Highlights Meditation Retreat

Meditation Retreat in Shanti Gaia (Rome) and Pilgrimage to Assisi 

July 19-26 

….A pilgrimage is not just an an ordinary journey, it is not an itinerary, it does not seek a fixed destination or a limited goal, a pilgrimage has its own call and follow an inner urge which operates on two planes: 

1) on the physical

2) on the spiritual plane

A pilgrimage seems an outer movement, but it is primarily towards the inner dimension of being, a movement that always starts from an invisible inner core…

Freedom is closer then you may think….

if the desire for freedom is strong and persistent you are going to get it no matter what.

Highlight 1 

……..many people listen to the teachings and try to understand the teachings with the mind.

By trying to understand, those seeds… will land in the head and the teachings will remain there…it will be a ‘possession’ of the ‘me’ that will use it as he will find it useful….it will become an acquired knowledge that ‘me’ can use when convenient for itself….this will lead into laziness and infertility….

Freedom needs great humility and sincere authenticity through investigation….the teachings have to penetrate into the heart and there they have to stay until they can fully sprout and blossom into awakening to the truth of what you are.

Highlight 2 

…… ‘my school’  has been Papaji’s school, my Guru and excellent advaita Master… and from him I have inherited, by direct experience, that the ‘me’ is just a dream, it has never been there…there is no ‘me’ anywhere…the matrix of everything, everything, including just all, from the roof to the floor and the stars: everything is nothing that we can call a ‘me’, nothing has and individuality…it is just the mind that makes the game…

if you take a tree for instance, what is the tree? if you remove the soil and the sky and the rain and all the elements that constitutes what we call tree, if you remove the ground and all the chemicals component in each piece, you take all away one by one, you do not find a ‘me’ tree in there, there is no tree in there…there is nothing called ‘tree’…

this is obvious but to realize it, we need to surrender to the deep silence within and see for ourselves…we will see that really there is no individual self inside anything in existence…

Highlight 3

…..I remember in Papaji’s satsang often people would argue, ‘if there is no me, then there is no doer, than who does whatever you are going to do, if there is no ‘me’ then there is no free will, because there must be a me to have a free will….and if there is no me, that mean there is no free will’

….and all things like that…

….these inquiries are also important, but now, in this course I want to go to the core of it!

I want to take you to the flame itself…and there, burn totally…you can sit here and think about the flame, but you don’t get warm, thinking about the flame has nothing to do with the flame …

to have the real direct experience of the flame you need to go to the flame, to go to the flame it means in this case to disappear into that fire.

Here we have a ‘you’ a ‘moth’ and a fire for freedom…the moth has to be so much attracted to that flame that she gets closer and closer and then she gets into it and surrender to it and burn in it…

this is it…the ‘me’ has to meet the flame of ‘I want to be free’ and disappear into that fire……

Highlight 4

…Ego can be defined as a dualistic current of desire and aversion, it is an obsession with one’s own mental conditionings.

it is a contracted mode of consciousness that can be transcended when  you start to look at its movements and be aware not to follow them….

…. just for a moment, you stop, you stop your mind, a split second of full total stop with total intensity, integrity, honesty and willingness brings you beyond ego…

and that is very beautiful and very pure….

Highlight 5

……let go of all that appears because that is not what you really are…

…the golden rule is: let go of the grasping….

‘holding on’ is the main obstacle….go into the holding…go straight there…you may not want to see it because it hurts or because you prefer being in peace at that moment..but that peace is also love and with that love go into that fire…go there don’t hesitate and see it clearly….this is a selfless movement of love, use it, and go there…go even deeper into it, and there do not move, but go and meet the suffering with love and compassion…and see what it is that still holds on…go  inside the suffering… dissolve that glue that keeps you stuck into that story…the dissolving happens with the willingness to stay quiet…there you need to stay quiet….do not run away….do not deny…do not suppress…stay there….let it open fully…and it will release itself….there is no mind involved here….

Highlight 6

…..this Retreat is really about how to live from grace…from the reality itself, which is how to live life when the ‘me’ is no more…

…often questions arise…. “how is possible a life if ‘me’ is no more? How can we relate to each other without a ‘me’ there? If there is ‘nobody home’ how will the action be…which first step will be taken?”

….when you awaken from the dream of ‘me’ a big shift happens…there you will turn away from the egoic state of consciousness and open to the field of beauty that we are and that everything really is…there is a huge transformation going on when the ‘me’ disappears….in all aspects of our life….

When the ‘me’ is no more it means that that the illusion of ‘me’ has met the void… the immensity of emptiness….there you die to the known and get reborn into the unknown ….

and this happens by grace…it is a moment of grace….but there is nobody to receive the grace there and nobody to give that grace there…it just happen spontaneously and by itself….

in that moment you realize, ‘oh I was lost and now I am found’….but mind is not there to know it

this force, this fire is here and is available…it is the same substance of which everything is made…it is just in everything everywhere…it has nothing to do with time or space it is present and at the same time it is just so empty…

this is nothing mysterious, it is an open secret and you can see it smell it, taste it, and touch it and when this is really really seen then you can say that the search is over, because if you really get into this energy field, into this dimension, into the truth, and you are in it day by day, and not just once not just a glimpse, but you burn in it, then you know that nothing can give and nothing can take away what you already are…and you know that everything is God, any thought, any feeling, any experience, is the same substance and so where would you search and for what?….

so if you stumble into this experience once in your life you will never ever forget it…it will stay with you…it is really the tiger that has jumped over you and it will not be satisfied till it has devour all your doubts…

…life then becomes extraordinary simple…

Highlight 7

…..Spiritual life has to be based on something more than concepts, something else than just teaching: it has to be based on inner stillness, on silence.

…it is important that you give yourself to silence ….to put the mind at rest,

this is really essential… meditation helps very much in that regard…

so my friends, flow with the flow…move along with the wind of grace….

we have to be honest about where we are…abide, rest, not grasp, in the deepest thing you know….the spiritual world is the inner world of wisdom and love…the foundation has to be within you, it has its base in your own silence….

Look into your heart: 

trust that vastness, trust that immensity of nothingness and…be happy.

Video

Meditation Retreat in Shanti Gaia and Pilgrimage to Assisi 1

Meditation Retreat in Shanti Gaia and Pilgrimage to Assisi 2

Meditation Retreat in Shanti Gaia and Pilgrimage to Assisi 3

Photo

Shanti Gaia

Assisi

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