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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2014 13:33:48 GMT -5
As you once pointed out -- and I've looked for myself -- underlying either that first thought or emotion is interest. My description of witnessing this during sitting meditation is sort of like observing a chaotic, disjointed and yet essentially undifferentiated blob of mental noise, like static on a radio or TV in between carriers. It's nice to hear other descriptions. I call it a shimmering swamp. When I first started trying ATA I found it hard to distinguish from thinking and wasn't sure whether to try and not attend to it or not. It's almost like a mash of whispering, incoherent voices. Yes, I noticed the similarity in the descriptions there. ATA for me is linked to action. In the absence of action, different prescriptions come to mind and apply.
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2014 13:36:17 GMT -5
It's nice to hear other descriptions. I call it a shimmering swamp. When I first started trying ATA I found it hard to distinguish from thinking and wasn't sure whether to try and not attend to it or not. It's almost like a mash of whispering, incoherent voices. ME-thinks you were tryin' too hard. Maybees that's 'cause u didn'ts try hards enough.
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Post by quinn on Sept 23, 2014 13:47:42 GMT -5
Yeah, I think that's true for the most part. I also think there are some unexplained emotional energies that maybe relate to somebody's thoughts somewhere, but not necessarily the thoughts of the person experiencing them. Supernatural stuff, past-life stuff, group consciousness stuff, that sort of thing. So the relationship between thought and emotion can get blurry. Yes, there are collective influences because the individual perspective is a rather arbitrary distinction to begin with, although those individual dynamics have to align with those thoughts/feelings to some degree in order to be influenced, so it's not entirely 'unexplained'. To explain it all we would have to take into account all the movements in the universe, and we're not being quite that ambitious right now. Hehe. No, Peace and Love are not emotions, though the experience can produce such. They are fundamentally an absence, and on the deepest level they are pointing to the same. Neither Peace nor Love can actually be understood because understanding requires the presence of various defining qualities, and as an absence, they have no qualities. Qualities are tools of separation, and so the absence of those qualities naturally merges with the self to become what one IS. Hencely, one IS Peace/Love. One knows Peace/Love in the way that one knows self, which is to say, by being rather than knowing. Yeah, all very clear. Thanks.
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Post by silver on Sept 23, 2014 14:04:34 GMT -5
ME-thinks you were tryin' too hard. Maybees that's 'cause u didn'ts try hards enough. hey look meestah, i ain't a gonna go cross-eyed frum it, hee hee
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Post by justlikeyou on Sept 23, 2014 14:29:30 GMT -5
Yes, I know what you are saying. I think he would say the Absolute does not know it exists. He tends to use the word "existence" and "consciousness" interchangeably, and refers to them as a temporary states of affair. Anyway, I found the original quote using the word person a bit odd, but then it occurred to me that he is likely referring to the true self behind the personality as that which does not lose identity as it merges. Which raises its own questions, but I'll leave it alone for now. I took it to refer to a mental shifting of identity from personhood, to witness, to awareness, to pure being. I don't know what he means when he says identity is not lost since pure being is not really an identity. I went to look for context...and it got stranger. Here is a larger quote (wish I could find the whole conversation) "Keep the 'I am' in focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost. It is transfigured, and becomes the real Self, the eternal friend and guide. You cannot approach it in worship. No external activity can reach the inner self; worship and prayer remain on the surface only; to go deeper meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then they recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered." Hmm. OK, Who is the eternal friend and guide to whom? Doesn't this seem to imply a hierarchy of some sort?
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Post by justlikeyou on Sept 23, 2014 14:34:05 GMT -5
Yes, I know what you are saying. I think he would say the Absolute does not know it exists. He tends to use the word "existence" and "consciousness" interchangeably, and refers to them as a temporary states of affair. Anyway, I found the original quote using the word person a bit odd, but then it occurred to me that he is likely referring to the true self behind the personality as that which does not lose identity as it merges. Which raises its own questions, but I'll leave it alone for now. There is a quote where Niz clearly and definitively states what he means by the word "person", and that is entirely consistent not only with the quote that sparked your line of discussion, but pretty much everywhere else he uses it. Are you at all interested in what that quote is? I'm pretty sure Niz would say that the sense of separate personhood is illusionary, and I agree 100%. That is why this particular statement caused a double take. But sure, I'll take a look at the quote you have in mind.
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Post by silver on Sept 23, 2014 14:43:02 GMT -5
I took it to refer to a mental shifting of identity from personhood, to witness, to awareness, to pure being. I don't know what he means when he says identity is not lost since pure being is not really an identity. I went to look for context...and it got stranger. Here is a larger quote (wish I could find the whole conversation) "Keep the 'I am' in focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost. It is transfigured, and becomes the real Self, the eternal friend and guide. You cannot approach it in worship. No external activity can reach the inner self; worship and prayer remain on the surface only; to go deeper meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then they recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered." Hmm. OK, Who is the eternal friend and guide to whom? Doesn't this seem to imply a hierarchy of some sort? Wouldn't it simply mean eternal friend and guide to one's Self?
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Post by laughter on Sept 23, 2014 16:20:02 GMT -5
Maybees that's 'cause u didn'ts try hards enough. hey look meestah, i ain't a gonna go cross-eyed frum it, hee hee (** muttley snicker **)
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Post by justlikeyou on Sept 23, 2014 16:44:32 GMT -5
I went to look for context...and it got stranger. Here is a larger quote (wish I could find the whole conversation) "Keep the 'I am' in focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost. It is transfigured, and becomes the real Self, the eternal friend and guide. You cannot approach it in worship. No external activity can reach the inner self; worship and prayer remain on the surface only; to go deeper meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then they recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered." Hmm. OK, Who is the eternal friend and guide to whom? Doesn't this seem to imply a hierarchy of some sort? Wouldn't it simply mean eternal friend and guide to one's Self? One would think that to be a friend and guide requires another.
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Post by silver on Sept 23, 2014 16:55:10 GMT -5
Wouldn't it simply mean eternal friend and guide to one's Self? One would think that to be a friend and guide requires another. Obviously, that can be the case, but the way it read to me definitely pointed to that he meant being one's own friend and guide.
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Post by enigma on Sept 23, 2014 20:50:39 GMT -5
Yeah, same here, except I've noticed that emotion can either follow or precede conscious thought. There is what we could call preconscious thought, and together with that is preconscious feeling. IOW, there's lots of stuff going on below the water line that has to build up some intensity before it reaches the surface. Feeling is still associated with thought on some level and doesn't actually show up for no reason at all. As you once pointed out -- and I've looked for myself -- underlying either that first thought or emotion is interest. My description of witnessing this during sitting meditation is sort of like observing a chaotic, disjointed and yet essentially undifferentiated blob of mental noise, like static on a radio or TV in between carriers. Yeah, sort of like eddys and currents of pre=thought/feeling maybe. Gaining coherence and strength until they become a conscious, identifiable thought/feeling. Prior to that happening, we may detect the interest or the sense of unidentified feeling arising.
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Post by tzujanli on Sept 23, 2014 20:53:25 GMT -5
Peace and love are descriptions/ideas about experiences.. those words/pointers are what the author wants the observer to understand in the same way the author understands them.. those words carry a certain amount of emotional charge for most people, invoking a conditioned reverence that has imagined penalties for challenging the the authority of the author's invocation..
It's interesting to watch people talk about peace and love, each nodding, and smiling, and agreeing, until.. somebody says something about peace and love the others don't agree with, then peace and love sorta get an attitude..
When people describe what they 'feel' when they use words like peace and love, rather than what they 'think', there is more understanding and less conflict.. for someone to insist that their use of the words 'peace' and 'love' is more awakened, or realized, or enlightened, or just plain better than someone else's reveals an attachment to ideas perceived in a you/me possessive affirmation of individuality.. it's almost as interesting as the self-extinction efforts of tribal rituals like killing others because they don't worship the same 'God' you do, the same 'way' you do..
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Post by enigma on Sept 23, 2014 20:54:57 GMT -5
As you once pointed out -- and I've looked for myself -- underlying either that first thought or emotion is interest. My description of witnessing this during sitting meditation is sort of like observing a chaotic, disjointed and yet essentially undifferentiated blob of mental noise, like static on a radio or TV in between carriers. It's nice to hear other descriptions. I call it a shimmering swamp. When I first started trying ATA I found it hard to distinguish from thinking and wasn't sure whether to try and not attend to it or not. It's almost like a mash of whispering, incoherent voices. Good descriptions. I kinda like "shimmering swamp".
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Post by enigma on Sept 23, 2014 21:00:47 GMT -5
Yeah, it's just a metaphor. The deeper levels of mind that constitute the unconscious or subconscious are still consciousness. By 'conscious thought', I mean a thought that you are actively engaged with, but there's a lot of movement that occurs prior to that about which you know little or nothing. That's why it's almost impossible to prevent thoughts from arising. You're not consciously aware of those deeper movements until a thought 'intrudes', or floats up to the surface of mind, and then all you can do is follow it or reject it. The tendency is to follow it because it gained momentum from your own interest in it.Makes sense. And then we get the idea that we want to stop those thoughts, which means losing interest in them.
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Post by enigma on Sept 23, 2014 21:08:44 GMT -5
Yes, there are collective influences because the individual perspective is a rather arbitrary distinction to begin with, although those individual dynamics have to align with those thoughts/feelings to some degree in order to be influenced, so it's not entirely 'unexplained'. To explain it all we would have to take into account all the movements in the universe, and we're not being quite that ambitious right now. Hehe. No, Peace and Love are not emotions, though the experience can produce such. They are fundamentally an absence, and on the deepest level they are pointing to the same. Neither Peace nor Love can actually be understood because understanding requires the presence of various defining qualities, and as an absence, they have no qualities. Qualities are tools of separation, and so the absence of those qualities naturally merges with the self to become what one IS. Hencely, one IS Peace/Love. One knows Peace/Love in the way that one knows self, which is to say, by being rather than knowing. It occurred to me this morning that most of the time the idea of inclusion comes up in a conversation, that the advocate for a description based on inclusion probably has read the word absence in statements such as yours here, as implying exclusion. Prolly inevitable. I don't know how else talk about what isn't there.
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