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Post by zendancer on Mar 17, 2014 11:14:16 GMT -5
Steve: I've been out of town for several days and am just now getting back to this thread. The reason I included the last phrase in that sentence is because I spent many years intermittently looking at the world with a still mind, but the sense of being someone looking at the world with a still mind remained intact (or kept returning, to be more specific). Only when the body/mind saw through the imagined looker did the whole house of cards collapse. Prior to that collapse it felt like I was a person who was making an effort to look at the world with a still mind. Afterwards, it didn't matter whether the mind was still or busy because the imagined person who had been making an effort to see with a still mind had disappeared. The body/mind then knew that there had only been one looker from the beginning of time, and it hadn't been the one that had been imagined. Anyone can learn to look at the world with a still mind, but until the imagined looker is seen through, I doubt that there will be any lasting peace or freedom. What has been your experience in this regard? zd, I get your 'position' now. What I don't get is your saying (other posts of other threads) that you also came to realize that the "intermittently looking at the world with a still mind", etc. and the other ways you have put this in the past, wasn't necessary. It seems to me that the "intermittent looking" is a necessary part of the process, what I have called interior spiritual practices (of the ATA kind). Without going back and looking at it, Bernadette Roberts gives the analogy of a donut. 'She' was the donut. She came to realize that all her experiences of God were just experiences of (her)self. God is, but our only experience of God is experienced through self. So, God exists inside the donut and outside the donut. She experienced the falling away of self as the donut getting smaller and smaller, hole bigger and bigger. Eventually, in what she called the experience of no-self the donut totally disappeared....leaving only the hole (I guess you could say leaving only the Whole :-). As you say, only the body was left, there was no reflexive mechanism as self. For me this means all the gears and pulleys and belts and bolts of self were separated, there was nothing left for the exterior circumstances of life to drive, for BR. She says that since then she has never again had an experience of God. This seems to compare with what you have said about your 'experience', or present state. Yes? No? . sdp SDP: Not exactly. For this body/mind (and I suspect for most body/minds) it is absolutely necessary to look with a still mind in order to penetrate past cultural conditioning, past habit of imagining an internal observer and an external world, etc. I think that looking with a still mind (looking at the world non-conceptually) eventually causes structures of thought to collapse, and allows the world to be seen and interacted with free from the illusion of personal selfhood.There may be some people for whom such still mindedness is not necessary, but I suspect they are few and far between. After seeing through the illusion of selfhood, selfhood can return, but it no longer has any weight. IOW, there is never again a belief or feeling of selfhood in the same way as in the past. It is more like, "Oh yeah, we call this body 'Bob,' but that's just a name/idea superimposed on a tiny aspect of the Whole." I answer to the name of 'Bob,' but there is no felt sense of being a person in the same way as before. It is Self-evident that I am "what is" looking at Itself through the eyes of one particular organism. I agree with BR about the self-reflexive mechanism of mind, and the result of its disappearance. FWIW, this body/mind only experienced what the word "God" denotes one time, in 1984. It was not really an experience is the usual sense because selfhood disappeared for about ten minutes. It was as if the intellectual circuit of mind and its usual structures of thought had been bypassed temporarily, and some deeper faculty of mind opened up in which everything that was perceived and known was perceived and known directly (without the mediation of thought). Afterwards, intellectual knowing returned, but what had been seen was never forgotten. During that ten minute experience it was obvious that everyone and everything is one-with God, like tiny waves on the surface of a cosmic ocean, but the ocean was vast beyond comprehension. This is why I never identify with statements like, "I am God." From my POV, the body/mind is one-with God, but insignificant and microscopic in comparison. It is more like "I am a dust mote in the cosmos of God." |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 17, 2014 11:38:50 GMT -5
zd, I get your 'position' now. What I don't get is your saying (other posts of other threads) that you also came to realize that the "intermittently looking at the world with a still mind", etc. and the other ways you have put this in the past, wasn't necessary. It seems to me that the "intermittent looking" is a necessary part of the process, what I have called interior spiritual practices (of the ATA kind). Without going back and looking at it, Bernadette Roberts gives the analogy of a donut. 'She' was the donut. She came to realize that all her experiences of God were just experiences of (her)self. God is, but our only experience of God is experienced through self. So, God exists inside the donut and outside the donut. She experienced the falling away of self as the donut getting smaller and smaller, hole bigger and bigger. Eventually, in what she called the experience of no-self the donut totally disappeared....leaving only the hole (I guess you could say leaving only the Whole :-). As you say, only the body was left, there was no reflexive mechanism as self. For me this means all the gears and pulleys and belts and bolts of self were separated, there was nothing left for the exterior circumstances of life to drive, for BR. She says that since then she has never again had an experience of God. This seems to compare with what you have said about your 'experience', or present state. Yes? No? . sdp SDP: Not exactly. For this body/mind (and I suspect for most body/minds) it is absolutely necessary to look with a still mind in order the penetrate past cultural conditioning, past habit of imagining an internal observer and an external world, etc. I think that looking with a still mind (looking at the world non-conceptually) eventually causes structures of thought to collapse, and allows the world to be seen and interacted with free from the illusion of personal selfhood.There may be some people for whom such still mindedness is not necessary, but I suspect they are few and far between. After seeing through the illusion of selfhood, selfhood can return, but it no longer has any weight. IOW, there is never again a belief or feeling of selfhood in the same way as in the past. It is more like, "Oh yeah, we call this body 'Bob,' but that's just a name/idea superimposed on a tiny aspect of the Whole." I answer to the name of 'Bob,' but there is no felt sense of being a person in the same way as before. It is Self-evident that I am "what is" looking at Itself through the eyes of one particular organism. I agree with BR about the self-reflexive mechanism of mind, and the result of its disappearance. FWIW, this body/mind only experienced what the word "God" denotes one time, in 1984. It was not really an experience is the usual sense because selfhood disappeared for about ten minutes. It was as if the intellectual circuit of mind and its usual structures of thought had been bypassed temporarily, and some deeper faculty of mind opened up in which everything that was perceived and known was perceived and known directly (without the mediation of thought). Afterwards, intellectual knowing returned, but what had been seen was never forgotten. During that ten minute experience it was obvious that everyone and everything is one-with God, like tiny waves on the surface of a cosmic ocean, but the ocean was vast beyond comprehension. This is why I never identify with statements like, "I am God." From my POV, the body/mind is one-with God, but insignificant and microscopic in comparison. It is more like "I am a dust mote in the cosmos of God." Thanks very much zd, the clears up very much (with you..... in relation to me and you). I have zero problem with "one-with God". One- as God, I don't get. When some claims identity with God I want to say...OK, just tell us what happened to Flight 370? Where's the plane? (Or, why don't you just fix the Syria problem? Or, how about fixing the poverty problem). sdp |
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Post by enigma on Mar 17, 2014 11:53:37 GMT -5
SDP: Not exactly. For this body/mind (and I suspect for most body/minds) it is absolutely necessary to look with a still mind in order the penetrate past cultural conditioning, past habit of imagining an internal observer and an external world, etc. I think that looking with a still mind (looking at the world non-conceptually) eventually causes structures of thought to collapse, and allows the world to be seen and interacted with free from the illusion of personal selfhood.There may be some people for whom such still mindedness is not necessary, but I suspect they are few and far between. After seeing through the illusion of selfhood, selfhood can return, but it no longer has any weight. IOW, there is never again a belief or feeling of selfhood in the same way as in the past. It is more like, "Oh yeah, we call this body 'Bob,' but that's just a name/idea superimposed on a tiny aspect of the Whole." I answer to the name of 'Bob,' but there is no felt sense of being a person in the same way as before. It is Self-evident that I am "what is" looking at Itself through the eyes of one particular organism. I agree with BR about the self-reflexive mechanism of mind, and the result of its disappearance. FWIW, this body/mind only experienced what the word "God" denotes one time, in 1984. It was not really an experience is the usual sense because selfhood disappeared for about ten minutes. It was as if the intellectual circuit of mind and its usual structures of thought had been bypassed temporarily, and some deeper faculty of mind opened up in which everything that was perceived and known was perceived and known directly (without the mediation of thought). Afterwards, intellectual knowing returned, but what had been seen was never forgotten. During that ten minute experience it was obvious that everyone and everything is one-with God, like tiny waves on the surface of a cosmic ocean, but the ocean was vast beyond comprehension. This is why I never identify with statements like, "I am God." From my POV, the body/mind is one-with God, but insignificant and microscopic in comparison. It is more like "I am a dust mote in the cosmos of God." Thanks very much zd, the clears up very much (with you..... in relation to me and you). I have zero problem with "one-with God". One- as God, I don't get. When some claims identity with God I want to say...OK, just tell us what happened to Flight 370? Where's the plane? (Or, why don't you just fix the Syria problem? Or, how about fixing the poverty problem). sdp How is 'one with God' different from 'one as God'? In either case, there is only one, and we call that God, so that's what you are. The confusion is the result of calling it oneness while maintaining your idea that there is a person and a God, which denies oneness. The imagined separate person is not God because there is no separate person. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 17, 2014 12:38:21 GMT -5
Thanks very much zd, the clears up very much (with you..... in relation to me and you). I have zero problem with "one-with God". One- as God, I don't get. When some claims identity with God I want to say...OK, just tell us what happened to Flight 370? Where's the plane? (Or, why don't you just fix the Syria problem? Or, how about fixing the poverty problem). sdp How is 'one with God' different from 'one as God'? In either case, there is only one, and we call that God, so that's what you are. The confusion is the result of calling it oneness while maintaining your idea that there is a person and a God, which denies oneness. The imagined separate person is not God because there is no separate person. I guess you are absolutely incapable of seeing anyone else's position. But more importantly, you can't explain anything functionally. I'm sure you really believe, in your mind, that there is no separate person. But functionally, you cannot live even one day without accepting E as a separate person. If you maintain this, that there is no separate person, then you must maintain that the 'space' occupied by the body related to E is not responsible in any manner whatsoever for the actions taken by the space of the E-body. This makes E a complete and utter automaton. Is that what you wish to maintain? All this is what Tzu is continually calling you out on, fundamentalist non-dualism, what I call conceptual non-dualism. It's like OTOH you have this idea of non-duality you keep in a box and pull it out whenever you need to and OTOH, there is your ordinary life where you must necessarily act as-if there is a separate person. I just don't really believe this is that hard to see through (the fact that no matter what we see, think, feel or experience or not-experience, we must necessarily act as-if there is a separate person). sdp |
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Post by zendancer on Mar 17, 2014 13:22:31 GMT -5
Like SDP it seems to me that "one with God" carries a slightly different connotation than "one as God." There is only oneness, but the first phrase points to the limits of the body/mind and the second phrase points to limitlessness. I am a wave that is one-with the ocean and I go with the flow of ocean currents, so to speak, but I am not the totality of the ocean.
OTOH, when E. states that there is no separate person, he is stating that there is no entity PSYCHOLOGICALLY SEPARATED from "what is." He is not denying that there is a body/mind that moves around in the world. He can correct me if I am wrong in this assumption.
We all act as if we are separate people, but sages do not FEEL psychologically separate from "what is." "What is" is their ground of being.
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Post by laughter on Mar 17, 2014 13:57:54 GMT -5
Like SDP it seems to me that "one with God" carries a slightly different connotation than "one as God." There is only oneness, but the first phrase points to the limits of the body/mind and the second phrase points to limitlessness. I am a wave that is one-with the ocean and I go with the flow of ocean currents, so to speak, but I am not the totality of the ocean. OTOH, when E. states that there is no separate person, he is stating that there is no entity PSYCHOLOGICALLY SEPARATED from "what is." He is not denying that there is a body/mind that moves around in the world. He can correct me if I am wrong in this assumption. We all act as if we are separate people, but sages do not FEEL psychologically separate from "what is." "What is" is their ground of being.  |
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Post by laughter on Mar 17, 2014 14:24:44 GMT -5
Yes another way to put that is that anything that is/needs defending isn't worth defending or -- the ideas of nonduality, pointers and what they point to don't require any defense. And yet....on and on it goes.  The questions about and the objections to nonduality are timeless and as long as there are human beings they will be what they are. |
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 17, 2014 20:42:53 GMT -5
Braggart.   ![]() Okay. Which means...you haven't been drinking but you've got red eyes, dry mouth and believe every thought that enters your head is uber profound?  Okaaaay......... (I think I get that...) Well, the moment we start talking about "Oneness" to some extent, it's being objectified...but yeah, I get what you're getting at. And yeah, you don't often specifically talk about lack of clarity per se, but you allude to similar in other ways.... (pics of hamster wheels and such).  yes, as I said, I never start the conversation about "lack of clarity"! Actually, I very much agree with that....&what some of us do here, is to try to point out when a pointer is being turned into a story. Yes. The same could be said about Tenacious attachment to the objections AND defending of that which is being objected to. "Tenacious attachment" means need is present...it works both ways. Yes another way to put that is that anything that is/needs defending isn't worth defending or -- the ideas of nonduality, pointers and what they point to don't require any defense. What I see happening sometimes is that people will associate the person that expresses an idea with the idea, entangle the two, start the conversation about something along the lines of or similar to "lack of clarity", and then we're off to the clown races.  This is the game of idea peddlers: " anything that is/needs defending isn't worth defending", a false stipulation.. then, when they argue with you and you defend your understanding they invoke their false stipulations.. and, in the irony of ironies, it is the function of this forum to defend oneness and nonduality, those ideas do not stand on their own imagined merits.. Given the opportunity to offer people the tools to see for themselves what is actually happening, the advocates of oneness and nonduality, peddle 'oneness and nonduality', rather than stillness and clarity.. and, any mention of stillness and clarity by the advocates of oneness and nonduality, is as a platform for selling oneness and nonduality.. authenticity and genuine interest in what is actually happening, cannot produce ideologies like oneness and nonduality.. Authenticity and genuine curiosity, are the realized by letting go of beliefs, knowledge, and realizations.. it is the willingness to return to zero, to come empty to the experience of the happening.. |
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Post by teetown on Mar 17, 2014 21:22:58 GMT -5
Authenticity and genuine curiosity, are the realized by letting go of beliefs, knowledge, and realizations How does one realize genuine curiosity? I would think that is those things are the prerequisites, rather than the goal. I think curiosity comes pretty naturally to most of us. |
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 17, 2014 21:30:34 GMT -5
Authenticity and genuine curiosity, are the realized by letting go of beliefs, knowledge, and realizations How does one realize genuine curiosity? I would think that is those things are the prerequisites, rather than the goal. I think curiosity comes pretty naturally to most of us. Many people are only curious about information that confirms what they think they believe, or what they want to believe.. there are not many people that are willing to let go of what they believe/know to see/experience what is actually happening.. |
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Post by teetown on Mar 17, 2014 21:39:11 GMT -5
How does one realize genuine curiosity? I would think that is those things are the prerequisites, rather than the goal. I think curiosity comes pretty naturally to most of us. Many people are only curious about information that confirms what they think they believe, or what they want to believe.. there are not many people that are willing to let go of what they believe/know to see/experience what is actually happening.. Maybe I got hung up on the word "realize." Seems like curiosity is a natural function of our minds and perhaps the goal, if there is one, should be to clear the obstructions that keep curiosity from flowing freely? |
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Post by enigma on Mar 17, 2014 23:03:10 GMT -5
How is 'one with God' different from 'one as God'? In either case, there is only one, and we call that God, so that's what you are. The confusion is the result of calling it oneness while maintaining your idea that there is a person and a God, which denies oneness. The imagined separate person is not God because there is no separate person. I guess you are absolutely incapable of seeing anyone else's position. I don't think your position is that hard to understand. Well, I don't think it's proper to reduce what some would call a divine expression of God, to an automaton. I spose so. Why is that a problem? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 23:16:34 GMT -5
How does one realize genuine curiosity? I would think that is those things are the prerequisites, rather than the goal. I think curiosity comes pretty naturally to most of us. Many people are only curious about information that confirms what they think they believe, or what they want to believe.. there are not many people that are willing to let go of what they believe/know to see/experience what is actually happening.. So since you have obviously discarded your own erroneous perceptions by entering into stillness, perhaps you could enlighten our curious (though adelpated) minds as to what is actually happening? |
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Post by enigma on Mar 17, 2014 23:18:56 GMT -5
Like SDP it seems to me that "one with God" carries a slightly different connotation than "one as God." There is only oneness, but the first phrase points to the limits of the body/mind and the second phrase points to limitlessness. I am a wave that is one-with the ocean and I go with the flow of ocean currents, so to speak, but I am not the totality of the ocean. The individuated expression is a wave. What you are, is the ocean. The wave is your journey, the salt spray is your tears, the tide is your breath. When you reach the shore you will explode in a cascade of diamond sparkles, but you will not die. You will stop a moment, and catch your breath, and begin your journey again. Eggzacly. The mind/body identified person want's to see himself as connected to something greater than himself, and supported in his journey of separation. I understand that perfectly well, but fantasy never set anybody free. Precisely. |
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Post by enigma on Mar 17, 2014 23:24:36 GMT -5
Like SDP it seems to me that "one with God" carries a slightly different connotation than "one as God." There is only oneness, but the first phrase points to the limits of the body/mind and the second phrase points to limitlessness. I am a wave that is one-with the ocean and I go with the flow of ocean currents, so to speak, but I am not the totality of the ocean. OTOH, when E. states that there is no separate person, he is stating that there is no entity PSYCHOLOGICALLY SEPARATED from "what is." He is not denying that there is a body/mind that moves around in the world. He can correct me if I am wrong in this assumption. We all act as if we are separate people, but sages do not FEEL psychologically separate from "what is." "What is" is their ground of being. How do we know if he is a pickle or if he's just IN a pickle? |
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yes, as I said, I never start the conversation about "lack of clarity"! 
