Rama Speaks - Lawrence Borok

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Résumé :
The complete roadmap to enlightenment most spiritual seekers have never been given until now. Millions of people have discovered meditation and mindfulness. Far fewer have found what lies beyond them: the direct path to spiritual awakening, self realization, and the dissolution of the ego into infinite consciousness. That deeper path, what Dr. Frederick Lenz, known to his students as Rama, called self discovery is what this extraordinary book maps in full. For twenty years, Rama taught over a thousand direct students a precise synthesis of Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Vedanta, yoga philosophy, and Native American mysticism. His singular aim: to guide sincere seekers all the way to complete, classical enlightenment, the kind the Buddha described, the kind most traditions say is nearly unreachable, through practices adapted for modern life. Rama Speaks is the first book to present this entire teaching in one place. Drawing on nearly 200 extended quotes from 120 private recordings Rama made for his students, it traces the full arc of the self discovery process from foundational meditation and mindfulness practice through progressively refined states of awareness, all the way to samadhi and nirvana. Think of your ego as an island, Rama taught. Surrounding it is an infinite ocean of consciousness. Meditation is learning to swim in that ocean. Enlightenment is becoming the ocean itself. Each chapter follows a developmental arc, covering the inner mechanics of spiritual transformation: how awareness expands, how the ego loosens, how higher consciousness opens and what specific practices and perspectives support each stage. This is not abstract philosophy. These are precise, learnable teachings on nonduality, inner peace, awakening consciousness, and the nature of the self. For readers drawn to the voices of Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, or Paramahansa Yogananda and who feel there is still a deeper current to find, Rama Speaks offers something rare: a teacher speaking directly, honestly, and completely about the full journey of spiritual awakening. Enlightenment means the dissolution of the finite self into the infinite mind. If that resonates with something you have long suspected to be true, this book is for you. Includes meditation techniques, practical methods, and photographs of Rama. Audiobook edition features his actual voice recordings....

Biographie:
Lawrence Borok was a student of Rama-Dr. Frederick Lenz from 1982 to 1998. During the 1990's he led Rama's medical software company, which successfully developed two healthcare systems and brought them to market. He continued with the business until retiring in 2015. From 2000-2015 he taught meditation through adult education programs at high schools and community colleges. He has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 50 years.Lawrence Borok has a BA in Individual Field Studies from UCLA, an MA in Architecture from UCLA, and a Certificate in Business Data Processing from UC Berkeley. Other notable experiences include serving as a workshop leader for Buckminster Fuller's World Game, as the director of the UCLA Experimental College, and as a Thought Leader for Predictive Modeling News....

Sommaire:
We think that the classic Enlightenment of the Buddha is far beyond our reach. What if it wasn't? As more and more people have found meditation and mindfulness to be beneficial, there has been little information on the underlying process, which Dr. Frederick Lenz (1950-1998), known to his students as Rama, called self-discovery. Self-discovery is the pathway to enlightenment, in which you realize that your ego is like an island in the middle of an ocean, and eventually that you in fact are that ocean. Each meditation is taking a swim in that ocean. Self-discovery is becoming the ocean. Enlightenment means the dissolution of the finite self into the infinite mind, but how is that actually done? It is quite a long and complex process. Rama taught over a thousand people he accepted as direct students an unusual blend of spiritual practices for 20 years, all directed towards the classic Buddhist definition of complete enlightenment. He explained to us that the process has many interdependencies and stages. It was a combination of insights and techniques shared by Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Hindu Vedanta and Yoga, and Native American mysticism. These were implemented through a unique approach to living in the modern world and built upon a foundation of meditation and mindfulness. Over a dozen years, Rama recorded 120 talks for his students covering all aspects of this process, but who has time to read or listen to them all? Rama Speaks consolidates these talks into a single book, presenting the essential concepts in a sequence that lets the reader understand his model of the mind. It includes the meditation methods and other techniques he taught us, as well as several photos of him. In these talks he taught how to become fully enlightened, carefully breaking down the steps and how to do them in today's world. While many of the things he taught can be found in spiritual books, many cannot, and none all in the same place. The book has nearly 200 extended quotes from these tapes--five and a half hours in the audiobook, all spliced from Rama's original recordings--in which he discusses each part of the enlightenment process in depth. As the title of the book says, the idea is to let Rama speak, directly to you. It's through the conscious removal of the focus of the mind and the body to the realm of spirit, to the realm of happiness. Now when I talk about the realm of spirit, happiness, nirvana, Enlightenment, I'm not talking about something ideal or imaginary. There are realms of light that exist that have always existed and will always exist. They're much more solid than the transient, sensorially perceived or mentally perceived reality that you're currently experiencing. They're just behind the world that you see. Oh, there are countless dimensional worlds, but they're no different than this one, really. So a teacher is not someone who you have to have. That is to say, you don't need them perpetually. You need them to show you how to get through the doorway, but once you get through the doorway, you're on your own. Then you have to grow and experience Enlightenment. Then you come back-if you want to go through a higher doorway-and so on and so on. They show you how to refine yourself until you're able to enter into nirvana on your own. Then no more teacher. Guess what? Only Enlightenment everywhere....