring on that impersonal karma to be played out through the dream state. . . . . . . it really is ALL good.
A few minutes later I was in a car headed for the seminar. The seminar was the largest I have had here in Africa, with about 75 people on the mat ready to go. We had a great time.
That night we rented 'The Razors Edge'. . .the classic novel re-made as a movie in the 80's with Bill Murray. It's been a few Years since I saw it last, and it was even better this time. Certainly one of my top ten movie picks of all time.
Then I slept WELL, and woke today well rested.
Welcome to Africa!
Questioner: When we get a dream we emerge out of it without any effort on our part. If this life is a dream, as it is said to be, then how is it that we are called upon to make efforts to end the dream and wake into jnana?
Ramana: In a dream you have no inkling that it is a dream and therefore you don't have a duty to get out by any effort. But in this life you have some intuition by your sleep experience, by reading and learning, that life is something like a dream and therefore a duty is cast on you to make an effort and get over it.
"In religions other countries are paupers and India is the only millionaire"
-Mark Twain
For those of you who have sent me mail while I have been gone, I am having real trouble with my e-mail here. So I will return all e-mail when I get home on the 25th of Nov, no worries.
I had some excellent reading materials with me on the plane this trip. Among them was a book recommendation from some friends called 'Teaching as a subversive activity'. Those of you with the Org know I have been recommending the book 'Coaching for performance' as required reading for SBGi Coaches for the better part of seven Years. And I can tell you know that this book is going on that list as well.
No teaching or coaching book has been as on the money with my thoughts and opinions regarding the subject as this one was. It's now covered in my notes, and highlights.
As we landed I had an epiphany regards an segment of drills which could bring home the reality of experiential learning, and the inquiry method. It came to me in about five minutes, would involve the whole seminar, and take about an hour to complete. I also thought it would be huge and powerful experiment. So I intend to teach it as a segment at the Spring Camp on March 26th.
I should note that when ideas like that happen, they just happen. There is not, and cannot be any plan, desire, or credit for it. The best that can be said for my part in the process is that I write it down on paper as it arises. . a transcriber, nothing more. And that is not said with any sense of false humility. . .it's just something I realize as truth regarding the creative process, and I am sure you as the reader have realized the same thing at times. The creative process takes place through us, not from us.
That morning Rodney told me I was scheduled to teach a three hour Coaches class. We thought I arrived Friday, and that would have given me a full day of rest before teaching. But we were in error. So a few hours later I was teaching the class, still minus sleep. Of course it worked out perfectly, and the first two hours were done SOLELY with the Q & A format. No notes, no curriculum, and one of the best classes I remember teaching in recent Months.
After about two hours the Jits questions where exhausted, and so I decided to take the last hour and try the series of exercises on experiential-inquiry coaching that came to me on the plane a few hours prior. It was an experiment, and it was great. I really think the message, and distinction in the teaching and coaching paradigms was brought home in a whole new way to those present, myself included. And so I can tell you absolutely that we will do the exact same thing at Spring Camp, and I think we will all enjoy ourselves.
I wont talk about the specifics of the excercises because I believe that will dimish the effect they will have at the time. The results will be FAR greater if nobody is allowed to prepare in advance.
Later that evening I was able to get to sleep after soaking in a really large and cool claw foot tub that's in my room. A nice feature to have in Africa.
As I wandered off into sleep that night I experienced a really terrible dream. As with most things i find so disturbing, it was not because of anything being done to me in the dream, but rather because of things i was doing in the dream, without any sense of concern or thought, for the others. I wont go into detail, but it disturbed me so much I woke from it at about 6am in a certain panic.
My early morning hours where totaly consumed not with what the dream meant to 'me'. . .doesn't that always strike you as a kind of egoic pursuit in the superficial?. . .but instead on why do we have such dreams? Where do these dreams come from? And why does my dream self seem ok with such actions? This really bothered me the most.
I guess it bothered me because of those actions within the dream. . .but also because it was something that is very rare for me, a dream which is so auspicious that it was imperceptible from reality, until you reach the waking state.
For the rest of the morning I sat with that, it was quiet, and a good state for me.
Then I realized something. . .
1- Dreams are automatic and effortless, and as such, they have to be the product of karma* as much as the waking experience is. *(the important point being that Karma is never PERSONAL, obviously)
2- Dreams come about involuntarily and end automatically. As such, no duty could be on the sleeper of the dream, me, to make any effort.
3- Experience in some dreams can appear as real as the waking state is. But while we feel the reality of the dream experiences while dreaming, once awake we look at them as unreal.
AND . . . the really beautiful part. . . . . . . if we experience a different reality from waking* (Turiya) we may see the unreality of those experiences we called "reality" previously, just as clearly. Not due to faith, belief, or dogma. But rather solely due to first person experiential fact.
So I walked out of my room that morning saying bring on that impersonal karma to be played out through the dream state. . . . . . . it really is ALL good.
A few minutes later I was in a car headed for the seminar. The seminar was the largest I have had here in Africa, with about 75 people on the mat ready to go. We had a great time.
That night we rented 'The Razors Edge'. . .the classic novel re-made as a movie in the 80's with Bill Murray. It's been a few Years since I saw it last, and it was even better this time. Certainly one of my top ten movie picks of all time.
Then I slept WELL, and woke today well rested.
Welcome to Africa!
Questioner: When we get a dream we emerge out of it without any effort on our part. If this life is a dream, as it is said to be, then how is it that we are called upon to make efforts to end the dream and wake into jnana?
Ramana: In a dream you have no inkling that it is a dream and therefore you don't have a duty to get out by any effort. But in this life you have some intuition by your sleep experience, by reading and learning, that life is something like a dream and therefore a duty is cast on you to make an effort and get over it.
"In religions other countries are paupers and India is the only millionaire"
-Mark Twain
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