Yay! Blessed quiet at 5am. Moving to the opposite side of the hall pretty much eliminated the 5am sound from the local temple. It was strange I didn't hear it at all. Maybe they took a day off.
Finally learned the AIMS canteen menu to get the perfect meal: Veg Kuruma (lots of mixed veggies in a spicy sauce), Kadala Curry with lots of chick peas for protein and a cup of steaming hot rich rice water (called 'kanni vellum'). Pour it all together to make a nice soup and there's my perfect AIMS meal. Nutritious and watery. I'll have to remember it next time I come back here.
I hopped onto to one of Amma's buses going from AIMS to a special Amma program taking place at another ashram about 8 miles from Amritapuri. Its the 156th birthday of some very highly regarded local guru/saint whom I'm guessing left his body about 60 or 70 years ago. I didn't pack any extra clothes when I went to AIMS and ended up staying there for 3 days so my clothes probably smell pretty bad. The bus dropped us off at the program but I quickly hopped onto an auto-rickshaw and came back to the ashram to shower and change. I thought all the meals would be canceled here at the ashram because of the special program, but to my surprise, the admin person said there'll be the usual Indian dinner. Cool. Felt very good to be back home.
Had a nice long talk during and after dinner with Yuri. We talked a lot about our experiences with meditation and I told him about my experience with Emmett Walz back in 2006. I only tell a few people about that experience cause it can be easily misunderstood. Yuri has had some similar experiences so he could grok where I was coming from. I also told him about some other friends of mine who've had some awakening experiences, and he told me about 2 people he knows who've seemingly permanently dropped into the "witness" state. We shared that there seems to be a growing number of people who are 'waking up'. Everyone wakes up in their own unique way and describes their awakening in very differently. But the awakening seems to have some common features in all who experience it. Yuri also shared about two powerful and well known western gurus he's studied with. After spending time with them, Yuri determined that both of these gurus had some serious and deep egoic issues that they were blind to. And at the same time these two gurus have an unmistakably powerful spiritual presence that can trigger openings and awakenings in their followers. We shared about the continuum between awakening (knowing clearly and without doubts our true nature as pure consciousness) and complete liberation (being fully awakened *along with* the removal of all egoic and contracted mind conditioning). Being awakened is not the same as complete liberation. Someone like Amma (from what I can see) is a great example of complete liberation while someone like Andrew Cohen seems to be deeply awakened, but with lots of residual, unexamined and active egoic contraction patterns (I've read very interesting books by two of his ex-disciples). I know I'm stepping into a can of worms by naming names, but worms make the best compost! Any Andrew Cohen followers can flame me at jaiamma@gmail.com. All caps is fine.
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