Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: tentacles of consciousness, Sep 14, 2025, live Baba Zoom cover art

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: tentacles of consciousness, Sep 14, 2025, live Baba Zoom

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: tentacles of consciousness, Sep 14, 2025, live Baba Zoom

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 Dear folks of Baba, In the first part of this chapter, “Giving Our All,” Darwin talks about the stages of becoming awareof our heart center, and the second part is about giving its content of desires, emotions and deeper feelings to Baba. Our massive load of impressions (sanskaras) that we have accumulated over eons of time are the byproduct of our journey to develop full consciousness. These impressions, as necessary as they were, form a vast and elaborate scaffolding, so to speak, surrounding and hiding the glorious mansion of our own soul. Our consciousness is woefully enamored of this scaffolding and is unable for the longest time to see anything else. The mansion of the soul is only a theory or belief until, through divine grace, we catch a glimpse of its breath-taking splendor, embodied by our Beloved Baba! In order to see the soul, we have the formidable task of detaching our consciousness from our thoughts, desires and emotions—from our addictive focus on the scaffolding itself. Darwin used the metaphor of an octopus’s tentacles to describe how our consciousness is enmeshed in the world. He writes, "Like those sea creatures whose tentacles constantly float out trolling for food, we extend unseen tentacles [of consciousness] into the gross world, seeking experiences.” With our tentacles of consciousness, we are feverishly possessed with attaching to more and more experiences, not just in the world, but in the subtle and mental realms within. Our hunger for worldly knowledge and experience can be bottomless. Darwin, in his usual low-key fashion, encouraged us to first withdraw the tentacles of our awareness from being enmeshed in thoughts. With great effort, we learned to watch the trains of thought race by without jumping on board; we had taken trains of thought to the end of the line thousands upon thousands of times and been dropped off in the middle of nowhere! We learned that what we were looking for was definitely not in the mind! Over time, as we detached from the ticker-tape of thoughts passing by, our awareness (consciousness) was able to withdraw from the mind with its unending thoughts and drop down to the heart center and observe the desires, emotions and deeper feelings at point blank range. We were surprised to find that awareness can actually be detached from the mind! That is, we were not “thinking” from the head about our heart below, but we experienced the heart center with our awareness alone. As long as we are in our head, we are one remove away from the direct experience of the heart. We choose knowing with the intuition in the heart over the thinking with the mind. We discovered, however, that the river of desires, emotions and the deeper feelings passing through us is often raging and tumultuous, and it is difficult not to be pulled into its swift currents and wind up thirty-five miles downstream! Withdrawing our awareness from these intense forces, we found, is infinitely more difficult than detaching from thoughts. Over decades, with a more detached and keen awareness of our heart center and all of its desires, emotions and deeper feelings, we then face the challenge of giving these limiting and often tenacious sanskaras to Baba. Darwin has said, “You can’t heal what you don’t feel,” and “The deeper the feeling, the deeper the healing.” That is, we first have to become aware of what we want to give to Baba—to empty the strangers from our heart. In the latter part of this chapter, Darwin delves into one of the major methods of giving to Baba, which will be described in the next email. Fortunately, after decades of effort with Baba, we eventually achieve enough detachment so that we can begin to see through the scaffolding of sanskaras to the glorious mansion of the soul itself. As we withdraw from enmeshment in our thoughts, emotions and desires, our consciousness, which we usually think of as a neutral space, begins to slowly fill up unexpectedly with the fragrance of Baba’s love and light. That is, the intrinsic light and love of our consciousness is no longer darkened by being entrenched and buried in maya. Baba as Buddha said that His one mistake, which He said He makes in each advent, was to assert that Nirvana is the ultimate goal (emptiness) rather than Nirvakalpa (the divine fullness). In 1956 in New York City, Baba said privately to the Shaw family in part, “One must give everything to Baba if you really love Him. He is in everything and everyone. You belong to Him, so keep nothing to yourself. Give it all to Baba, and be free. Give your whole self to Baba; your pain and pleasure are Baba’s pleasure. Give it all to Baba.” How do you experience being aware of your thoughts, desires, emotions and deeper feelings? What desires, emotions and thoughts distract and pull you into their intensity? In His love, Jeff PS. We are continuing on page 23 Please hit the red subscribe button. To join future live events, see...
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