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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 0:13:22 GMT -5
There is a simple thing with a big woo woo sounding name called Meta-Awareness, that one should remember.
Meta-Awareness is simply shifting your perspective to be aware of everything AND yourself in your environment.
Its a way of stepping back and being the observer of your body/mind as an integrated part of your environment.
Its similar to the ATA that most know well here, only, instead of simply experiencing and being aware of the things that occur in your sensory field, be aware of yourself moving and interacting and sensing AND the sensory field.
With ATA one looks with a quiescent mind at one's surroundings, and is very aware of their surroundings, but not aware of there bodymind.
In self inquiry, or a turning in of one's attention onto the body or mind or both, one is aware of the bodymind and its action from an observer position, but not really aware of their environment.
In a shift into meta awareness, one takes up the observer position, but everything is being observed in an integrated whole...bodymind and environment are observed together as one.
A good example is being in a movie theater....if you are absorbed into the movie you are not meta aware, if you are focused on your body mind while in the movie theater you are not meta aware....but if you "take a step back" into the observer position and be the observer of your mind and body and the movie and the theater...you are being meta aware.
this kind of meta awareness is useful in everything from relationships, to professional productivity, to gnosis of self.
Its especially useful if you have habitual negative emotions or behaviors that you engage in, and if you are ever unsure how to respond in a given situation....regarding the latter...stepping back into meta awareness is like climbing to the top of the hill to see the full lay of the land to see the best path.
Stepping back into Meta Awareness while the mind is moving, and then observing the mind/body/environment as a continuous whole, is a very useful shift in perspective on many levels....but if you step back into Meta Awareness and then let the mind be utterly still, while in the perspective of meta awareness, you can have a moment of relative samadhi, or God Union.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Oct 20, 2013 5:29:31 GMT -5
Is this the perspective you call meta-awareness? I became conscious of this perspective 15 years or so ago and I can shift into it whenever I want, but I don't see its significance and what it's supposed to be good for, imo it's just another passing experience.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 20, 2013 7:40:50 GMT -5
It IS another passing experience IF there is a person experiencing it. If there is no person, then it's just what's happening. Who you REALLY are is vast. You can be what you are, or you can imagine. Google "Mooji no sleepovers" to get some perspective on this.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 20, 2013 7:47:02 GMT -5
Excellent OP Steve. This might be the most significant post I've ever read on ST's. Your words are very close to what Gurdjieff called self-remembering.
Less Than Nothing, why is this significant? Everything we do, think, say and feel requires a specific quality and quantity of energy. Ordinarily we live within a certain, let's say "box", of limitation of energy, we have a ceiling. The practice self-remembering transforms the energy below the ceiling to a quality of energy not ordinarily known within the physical organism. Anyone who tries what Steve describes will either find it difficult or doesn't understand what he describes, can do it maybe only very briefly. Why difficult? Because the state of consciousness self-remembering, requires the energy of self-remembering, a quality of energy "outside the box". The practice brings the state.
sdp
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Oct 20, 2013 7:57:30 GMT -5
Is this the perspective you call meta-awareness? I became conscious of this perspective 15 years or so ago and I can shift into it whenever I want, but I don't see its significance and what it's supposed to be good for, imo it's just another passing experience. No. One is also aware of the head. This is the one little failure of Douglas Harding's On Having No Head (but maybe not an insignificant little failure). sdp
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 14:13:35 GMT -5
There is a simple thing with a big woo woo sounding name called Meta-Awareness, that one should remember. Meta-Awareness is simply shifting your perspective to be aware of everything AND yourself in your environment. Its a way of stepping back and being the observer of your body/mind as an integrated part of your environment. Its similar to the ATA that most know well here, only, instead of simply experiencing and being aware of the things that occur in your sensory field, be aware of yourself moving and interacting and sensing AND the sensory field. With ATA one looks with a quiescent mind at one's surroundings, and is very aware of their surroundings, but not aware of there bodymind. In self inquiry, or a turning in of one's attention onto the body or mind or both, one is aware of the bodymind and its action from an observer position, but not really aware of their environment. In a shift into meta awareness, one takes up the observer position, but everything is being observed in an integrated whole...bodymind and environment are observed together as one. A good example is being in a movie theater....if you are absorbed into the movie you are not meta aware, if you are focused on your body mind while in the movie theater you are not meta aware....but if you "take a step back" into the observer position and be the observer of your mind and body and the movie and the theater...you are being meta aware. this kind of meta awareness is useful in everything from relationships, to professional productivity, to gnosis of self. Its especially useful if you have habitual negative emotions or behaviors that you engage in, and if you are ever unsure how to respond in a given situation....regarding the latter...stepping back into meta awareness is like climbing to the top of the hill to see the full lay of the land to see the best path. stepping back into Meta Awareness while the mind is moving and observing the mind/body/environment as a continuous whole is a very useful shift in perspective on many levels....but if you do it and then let the mind be utterly still while in the perspective of meta awareness, you can have a moment of relative samadhi, or God Union. I've done this. I just thought one day while focusing on my peripheral vision that what I was doing was trying to become aware of more. So I thought why not just be aware of everything including me. Sorry to report no luck yet. No luck with what? Its funny how the simplest and most profound things can be so consistently overlooked by a mind searching for something more lol.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 17:40:32 GMT -5
I became conscious of this perspective 15 years or so ago and I can shift into it whenever I want, but I don't see its significance and what it's supposed to be good for. All things are just shifting experience....shifting ISNESS :-) However, in that shifting ISNESS, a broader perspective can be useful, especially if there is a sufferer absorbed in a suffering world. There is an interesting phenomena that I noticed when I first started talking about "not knowing" here. Folks would say its impossible to Not Know something once you know it, because the information is already "stored" within you so to speak, so you can have a still mind and not know for a short period, but eventually you will "know" again, meaning that the stored information will return and present itself in the future. And this is where the disconnect comes from. Not Knowing is a thing that is FOR THIS MOMENT....and has nothing to do with some imagined future moment. As is Meta Awareness. This disconnect between what I am talking about and what you call a "passing experience without meaning", is that I am concerned with the present moment, while you and others are processing "not knowing" and what I have called meta awareness in relation to some imagined future, and dead past. You seem to be looking for something that "works" in the future, and judging that by something that you remember from a dead past. What I offer is not for the future, and cannot work in the future for anything, what I offer up is not about something that will "last" into the imagined future, or that you can resurrect from a dead past....what I offer is only of benefit in THIS living moment. If you are only concerned with what will last into an imagined future while mentally lingering in a dead past, then you are only living in your imagination. Let me repeat, there is no benefit to ANY of this spiritual stuff on some imagined future...forget about the future, be concerned with THIS living moment. In this moment and this moment only can you have any benefit in Not Knowing, and shifts in perspective to meta awareness etc. Let the future take care of itself, you can only do something with the RIGHT NOW. Be not concerned with whether something may pass in the past or future. Nothing ever happens in the past or future, stuff only happens right now, in THIS moment.
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Post by laughter on Oct 20, 2013 18:03:07 GMT -5
No luck with what? Its funny how the simplest and most profound things can be so consistently overlooked by a mind searching for something more lol. Enlightenment what do you think? You know I used to have all these ideas about enlightenment but now nothing makes sense. I sit here and I have to keep living and it seems anything I do doesn't work out. I can't help anyone because I'm useless. And I'm ugly on top of it. I need plastic surgery. I'm getting older and thats not helping things either. I don't know how to live my life. I'm trying to accept that I'll never have anything in this life from God or man. I don't mind the pains of this life if I see or know God is with me but it seems sense dealing with enlightened people God has left me. ugly is just a mirage, a consensus, and enlightenment just a phantom.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 18:27:30 GMT -5
No luck with what? Its funny how the simplest and most profound things can be so consistently overlooked by a mind searching for something more lol. Enlightenment what do you think? You know I used to have all these ideas about enlightenment but now nothing makes sense. I sit here and I have to keep living and it seems anything I do doesn't work out. I can't help anyone because I'm useless. And I'm ugly on top of it. I need plastic surgery. I'm getting older and thats not helping things either. I don't know how to live my life. I'm trying to accept that I'll never have anything in this life from God or man. I don't mind the pains of this life if I see or know God is with me but it seems since dealing with enlightened people God has left me. So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then? As to the bolded bit in your post....if your mind is generally moving in negative thought patterns, then dwelling in thoughts of imagined future and past will be a negative experience. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering? And Right now, WHILE you are in the position of the meta awareness discussed above, WHILE observing your body, mind, and environment as a whole....where, while in that position, is your uselessness?
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Post by silver on Oct 20, 2013 18:57:49 GMT -5
So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then? As to the bolded bit in your post....if your mind is generally moving in negative thought patterns, then dwelling in thoughts of imagined future and past will be a negative experience. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering? And Right now, WHILE you are in the position of the meta awareness discussed above, WHILE observing your body, mind, and environment as a whole....where, while in that position, is your uselessness? "So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then?"
To late the damage has already been done. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering?
In my body. I can stop thinking but I still feel with my body. If i stop thinking while in a negative state my body still feels negative. I'm sure if I could maintain it for long enough maybe I would get enlightened but I'm not in a position to not think that long. Hello freejoy. Many people I correspond with or read about at other forums, etc. talk about using their own mindfulness to energetically help to heal themselves and others. One person I write to claims that when he simply focuses attention on the painful area(s) of his body, it starts to work -- I've tried that myself, and I must say I've been surprised at discovering that it works. It's also about being kind to one's self -- I think that this focusing on helping to heal will also serve to distract from chaotic thoughts. I wouldn't worry about becoming enlightened for now. Teach yourself self-love.
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Post by silver on Oct 20, 2013 19:18:52 GMT -5
Hello freejoy. Many people I correspond with or read about at other forums, etc. talk about using their own mindfulness to energetically help to heal themselves and others. One person I write to claims that when he simply focuses attention on the painful area(s) of his body, it starts to work -- I've tried that myself, and I must say I've been surprised at discovering that it works. It's also about being kind to one's self -- I think that this focusing on helping to heal will also serve to distract from chaotic thoughts. I wouldn't worry about becoming enlightened for now. Teach yourself self-love. I read about this one enlightened guy and husbands would bring their wifes to him to have sex with him. It was his contribution to the betterment of humankind. What do you think about this? I think that's a totally separate issue from anything whatsoever to do with 'enlightenment' -- don't you? Interesting way to suck up to the so-called big kahuna Mr. Enlightenment, ay?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 19:25:12 GMT -5
So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then? As to the bolded bit in your post....if your mind is generally moving in negative thought patterns, then dwelling in thoughts of imagined future and past will be a negative experience. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering? And Right now, WHILE you are in the position of the meta awareness discussed above, WHILE observing your body, mind, and environment as a whole....where, while in that position, is your uselessness? "So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then?"
To late the damage has already been done. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering?
In my body. I can stop thinking but I still feel with my body. If i stop thinking while in a negative state my body still feels negative. I'm sure if I could maintain it for long enough maybe I would get enlightened but I'm not in a position to not think that long. Haha....when your mind is stopped, you ARE enlightened ;-) When you are observing your mind, body, and environment as an integrated whole, you ARE enlightened. You concern over creating something in the future, like some "permanent" state, pulls you out of enlightenment, which can only happen in THIS moment. Your search for more than what is already there in stillness keeps you running past the treasure box at your feet while you are running to "find" the treasure. After a certain point on this path, when you have found alert stillness, folks seem to keep searching for the hidden treasure horde while the little jeweled box you already have is set aside in the search for a bigger treasure. All the while, that little jeweled box, if opened and fully penetrated, is seen to be the infinite treasure. You ARE that alert stillness, that stillness is your purest Godly nature...if you step back into that stillness in a kind of meta awareness mentioned above, and view the body the mind and the environment as a whole...then you are the LIVING enlightenment that you seek. But even from there, enlightenment deepens :-)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 19:38:48 GMT -5
So stop dealing with what you call enlightened people then? As to the bolded bit in your post....if your mind is generally moving in negative thought patterns, then dwelling in thoughts of imagined future and past will be a negative experience. Right now, in THIS moment, WHILE you are sitting with a still mind in the spaciousness of Not Knowing, where is all your suffering? And Right now, WHILE you are in the position of the meta awareness discussed above, WHILE observing your body, mind, and environment as a whole....where, while in that position, is your uselessness? In my body. I can stop thinking but I still feel with my body. If i stop thinking while in a negative state my body still feels negative. There is more than one kind of knowing, there is also "body knowing"....let go of that knowing too. Alternately, step back into meta awareness, and take the action that it is clear to take to relieve the body's suffering.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 19:46:35 GMT -5
Is this the perspective you call meta-awareness? I became conscious of this perspective 15 years or so ago and I can shift into it whenever I want, but I don't see its significance and what it's supposed to be good for, imo it's just another passing experience. No. One is also aware of the head. This is the one little failure of Douglas Harding's On Having No Head (but maybe not an insignificant little failure). sdp :-) Yes, eliminating the head is useful in as much as it can clear away the distractions of an over active mind in order to see naked reality, but in the kind of meta awareness mentioned here, the movement of the mind, the body, and the environment are seen as an integrated whole with clarity. Beyond this "meta awareness", there is a further integration of the still silent observer with the observed mind/body/environment panorama.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2013 19:57:07 GMT -5
No. One is also aware of the head. This is the one little failure of Douglas Harding's On Having No Head (but maybe not an insignificant little failure). sdp :-) Yes, eliminating the head is useful in as much as it can clear away the distractions of an over active mind in order to see naked reality, but in the kind of meta awareness mentioned here, the movement of the mind, the body, and the environment are seen as an integrated whole with clarity. Beyond this "meta awareness", there is a further integration of the still silent observer with the observed mind/body/environment panorama. If what one see's is a perception or rather a projection of one's inner state, wouldn't they be observing "naked illusion" rather than "naked reality"?
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