Notes from SRV Hawai'i
In this day and age, Indian Philosophy is focused most around Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta.  SRV spells "serve" and this is what we are about -- via presenting a spiritual education.  We have to look back at these darshanas as the touchstone of what it means to live a spiritual life, as Christ put it, "to have an inner life."

Altruism serves human beings.  Karma Yoga serves God in human beings.  There is a difference.  If you serve human beings they tend to remain human beings, with all their foibles.  But if you serve God in human beings, they tend to become Godlike.

Jnana Yoga is your discrimination between the Real and the unreal.  Spiritual life will demand of you that you make this distinction.  Science has shown us, without even trying to, that objects are empty, which is what Buddhism says.  They are empty because 1) they cannot fulfill you and 2) they are empty of both substance and sentience.

Great beings have come to this earth, who have perceived the imperceptible, the covering power of maya.  "Taking as bow that mighty weapon furnished by the Upanishads, fasten to it the mind made sharpened by thought on Reality alone.  Then, drawing full strength, O student, release and penetrate that mark - the imperishable Brahman."  That arrow, the mind, is to be sharpened on the whetting stone of nondual Truth.  Then pull the bowstring of truth full strength and aim it at Brahman.  You will pierce through maya, the power of obscuration and distortion. 

Deep sleep is a rather miraculous state.  Ten minutes of it will refresh you.  What is deep sleep?  It is formlessness, and it is the only formlessness that most people will be able to manage in this lifetime.  The mind is the ultimate particle accelerator and decelerator, and deceleration happens in deep sleep.  "If thine eye be single you shall know the Truth" -- if you enter into deep sleep and remain aware -- this is what happens.

The body is incidental to samadhi.  Now, we do not teach aversion to the body.  But if we trust and follow this nondual reality we gradually lose our attachment for the world.

There is nothing "out there" in space; only the five elements.  And if you go far enough out you even lose a few of those.  Esoterically speaking, discovering space inside of yourself is key to everything.

A runner running a race in a dream goes nowhere.  And this is what the uninformed person does in every incarnation.  One should prove this to oneself in meditation.  If you get control over the power of projection you will get control over dissolution. 

As you reach towards enlightenment you lose your interest in powers.  You do not try to reject them or avoid them -- you are just not interested.

Be careful when you dissolve the senses into prana (vital energy) because the psychic prana reveals itself then and it will tempt you with healing and other powers.  Krishna says even one of these powers will keep you from realizing Brahman.  You cannot heal anything in Maya.  It is always sick, and even the sickness is an illusion.  It is just all change.  How can you change, change?  Realize your Self first, then enter the fray.  As long as you are using powers, are tempted by them, you are a separate experiencer.  That means an ego.  Be Brahman.

Space is the most subtle element in my Tradition.  The ear is the most important sense.  If you plug your ears you cannot hear me.  But if you shut your eyes you can still hear.  Wisdom is transmitted through space.  And if we purify our mind, Wisdom will go straight to the heart.  New Agers want to bypass the mind and intellect. They do not want to purify these, but instead want to go to the heart and have emotional, blissful experiences.  But these will not lead to transformation until the mind is purified.

If you do not believe in a creator God you are one of two things: either an atheist or an advaitist.  See how strange it is?  The latter has transcended It and the former doesn't believe in It.

[Speaking on the practice of involution:]
When you meditate on the alambanas, you are not going back to connect the five elements and five senses because they are disconnected, but because you have lost the connection that is ever present.

In order to know "who am I" you have to know what you are not.  Once you uncover this ruse you reach a siddhanta, a conclusion, and then can act effectively.

[From one of Babaji's charts:]
Definition of ignorance:

• Assumption of individuality
• Engagement in mental projection
• Maintenance of a separate existence
• Pretense of personal agency
• Enforcement of the unreal/denial of the Real
• Belief in time, matter, evolution
• Acceptance of birth, growth, death

What are the Four Ways of Seeing God?  Brahman, Ishvara, Antaryami, and Archa.  Archa is the ground floor.  Philosophically, it is hard to say that archa, the symbol, is Brahman.  You have to say it is a manifestation of Brahman, an expression of Shakti, a reflection off the Intelligence - things like that.  So, if I have made my eye single I shall be able to see that Brahman lies behind everything as the immutable, immovable Substratum.  Ishvara (God with form) grants us the gift of negativity so we can rise up and out of maya.  Ishvara is the highest concept of God we can conceive of.  The forms of Ishvara are doorways from form to formlessness.  One indeed does "get to the Father through the Son."  Antaryami is our very Self.  Here, we begin to see that Atman is Brahman.  You see through the five sheaths*.  You are taking your own Consciousness out and using it as a wedge/goad to pierce through the five layers of the nonself which are like clothing we have put on.  "We are not the body gown, nor the life force flowing down."  When Atman disconnects from the five sheaths it automatically makes the connection with the inner Self and the Paramatman. *[5 Sheaths: physical body, life force/prana, dual mind, intellect, ego]