Excerpts of Edward Salim Michael’s Teaching

Human beings have within them the potential for inner evolution, only through which will they be able to find the happiness and fulfillment for which they have been seeking externally in vain.

Consciously or unconsciously, we live in constant dissatisfaction. Pleasures are short-lived; people and things imperfect. Our fragile body, which needs to be nourished and protected, is subject to illness, ageing and death. We are constantly lost in a mental world filled with immediate preoccupations with which to deal, and life passes by in this way until the day death raises its head to face us, without our understanding the meaning of our time spent on this Earth, nor what awaits us after the disintegration of our physical body.

However, human beings have within them the potentialities which would enable them to find both the answers to the mystery of the world and the ultimate satisfaction they have been seeking in vain.

It is possible to experience a moment of true presence through special concentration achieved by the use of exercises, such as those to which Salim Michael gave exposition in his books. Indeed, only by continuous concentration will the seeker be able to sense the difference relative to his ordinary state, and begin to feel in what way he usually “sleeps” inside himself without knowing it.

It is from the moment the aspirant has clearly felt this difference between his usual state of “waking sleep,” where he passively follows the associations of thoughts and images which follow one another without respite in his mind, and another state of being where he is attentive, present and conscious of himself in a way which is not usual for him, that he will know in which direction to carry his efforts forward.

He will then see for himself the difficulty of remaining in this state of inner presence, because the slightest thought, the slightest preoccupation, the most fleeting desire suffice to sweep him away again and make him plunge back into his “waking sleep.”

The seeker requires concentration aids. Bodily sensation and attention to breathing comprise two excellent methods of returning to oneself in a continual now. In addition to these two aids, there is a particularly effective one to reduce inner chatter: it is the inner sound, the Nada as it is called in India, which can be heard inside the ears and head. This inner Sound known to Buddhist and Hindu traditions is regarded in the Shurangama Sutra as the means, par excellence, of attaining Awakening. Salim Michael relied on this specific method to reach Awakening.

Staying motionless for some time during the day is necessary to detach oneself from the impressions which constantly assail us from the outside world, in order to remain empty and available internally in a continual nowness. This requires the seeker’s continual attention and renunciation of the thoughts which will keep on appearing and conflicting with his desire to remain concentrated.

The seeker will be greatly assisted in this subtle combat with himself by understanding the importance of uniting his body, mind and feeling. Normally, one is always divided within oneself. One must learn to be whole – at least at certain times – if there is to be any hope for crossing a certain threshold by detaching oneself from what one usually is.

Nevertheless, resistance evolving from habit and gravity will appear in him. It is by understanding what is at stake for him that he will be able to succeed in summoning up his interest to surmount these refusals which will continually arise in him for a long time yet.

When the seeker manages to remain concentrated for a sufficiently long period, it will be possible for him to recognize at least the premise of a screen of luminous consciousness which is his true being. He will then realize that it is possible for him to exist without his body, which will be of invaluable assistance in order to face the decisive moment when he will have to leave his bodily envelope.

To keep his practice alive, the seeker must stimulate and renew his interest by cultivating a sense of mystery.
To keep the sense of mystery within oneself is to feel that what we are seeking is infinitely beyond us; that the meaning of the practice and the insights which we gain from it is always to be called into question so we do not limit ourselves to predetermined answers, even those given by Salim. He always kept to a very high degree the sense of mystery of the Universe within himself, the mystery of our presence on this Earth, of this work on ourselves, and so on.

If the seeker can succeed in maintaining an intense state of presence to himself both in meditation and in active life, he will start to reach beyond the boundaries of space and time and know spiritual experiences which will forever transform his understanding of himself and the world which surrounds him.

There exist several degrees of illumination. If the aspirant has known this experience, i.e., he has unmistakably recognized at least some degree of the higher side of his nature, his work will nevertheless have to continue on another level. Indeed, illumination is not liberation. From that time on, he will have patiently to fight to return again and again to this screen of pure Luminous Consciousness which he will have recognized in himself until he manages to remain there permanently. Only then will he have achieved the liberation of his state of being and ordinary consciousness and will he have conquered death which is not to be found at the physical level.