A Suggestion Channeled by Zero

from Grandma Poohbear of "The Pool of All Possibilities"

If the dear donkey Eeyore (Yo? Io? Ego?) of the waking self is digging in its hooves to the'patient perseverance' admonition of amazing Ramana, or finding traditional Advaita meditation advice too severe such as "follow the mind to its source" ("too many brambles, and what the hell happened to the path?"), or the Buddhist precepts too grueling "practice mindfulness at every moment" ("what about just plain old spontaneity?"), your kindly Grandma Poohbear (also known to some as Aditi, the zero-point energy field of our cosmos) recommends the carrot instead of the stick to encourage her woebegone darlings to snuggle up:

Carrot 1 -- Grandma's 'Amused Look': Suck in the cheeks to purse your lips slightly as if you're about to kiss someone. Raise the corners of the mouth up (not out) high enough so that the outer corners of your eyes wrinkle. Raise the frontal chin muscles and raise your eyebrows just slightly. Soften the eyes. Hold firm, and refresh the expression during every exhale so it doesn't drift. Your separate self will dissolve into waves of inner laughter that bubble up from your solar plexus into your heart center. It then becomes merely a question of how much happiness (happiness defined as "how a drink of water feels to a person dying of thirst") it takes to reach Eeyore's happiness tolerance level. To raise the tolerance level higher, you might add:

Carrot 2 -- Clk & Tst: The sucked-in cheeks create a vacuum between your tongue and the soft palate, so cluck the uvula the way babies do when they nurse in their dreams. "Clk-clk-clk!" How many clucks does it take before Eeyore relaxes into the heart center? 100? 200?

Once there, does Cluckhead Eeyore ever want to leave?

Or suck tiny sips of air through barely parted lips: "Tst-tst-tst-tst!" Can you do both at the same time? Or:

Carrot 3 -- Purr like a mother cat nursing her kittens: Retaining Grandma's Amused Look, on the inhale snore through the nose and vibrate all the way down into the trachea. The inhale sounds like you're clearing your nose. On the exhale, gargle a French'R' in the back of the throat. The smile allows you to make the exhaled 'gargle' without changing your mouth position. Can Eeyore do 50 without setting all extremities a-tingle?

Still disgruntled? Maybe your eyes wander. If the eyes wander, thoughts wander. So add a visual'carrot.' Softly cross your closed eyes and focus on the area between your eyebrows,'looking inward' in a close-up, soft but widened/wide-eyed focus. Blink the blink muscles to chase away any intruding thoughts (science confirms this works!)

So here we sit, cheeks and chins creased in a dimpled smile, softly staring'wide and close,' purring like a postprandial pumas whilst bathing in the golden light showering our retinas. Once Eeyore is content (filled), then those naughty "I am other than Grandma Poohbear" separate-self thought-waves flatten into naught all on their own, ('naught-y' losing its final querulous'why?') like a baby bear who has filled up to its bliss tolerance level on the Divine Mother's breast.

The source of these unusual exercises: some of us who experienced the psychedelic'60s discovered states so ecstatic that we exited Consensus Reality and were plonked down amidst the assembled ranks of ancestral ancients, totem archetypes, nature deities, buddhas, goddesses, devas, and arhants, scruffy hair and all. We could give High Fives to Avalokitsvara Herself until the chemistry wore off and we descended, dazed and forgetful in re-entry orbit -- to a diminuendo of distant chuckles from the radiant assemblage. On the plus side, the chemical approach proved very democratic. We couldn't wrap our donkey egos around the experience because anyone else taking the same cheerful blue tab could share the same epiphany. But details tended to evanesce -- and were hard to replicate. Today, with ever-more-ingeniously designed entheogens, the current Rave/Ecstasy crowd has been discovering the same'yo-yo' effect -- to the increasing exhaustion of their adrenals.

Meanwhile, the perennial philosophical problem still remains: how to stay theta-ecstatically awake NATURALLY and PERMANENTLY without wearing out the body parts or needing to replenish the stash. One also could phrase it, "How to remain a functional bodhisattvatudinous-dude-at-large in the world -- one who operates out of their own ongoing and permanent experience of Buddhahood/Sahaja Samadhi (thus bypassing the Do-gooder-hood dead end) -- without requiring one of the smorgasbord of mood adjusters available either from one's doctor or dealer (is there a difference?).

Someone recently asked me what was meant by 'Buddhahood.' My Spiritual Friend David Spero defines it as "Experiencing everything in one's Self and one's Self in everything... Beyond this is the Realm of Mother from whom all states of being issue." Also, "Beyond this exists the fullness of the Divine Mother, which shocks one out of all... causation-dependent realizations." Who manifests first, but She?

Mother Herself once wrote, through one of her incarnations, "I should like each one of us to come to the point where they can perceive the God within dwelling in the vilest of human beings; instead of condemning him, we would say:'Arise, Oh Resplendent Being, Thou who art forever pure, Thou who knowest neither birth nor death; arise, All-Beautiful, and manifest Thy nature'."

Or perhaps we should read --'my' nature -- because who are we ultimately but SHE who endlessly devours and gives birth to All?

The herstory lesson, Oh Resplendent Being, from the first self-aware Homo habilis ("Urg! Funny creature in brook when Urg look down!") to the first I AM Homo erectus Waker-Upper ("Ook! Big Mama in sky merges with funny creature in brook when Ook bend down to drink!") is this: the removal of the causation-dependent barricades that our life indoctrination has placed between us and our most adoring Bliss-Grandma-Poohbear Self (with whom we always merge in theta-wave sleep) unveils the true finish line to our inalienable pursuit of happiness. Our birthright gets a proper mention in the Declaration of Independence but, unfortunately, Tom Jefferson did not indicate where true happiness lies a-waiting, like Tigger, to bounce us into plenitude. Nor did he warn us that the pursuit cannot end happily-forever-after with just a place kick between Fame and Fortune's twinkling goal posts. In Consensus Reality, the sweetness of victory dissolves faster than a bittersweet chocolate kiss when you discover the game of life has been fixed against you, and the sweat-addled majority, with odds far worse than the house 'take' at the Las Vegas tables.

All barriers to this understanding, whether cultural, innate or survival-oriented are, in Grandma Poohbear's not-so-humble opinion, merely ancestral fear-oriented accretions. If you never knew when Tigger's terribul-fierce older brother would pounce out of the bushes and devour you, survival-of-the-most-paranoid created a serious 'look-out-for-Numero-Uno' attitude problem. The Boogie Man gene predominated, and "Snuggling into Grandma's Sweet Presence" was buried under aeons of encrusted patriarchal priesthood guilt-addled gobbledy-gook which then, saints preserve us, began to be written down!

"God's forgiveness?" the Grand Inquisitor inquires with a leer from the Magic Theater's entrance. "Step right up! Fifty cents! Printed confessions await your signature in the dungeons."

The evolution of a written language did nothing except bury Snuggle Access deeper within a sky-high pile of silly sheepskins and scribbled slats. Thus the endless making of books (including this mercifully brief one) did nothing whatsoever to clarify matters except create religions that spread like a plague of boils beyond their watershed-of-origin, substituting books as icons of worship for statues for tree deities for things-that-go-bump-in-the-night. Books merely stirred up the bottom sediment and muddied Grandma's Pool of Possibilities even further. Meanwhile the amazing Truth -- that we already ARE, in deep sleep every night, that ecstatic being whom I know at the very least I pursued in all the wrong places (religious cults, shrinks, singles bars, personal ads, debutante cotillions, Playboy centerfolds, significant others) -- remains thoroughly obscured, and thus eminently marketable. "Love? Just this way, folks! Your favorite flavor! Cheap at half the price!"

Regarding our true state, ineffable Ramana himself writes: "That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real." Elsewhere he suggests, "Just on waking from sleep and before becoming aware of the world, there is that pure 'I.' Hold onto it without sleeping or without allowing thoughts to possess you. If that is held firm, it does not matter even if the world is seen. The seer remains unaffected by the phenomena."

We might align Ramana's words with Grandma Poohbear's somewhat more snuggly approach as follows:

Just on waking from sleep and before becoming aware of the world, there is that pure "I" MOMENT. Hold onto it BY SMILING WITH PURSED LIPS, RAISING THE FRONTAL CHIN MUSCLES, FLARING YOUR NOSTRILS, AND SUCKING ON YOUR UVULA IN TIME WITH YOUR HEARTBEAT, without falling back asleep or allowing thoughts to possess you. THOUGHTS WILL NOT POSSESS YOU IF YOU CENTER YOUR CLOSED EYES SOFTLY WIDENED, BLINK THOUGHTS AWAY, AND RE-ENTER THE GOLDEN LIGHT OF DELTA SLEEP AWAKE. If that FACIAL POSTURE is held firm, it does not matter even if YOU OPEN YOUR EYES AND the world is seen AS YOU ARISE SMILING, SIPPING AIR (TST-TST-TST) OR CLUCKING YOUR UVULA (KLK-KLK-KLK) AND GO ABOUT YOUR DAY. The seer remains unaffected by the phenomena BECAUSE HE/SHE IS SWIMMING IN A TORRENT OF BLISS. IT THEN BECOMES MERELY A QUESTION OF HOW MUCH BLISS HE/SHE CAN LEARN TO TOLERATE WITHOUT DRIFTING OUT OF HER EMBRACE.

We all yearn to dissolve ego-separation and snuggle, each in our own unique way. We all yearn to exist permanently in what can only be described inadequately as a flowing, orgasmically throbbing heart-glow instead of what most of us receive -- if we get lucky -- those post-coital ten-minute crumbs from the table of the gods. Once Eeyore awake can enjoy what Eeyore asleep receives every night, then the donkey-self can relax happily -- without looking fearfully over its shoulder -- into self-realized snuggle-itude with the Supreme Poohbear. All of this can occur without further ado, without 'patient perseverance' or whacks on the haunches, or books or gurus or lineages or worshipping ancestors or inhaling rare fumes (of which one Eeyore I know well once inhaled more than a lifetime's share) or other silly what-knots. What? Just so!

The methods described above work ALL of the time for this particular donkey. He uses them gratefully because Ramana's other advice -- to hoot 'Who am I?" -- owl-like and look back constantly at the inside Looker -- is too un-bear-able to maintain, not only for him but probably for most donkeys leading busy Consensus Reality lives.

Even the Buddha's Mindful Middle Way -- balancing awareness of the Looker with the Lookee, and triangulating up to the overarching Solar Witness state, is not a viable stable for many of us worry-harassed refugees. Besides, I'm not so much interested in Going Beyond anymore as I am in Bringing It All To Bear Down Here. Our teeming billions need a cosmic reality fix, the Universal Panacea, before testosterone poisoning turns our children into radioactive ash.

All the traditional techniques, the breath-counting, the one-pointed unblinking gaze -- the visualizations and mantra buzzes -- are for the virtuosi or, at most, momentary hop-outs. Meanwhile the trickle-down patriarchy advises, "Don't follow your bliss, dearie. Bliss comes, bliss goes, so appreciate your Michaelangelos. Don't you know bliss is rationed on this planet? You are mice, not gods. Be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the feasts of the Titans. Mind what you do. Lineage counts. Step between the cracks. Count your change. Cover your ass and your bets."

At the same time, our mortality clock ticks on. We punch in and out, routinely unaware that our precious opportunity to awaken to Poohbearhood shortens daily. Please, I beg you (talking to myself), don't waste your privilege of this lifetime by remaining hypnotized by glamors or oinking in affluenza! Think of the starving beggars in Calcutta, just like your dear mama always told you. You may be born as one next time around, too stressed by hunger and the physical needs of the body to even think of higher soul states. The terrible increase in suffering that our planet is experiencing should energize every one of us to find a thorough -- and thoroughly natural -- happiness method for donkeys, for bears, for all beings, all the way up and down the phyla and flora.

Admittedly, Grandma Poohbear's Zero-channeled carrot-fixes outlined in earlier drafts of this essay did not work for any but a few friends (maybe some on-site get-together demos will be necessary). Perhaps other hopefully-even-easier exercises will turn up, such as The Baklava Meltdown (hold a mouthful of baklava until it melts on its own -- the longer held the better), or A Date With A Date (hold a luscious date in your mouth forever) or the Lollipop L'adi-dah. Or "tsk-tsk-ing" at Eeyore's reflection in the mirror in time with your heartbeat until at least a Level 7 Laughter Let-Go is achieved (a reference to "Dismantling Clowns & Laughter," an article-yet-to-be).

Upon a very deep dimension, ultimately this universe is truly hilarious, so please do keep in mind Saint Wavy Gravy's words, "If it's too serious, it's not funny." And believe me, if nothing else, the cosmic '100% solution' drops the first 's' and is very, very comic.

With loving beams amidst gracious nods and winks,

~ The Grandma Poohbear of the Pool of All Possibilities(channeled via her local representative while She surfs the Now wave in the Ocean of Bliss, the zero-point energy field of the mega-universe."Hey, c'mon in! Surf's up!")

Local Representative: Zero, San Francisco Solar Legate,

"O-BE-ATA Project Founder at The Bay Area Solar Legation

ramon.sender@gmail.com. http://www.raysender.com 1-15-03 updated 11-29-20

The ecstatic meditation ended.

Dishes of food were brought out.

The sufi remembered his donkey

that had carried him all day.

He called to the servant there,

"Please, go to the stable and mix the barley generously

with the straw for the animal. Please."

"Don't worry yourself with such matters.

All things have been attended to."

"But I want to make sure that you wet the barley first.

He's an old donkey, and his teeth are shaky."

"Why are you telling me this?

I have given the appropriate orders."

"But did you remove the saddle gently,

and put salve on the sore he has?"

"I have served thousands of guests

with these difficulties, and all have gone away

satisfied. Here, you are treated as family.

Do not worry. Enjoy yourself."

"But did you warm his water

just a little, and then add only a bit of straw

to the barley?"

"Sir, I'm ashamed for you."

"And please,

sweep the stall clean of stones and dung,

and scatter a little dry earth in it."

"For God's sake, sir,

leave my business to me!"

"And did you currycomb his back?

He loves that."

"Sir! I am personally

responsible for all these chores!"

The servant turned and left at a brisk pace ...

to join his friends in the street.

The sufi then lay down to sleep

and had terrible dreams about his donkey,

how it was being torn to pieces by a wolf,

or falling helplessly into a ditch.

And his dreaming was right!

His donkey was being totally neglected, weak and gasping

without food or water all the night long.

The servant had done nothing he said he would.

There are such vicious and empty flatterers

in your life. Do the careful,

donkey-tending work.

Don't trust that to anyone else.

There are hypocrites who will praise you,

but who do not care about the health

of your heart-donkey.

Be concentrated and leonine

in the hunt for what is your true nourishment.

Don't be distracted by blandishment-noises,

of any sort.

~ Rumi, Mathnawi II: 194-223; 260-63, version by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi, posted to Sunlight

Donkey Gruntler owners everywhere definitely should try the latest variation, "The difference tone that makes the difference."

• 'Om' or hum on a note pitched a few tones lower than the pitch of the Gruntler reed while you continue to exhale through the Gruntler.

• The two tones will produce a 'fluttering' modulation that resonates the body even more intensely than the Gruntler by itself.

• WARNING: Do not drive a vehicle while attempting this new exercise. The results are extremely potent!

email me to inquire further