Mufad said:
Swamig says she experience emotions like anger etc but they are just in the moment and it is not held on to and next moment they may be totally calm, having forgotten all about the anger. Swamig justifies herself by saying that even Christ exhibited anger so it is okay for an enlightened person to show anger.
I’m sure it’s bad for people to believe they have become like Christ.
If Jesus believed he had become “like Christ”, I believe it was bad for him too.
I’m not sure it is good either for people to believe they are becoming like Christ. It’s not just that it isn’t true.
“I’m sure it’s bad for people to believe they have become like Christ”
This is what I’m talking about being filled with ego still. If she thinks she is comparable to Christ then she certainly isn’t!
Love,
Carson 
Mufad said:
Sometimes while complaining about her students, she says that she has sacrificed the bliss and is keeping her body in order to help students rather than merging into bliss.
She’s gunning to hit our Divine Mother archetype and our Jewish Mother stereotype at the same time. 
(P.S. Irish mothers are the very same. )
Hi All:
Being of a practical type, I prefer to view definitions of enlightenment in terms of its essential observable constituents that can be cultivated within us in practices. Otherwise, and pardon me for saying so, it is just a lot of talk.
By “essential observable constituents,” I mean stillness, ecstatic conductivity, and the blending of these two in outpouring divine love and unity. In AYP, we have focused on developing an effective integration of practices that can cultivate all three of these over time. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, not in the speculation about it.
As for enlightenment without bliss, well, I suppose if stillness did not move one iota, there would be no sensation of anything, but that is hard to imagine for anyone who is alive and experiencing stillness moving naturally into action. Then we know ourselves to be blissful silence, and the movement is an ecstatic outpouring of love. In my opinion, these are qualities of enlightenment, paradox and all.
So, no, I don’t think enlightenment can be known without an inherent sense of joy, because That is what we are. One may be able to throw lightning bolts all around, and zing people’s inner energy too. But without joy, it doesn’t mean much, does it?
Even the stodgiest of saints can agree on that point. Enlightenment is stillness, which naturally emanates as joy, even though nothing is really moving at all. 
The guru is in you.
Namaste Yogani,
Thank You for this.
Can there be a negative type of stillness that does not flow as bliss or love ?
Do you have any comments about the right front side of chest that swamig calls as the spiritual heart center ?
Could a falling of consciousness into the heart center offer a freedom from thoughts, perceived as stillness, but far from enlightenment ?
The features of the sages with swamig include spontaneous uncontrollable laughter, loss of memory, loss of the old ego but developing a new type of ego.
Swamig’s guru’s guru is Papaji, the master in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4PZL7wg_g4 where a student receives instant enlightenment from a simple conversation with Papaji.
Thank You,
Mufad.
Hi Yogani,
Thanks for your input, it’s always great to hear your side of discussions like these.
So with your post above in mind, and knowing that this can be nothing BUT speculation, would you agree that someone who has unshakable stillness(an enlightened being) would have unlimited access to all knowledge? Would someone who is “One with the One that is all” be able to ace any test, technical or otherwise simply because they are one with All and therefor nothing could be unknown to them? I know this is a philosphically bent question, but it’s still begs an answer.
Love,
Carson
Hi Carson,
Yogani has made it clear that according to him enlightenment does not mean perfection - see http://www.aypsite.org/260.html
He writes - “Enlightened gurus make mistakes.”
Regards,
Mufad.
Ok. Thanks for the link Mufad…Sometimes I feel like a bit of an idiot on the forum because I have only read (mostly) the lessons in which I am currently using in my practices. I have left the rest of the Easy Lessons book for when I am to the point where I need to add on more practices. Leaving some surprises for later I guess…That said, I haven’t read evey single lesson, especially the later ones, and sometimes am arguing about stuff that is right in the lessons. Sorry.
But let me see if I have this straight…What Yogani is saying is that “Perfection is an illusion”. hmmmmmmm…I really gotta think long and hard about that one. If perfection is an illusion, and enlightenment means you can still make all the mistakes in the world, you just won’t be attached to your mistakes, then doesn’t this pretty much let everyone off the hook for everything? Doens’t this take the responsibility for oneself aspect right out of the equation? What about “right action”? If ALL actions can be considered right actions, or if the wrong actions don’t matter at all, then there would be no accountability for anything. A guru could go and rape someone, and say “I’m not attached to my actions, I don’t mean what I did anymore, and it’s over. I’m still enlightened.” This doesn’t make any sense to me.
Love,
Carson
P.S. This is why I had such a problem with Christians as a child. (I was a Christian back then myself.) I would see kids, or parents or whatever during the week act like complete jerk off’s doing everything they could to make other’s miserable or whatever, but then they show up at Church on Sunday and think that repenting for their sins for the past week, makes it all go away and everything is all good again. It just CAN’T work like that!
Hi Mufad:
Personality (there will always be some) is going to shade the presentation one way or the other. But negativity cannot reside in stillness. The question is, does the person have the student’s best interest at heart? Yogananda used to rant and rave at certain of his students, and then turn and wink at the others. In other words, his stillness was expressing in a certain way for the benefit of the student, with joy still radiating within and through. The video you just linked looks joyful, but I’d hesitate to call it “enlightenment.” How about a nice boost for the lady? Her own surrender was the far greater part of it.
As for the right side of the heart thing, it is under the hood, which does not mean we won’t notice something happening there as part of our overall unfoldment. Certain teachers may focus more there than others. It is a part of the whole. If we do not address the whole, the part will not be enough. I suspect the lady in the video found this out later on. There is no magic bullet for instant enlightenment, as much as we’d like to believe it. Boosts are available (plentiful!), if we are able to allow them. But then it takes more time in practices…
Hi Carson:
I think an enlightened person has all knowledge in seed form, as we all do. Perhaps an enlightened person can study less to pass a test (not guaranteed). They do have to open their eyes and look at the information to make the inner connection with the objective world. It is all inside us, but the objective expression of knowledge requires an outside connection. This is what karma yoga is about. Doing and letting go. If we are not willing to let go, it will not work. Spiritual practices gradually put us in a much better position for this. Spirit has its own agenda – maybe even to fail the test! There is knowledge in this also.
By its very nature, the search for perfect knowledge or a perfect being is an obstacle to our enlightenment. When we can let go of that, we will begin to find the real thing. That goes for seeking the “perfect guru” too. There is no such thing, except in our imagination.
The perfection comes from accepting the imperfections and carrying on. Then the truth flows through us like a tidal wave.
The guru is in you … and everywhere outside too.
Hi Yogani,
As always, I agree with you in everything but have a few questions still…
On the idea of testing of an enlightened one…Wouldn’t being intimately connected with the Source of everything make it so an enlightened one would have access to ALL information? Meaning, wouldn’t Self inquiry be enough? Would one really have to “study?”
I hope you understand I am not searching for anything, especially not a “perfect” guru. But is it not acceptable to strive for “perfect” enlightenment, or complete Self Realization, or however one might call it…is it not what we are all here practicing for…complete UNION? And I understand that enlightened ones will have “personality” and everything spewed from their mouths will be “tainted” by this, for good or for bad, but isn’t there something more to be attained? I thought enlightenment never really could be reached…there is always more work to be done…even for an enlightened one, but wouldn’t that work be to undo yet even more of their personality to become more like the Source? And is it not THIS that we are striving for? Not to be enlightened within our own personality, but to be enlightened as the ONE? The egoless, personality-less Source? Can one truely be egoless and yet still have “personality” or natural responses to occurances, including having emotions? Yet another paradox.
Love,
Carson
Hi Carson,
What I hear yogani saying is that the external perfection is never attainable as different people have different definitions of perfection, but the internal awakening is the same for all. All enlightened people bring the same light of truth into the world, the way it is expressed and reflected varies.
There may be different levels of enlightenment. To me the highest level of enlightenment means all seeing, all knowing all powerful but nothing doing. Yogani says the “essential observable constituents” of enlightenment are stillness, ecstatic conductivity, and the blending of these two in outpouring divine love and unity – so it means that the more enlightened one is, the more these constituents are present.
I believe that an enlightened being is free from karma, there is no separate being there who is doing any action only the one consciousness that flows in there. If a mistake happens, then it was meant to be and it is all good in the big scheme of things.
As yogani says this is “just a lot of talk”
We perform the practices in the now, and go one step at a time, without knowing what the destination looks like, because it is here already ! It seems the closer we get to here, the more the paradoxes increase!
Love,
Mufad.
Carson,
I don’t think the ego ever goes away, it’s just not seen as the self. I like yogani’s definition, and agree that this is all just a lot of talk.
Isn’t the forum FOR talking? I do my practices every day, twice a day religiously, but I still like to talk about stuff. Like whether or not someone can truely be egoless. And if you can, can there still be personality? These are just questions, I’m not trying to persuade anyone of anything, I am just searching for truth in words. Ineffective I know, but I have another 2 hours until my next set of practices 
Love,
Carson
CarsonZi said:
On the idea of testing of an enlightened one…Wouldn’t being intimately connected with the Source of everything make it so an enlightened one would have access to ALL information? Meaning, wouldn’t Self inquiry be enough? Would one really have to “study?”
Carson, I’m afraid such a person would still have to study if they want to do the things that require studying. If they venture into the territories that require study, and don’t study, they’ll perform incompetently, just like anyone else. That’s the way it goes.
And it does happen. It happens all the time actually. It happens all the more because people are carrying these illusions about what enlightenment is.
I hope you understand I am not searching for anything, especially not a “perfect” guru. But is it not acceptable to strive for “perfect” enlightenment, or complete Self Realization, or however one might call it…is it not what we are all here practicing for…complete UNION?
Well, we can strive. But if we think we’re finished (in a good way) then we’re finished (in a bad way).
Hi David,
Thank you for your input…Can I ask you how you know that…
“…such a person would still have to study if they want to do the things that require studying. If they venture into the territories that require study, and don’t study, they’ll perform incompetently, just like anyone else. That’s the way it goes”
Have there actually been scientific studies on what an “enlightened human” knows and does not know? If so, WHO did they study? In my OPINION, it would seem that since the Source of everything would “know” everything, from physics, to energy, to math, to you name it, (it’s the Source of it all) and that since the definition I think we came up with of an “enlightened being” is one who is in constant connection with the “source”, then this person would have access to any and all information desired or required to pass a test. Whether this being would even agree to be tested is a whole 'nother topic, but I still can’t see how you can KNOW 100% that what you are saying is the WHOLE Truth.
“…if we think we’re finished (in a good way) then we’re finished (in a bad way)”
This I agree with totally, but then again, are you trying to say that NOONE can be in constant connection with the Source???
Love,
Carson
Hi Carson,
‘In my OPINION, it would seem that since the Source of everything would “know” everything, from physics, to energy, to math, to you name it, (it’s the Source of it all) and that since the definition I think we came up with of an “enlightened being” is one who is in constant connection with the “source”, then this person would have access to any and all information desired or required to pass a test.’
You make a valid point I think.Unfortunately yoga has not improved my memory or else I would remember where the following info came from.There is a theory that we are all simply a collective consciousness and we tap into it which is why one can send distant healing etc.Recently I read that scientists are theorising that the memory is actually contained in this collective consciousness and not in the brain.When we recall a memory we tap into this consciousness, so in theory if one could tap into the same point as another then you could actually have access to their memories.To take this theory further one could access all the history of mankind.Some theory huh? Now before you say it’s not possible consider that some can tune into others vibrations and glean information about that person from anywhere in the world and I have witnessed this.
L&L
Dave
Hi Dave,
You are preaching to the choir brother…No arguments here, and I TOTALLY believe it’s possible.
Love,
Carson
My concern here is that this guru doesn’t even appear to mention God.
As a guru are we meant to see her as God? Is enlightent and realization not about GOD realization? There appears to be no mention of this, as far as I am aware. This deeply concerns me. I too was part of this on-line ashram, but left because of these reasons.
I asked her before and she differentiated herself from God, and said God existed and that enlightenment is God realization. But who knows. You could email her and ask directly.
CarsonZi said:
“…such a person would still have to study if they want to do the things that require studying. If they venture into the territories that require study, and don’t study, they’ll perform incompetently, just like anyone else. That’s the way it goes”
Have there actually been scientific studies on what an “enlightened human” knows and does not know? If so, WHO did they study? In my OPINION, it would seem that since the Source of…
I base my claims on observations of those who were claimed to be ‘enlightened’ – and that observation is that they did not have the magical minds they are supposed to have. Krishnamurti pooh-poohed mantra yoga in general and TM in particular. What he needed was not “enlightenement”, but rather an appropriate minimum education before he made his pronouncements.
There are lots of stories like this.
This I agree with totally, but then again, are you trying to say that NOONE can be in constant connection with the Source???
Language is vague here. What does constant connection with the Source mean? Is that really a well-formed notion, intellectually?
There is a set of beliefs that there is a process of ‘enlightenment’ which turns human beings into superheroes – sorts of Gods if you will, with magical powers, all-seeing, all-knowing. I believe its a mistake, and a big one. Let me label this set of beliefs, the ‘Siddha Tradition’.
In the end, I just don’t believe it’s reality. And I don’t believe it serves us that well.
Yoga improves the mind-body, in ways known and maybe in ways unknown. It can be a great healer, a great purifier, a great pusher towards our ‘potential’. But I don’t see a shred of evidence that it has ever produced a ‘Siddha’ in the sense of the ‘Siddha Tradition’ I’m talking about. Or even anything really like one. I don’t believe in Yogananda’s ‘Babaji’, or that Yogananda’s promotion of his ‘Babaji’, and everything that goes with that, was instructive or helpful to humanity. And in time, I believe this will become the prevailing understanding.
Other people will believe differently. That’s OK. I won’t argue without provocation. But I do have my reasons for believing as I do.
Why is it important to say such things as I say? Because, inflation is a bad thing as it pulls us out of our domain of competence. And it is so easy already to get ‘inflated’ as you progress on the Yoga path. If you have a set of beliefs that are enabling inflation, it might be time to get rid of them.
Keep it real, keep it humble. To put it sacro-mythically, enlightenment is about the ‘glory of god’, not the ‘glory of getting enlightened’. It is very easy already for it to become the latter, often in ways people don’t see.