The Flow State // Spiritual Intelligence 07

[Music] namaste my friends and welcome back my name is aaron abke and in today's episode of spiritual intelligence we are continuing our discussion on the three states of mastery and in our previous episode we discussed the first state of mastery which correlates to the throat chakra level of sq called the im state and in today's episode we are discussing the second state of mastery which correlates to the third eye level of sq which is called the flow state and we said that the im state is classically referred to as enlightenment and today we're going to

see how the flow state is classically referred to as non-doership which is an extremely advanced level of spiritual intelligence that arises after self-realization has occurred but remember just because your sq isn't at these levels yet doesn't mean that the states of mastery are irrelevant to you i only show you what sq levels these states of mastery correlate to to show you when they become effortless and automatic meaning they would happen to anyone at that level of sq even if they didn't realize it or know that they existed previously they are built-in states of consciousness to

the universe itself but they are absolutely available for all of us to begin practicing and cultivating and even accessing for periods of time at any level of sq and that's exactly what we're going to be doing today so please join me for this seventh episode of spiritual intelligence as we explore the second state of mastery known as the flow state [Music] so to recap the first state of mastery we discussed how the i am state is essentially a state of deep mind heart coherence where the heart is now leading one's awareness rather than the analytical

mind and this causes the mind to relax into a state of detached alertness and this represents a balancing of our masculine and feminine energies and because the i am state is essentially a waking meditation it is also felt as a kind of peaceful bliss that brings light to our daily life and ordinary activities as i said in the previous episode each one of the three states of mastery is really just an extension of the previous one and so we can look at the i am state and ask the question what would happen if we continue

to deepen that state of blissful inner peace and presence and detached alertness where does consciousness go from there and the answer is of course into the flow state which is typically referred to in advaita vedanta as non-doership it is the state of pure witnessing of one's activities where there is absolutely no inner sense of doing anything but before we can really talk about the flow state we first need to talk about the nature of bliss what is bliss we typically think about bliss as happiness which is sort of true but bliss is something more than

just a happy feeling because we feel happiness all the time temporarily when nice things happen to us and then it quickly fades away but bliss is uniquely a state of consciousness that arises only when there is absolutely zero external reason for it meaning you can't feel bliss because something good just happened to you this is why i like to call it no reason happiness you could think of it as being high on one's own self-nature being so in alignment with reality that it feels as if reality is smiling from inside of you so what is

bliss it is the state of being free from desire for anything we discussed in our last episode how the i am state is a fearless and desireless state of consciousness but when that desirelessness deepens it becomes a kind of radiant inner joy or bliss and desirelessness manifests completely at the 150 level of sq which is the final frontier of the illumination level and at 151 where the level of mastery begins at the third eye level this desirelessness begins to deepen into that bliss and it is this irresistible bliss that we feel through this intense connection

to the present moment that allows consciousness to permanently remain in this kind of waking flow state in order to understand the flow state better let's look at a really practical example michael jordan made this state famous in the early 90s when he coined the term being in the zone and he would say that the secret that made him stand apart from all other nba players during his era was that he had mastered this ability to enter the flow state or be in the zone at will during his games even during high pressure situations so it

was actually michael jordan's mental mastery in combination with his amazing physical gifts and unparalleled work ethic that made him the greatest basketball player to ever live jordan said that when he was in the flow state he could not miss a shot he couldn't make a wrong move and it felt as if everything he did was perfect but the secret to staying in the zone is to never acknowledge when you're in the zone as soon as the mind says wow i'm in the zone i'm crushing it it kicks you out of the zone so what michael

jordan was saying without realizing it was that he had to become nobody he had to be like a sage playing basketball there could not be anyone there or he would be kicked out of the flow state in one interview jordan said i never think about needing to win the game while i'm playing it or let myself feel the pressure of needing to make a certain shot or feel the fear of letting my teammates or fans down i just get into the zone and all the right moves just come to me so in essence when he

was in the flow state michael jordan was not playing basketball but basketball was playing michael jordan so using this example we can see the correlations to the second state of mastery where one lives in this exact kind of flow state with their everyday life not just while playing a sport it means that you must love the present moment the way that michael jordan loved basketball this is why the flow state is a state of self mastery because it represents one's ability to concentrate at a very deep level and if you develop this ability to concentrate

intensely on whatever you're doing in this moment while tuning everything else out it will take you into the flow state and that is why the second state of mastery is one that anyone can learn to cultivate on command many people who become skilled at something that they enjoy learn how to access this state without even realizing it like the ceo negotiating a tough business deal at a roundtable meeting with incredible skills and awareness the musician performing under the stage lights who watches their hands flying across the instrument at incredible speed the stand-up comic who has

the audience in the palm of their hand these people have learned how to access the flow state in one specific area of their life and what everyone unanimously agrees upon is that when we are in the flow it is a state of indescribable bliss it is a state of desirelessness where one is not looking to achieve an outcome at the end of their actions but have simply fallen so in love with the action itself that one's consciousness merges with that action life becomes the dancer and you are the dance greater than any drug any high

or intoxicant in the world is the bliss felt in this meditative state and after one learns how to carry the meditative state into their daily life and live in it it begins to evolve into something even deeper one begins to lose the sense of doing anything and one witnesses the ordinary actions of the body with total detachment in this state one loses the sense that there is an eye who is living life and in its place is a deep abiding sense that i am being lived [Music] so to be in the flow state in one's

everyday life requires that one does not want anything from life other than the joy of being one with it just like michael jordan can't hit that buzzer beater at the three-point line because he really wants to win the game or i hope i don't let my teammates down that would only increase his chances of missing the shot and cut off his power he has to simply love the feeling of playing basketball and being in the flow state without any desire or expectation for an outcome the flow state happens when the innate intelligence of the universe

takes over and we actualize our highest potential without any inward effort to do so so if you want to imagine what the second state of mastery would feel like then you can remember the last time that you were in a flow state doing something that you love and then imagine carrying that quality of consciousness into everything you do in your life it is a state of intense presence with the now moment where you sit in flow you walk in flow you move in flow and you speak in flow there is no predicting judging or analyzing

of what is happening there is just the state of pure witnessing so when you're making your coffee in the morning don't do it with any expectation of i just can't wait to get this coffee made so i can drink it then i'll truly be happy instead experience everything happening in this moment be the witness to this extraordinary experience of life making coffee and think nothing of the moment of drinking it until it arrives when you pour the coffee enjoy the sensation of pouring hot coffee into the cup the sound that it makes the smell that

it gives off and the way it looks swirling around the cup in essence don't be in a rush to do anything but slow down pay attention to the little details and find satisfaction in the simplicity of being present with what is happening in this moment one of my favorite definitions for the ego is the belief in personal doership ego is that voice in the head which claims every thought every feeling and every action as mine that it's not the power of life doing anything but me a separate independent self that's isolated from the flow of

life and if the flow of life doesn't go my way well i'm gonna resist it and i'm gonna hate it and i'm gonna complain about it but when it does go my way i'm gonna take all the credit for it so mastery is a very advanced state of spiritual intelligence where one becomes so aware of their inner world that it becomes clear that there is no independent self in here choosing its actions the body is simply acting all on its own according to its conditioning which life delivered it the mind is not choosing its own

thoughts but is simply reacting to life through thoughts so whichever way you slice it life is ultimately determining everything that happens and the person is just an extension of life like a wave is an extension of the ocean and the enlightened mind is simply one that fully recognizes this this is why the belief in personal dealership is the whole foundation for the ego's thought system i am a body separate from life and choosing all of my own actions so i have to feel guilty for the bad actions i choose and prideful for the good actions

i choose guilt and pride guilt and pride and the character just oscillates between these two movements for our entire life and then we give that story character a name called aaron and just like a character in a script we can say that aaron only exists because aaron acts so if you come to the conclusion from sufficient investigation that aaron does not act but is moved by life like a character in a script or a puppet on a string then can we really say that aaron exists at all the person is just something that life is

doing it is not an independent doer so all you really have to do is find out with your own experience if the person is the doer of their own actions and keep finding it out until it is completely finished for you realize that no person acts independently from life it is impossible the same power that grows a seed into an oak tree allows birds to fly and fish to swim is the same power living me just as one ocean moves all of the waves it is one power which governs all of the actions in the

universe so the ego is not capable of acting without self-interest everything ego does is with the intention to get something from life and this is why the belief in personal doership is inseparable from one's personal desires what we do reflects what we desire and what we desire reflects our karma so it is really our karmic desires that are the doer of the body's actions and life delivers those to us as well so desire is like the nails that keep us crucified to the cross of the ego they are the chains that bind us to the

prison of third density consciousness of thinking and believing that we are separate from all that is and that we can act apart from it but just as a wave cannot act independently from the ocean a person cannot act independently from life a surfer doesn't feel guilty when there's no good waves to surf that day he simply goes home and comes back the next day and when he is surfing a wave he doesn't have a sense of pride that he is controlling the wave that he's surfing or making it happen likewise one who lives in the

flow state does not have a sense of doing anything but is simply always riding the wave of the present moment and trusting that everything that arises is perfect according to the divine will why is it that you want nice things why do you want money an attractive partner a beautiful house or recognition from others it is because your life experiences have taught you to want those things because everyone else seems to want them and so you learned that those things must be worth pursuing why do you speak act or behave the way you do it

is because those behavior patterns are encoded into your genetics which were passed down by your parents and those genetics were also given to you by life so someone please show me where this individual doer of actions is i sure can't seem to find one the ego is sort of like a wind-up toy that gets cranked and then it begins to walk forward and as it's walking forward it says i am choosing to walk this direction all by myself the belief in personal dealership is like a man who takes a train a hundred miles from one

city to another and then upon arriving steps out and says i have just traveled a hundred miles when you really consider the arrogance of these assumptions it's quite funny the big bang caused all the atoms in the universe to scatter creating millions of worlds and causing all these events in the cosmos to take place and then something happens to you and you say i did that it's sort of like the last domino in the line falling over and then saying i'm choosing to fall over the ego is simply unaware of the interconnectedness of all things

and so it mistakenly believes itself to be the doer but obviously the ego is not causing any events to take place even the events that seem to happen through this body all actions are the universe's actions so once the belief in personal dealership has been cleansed from the mind and the ego is no more then there's no longer anything to hold consciousness back from existing in the flow state permanently and to cleanse this belief from the mind requires three basic things contemplation meditation and renunciation begin by contemplating the nature and the source of all your

actions because if you investigate any action deeply enough you will ultimately discover that it simply happened it arose automatically and spontaneously according to the need of the moment and one does not determine what happens in the moment life determines that so in this light guilt and pride no longer makes sense so if a negative reaction towards someone comes out of you there's no use feeling guilty for that and saying oh i shouldn't have done that i thought i was more spiritual instead just remember that you as a separate self doesn't do anything you are life

and life brought that reaction out of you why so that you can become aware of what's inside remember that spiritual intelligence is about increasing your capacity for self-awareness so when life shows you something within you that needs healing and balancing a much better attitude is to simply say thank you life for showing me that secondly is meditation strive to meditate on your every action as if it's the only thing in the whole universe that you want to be doing whatever your hand finds to do do it with full presence without any desire or expectation of

a certain outcome at the end of it leave all outcomes in the hands of life and thirdly is renunciation constantly renounce that voice in the head which says i'm doing this i'm choosing that i'm thinking this i am feeling that just be the witness to everything that happens inside of you be like jordan who to everyone else watching it looks like michael jordan is playing basketball but on the inside it feels as if basketball is playing michael jordan it is not i who live but life that lives in me god is the dancer and i

am the dance in our next episode we're going to find out how the flow state leads into the third and final state of mastery known as the channeling state and discover what abilities this state offers us so i want to thank you for watching this episode of spiritual intelligence i'm aaron abke and i'll see you in our next episode [Music] [Music] you