<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;">Samadhi & Om</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Though heavily influenced by Indo-Malay from Southeast Asia,
maritime lands like the Philippines received Dharmic Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh,
Jain and Yoga influence, imperial Iberia and Midwest US dumped themes and
behavioral influence that did not become self-conscious until we stumbled on
the presentations of comparative world religions that upended our built-in
Judeo-Christian prejudices.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Samadhi </i>came recently
as the name of a restaurant in Bonham, Texas while with colleagues of the Realistic
Living Institute. Having previously
heard the <i>Om/Aum</i> pronounced in the
State of Maharashtra in '77, I understood how a simple sound reminds one of the
possibility of living the totality of one's life in what is referred to as
"transcendence, immanence and transparency" wrapped in one. The sense denotes not separate parts of life but
the treatment of the same as a whole, a seamless integration more than the sum
of parts, a doer and a deed as one.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">This runs counter to the current notion that life is what
happens off-hours and on the weekends.
Normal time in contemporary notion is making a living, a hustle in
pursuit of the dollar. This is a global
ethos. We earn a living first, then,
live a life on the side or in our leisure time!</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">The traditional passive tone of the <i>om, </i>written in Sanskrit as "that which is sounded out
loudly", is solemnly uttered like a elongated three-syllable reverberating
<i>a-u-m</i>, a motion meditation and
process contemplation, more active than the static state of "enlightenment"
that subjugates the assertive passion of being.
It is non-dualistic, the experience and the experiencer merging to one,
the mind becoming still, united with the object of attention. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">The number of speakers of South Asian tongues plus Sinos (read,
Buddhist, Taoist and secular money chasers of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam)
are numerous along the paths we took from Texas to Chicago, San Francisco to Alberta,
attesting to a growing familiarity, if not adherence, to aspects of Dharmic
tradition.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">But this is not about number of adherents. It is about the life understanding that folks
outside of the tradition already recognize, especially those going through the
pancake gates at Calgary Stampede this week.
Often, we hear someone describe himself to be obsessed with something and
the observer becomes one with the observed, the oneness of a meditator and the meditated,
a thinker and a thought, a worshipper and what is worshipped. The mind loses its own consciousness and
becomes identical with the object of its awareness. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Among mystics, this is the dissolution of a personality into
the "being of God" that makes sense if we take the word G-O-D as
referring to the totality of existence itself.
It means living as a contemplative mystic in the din of a crowd, a
walking dead among the breathing.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">If this is still too abstract, let's take it to the level of
seeing. When a mirror shatters, there is
no longer any reflected image. There is
only existence of that which was once reflected. Or, if the sun is reflected in the water pool
and the sun evaporates, the reflection of the sun is no longer there. There is only the pool and the sun's existence. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Our difficulty of understanding the <i>Om </i>stems from the cognitive demand that we, as the observer, stand
separately from an object observed.
Samadhi claims the immediacy of consciousness more than the clarity of
thought. We are not talking about being
lost in a trance, like the out-of-body promotion of many spirit exercises. Rather, it is about being absorbed totally in
full awareness - body, heart, mind, and soul - to the facticity of our
existence.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><i>Om </i>in Hindi,
Nepali, Gujarati and Marathi scripts is a familiar symbol. If one wanders to the CK Hindu community, the
<i>omkara </i>would be heard and the sign
that looks like a figure 3 with a tail and a dot above a hovering saucer-shaped
dash, is chalked or printed during holidays; the sound and sight are symbols of
a state of being desired and attempted with all kinds of disciplines. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">The intent and result with the Samadhi and the Om, and most
religious experiences, is to be the one, unique, unrepeatable self that one is,
a whole experienced as a self in the immediate and unmediated sense.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">Why are we belaboring this point? There is a search of the "stillness of
one's soul" abroad among alternative lifestyles moving away from the
commercial ethos of money grabbing and acquisitive society that deteriorates
into escapism, denying the immediate and substantive nature of our existence. There are many how-to books and advice on
attaining this integration of body-heart-mind-soul polychotomy. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">A faithful seeker asked a guru if the discipline ze was
being taught would bring enlightenment?
The beaming guru responded that enlightenment happens or it does not
happen. But it cannot be induced. The "meditative" and
"contemplative" practices can make one prone to the accident of
enlightenment.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">We aim to be accident-prone.
That's my story and I am sticking to it.
<i>Om.</i></div>
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<br>
<div style="clear:both"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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