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A SUMMARY OF THE SITE AND CORE PRACTICE
[Note: I accidentally deleted this pinned post, which had about 180 comments, and reposted it on 01/21/2018.]
Welcome to Meditation-Consciousness-Spirituality.
This Facebook group is primarily about – what else – meditation, consciousness, and spirituality.
Although the emphasis of this site is on Divine Yoga (a.k.a. the mystical Christian Eucharist, Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen, Kashmir Shaivism Shaktipat Yoga, Adi Da Samraj’s Divine Communion) and the Divine Yoga meditation method I teach -- Plugged-in Presence -- posts on other types of meditation and subjects pertaining to consciousness, awakening, and spiritual philosophy are welcome.
The Plugged-in Presence practice that I teach is elaborated in my texts “Electrical Christianity: A Revolutionary Guide to Jesus’ Teachings and Spiritual Enlightenment” and Beyond the Power of Now: A Guide to, and Beyond, Eckhart Tolle’s Teachings.”
In short, the goal of Plugged-in Presence meditation is to plug into the Now (Divine Presence), draw down the Power of Now (Divine Power), and unite one’s consciousness (or soul) with this Power, or Clear-Light Energy. The Christian term “Holy Spirit,” the Hindu term “Shakti,” and the Buddhist term “Sambhogakaya” are synonyms for Divine Power and are used interchangeably in my teachings. The Plugged-in Presence Instructions that follow are from my book “Electrical Christianity,” and they provides basic instructions for those wishing to practice this method. Although the instructions are numbered, be advised that they overlap and intertwine and do not have to be practiced in the order in which they are presented.
PLUGGED-IN PRESENCE INSTRUCTIONS
1) Sit upright, but relaxed, on a chair, bench, or meditation cushion.
2) Establish what the Buddha called ‘self-possession.’ In other words, feel yourself as the whole body, and then be consciously present as the whole body, the whole psycho-physical being. Randomly focusing your attention on your third-eye area and hands will enable you to coincide with your body, and thereby heal the body-mind split. When you consciously inhabit your whole body — and are wholly, or integrally, present to the whole (the totality of existence) — you are in proper position to receive and conduct the Holy Spirit, the Force-flow from above.
3) ‘Gaze’ into empty space. If you are ‘self-possessed,’ this ‘gaze’ will amount to being whole-bodily present to (or in direct relationship to) the void. As soon as you become aware that you have retracted from your ‘position’ of conscious connectedness to (or single-pointed focus on) the void, simply reassume, or attempt to reassume, your ‘stance’ of holistic at-one-ment. To this end, you can randomly use an enquiry (such as ‘Avoiding relationship?’) to instigate your resumption of communion with the void. When the void begins to ‘shine,’ it is experienced as Divine Presence. When the Power of the Presence pours down upon you, then ‘emptiness’ has morphed into Spirit, and your ‘gaze into space’ has transmuted into empowered Divine Communion.
4) Randomly focus your attention on your breath by being in direct relationship to your breathing cycle. When the breath ‘comes alive’ as prana-shakti, or palpable intensified life-energy, simply remain present to it. Your communion with the breath cycle will transmute into true, or infused, Divine Communion when the prana-shakti morphs into the Holy Spirit — the great Shakti poured down from above.
5) Totally relax your body (including your head) and utterly let go of your mind. Once you are able to connect to the Shakti, you will directly experience that letting go intensifies the force-flow (or pressure) of the Spirit-current. Be an empty cup, ready to be filled with Holy Water from above. When you experience the Benediction, the Divine downpour, remain motivelessly present to it. Your searchless beholding of the Shakti will enable you to spontaneously merge with it.
These technical meditation instructions are all about facilitating communion, and then union, with the Divine. It is up to you to test them out and determine how useful they are for your spiritual practice. Truly speaking, no spiritual practice, in and of itself, is holy or sacred. The only ‘Thing’ holy or sacred is the Holy One Himself (including His Holy Spirit). Therefore, whatever practices bring you into communion with the Holy One are the ones that you should employ.
===Electrical Christianity: A Revolutionary Guide to Jesus' Teachings and Spiritual Enlightenment Paperback – 23 July 2013by L. Ron Gardner (Author)4.4 out of 5 stars 23 ratingsSee all formats and editionsKindle$11.99Read with Our Free App Paperback$12.64 7 New from $12.64
Electrical Christianity is a revolutionary guide to Jesus' teachings and spiritual en-Light-enment. It provides clear-cut, in-depth instructions on how to directly "plug into" the Divine Being, the Holy One, and literally "pull down" His Power. Grace is not an abstract principle; it is the palpable experience of God's Spirit-power--and anyone who religiously (or devotedly and intensely) practices the discipline of true Holy Communion presented in this book can experience the descent of Divine Power, the Holy Spirit. The true Eucharist, the practice of Holy Communion (which in its "awakened" form implies reception of the Holy Spirit), is the very heart of real Christianity, and the foremost method for attaining salvation (spiritual en-Light-enment). Electrical Christianity not only details the radical (or gone-to-the-root) practice of Holy Communion, but also analogizes it to an electrical circuit. The Eucharist is simply Ohm's Law applied to spirituality, and once you grasp the Eucharist-Ohm's Law connection, which is explicated in this book, you'll become like Jesus: a spiritual revolutionary. In addition to explicating the Eucharist-Ohm's Law connection, the book also sheds penetrating light on psychology, politics, and sociology. It presents a vision of integral psychology that differs markedly from Ken Wilber's, considers Jesus' politics in a modern context, and examines the history and future of Christianity in the New (or Aquarian) Age.
172 pagesPublication date23 July 2013
L. Ron GardnerI am a mystic-philosopher and spiritual teacher and have authored three books – “Beyond the Power of Now: A Guide to, and Beyond, Eckhart Tolle’s Teachings,” “Electrical Christianity: A Revolutionary Guide to Jesus’ Teachings,” and “Kill Jesus: The Shocking Return of the Chosen One.” The first two books are nonfiction, while the third is a novel.
When I’m not writing I regularly abide in a state of blissful at-one-ment with the Spirit. Over the past forty years, I have practiced Transcendental Meditation, Self-Realization Fellowship meditation, Buddhist Vipassana Meditation, Zen Meditation, Tibetan Buddhist meditation (Mahamudra and Dzogchen), J. Krishnamuti's "choiceless awareness," Ramana Maharshi's Self-enquiry, Adi Da's radical understanding, Kashmir Shaivist Shaktipat, and hermetic Holy Communion. I now teach my my own method of meditation: Plugged-in Presence.
Because I specialize in sociopolitical philosophy as well as spiritual mysticism, I enjoy mixing in sociopolitical insights with spiritual ones in my books.
I have a B.A. in sociology from the University of California, San Diego, and currently reside in Tijuana, Mexico. Beyond meditation, philosophy, and writing, my interests include working out, tennis, and travel.
Jerry3.0 out of 5 stars Painful, missed opportunityReviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 February 2018Verified PurchasePainful, missed opportunity
The core idea in this book is interesting and does warrant further investigation. However, it's marred by the mountain of unqualified, subjective, absolutist statements made by the author (so and so is the "greatest mystic ever", "serious practitioners don't bother trying to raise Kundalini", such and such is "the best spiritual school", etc). I'd have loved to have known why many serious practitioners are wasting their time trying to raise Kundalini, but no explanation is given. It all comes over rather like one of those kids in school who just wanted to boast about following obscure bands before they were famous, and later abandoning them once they become popular. It's rather juvenile and becomes painfully repetitive. It appears the author suffers from a large degree of confirmation bias and has something of a saviour complex ("I'm not ready for martyrdom yet so I'm not going to say what I really think about this or they'll lock me up"). Jeez. This is especially surprising coming from someone who is such a scathing critic of other books on Amazon - I'd expected a higher degree of logical rigour. But, alas, none was to be found.
The core idea is interesting. The author is clearly widely read, is knowledgeable about several different spiritual traditions and has noticed commonalities. This makes it particularly puzzling therefore why he would choose to write a book so heavily steeped in Christian terminology, a tradtion with a poorly defined taxonomy of terms open to misinterpretation, or certainly multiple interpretations.
I believe this could have been a much more powerful book if he'd gone one step further and written a book on "Electrical Spirituality" that highlighted the shared core of several disparate practices without being wedded to any in particular. I can only imagine it's a marketing device, or his personal hobby (again, perhaps because Christian mysticism is far less common?).
Several idiosyncracies that struck me in the text are the several pages devoted to discussing psychology and astrology to work out the "state" of a person, which is concluded by something like "regardless of a subject's state, the psychologist will prescribe doing the practices I've presented". It all seems rather besides-the-point then, doesn't it, what someone's "chemistry" or "state" is?
The author interprets parables and metaphors in the Bible without considering or presenting alternative interpretations. He advocates "converting" other people into disciples, a rather obnoxious pastime of diehard Christians. Finally, there's the last fifth of the book which degenerates into an irrelevant rant about Marxism, the New World Order and other equally out-of-place stuff in a book of this genre. It's not *radical*, simply irrelevant.
So overall, the author appears to have become carried away writing a self-congratulatory book about how he's "cracked the cosmic code". This subject, stripped of the author's ego and all the irrelevancies has potential. There *is* a common core at the heart of many religions, but sadly this book falls far short of eludicating it.Read moreReport abuse Rich Lee4.0 out of 5 stars Don't shoot the piano playerReviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 November 2014Verified PurchaseI like the challenge to self-satisfied and shallow "spiritual" types here to really penetrate the mystery and not remain sitting in a comfortable place. My own experience/insight too resonates very strongly with the author's own focus on cutting the heart knot and I'm grateful to him for that emphasis.
I don't much like the author's personality though - IMO he comes across as grandiose and hectoring: qualities which often arise from kundalini activation, but maybe indicate he's not entirely cooked yet and (if I may be so bold as to suggest) a little compassionate re-entry might help get the powerful message across.5 people found this helpfulReport abuse Jack Richards5.0 out of 5 stars A lifetime of experience and learning; condensed.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 August 2018Verified PurchaseGardner doesn't beat around the bush and quite straightforwardly puts across what he believes all spirituality is really about. There is a great no-nonsense approach, in which Gardner never seems to write to show off his literary skills; only to get a point across. I found this book massively useful and the reading lists found inside are excellent too. Gardner's synthesis of religions and spiritual practices is something I've never come across before but it does make a lot of sense. This book has influenced my meditation practice a great deal but also cemented many aspects of true meditation that previously I only presumed to be true. Great book all in all, suitable for anyone.Report abuse simply spiritualist church5.0 out of 5 stars simply spiritualist churchReviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 March 2014Verified PurchaseCongratulations on providing humanity with this fine book. Many people will benefit from its content, and assist them in self realisation and of the greater Reality. Well doneReport abuse Dr. Andreas Ullrich5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate MeditationReviewed in Germany on 3 November 2013Verified PurchaseI bought this book as a supplement to “Beyond The Power of Now” (see my review there). It takes up the topics raised there and explains the exact method of meditation. Ron Gardner makes a very meaningful analogy between Ohm's law on electricity and the flow of spiritual energy into the human body/mind system. The Trinity in Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism is discussed. I found the explanation of the heart centre particularly revealing, and this does not mean the heart chakra, but an area that is felt in the body at the level of the heart slightly to the right of the sternum. His explanations are completely in line with those of Ramana Maharshis. It also makes reference to the “lower” kundalini at the lower end of the spine and to the chakra system.
This book will be a classic in a few years, I'm sure!Report abuseTranslated from German by AmazonSee original ·Report translation
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