Holistic      Musician

On October 23rd 2006 I decided to meditate in the afternoon. I sat in a comfortable chair between the window and the apartment door and just got very relaxed. I wanted to start with a strong feeling of love so I began imagining my wife and I in the Jacuzzi the night we got engaged. We were just locked deep in the embrace of each other and our love. The room is dimly lit with candles bouncing shadows off the walls. We melt into one another to the point that it now feels more like I am embracing God or pure love.

      As I was sitting in my apartment I imagined the tub was the size of our whole studio apartment and I felt as though I, and the oneness of love, were afloat across my living room floor. The walls were now gone and I was embracing this pure love in the form of my wife Illuminated, surrounded by stars where my walls use to be. As I let myself drift farther into this feeling of floating in the waters of love, I suddenly saw my eyes as though I was wearing a mask.

      Once I realized this I then saw several crows flying straight at me and they came straight through the mask and through my eyes and into my head. It felt as though the crows were flying left of my vision and the water from my apartment-sized hot tub was following them. Very suddenly I was no longer floating in my apartment but in pure darkness. Quietly I sat comptemplating how I had reached this place. It was dark and I was still floating but I felt calm and serene.

      My mental assessments started to sound like a voice that was explaining something to me but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking, “that’s me talking, but why don’t I hear my voice?” Then very abruptly the voice changed to an annoyed and brazen version of myself and said, “Because you NEVER listen to yourself! You’re always saying I or ME, you’re so PRETENTIOUS! That’s your problem, you’re pretentious as Hell!”

      Taken back at not really knowing exactly what pretentious meant I asked myself, “What am I hiding, and where is it hidden?” My stomach started to hurt on my lower right side where it hurts from time to time. I heard distinctly myself both questioning and answering voices speaking at the same time in unison “So my pain is deep rooted in my gut near my core or center and it’s a pain I carry from a young age and it in some way involves my family”. It was then that my own voice of reason took over and said, “You are pretentious, start with that! My meditation ended.

      Now I was faced with the challenge of understanding the visions that I received during this meditation. They all spoke to me very clearly about different aspects of my life and what I was missing. So I really dove deep into trying to see my own pretentious nature and get to the root of it all and knowing that this is the work of the ego, I wanted to see just how big of one I had.

      I have studied many different spiritual paths and have taken many insightful & wise things from each, all in a way to better my own understanding of how the Universe operates as one whole! Knowing this was a spiritual matter, I began to seek out practices and daily affirmations to help me to overcome the grasp of my ego or my over thinking mind. I also wanted to dive a bit more into meditation, after having such a profound vision after such a short term of meditating.

      Being most spiritually in tune at this time with the Sufi message I looked up a group in Burbank and attended a few classes. During one of these sessions our teacher spoke of how spiritual work is like unraveling a rope that is full of knots. We create a knot mentally and then tug on each end trying to see where it came from in your past on one end then how will it affect your future on the other end and the next thing you know you have tightened that knot in the middle and that is what you have to undo now!  

       So this idea of unraveling knots in my head really resonated with me. Being an extreme over thinker, I have woven MANY knots in my head and it became very obvious that many of these knots were the cause of my pretentiousness. I started to view my whole life from a different viewpoint. I also see my artistic expression following a higher calling than what my own vision could create for myself. Where my music can carry some power and healing is by sharing the experience and the wisdom of truth in my heart. It all starts with healing myself as each word that I sing and each breath that I breathe unravels a higher level of consciousness and understanding so that I may learn to stop creating the knots!

      You can think of the concept too of the rope being a seamless thread of time and space. When there is knots in this thread time and space are forgotten and although they still move and create we are stuck behind that knot and are not moving forward and not taking a hold of the present moment. But once this knot is unraveled then you are then connected to all as that thread of seamless time and space. It is there you can float in the nothingness of bliss and create your own reality in the present.

      In reality, all if life is that continuous thread. There is one life force permeating through us all and we are ALL connected by it. So on a global scale you can see the disharmony that is present and you can see that we are creating huge knots and have pulled way too tightly on both ends of the rope. We have a tug of war going on between political parties, countries, nations and tribes all letting their own pretensions build these enormous knots that almost seem to choke our hope for a thread of unity.

        So there are many knots to unravel in this universe from an individual level to a global scale. If we all spend a little time in the nothing, or the silence within, we can easily identify the knots we create, trace the source of them and begin unraveling.

Volume I - II - 8

"Learning is forming a knot in the mind. Whatever one learns from experience or from a person, one makes a knot of it in the mind; and there are as many knots found as there are things one has learned. Unlearning is unraveling the knot; and it is as hard to unlearn as it is to untie a knot. How much effort it requires, how much patience it requires, tounravel when one has made a knot and pulled it tight from both sides! So it requires patience and effort to unravel the knots in the mind. And what helps the process? The light of reason working with full power unravels the mental knots. A knot is a limited reason. When one unravels it, its limitation is taken away, it is open. And when the mind becomes smooth by unlearning and by digging out all impressions, of good and bad, of right and wrong, then the ground of the heart becomes as cultivated ground

"

Volume X-5-8

"That enemy is this spirit; a spirit which is never contented, which does not appreciate, which does not respond, which does not sympathize, which does not agree, which does not endure, which does not tolerate, which does not harmonize. A spirit which stands against any influence of harmony, agreement, sympathy, or kindness. Is this spirit a living being, is it Satan, a devil, or what is it? What is its explanation? What is its origin? The best explanation is that it is like a smooth silken thread which becomes tangled at one end and ties itself into a knot. But in the place where there is a knot it is very difficult to unravel, it is still the same silken thread. Only it is in a condition where it is difficult for it because it is not free. And it is difficult for others because they cannot unravel it. And so the same soul that has divine breath in it, which has come from heaven, which represents God on earth, when it is turned into a knot has difficulty with itself, difficulty with others, and others have difficulty with it. In this way it becomes inharmonious, and it creates inharmony"

Gayan - Talas

"It is easy to tie a knot of attachment, but it is difficult when you wish to unravel it"

Volume II - 22

"o see a person and say, 'That person is wicked, I dislike him', that is learning. To see further and recognize something good in that person, to begin to like him or pity him, that is unlearning. When you see the goodness in someone you have called wicked, you have unlearned. You have unraveled that knot. First one learns by seeing with one eye; then one learns by seeing with two eyes, and that makes one's sight complete. All that we have learned in this world is partial knowledge, but when this is uprooted by another point of view, then we have knowledge in its completed form. This is what is called mysticism"

Volume VI - 2

"When a person has a knot to unravel, and he is given a knife to cut it, he has lost a great opportunity in his life. It is a small thing, but by not accomplishing it he has gone backward. "

Volume X - 2

"For, just as two eyes are needed to make the sight complete, and two ears are necessary to make the hearing complete, so it is the understanding of two points of view, the opposite points of view, which gives a fuller insight into life. A mystic calls this 'unlearning.' What we call 'learning,' is fixing ideas in our mind. This learning is not freeing the soul, it is limiting the soul. By this, I do not mean to say that learning has no place in life, but only that learning is not all that is needed on the spiritual path. There is something else, besides, there is something beyond learning; and to this, we can only attain by unlearning. Learning is just like making knots of ideas, and the thread is not smooth as long as the knots are there. They must be unraveled; and when the thread is smooth, one can treat it in any way one likes. A mind with knots cannot have a smooth circulation of truth. The ideas which are fixed in one's mind block it. A mystic, therefore, is willing to see from all points of view in order to clarify his knowledge. It is that willingness which is called 'unlearning."

*Chants and Jam session:

Gate Gate

Paragate

Parasamgate

Bodhi Svaha

Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram

Om Sri Ram Om

Jai Jai Ram Om

Sri Sri Ram Om

Jai Jai Ram Om