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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 11:30:57 GMT -5
I'm reading Adyashanti's book "The way of liberation" (freely available for download on his website). This post concerns the section there called 'Clarity of purpose'. I've heard some teachers say that all desires are bad, and others say that spiritual desires are OK, etc. I feel pretty comfortable with re-clarifying my purpose, because it makes sure I've got focus. I listed a whole load of attributes that I aspired to (in both a positive and negative sense, i.e. 'I aspire to X' and 'I aspire to no longer Y'). But I found that all of these things could be traced back to a single theme: Clarity, i.e. the ability to discern reality from illusion. The word/theme is actually new for me, I hadn't previously identified it as the central attribute of my spiritual desire (when I last did this exercise, long time ago). The nextmost abstract layer on top of clarity (which I see as boiling down to clarity, as in being a synonym or function of it) included: peace, ease, flow, rest, presence, consciousness, harmony, openness, fearlessness, contentment, completion, wholeness. I did consider the word 'joy' (as I promised Andrew). It occurred to me that the above would probably BE joyous, but I'm not actually desiring joy itself in a direct manner. The nextmost layer on top of that was all negative ways of saying the above, i.e. non-escapism, assumptionlessness, contractionlessness, confusionlessness, aggressionlessness, fearlessness, unconsciouslessness, separatelessness, etc etc. Then I thought about what questions I have, and they still all really boil down to "what am I?". The nextmost distilled layer (stemming from what-am-I) included: - What is this persistent feeling of "I"-ness?
- Does my body "own" this awareness? I.e. am I in my body?
- What is aware?
- What is aware of being aware?
The nextmost abstract layer of questions all involved 'me' as an assumption in relationship to something else. E.g. "why am I here", and so on. The standard non-dual answers to these questions are mainly obvious, but they aren't answered for me yet and I for one can't accept them as second hand knowledge from elsewhere. I know these things can't be gained/answered intellectually, but I am pretty darned convinced they need answering before rest is possible. Anyway, FWIW I found the exercise to be worthwhile. It took a while to do and to be really sure of the answers. The central question is the same one that kicked me into the search itself, apart from it was 'who am I' and that has changed into 'what am I' for some reason. I can't remember what, if any, attributes I aspired to back then, but there's a lot of words in there that I wouldn't have even been conscious of at that time. I feel sure I've picked up a lot of these words and their 'flavor' from this forum. I'd be interested in hearing about other people's clarity of purpose. Bear in mind that I actually made the time to investigate for a couple of days (as advised by Adyashanti) rather than assume I already knew/remembered. I'm also interested in whether peeps think this kind of exercise is actually an impediment. Edit: Corrected sentence that didn't make sense, added last para.
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Post by andrew on Jan 27, 2013 11:46:57 GMT -5
James, if you are not sure if you have reached the core of your aspiration, I find the question....''what would this give me?'' to be a good one.
There was one word that struck me as conspicuous by its absence, and I noticed it because it tends to be close to the core of my aspirations, if not at the core. You might want to test it out. The word is......''freedom''
I think what you did is a useful exercise, particularly given that clarity is very important to you. Let me ask you this, and it might sound very odd, but if achieving clarity meant being lost in illusion (!), would clarity still be what you desire? Or to put another way, if you had the clarity you aspire to, would it matter to you if you were able to discern reality or not?
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 11:51:22 GMT -5
The mind doesn't rest as a result of getting its questions answered; it comes to rest when we see through the questions, when we see through the incessant drive to know.- adyashanti I look forward to this happening.
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 11:59:08 GMT -5
James, if you are not sure if you have reached the core of your aspiration, I find the question....''what would this give me?'' to be a good one. There was one word that struck me as conspicuous by its absence, and I noticed it because it tends to be close to the core of my aspirations, if not at the core. You might want to test it out. The word is......''freedom'' I think what you did is a useful exercise, particularly given that clarity is very important to you. Let me ask you this, and it might sound very odd, but if achieving clarity meant being lost in illusion (!), would clarity still be what you desire? Or to put another way, if you had the clarity you aspire to, would it matter to you if you were able to discern reality or not? Freedom: Yes, funny I didn't even think of it once. Clarity leads to (or is?) freedom, at least it has been in my experience. With the clarity/lost bit, do you mean would I still desire clarity if even though I had it I was surrounded by illusion (but knew it)? Yes. I would prefer to know that I was surrounded by ropes rather than snakes, since there would be no suffering 'OMG I am going to get bitten, die, I must escape' etc. If you meant something different, could you rephrase?
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 12:06:52 GMT -5
I look forward to this happening. It IS happening. Right now. You didn't have to ask the question, "Should I post in response to this, and should it be from a sense of purpose?" Of course not. You acted in accord with your natural self. You're already there, james. You're the infinite choicemaker. Follow your bliss. I appreciate the effort on your part H, but for me the skip-to-the-end or 'direct seeing via pointer' thing didn't cut it so far. Just not the right time or vector I guess. Edit: Still, if you think it worthwhile continuing with that general thrust in this thread, please go right ahead!
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Post by andrew on Jan 27, 2013 12:11:42 GMT -5
James, if you are not sure if you have reached the core of your aspiration, I find the question....''what would this give me?'' to be a good one. There was one word that struck me as conspicuous by its absence, and I noticed it because it tends to be close to the core of my aspirations, if not at the core. You might want to test it out. The word is......''freedom'' I think what you did is a useful exercise, particularly given that clarity is very important to you. Let me ask you this, and it might sound very odd, but if achieving clarity meant being lost in illusion (!), would clarity still be what you desire? Or to put another way, if you had the clarity you aspire to, would it matter to you if you were able to discern reality or not? Freedom: Yes, funny I didn't even think of it once. Clarity leads to (or is?) freedom, at least it has been in my experience. With the clarity/lost bit, do you mean would I still desire clarity if even though I had it I was surrounded by illusion (but knew it)? Yes. I would prefer to know that I was surrounded by ropes rather than snakes, since there would be no suffering 'OMG I am going to get bitten, die, I must escape' etc. If you meant something different, could you rephrase? For me too, clarity gives freedom. The other question you could ask is....''Why do I want this?'' ''WHY do I want this freedom? What will freedom give me?'' With regard to the other question, that's not quite what I meant, so I will try again. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that discerning reality is important to you because you think it is the key to clarity and freedom, so IF it made no difference to clarity and freedom, would you care whether you were discerning reality or not? Do you see discerning reality as the means to an end or is it important to you in and of itself? (and just so you know, as long as I have clarity/freedom, I don't care if I am discerning reality or not). And also to be clear.... I am not saying there that discerning reality is NOT the means to the end.
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Post by andrew on Jan 27, 2013 12:17:06 GMT -5
I appreciate the effort on your part H, but for me the skip-to-the-end or 'direct seeing via pointer' thing didn't cut it so far. Just not the right time or vector I guess. Edit: Still, if you think it worthwhile continuing with that general thrust in this thread, please go right ahead! I'll simply add this in the spirit of a general thrust. It's a great teaching for ALL of us to keep in mind when the going gets rough. "Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything Between the two my life flows." -nisargadatta Attention Attention Attention yeah that's a cool quote
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 12:22:16 GMT -5
I personally have 2 options, since I couldn't say those words myself:
1) Believe the statements (and parrot them to myself and others). Job done, thankyouverymuch. Now, where was I? Ah that's right, still suffering but with a decent denial mechanism. 2) Investigate the truth of the matter in some way (as 'Nigs himself did).
I am compelled to perform option 2.
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Post by andrew on Jan 27, 2013 12:33:17 GMT -5
James, I really feel its helpful to get clear as to whether discerning reality from illusion is what you aspire to in and of itself, or if clarity/freedom is what you aspire to, and you see discerning reality from illusion to be a means to that end (and I am not saying that it isn't).
In a sense, a difference between them is that clarity/freedom is a state of being, and discerning reality from illusion is a 'doing' or a process. What that means is that clarity/freedom is theoretically always available now, whereas discerning reality from illusion is something happening 'in time'. You see what I mean?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 12:44:30 GMT -5
James, I really feel its helpful to get clear as to whether discerning reality from illusion is what you aspire to in and of itself, or if clarity/freedom is what you aspire to, and you see discerning reality from illusion to be a means to that end (and I am not saying that it isn't). Yes, wonderful discernment, andrew. All roads are the same road.
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Post by laughter on Jan 27, 2013 12:47:56 GMT -5
"Clarity", "illusion" and "reality" are only words.
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Post by andrew on Jan 27, 2013 12:48:10 GMT -5
James, I really feel its helpful to get clear as to whether discerning reality from illusion is what you aspire to in and of itself, or if clarity/freedom is what you aspire to, and you see discerning reality from illusion to be a means to that end (and I am not saying that it isn't). Yes, wonderful discernment, andrew. All roads are the same road. Yes
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Post by laughter on Jan 27, 2013 12:56:06 GMT -5
[/li][li]Does my body "own" this awareness? I.e. am I in my body? [/size][/quote] For what it's worth (zero in any absolute sense) if you inquire with the mind only, you'll find an objective concensus truth that can be stated roughly as that the body isn't what it is assumed to be ... that is, the brain can't be the sole indepedant physical source of the sense of "I Am". It's a very deep rabbit hole, but to argue against it with mind only is futile. In my experience, I found the trip to be useful, but not conclusive ... rather the start of a journey than the end of one.
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 13:20:45 GMT -5
James, I really feel its helpful to get clear as to whether discerning reality from illusion is what you aspire to in and of itself, or if clarity/freedom is what you aspire to, and you see discerning reality from illusion to be a means to that end (and I am not saying that it isn't). In a sense, a difference between them is that clarity/freedom is a state of being, and discerning reality from illusion is a 'doing' or a process. What that means is that clarity/freedom is theoretically always available now, whereas discerning reality from illusion is something happening 'in time'. You see what I mean? Hi Andrew. I had to go do something, which is why I only fired off a response to H, because it was quick to do before I left. I'm going to assume this post supersedes the other one you asked a short time ago, otherwise I'm going to be dealing with a backlog. I think I see what you mean, and it is a difference that I hadn't considered at all, so thanks for that. What I don't really like the sound of is to be locked into having to repeat a 'clarity process' every time an illusion (or suspected illusion) pops up in order to 'maintain'. I would say I aspire to realize (non-time bound) clarity. I was going to say that some realizations of mine have come about through discernment, but truth be told I don't think the discernment was separate from the realization, and furthermore I don't feel like I have a personal claim to the discernment (I was gifted with them).
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Post by james on Jan 27, 2013 13:22:20 GMT -5
[/li][li]Does my body "own" this awareness? I.e. am I in my body? [/size][/quote] For what it's worth (zero in any absolute sense) if you inquire with the mind only, you'll find an objective concensus truth that can be stated roughly as that the body isn't what it is assumed to be ... that is, the brain can't be the sole indepedant physical source of the sense of "I Am". It's a very deep rabbit hole, but to argue against it with mind only is futile. In my experience, I found the trip to be useful, but not conclusive ... rather the start of a journey than the end of one.[/quote] Thanks laughter, yes I've been down that very deep rabbit hole myself and I agree with your summary (paraphrasing: useful but useless). In this exercise I'm going back to first principles but with a wholly different attitude (as recommended by Adya), which is 'meditative contemplation'. It is not a minding (well, that is probably up for debate!).
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