Five Spokes of Empty Bliss

What I am referring to when I speak of self realization, awakening, and liberation are as follows.

Self Realization = Realizing that you are not the individual self that world teaches us that we are.

Awakening = The process of your self realization. Solving the question "who am I" for yourself.

Liberation = Acclimating your self realization to the point where you are living it and mind has become your servant, rather than an undisciplined master.

The key to all of this is self identity and grasping concepts as being real beyond the awareness who conceives and witnesses them.

The only absolute is that we are aware, all else is a concept.

This is not something that can be taught, everyone needs to find this within themselves. We are pure divine awareness which is the witness of all that cannot itself be witnessed. All religions are about this very subject. The three statements "self realization, awakening, and liberation" are mere words (concepts), what do they mean to you?

Empty Bliss is not needed for self realization, but it can help. The witness we are searching for already resides within each of us, we are simply trying to remember what we really are and always have been. Distractions can be great fun until we become trapped by them. Find what you already are, have always been and will be. You may even find that death itself is just a myth, a misunderstanding of change based on concept?

Empty Bliss is a state of awareness achieved by inner silence, as described in my hub Easy Techniques to find Empty Bliss. The five spokes of empty bliss aka Five Rays of Empty Bliss, are 5 aspects or ways to use this state of awareness I'm calling empty bliss. They are five ways to focus while in a state of empty bliss inner silence. These can be used to find self realization, cause effects within your mind, self control practice, or anything you want to use them for.

These are just five different ways to play with empty bliss meditation. Inner silence empty bliss is really our natural state of pure awareness which our noisy minds interrupt. Experiencing empty bliss and just letting it be is the most profound state of mind and leads to self realization.

1. Inward - Empty Bliss focused inward to find true (core) self.

2. NOW - empty bliss focused outward to experience being in the moment.

3. Detached Focus - using empty bliss to detach from any situation. To focus completely and only on one concept or situation to cause an effect or obtain information. Using visualization effectively.

4. Become - empty bliss completely focused on a subject, object, or living being and becoming as one with them. This creates a link between you and your desired concept. we could also call this spiritual union. Similar idea as changeling or grokking.

5. Sliding Awareness - Empty Bliss combined with visualization and focused on a concept, location or a daydream. There are several different ways to use Sliding. I have touched on this subject in my hub page Learn to Slide Your Awareness.

These five spokes can also be assigned colors and musical notes to help imagine and achieve them successfully. They can be used alone or combined together and the first spoke leads to the next. You will need to learn spoke 1 before you can learn the others. They are laid out so the first spoke leads to the second and so on. Some of the spokes are a combination of others. Sliding spoke is a combination of several spokes used together in one action. The first spoke can be learned by anyone with minor meditation experience. The higher spokes require a degree of self realization before one can effectively experience them.

To achieve empty bliss relax into a calm state of mind. Do not force your thoughts to stop, simply let them go by and do not follow. Breathing deeply and slowly when a thought arises, notice it and just let it go by. Another comes along and just do the same, do not let it pull your attention to another thought. As thoughts begin to slow your feelings will also steady to an experience of bliss. None of this is forced, it is just allowed to happen naturally. There is no test at the end, just let it happen as it happens. If this is difficult, its okay it gets easier as you practice. After a few moments you will begin to feel a calm blissful feeling and learn that when this feeling arises you have achieved a degree of empty bliss. No need to think to check yourself if you are thinking or not, this feeling is your proof. The truth is that no one can completely stop their thoughts and our feelings are hinged to our thoughts. Simply do it as well as you can and that is good enough. Feelings can either be primary to thoughts or can be caused by thoughts. Here, we are going for our primary natural feeling of joy.

While in this experience you can choose to just stay in this empty state of bliss, which is Spoke 1, or focus attention on a single concept or in a direction. The direction you choose to focus are the different spokes I am speaking of. This is very easy stuff, almost childlike. As you play with it and practice it becomes much easier and more powerful.

Begin here. You will need to learn this spoke before you can be successful with the others.

Empty Bliss focused inward is probably the most useful way to employ this technique. Simply let go of your focus. Allow your thoughts to go by and do not follow them with another thought. Thoughts will naturally grab your attention and try to pull you into another thought. When this happens just notice the thought and let it go by. As your thoughts slow and your attention calms you will begin to feel your natural state of calm bliss. Simply go with that feeling of bliss and enjoy. This state naturally pulls you inward into your deeper self, no action needed on your part, other than letting go. This is the true pure form of empty bliss meditation that many spiritual people practice. Practicing this is very healthy and over time will calm you and allow you to find your true calm nature, where all becomes one and the same. We can only do this as well as we allow and life is always ready to distract us, that's okay. Don't fight with yourself if your attention slips into thoughts, just let go and try again.

Life is a very beautiful manifestation of the pure awareness that we all really are. Thoughts and distractions are a part of it and come and go, no bother simply let go again and witness them as they go by without grasping. Our attention is pulled in when something peaks our interest and then we grasp onto it and follow it with focus. To avoid this, simply allow it to go by with a calm disinterest. Disinterest is key to this exercise, without interest thoughts will not distract you and just go by and dissolve away again. The longer you practice this the easier and more profound it becomes. Some spiritual people practice this for their lifetime and feel they have not mastered it. But I say, don't put such demands on yourself, simply do your best and enjoy.

An exercise in concentration.

Is the same empty bliss technique as spoke 1. When you reach your state of empty bliss focus it outward into life going on around you with a calm disinterest, rather than inward. This is more of a moving or walking meditation. You may find after playing with empty bliss you can easily do it without sitting in meditation and then you can focus on life with the same peaceful bliss. Being completely in the now and not being distracted by inner thoughts, but focusing all of your attention of what you are doing or saying in the moment. And so I am saying to you that you can learn to maintain this empty state of mind while you are talking and thinking, by simply letting go. Don't allow a thought or concept to grab your attention and pull you along with it. Just stay focused and quiet of everything besides what you are doing or saying this very instant. No inner turmoil or judgments pulling you. Being here and now only, not what happened last night or may happen tomorrow, just here and now. Believe it or not this is also a form of empty bliss used a different way.

Empowered concentration.

This is almost the same as spoke 2, except we are using it to completely focus on one concept only and not being pulled by any other thoughts or feelings. This is meditating on an object, concept or situation to cause an effect within your own mind. Such as to focus on an object to find deeper meaning from within your subconscious mind. This is similar to scrying or crystal ball gazing to cause subconscious images to appear within your imagination to glean hidden inner information of an object or subject. Another way to use this is to combine it with spoke 2 being in the now and detaching your focus from a situation to not be distracted and remain focused. This has also been called Controlled Folly when used in life. Such as, where one acts as if what they are doing is the single most important thing in the world, while all the time knowing it really has no importance at all and so they do a great job without getting caught up in the stress or emotions of it. There are a myriad of uses for this technique. This is learning to master calm disinterest which is detached focus.

Using the force of love with calm detached focus.

Using detached focus to the point where we focus so completely on something or someone that we become as one with it or with them. Love is the power you need to achieve this state of complete focus. You cannot possibly become as one with another without loving them unconditionally. Love is the single strongest force in the universe, bar none. If pure divine awareness is truly what we are, then focus is our power and love is the strongest force that can drive our focus. Hate is only a polar opposite of love, a condition or absence of love, if you will. Love and hate are two opposites of the same force, which appears as a feeling to our conditioned minds. To fall in love with another is to become as one with them to one degree or another. The degree that we be as one with them is directly measured by our degree of love we hold for them. If you catch my meaning? To use a state of empty bliss to become with something is to link with it within the mind. This spoke can be very powerful and can lead directly to our true nature with an explosion of instant recognition. The amount of love it takes for this explosion to happen will also shield one from the impact of the sudden realization.

Combining several spokes with visualization.

Sliding is a sit down meditation using your empty bliss focus with visualization (imagination) to move and travel. This technique is the combination of either three or four of the other spokes together, depending on how you are using sliding. This requires a degree of self realization to the point where your self identity is fairly flexible. The deeper you go with it the more flexible your self identity needs to be. Sliding is a tool that helps with self realization because it will naturally cause your self identity to become more flexible with use.

Sliding in its most mundane form is basically an astral projection technique, but one can go much farther than that. With practice and a flexible ego one can explore inner worlds of subtle reality (unconscious mind). This spoke is lots of fun to play with, but it is possible to frighten yourself and could be a bit dangerous if used to go farther than you are ready for. So I will not go into it in any real depth here. I have been playing with it for many years and still have only scratched the surface. It's certainly safe to play with your own imagination and visualizations, so for now let's just say that is what Sliding is. There is a trick to it, but its very easy to do.

Basics of Sliding are to go into a state of empty bliss (spoke 1), use detached focus (spoke 3) and combine it with visualization. This will automatically bring spoke 2 (now) into your experience. This is done by meditating yourself into calm empty bliss, now imagine your awareness as a point that can move. This point can be a point of light or what ever you like. Imagine and feel yourself moving in a sliding or flying fashion. Now visualize this and the world around you as you move through it. At first this may seem a bit awkward and difficult, but with practice it becomes very easy and natural. You are essentially using your imagination in a state of empty bliss to explore the world or inner worlds of subconscious mind. This begins as a kind of controlled daydream, but with patience and practice it can become much more. While in this dream like trance you will find that you can become as one with the things in the dream, while remaining yourself and perfectly awake. Use caution with what you become as one with as you go into deep states of subtle reality. Because they can and will affect your feelings and experience. To become as one with another you will need a very flexible self identity and so this may not enter your experience. Sliding can be experienced without using spoke 4 at all, the other three spokes will happen naturally and easily.