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Post by zendancer on Jan 18, 2015 9:55:37 GMT -5
If you read ZD's examples, you'll see that they refer to revealing misconceptions. I don't know if it's legal to call that an answer or not, but I know I'm not going to parse words with you anymore. But, parsing words is your expertise, you just dodge issues that reveal the inconsistencies of your beliefs, you get mad and end the discussion rather than admit an inconsistency.. Tzu: Ignoring your claim about parsing or getting mad, I hope you realize that the idea of consistency is not particularly applicable to discussions about nonduality. Two teachers, or the same teacher, can say opposite things about nonduality, but be pointing to the same thing. Language is dualistic, but when it is used to point to that which is not dualistic, the words must always be both true and false at the same time. Gangaji, for example, tells people that they have a choice concerning what they do, but Ramesh said just the opposite. They were both pointing in their own way to the same thing. Someone once accused Niz of being inconsistent, and he just laughed, and said something like, "Of course I am because I'm using different words with different people to point to the same no-thing." The reason koans became popular in Zen as a teaching/testing mechanism is that they transcend the usual way language is used. In fact, most koans are not answered with words at all. A classic koan is to point to some physical object and ask, "What is it? If you call it X, you fall into hell, but if you say it is NOT X you fall into a deeper hell. What is it beyond either X or not X?" Even those koans that are answered with words do not use words in the usual dualistic way because they are pointing to what we might call "a unified field of being." From a snarkier perspective this old quote points to the same thing in a different way, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
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Post by enigma on Jan 18, 2015 11:59:46 GMT -5
No, I'm saying the practice of trying to stop the thoughts is a split mind practice because the one who wants to think is the same one who wants to stop the thoughts. Well........no........not necessarily. That's why there is a middle layer. Hence the problem with imagining a middle layer. The middle layer IS the split mind phenomena, unrecognized. The idea of a small self and a large Self is a split mind. There is only Self, which is all encompassing and non-differentiated. The individuated mind/body arises within that Self, but it is not a self. From within the belief that it is, there seems to be a larger Self, or middle layer, that knows mind, or feeds mind, or guides mind, or however that is imagined. There is just that Self, or Beingness, or Isness, or Intelligence, or Consciousness, or Essence, and no others. You are That. This is what nonduality points to, which is not a complex belief system, but just that simple pointing to your true nature.
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Post by figgles on Jan 18, 2015 12:26:38 GMT -5
Losing interest in an existential question because the question is seen through is different than losing interest in the question because a concrete answer is arrived at. To see 'what is true' and to then rest in a knowing/concrete answer that results from that, is to take on a presence, while to see what is not so, is to release an idea that was previously known/believed to be true. Anytime an existential question arises and we arrive at a concrete answer, we've taken another idea on, rather than had one fall away...as I said in an earlier post, we've added to the spiritual knapsack rather than lightened the load. No. When a concrete answer arises, it has nothing to do with ideas. One idea does not get replaced with another idea or a new idea. What one sees is what Jesus called "the living truth" and that has nothing to do with ideas. It is not a conceptual truth. For example, Ramana's invitation to self-inquiry usually takes the form of "Who am I, really?" We begin with a conceptualized identity. We think we are a person with a name and a story and various personality traits, and we think that we are separate observers of an externalized universe. If we discover who we really are, the conceptual identity collapses, and we realize that we are the cosmos itself--what Ramana called "The Self." We don't have an idea that we are the cosmos; we directly know that we are the cosmos. It is the difference between "episteme" and "gnosis." If you are in fact saying that certain concrete answers to existential DO get revealed , then I think you are saying something different from E, (?) who seems to be saying that misconceptions gets revealed and thus, the question itself falls away. As I see it, It's one thing for the sense of limitation, being apart from the whole, the need to know concrete answers, to fall away, but quite another to take on a concrete and succinctly describable knowing, about 'what' or 'who' I actually am. In my experience, there are no words to describe that..... certainly nothing that I'd describe as a 'concrete answer'.... not a stagnant 'something' at all that I could put a label or one word to, but rather, "I amness" gets revealed in each moment through experience, and simple being, itself........... but indeed it has been seen that I am not: limited, apart from the whole of experience, a limited who or a bounded what..... Directly 'knowing' you are the cosmos is imo, different from experiencing yourself as the cosmos. And that might sound like nit-picking, but it really isn't when you see that experiencing as the cosmos, requires no attachment to any ideas, no affirmative answer to the question 'what am I', while 'knowing' I am the cosmos, does. So I do understand how an existential question can result in the collapse of the question due to seeing what I'm not, and thus, seeing that the question itself was misconceived, but I don't really have a reference these days for anything that would resemble 'a concrete' affirmative answer to an existential question.....there is simply peace in being, and no more need to 'know' or 'gnosis' anything in particuar about the nature of existence....other than, THIS right here, right now, is IT. Seeing what I am not, need not result in turning around to see precisely and concretely 'what i am' and I'd suggest that if that's the case, mind has intervened the realization and is trying to fill in the blanks, because the question of 'what am I' is still to some degree active. AS I see it, the question 'who am I, really' is one that arises out of need..a sense of feeling lost, limited, apart from the whole of experience, etc. thus, the only 'answer' that is not concrete and does not add more baggage to the knapsack, is the falling away of those beliefs in limitation and the sense of being apartness that they result in...but then, I wouldn't really call that 'an answer.'
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Post by enigma on Jan 18, 2015 12:27:15 GMT -5
If you read ZD's examples, you'll see that they refer to revealing misconceptions. I don't know if it's legal to call that an answer or not, but I know I'm not going to parse words with you anymore. But, parsing words is your expertise, you just dodge issues that reveal the inconsistencies of your beliefs, you get mad and end the discussion rather than admit an inconsistency.. 1) Parsing words is usually a word game designed to make another wrong by analyzing the map and ignoring the territory. 2) I like to think I never dodge issues, as that would be inconsistent with an interest in WIBIGO. However, I have an insanity threshold beyond which I will not continue. 3) I'm not aware of any inconsistencies, though I do see how others form them by analyzing maps and parsing words. 4) Nobody here has the power to make me mad. You give yourself too much credit. The complaints from some here regarding the poor quality of discussion have merit, and so for some time now, and increasingly, I've been responding to the most insane comments by not responding. Don't be misled into thinking that means you win. It just means you're too insane to have a sane discussion with.
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Post by figgles on Jan 18, 2015 12:31:31 GMT -5
yeah, okay. I would not call that an answer then, I'd call it the falling away or seeing through of the question. but, I coulda swore that you agreed with ZD, that you had lots of existential question and received 'answers' to them...? So, really, what you meant there was that the questions themselves to those existential questions, fell away? Read more: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/user/279/recent#ixzz3P8wBmMmpWhen Zd talks of 'getting answers to tons of questions' seems to me, he's talking about actual affirmative answers to the existential questions...not just a falling away of the question itself...and in that quote, you seem to be saying that you too received actual answers to your existential questions through realization. ? If you read ZD's examples, you'll see that they refer to revealing misconceptions. I don't know if it's legal to call that an answer or not, but I know I'm not going to parse words with you anymore. I'm not parsing words here for the he11 of it E...it pertains directly to the whole conversation about whether you are pointing to an absence or invoking a presence as you engage here as you do. If concrete answers really do get arrived at through realization, as ZD says, and you agree with that, then you are indeed conveying affirmative 'truths' about existence rather than shedding light upon how the questions themselves are misconceived...and rather than simply pointing to an absence of knowing/belief as you so often say you are. This is precisely why Andrew is saying you DO have a model, and why many of us say you do more than just point to the ineffable. If it is held to be true that "I am the cosmos" or "Oneness is true", an affirmative knowing about existence is in place...that is not the same as seeing through the question, or resting easily and comfortably in 'not knowing.'
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 18, 2015 12:43:48 GMT -5
Well........no........not necessarily. That's why there is a middle layer. Hence the problem with imagining a middle layer. The middle layer IS the split mind phenomena, unrecognized. The idea of a small self and a large Self is a split mind. There is only Self, which is all encompassing and non-differentiated. The individuated mind/body arises within that Self, but it is not a self. From within the belief that it is, there seems to be a larger Self, or middle layer, that knows mind, or feeds mind, or guides mind, or however that is imagined. There is just that Self, or Beingness, or Isness, or Intelligence, or Consciousness, or Essence, and no others. You are That. This is what nonduality points to, which is not a complex belief system, but just that simple pointing to your true nature. I have described the middle layer numerous times. Essence is what you were born with. ......But I guess that is not a problem for you, as everything is merely an appearance in nonduality, for you. So the body, also....is...an...illusion....in....nonduality...for.....you.......
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 18, 2015 12:45:04 GMT -5
No. When a concrete answer arises, it has nothing to do with ideas. One idea does not get replaced with another idea or a new idea. What one sees is what Jesus called "the living truth" and that has nothing to do with ideas. It is not a conceptual truth. For example, Ramana's invitation to self-inquiry usually takes the form of "Who am I, really?" We begin with a conceptualized identity. We think we are a person with a name and a story and various personality traits, and we think that we are separate observers of an externalized universe. If we discover who we really are, the conceptual identity collapses, and we realize that we are the cosmos itself--what Ramana called "The Self." We don't have an idea that we are the cosmos; we directly know that we are the cosmos. It is the difference between "episteme" and "gnosis." If you are in fact saying that certain concrete answers to existential DO get revealed , then I think you are saying something different from E, (?) who seems to be saying that misconceptions gets revealed and thus, the question itself falls away. As I see it, It's one thing for the sense of limitation, being apart from the whole, the need to know concrete answers, to fall away, but quite another to take on a concrete and succinctly describable knowing, about 'what' or 'who' I actually am. In my experience, there are no words to describe that..... certainly nothing that I'd describe as a 'concrete answer'.... not a stagnant 'something' at all that I could put a label or one word to, but rather, "I amness" gets revealed in each moment through experience, and simple being, itself........... but indeed it has been seen that I am not: limited, apart from the whole of experience, a limited who or a bounded what..... Directly 'knowing' you are the cosmos is imo, different from experiencing yourself as the cosmos. And that might sound like nit-picking, but it really isn't when you see that experiencing as the cosmos, requires no attachment to any ideas, no affirmative answer to the question 'what am I', while 'knowing' I am the cosmos, does. So I do understand how an existential question can result in the collapse of the question due to seeing what I'm not, and thus, seeing that the question itself was misconceived, but I don't really have a reference these days for anything that would resemble 'a concrete' affirmative answer to an existential question.....there is simply peace in being, and no more need to 'know' or 'gnosis' anything in particuar about the nature of existence....other than, THIS right here, right now, is IT. Seeing what I am not, need not result in turning around to see precisely and concretely 'what i am' and I'd suggest that if that's the case, mind has intervened the realization and is trying to fill in the blanks, because the question of 'what am I' is still to some degree active. AS I see it, the question 'who am I, really' is one that arises out of need..a sense of feeling lost, limited, apart from the whole of experience, etc. thus, the only 'answer' that is not concrete and does not add more baggage to the knapsack, is the falling away of those beliefs in limitation and the sense of being apartness that they result in...but then, I wouldn't really call that 'an answer.' Nothing E ever says is relevant.......because everything is merely an illusion in nonduality, for him. This is why zd always makes sense, and E, never.
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Post by enigma on Jan 18, 2015 13:06:16 GMT -5
But, parsing words is your expertise, you just dodge issues that reveal the inconsistencies of your beliefs, you get mad and end the discussion rather than admit an inconsistency.. Tzu: Ignoring your claim about parsing or getting mad, I hope you realize that the idea of consistency is not particularly applicable to discussions about nonduality. Two teachers, or the same teacher, can say opposite things about nonduality, but be pointing to the same thing. Language is dualistic, but when it is used to point to that which is not dualistic, the words must always be both true and false at the same time. Gangaji, for example, tells people that they have a choice concerning what they do, but Ramesh said just the opposite. They were both pointing in their own way to the same thing. Someone once accused Niz of being inconsistent, and he just laughed, and said something like, "Of course I am because I'm using different words with different people to point to the same no-thing." The reason koans became popular in Zen as a teaching/testing mechanism is that they transcend the usual way language is used. In fact, most koans are not answered with words at all. A classic koan is to point to some physical object and ask, "What is it? If you call it X, you fall into hell, but if you say it is NOT X you fall into a deeper hell. What is it beyond either X or not X?" Even those koans that are answered with words do not use words in the usual dualistic way because they are pointing to what we might call "a unified field of being." From a snarkier perspective this old quote points to the same thing in a different way, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Yup, yup. Unlike Niz, I don't lay claim to inconsistency, but instead talk about context, which is really what Niz means when he says different things to different peeps who have a different context of understanding. Essentially, it's helpful to try to get a sense of what's being said or pointed to rather than analyzing and parsing the words. Usually, even attempting to more clearly define the terms used is not particularly useful, cuz it's not really about the words.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 13:09:42 GMT -5
Well........no........not necessarily. That's why there is a middle layer. Hence the problem with imagining a middle layer. The middle layer IS the split mind phenomena, unrecognized. The idea of a small self and a large Self is a split mind. There is only Self, which is all encompassing and non-differentiated. The individuated mind/body arises within that Self, but it is not a self. From within the belief that it is, there seems to be a larger Self, or middle layer, that knows mind, or feeds mind, or guides mind, or however that is imagined. There is just that Self, or Beingness, or Isness, or Intelligence, or Consciousness, or Essence, and no others. You are That. This is what nonduality points to, which is not a complex belief system, but just that simple pointing to your true nature. How does then more than one perceiver is here? Is it a same self perceiving from different view points?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 13:10:06 GMT -5
Nothing E ever says is relevant.......because everything is merely an illusion in nonduality, for him. This is why zd always makes sense, and E, never. From Earnest's poll... those in choice 1 hear E fairly well, cuz there is the whole honesty/sincerity/willingness vibe going on those in choice 2 hear the parts which seem to validate their models, but are pretty much deaf to anything else and those in choice 3 offer similar pointers, but in different ways
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 18, 2015 13:10:23 GMT -5
Tzu: Ignoring your claim about parsing or getting mad, I hope you realize that the idea of consistency is not particularly applicable to discussions about nonduality. Two teachers, or the same teacher, can say opposite things about nonduality, but be pointing to the same thing. Language is dualistic, but when it is used to point to that which is not dualistic, the words must always be both true and false at the same time. Gangaji, for example, tells people that they have a choice concerning what they do, but Ramesh said just the opposite. They were both pointing in their own way to the same thing. Someone once accused Niz of being inconsistent, and he just laughed, and said something like, "Of course I am because I'm using different words with different people to point to the same no-thing." The reason koans became popular in Zen as a teaching/testing mechanism is that they transcend the usual way language is used. In fact, most koans are not answered with words at all. A classic koan is to point to some physical object and ask, "What is it? If you call it X, you fall into hell, but if you say it is NOT X you fall into a deeper hell. What is it beyond either X or not X?" Even those koans that are answered with words do not use words in the usual dualistic way because they are pointing to what we might call "a unified field of being." From a snarkier perspective this old quote points to the same thing in a different way, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Yup, yup. Unlike Niz, I don't lay claim to inconsistency, but instead talk about context, which is really what Niz means when he says different things to different peeps who have a different context of understanding. Essentially, it's helpful to try to get a sense of what's being said or pointed to rather than analyzing and parsing the words. Usually, even attempting to more clearly define the terms used is not particularly useful, cuz it's not really about the words. Then you need to take a dose of your own medicine. You parse words like nobody else on ST's. You constantly jump on one little word out of place, any tiny little contradiction. "Do you realize what you said?" is your mantra.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 13:19:24 GMT -5
It IS more complicated. Far more complicated. If it were simple, I'd get it. It's not. All I was hoping for, was for you to use an example of a previous conversation with others that has absolutely NOTHING to do with a weight problem, that is related to the stuff you usually talk about. Okay, the practice of trying to stop the thoughts is a split mind practice because the one who wants to think is the same one who wants to stop the thoughts. Yes correct, but if someone after reading your message tries to be the way they are rather than stopping the thoughts, then that's an another creation of the mind, because stopping and allowing are creations of mind, it needs to be repeated at due time.
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Post by enigma on Jan 18, 2015 13:22:51 GMT -5
If you read ZD's examples, you'll see that they refer to revealing misconceptions. I don't know if it's legal to call that an answer or not, but I know I'm not going to parse words with you anymore. I'm not parsing words here for the he11 of it E... I didn't mean to imply you are. I meant to imply you have an agenda. No, every time I open my mouth, Andrew says I'm talking about a model, because he believes everybody is talking about a model. He would say you are talking about a model. I've made myself clear with 'nothing is ultimately true' and 'everything collapses into a little greasy spot' and 'the questions don't get answered but rather are seen to be misconceived', and about a dozen other things I say regularly. Ask yourself why you would question my use of the term 'answers' now, which was really Steve's term, and ignore everything else I've said for years.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2015 13:28:34 GMT -5
But the models are all made up of theories and philosophies, and the theories and philosophies all fit into models. A model is just larger a set of ideas rather than a specific theory seeking proof, or a philosophy that need not be confined to a scientific discipline. I don't have a problem with models, theories and philosophies. They just don't seem to have much to do with spirituality, at least the sort that we generally discuss here. Ummm...A model is a representation of something 'actual'. When we describe our own experiences, understandings, realizations, we're using words and ideas to represent them. Your point is well taken that these words and ideas are not to be looked at, it's what they're representing (pointing to) that's meant to be looked at. But they're still models until that point. Or maps or pointers. Theories are different in that they're extrapolations/ideas about the experience, understanding, realization. I agree with this. If you speak rationally, and value logic in communication, you're already dealing with models. Consciousness or awareness being prior to all else. I've got no problem with models. Pointers sit within the context of models. If you don't understand the model, you won't know which way the pointer is pointing. For example nonduality requires an understanding of duality. You've got to know where that is to look away from it. And duality ain't an elementary concept. When we put stuff in the * * or _____ or this.is.it or still mind or This....none of that stuff makes sense without a context of understanding, a model.
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Post by enigma on Jan 18, 2015 13:31:53 GMT -5
Hence the problem with imagining a middle layer. The middle layer IS the split mind phenomena, unrecognized. The idea of a small self and a large Self is a split mind. There is only Self, which is all encompassing and non-differentiated. The individuated mind/body arises within that Self, but it is not a self. From within the belief that it is, there seems to be a larger Self, or middle layer, that knows mind, or feeds mind, or guides mind, or however that is imagined. There is just that Self, or Beingness, or Isness, or Intelligence, or Consciousness, or Essence, and no others. You are That. This is what nonduality points to, which is not a complex belief system, but just that simple pointing to your true nature. I have described the middle layer numerous times. Yes, and I don't remember asking you to do it again. It is also what were before you were born, what you are now, and what you will always be. Do you think you can be other than the essence that you are? Yes...it...is...However...I...don't...understand...where...the...problem...would...be...for... me...in...being...born...'with'...essence...
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