055. Siddhananda

Buddha at the Gas Pump

Rick Archer

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.7 • 695 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2011

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Siddhananda's journey began in her teenage years. It wasn't until she was around 30 that her journey and seeking of truth began in earnest. At this time, Spiritual practices were picked up on her own, and Kundalini spontaneously awakened due to a sincere prayer of wanting to be of service to humanity. She was not prepared or had any idea what this awakening would open or where it would lead. With this awakening, many phenomena, shifting states of consciousness and radical mood changes manifested which left her extremely ungrounded and shaken. After a long period of struggling to understand what was taking place and being unsuccessful at coming to any balance or peace within, Siddhananda found her Guru, GuruSwamiG. Siddhananda has been with her Guru for 10 years. Increasing stability, deepening states as well as balance slowly filtered in during this time due to her Guru's grace and guidance. Recently, a profound shift took place in which all sense of separation and individuality suddenly dropped. Spontaneously, a starkly different reality was revealed–an immediate non-dual, pure beingness in which there never existed an "other". This presence (One without a second) has remained and is known without a doubt that it is the truth of what all of humanity truly is at the core. Summary and Transcript of this interview Interview recorded 1/18/2011. YouTube Video Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Siddhananda's spiritual journey 00:02:39 - Facing Fears in Graveyards 00:04:31 - The Poetry of Krishnamurti 00:06:01 - Debilitating Experiences and Mystical Insights 00:08:00 - The Pull of Spiritual Awakening 00:10:08 - From Darkness to Light 00:12:33 - Discovering Kundalini Energy 00:14:33 - The Potency and Caution of Spiritual Experiences 00:16:35 - Five Years of Intensity 00:18:58 - Kriyas and Spiritual Awakening 00:21:23 - Connecting with a Kundalini Guide in Seattle 00:23:36 - A Life-changing Encounter in India 00:25:35 - Finding Stability and Balance 00:28:20 - The Importance of a Guru Guide 00:31:14 - The Blessing of Suffering and Desperation for a Guru 00:33:52 - Submitting to a Teacher 00:37:30 - Trusting in the Inherent Intelligence of the Universe 00:40:47 - The Blessing of Guruji 00:43:26 - Vibrating Thoughts and Fluid Consciousness 00:45:49 - Devotional Experiences and the Practice of Mantras 00:49:00 - The Illusion of Seeking Phenomena 00:52:38 - The Experience of Non-Dual Consciousness 00:57:02 - The Dissolution of the Ego 01:01:39 - The Illusion of Separation 01:06:51 - The Revelation of Non-Dual Presence 01:13:28 - The Mystery of Personality and Identity 01:20:43 - The Nature of Ego and Suffering 01:25:45 - Working with Students in the Online Ashram 01:31:32 - The Temporal and Eternal Qualities of the Substratum 01:37:21 - Transmission and Bliss 01:44:34 - Trusting the Universe

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome to Buddha at the gas pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is
0:31.6	Sittananda. Sittananda lives in the Pacific Northwest, at least at the moment, and is a student of Guru
0:39.0	Swamiji whom I interviewed last August and who, Serojani, whom I've interviewed twice, is
0:48.0	also a student of, so she's sort of a fellow student. And she has had some significant shifts in recent weeks, which I've
1:01.8	listened to her description of a little bit on YouTube. But we're going to start with
1:08.0	some more historical perspective and talk about how she first became
1:13.6	interested in spirituality and what she has been through over the years leading up to the
1:18.8	present time. So welcome and thank you for doing this.
1:24.6	I'm glad to be here. Thank you. Good.
1:28.3	So how did you get started?
1:30.3	I understand, I think, some comment your guru made that you've been a seeker since your
1:36.3	teens or early 20s or something.
1:39.3	Well, you know, I had many spiritual experiences since I was very young, but I can't say I really started speaking until after my son was born when he was probably about two years old.
1:56.0	And my goodness now to try to trace back how long ago that was is going to be tricky here. But let's see, he's 19 now, so probably about 17 years ago when I got really serious with it.
2:07.6	And prior to that, it was, you know, I have to say just a lot of phenomena, there was depression, anxiety, all sorts of things,
2:15.6	and there was, you know, that that ache that longing that was always there but after he was there was just that
2:23.2	whole that continued to always be there and it was just you know I just within my
2:28.6	heart knew that once that timing was right that things would really get going
2:32.4	but you know and my motivation for beginning
2:37.0	to meditate after my son was born was mostly because I didn't want to transmit all of my, you know,
2:43.6	pain and all of my history to him, you know, so it was more just considering him, but I had no
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