 The Enlightenment practices undertaken by a seeker lead the seeker into dissolution of identity. The final stages of Enlightenment are stages where there is no experience of the body. That is why those in those very extreme states of Enlightenment don't really feel what's happening to the body, they can't feel it. Finally, this teaching is about bending down, it's about surrendering to the soul. It's about this body, this system, simply becoming an instrument. It's not about evolving consciousness. Consciousness is something which is only possible for the body to imagine or to experience or to live. It's a conceptual construct and the conceptual is material. It comes from the body, it doesn't come from anywhere else. I am I name my second sitting with you. So I just have some questions more on your teachings. There's a little bit of uncomfortableness in me when you share this. I actually kind of agree, but there's also a little bit of uncomfortableness when you say Enlightenment, Enlightenment just, it's not for this anymore. Because also the teachings I'm immersed in, there is what we call stages or levels of consciousness and the levels of consciousness is this surrender to the soul, which is part of Presence Awareness. You know, just before that, you're the biggest hippie on the planet. You know, you're way off living the hippie life or spaced out life and I really appreciate that you are helping people come back from that space, isn't it? That, you know, it's a level of consciousness just before Presence Awareness. But the teachings I'm immersed in is after we fully integrate Presence and the surrender to the soul, there is stages in Enlightenment. I've had the first awakening into the first stage of Enlightenment. None of it is fully integrated, I appreciate. There is still more embodying and seeing from the seeing. But there is other stages of Enlightenment that is very embodied. So I'm a bit uncomfortable. I'm comfortable with a lot of your teachings, but I'm a bit irked. You are helping people come back from just before, you know, it's called the blissed-out state, as you know. And you really are helping people, but it's not the final home. So I'd like you to speak, I know there are other teachings. We do a lot of Kriya Yoga and my practice to activate the nervous system. So it's the nervous system and the levels of consciousness. And where you teach from, you know, it's very beautiful, but there is more. And it must be slowly done. It isn't, let's scoot up to the top level of Enlightenment and live from there. I appreciate you aren't somebody who wants to do this fast. And it's the same with my own teacher. It's slow and steady when it's the race. There is a confusion in the meaning attributed to certain terms. What we can do is we can try to clarify that. At least we can attempt it because a lot of these practices and experiences are very individual. So what I'm saying is, so what I speak about is, the Enlightenment practices undertaken by a seeker lead the seeker into dissolution of identity. What do I mean by that? A person can take up a highly conceptual practice, which is the conceptual querying of Neo Advaita, which is who am I. That can be a practice, a conceptual practice taken up. And it goes into roller coasters of questioning about who am I, who am I. It's not my preferred practice. I'm just saying that is a conceptual practice. So what happens is that as you go into such a practice at one point, the thinking is under that much pressure, and the thinking has reached its borders of tolerance, that the awareness leaves the system. The ability to perceive moves away out. And you experience certain states of dissolution of identity, where the perceiving entity is without much contour. It's a very freeing experience. You feel free of the constraints of the body because you have separated from this. You're observing this. That's when you take a very conceptual line of practice. You might also take a very physical line of practice where you sit for hours and hours and hours in a given state. And at one point there is a sort of an experience of freedom because you're not anymore really connected with this. You are experiencing everything from a different layer of perception. Sometimes it takes you into greater and greater states of enlightenment, which are actually states of dissolution of identity. These are the outward experiences, where the cosmos, where that emptiness, where that being one with that. And at one point not even being the perceiver at all happens. There are various precise stages of those experiences. There is the other experience. When a person has experienced those states and is actually in an enlightenment state, which is a state without attributes, where there is absolutely no perceiver and then slowly comes back into being the perceiver and then gradually descends, descends and then starts to feel the actual physical material contours of the body. And then at one point it is kind of here. That means that person has reintegrated from a state of enlightenment into a state of being back inside the body. Because the final stages of enlightenment are stages where there is no experience of the body. That is why those in those very extreme states of enlightenment don't really feel what's happening to the body. They can't feel it. So you have that classical image of the enlightened one, you know, talking to the maggot that is eating his or her flesh, saying, go ahead, eat, it's all right. Because there's no connect anymore with the body. So the reintegration when it happens, that being is kind of over here, they will never be able to completely reintegrate with the body because they've been out for too long. Let's take the case of someone who's had some partial experiences of enlightenment or rather median stages of enlightenment, where there is partial dissolution of identity where they can still feel that they are perceiving, they may not feel the contours of the body. If they reintegrate, they can reintegrate fully and actually be present completely the here and the now inside the body. What happens after that? That is the take-off point for this practice, which is the practice of Self-realization. So what exactly then is that practice is the question? It is enabling this system to be in increasing states of surrender for which there is no end. It goes on and on and on. So it starts with, you know, what's your name? Edel. So I'm Edel. I'm the daughter of... Just to give yourself a solid identity, what's your mother's name? Joan. Joan and where were you born? In Ireland. In Ireland. In where in Ireland? Eaton Derry. And Eaton Derry. Yeah. Did I say that correctly? So Edel's daughter of Joan from Eaton Derry. She's the identity she takes on. And this identity now is moving into surrender to the soul. There is no attainment over there. It is a continuous deepening experience. And at one point there just is no Edel anymore. It's just this is surrendering to soul. And at one point surrendering to soul. And at one point is just this is. It is and it's doing. And it's doing from the impulse of the soul. And it's deepening and deepening and growing as an instrument of the soul. So it's not as if you've reached a state of consciousness and then it stops. No, it just goes on and on and deepens and deepens and deepens until the body is dropped. So the experience is not a conceptual one. It is holistic because the very cells of the body will feel their own. They experience themselves as becoming more conscious of themselves. There's no end to that experience. So it is like you've taken off inward but you're present and you're in surrender and you're alert and you're awake and you're aware. And because you're tuned in more and more to the master of your being, so are you tuned into the master in the other? So it is the ability then to really, really perceive the other. When a person is in that state of surrender and growing surrender, there will be a material communication with the matter of the other. So this young man sitting here, the very cells of his body, will receive from these cells because there is that coherence. So it is an increasing deepening coherence of everything that's happening. So it's holistic, which is why it is non-dual. And if you go into a state of inquiry, which you don't do but others do, which is conceptual in nature, then your realization is conceptual. It is not non-dual. So there is no contradiction in terms of the physicality of the body strengthening and becoming more conscious. It happens anyway. You don't have to observe the nerves or observe other parts of the body because everything is in that resonance. And it is not even something which has to be believed. You can just practice it and you experience it. And when that happens, when you're in that state, then there is nothing to observe. It is simply each and every moment bringing yourself to this moment moving into surrender, moving into surrender, moving into... That is the practice. We have a whole yoga system that has evolved to strengthen each layer of consciousness in its action to living in the Truth for the whole system. That can be taken up then also. But the first steps are this. I mean, even just the surrender to the soul is a big thing because when that impulse comes, if you follow it, the joy emerges. If you reject it, the suffering grows. So that is in a nutshell what is spoken about here. It's got some deep resonance. The issue is that when you are approaching this teaching from another system, you're setting out for America from Europe 500 years ago, 700 years ago, in order to even grasp what is happening in America, they had to make connections with where they came from. But the fact of the matter is America is America. It's not Europe and it will never be. It might throw up a bit of Europe here and there, but it wasn't Europe. And the same thing applies to what is being said here because unless the teachings which you are pursuing are clearly about surrendering to the soul, they will not match in many ways. And certainly one wants to match what one knows with what one hears as is new, but the resonance is because you know what I'm speaking about because you lived that as a child. That is what your system knows. That's why it resonates. In fact, it resonates with everyone. But then when the thinking starts and you try to make a bridge between the teachings you're following and what is being said here, you won't be able to find too much that meets because this is about what you've known already. And anything which is not this is actually something which you have to learn. But this you don't have to learn. That's why it resonates because you already know it. The teachings I'm with is that we're evolving in consciousness. And at one stage it's got the blissed-out stage, which is actually quite nice. A lot of people enjoy it, but at least definitely it does have some kind of disconnection. And then the teachings would say, right, you have to come back to this moment and integrate the soul into the being and meet that surrender. And from there, and I really resonate then, because I wasn't sure I thought you were stopping there, but as you were saying, it's, you know, it's out and then it's deeper and deeper and then... The blissed-out stage is also not the last stage. How I'm hearing your teachings is to help people not in space to bring them back off the space and back here. When you leave the system, you also experience the bliss state, which is like the unity consciousness, but the unity consciousness is experienced in a sense outside the system rather than within. Because when you're in a unity consciousness outside the system, you're actually one with the cosmos. It's an experience of the vastness and emptiness of the cosmos. Whereas when you're in a unity consciousness experience here and now, then it is the experience of the oneness with the other. It's happening inside. There is something beyond that also. Beyond the bliss state is the state where there is the knowledge of past, present and future and the experience of divinity. So the bliss state is only one stage. There is a clear known stage beyond that as well, which not everyone experiences, but which can happen also. The thing is that finally this teaching is about bending down. It's about surrendering to the soul. It's about this body, this system, simply becoming an instrument. It's not about evolving consciousness. The consciousness doesn't evolve. Consciousness is consciousness. It is the awareness of existence. Consciousness as such does not evolve. It is, that's all. Because this is so simple, it's also very difficult to accept it. It's just simple. It's about surrendering to the soul. At the start of the satsang, this is what triggered this question. There was a clear statement from you. I just want to know, the soul is not consciousness. You said, you said, the soul is not consciousness. I'm saying that. The soul is not consciousness. The soul has no will. It has no intent. It doesn't want anything. It is without beginning, without end. It is, it is not of this body. Consciousness is something which is possible when this exists. If there is no body, it cannot be conscious. So consciousness is used in the sense of the ability for this thing here to perceive. That is what consciousness is. The soul is outside of this. The confusion between consciousness and soul is what has to be uplifted because the soul is not conscious. It doesn't have to be conscious. It is neither this nor that. It is of itself. Consciousness is the state of being aware of its own existence that this system carries with it. And when the system disintegrates, the consciousness that is of the system disintegrates. When a person passes away, that system disintegrates and with it the consciousness of its existence disintegrates. Because only this whole experience and the soul is within it, like the chakras are within it. This experience of whom? Who is experiencing that consciousness? This, right? For me there are moments of it. Doesn't matter, but who is experiencing it? It's this. It's this. Idel is experiencing it. So when this body is not there, then the perception of that consciousness also is not there. So that consciousness is not there. With the body, so does the consciousness disintegrate. Because consciousness is something which is only possible for the body to imagine or to experience or to live. It's a conceptual construct and the conceptual is material. It comes from the body. It doesn't come from anywhere else. It doesn't come from the soul.