277. Craig Pearson

Craig PearsonCraig Pearson is Executive Vice-President of Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa, and a leader in Consciousness-Based education. He has spoken around the United States on this unique approach to education as well as on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s programs to create world peace.

He has held a number of positions at MIU, including Dean of Faculty, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean of Students, Director of Freshman Composition, and Director of MIU Press.

Dr. Pearson holds a Ph.D. in Maharishi Vedic Science from MIU. He is the author of two books, The Supreme Awakening: Experiences of Enlightenment Throughout Time – And How You Can Cultivate Them, available through MIU Press (free chapter available for download) or Amazon. and The Complete Book of Yogic Flying.

He is also the co-author, with Brad Moses, of Peace on Earth, a collection of songs about enlightenment and world peace (available on iTunes). For video versions of these songs, see their YouTube channel. He lives on the MIU campus with his wife Melissa and son Soren.

Transcript of this interview

Interview conducted January 31, 2015.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:04:23 – Panning for Gold in Unlikely Sources
  • 00:07:42 – Seven States of Consciousness and Higher Spiritual Development
  • 00:12:01 – Description of the Indescribable
  • 00:16:47 – Profound Transformation and Universal Experience
  • 00:22:38 – Wordsworth’s Experience at Tintern Abbey
  • 00:26:42 – Rest and Deep Rest
  • 00:30:20 – The Universal Experience
  • 00:33:59 – The Transformative Effects of Meditation
  • 00:38:01 – The Link Between Coherence and Intelligence
  • 00:42:50 – The Benefits of Brain Integration
  • 00:50:14 – Transforming Consciousness for Harmony with the Planet
  • 01:01:36 – Settling the Waves of the Mind
  • 01:13:01 – Cultivation of Mind and Brain
  • 01:26:05 – The Condition in Which I Function
  • 01:38:45 – A Veil Lifted: A Vision of Glory and Universal Love
  • 01:49:10 – Universal Love and Amma’s Hugs
  • 01:53:40 – Experiencing the Underlying Silence
  • 01:57:21 – The Experience of Oneness
  • 02:01:14 – Glimpsing the Higher States of Consciousness
  • 02:04:45 – The Importance of Looking Within
  • 02:09:01 – Researching Cosmic Consciousness through Brain Measures
  • 02:12:39 – Understanding the Neurophysiology of Transcending
  • 02:15:48 – Different Techniques and Brain Functioning
  • 02:18:37 – Universality of Meditation Techniques
  • 02:22:01 – Broadening the Possibilities
  • 02:26:14 – The Special Atmosphere of Iowa City
  • 02:29:26 – The Realities of Personal Growth
  • 02:32:48 – Finding the Self Within
  • 02:36:41 – Cultivating Transcendence
  • 02:40:19 – Craig’s Page on BatGap

241. Harri Aalto, 2nd Interview

Harri AaltoWithout doubt, it is everyone’s potential and natural birthright to eternally experience the full knowledge and pure joy of Unbounded Awareness, where absolutely nothing is excluded, day to day, year after year.

Universal-to-personal existence becomes revealed as layer after layer of Absolute intelligence, all eternally humming as my —and everyone’s—movement of pure consciousness.

Eyes open or closed, submerged in an ocean of wholeness, where any stream of the love of my heart, the knowledge of my mind or flow of my senses is an obvious stir or expansion in the whole eternal sea of oneness. Here pure knowingness is so pervasive that there is nothing else that is known; but because it is pure knowledge, there is an experiencer, and this knower, by virtue of the internal structure of knowingness, naturally radiates infinite qualities to unboundedness, and thereby I—we—exist as eternal existence itself with our particular individuality and universality in complete connectedness.

The entire field of our lives, from pure silence to the divine subtle levels, to our daily activity, is designed to be enjoyed, appreciated and known, all simultaneously, as the wonderful, unified totality of differences that it truly is.

Book: The Landscape of Enlightenment: With Doors and Windows to Our World

Websites:

Transcript of this interview

Other interviews

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded 7/19/2014

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction and Response to First Interview
  • 00:05:01 – The Ocean of Consciousness and its Fluctuations
  • 00:10:00 – Recognizing Consciousness
  • 00:15:21 – The Speech of Enlightenment
  • 00:19:34 – Unity of Pure Consciousness and Daily Life
  • 00:26:07 – The Mechanics of Creation and the Nature of Consciousness
  • 00:31:58 – The Continuum of Consciousness
  • 00:37:26 – Infinite Intelligence in Creation
  • 00:42:54 – The Continuum of Consciousness
  • 00:47:36 – The Illusion of Subtle Layers
  • 00:52:46 – The search for the self
  • 00:57:43 – The Value of Experience Within the Self
  • 01:03:10 – The Structure of Consciousness and Pure Consciousness
  • 01:07:16 – The Silence of Pure Consciousness
  • 01:12:24 – The Evolution of Consciousness and the Presence of God
  • 01:18:04 – Connecting with the Growth of Love
  • 01:23:31 – The Reverberation of Pure Consciousness
  • 01:27:36 – The Function of Memory and Consciousness
  • 01:32:30 – The Resonance of Truth
  • 01:38:04 – The Universe and Consciousness
  • 01:43:27 – The Question of Free Will and Determinism
  • 01:48:44 – The Elephant Analogy and Overcoming Personal Challenges
  • 01:54:29 – The Function of Subtle Levels of Creation
  • 01:58:50 – The realization of being everything and writing a book
  • 02:01:52 – The Potential for Self-Realization
  • 02:05:33 – The Joy of Exploring the Possibilities Within Pure Consciousness
  • 02:09:50 – The Unfolding of Experience
  • 02:13:15 – Embracing Different Perspectives
  • 02:17:17 – The Experience of Pure Consciousness and the I-ness
  • 02:21:27 – Concluding Remarks
  • 02:24:59 – Wrapping Up the Podcast

223. Harri Aalto

Harri AaltoMy family moved to Canada from Finland when I was five. I clearly remember an experience that started developing from this time, where I could see an unmoving sphere, or bubble, of comfortable light, or consciousness, that surrounded my body. If I moved my hand outside this safety net it looked somehow darker and I would draw it back to safety. In this space, I always felt that I could do no wrong since I was just flowing along without making any effort.

As I grew older this experience expanded and remained abstract for many years. I, of course, thought nothing of it, even though it was obviously a very basic aspect of my existence. When I was about eight or nine years old, I started experiencing what can only be described as a mixture of intense energy and overwhelming happiness. Every day I would have to leave the house and run/walk around the block for several hours until it was manageable again.

I would have long, grand insights that I felt completely unable to express out loud, along with apparently extended physical abilities, foresight, and streams of vision that I could not explain. The school I was attending at the time insisted that I demonstrate these physical abilities on stage; no one, including me, could understand how I could jump so high. People felt that I was in the air just a little too long for my own good.

I noticed in high school that I never actually fell asleep at night and that nights and days just blended together uninterruptedly. This went on for years. When I would wake up in the morning I felt like I was falling asleep and when going to sleep at night I would seem to wake up.

When I was a young adult I started Transcendental Meditation, and then my personal experience really took off. I started first intuiting—then hearing, and seeing—the subtle fabrics of the quietest levels of my own consciousness: pure abstract knowingness, from within its own nature, revealed its unified, wonderful structure of wholeness.

About 30 years ago, I began to hear the hum of existence as layers of knowledge. I could see the divine heavens; I started experiencing the relationships that rendered everything experienced as one unified wholeness of multiplicity. And ultimately how, even daily life, far from being the football field of turbulent change, is nothing but the greatest expression of divine-to-Absolute-self-awareness.

And yet here we all are, essentially no different from each other. Nothing much changes. My experience is that all this is true for everybody. The “sphere of consciousness” around me as a child, is still there but has expanded to include all the different layers of my awareness.

Book: The Landscape of Enlightenment: With Doors and Windows to Our World

Websites:

Other interviews

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded 3/22/2014

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction and Response to First Interview
  • 00:05:01 – The Ocean of Consciousness and its Fluctuations
  • 00:10:00 – Recognizing Consciousness
  • 00:15:21 – The Speech of Enlightenment
  • 00:19:34 – Unity of Pure Consciousness and Daily Life
  • 00:26:07 – The Mechanics of Creation and the Nature of Consciousness
  • 00:31:58 – The Continuum of Consciousness
  • 00:37:26 – Infinite Intelligence in Creation
  • 00:42:54 – The Continuum of Consciousness
  • 00:47:36 – The Illusion of Subtle Layers
  • 00:52:46 – The search for the self
  • 00:57:43 – The Value of Experience Within the Self
  • 01:03:10 – The Structure of Consciousness and Pure Consciousness
  • 01:07:16 – The Silence of Pure Consciousness
  • 01:12:24 – The Evolution of Consciousness and the Presence of God
  • 01:18:04 – Connecting with the Growth of Love
  • 01:23:31 – The Reverberation of Pure Consciousness
  • 01:27:36 – The Function of Memory and Consciousness
  • 01:32:30 – The Resonance of Truth
  • 01:38:04 – The Universe and Consciousness
  • 01:43:27 – The Question of Free Will and Determinism
  • 01:48:44 – The Elephant Analogy and Overcoming Personal Challenges
  • 01:54:29 – The Function of Subtle Levels of Creation
  • 01:58:50 – The realization of being everything and writing a book
  • 02:01:52 – The Potential for Self-Realization
  • 02:05:33 – The Joy of Exploring the Possibilities Within Pure Consciousness
  • 02:09:50 – The Unfolding of Experience
  • 02:13:15 – Embracing Different Perspectives
  • 02:17:17 – The Experience of Pure Consciousness and the I-ness
  • 02:21:27 – Concluding Remarks
  • 02:24:59 – Wrapping Up the Podcast