The Infinite Ocean of Consciousness

A letter to a friend:

“L……,” this is a very simple example but also amazingly accurate.

All there is, is an infinite ocean of Consciousness manifesting as zillions of all sorts of different waves.

One of the waves “wakes up,” looks around and goes “I AM the infinite ocean of Consciousness!!!”  “The infinite ocean of Consciousness dwells within me as me!”

This is a correct revelation.

And then the “awake wave” takes an honest look around and sees all the other waves, whether they are bus driver waves, fungi waves, water fountain waves, pebble waves, Putin waves or asparagus waves, are in the exact same condition as it is. They are all unique expressions of the infinite ocean of Consciousness.  

How can the “Awake Wave” honestly say that the infinite ocean of Consciousness being a  “L…… Wave” is oceaning wrong or should be oceaning in some way other than it is? 

Whether a wave “wakes up” and recognizes it is an expression of the infinite ocean of Consciousness or not, the so-called “not wake wave” is still as much an expression of the ocean of Consciousness as the “awake wave.” 

There is nothing wrong with one wave sharing with another wave skillful and effective views or technologies that may improve the experience of Being a Wave, but it does that within the context of knowing the other wave is always already as much an expression of the ocean of Consciousness as it is. Whatever the “awake wave” shares, it knows the other wave does not need improving, fixing, changing, transformation, purification, practices, secret teachings, special knowledge or awakening to be as it already is.

The great sage Ramana Maharshi said, “Be as you are.”

You already are the infinite ocean of Consciousness and you are also “L …… “

No problem

Not two

“Perhaps you have noticed the amazing paradox; as we recognize our inherent personal powerlessness, ‘new power flows in.’ … Once we know ourselves to be Ocean in the form of wave, we become free to be ourselves in a way we never dreamed possible. It is as if we had spent our life driving with the emergency brake on and suddenly it is off… The enduring paradox and wonder of a spiritual awakening is the return of power. But this power has a completely different feel to it. It is impersonal. Without the bondage of self, the power of the Ocean plays out without resistance.” ~ Wayne Liquorman in The Way of Powerlessness

🙏❤️🙏,

Tom

Siddha Meditation

“If we are going to realize this state of oneness at the end of our practice of meditation, why should we not understand it at the beginning and practice meditation with the awareness that everything is Shiva? This is how the great beings meditate, and, if we also learn to see with this awareness, our meditation will be great. To meditate in this way we do not have to undergo any difficulties. We do not have to make the mind still. We do not even have to close our eyes. Utpaladeva, the great sage and philosopher of Kashmir Shaivism, says: sarvo mamayam vibhava ityevam parijanatah; vishvatmano vikalpanam prasrepi maheshtah, One who is constantly aware that this entire universe is his own glory retains his divinity even if thoughts and fancies play in his mind.

Truly speaking, everything is Consciousness. It is only because of our sense of limited individuality that we see things differently. A man is Consciousness, a woman is Consciousness, a dog is Consciousness, a donkey is Consciousness, a stone is Consciousness, and a mountain is Consciousness. This is true understanding. This is the knowledge we obtain through meditation, and the moment we obtain this knowledge we begin to understand everything as it is.

In order to rid yourself of the feeling of limitation and obtain this understanding, you should practice the sadhana of Shiva. You should understand, “I am Shiva — God. It is God who is meditating, and all the objects of my meditation are God. My sadhana is God, and everybody and everything I see is God.”

For a long time you have had the awareness, “I am an individual being; I am small; I am limited.” This is why it is difficult for you to accept immediately the awareness, “I am God.” All your life you have been hearing that you are a sinner. Your teachers, all the holy books, and people pursuing different religious paths have been telling you that you are a sinner, and you have come to believe it. In this way you impose the idea of sin onto the Self, which is totally pure and free of sin. It is because one has this wrong understanding that one identifies oneself with the wrong things. That is why one cannot uplift oneself; that is why one cannot have faith in the Self or become one-pointed on the Self. Kashmir Shaivism teaches that when one begins to think, “I am this, I am that, I am a sinner, I am an inferior person,” one becomes poor in Shakti, and that is how one becomes an individual being,

…To rid yourself of wrong understanding you do not have to do anything new. All you have to do is meditate. The fact is that you meditate not to attain God, but to become aware that God is within you. Kashmir Shaivism says: nashivam vidyate kvachit, Nothing exists which is not Shiva. Where is that place where there is no Shiva? Where is that time where there is no Shiva? So even if you experience duality, even if you see diversity around you, consider yourself to be Shiva. Understand that it is Shiva who is eating, Shiva who is the food that is eaten, Shiva who gives, and Shiva who takes. It is Shiva who does everything. The entire universe is the glory of Shiva, the glory of the Self .”

Your own,

Swami Muktananda

Some philosophers say the Truth can not be known. Yet the Truth is always experienced, at every moment of our lives.” – Baba Muktananda

“Siddha Meditation is the recognition that everything you see, touch, hear, smell, taste, imagine, think, dream or in anyway experience is the same Divine Consciousness as your Self.”  – Baba Muktananda

“God dwells within you as you.” – Baba Muktananda

The Three Tantiens

At The Awakened Heart Center for Conscious Living, (once known as The Hara Foundation,) we work with the three Tantiens or centers of Dynamic Energy and Consciousness within the human being.

For our highest functioning and well-being, all three Tantiens are empowered and integrated within themselves and each other. What is usually seen is one is overly developed while the others are under developed. And there are usually imbalances within each tantien. Too much Yin and not enough Yang; or too much Yang and not enough Yin. ☯️ 

The first Tantien below the navel is The Hara. If you put your thumb in your navel and then naturally flatten the rest of your hand down below on your belly, you’ll be covering your hara.

This is the deep grounding root that feeds the whole system. According to Yoga, Zen and certain Martial Arts, breathing from your hara stimulates all 72,000 nadis, meridians or psychic channels as they all have their roots in the hara, or kanda in yoga.

The Hara is the home of Ki,Chi or Prana Shakti, the power center for the whole human instrument. Having a strong hara leads to radiant health, skillful action and deep connection to the infinite ocean of Ki. Some people, such as certain martial artists or spiritual teachers, have strong Ki and can extend or transmit this power to others. This transmission may seem very sexy, loving, mystical and magical but if this power is not connected to the love of the Heart or wisdom of the Third Eye, problems may arise.

My Buddhist teacher Iku use to tell me not to get involved with certain people as they “have no hara.” They dissipate their own Ki through negative thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships.

The hara is known as the Kath in Sufism.💥

The second or Middle Tantien is  The Radiant Heart  Center. This is the center of loving kindness, compassion, acceptance, and a deep inner connection with all beings everywhere. Too often this center is developed in a very imbalanced way with devotion only to certain religions, people, deities, or gurus. When the Heart Center is integrated, balanced and open, the love and acceptance is all inclusive, and is fed by the power of the Hara. The Awakened Heart Center expresses as Love in Action.

The Upper Tantien or Third Eye is between and slightly above the eye brows. It has also been called The Center of Christ Consciousness. It is the source of deep wisdom, creative intelligence, penetrating insight, intuition, and mystical awareness. This center is way too often imbalanced by identification with too much thinking about past, future, worries, concepts, theories, beliefs and ideas. It collects more knowledge, ideas and information mistaking them for intelligence, presence and wisdom. This happens when the Third Eye is not deeply connected to the Heart and Hara.

The focus of the harmony, balance and integration of the three Tantiens is very different for each one of us. To be in balance and integration requires on-going vigilance and awareness. When all three Tantiens are balanced, integrated and in harmony, we flow with an incredible ease of Being in the infinite ocean of the Tao. ☯️

The Game of Human Life

This is a pointer, not the truth …. and yet –

When we “choose” to play a game of chess, we willingly limit our awareness and capacity to do things only according to the rules of the game of chess. Certain pieces can only move in certain ways at certain times. We become very concentrated, very focused on the game. Our strategies and our opponents strategies become all that matters and the rest of reality fades into the background. We are entranced, hypnotized by the game. It becomes very real.

In the same way IT SEEMS that supreme awareness, to experience its infinite creative possibilities, chooses to become a human instrument – or anything else , perhaps  a slime mold, or star cluster. Because of the way this game is played, each instrument comes with its own genetic predispositions and societal programming. It has certain limitations and capacities, just like a piece in a chess game. It becomes absorbed in the game of human life, usually acting only out of the first 3 chakras of survival, reproduction/sex and power, domination or submission. It invests in the game, not in trying to understand WTF is going on.

If the human instrument has the open program to “wake up,” at some point it begins to question everything and look more deeply. It will find most of the avenues it follows are ulitimately un-satisfying, just another program within the game.

“The greater the doubt, the greater the enlightenment.” – Boshan, Hakuin and other Zen masters

If it is lucky, (grace) it may directly discover that the knot of individuated consciousness it has experienced it self to be (wave), is part of a program of a vast ocean of Intelligent Awareness that is playing a game of creating and discovering infinite possibilities and creating subject /object awareness to enhance the game and hypnosis required to believe it is real.

Most of what passes as science, spirituality and religion, etc is just waves experiencing different possibilities of the game of their wave-ness. They are different Reality Tunnels. Everyone believes their Reality Tunnel is real and argues for it.

The danger of discovering what is actually happening is it may well trigger END GAME. And it does on many levels.  

One who has “awakened” knows the vast currents of the ocean is running its wave-ness and knows the wave and ocean are the same yet different. This has led some to say things like, “The Jiva (individuated consciousness/wave) IS Shiva (Supreme Awareness/Ocean)” or “God dwells within you AS you,” or “THIS is as God as it gets.”

Chess is something humans made up. In and of itself, it does not exist. It needs humans to exist. The most enjoyable way to play chess is to become totally immersed in the game, totally hypnotized by the game, make it very real and important by trying to win.

This is suspension of disbelief.

Most humans are deeply engaged in their personal game of chess, at whatever level they play it, and they seldom question it. 

If they do, the questioning leads to an instability in the game, is threatening to other players and they suggest you get back into line and focus on the game. Get more deeply hypnotized. Embellish your Reality Tunnels, whatever they may be.

For some, it is too late! They have been swept away by the ocean of bliss and yet there seems to be some wave-ness left, like Tony Parsons, Ramana, Nityananda, Nisargadatta, Whitman, Meister Eckhart, Spinoza, etc.

For those deeply engaged in the game of life, those who keep pointing out that it is just a game and that it really doesn’t matter if you win, lose or take a nap, so you may as well relax, have fun and enjoy it, are often asked to shut up, leave the room and go far, far way!  The game must go on! 🤣

Skepticism

Healthy open-minded, open-hearted skepticism is a very good thing. And yet too often skepticism becomes a form of narcissistic encapsulation that says,

“Within my understanding and experience, if I can’t find personal evidence for this, if it is not within the range of my experience, understanding, concepts or beliefs, if it is not the way I choose to see things, then it can’t possibly be so. Therefore anyone who has an experience or a capacity outside the range of my understanding, outside the range of my experience must be a fraud, deluded or a liar.”

Do not mistake this for skepticism. It is narcissistic encapsulation.

The question to ask ourselves is, “Am I being skeptical… or am I just being narcissistic?” Hmmmm.

It is often wise to abide simply in not knowing.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ Shakespeare -or someone else with the same name.

Freedom from Knowing

From my experience, finding ourselves pessimistic and nihilistic are part of the process of full awakening. All of our views, hopes, beliefs and philosophies go out the door. We are left helpless, hopeless, without meaning and purpose. I suspect anyone who fully awakens goes through this, maybe sometimes for years. And too many stop here. Half-baked.This point is half way around the circle and still being encapsulated by the circle. It is the Ghost’s Cave.

If we then somehow set aside our philosophical, mind-created stance of pessimism and nihilism, fully admit “we” ultimately don’t know anything, then a profound opening may happen and we effortlessly live in wonder, delight and astonishment.

At the level of our thinking conceptual mind, there is a profound not knowing, not concluding about anything. Anything that can be said about This is not IT, including saying it is “This,” is “IT.” There is silence.

In spite of rivers and mountains now once again being rivers and mountains, there is absolute freedom to Be. Outside the encapsultion of the circle.

Satsang With Tom. Being Together

Everyone is welcome to satsang.

Sat = Being. Sangha = group of friends. We enjoy Being together as we are.

This satsang is descriptive, not prescriptive. I don’t know what anyone “should” be doing about anything. The only rule we have at satsang is be kind and respectful to everyone. Including yourself. Including Bonnie and me. Satsang is a safe space for all of us.

One of our devoted students at The Awakened Heart Center, Myrna, who had spent years teaching in India, once wrote me a beautiful letter saying I was everyone’s Kalyanamitra, or spiritual friend. I am your friend. You are my friend. I am not a guru, enlightened master, neo-advaita teacher, avatar, adept or any such thing. I do not represent any lineage, tradition, or teaching.

I abide in not knowing. What is shared in satsang is not something that can be known by our minds but is rather realized and felt in our Hearts.

I call what I offer “sharing.” This sharing is an expression of my own recognition, insights, experiences, and understanding that come from over fifty years of training with many different gurus and teachers in both the enlightenment traditions and human potential movement. Although many things are shared, what is always pointed to is self-evident if one is willing to honestly look without prejudice.

What is shared is an all inclusive view. It is a smörgåsbord of pointers and upayas (skillful and effective psycho-physical-spiritual technologies.) People come, take what they want and leave the rest for others. There are no “shoulds,” here. What may deeply resonate with one person may not resonate at all with another. And that is OK.


People who come to satsang have all sorts of backgrounds, experiences, views, interests and issues. Some have been coming to satsang for decades while for others it is their first time. They come for many different reasons or no reason at all. Everyone is welcome.

We enjoy Being Together As We Are. This is satsang. With great love and respect, I welcome you to satsang. 🙏❤️🙏

“When awakening happens, the mind’s need to understand disappears into the unconditional love and acceptance of the Heart” ~ Tom Thompson

Consider This

This is not a trick but an honest investigation.

Are you intelligent? Do you have intelligence? Is your body intelligent, running the many functions it has to, to keep you alive and reading this? Is your body more intelligent than “you” are? What is running your life when you are deep asleep at night? What is it that designs and implements the amazing dreams you may have? Is it you? I hope you have had amazing, life transforming dreams. Do you know how to do what your body is doing right now? What is living you? Is your body intelligent or are you the only one who is intelligent? Is it possible you are not the most intelligent being in your body? Is it possible that there is an intelligence greater that your own living you? Is it even possible that you are not the most intelligent being in the universe? Is that even possible? Is it possible that there may be someone or something more intelligent than you are right here now?

If that is even a possibility, consider for a moment what that means? Consider what it means if it is possible that there is an intelligence greater than our own. It could mean that we do not know what is really going on. It could mean we really don’t have it all figured out. It may mean we are very encapsulated within our limited maps of reality. We secretly pretend we know something even if we claim we don’t.

Could it be there is an intelligence greater than our own? Is that possible? How would we know? Are we intelligent enough to even recognize it? Perhaps not. How would we know unless we set aside our maps, opinions and positions? Are we willing to step out of our narcissistic encapsulation and take a fresh look with open eyes, heart and mind? It is possible that something more intelligent than we are may be everywhere? Is that even possible? How would we know? It is actually very simple if we are willing to be perfectly honest. ❤

Solipsism –

In true awakening, solipsism is blown apart, not realized. There is no longer a self- obsessed “me,” to be a solipsist .

There is no “my” consciousness – or anything else for that matter.A true teacher points out and helps one investigate what is essential and true. They do not program one with beliefs, philosophies or concepts. Quite the opposite, they pull the conceptual rug out from beneath ones’s feet over and over again.

When awakening happens, one awakens out of all of this as it is all human constructs. Many, if not most, get stuck in the Ghost’s Cave, the desert, existential despair, the emptiness and meaningless of it all. This is also where the solipsist view and philosophy may arise to protect the now seemingly “enlightened” “me.”

Because there are no longer any concepts or beliefs to cling to and seeking has apparently stopped, without a good teacher they think they are at the end of the road when in fact they are only half-baked.

This is a time a teacher can be essential.But the final truth is it all happens by grace, including finding a teacher who actually knows what they are doing. And yet, as Ramakrishna pointed out, the winds of grace are always blowing.

Infinite Intelligent Energy

KUNDALINI SHAKTI is the infinite intelligent energy in an individuated form living us as us. We don’t awaken Kundalini, She awakens us. The concepts, beliefs and practices around Kundalini are cultural but the dynamic living experience of Kundalini is not.

It seems like awakened Kundalini is very similar to having another sense. You can’t explain what it is like to see to someone who hasn’t opened their eyes. Once their eyes open, it takes time to process and make sense of the absolute astonishment of what is being seen. Or they can close their eyes again.

Kundalini takes us out of ourselves into the infinite field of Being and returns us transformed. Something has been realized that can not be expressed in words, beliefs or thought and yet It has been expressed as Being Love Bliss Consciousness. This realization is available to anyone who is willing to open their eyes, lets go and lets Goddess.