Lessons On Strength And Being Strong

This loop you're here listening to,

This beautiful piano loop is called Fine Strength.

I think it's very suiting for tonight's talk,

This evening's talk.

I guess we'll talk mostly about where strength comes from,

How you develop strength,

How does it grow and how do you become strong.

So let's get into this.

My name is Douglas Gromins,

Thank you again once for joining me again.

So the first man,

The man of strong willpower,

Can be admired by many and usually is admired by many and you think this person is something to be admired or adorned.

But he's not as strong as the man of awareness,

The man who practices awareness,

The tantrika,

The one who has become awake or awakened,

The one we call the Buddha.

No one is as strong as the Buddha or the awakened one because with willpower we have to go back and think about the spring effect that I talked about in the last audio track.

With willpower it's like a spring that is compressed,

Compressed,

Compressed with strength and through willpower until eventually you cannot hold that compression any longer.

And then you snap and when the spring snaps it snaps all the way to the other extreme and creates indulgence in the person who has willpower.

So a lot of alcoholics are in this game that's played that you drink overly,

Way too much and you become an alcoholic and you have major problems,

Health problems,

Mental problems,

Relationship problems,

All sorts of things happen when you overindulge.

But there are many people who do not have alcohol problems,

They just have a casual drink now and then.

And that's like the spring being like halfway in the middle.

So it's not compressed and it's not expanded to the other extreme.

It's just relaxed,

In a relaxed state.

In Tantra we call that being loose and natural.

So one beer and practicing awareness and then after having that one beer you say,

I feel fine and I don't need anymore,

This buzz is good and you're okay.

And you live with that and life goes on.

You may not grow a whole bunch spiritually from it but you do grow in awareness.

And awareness is a stronger willpower than the man of willpower.

Because you learn this lesson and you may not learn it the first time.

You might do something negative or something bad or something you might conceive as evil.

And you may do it once or twice.

You may do it fifteen times.

But if you keep practicing awareness and being aware and conscious as this act is happening,

There's no way you can keep committing it.

Your awareness takes over and you're like,

Why am I doing this?

What is the reasoning in me getting all caught up into this,

Into this anger or into this jealousy or maybe into this loneliness or into an ill desire that comes along the way?

I saw a passage in the Bible that was posted up on Facebook and I think it said something,

It's in Isaiah in the Bible and it said that,

Woe is the man that confuses good with evil.

And the Taoists might say,

Woe is the man who's caught up with good and evil.

Who's caught in the dielectrics between the two.

Caught in the middle without an understanding of how to go beyond the dielectrics.

And Taoists give us many clues as to how to accept both of them as part of life.

And Taoism is a total acceptance.

Whereas the tantrika will use a technique,

Because the word tantra itself means technique.

And the tantrika will go into the situation and say it's the beer experience I was talking about.

And they will carry that awareness into whatever they're doing.

And believe it or not,

After a few months of practicing awareness with all the things like the beer or the alcohol,

Whatever you're doing that you think is a negative,

Ill or evil,

You'll grow beyond it.

You just transcend it.

And that's the beauty of the tantric is that you transcend everything.

Everything negative,

Everything that might be construed as evil.

But you also transcend the good too.

And you just come to a neutral state,

Which is very blissful.

It's not happy,

Go happy,

Super excited,

High energy,

Happy this,

Happy that.

Except for a Buddha.

Now when you first become enlightened,

It's,

I just read this in a book and I thought this was so beautiful and I had to share it with you,

That when you first become enlightened it's kind of like you're a water that has rained up in the mountains.

And you're this drop of water that's coming down through the mountains.

And you realize in a waterfall that you are on your way back to the ocean.

So this realization makes you go beyond mind.

And that's what enlightenment really is.

It's that moment that you step out of your mind and you go beyond it.

You create a space for something bigger to take place within your soul.

So all that meditation you do,

All the practicing awareness and everything,

It's all preparation to create this space for something to come in and something for you to grow by and grow into.

You're creating space because you're too small.

Even in the greatest minds like Albert Einstein,

They theorize certain things about God and relativity and life and how it all combines and it's just one single theory of oneness.

They theorize about it,

But Albert Einstein didn't meditate.

Now if Albert Einstein would have meditated,

He would have never told the US government that an atom bomb would be a feasible reality,

That it could actually be a reality.

So maybe he would have thought ahead and said,

You know,

That's probably the worst thing that could ever happen to the world.

And to this day,

It still could be the worst thing that ever happened to this world.

I mean,

There's a lot going on with Russia right now.

I think there's some talk about China wanting to take over Taiwan now.

It's a dangerous time because of this atom bomb that was created.

But if Einstein would have meditated,

He would have probably said,

No,

It's not feasible.

It's not possible.

It's a bad idea.

Just totally somehow convince the government that it's a terrible idea.

It could create the end of the world.

So anyway,

The waterfall effect,

You as this drop,

You realize you're on your way back to the ocean and you're filled with all this ecstasy.

But it's your first time stepping out of the mind.

You go beyond the mind,

Like I said.

So you act a little crazy.

It's better to be around other people who have experienced this enlightenment,

Or people actually who practice awareness,

Because they might be able to help calm you down and bring you back to your center.

Because when you're falling through the air and landing in a stream of water somewhere,

Now that stream of water starts going down the mountain further and further.

It becomes a wide river.

But when it becomes a wide river,

It's not flowing as fast.

There's more to it.

There's more abundance.

It's more peaceful and it's beautiful to look at.

Not that waterfalls aren't beautiful.

Waterfalls are amazing to look at.

And we're sitting there with this awe among us,

Like,

Oh,

It's so beautiful.

But the river,

The Ganges,

Or the Mississippi River,

Is so expansive and so vast and so beautiful to look at.

If you sit by the side of the Mississippi River,

Which I did as a child,

I lived right beside the Mississippi River.

And we used to play in the river sometimes.

As dangerous as it was,

We would play in that river.

But amazing times,

Amazing life that I've lived,

And what I've experienced,

I have to,

Or I wish to,

Expand this experience and help it transform your lives as well.

So the river stage of Satori,

The waterfall is the first level of Satori.

The second level of Satori is this river stage.

And that's what you might see,

Like the pictures of Buddha or the statues of Buddha,

How smooth and pleasant and calm and serene they are.

Those pictures of Buddhas are like the Buddhas of the rivers.

But Buddha didn't want any pictures of him made.

He did not want idols made.

He did not want statues made of himself.

He felt that that would be a deterrence towards the ultimate goal of Buddhism.

And that ultimate goal of Tantric Buddhism or Hindu Buddhism is to dissolve into the ocean,

Which is the third state of Satori,

The third and final state.

That moment in the waterfall,

The first level of Satori,

Is when you somehow get a glimpse of the whole ocean in a brief moment.

And then the whole ocean gets a moment of just being you.

And for a minute,

The drop becomes the ocean and the ocean becomes the drop.

So God basically,

When you first become enlightened,

God has switched places with you,

Just so that he can experience what you've experienced in life,

What you can share with him or her.

Don't get caught up on that.

But with God,

What you can share with that entity,

That awareness,

That beauty,

That love that is from the rest of your life just overpouring and overabundant all the time,

Is so abundant that you have to share.

And even with my lisp,

I got in an accident when I was 16 years old.

And I severely apologize for anyone that my lisp offends or gets on your nerves.

Hopefully you can go beyond those things.

And going beyond those things,

The easiest way to do that is to accept everything.

Like if you hear a bird tripping outside,

Don't let that disturb your meditation.

If you hear a dog barking or a car passing down the road,

Don't let that disturb your meditation.

If the rain's falling on the roof and pitter patter,

Pitter patter,

Absorb that.

Bring that into your meditation and absorb all your surroundings.

Bring everything in.

Be acceptance of everything.

This tantric principle of acceptance.

And the technique is to allow yourself to absorb all of it.

Absorb everything.

Negative,

Positive.

Absorb the dielectrics.

Absorb all the energy that comes from the universe.

And then give it back to the universe.

And by meditating,

You will be giving back to the universe.

And I think that's why Buddha still meditated,

Even though he was enlightened.

And he was asked that question before.

One of his followers asked him why he still meditates.

And he said it's kind of like the shadow of a ghost.

It's just something that lingers on.

He didn't need to meditate anymore.

Buddha didn't need to meditate.

So he just did it,

I don't know,

Maybe for the benefit of the others.

Because it's easier to follow by example when you're telling your followers to do a certain thing.

And then you don't do that thing.

They don't understand that.

But the master has gone beyond.

And even meditation has to have a beyond to it.

So you use these techniques,

Like I said,

For discovering tantra and dealing with things.

But you also use these techniques to go into meditation with.

The blue sky technique,

The breathing techniques,

All these techniques,

They're just to get you to a certain point.

And once you get past that certain point,

Then the magic happens.

When you're just there,

When you're not doing anything,

You're in meditation,

But you're just there.

You're just this awareness that's dissolving into everything.

And you just be in a receptive,

Like a feminine state of mind.

If you're male or female,

It doesn't matter.

Just be in a receptive state of mind and allow this happening to go on with you.

Like I said,

First you have to create space.

So sometimes it takes time before you'll ever see the results of everything.

But like I said,

If you practice your awareness,

Practice your meditation,

Learn to go deep into yourself and learn to let go and just be.

Just be that awareness.

Just be that love.

Be that consciousness that blends into the whole.

And that's when the real magic starts happening in your life.

That's when you really become strong.

There is no strength beyond the Buddha,

Beyond the awakened one.

The awakened one is like a plant that has sprouted past the ground and become a tree.

And the journey of becoming a tree and breaking the ground is the first stage of enlightenment,

The first satori.

Growing up and becoming strong is the second phase of satori.

Everything is stronger than the big redwood that's a hundred feet tall and is super strong.

The winds can't blow them over.

They're too strong.

It's such a strong tree.

And then the flowering is the giving back,

The ultimate essence of satori,

The final satori of you entering the ocean and dissolving into the ocean.

And I know that sounds scary.

And that's why it's good to have a master or a group surrounding you.

And there are so many groups on Facebook.

There are so many groups in the world.

I would recommend maybe Osho International to a lot of people who maybe feel lost or need direction in their life.

There's so much to learn there.

And since Osho's death,

I think things have calmed down a lot.

And the world has accepted his teachings a little bit more.

And he's come up with so many different things to help this community to develop into 10,

000 Buddhas,

Into a million Buddhas,

Maybe into a billion Buddhas eventually.

But we're on our way towards that goal.

All right,

I guess we'll end it there.

Anyway,

I just talked so that you guys can hear something coming out of me.

So you know,

I'm still alive.

I'm still pattering.

I'm still pattering,

Pattering,

And living this beautiful thing we call life.

I hurt my leg the other day.

And I fell actually.

And I have never really fallen like that onto concrete.

I've fallen on skateboards and into concrete and it's hurt really bad.

But I fell and I hurt my leg.

And I rested it for two days.

And then I went surfing on it.

It hurt a little bit to surf on it,

But it wasn't so bad.

And now it's getting better every day.

It's a big old bruise on it.

But that's just part of being an adventurous,

You know,

Strong type person.

I have willpower,

But my willpower comes from the beauty of life,

The essence of wanting to live and the desire to be this beautiful thing.

And surfing gives me that inspiration.

Surfing gives me that strength.

And the more I surf,

The stronger my body becomes.

The more,

It's not even willpower with me.

I don't drink.

I don't smoke.

I won't say I won't drink or I don't drink.

On a rare occasion,

I do have like maybe a beer with some friends.

So I'm not against alcohol.

I'm against the abuse of alcohol.

I'm against the abuse of someone else's emotions or someone else's life.

Discipline is necessary.

Without discipline,

And don't get me wrong by the meaning of the word discipline,

To me discipline is something that you,

A regime or a regiment that you follow to know that everything is going to be in a certain order or pattern to help you throughout life.

But I don't discipline myself in any sense of the normal Western thought of the word discipline.

I discipline myself through awareness,

Through consciousness.

I prefer to be happy.

I prefer to be aware and conscious.

It makes me feel blissful.

And with that blissfulness,

That gives you the energy and the willpower,

I guess you could call it,

To move forward in life and live a beautiful life.

So that's my two cents on being strong and where really real strength comes from.

And I hope you guys can absorb that.

Take my teachings in.

Take my body.

Absorb me.

Absorb my energy.

And grow from it too.

Because that's what it's all about.

Us growing together.

Anyway,

Once again,

Thank you again.

My name is Douglas Gromins and this has been a talk about Tantra and Zen and Buddhism and all kinds of beautiful things.

All right guys and girls,

Aloha to all my surfing friends and namaste to the spiritual ones who maybe float a different path.

But that's all right.

It's all good.

Y'all take care of yourselves.

Have a great time.

As we go.

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