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Post by enigma on Mar 17, 2014 23:34:25 GMT -5
yes, as I said, I never start the conversation about "lack of clarity"! 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.. As you demonstrate regularly, imagining one is in stillness and clarity does not actually produce clarity, and so it's necessary to do more than just recommend still mind and clarity and authenticity and genuine interest and coming empty, as though somebody can simply choose that.
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Post by arisha on Mar 17, 2014 23:56:48 GMT -5
E, "there is just God" is true. " there is just God. That's all non-dual means" - in this context "there is just God" is not true. And the definition of what non-dual means is also not true.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2014 1:50:03 GMT -5
I suggest throwing away the "until______" also ;-) 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? In my experience, the looker isn't seen through, it just kinda disappears having lost whatever held it together so to speak. I had a realization that my most foundational truth, the truth that my pure empty awareness is universal awareness, could not in fact be proven to be true, and in a moment of complete self honesty, I accepted that my own awareness may actually be just my own personal awareness...I accepted that there is no way other than an unprovable logic chain that my awareness was also your awareness...with that, I accepted that if I could not ever know with absolute certainty that my awareness was the very same awareness as your awareness, that all knowledge was effectively useless to me on this path. The result of that realization was that I totally and utterly gave up the energy of seeking knowledge of self. In dropping the seeking of knowledge of self, the self seemed to lose whatever bound it into being, and the next time I opened into a relative samadhi, it just suddenly disappeared. It wasn't until all agendas or sought outcomes were dropped, that resting into alert silence 'popped' the 'I' completely so to speak. As long as there is energy or attention given to an 'until', there will likely be energy given to self creating the illusion of an 'I', so I say, let the alert silence be the beginning and the end, the 'goal' unto itself :-)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2014 2:10:02 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. Hmmm...my experience is that when my attention is in a state of Samadhi, there is the vast unknowing, un-doing, non-volitional sea of all of existence, but within that sea the currents and waves direct their own course, and that those currents and waves are the aspects of God that does the moving and shaking so to speak. This body/mind called steve is an aspect of God that is directing attention in a kind of perfect harmony with the other aspects of this vast sea, while not being in any way separate from the vast sea of unknowing undoing 'I-less' BEING. If attention is centered in this 'I' then an 'I' appears to exist that is 'doing' stuff, if attention is centered in the vast open ocean then all these "I's", including the steve "I", is just whats happening in the living occurrence of this moment. Depending on where attention is centered, either the illusion of an "I" is there or not...Either way, there is a Steve 'event' happening, whether that event appears to be my 'self' or not is a matter of shifting perspective dependent upon where attention is placed....I don't hold either perspective to be the right or wrong one, each are just an aspect of what is happening right now, in any given moment. My mind thinks, my body senses and moves, my consciousness has no sense of self or doing, all are one. When folks express 'one with god' versus 'one as god', and make a distinction between the two, its like they are seeing things the opposite way of my experience. What I mean is, that instead of there being a non-volitional local person moved by some vast omnipotent God that we are one with, my experience is just the opposite. The 'vast' infinite aspect of God is non-volitional, and the local 'me' and 'you' aspect of God is volitional, at least with regard to where we place attention, which is everything really.....in my experience, the wave of the sea are self directed, and as a group or groups we form currents, that are all a part of a vast non-volitional sea of God...as single waves bound together in the vast sea of ourself, we form currents, that are self directed. We are the volition of God happening, in the vast non-volitional sea of our consciousness. There seems to be this topsy turvy view that the vast ocean is volitional and the waves are non-volitionally 'directed', but my experience in moving attention back and forth between being centered in the whole sea at once, and being centered in this local wave, is that instead of a vast volitional sea directing the non-volitional wave, the volitional waves working in a kind of concert with each other directs the currents of the vast non-volitional sea that we are all an occurrence in....and the way the waves direct the currents in the sea, is by directing attention....and we have a choice to direct our attention in the direction that the current is already going, or to some extent direct our attention in another direction....if enough waves direct attention in a new direction, a new current is created....all happening in the same vast non-volitional sea that we are one with.
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 18, 2014 5:12:24 GMT -5
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.. As you demonstrate regularly, imagining one is in stillness and clarity does not actually produce clarity, and so it's necessary to do more than just recommend still mind and clarity and authenticity and genuine interest and coming empty, as though somebody can simply choose that. You are trying to justify your attachment to a particular perspective.. Yes, " somebody can simply choose that", and you know that.. for some it happens in the instance of the choice, for others it is the beginning of the 'hard work' of letting go of the baggage and conditioning they think is real, but.. it begins with the simple choice to 'stop banging their head' and let go..
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 18, 2014 5:28:33 GMT -5
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? No, i can't "enlighten" anyone, i can't even tell you what is actually happening.. i can tell you that when i first experienced what is actually happening, the mind was still and the curiosity was unconditional, i was in a situation that defied any rational understanding, and in the instant of release/letting go the understanding is clear and sublime, instantly realized as 'that which is, happening'..
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2014 8:22:31 GMT -5
As you demonstrate regularly, imagining one is in stillness and clarity does not actually produce clarity, and so it's necessary to do more than just recommend still mind and clarity and authenticity and genuine interest and coming empty, as though somebody can simply choose that. You are trying to justify your attachment to a particular perspective.. Yes, " somebody can simply choose that", and you know that.. for some it happens in the instance of the choice, for others it is the beginning of the 'hard work' of letting go of the baggage and conditioning they think is real, but.. it begins with the simple choice to 'stop banging their head' and let go.. Well said....haha, the sun shines on even a dog's arse occasionally lol
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Post by zendancer on Mar 18, 2014 8:43:14 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? In my experience, the looker isn't seen through, it just kinda disappears having lost whatever held it together so to speak. I had a realization that my most foundational truth, the truth that my pure empty awareness is universal awareness, could not in fact be proven to be true, and in a moment of complete self honesty, I accepted that my own awareness my actually be just my own personal awareness...I accepted that there is no way other than an unprovable logic chain that my awareness was also your awareness...with that, I accepted that if I could not ever know with absolute certainty that my awareness was the very same awareness as your awareness, that all knowledge was effectively useless to me on this path. The result of that realization was that I totally and utterly gave up the energy of seeking knowledge of self. In dropping the seeking of knowledge of self, the self seemed to lose whatever bound it into being, and the next time I opened into a relative samadhi, it just suddenly disappeared. It wasn't until all agendas or sought outcomes were dropped, that resting into alert silence 'popped' the 'I' completely so to speak. As long as there is energy or attention given to an 'until', there will likely be energy given to self creating the illusion of an 'I', so I say, let the alert silence be the beginning and the end, the 'goal' unto itself :-) What you wrote in your first line is what I meant by "seeing through the looker," but your statement may be a clearer way to convey what happens when the illusion of selfhood collapses. Like you, on a particular day I sensed something odd (that something was missing), looked within, and discovered that the personal sense of self had totally vanished. It then became clear that my past sense of personal identity had been some kind of thought structure/story that was now absent. It was also instantly clear that "what is," or Reality, was what had always been looking out of the body's eyes. The past delineation between "inside" and "outside" thereby ceased to exist, and it never returned. Unlike you, I had an experience in which it became self-evident that the cosmos was equally aware of itself through the sensory apparati of all organisms. The words of Flora Courtois, after she had a similar experience, could have been my own: "It was as if, before all of this occurred, 'I' had been a fixed point inside my head looking at a world out there, a separate and comparatively flat world. The periphery of awareness had now come to light, yet neither fixed periphery nor center existed as such. A paradoxical quality seemed to permeate all existence. Feeling myself centered as never before, at the same time I knew the whole universe to be centered at every point. Having plunged to the center of emptiness, having lost all purposefulness in the old sense, I had never felt so one-pointed, so clear, and decisive. Freed from separateness, feeling one with the universe, everything including myself had become at once unique and equal. If God was the word for this Presence in which I was absorbed then everything was either holy or nothing; no distinction was possible. All was meaningful, complete as it was, each bird, bud, midge, mole, atom, crystal, of total importance to the whole. I now saw that wholeness and holiness are one." IOW, this body/mind never dropped the agenda of seeking. It is more accurate to say that the cosmos kept seeking until it found what it was looking for--that the imagined seeker was imaginary (I was not who I had thought I was). The body/mind had been actively pursuing a still mind right up to the moment when the imagined seeker vanished and only the emptiness of "what is" remained. 15 years before that collapse I had seen what Helen was describing in the above paragraph, but afterwards the "me" returned. It felt like I was a person seeking internal unity right up until the moment that personhood was seen to have vanished. Only then did it become obvious that unity had ALWAYS been the case, but it had been obscured by the idea of separateness. This is why I don't place any particular importance upon the state of samadhi or an alert still mind after freedom is attained. Samadhi is something that comes and goes within our beingness, but it is no more important than anything else. I see value in samadhi for seekers because I liken it to the "clear" button on a computer. It is a mind-free state of awareness that seems to loosen the intellect's attachment to ideas. Similarly, I see value in looking at the world with a still mind for seekers because it seems to function in the same way--as a way of subconsciously freeing the body/mind from various ideas or thought structures. Today, this body/mind may sit in silence listening to universal sound or watching a sunset, but most of the time it is busily thinking about a wide range of topics--from technical issues concerning construction projects to large and small scale economic issues. "Still mind" or "busy mind" no longer matter to me, and life feels exactly like it did when I was a little kid who was so busy playing that there was no reflection about whatever was happening. People who have a strong sense of personal selfhood are like fish struggling to swim in a tank of glue (sticky thoughts). When selfhood collapses, it is as if the fish escape the tank of glue and are able to freely swim in the sea, unhindered by thoughts. AAR, that's been this body/mind's experience.
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Post by enigma on Mar 18, 2014 10:13:38 GMT -5
As you demonstrate regularly, imagining one is in stillness and clarity does not actually produce clarity, and so it's necessary to do more than just recommend still mind and clarity and authenticity and genuine interest and coming empty, as though somebody can simply choose that. You are trying to justify your attachment to a particular perspective.. Yes, " somebody can simply choose that", and you know that.. for some it happens in the instance of the choice, for others it is the beginning of the 'hard work' of letting go of the baggage and conditioning they think is real, but.. it begins with the simple choice to 'stop banging their head' and let go.. That's what I'm saying. Making a choice is not enough.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2014 11:36:12 GMT -5
"the peace that surpasses all understanding" from my Catechism book. Peace.
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 18, 2014 18:17:32 GMT -5
You are trying to justify your attachment to a particular perspective.. Yes, " somebody can simply choose that", and you know that.. for some it happens in the instance of the choice, for others it is the beginning of the 'hard work' of letting go of the baggage and conditioning they think is real, but.. it begins with the simple choice to 'stop banging their head' and let go.. That's what I'm saying. Making a choice is not enough. That's not 'all' you're saying.. you're also saying "oneness is truth" and 'nonduality is the case'.. You've overlooked those that 'get it', those that choose and it naturally 'happens'.. Now that you've agreed with a portion of what the post states, that for some people the choice is followed by hard work.. and, noting that you haven't answered the inquiries about your practice, will you share your practice with us?
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Post by enigma on Mar 18, 2014 19:36:17 GMT -5
That's what I'm saying. Making a choice is not enough. That's not 'all' you're saying.. you're also saying "oneness is truth" and 'nonduality is the case'.. I didn't say anything about that in the post you responded to. What I said is: "As you demonstrate regularly, imagining one is in stillness and clarity does not actually produce clarity, and so it's necessary to do more than just recommend still mind and clarity and authenticity and genuine interest and coming empty, as though somebody can simply choose that." The point of which is that you can't simply choose those things and have it happen. I did. I talked about noticing, and in response to that post, you expressed an interest in hearing about it, which confused me a bit. Did you not hear what you wanted to hear? If so, what did you want to hear about it? I've been talking about noticing for years. Where have you been?
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Post by laughter on Mar 18, 2014 19:39:44 GMT -5
How do we know if he is a pickle or if he's just IN a pickle? The question is misconceived.
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Post by freejoy on Mar 19, 2014 16:26:20 GMT -5
As an aside, I like pickles...:-)) The Buddha eats pickles! hahaha
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 1:10:53 GMT -5
In my experience, the looker isn't seen through, it just kinda disappears having lost whatever held it together so to speak. I had a realization that my most foundational truth, the truth that my pure empty awareness is universal awareness, could not in fact be proven to be true, and in a moment of complete self honesty, I accepted that my own awareness my actually be just my own personal awareness...I accepted that there is no way other than an unprovable logic chain that my awareness was also your awareness...with that, I accepted that if I could not ever know with absolute certainty that my awareness was the very same awareness as your awareness, that all knowledge was effectively useless to me on this path. The result of that realization was that I totally and utterly gave up the energy of seeking knowledge of self. In dropping the seeking of knowledge of self, the self seemed to lose whatever bound it into being, and the next time I opened into a relative samadhi, it just suddenly disappeared. It wasn't until all agendas or sought outcomes were dropped, that resting into alert silence 'popped' the 'I' completely so to speak. As long as there is energy or attention given to an 'until', there will likely be energy given to self creating the illusion of an 'I', so I say, let the alert silence be the beginning and the end, the 'goal' unto itself :-) What you wrote in your first line is what I meant by "seeing through the looker," but your statement may be a clearer way to convey what happens when the illusion of selfhood collapses. Like you, on a particular day I sensed something odd (that something was missing), looked within, and discovered that the personal sense of self had totally vanished. It then became clear that my past sense of personal identity had been some kind of thought structure/story that was now absent. It was also instantly clear that "what is," or Reality, was what had always been looking out of the body's eyes. The past delineation between "inside" and "outside" thereby ceased to exist, and it never returned. Unlike you, I had an experience in which it became self-evident that the cosmos was equally aware of itself through the sensory apparati of all organisms. The words of Flora Courtois, after she had a similar experience, could have been my own: "It was as if, before all of this occurred, 'I' had been a fixed point inside my head looking at a world out there, a separate and comparatively flat world. The periphery of awareness had now come to light, yet neither fixed periphery nor center existed as such. A paradoxical quality seemed to permeate all existence. Feeling myself centered as never before, at the same time I knew the whole universe to be centered at every point. Having plunged to the center of emptiness, having lost all purposefulness in the old sense, I had never felt so one-pointed, so clear, and decisive. Freed from separateness, feeling one with the universe, everything including myself had become at once unique and equal. If God was the word for this Presence in which I was absorbed then everything was either holy or nothing; no distinction was possible. All was meaningful, complete as it was, each bird, bud, midge, mole, atom, crystal, of total importance to the whole. I now saw that wholeness and holiness are one." IOW, this body/mind never dropped the agenda of seeking. It is more accurate to say that the cosmos kept seeking until it found what it was looking for--that the imagined seeker was imaginary (I was not who I had thought I was). The body/mind had been actively pursuing a still mind right up to the moment when the imagined seeker vanished and only the emptiness of "what is" remained. 15 years before that collapse I had seen what Helen was describing in the above paragraph, but afterwards the "me" returned. It felt like I was a person seeking internal unity right up until the moment that personhood was seen to have vanished. Only then did it become obvious that unity had ALWAYS been the case, but it had been obscured by the idea of separateness. This is why I don't place any particular importance upon the state of samadhi or an alert still mind after freedom is attained. Samadhi is something that comes and goes within our beingness, but it is no more important than anything else. I see value in samadhi for seekers because I liken it to the "clear" button on a computer. It is a mind-free state of awareness that seems to loosen the intellect's attachment to ideas. Similarly, I see value in looking at the world with a still mind for seekers because it seems to function in the same way--as a way of subconsciously freeing the body/mind from various ideas or thought structures. Today, this body/mind may sit in silence listening to universal sound or watching a sunset, but most of the time it is busily thinking about a wide range of topics--from technical issues concerning construction projects to large and small scale economic issues. "Still mind" or "busy mind" no longer matter to me, and life feels exactly like it did when I was a little kid who was so busy playing that there was no reflection about whatever was happening. People who have a strong sense of personal selfhood are like fish struggling to swim in a tank of glue (sticky thoughts). When selfhood collapses, it is as if the fish escape the tank of glue and are able to freely swim in the sea, unhindered by thoughts. AAR, that's been this body/mind's experience. :-) i rez pretty closely with all of that except the bolded bit. the part that immediately follows the bolded bit is concurrent with my conceptualization, but with a bit more added to it, in that, not only is it clear that all the sensory perceptions that occur are the means of the cosmos 'seeing', but also, all the 'doings', and all the choices of where to place attention are equally the means by which the cosmos excersizes volition and creation...God is not one ocean governing billions of waves (minds), God is billions of minds (waves) governing one Ocean so to speak lol As an aside, Here is a little conundrum of a statement to contemplate lol "God has no volition, but WE do....because we are all God!"
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