So what we're doing today is we're continuing in our progression of the stages of Dream Yoga. And because we're kind of transitioning here with Stage Five, I'm sorry, stage six. I wanted to summarize recap a couple of central things here. One is that these stages, these nine stages, these are my unfolding of the classic three stages in the meditation tech. So like, when I did my training and Dream Yoga, there were basically three steps. There was the recognition phase one recognition, that's, that's the lucid dreaming part. No lucid dreaming, no Dream Yoga. So 1/3 of Dream Yoga is lucid dreaming just that tiny lucidity. That's what we've talked about. Today, before we started, the actual stages, I mean, how many webinars that we've done on that. And then there's the stage of transformation. That's kind of what we're working with here. Still transforming the contents of our mind, as it expresses itself in the medium of a dream, because again, what else is a dream made up? There's no pre existing dreamscape in there, right, it's just your mind free from sensory constraint. And then the third phase. And so that would be basically by stages two through seven, pretty much I think, stages eight and nine and my mapping, or the third stage and classic Dream Yoga, which is the stage of self liberation. And this is what we're going to finish with, obviously. And so I just wanted to reinstate that the nine stages are my unfolding with a little bit of help from other Dream Yoga traditions of what the classic texts have is extremely kind of pith instructions and the actual practice text when I did my three year retreat, I think it was like, little four pages. That was it. And so I just said, Well, I these are really big steps. And so I took the liberty to make smaller baby steps. So mere mortals like us can work with it. And so as I mentioned at the outset, way back when, when we started this, even though these stages are in a particular type of order going from more accessible, at least in my opinion, to more refined, more advanced, they're not necessarily linear in that way. And by that what I mean is, you can practice any of these stages at any point. And I this is the way I roll with these things now. So in other words, if I wake up, and I've shared this before, if I wake up in a lucid dream that was like, Whoa, this is a good one. You know, man, I'm really lucid here, I'm really, I'm on my game tonight. I'm going to shoot right to the top, I'm going to go all the way to stage nine. And use that hyper is high lucidity as I can to work with inductions into sleep yoga. And so you know, that's a little bit rare. But the intermediate bandwidth, you know, sometimes I am lucid, and it's like, well, there's kind of there. But there's just not a lot of traction tonight, it's not super clear. And then I stay mostly on stages two and three. Those seem to be my default stages. I play with the other ones. If I have a nightmare, I'll work with that. Sometimes I'll intentionally create one. I do the transformation, all the stuff we've talked about. But what dictates what practice I will do unless I'm doing a real dream yoga retreat, and I'm actually incubating during the day saying, okay, tonight, I want to do Stage Five, boom. That's my goal for tonight. That's a little bit more formal structure. I do bring that rigor when I do those types of retreats. But normally my day to day life. The stage I do is dictated by the clarity of my lucidity. And it's also good to just hopscotch all over. It's like if you really resonate with one stage, you want to make stage two or stage three like the entirety of your curriculum. That's awesome. So just a reinstatement of what that's about. The other thing I want to share within the context of a quote from Zig our cultural Rinpoche who's who's Pema children's main teacher, as a community here in Boulder, and also done in Crestone. I know him he's a really wonderful, wonderful individual. And I was privy to some Dream Yoga teachings that he did I got the recordings to those and then this is what he shared. That's worth reinstating, again to like, what's what's really the underlying narrative with all these stages?
It was so what he says about he says the main focus of Dream Yoga is to realize the union of relative truth and absolute truth, appearance and emptiness and quote, and so many teachers echo this major rubbish he says the same thing. So many teachers say the same thing. That emptiness is the core, it's the core teaching in Buddhism. Absolutely everything. circumambulate something is much ado about nothing as Shakespeare put it, it is definitely the core teaching and Dream Yoga. The Dalai Lama says, anybody can practice do yoga. It's just that deeper divers, Buddhists practice it with a specific intent to understand the core teachings on emptiness. And so with that in mind, this is helpful to know, with the exception of stage one, which is more just lucid dreaming really, stages two through nine, they're all about emptiness. They're all about working with progressive stages of meditation and emptiness. And so that narrative is helpful to understand as well, that underneath the whole Dream Yoga trajectory in the stages is this narrative, of really understanding the nature of mind in reality, this thing called emptiness. And so the transition that is made really with stage six today is, and again, this is my kind of mapping of it all, you know, stages one through five, what we've done up until this point, can be considered somewhat intermediate, beginning intermediate stages, that that doesn't necessarily say they're easy, they're, they're not particularly easy. But in the scheme of things, they're still more beginning intermediate. Left in and unto themselves, they could constitute easily an entire Dream Yoga curriculum. And so if you're cool with those, and happy with those, stay with them. But for some people want to go further, they want to know the full potentials, then 6789. And then leading into dream, sleep yoga, then leading into Bharti yoga. These are the next steps that we're going to be exploring. And so this one, really, this is like where we enter kind of graduate school during the Aga, and this is maybe just for me, some of these are, I think, quite nuanced, and therefore more difficult, challenging. But that doesn't mean it's going to be that way. For others. I mean, some people might like, well, I can really rock with stage six, which is one that we're going to talk about today that I have, I have problems with this stage, I always have. And I'll share a little bit more about what might be going on there. But stage six in itself is really the following is that you set the aspiration, that you're going to wake up in your dreams tonight, so that you can actually enter the dream body of another character in the dream. And I'll talk a little bit shortly about the kind of philosophical implications of even trying to do that. This, this is really one of the really mind bending ones, and I'll get to that kind of philosophy in just a second. But the idea here is you know, that you're taking the colloquialism, oh, you know, stepping into their shoes, into an entirely new level. And so this practice is all about developing empathy and compassion and compassion is simultaneously the spontaneous expression of emptiness. In other words, if you don't express compassion, you haven't really realized emptiness or your emptiness is imposter, emptiness. Compassion is the automatic expression of emptiness. And so therefore, this practice of empathy and compassion is not only an expression of emptiness, but a segue into it. See, at least both ways. And I want to just share this is a story that I pulled out from things called Conscious mind sleeping brain with just a reference here. Yeah, so this this story comes from conscious mind the conscious mind sleeping brain perspectives on lucid dreaming edited by Jane Ghatkopar. Can Stephen bearish I think it's not a print. But if you can get it, this is a classic published way back in 1988. So the title of where I extracted this was from Paul Talay. A German researcher the title of the chapter of which this is an ontology is a model for lucidity training as a means for self healing and psychological growth in so when I read this, it was like, Well, this is this is pretty cool story. So this is what Paul Tilly shares, and then I'll run some commentary on it. The stories of his dreams about a girl who was really struggling with why a young boy wasn't really interested in her. And whether she knew it or not, she was spontaneously incubating a dream. And so this is what she shares about her dream all at once I knew that I was dreaming stage one of lucid in the dream.
I asked myself again in this lucid state, why he didn't return my feelings and wants to get an answer to this question in the dream. So there she is. She's incubating this dream whether she's doing it formally or not. This is Dream incubation. It was then that I became aware of my spirit that is the part of me that I think of as myself detaching itself from my body and floating across to his body. then entering his body. In this body, let's state I was able to use all my senses to orient myself. That is seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. After I left my body, I still saw it standing there doing some sort of fidgety work and talking. This is this kind of amazing dream really. In other words, you could not tell by looking at my body from the outside that I was in law no longer inside it. So I floated across to the boy and slipped into his body. As I did, so I had a feeling that I had taken over all his bodily functions without him being aware of it. To begin with, it felt really strange, everything was so different and so much more restricted in my body, than in my body and so unfamiliar. I saw with his eyes, I felt with his hands and I talked with his voice, I saw how he perceived me, the effect I had on him, and the feelings he had for me. I saw the conflict he was in. When I had watched his thoughts and seen myself through his eyes, I understood why he had been so reserved with me, and realized that he would never return my feelings, and quote, wow, what an amazing dream, what an amazing story. And then she goes on to share in this article about how this helped her resolve her relationship with Him, because she had seen the world through his eyes. And so I find this practice, you know, particularly difficult. And for a number of reasons. One is the end this is just conjecture, but there may be something here, but dreams are truth tellers, right? moniker is the measure of the path. And perhaps it's somehow revelatory of my inability to really effectively work with empathy and compassion to really get into somebody. And so I use this, I don't use this, like, oh, geez, you know, I'm a total failure with this. I still try to do the stage. But I still have a hard time with it. And I'd be really curious to hear if anybody listening here is like, well, you know, this is how it works for me or not. And so perhaps, again, it's a measure of the path, it's showing me that this is an area where I need to spend a little bit more time this is where I need to work, you know, maybe work practice compassionate, a little more, practice empathy and understanding a little bit more. But where this becomes really interesting for me, is an article does not talk about this at all, where I extracted this code was all these these you can say philosophical issues around even this notion. Right? Okay. Okay, let me wrap my mind around this one. Okay. Like what, what's happening here? Okay, so you're in a dream, right? And there's a dream character in there. So the philosophical questions are like, Okay, is there really some agency connected to this young individual in my dream? Is it all just my projection solipsistic? thing? Is it all just my mind? To what extent is my mind translucent parov porous enough? Where this agency can enter? These are all open questions for me. So you know, is in fact that entity, that boy, is his spirit, really there? I don't know. Is it just projection where this is taking place? I don't really know. But what what Portola does, right about here is that irregardless of that this kind of role playing you could say, really did help whether it was 100 100% authentic. I don't remember from the article, I don't think he went into this, like, did she actually come up to this guy and kind of bounce off these feelings she had in the dream with him personally. So there's just a lot of real interesting questions here about who is generating that object. I've again, I've had dreams where.
And my view around this is softened and changed over the years were absolutely positively these kinds of agencies, they're not mine. I mean, there's just no doubt about it, neuroscience, psychology, whatever they would say, that's just bull bull crap. You know, it's just your mind and their dreams are all yours. This the whole solipsistic thing. It's just your mind in there? I don't think so anymore. I think most dreams are that way. Yes, I think most of them that way. But I am 100% convinced, though, that a lot of dreams actually aren't that we can have this type of infiltration, the so called external agents, agencies, kind of infiltrating our dreams and the literature is really when you start to look at it, both in psychological and spiritual arenas is absolutely replete with instances of stories of whatever. Sometimes spiritual masters coming into your dreams sometimes as deities enter your dream, all these different things were like, Hey, wait a second, if my mind really is tucked inside this thick skull here, that's impossible. Well, again, this is a wonderful challenge to that whole atomistic way of isolating and locating identity, to the confines of this cranium. It doesn't, I don't think it works that way anymore. My experience doesn't doesn't bear it out. But what I do want to riff just a little bit about here that that, I think, is one of the kind of key components of the stage because the stage itself in terms of like, what you do is relatively easy, I wouldn't say easy, relatively simple. The next time you have a dream, try to enter into that particular dream person, whatever that is, and just see how that works. See how that works for you. I'd be very curious to see if anybody's already played with this, truly, if you have, I'd love to hear from you. But the thing that I want to talk a little bit about here is this, this whole notion of the qualities of the awakened mind, and the different ways that we can access it. There's several important points here that this this stage can use us as a segue for one one is that of the there are two ways to gain access to these kinds of enlightened qualities. In this case, empathy and compassion. One, the more absolute way is, these are all natural qualities of the awakened mind, again, natural expressions of the state of emptiness. So the only thing you have to do is really just relax, completely open and relax into the nature of mind. And these qualities just naturally reveal themselves to you. Totally, completely 100% viable. The other way that sometimes I think, I don't know, maybe just just get enough traction on the west is the practice of the so called enlightened qualities. In other words, just like compassion is both the spontaneous expression of emptiness or the awakened state is that it is also the segue into it. In other words, what I mean by this is you can actually practice enlightenment in a more relativistic way, by exercising the qualities that are expressions of it. And, you know, the low junk slogans in the Mahayana tradition are largely about that the practices of relative bodhichitta bodhichitta bodhichitta. And that cheetah, I was corrected, I think I told you, but he Tita it's not an enlightened Tiger. I had it wrong all these years, maybe that's why I don't have enough bodhichitta because I was saying bodhichitta. But there's absolute bodhichitta, which is the emptiness thing, then there's relative bodhichitta, which is the exercise of these qualities. And so the kind of the take home point for me is that if we have this kind of vague, opaque, foggy notion of what non duality and enlightenment is, and I think a lot of us really do, like what exactly is enlightenment? What exactly is non duality? Well, I think one of the really interesting ways to work with this is to look at the actual qualities that constitute the enlightened state. And these are all these noble qualities of loving kindness and compassion and altruism, and truth and honesty, and all these wonderful things. And so the reason I bring this out is that
these are things that we can practice, we can practice enlightenment. We don't have to keep deferring it right. This is my big rant over the last couple of years, we many of us have this like, notion that Oh, enlightenment was just for the great sages in the past, is some mythic, metal poetic rendering of, of spiritually elite, that really something for me, it's inaccessible to me, partly because we don't really know what it means. And so I guess what I'm saying here is that one way to look at this whole lighten in business is to, perhaps take it apart a little bit and realize that it's much more available and accessible to us. And that we can actually practice it. Every time we practice compassion, we're practicing enlightenment. Every time we practice kindness, and truth, and in all these noble qualities, we're actually practicing the spontaneous expression of what enlightenment is, and therefore this makes us much more available to us. That we can therefore take a little bit more responsibility for the immediacy of this thing called enlightenment because I think again, this is I see this as a big problem certainly has been in my life until I really started studying the non dual traditions big time. I see it with a lot of other people who are on the journey that everybody just keeps kind of deferring, or sometime in the few If I'm really lucky, or maybe when I die, or maybe when I go into three year retreat? Well, why? Why do we keep deferring it on one level? I think it's because perhaps we don't want to take responsibility for the immediacy of it. And so this is both a blessing and a curse is both good news and bad news. The blessing is that this thing called enlightenment is actually completely utterly available to us under all circumstances. It's actually temporarily actualized every single time we express these qualities. And so if we can make it a conscious practice, which is what the stage six really embodies, along with the other ones, but for some reason, this one really stands out for me. We can cultivate and then more. I mean, fortuitously isn't the right word, but perhaps more or less viciously, bring about the realization of this state that we call enlightenment. That is fundamentally really is it really is our responsibility, nobody is going to do it for us, right. We still have this kind of hangover from the theistic traditions, I think that nobody's going to do this. For us. It really is a practice. It's a practice of discovery. And it's a practice of actualization. So if we take this responsibility upon us, we can just like going to the gym. Every time we exercise one of these qualities, we make this particular enlightened muscle, so to speak stronger and stronger and stronger. And so really, that I think is one of the empowering messages for me with this particular stage. That if we work as we can, in this dream example. And if we work more, I think more immediately, throughout the course of our daily lives, exercising these qualities, then we're going to actualize them, we actually can practice enlightenment, we don't have to wait for some magical, mythic time in the future. Where hopefully, if our fingers are crossed, and we're lucky enough, something's going to happen. And we're going to attain awakening. And so the key here another way to say this is, we are always practicing, you've heard me say this before, we're always practicing either samsara or Nirvana, whether we know it or not, we are always practicing. In the now because of the power of our habits. We've cut habits selfish, maybe I'm just speaking about myself. We've kind of selfish habits, so deep like the Grand Canyon, that we just are constantly falling into these particular habits of confusion that we've created. But we always have a choice. And if we're aware of this, we can work with this bifurcation tipping point, we realize that whenever we have the opportunity, we can say, hey, wait a second, I don't have to practice samsara. By saying that, or doing that I can stop kind of Bartow yoga, pause and say, I'm going to practice a little bit of nirvana. At this point, I'm going to speak the truth. I'm going to speak with kindness, compassion. And therefore realize every moment moment to moment, I really do have a choice. And so as you know, through the using the power of habit, karma, the more you do this, the easier it gets. I mean, this is one reason,
tying it into lucidity principle all together. One reason we have so many bloody non lucid dreams is because whether we know it or not, we practice non lucidity all the time, that's our default practice. That's why we have no surprise, man lucid dreams at night. Same thing applies to lucidity. The same thing also applies here as well, that we are always practicing either kindness and compassion and truth, or the opposite. So we're always practicing samsara, and Nirvana. And to me, this is again, if you're going to good news and bad news scenario. The good news is it makes the enlightened state really completely immediate, I actually can express something and someone will say, well, that's actually quite an enlightened view. Because in that instant, there was an expression of enlightenment, I acted with complete selflessness, complete compassion. And then the more I do that, the easier it gets, that practice takes on a life of its own. And eventually, it starts to do you. That's the genius of these meditations. And the great gift of habit and causality and karma is that initially, on the front end, you have to put effort into it. There's this kind of loading dose quality, because you're going against the tired of all these kinds of selfish, egocentric habits. But eventually you do these practices long enough, they start to do you. And that really is a great year. That's when you start to see the metric of these things. You find yourself a little bit less selfish, more selfless, more compassionate. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes, until fundamentally that becomes your default. That's really good karma. You can't help but be kind. You can't help but be compassionate and truthful because you've been exercising that you've been working with that creating that. And so I think this is important because I see this a lot in the let in the West. This, this constant deferring, oh, you know, maybe someday way down, then I'll get serious about it later. I'll work with it later, maybe when I die. I think the understanding the immediacy, the fact that we can practice Nirvana, we can practice non duality. In fact, every moment really one of the most immediate expressions of duality is breaking away, literally distract, pulling apart. That's what the word means. Every time we pull apart, distract from the present moment, we're practicing duality. And so on that level, every time we come back, or every time we're mindful every time we remember. That's the practice of mindfulness that is also a moment to moment practice of non duality, practicing non duality by staying rooted union in union with the present moment. And so therefore, it really, it's empowering. For me, it's like, whoa, wait a second, I really have thought about that. Every moment, I really have a choice. Do I capitulate to the dark do I head towards the light. The more you do it, the easier it gets. And the more responsibility you can take in your own path, and then also the actualization of it. So if you want to attain awakening in this life, practice awakening, practice lucidity, practice all these things, it's not easy, because it goes against all these habits, all these dark patterns. And so for me, really, this is this is really kind of the take home message of the stage. You can work within the dream, I continue to try to do this, I continue to wrestle with the philosophical implications behind it. But what I have found is that even the gesture of trying is helpful. And this is a great thing. Remember, your failures. In the proper light, this is a really unique thing of a Dream Yoga, because it's revelatory, when reasons a little bit more advanced is because it will show you where you are. But if it's viewed with the right light, in this kind of revelatory diagnostic fashion, then it's not a failure at all. It's the success in the fact that it's pointing out these unconscious processes. And so to me, it's like, Whoa, this is really I can, I can celebrate the fact that I have issues with this, I have trouble with this. And so therefore, it continues to inspire me, this is where I need to pay more attention. This is where I need to do more work. So this is the other thing. It's also worth reinstating as we go through these stages is that seen in the proper light, there are no failures in any of these stages, every one of them will reveal to you where you're stuck. Again, that's why it's a little bit more advanced set of practices, because a lot of people don't want to be so revealed.
They prefer to live in the shade and the darkness of ignorance loss and their habitual patterns. So for me, yes, I still struggle with this one. I still continue to do it because even attempting to do it exercises, the gesture, the intentionality of working with the passion and so now again, in my daily life, same thing, I can't always step into another person's shoes. But the very gesture of attempting to do so shows how contracted I am. How kind of self importance and all that kind of stuff I can still be and then I try to not feel that well if I tried to go okay, let's step out of my shoes. Let's get into that other person's shoes. What is it really like? They say in psychological language, they say story there that person's existence, story, their existence? In other words, what would you be like, if you lived in the shoes from from ground zero that this person did someone even politically that you just can't stand? Maybe read about their history story, their existence? And realize, oh, my gosh, I am starting to get a little bit of a sense about why this person is this, like Putin or whatever. Why this person is the way he is, wow, could I have done any better head I did under those circumstances. And so therefore, if you can do that, so this is in psychological language, its practices, one of storying another person's existence, stepping into their shoes, developing empathy and compassion, trying to see the world through their eyes. And then that's no small thing that brings about a lot of tolerance and understanding and I think benefit. And so that's all I have to say about this particular stage. One of the more challenging ones for me, for sure. So there was one question that came in, and then I know there's a couple of hands up. I have I actually have a podcast I'm being interviewed in a little over an hour, so I probably have to limit our sessions today to the hour mark, which is usually what we do with these webinars anyway. So let me pull up this quick Question. Yeah, so this one was sent in. Normally this type of question would be probably more for Thursday sessions. But tomorrow, we're now having a Thursday q&a Because of the mental event. And this question is, as you'll see is a little bit urgent. And it did come in today, so I will address it in this format, even though it's a little bit outside of the purview here. I think you'll understand why I'm gonna answer this. Ah, Andrew, as I write this, my husband is actively dying. First of all, I'm so sorry. Really, from my heart. I'm so sorry. Dissolving his body and senses very slowly. I feel after two years, we are close to the end.
She asked, this, this relates to she did attend the last mental thing I did with Bob Thurman. So this relates to a question there. So you did answer one of my questions about how to help him at the end. During this mental event I did with Bob two weeks ago. Bobby advised him to repeat on the Tom Tarot mantra months ago, I kept repeating it for him. The question for me is, what is the best way for me to help him through these next few hours or even days? And that's why I'm answering this question today. Because if there really is ours, I want you to get my response as quickly as possible. I'm the only one here I'm not emotional. I'm leading with my heart and want to give him a blessing sendoff? Well, first of all, thank you for your your honesty, your courage and sharing this. And for expressing yourself so openly. The best thing to do really at this point is to and answer the as best you can through like you're saying, leading with your heart tune in to where he is what he is, I can't tell from your question whether there's a communication or any ability to even move. So if he's still able to make some statements, or even even physically move, my recommendation would be to simply do the best that you can to respond to whatever you might be picking up from his hand. Because very often, if we're open and sensitive enough, the dying person will consciously or unconsciously send you what they really need. But fundamentally, the overarching thing is to create this environment really, and wonderful. It's really simple, really, to create a holding environment of tremendous caring and love. That basically allows him to relax. And so whatever can bring that about, for him, whatever. And again, you know him better than anybody. Now's not the time to bring new teachings in. Now's not the time to do anything, but really listen, and support them on their journey. He may not be like you said here, he's not a believer. Which I mean, I suspect means he doesn't believe in the same things that you do, that's fine. Don't try to convert him to your beliefs. support him in whatever way you think is most appropriate, based on your understanding of him. That can help him relax, because that's the only thing you really need to do. We don't have to do all these other kind of fancy esoteric things. You don't need that, especially at this point, the image I like to create here and maybe this is a good place to just leave it is imagine the feeling that you get when someone you really care about just gives you a big warm, loving hug right? You know how that feels when you're when you're held that way. You almost can't help but just open and surrender it just you just feel so cared for so held that you just open release and surrender to that embrace. And I would allow that principle hugging environment I would allow that principle to guide you have to really be open if he's already not able to move not able to give you any type of feedback. Then based on your understanding and all your psychic antenna like you're saying leading with your heart, you if you pay really close attention, the environment will actually invite you to create this type of space this environment and so the specificities around that I cannot address because I don't know you and I don't know him but those So the general guiding principles that any palliative care hospice worker, spiritual, doula, whatever I think will tell you create an environment to whatever degree you can, that allows them to open release. Really keep it simple, keep it simple and embrace them with an intentionality of unconditional love, celebration and release. And in to whatever extent you can, it's hard to avoid grasping. I suspect, from what I'm hearing here that you're not, you said, you're not emotional. So I don't think this this applies to you, but sometimes the grasping after the person.
Very often, this is why people die when there's nobody in the room. Because usually when people are there, there's either overt or covert level covert levels of grasping. And so for to let the person die from their side, you have to let them die from your side, you have to let them go. Or at least I should say it's suggested that you do so. Release them from your side. It's been a great life when my father was dying. He couldn't speak anymore, but I knew he could hear me and I just kept saying to him, you've had a great life. We're so fortunate to have known you. We're all good. We're going to miss you. But we're all good. This is your time, you're good to go. So I'll leave it at that. Unless you're I didn't want to if you're listening and want to come on and have more dialogue more than welcome to do so. But my heart goes out to you. I'll keep you both in my practice and prayer. And realize it's an unbelievably natural event as painful as it is. And basically let nature just do its course with your embrace. Okay. All right. So if there's a live, I'll check the chat column. And in the meantime, I think there's a couple live questions, so to speak. Go ahead. I guess that's Kenny. Hey, Kenny. Hey, Andrew. How are you?
I'm very well. Thank you. How are you?
I'm good. Thanks. Nice to see you. How can I help you today? I believe is that Bodie back there? Yeah, that's 30 Hey, your buddy, buddy. Buddy, Buddy, Buddy, Buddy. Okay,
yeah. Um, so thank you so much for this webinar series. This is for me the richest place on nightclub right now. And it just like you love the stages of Dream Yoga and cool. This particular stage really, I really connect with. Even though I haven't had a ton of dreams in this stage, the the few that I have have been some of the most profound dreams I've had. Oh, wow. Wonderful. Yeah. So I'm really grateful for the container to kind of dive deeper into this particular stage. And you know, the last stage stage five was really challenging for me, I really, that's the one of the ones I struggle with the most. And I found a little bit of understanding in that from what Ken Wilber writes about how he speaks about the three dimensions of spirituality that I and then the other and then the like it,
are we? Yeah, the big three. Yeah, right.
Yeah. And that the Wii is kind of devoid from Western culture and a lot of ways. Like, we're on the I and on the ET. And I feel like stage five is kind of the week. It feels like that to me, like Oh, nice. Yeah, so um, so anyways, my my question and curiosity is, in order to advance to sleep yoga, and Bardo yoga, do you feel like it's necessary to be like proficient in all of the stages of Dream Yoga? Or do you feel like, you know, there's maybe lines of development for different creative energy types? Right. Your own path leading to that?
Yeah, I think it's just that I think it's the latter there are lines of development. And so no, you don't have to master all these. Especially for you know, doing sleep yoga, the full formulas, practices. It's a little bit like when you're doing in more kind of classical daytime practices. On one level, and this is really that the entire just to show you the centrality of this within massive lineages, traditions, Advaita Vedanta. That's, that's what they do. That is that is it. That's what separates them from things like Kashmir Shaivism, which has tons you know, hundreds of all kinds of methods in stages and meditations and all that. There's tons on that menu. Advaita Vedanta, the menu is really pretty limited. It's basically resting the nature of non dual reality. And so it sucks. Definitely like you say, Katie, that there are lines and people have predispositions. And people have particular comic propensities, talents or whatever. And so therefore, you absolutely do not need to master all these stages. If you have a, they can be helpful for sure, absolutely. Because each one of the stages, like I suggested, really does work with emptiness, for sure. And then emptiness is another way to talk about sleep yoga, Lombarda yoga, that's what those practices point blank go at. And so in that regard, these practices can totally grease the skids. Absolutely. But are they necessary? No. Some people again, to whatever reasons, kind of mentioned Ken Wilber kind of integral reasons, may have external or internal factors that predispose them to going right towards the formless meditations. And so on a very real level, you could say that that's the more profound, elevated fruition or meditation, there's some provisional validity to saying that that accomplishing those foremost practices is like that's the best practice. I temper that now, because there are near enemies, if that's the only place you want to go, and there's no place you can hang out, because then what do you do with that? Right? So what we're talking about here, this, this ties into the logic of what we've been expressing today, these stages are simultaneously vectors into that formlessness. And expressions of that, see, so it's a bi directional thing on one level, they can lead you there. On another level, they are expressions of being there. And that's where one of the things I see more and more with with it's kind of this these were crystal rubbish talks about is the forms of high altitude sickness, I love that label that you can get this kind of high altitude sickness. And I've climbed in the Himalayas. And so this, this speaks a lot to me, pulmonary edema and cerebral edema, specifically, where you just you become a god addict, you become a state junkie, you become addicted to these delicious formless states. And a lot of people do that that's classic spiritual bypassing there is so delicious there, they think, Oh, my gosh, this is this has got to be the Enlightened thing. Well, yes or no, it's enlightenment for you. But even then it's still partial, because that's the emptiness component, if you don't have the capacity to express your emptiness, again, this is where the stages coming back down can help you do that. Then your your emptiness is incomplete. Your enlightenment is not complete, you've ascended, but you haven't fully incorporated. In other words, you're not you're really not facile in the expression of that. And therefore, as I mentioned earlier, that also intimate so your understanding of the formless states aren't complete. So I'll pause for a second, see if that makes sense for you. But that's what comes to mind. And it leads to some really interesting topics. But let me just pause for a second to make sure I'm hitting your sweet spot.
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, it's inspiring me actually, because I do a lot of work with creative energies and different types of people to like, kind of lay out different lines of development in terms of Dream Yoga for different creative energy type people.
Yeah, yeah, totally. And again, that's a great thing about integral approaches and all that that it's not a one size fits all thing. We all have different appetites, different predispositions. So therefore, the more we know about those, that's another reason to explore these stages, the more skillful we can be in communicating, communicating with people who have resonances with those stages. So for instance, you may not have facility with stage five, but learning about it will then become a skillful means for you to help someone who may so therefore, in that respect, is a teacher, I would say it is a little bit more mandatory. Because then that increases your skill set, then you can say, hey, I can talk to you about this. I may not have accomplished it myself, but I understand it. And therefore I can be a benefit to you. But to me, the take home message here is that yes. The emptiness teachings, the non dual teachings on one level Dharmakaya, whatever you want to call it. That's the point. That's the fruition. But again, it's half the point. The other point is the evolutionary art. So that's there's so many different languaging for it, but using Wilbury Wilbers terms evolution and evolution, right. So the evolution thing is reaching the formless dimensions, but then when you do, it's like that reminds me of this Gary Larson cartoon of this guy who's apparently in heaven, as well. He's sitting on this cloud and the thought bubble above him is I wish I brought a magazine. You know, like now what, right? Now what? What am I going to do with my bliss? What am I going to do with my formless emptiness? Am I just going to hang out is an are hot or a spiritually bypass God attic. A lot of people do that. That's an incomplete enlightenment, then you want to take your heaven, join it back into Earth, smack your divinity back into the dirt and express it in the grittiness of the world. And right now that's, that's a really important thing very practically a great place to end. That, you know, if we can't bring what we're doing here to bear on what's happening in the world today, of what relevance and value is that we're doing here, we're just we're just enhancing our comfort zone. We're just trying to FedEx our consciousness out of the shitshow. I think that's a colossal mistake. And my big thing these days is, aren't what we're doing here is completely irrelevant. If we can't use it, we can't take our divinity and bring it into our profanity and help the world. So that's another reason to work with some of these intermediate steps. Okay. Questions is usually you see two, total. Okay, am I right? I'm gonna go just paying through some of these questions while you're coming on.
Yeah, okay. Yes, far away, and then I'll get some of the ones that are in the chat column.
Well, let's see where to begin. First, as I haven't signed up for you this four or three day thing that men love, because when I see that many speakers even that quality, I wonder how much you can get from one hour in. But I'm not trying for you to sell it. But it's so attractive, I think, what is the context more? I mean, the intensity, because the caliber of the people that are speaking is unbelievable, but it's so short time, what is the focus? When nobody has their own?
Yes, I actually, I mean, I might be able to send you I have the overview, the outline of who's doing what, when maybe I can ping that to you. Here's the way I'm dealing with this is these are, these are recorded, you don't have to binge watch this, right. It's not like trying to catch up on a mini series in four days. You don't have to binge watch it. I'm pretty darn sure you're gonna have availability, access to this stuff. Well, after this, there's major download, because I look at this stuff as well. And it's almost, you know, not quite the best term, but embarrassment of riches. I mean, there's so much going on here. I agree with what you're saying. But I think the reason to perhaps sign up for it is you can then titrate it out later, you don't have to do it all in one big bang. You can kind of just digest it on your own pace, so to speak. But yeah, it's a lot. And I think that's one of the really riches part of it is because it's limited to an hour that the people that are coming, it's a little bit like America's Got Talent, you know, people that are coming on are going to be delivering their best stuff in a relatively short order. And to me, that's kind of exciting, because it really invites forces a presenter to really give their like, what's my heart message here? What's the best thing I can do within an hour? I actually kind of liked that. Because yes, it's condensed. Sometimes it can be really packed with information. But that's the kind of stuff I grew up on. Now. That's the kind of stuff that stops my mind is Whoa, whoa, this is really awesome. So that's just my hidden in my room. That's the way I'm going to relate to it. He's still there. Oh, I can't hear you.
Oh, thank you. I did what you said to them about practicing samsara in practice and Nirvana, I think is so powerful. I think you have to take that because it's almost like every time that you do that it's married and you put the space between the two Dominus I mean, that that made a big impact. Because every time that you do that, you're creating a better 95% of subconscious, like what you're doing. So that is very powerful. That one thing that I'm having difficulty understanding.
Hello,
is what you've been saying. Let me just say is that you are more open in terms of what comes you do not know about 95% of what we have done there because I still have so much to claim. How can we make such a statement? Because I mean, I know that it's not all just my projection and my creation and there is this collective.
You broke Barra, you broke up at the very beginning. And you're breaking up a little bit now. can you restate what you started with? Because I literally just did not hear it. Are your your connections breaking up on us a little bit here. Can you repeat what you just said or type it in? Yeah.
I was talking about the collective the part that that you said I've many times that it's not coming from you that you know that is not coming from you. And if we take come with parameters and believing that 95% of what more could be more, that is our subconscious, and we have the opportunity of seeing that through meditation and we have the opportunity to see some of that come in in our dreams, I know that everything is not my production that is more complex than that, that there is a collective
sir, but how?
How can I have an experience that they are have I have no imprint? How can I have no perception of something that even believe in an emptiness that there is not something that is actually coming from me, because the way that I perceive it is due because it what I have done there? Or the seeds that I have accumulated? amount of time I explain
it, I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. It seems to be a juxtaposition of kind of ownership and responsibility for what is coming from your side, so to speak, and what seems to be coming from speak the other side? Is that kind of what you're asking, it's not totally clear.
Yes, because if especially when you have dreams of precognition, or you have that ability to sometimes send things that just come through or a dream comes true, you know, that that did not come from you. There's a knowing in your body in every cell that you know, that is not coming from you. But at the same time, we can reify dream, because then we would be doing the same thing. So when you affirmed that I know that it's not coming from you, how are you saying it with that much conviction?
How am I saying that with so much conviction? Right? Um, yeah, I mean, this, this comes from the issue of the problem of proof. Let me pause for a second and see what comes up around that.
I mean, the instances that come directly into mind are, are sometimes really akin to what you were talking about in terms of, of, let's just say something like pre cognition that you can have experiences that irrespective of what anybody says to what do they say in the sada Mahamudra. Even if the Buddha is of the three times rise up against you, you will remain in the indestructible, larger nature. And so there are levels of personal conviction that can be so, so solid confirmed, based by the just a phenomenal impact. I don't know I don't know how I can actually prove this to you outside of just the like, it's like it's like trying to say to someone else, express to someone else the internal landscape of feelings. Like if you're feeling intensely anger, angry or intensely in love, how can you possibly convey that to someone outside? You can't. But you know, from within that that's your interior landscape. And so I mean, I can get a little bit of philosophical theoretical here, you can talk about the three eyes of St. Bonaventure, you know, you see things through the eye of the flesh, they I have a reason and I have contemplation in each one of those eyes then brings about his own corresponding level of of veracity, truth and proof. So I'm not sure I want to go into that kind of philosophical end unless you want me to challenging question to answer it. And again, I want to make sure I'm even understanding what you're asking.
Now, I happen to believe the premise.
Okay, because then you're breaking up again. Yeah, same
sense of your face it better I'm going to contemplate and maybe ask a better leave a little bit later. Because I'm coming from a sense of the absolute in at the same time coming from the outside, it seems to me that it's a very fine line that we can begin to reify receiving messages or connections and you know,
yeah, yeah. If that's what you're saying, then that's a slightly different story. Yes, then that's just ego kind of coming back in and appropriating the insight, you know, I mean, here's here's the take home message from what I'm hearing from you by right is that, again, we don't exist despite egos. contestations about we don't exist as a locus of identity. We exist as a prosity. of vectors of of expression of awareness. And so on one level, when I'm pretty contracted then I manifest is a frequency that I know is this this schmuck called me. When I relaxed and open I make myself much more available. So all these other dimensionalities and agencies and abilities to content connect to all these dimensions of both wisdom and confusion that are not me and so A vast part of what's going on there. And then also the juxtaposition between as you pointed out relative and absolute truth, what really constitutes NRN? Outer? Where do I end? And where does other began? On one level? It's all one and you can't even say it's all one. It's none. It just is. So yeah, you know, somewhere in there, these are your pointing to some really nuanced subtle topics that I'm not entirely sure where
to run. Okay, no, thank you. No, I think I actually got it in between. I will stick with that space in between the dominoes,
hanging, hanging this patient dominoes, and I think you'll get it. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. All right. Let me see if there's anything else here in the chat column. Question How the purlins retreat be different from the two etc. Did with Bob Thurman. Yeah, Barry's gonna be. There'll be a little bit of overlap for sure. But I didn't talk very much with Bob, about hidden lands and sacred lands. So I'm going to use the Pure Land teaching as a platform to talk about more about Bale, hidden lands and sacred lands sacred geography. So that's going to be the biggest difference. There's going to be a little bit of puroland practice traditional Sutra and Tantra. And then really, the uniqueness of this one is the interjection of material on the hidden lands, Bale. And the Pure Land. I mean, I'm sorry, the sacred lands, and then using those very as platforms to talk about this thing called non duality in the relationship of matter to mind like what are these? What's the relationship of pure mind to pure land? So yes, there'll be some similarities, but the reason I'm offering it is because there's gonna be quite a bit different and brand new. Okay. All right. Here we go. Thanks. Very, very expensive book, but you can get it. Oh, I didn't know you can rent it. Wow. So I must be the conscious. Yeah, the conscious mind sleeping brain book. I thought it was actually out of print. Okay. Cool. I think that might be it for today, which would be awesome. That gives me a chance to recover for my own podcast interview coming up. So thanks, everybody. Always fun to hang with you. Next session a month from now we're going to do stage seven, which is really one of the more esoteric not like, like, we're not doing esoteric stuff, right? The cultivation of a special dream body. How you can use Dream Yoga is a form of the Dream Yoga does not use this languaging astral projection that is you won't find that term, but it's definitely connected to that type of thing. It's also connected to what's called Dream Yoga POA celestial POA, which is a special type of transference of consciousness, you can do a death. So the next one, stage seven is is a really interesting one, using the dream mind the dreamscape to do these kinds of out of body travel things and so we'll talk a little bit about how most experiences when people think they're having out of body experiences. They are not all the ease their altered embodiment. But that's not to say that you can't have an OBE totally can that we have an out of body experience all the time whenever we actually distracted from our bodies. But I'm gonna talk a little bit about the relationship, a lot of body experiences, especially dream body, all the stuff in connection to pull up. So stage seven next time is going to be pretty cool. So between now and then everybody, thank you so much gives me a chance to rest before my podcast. See you around town, so to speak. Hi, everybody. Thank you
