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Post by smokey on May 8, 2011 21:17:25 GMT -5
. The intellect defines through binary thought -- "this", not "that", therefore, the intellect is the source of the self -- "I", not "I".
It is curious to see the intellect try to annihilate itself by negating what it must constantly create. The intellect cannot annihilate itself save temporarily.
Therefore, that someone who talks about altering the intellect's nasty nature would be asked to share his experiences is understandable. Better yet, why not ask to follow this fellow around 24/7 to see if it is really possible to permanently prevent the intellect's constant creation of self.
A flat tire or an unfounded accusation from a superior could prove very enlightening. What good is all this nonduality stuff if one can't use it in physically, emotionally or mentally stressful situations?Man cannot learn anything spiritually from words. The best words can do is to shake loose old ideas and act as shocks when needed. Smokey and Mizz Smokey were living in Ojai, California when Jiddu Krishnamurti died in a Ventura hospital. The obituary quoted the attending nurse as saying, "His last words were, 'Nobody got it.'"
However, if one can follow an "awakened" person around every day, he may be able to pick something up through osmosis. We learn as little children by mimicking. To spend time around an individual who never loses his poise inspires emulation far more effectively than discourse.
J. Krishnamurti was born the way he was yet he expected others could "get it" from a few thousand discourses and books.
He should have knocked on the Smokeys' door on his many walks by their house on Reeves Road. Smokey would have told him.....
"I don't know what the heck you're talkin' about, but could you give me a hand building this fence?"(Smokey can do a pretty good imitation of K's walk. At least someone got something.) .
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Post by enigma on May 8, 2011 22:39:57 GMT -5
While watching someone 'walk the talk' can be inspiring and encouraging, this shouldn't be mistaken for some kind of path to self realization. A good argument could be made that only the individual's experiences with himself have any true motivating power, and only one's own clarity can be transformative.
As such, it can be useful to stand shoulder to shoulder, and explore the landscape together, being on the lookout for bear traps and poking them with a stick rather than a toe, and walking up to obstacles and giving them a swift kick to see if they're really as solid as they appear. In this, the attention is kept on the landscape of one's own mind and not on the process of acquiring or rejecting knowledge on the basis of whether or not your fellow traveler actually knows anything about his landscape, which may not resemble yours at all.
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Post by ivory on May 9, 2011 1:51:55 GMT -5
"but what he teaches is a practice of presence; something that he never practiced." Lol, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this about Tolle. Word up. That guy is the next jesus. I swear the next religion is going to be based around "being present."
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Post by ivory on May 9, 2011 1:54:18 GMT -5
Okay, so, I've been kicked off yet another forum, (BTW, if anybody wants to know how to do that, I'm an expert. Hehe.) and though the reasoning is a bit vague, the gist of it seems to be that I won't share my personal experiences to back up what I say. Of course, this assumes that personal experiences are actually a solid foundation for authority, which is why there are more 'enlightened' folks on these forums than we can shake a Zen stick at. Relating personal experiences can have great value as inspiration or to make a point or to show another that you really do understand what they experience, and many other reasons, but they can't be used to qualify the truth of the words of the experiencer. I posted here about my experience of lucid dreaming in order to make the point that recognizing the dream as a dream doesn't automagically mean you're not going to resist the experience. I almost posted today about how I overcame a repeating childhood nightmare by turning to fight instead of turning to run, and then the energy of that just faded away. Experiences don't mean that you accomplished something or that you know something, they're just stories playing out as experiences, and while experience is not to be somehow dismissed, it's also not to be used as a solid platform to stand on. Mind can create infinite states and any experience imaginable because imagination is what it is. The experiencer almost unavoidably creates a story about the story to make it seem even more meaningful than they think it already is. The experience of enlightenment is not enlightenment. The experience of peace, love, freedom is not Peace, Love or Freedom. One does not have an experience of This, one IS This, and the experiencer is nowhere to be found. A drug induced experience of Truth is not Truth. A woo woo experience of energy in the body is not a person getting really, really close to Truth. Personal experiences as stories, and as such are never ultimately True. Niz talks about his experience of asking 'Who am I' for three years prior to waking up, and he allows the implication that one caused the other because there was a point to be made about simple devotion. Millions have done the same thing he did and nothing happened, except they may have learned something about devotion, or the lack of. For others, devotion was precisely what was needed. Tolle talks about his experience of realizing that there was apparently something that couldn't live with himself, and this opened a doorway to presence for him because he had quite enough of the thinker at that point, but what he teaches is a practice of presence; something that he never practiced. Gangaji met Papaji and was told to stop, and she stopped, so now she tells others to just stop, as though choosing to stop was the cause of stopping. Jeff Foster talks about his experience of lying on his bed and noticing that everything was him, but he's careful to say that the experience is not relevant, and is not IT. Mind is chasing experiences because it doesn't know what else to chase, but personal experiences are still duality, and they're still a distraction. I talk about looking and seeing, and in this, I'm not relevant at all. I don't have any knowledge that somebody else can use, nor have I had any experiences that would be useful for anyone else to replicate. My goal is usually to be as absent as possible, while pointing as far away from 'me' as possible, cause most folks get so fixated on the finger that they miss the moon entirely. E: I have a slightly different take on this, but I haven't got time to respond at the moment. It's an interesting topic, and I'll get back to it as soon as I have some free time. I also want to continue with the "real world advice" thread in more detail, but it, too, will have to wait a few days. I'm building a big Zen sort of construction/art project, and the sweat equity aspect is literally consuming all of my energy. I've been coming home at the end of the day too tired to do anything but collapse on the couch. As a side note, I can't imagine any forum stupid enough to kick you off. It's their loss IMO. I've been kicked off of forums for mentioning the possibility that I (as in ivory) didn't exist. Wouldn't happen to be the Tolle forum would it? Don't be messing with people's beliefs! You can see how that worked out for jesus!
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 3:46:25 GMT -5
HA! Yeah, I don't play well with my little friends. This is a great collection of peeps on this forum.
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Post by Portto on May 9, 2011 9:59:22 GMT -5
Can't really blame them for wanting experiences. Even Einstein said: "Experience is the only source of knowledge."
The funny thing is that they want the experiences to be 'personal' for the speaker, like that is really going to make much difference for the listeners.
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Post by therealfake on May 9, 2011 13:05:02 GMT -5
Experience is the now itself and thus it is the 'beingness', which of course is everything.
That there is a separate existence experiencing this experience, is the illusion.
What makes it seem real is the illusory thought that I am the body, or the body is who I am...
When that illusion is seen through and if you don't believe it's possible, head over to the Ruthless Truth forum, a sense of freedom occurs.
That alone is enough to make for an easier time on this magical journey.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2011 13:19:18 GMT -5
Enigma, I don't mean to be snarky or anything, but in your initial post, what is all that about experience based on? It seems like you've had a bit of experience about this whole thing, or is it just spontaneously arising?
And TRF, in your RT mention do you have a particular thread/link you're thinking of? There's a whole lot going on at that site so I'd be interested to see what specific URL/thread caught your fancy.
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Post by therealfake on May 9, 2011 14:00:38 GMT -5
Hi, I don't really spend much time over there, but was simply referring to their 'mission statement' of Freedom For All...lol Thing is, it doesn't take a realization or anything magical to simply look at what we think we are. To see if we exist the way we think we do. Physically speaking, quantum theory is great for that, pointing to the fact that the body isn't as solid as we think it is. Or looking for that which is doing all the thinking... We have a brain, we can find that, but where is the mind, where is consciousness hanging out? And what does it mean to 'Be' something. Gypsywind, you ask a very good question, maybe the Bermuda Triangle, lot's of stuff disappears round there... Oh, sorry, I thought you meant what the hurricane does with it... I got nothing...
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 14:06:34 GMT -5
Enigma, I don't mean to be snarky or anything, but in your initial post, what is all that about experience based on? It seems like you've had a bit of experience about this whole thing, or is it just spontaneously arising? Well, I've had all sorts of experiences, none of which are any more or less meaningful to me than the experiences of others are to them. To assign some sort of qualitative value to any of those experiences is to say that my experiences are somehow closer to the Truth than your experiences and so you should listen to me so that you can stop having your untrue experiences and start having my True ones. Hehe. The nature of experience itself has been seen through. This is not my experience, it is my realization. I have no experience to relate about that, just a conceptual version of what is realized, which isn't actually something.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2011 14:16:53 GMT -5
When that illusion is seen through and if you don't believe it's possible, head over to the Ruthless Truth forum, a sense of freedom occurs. folks' Liberation is "verified" by reading a personal textual account of how that folk is experiencing at the time. methinks the illusion may be seen through or it may not. But in either case, an understanding of the illusion may happen and the recording of the subsequent experience and 'verification' is counted as Liberation. but i wonder now if the 'experience' being recorded is not oftentimes simply the feelings of being done with the whole thing -- as in the whole focus of energy and 'ruthiness.' IOW, like the relief you get turning off the telly after a stupid tv show has been on. that experience exactly, not metaphorically; as in not realization/liberation/drop-swallowing-ocean/etc.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2011 14:24:32 GMT -5
The nature of experience itself has been seen through. This is not my experience, it is my realization. I have no experience to relate about that, just a conceptual version of what is realized, which isn't actually something. ah yes the realization/experience distinction. so is that like riding a bike...once one passes that point of how to balance and steer and such, there's no turning back. riding a bike is realized and folks just then know how to ride a bike forever more and no longer must refer -- other than for nostalgia's sake -- to the actual historical point at which that realization first happened.
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Post by enigma on May 9, 2011 14:57:55 GMT -5
The nature of experience itself has been seen through. This is not my experience, it is my realization. I have no experience to relate about that, just a conceptual version of what is realized, which isn't actually something. ah yes the realization/experience distinction. so is that like riding a bike...once one passes that point of how to balance and steer and such, there's no turning back. riding a bike is realized and folks just then know how to ride a bike forever more and no longer must refer -- other than for nostalgia's sake -- to the actual historical point at which that realization first happened. When a realization happened isn't relevant since the realization isn't sitting in the memory somewhere as an event. There's no recollection of some knowledge or deductive process or feeling or anything. Realizations are timeless, and remain so. The capacity to look and to see is what must remain. If this is lost, one can easily be pulled back into delusion, since mind has the ability to solidify illusions in memory, and therefore make them appear true.
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Post by onehandclapping on May 9, 2011 18:01:15 GMT -5
. What good is all this nonduality stuff if one can't use it in physically, emotionally or mentally stressful situations?. I don't know if I got lost somewhere in your post or what? Are you asking this for real? If so then I can try to give an answer that might work. This non-duality stuff IS useful in physically, emotionally and mentally stressful situations!! When you no longer believe that anything should be different than it is, there are no more physical,emotional, or stressful situations. There is only what arises at that moment. I'm sure Zendancer or Enigma could give you a vast deeper answer seeing as they are little word genies but for my language weak mind, it's the best I can do. hahaha. Enjoy!!!
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Post by runstill on May 9, 2011 23:21:29 GMT -5
enigma wrote [/quote] When a realization happened isn't relevant since the realization isn't sitting in the memory somewhere as an event. There's no recollection of some knowledge or deductive process or feeling or anything. Realizations are timeless, and remain so. The capacity to look and to see is what must remain. If this is lost, one can easily be pulled back into delusion, since mind has the ability to solidify illusions in memory, and therefore make them appear true.[/quote] E. this really clears somethings up for me. It does seem to me the most crucial point is to remain/abide as the looker/see'er seeing, perceiving, _________, with no memory or thought in play. So can you tell me where the f---ing switch is
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