Muktananda has been roundly criticized for alleged sexual abuse of his students since an article appeared in 1983. Nowadays, there appears to be a "me too" movement where every spiritual teacher that has sex with a student is accused of sexual abuse because of the power differential between the teacher and the student.
Really, the truth is far, far deeper than this.
In Indian tantra, various forms of sex acts were prescribed for spiritual advancement using the stored sexual energy from non-ejaculation during the sex act providing greater spiritual power and insight. Also, the sex act was o used not to humiliate, but to give an ego boost for those who needed to feel love in that way.
But mostly, sex act between an enlightened being that knew how to control and direct spiritual energy or Shakti, was done as an act of Shaktipat through interplay of sex and love that can feel the recipient with intense love, surrender, leading to realization of the Lifeforce in oneself.
Of course, there are other spiritual teachers that engaged in sex with students because they could, as Maezumi Roshi told his own students during their spiritual meetings.
In my own case, I so loved a woman and felt so surrendered to her, and when I saw her in the flesh I just fell to my knees touched her feet and kissed them. I never had sex with her, but I was so deeply into surrender that I was gone, allowing God to enter me so to speak, and I realized the Lifeforce in me as a blinding flash of energy and light which is persistent now for many years. I now live in the Lifeforce because I loved woman and surrender to her. So I imagine that sex between two enlightened beings is the most ecstatic and uplifting experience that one could possibly conceive of.
In any event, there is a close interplay between sexual feelings in the spiritual relationship and the experience of many spiritual states.
Unfortunately because of that the boat of the subject of sex and spirituality, most teachers make an attempt to hide it for fear of becoming an object of wrath and humiliation.
At this time no teachers are honestly discussing the subject of sex in their students, of sex and enlightenment, except for a few Tantric teachers that are largely unknown.
https://youtu.be/5iK-_RKQK04
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Saturday, July 6, 2019
LIVE SATSANG ONLINE SUNDAYS 11 AM ARIZONA TIME.
I each differently from most other spiritual teachers around today. Most teachers today give knowledge about God, the world, and who and what you are. They are teachers filling you with their ideas of God, the world, and man.
My way is different. I give you God directly by inserting God into your body and your life through Shakti, who is the voice of God. I am not saying God isn't already in you and everything, but do you feel his or her presence in you? Come to Satsang and see if you feel the divine in you.
This way there is nothing to be misunderstood. It is a direct transmission of the divine through the medium of Shakti and love. .
Link: https://zoom.us/j/2950292557?status=success
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Recently I received an email from the woman with whom I realized God, both within her and within myself eight years ago.
After a bit of pleasantries she asked how I was doing, but in the usual way, such as, "are you happy?" After a while I was able to compose this letter that as best as possible explained what and how I felt. I share this with my readers because a few who have seen it were much moved by the story told.
-------------------------------------
Dear ________
It is really difficult to explain how I am now compared to when you knew me better. The words for what I experience now just do not exist. I do not feel like I am in the mundane world anymore except when dragged into it by Kerima or others who are deeply nailed into the mundane world. I do not even feel like a human being anymore. I feel like I have transcended mind and body altogether, so what do I call myself? What name can be used? There are no words for it.
I have no ambitions except to help people and animals spiritually and physically. My personal world has entirely changed. Recently I had five female students all worshiping me and loving me and wanting me to be with them and vice versa, ages 19 to 40. All at some point felt deep love, surrender, and bliss to the extent they felt constant non-sexual orgasms. They felt incredible blissful Shakti. But only one of them was able to escape out of the mundane world into the spiritual world of God realization, and she was only able to remain there for three days before she fell back. My male students experienced a wide variety or transcendent states, bliss, trance, love, as well as strong reminders of the mundane world they were leaving behind.
About myself, I feel Shakti in me and around me all day long. The energies pulsate from barely noticeable to extremely powerful. At Satsang almost everyone tells me that they feel the energies very deeply. Some speak of bliss, others of various other kinds of Shakti -like states or experiences. I try to take them out of their mundane world into a world of God realization, of not being a body, nor mind, nor emotional body, nor even Shakti, but beyond all that to being the core experiential experience of being alive, one’s fundamental state.
Like Ramana said, I feel like I am pure spirit, dancing with the life force within me, which is also the Lifeforce in all of us, which I call God. It is electrifying. I really do not notice this world much except for chores I have to do, like feeding the cats, or tending to the yard. I sit silently most of the day feeling that life force within me. Sometimes as a person it makes me feel ecstatic, at other times I feel a great void, a vast emptiness so clear, so clean and pure. At other times, very reluctantly, I am dragged back into being a person because of the necessity of doing taxes or fixing up our new house which is a real pain in the ass. But mostly I am always fixated on the life force within me.
D____ did something to me when she was last here in September 2017. IU should say Shakti did something to me in her presence, where I felt besotted by love to the extent I felt stunned. It was almost as if I was put in a deep trance. I barely knew who or what I was. The states we experienced while sitting together on the golf course fairway I have never felt before. So much power, so much Shakti, so much that I did not know what to do with it and I do not know what to do with it now. I feel so enormously powerful but do not know how to do anything with the power, although it is leaking out of me at all times and people notice, especially those who come to Satsang.
Shankarananda says I live in grace now and have been grabbed by Shakti, and I need to listen deeply and be sensitive to what she wants me to do. But I feel Shakti so strongly everywhere within and without, like being dropped in an ocean of energy. What can I do when there is energy everywhere, spinning, coiling, traveling, energizing, and usually uplifting. There is too much happening on an energetic level to have any idea of what I should do.
Now very advanced people are coming to Satsang, many of whom burn with energies all day long. They come from all walks of life. One, J, was once a senior executive in the East Coast media markets. He is my age and is really a very lovely, devotional guy, whose cat Gypsy is the love of his life. I fully understand this love and devotion he has for Gypsy as I have it too for the people close to me. All this came from my initial contact with you, was it eight years ago? During our relationship I felt such deep devotional love, explosions of Shakti, and all the other things we shared, like visions of God, and then D_____ came more recently and deepened everything. I finally escaped any identification with the body or mind, and even Shakti is not me I am the Lifeforce, I am God.
So, I cannot really say how I am as a person whether I am accepting life for am happy or sad. I feel way beyond this, that these words do not fit me and have not fit me for several years. But still I get pulled back into the world if I am not careful or if I have not allowed myself enough quiet time and space.
---- ----- ---------
Her response:
Oh Ed, this is a wonderful description. You sound happy and content. This makes me so happy too.
_____
I know there are some who would read this letter, and think that I am deluded, or that I am making all this up. This is not so. I really have no idea of who or what I am. The world beyond the mundane has no words.
With all my heart I just speak my experience only for those who are near realizing the life force inside of themselves as God, that there is this different world, this amazing, stupendous, blissful world of spirit, where you are freed from body and mind, emotions and troubles, because all of those belong to the Mundane.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
A Path to Awakening Without the Presence of a Guru
I awakened to who I was in 1995 because I was with Robert.
It was not due to his teachings, which appeared to me as disorganized and filled with Hindu folklore, along with his talk of a pervading consciousness and nothingness that did the trick.
It was due to his presence.
People love to read Robert's teachings or listen to his voice because they find it comforting. His teachings comport with other new age teachings and the Vedas and therefore "resonates" with people who read a lot, and they provide the hope of salavation from suffering and pain.
Personally, I don't like the way Robert taught. Too many people got lost in a depressive preoccupation with emptiness which Robert never clearly distinguished from nothingness. Emptiness--space--itself is an observable, part of the nature of consciousness, as is time, while nothingness lacks even these qualities and is beyond consciousness.
People did not awaken around Robert because of his teachings, but because of his presence, his physical presence. In his presence, you "felt" or intuited his experiental state beyond space and time. The nothingness of which he spoke had a living presence which you could feel.
HOWEVER, there are actual verbal teachings that can help you awaken, other than the most important advice to focus on your own experience. Why Robert did not teach this way, nor Ramana for that matter, I have no idea. I think it was because neither had experienced a sadhana, a spiritual path with meditation and spiritual concepts prior to their awakening.
The first step is to realize you are not your body, and the first step here is just to hear that you are not your body. If you are not your body, then what are you?
Take a close look at your life, your experiences, and you will understand that "you," whatever that is, experience and witness "your" body by means of "your"consciousness. Consciousness is your instrument to observe both your body and the world.
If you look and feel closely at your experience of your body and the world, you will find somewhere within that totality a sense, or a truth that you exist, that you are. Sometimes this appears to be an obvious truth not worth stating, but you would be surprised how few people actually feel a sense of existence and a sense of I or I Am. This I Am sense is what gives you a feeling of individuality and the sense that you are alive.
At some point through the practice of attending to your sense of I Am, and through accepting and loving that I Am, which expands into a sense of presence, at some moment you may explosively experience that I Am as revealing her nature to you in her full glory as the divine Shakti. Shakti arises in you as pure light and spirit, as an explosion of inner energy, bliss, love and a cleansing, purifying grace, and you witness your own essence as Shakti, both divine and human at the same time.
Then for months or years you feel her inside "you" as body, inside "you" as consciousness, as a divine presence, incredibly active and flowing from within and through you into the world. This is realizing yourself as the Manifest Self, as spirit, bliss, consciousness. This was Ramana's awakening and also Robert's. For some, the experience conveys the truth that there is no me, there is only Shakti. For others, it is like a partnership between the divine and you as a human, even though those who experience Shakti this way, the partnership is only apparent. Shakti and you are not two.
This self-realization experience allows you to realize one day that you are not your body, you are consciousness that witnesses your body as one specific and localized "object" within the totality of your awareness, the totality of your manifest consciousness.
You are beginning to enter your freedom from identification with your physical body and move towards identifying with the totality of your consciousness.
But careful observation of that consciousness over the next months or years does something. Evenually, even Consciousness no longer appears real.
Consciousness comes and goes. It alternates between waking, dream, and sleep. Various energies pervade it, alcohol and drugs distort it, and it disappears along with the I Am sensation and your sense of presence in deep sleep.
Consciousness is even less stable and more mortal than your apparent body. It awakens and dies each day at least once. It is fickle, and after a while, even the endless bliss and perceived energies we call Shakti become much like brushing your teeth experiences. Something to be endured even if pleasurable.
And you begin to "see" through consciousness. It is ever changing, temporal, fickle, and the venue not only for Shakti's play, but also the venue for your experience of discomfort, restlessness, unhappiness, your need to know, and your drive for peace.
All of these things are part of your consciousness, not part of your body, and not part of your mind either, because your mind is experienced and watched in consciousness.
The I Am sensation is in consciousness, mind, suffering, bliss Shakti, your body--all are in and are consciousness, and consciousness is experienced as less and less real. It begins to appear as a light show, images projected onto a blank space or screen.
But something else is also happening while this is going on.
You have realized you are not your body, and that your body is just experienced in your consciousness, and in all likelihood, consciousness itself has its origin in and through the life of your body. Body creates consciousness, which witnesses and identifies with the body.
You realize that at one time you identified with your body as the entirety of your existence. Then you disidentified with your body, and identified with your consciousness, Shakti, light, energies, bliss and love as your "true" nature. You have had a love affair with the divine, your own consciousness with all of its characteristics and traits.
However, at this time you recognize that you are also the witness of this whole identification/disidentification process. In fact, you are more and more powerfully aware of yourself as the witness standing beyond (or before) both your body and your awareness of self, Shakti, and of the world.
This witness appears to be like a dark void from which the Manifest Consciousness arises each morning. You become aware of yourself as a dark void, a total nothingness that leaps into existence each morning and comes alive. The nothingness which is you comes alive each morning in a new birth when consciousness arises along with the sensation of I Am.
So, you begin to relax into this nothingness, you disappear as body/mind/consciousness into this total nothingness. And, for the first time you recognize that you have come home at last. In this nothingness, no consciousness, no mind, no body, you are in complete peace and happiness being nothing, not thinking, knowing nothing.
At this time you can completely disappear even to yourself in samadhi or into sleep, until once again the world and consciousness emerges from within you as witness for a new birth day. But even when it does emerge, you are aware of the temporality and fickleness of consciousness and realize it is just an appearance, which comes to you who lies entirely and existentially prior to consciousness, untouched by consciousness, and are Unborn.
Body and consciousness--neither are you. You are beyond both. Unborn, not understanding, not knowing, you are entirely beyond existence.
And yet, temporarily you are Life itself, the Life Force incarnated as a body, being observed by the eternal Witness. When this realization comes, you explode with the energies and power of God as mortal.
It was not due to his teachings, which appeared to me as disorganized and filled with Hindu folklore, along with his talk of a pervading consciousness and nothingness that did the trick.
It was due to his presence.
People love to read Robert's teachings or listen to his voice because they find it comforting. His teachings comport with other new age teachings and the Vedas and therefore "resonates" with people who read a lot, and they provide the hope of salavation from suffering and pain.
Personally, I don't like the way Robert taught. Too many people got lost in a depressive preoccupation with emptiness which Robert never clearly distinguished from nothingness. Emptiness--space--itself is an observable, part of the nature of consciousness, as is time, while nothingness lacks even these qualities and is beyond consciousness.
People did not awaken around Robert because of his teachings, but because of his presence, his physical presence. In his presence, you "felt" or intuited his experiental state beyond space and time. The nothingness of which he spoke had a living presence which you could feel.
HOWEVER, there are actual verbal teachings that can help you awaken, other than the most important advice to focus on your own experience. Why Robert did not teach this way, nor Ramana for that matter, I have no idea. I think it was because neither had experienced a sadhana, a spiritual path with meditation and spiritual concepts prior to their awakening.
The first step is to realize you are not your body, and the first step here is just to hear that you are not your body. If you are not your body, then what are you?
Take a close look at your life, your experiences, and you will understand that "you," whatever that is, experience and witness "your" body by means of "your"consciousness. Consciousness is your instrument to observe both your body and the world.
If you look and feel closely at your experience of your body and the world, you will find somewhere within that totality a sense, or a truth that you exist, that you are. Sometimes this appears to be an obvious truth not worth stating, but you would be surprised how few people actually feel a sense of existence and a sense of I or I Am. This I Am sense is what gives you a feeling of individuality and the sense that you are alive.
At some point through the practice of attending to your sense of I Am, and through accepting and loving that I Am, which expands into a sense of presence, at some moment you may explosively experience that I Am as revealing her nature to you in her full glory as the divine Shakti. Shakti arises in you as pure light and spirit, as an explosion of inner energy, bliss, love and a cleansing, purifying grace, and you witness your own essence as Shakti, both divine and human at the same time.
Then for months or years you feel her inside "you" as body, inside "you" as consciousness, as a divine presence, incredibly active and flowing from within and through you into the world. This is realizing yourself as the Manifest Self, as spirit, bliss, consciousness. This was Ramana's awakening and also Robert's. For some, the experience conveys the truth that there is no me, there is only Shakti. For others, it is like a partnership between the divine and you as a human, even though those who experience Shakti this way, the partnership is only apparent. Shakti and you are not two.
This self-realization experience allows you to realize one day that you are not your body, you are consciousness that witnesses your body as one specific and localized "object" within the totality of your awareness, the totality of your manifest consciousness.
You are beginning to enter your freedom from identification with your physical body and move towards identifying with the totality of your consciousness.
But careful observation of that consciousness over the next months or years does something. Evenually, even Consciousness no longer appears real.
Consciousness comes and goes. It alternates between waking, dream, and sleep. Various energies pervade it, alcohol and drugs distort it, and it disappears along with the I Am sensation and your sense of presence in deep sleep.
Consciousness is even less stable and more mortal than your apparent body. It awakens and dies each day at least once. It is fickle, and after a while, even the endless bliss and perceived energies we call Shakti become much like brushing your teeth experiences. Something to be endured even if pleasurable.
And you begin to "see" through consciousness. It is ever changing, temporal, fickle, and the venue not only for Shakti's play, but also the venue for your experience of discomfort, restlessness, unhappiness, your need to know, and your drive for peace.
All of these things are part of your consciousness, not part of your body, and not part of your mind either, because your mind is experienced and watched in consciousness.
The I Am sensation is in consciousness, mind, suffering, bliss Shakti, your body--all are in and are consciousness, and consciousness is experienced as less and less real. It begins to appear as a light show, images projected onto a blank space or screen.
But something else is also happening while this is going on.
You have realized you are not your body, and that your body is just experienced in your consciousness, and in all likelihood, consciousness itself has its origin in and through the life of your body. Body creates consciousness, which witnesses and identifies with the body.
You realize that at one time you identified with your body as the entirety of your existence. Then you disidentified with your body, and identified with your consciousness, Shakti, light, energies, bliss and love as your "true" nature. You have had a love affair with the divine, your own consciousness with all of its characteristics and traits.
However, at this time you recognize that you are also the witness of this whole identification/disidentification process. In fact, you are more and more powerfully aware of yourself as the witness standing beyond (or before) both your body and your awareness of self, Shakti, and of the world.
This witness appears to be like a dark void from which the Manifest Consciousness arises each morning. You become aware of yourself as a dark void, a total nothingness that leaps into existence each morning and comes alive. The nothingness which is you comes alive each morning in a new birth when consciousness arises along with the sensation of I Am.
So, you begin to relax into this nothingness, you disappear as body/mind/consciousness into this total nothingness. And, for the first time you recognize that you have come home at last. In this nothingness, no consciousness, no mind, no body, you are in complete peace and happiness being nothing, not thinking, knowing nothing.
At this time you can completely disappear even to yourself in samadhi or into sleep, until once again the world and consciousness emerges from within you as witness for a new birth day. But even when it does emerge, you are aware of the temporality and fickleness of consciousness and realize it is just an appearance, which comes to you who lies entirely and existentially prior to consciousness, untouched by consciousness, and are Unborn.
Body and consciousness--neither are you. You are beyond both. Unborn, not understanding, not knowing, you are entirely beyond existence.
And yet, temporarily you are Life itself, the Life Force incarnated as a body, being observed by the eternal Witness. When this realization comes, you explode with the energies and power of God as mortal.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Edward Muzika, Ph.D.
Teaching Self-Knowing
WHAT I DO:
Spiritual
teacher of Self and Self-Realization based on the traditions of Advaita, Zen,
Self Psychology, Bhakta Yoga, and Object Relations theory: Knowing and integrating the Self
on all levels, from the psychotic/neurotic developmental failures, the
integrated human self, the Subtle, Causal, and Turiya states of Advaita
(Atman), and beyond to the Noumenal Self falling outside of Existence (Prior to Consciousness).
TEACHING:
Lecturer on Zen and Psychology, UCLA, UCIrvine,
UCSD Extensions, 1975-81.
·
Teaching monk at the International Buddhist Meditation Center, 1971-1977. Ordained by Thich Tien-An.
Teaching monk at the International Buddhist Meditation Center, 1971-1977. Ordained by Thich Tien-An.
Lecturer at College of Oriental/Buddhist Studies, 1972-1977.
·
Spokesperson for the American Buddhist Congress, 1988—94.
Spokesperson for the American Buddhist Congress, 1988—94.
Named First American World Teacher of Korean Chogye Zen Buddhism by the Chogye Zen Order in Seoul, Korea, 1999. (Chogye Buddhism has 1,725 temples and 9.2 million followers worldwide. Being named a World Teacher allowed me to set up a Zen branch anywhere in the world.)
Founder of the California 501c3 Religious Non Profit We Are Sentience, 2011 with animal rescue function and spiritual teaching. Website: http://wearesentience.com.
Teaching blog: http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com.
Weekly Online teaching (Satsang), 12 PM Arizona time every Sunday at http://satsangwithedji.weebly.com, with password of “edji.” (On leave from March 21, 2015)
AUTHOR:
· Self-Realization and Other Awakenings, Sirius
Ink, 2013. Available for download from http://wearesentience.com.
- Autobiography of a Jnani with Rajiv Kapur, 2009. Published in India, available for download on above site,
- The Mysterious Sage of Sedona, Yoga Journal, http://wearesentience.com/uploads/7/2/9/3/7293936/yoga_journal_article_robert.pdf
- Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Object Relations Theory, Buddhism, and the Self. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://itisnotreal.com/InternationalJournal.pdf&embedded=true&chrome=true&pli=1
- Philosophical Quarterly: http://jhp.sagepub.com/content/30/2/89.
- Inner Directions: http://www.wearesentience.com/the-ultimate-happiness.html
- The Experience of Self, MA Thesis, 1985.
- The Enlightenment Maneuver: Using Spiritual Methods as Emotional Defenses, Ph.D. Dissertation, 1987.
EMPLOYMENT:
·
Management Service Officer, Anthropology Dept. UCLA 1975-1979
·
MSO II, UCLA Clinical Neutron Therapy Program, P.T. 1979-1982.
·
Bodyguard and Security, Muktananda, Chidvilasananda, Nityananda, (Part Time) 1981-1983.
·
Practicing Psychologist and Psychological Evaluator as a Psychological Assistant under several psychologists and psychiatrists,
1986-2006.
·
Forensic psychology, 1992—2016.
Psych evaluations and writing psychiatric rebuttals under three
psychiatrists. Case analysis in terms of medical/legal factors, causality, apportionment, differential diagnoses, permanent psychological impairment ratings.
·
Founder of We Are Sentience and No Pet Left Behind, 2011-2015.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING:
·
BA Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 1965
·
MS Course Work in Public Management completed, Case-Western Reserve U., June 1967
·
Ph.D. Candidate, Urban Economics, Wayne State University,1967—1969
·
ZEN STUDIES—KUNDALINI--ADVAITA:
o Kapleau Roshi, Rochester Zen
Center, 1969-1970
o Sasakai Roshi, Mt. Baldy Zen
Center 1970-71
o Thich Thien-An, International
Buddhist Meditation Center, Los Angeles, 1971-1978. Ordained as novice monk,
1972.
o Maezumi Roshi, L.A. Zen Center,
1971-1979
o Kozan Roshi, Los Angeles,
1973-1975. He returned to Japan.
o Seung Sahn Soen Sah, Tahl Ma Sa,
Los Angeles, ordained 1975, Chogye Order.
o Dhyan Yogi, 1976-1979.
o Muktananda, 1979-1981.
o Robert Adams, Ramana lineage,
1989-1997.
o Jean Dunn, Nath Lineage of
Nisargadatta, 1988-93.
o Named First World Teacher of
Chogye Zen in Seoul, Korea, 1999.
·
PYSCHOLOGY STUDIES
o MS and Ph.D. in Psychology,
Sierra University, Costa Mesa CA, 1984-1987.
o Internship under license, Dan
Dunne, Ph.D.
o Therapist and forensic
evaluations for Workers’ Comp 1986-2016.
My current interest is bringing the acquisition of the direct
experience of Self on all levels into mainstream thinking, as a clinical and a
spiritual discipline, as a natural evolution from ego psychology and Object
Relations Theory, the Buddhist emphasis on Emptiness and the Void, and the
direct experience of the transcendent Manifest Self as in Advaita (Ramana and
Nisargadatta), Kashmir Shaivism (Muktananda), and the transcendent Noumenal
Self (The knower of immanence and transcendence). And promoting a method of
loving introspection of the sense of I, or I-Amness, in order to discover the
Self within, the experience of which is of Existence/Self-Knowledge/Bliss,
Satchitananda.
Website: http://wearesentience.com
Weekly Live meetings: http://satsnagwithedji.weebly.com.
Friday, December 4, 2009
FOR THOSE RESEARCHING MY LIFE:
Publications:
Masters Thesis and Ph.D. dissertation (Sierra University, Costa Mesa CA 1985-87):
Philosophical Quarterly:
Yoga Journal:
Inner Directions:
Were I to characterize myself, I would state I am an animal activist and spiritual teacher living in the Phoenix area, interested in all animal issues related to the Los Angeles area, but especially those related to cats, the performance and policies of the area animal shelters, and the local laws and policies regarding animals. I am especially interested in feral cat laws and how shelters are dealing with stray and feral cats, as well as rectifying the lack of knowledge of urban cat population dynamics.
Sierra University operated all through the 1980's and early 1990s in California. At the time, the state had a "three tier" system for graduate schools. At the lowest level, "Authorized," schools were allowed to operate after sending in an application with an affadavit attesting to their resources in 13 specific areas, and that they had at least $50,000 in assets dedicated to the school. The second level was "Approved." At that time, California approved individual degree programs within schools, rather than whole schools. So, you could have a school with most of its programs Authorized, yet have one or more programs Approved. The third category was "Accredited," meaning the school was accredited by a USDOE-recognized agency. Sierra University's degree programs were all Approved. Sierra went out of business sometime during the early 1990s, as did many small graduate schools of psychology in California. According to the California Dept. of Education, the keeper of records for the defunct Sierra, is the San Diego University for Integrative Studies, 3900 Harney Street, Suite 210 San Diego, CA 92110.
You have to realize, nothing I did prior to 1995 makes any difference to me. That is the year of my awakening under my guru, Robert Adams. Nothing I am now has anything to do with my education, previous writings or worldy attainments. They are irrelevant. What I am now is the present.
In the late 1990s I was a Commissioner on the City of Santa Monica's Senior Services Commission, and prior to that a community activist.
Part of what got me into that field and on the Commission was my activism in preventing a Santa Monica prime real estate, Montana Blvd. retirement home being sold out from under the many elderly and disabled residents. I testified before city council on the psychological damages that could be experienced by the residents forced to vacate and relocate. Council voted against the sale.
Masters Thesis and Ph.D. dissertation (Sierra University, Costa Mesa CA 1985-87):
http://www.wearesentience.com/psycholanalysis.html
Websites:
http://wearesentience.org
Blogs:
http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com; http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com
http://wearesentience.org
Blogs:
http://itisnotreal.blogspot.com; http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com
Academic and other publications:
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Philosophical Quarterly:
Yoga Journal:
Inner Directions:
Downloadable booklet on self-inquiry and self knowledge:
http://itisnotreal.com/Self-Knowledge%20&%20Liberation-Dialogues.pdf
http://itisnotreal.com/Self-Knowledge%20&%20Liberation-Dialogues.pdf
Autobiography of a Jnani--French Translation
Board of Psychology License information:
http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/WLLQRYNA$LCEV2.ActionQuery
Type in my name
Board of Psychology License information:
http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/WLLQRYNA$LCEV2.ActionQuery
Type in my name
The following is an article in Korean in Pulgyo Shinmun, newsletter of the Korean Chogye Zen order, of my appointment as the first American World Teacher of Chogye Zen Buddhism in 1997 or 1998.
http://www.buddhapia.co.kr/mem/hyundae/auto/newspaper/238/n-24.htm;
Link as an officer of the American Buddhist Congress: http://www.americanbuddhistcongress.org/officers.htm
Link as an officer of the American Buddhist Congress: http://www.americanbuddhistcongress.org/officers.htm
Currently, I edit psychological evaluation reports and rebuttals and conduct research into forensic psychiatry. My animal blog is at: http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com and spiritual website at: http://itisnotreal.com and http://wearesentience.com, sites dedicated to Robert Adams, my teacher.
BACKGROUND: I received a BA in philosophy from Case Western Reserve University and also completed coursework for a Masters in Public Management there also. I moved to Detroit where I spent two years as a Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Economics at Wayne State University.
Finding academics totally pointless, I dropped out of academia, initially studying Zen in New York with Phillip Kapleau, then traveling to Mt. Baldy Zen Center to Study Zen with Sasaki Roshi. In 1971 I became a Buddhist monk at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles under Dr. Thich Thien-An. There I studied under several Zen Masters including Maezumi Roshi and the famous Korean master, Seung Sahn Soen Sa. I taught psychology and Zen at the College of Oriental Studies, and at four of the University of California Extensions (UCLA, UCSD, UC Irvine and UCSB) from 1975 until 1983. While studying and teaching Zen, I also worked as a mid level administrator at UCLA from 1975 to 1982, as the administrator for UCLA's Clinical Neutron Therapy Program.
Finding academics totally pointless, I dropped out of academia, initially studying Zen in New York with Phillip Kapleau, then traveling to Mt. Baldy Zen Center to Study Zen with Sasaki Roshi. In 1971 I became a Buddhist monk at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles under Dr. Thich Thien-An. There I studied under several Zen Masters including Maezumi Roshi and the famous Korean master, Seung Sahn Soen Sa. I taught psychology and Zen at the College of Oriental Studies, and at four of the University of California Extensions (UCLA, UCSD, UC Irvine and UCSB) from 1975 until 1983. While studying and teaching Zen, I also worked as a mid level administrator at UCLA from 1975 to 1982, as the administrator for UCLA's Clinical Neutron Therapy Program.
I returned to school in 1985 at Sierra University, a state authorized and approved graduate school in psychology (see below), and earned a doctorate in 1987, and became a registered psychological assistant in the state of California. I have worked in this field ever since, performing psychological evaluations, writing evaluation reports, and finally, editing and forensic research. My Masters Thesis and Dissertation can be found on the http://wearesentience.com website with links provide above. Sierra University went out of business several years ago along with dozens of specialty graduate schools in the 1990s.
In 1998 I went to Korea to visit Seung Sahn Soen Sa and other masters as the guest of a Chogye Zen abbot in Los Angeles. I was ordained as the first American World Teacher of Chogye Buddhism, which authorized me to establish a separate American branch of Chogye Zen.
Sierra University operated all through the 1980's and early 1990s in California. At the time, the state had a "three tier" system for graduate schools. At the lowest level, "Authorized," schools were allowed to operate after sending in an application with an affadavit attesting to their resources in 13 specific areas, and that they had at least $50,000 in assets dedicated to the school. The second level was "Approved." At that time, California approved individual degree programs within schools, rather than whole schools. So, you could have a school with most of its programs Authorized, yet have one or more programs Approved. The third category was "Accredited," meaning the school was accredited by a USDOE-recognized agency. Sierra University's degree programs were all Approved. Sierra went out of business sometime during the early 1990s, as did many small graduate schools of psychology in California. According to the California Dept. of Education, the keeper of records for the defunct Sierra, is the San Diego University for Integrative Studies, 3900 Harney Street, Suite 210 San Diego, CA 92110.
You have to realize, nothing I did prior to 1995 makes any difference to me. That is the year of my awakening under my guru, Robert Adams. Nothing I am now has anything to do with my education, previous writings or worldy attainments. They are irrelevant. What I am now is the present.
(CYBERSTALKING STORY: In December of 2005, Mayor Villaraigosa appointed Ed Boks as the new General Manager of Los Angeles Animal Services. Almost immediately he was attacked by an online reporter Annette Stark, who wrote several negative columns about him.
I interviewed him and thought him honest and capable, and stepped in to defend him against the reporter and her attorney friend. I worked with Ed Boks and another woman, Mary Cummins, to defend the quality of his work and show that the reporter's fact finding was shoddy, leading to totally wrong conclusions.
From a CityBeat article:
Regardless, Boks has garnered substantial support with the rescue and humane community. He has many supporters who feel certain Boks's heart is in the right place. "I have been receiving positive letter after letter about Boks from all over the country, including from a supervisor in Maricopa as well as volunteers and employees from NYC," explains supporter Edward Muzika. "They all say [Boks] made a big difference and lifted morale. There are some positive ones from around here too, such as from the Harbor shelter."
I also wrote a letter to the editor of CityBeat--an online magazine--singing Ed Boks' praises. In it, I identified myself as a psychologist, because I had been functioning in such a role for about 19 years as a psychological assistant. What separated me from becoming a psychologist was taking a rather lengthy state test which I had no interest in taking, and I found psychology to be rather boring anyway. The test usually requires about 6 months or preparation, and I just wasn't interested enough. My employment did not require that I take or pass the test and my spiritual teacher, Robert Adams, told me not to bother, and to instead spend the time with him. This was all I needed to drop the idea altogether.
However, I had performed all the functions of a psychologist under others' licenses: psychotherapy, psychological evaluations, report writing, report editing, psychological research, administering, scoring and interpreting psychodiagnostic testing, writing rebuttals of defense psychiatrists, and training historians. I had never advertised as being a psychologist.
This reporter then turned her ire on Mary Cummins and I because we pointed out the inaccuracies incredibly poor investigations this reporter had done. She felt humiliated when her inaccuracies and illogic were publicly pointed out, and she began cyberstalking Mary and I. She reported me to the CA Psychological Board as having represented myself as a "psychologist" in my letter to CityBeat, rather than as a "psychological assistant." The distinction never crossed my mind since I was not advertising to take on clients in private practice, but I was practicing psychology and had done so for almost 2 decades.
Unfortunately, I found out I had been wrong about Ed Boks. He turned out to be a very poor manager of Animal Services and the death rate for animals remained unchanged during his second and third year in Los Angeles. After 2006, my own blog reports became very critical concerning his and LAAS' performance regarding saving animals lives.
However, this reporter and her attorney friend have gone to great lengths to defame me and others who had been involved in the defense of Ed Boks. All over the Internet one can find lies about me, such as an accusation that I was "Ed Reed" because the my wife was named Reed and who also was a CA state registered psychologist. Another lie was that Ed Boks and I used the same laptop computer because the IP of Boks' blog and my blog were the same, namely that of Google's blogger IP. She again felt humiliated that we pointed out that all blogs had the same IP address if they were hosted on Google Blogspot. She then threatened to sue me for defamation and libel.
Really, the only "proof" she had that I was Ed Reed was that I was living with a Kerima Reed, having the same last name as Ed Reed, who was a psychologist. The reporter apparently did not see any contradiction in claiming I was a registered psychologist, Ed Reed, who apparently had some sort of criminal record according to them, but at the same time, I was also Ed Muzika, who was a state-registered psychological assistant who was, they said, claiming to be a psychologist. This reporter never said what sort of crimes Ed Reed was allegedly involved in.
This reporter also claims that a website featuring Robert Adams teaching was mine, and it was hosted on some foreign web hosting service that was also involved in some sort of criminal activities. However, I have never been part of any website that hosted Robert's teachings, other than my own. However, because of repeated threats of lawsuits by Nicole Adam's attorneys, I have had had nothing of Robert's talks on my own sites for well over five years.
These cyberstalking websites never provide ANY PROOF OF ANY OF THEIR ACCUSATIONS. THEY JUST MADE IT ALL UP.
Really, the only "proof" she had that I was Ed Reed was that I was living with a Kerima Reed, having the same last name as Ed Reed, who was a psychologist. The reporter apparently did not see any contradiction in claiming I was a registered psychologist, Ed Reed, who apparently had some sort of criminal record according to them, but at the same time, I was also Ed Muzika, who was a state-registered psychological assistant who was, they said, claiming to be a psychologist. This reporter never said what sort of crimes Ed Reed was allegedly involved in.
This reporter also claims that a website featuring Robert Adams teaching was mine, and it was hosted on some foreign web hosting service that was also involved in some sort of criminal activities. However, I have never been part of any website that hosted Robert's teachings, other than my own. However, because of repeated threats of lawsuits by Nicole Adam's attorneys, I have had had nothing of Robert's talks on my own sites for well over five years.
These cyberstalking websites never provide ANY PROOF OF ANY OF THEIR ACCUSATIONS. THEY JUST MADE IT ALL UP.
For those who want the true information about me, I put up this blog. It will come down once the untruths come down. Currently my sole remaining interests are animal activism, and guiding a few students interested in self-realization and self-discovery.
You can see many 2006 and 2007 posts in http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com wherein I reply with truth to the cyberstalkers' lies.)
You can see many 2006 and 2007 posts in http://laanimalwatch.blogspot.com wherein I reply with truth to the cyberstalkers' lies.)
Part of what got me into that field and on the Commission was my activism in preventing a Santa Monica prime real estate, Montana Blvd. retirement home being sold out from under the many elderly and disabled residents. I testified before city council on the psychological damages that could be experienced by the residents forced to vacate and relocate. Council voted against the sale.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)