|
Post by kate on Jun 19, 2011 16:46:27 GMT -5
I'm just about to get on a plane and am not sure there will be any opportunity for me to be online where I'm going, so I may not be around here for a week. In the meantime I just wanted to say thanks to enigma and everyone else for giving me some great stuff to look at here. I'm so grateful.
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jun 19, 2011 18:24:47 GMT -5
Undesirable feelings are often just ignored with the idea that they don't have to be experienced, but the thoughts that ignite them are still happening. If they are also ignored there's still a thought-feeling movement happening just beneath the level of conscious awareness that is affecting the body and coloring conscious perception. The 'storage box' is memory. That sounds good, but I don't think memory is a 'storage box' , although it may look that way. We can't search at will the memory for something we don't know anything about at the present moment. We can't have a bird's eye view of the memory and then pick something. Stuff that is not related to the present may pop up from memory, but that's not 'looking through the storage box.' Searching through memory is more like looking at the thought stream. Or, memory is a thought about the past.
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jun 19, 2011 18:25:38 GMT -5
Wouldn't existence be the most special thingy possible? Existence is as special as the body!
|
|
|
Post by heretic on Jun 19, 2011 18:39:27 GMT -5
Yes.
It exists.
It creates.
It is aware.
We are that. Why do we still judge our desires as good or bad?
Pure Essence/Awareness/Being thinking to itself- "May I become the mountains?," becomes the mountains. Thinking to itself, "May I become the waters?," becomes the waters.
Hmmm...We have a desire nature.
If we block our desires, could we be blocking a natural avenue of growth? If so, could that be the catalyst for ennui?
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Jun 19, 2011 19:53:42 GMT -5
Wouldn't existence be the most special thingy possible? Existence is as special as the body! When the body's gone, you still exist. You must be pretty special. Hehe.
|
|
|
Post by unveilable on Jun 20, 2011 5:30:17 GMT -5
Ah yes thank you. As improved as the world may appear it is still seen through the eyes of a separate self. The angst ridden seeking may have ended but there is still a sense that I have not reached the liberation I desire. Nothing has really changed for me. Its all the same games only more subtle. Weird. This describes me. Life has also begun to take on the feeling of being one big playground. In my case though, there is some VERY subtle seeking still going on. So there are some very subtle dualities at play. ZD: Is the bodily knowing of who you are something that you either know or you dont or is it something that deepens? Instant or gradual? The body-knowing I spoke of results from a realization that the seeker was imaginary and that the True Seeker was the entire process of reality. One's intellectualized identity as a separate entity thereby evaporates and one realizes that "what is" is All. This event happens instantly. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye the "I" is seen for what it is--an imaginary phantom-- and an entire complex of thought processes related to selfhood no longer have a center from which to emanate.
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jun 20, 2011 6:36:16 GMT -5
Existence is as special as the body! When the body's gone, you still exist. You must be pretty special. Hehe. Existence will continue to exist, and sweet things will continue to be sweet. So, what's 'more' special about existence?
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Jun 20, 2011 8:46:57 GMT -5
When the body's gone, you still exist. You must be pretty special. Hehe. Existence will continue to exist, and sweet things will continue to be sweet. So, what's 'more' special about existence? Nuthin.
|
|
|
Post by heretic on Jun 20, 2011 9:15:32 GMT -5
Existence will continue to exist, and sweet things will continue to be sweet. So, what's 'more' special about existence? Nuthin. It's appears I've awakened in the "Borscht Belt," circa 1960's... Have a fun day, Ya'll!
|
|
|
Post by Portto on Jun 20, 2011 14:13:55 GMT -5
That's what I get for not doing the dishes...
|
|
|
Post by teetown on Jun 20, 2011 20:25:44 GMT -5
Whatever it takes to make you say, 'Ohhh, yes that needs to be resolved before I can be free'. Haha! That's the unconscious that that's behind pretty much everything I do. Great thread here everyone.
|
|
|
Post by unveilable on Jun 21, 2011 13:45:59 GMT -5
Hi E, I like what you said on page four. Can you clarify a couple things for me? There's still a discontent, which may grow since by now we can smell the salty air and we know the ocean is close by. (Maybe just over the next hill! Hehe.) Yes there is a discontent but a growth or sense of increasing discontent is not perceived. I feel that life isn’t necessarily bad currently but that I’m greedy and want more! Yes I do smell the salty air and that’s one thing but knowing the ocean is near? I’m not eager to get my hopes up by entertaining the thought that something is near. Sounds like it could be a trap.With any luck, this is a different kind of urgency than the need to escape the suffering of life. [ i]Not really an urgency but more like unending curiosity, determination and a kind of one-pointedness combined with patience.[/i][/b] Something much deeper moves and we aren't pushing so much as being pulled now. [ i]Yes.[/i][/b] There's a sense of wonder and mystery and a kind of falling in love with whatever has you by the heart and is pulling you into it, because it is your own heart that you're being pulled by, and this is known in a non-conceptual way. [ i]Yes![/i][/b] By now, mind has begun to fall back into it's proper role of organizing your day planner and isn't a part of this longing, [ i]Yes.[/i][/b] so not only have you taken away it's blocks, you've brought a new baby brother into the house and mind has to fight for your attention. [ i]I do not see a fight. Maybe it appears as a fight only in moments of resistance? Either I am not resisting or the fight has yet to be apparent. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if the mind didn’t know what was coming? Basically I’m trying to keep the baby brother a secret from the older sibling. I’ve had a couple flashes of panic about an impending death of something and I didn’t really look at the moments too long because I didn’t want the mind to see. My logic is that if mind isn’t too sure what’s happening then it will not intervene.[/i][/b] In a way, the sense of doom is the growing realization that mind has come as far as it can on your journey to the ocean. [ i]No sense of doom per se but there is the periodic primal fear/unwelcomed excitement states that arise for a few hours days or weeks then dissolve.[/i][/b] The salt is in the air and something wants to go but mind can't go along. This is when mind really starts jumping up and down and waving it's neurons and warning you that you're going to get lost and drown in the ocean or be eaten by sharks or whatever will distract your attention from the ocean. I’ve wanted to leave my job for sometime. Having no clear path ahead I’ve dreaded the idea of just quitting then experiencing endless days of freefall. I’m now thinking that duh there is more going on there. Maybe there's one more battle to be fought between love and fear. Mind will try to pull you back into the banality of financial, relationship and health issues. Whatever it takes to make you say, 'Ohhh, yes that needs to be resolved before I can be free'. Of course, those are the mind games you're trying to get free of. Mind can't make you fall in love the way the longing to be free can, so it has to find a way to terrify you. Ok I see this playing out but is there any use in condemning or refusing these tricks of the mind? I guess if I cant see these movements for what they are then I need to actually indulge them until they are seen through?Can you give me some feedback? We scare ourselves with our own ideas... Mind can't make you fall in love the way the longing to be free can, so it has to find a way to terrify you.
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Jun 21, 2011 21:01:15 GMT -5
"I’ve had a couple flashes of panic about an impending death of something and I didn’t really look at the moments too long because I didn’t want the mind to see. My logic is that if mind isn’t too sure what’s happening then it will not intervene"
I spose I helped to encourage it, but there can't be something that YOU know that mind doesn't. In fact, it usually works the other way around. Conscious thought is just the surface of mind, and lots of stuff is happening on deeper levels that we don't consciously attend to. Jed Mckenna said sumthin like 'Ego is smarter than you....way smarter." I sometimes say, mind is the last to know. We're both talking about what 'mind' knows that 'you' don't, so the idea that you can hide something from mind is a mind game. Mind doesn't want to look at death.
My suggestion would be to contemplate death deeply. Make death your best friend.
|
|
|
Post by unveilable on Jun 22, 2011 6:29:10 GMT -5
'Mind doesn't want to look at death.My suggestion would be to contemplate death deeply. Make death your best friend.'
Oh THATS what you meant by impending doom on the page four post. I know exactly what you are talking about now. In the way back days there was what I would then describe as a 'perpetual awareness of my own mortality' and I can unfortunately say that there is nothing like that happening currently.
I will experiment with this contemplation. My sense is that this is going to involve an openness to the possibility of death.
|
|
|
Post by kate on Jun 23, 2011 22:13:08 GMT -5
I had a very interesting week off the back of some of the discussion on this thread.
I was travelling interstate and for work and for some reason I chose to leave my computer at home. Almost all of my work is done on my computer so this was a very odd thing for me to do. I also "accidentally" left my phone charger at home, so after a day or so the battery went flat. Then the television in my hotel room wasn't working. At nights I suddenly had very little to do and so I found myself sitting in silence on the couch for long periods of time.
I don't know what it was but the whole week I seemed to be operating out of a completely different energy. All sorts of unexpected things started to happen that lead to realisations that were very much connected to what has been talked about in this thread. I think I was staying out of life's way although I made no effort to do so. During the day I was quickly coming up with solutions to some very complex situations but it wasn't like I was coming up with them, they were just effortlessly rising up by themselves. It was so pronounced that people kept commenting on how 'on' I was, and not just that but using words like 'soothing' and 'calming' to describe how I was handling things, which is not really the sort of language that gets bandied around a lot ordinarily.
From this I started to see that I could, like zendancer wrote about further up, handle any situation that comes along. All the while there seemed to be a growing sense of self love and self acceptance.
The strangest part of all happened at the end of the trip when I got on the plane. I am not a good flyer. I don't have severe panic attacks but my body is completely tense the whole time and there is a horrible anxiety in the pit of my stomach that grows the longer I am on the plane. I take valium to deal with this.
When I left home on Monday I knew I only had enough pills to cover me for the trip there but again, for some odd reason I didn't go to the doctor to get more. Doing this would normally be unthinkable and I have no idea why I did it.
On the plane, the whole way back I had no fear at all. Not a single bit. In fact it was more like a sort of excitement, the way someone who isn't scared of flying might feel the first time they go on a plane.
At one point I was reading an article that was talking about imagining the moment of your own death. I looked up from the magazine and around the plane and imagined how I would feel if the plane started to drop; if I was to know that my death was imminent, about to happen any minute on that plane. Ordinarily I would never encourage myself to think this way as it would send me into a state of panic, but this time the feeling I had in response to the thought was something along the lines of curiosity. Of thinking that it might be interesting(wtf?!).
It was so insane to me that I of all people should have this response that I laughed out loud. And I saw for a minute that this is what it's about – that I get to be this person and experience stuff. Whatever that stuff is. Sleeping, running, eating too much, being drunk, having my heartbroken, swimming in the ocean, being in a plane crash. It's hard to explain.
It's like there is something backing me in all of that, in whatever happens, rooting for every experience, and that something is what I really am and the person is like a highly complex, beautiful toy that I've been given. I get to be this woman. I'm not really her but I get to be her for a while. And I can see that's really a gift and that I don't need to shun any part of it because if it's happening it's happening because it's what I want to happen. Nothing is bad, nothing needs to be feared and nothing is being asked of me.
What I've said here is probably only a third of all the weird stuff that went on but it's all really the same stuff. I don't know if any of it makes any sense to anyone else or if the next time I get back on a plane I'm going to be petrified again, or what I actually understand about anything, but right now none of that seems to matter at all.
|
|