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Post by tzujanli on Jan 26, 2015 6:24:51 GMT -5
Duality and Non-Duality are both mental dialogues, describing an experience, that frequently occurs as one shifts perspectives. Its often the case that when one shifts from a life prevailing perspective of 'duality' to one of 'non-duality', that it's such a significant experience for them that it becomes the main focus of life for a bit. You are a node of conciousness creating experiences, and sometime commenting on them. Dual versus Non-Dual are a shifting of experience patterns for you. Sometimes, people that are searching for their so called true nature, or some ultimate truth or essence of being, look so hard that they NEED an answer. So they look and look, and when that looking leads to a shift in perspective that reveals a non-dual experience, they say to themselves: "This must be it, the True Nature, or Deeply Permanent Truth that I've been looking for", and they kind of latch onto it. Whatever you are thinking, or doing, or experiencing, THIS IS YOU, your deepest nature, your truest self...their is no other, ONLY YOU. Really nice!! though i would point out that there over 7 Billion 'ONLY YOUs'...
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Post by laughter on Jan 26, 2015 10:34:03 GMT -5
Hi Laughter, The example concerning feelings of guilt is only one aspect that has come out of the accounts so far. I would appreciate your description of whatever was most important to you in the description of non duality you had (still have) and why that aspect was most important. Another example from the accounts is feelings of disconnection from source, a sort of abandonment, which were eased by the idea in the description held that disconnection was impossible. The interest is in whether there are clear links between particular aspects of what may be going on internally and the particular aspects of the description resonated with. As far as I can see so far this has nothing to do with enlightenment/realization but I suppose the stuff about the end of the feeling of disconnection may have something to do with that according to some descriptions of realization anyway. In the accounts, when talking about easing in response to an idea in the description, it was not an understanding that primarily produced the easing but rather a resonance with the idea that drove a desire to understand the idea which in turn deepened the resonance. This process went on in quite an intense way until the easing was complete. amit Does that last paragraph fit with your own experience amit? From corresponding with others over the past few years, it seems a common experience to move from resonance with an idea, toward what might be termed as embodiment of what an idea signifies, over time. I was sort of pre-conditioned to resonate with the idea of nonduality, but what I'd say at present about the idea that most resonates, is that it points away from conceptualizing and conceptualization. Any and all information involves contrast. All information is premised on duality, while not two indirectly references what information cannot convey. Looking backward, affinity with ideas that apparently reduced internal resistance and suffering all happened unconsciously, and preceded the first instance of conscious self-inquiry. So the story here is of a process in which that first conscious inquiry led directly to a temporary but total collapse of self-referential thought and feeling. What eventually spun up after that was a currently ongoing process of informing of mind. It's clear from the informing that this story is just an interpretation of events that suggests a causality that it only apparent. What I would describe by way of personal experience isn't so much an easing of pain because of ideological resonance with not two, but rather a sudden, discontinuous and profound shift that was like shedding a weight. The most apt description of the results of the shift, in terms of the feeling states you've expressed interest in, is the absence of existential dread. Now in terms of the effect of ideas on state of mind and how that relates directly to the transformation of feeling states over time, I'd have to relate the various changes in world view that I underwent leading up to the conscious self-inquiry. That's all of course quite complicated and layered and the description would be after the fact. ... looking back, I'd say, it wasn't the idea of not-two that was involved in that process, but other ideas that are sort of shadows of it.
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Post by amit on Jan 26, 2015 14:10:09 GMT -5
Hi Laughter,
"Does that last paragraph fit with your own experience amit? From corresponding with others over the past few years, it seems a common experience to move from resonance with an idea, toward what might be termed as embodiment of what an idea signifies, over time"
Yes the majority of the accounts I have so far are like that including my own.
From what you have said so far I have taken the following:-
(concern) The absence of a "pointer" pointing away from conceptualizing and conceptualization" and a "talisman" to facilitate and support inquiring about yourself and the world. The presence of existential dread.
(resonance) The aspects in the description you have that describe non duality as a pointer away from conceptualizing and conceptualization, a talisman for inquiry, and the end of existential dread.
That may be totally wrong and I would appreciate your help in reaching a description you are happy with. Please modify totally if that's the case.
It has been difficult putting the accounts together both for the participants (all very willing) and myself as great care was needed so that they were happy with the descriptions. This is why I only have 20 accounts out of 100 or so attempted so far.
If possible, as in the examples given, I'm looking for an actual statement of the main concern and a statement of the aspect of the description held that resonated and addressed that concern.
I appreciate you doing this
amit
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Post by amit on Jan 26, 2015 14:27:16 GMT -5
Hi Steve,
By process I simply mean the movement from one position to another starting with your most important concern which led to seeking solutions for that concern, your discovery of a description of non-duality, and the most important aspect of that description that addressed that concern.
amit
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Post by amit on Jan 26, 2015 14:33:15 GMT -5
Hi Tenka,
I think I get that without needing any clarification but please feel free to add more detail if you wish.
Thank you Tenka.
amit
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Post by amit on Jan 26, 2015 15:03:00 GMT -5
Hi Enigma,
During (or after) the process of gathering the accounts there was no consideration by me of how valid they might be. It was simply a process of trying to describe what was being said.
So far there has only been one account of this type that mentioned guilt specifically, an identical twin who made the decision to turn off her sisters life support and bitterly regretted it afterwards. She turned to Zen and took precepts after years of extreme discipline. She came across non duality at a Tony Parsons meeting in London who talks a lot about "nothing is happening" which she described as giving her great comfort whenever thoughts of her sister's death arose. She describes that comfort as no-one can be responsible for anything that happens, if nothing is happening.
Others have also referred to "nothing is happening" as the most important aspect resonated with, also to do with concerns about responsibility.
amit
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Post by steven on Jan 26, 2015 17:42:29 GMT -5
Hi Steve, By process I simply mean the movement from one position to another starting with your most important concern which led to seeking solutions for that concern, your discovery of a description of non-duality, and the most important aspect of that description that addressed that concern. amit I don't remember ever having a 'concern' that lead me to something called non-duality. I did have some interest in pushing the envelope of human possibility, and some interest in the nature of existence, but I never found a description of non-duality that satisfied me...in fact, from the beginning I threw out every description I came across, vigorously so. No description could or would ever satisfy my interest...only what I could directly experience. So I looked for methods of experience, of finding out and experiencing directly, and set aside any descriptions that I ever found. Your line of questioning is geared toward an intellectual exploration of non-duality....a philosophical type of endevor....I was never interested much in that. Moving from one intellectual position to another intellectual position regarding an experience that cannot be grasped intellectually migh be less useful than stacking rocks and unstacking them lol
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Post by enigma on Jan 26, 2015 21:46:07 GMT -5
Duality and Non-Duality are both mental dialogues, describing an experience, that frequently occurs as one shifts perspectives. Its often the case that when one shifts from a life prevailing perspective of 'duality' to one of 'non-duality', that it's such a significant experience for them that it becomes the main focus of life for a bit. You are a node of conciousness creating experiences, and sometime commenting on them. Dual versus Non-Dual are a shifting of experience patterns for you. Sometimes, people that are searching for their so called true nature, or some ultimate truth or essence of being, look so hard that they NEED an answer. So they look and look, and when that looking leads to a shift in perspective that reveals a non-dual experience, they say to themselves: "This must be it, the True Nature, or Deeply Permanent Truth that I've been looking for", and they kind of latch onto it. Whatever you are thinking, or doing, or experiencing, THIS IS YOU, your deepest nature, your truest self...their is no other, ONLY YOU. Really nice!! though i would point out that there over 7 Billion 'ONLY YOUs'...
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Post by enigma on Jan 26, 2015 22:22:34 GMT -5
Hi Steve, By process I simply mean the movement from one position to another starting with your most important concern which led to seeking solutions for that concern, your discovery of a description of non-duality, and the most important aspect of that description that addressed that concern. amit I don't remember ever having a 'concern' that lead me to something called non-duality. I did have some interest in pushing the envelope of human possibility, and some interest in the nature of existence, but I never found a description of non-duality that satisfied me...in fact, from the beginning I threw out every description I came across, vigorously so. No description could or would ever satisfy my interest...only what I could directly experience. So I looked for methods of experience, of finding out and experiencing directly, and set aside any descriptions that I ever found. Your line of questioning is geared toward an intellectual exploration of non-duality....a philosophical type of endevor....I was never interested much in that. Moving from one intellectual position to another intellectual position regarding an experience that cannot be grasped intellectually migh be less useful than stacking rocks and unstacking them lol[Yeah, I'm down wit dat too.
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Post by steven on Jan 26, 2015 22:36:51 GMT -5
Really nice!! though i would point out that there over 7 Billion 'ONLY YOUs'... Lmao.
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Post by laughter on Jan 27, 2015 8:04:08 GMT -5
Hi Laughter, "Does that last paragraph fit with your own experience amit? From corresponding with others over the past few years, it seems a common experience to move from resonance with an idea, toward what might be termed as embodiment of what an idea signifies, over time" Yes the majority of the accounts I have so far are like that including my own. From what you have said so far I have taken the following:- (concern) The absence of a "pointer" pointing away from conceptualizing and conceptualization" and a "talisman" to facilitate and support inquiring about yourself and the world. The presence of existential dread. (resonance) The aspects in the description you have that describe non duality as a pointer away from conceptualizing and conceptualization, a talisman for inquiry, and the end of existential dread. That may be totally wrong and I would appreciate your help in reaching a description you are happy with. Please modify totally if that's the case. It has been difficult putting the accounts together both for the participants (all very willing) and myself as great care was needed so that they were happy with the descriptions. This is why I only have 20 accounts out of 100 or so attempted so far. If possible, as in the examples given, I'm looking for an actual statement of the main concern and a statement of the aspect of the description held that resonated and addressed that concern. I appreciate you doing this amit Sure, my pleasure amit ... I'd have taken this private already by now, but perhaps there still might be someone reading who can get an idea of what you're looking for by the dialog and be willing to contribute. The summary that you've got doesn't match what I've tried to convey and that's probably because our experiences have some fundamental structural differences. I'll try to bridge that gap. The existential dread was never a conscious concern and the disappearance of it was both not sought and unexpected. Self-inquiry was never anything that I was consciously aware of until sort of stumbling onto it, and the material that I encountered it in didn't explicitly mention nonduality. If there was ever any applicable concern involved in what led up to the inquiry it could be stated as curiosity. What is reality? What is real? What is true? This wasn't directed inward, it was directed outward, and the only conscious process involved in the concern was intellectual. This curiosity was quite intense but it didn't directly involve the idea of suffering. I found what I encountered along the way to be really interesting, and sometimes even shocking in how different it was from common everyday experience and the typical views people seem to have, but none of it was frightening or oppressive or driven by any sort of negative feeling. During that time there was never any conscious concern over personal suffering in any abstract sense. The world was what it was: sometimes friend and pleasurable, sometimes enemy and hard. Struggle and conflict was just taken for granted as a fact of life. Any looking inward was done unconsciously, which isn't to say that, looking back, it didn't happen, and actually, quite often. But the bottom line is that the dread wasn't even something that I was really all that aware of. So that process of intellectual curiosity and learning ran a course for decades, and as I've mentioned, it involved ideas that are relatable to, but are not exactly, nonduality. The short version of the story is of a progression from atheism ( material monism) softening to agnosticism ( monistic idealism), before stumbling onto the inquiry. The search for conceptual truth continued even after I'd encountered and had to accept the notion that all conceptual truth is relative. So the concern could be stated as "What is true?". I really didn't encounter not-two in the form that I understand it today until after I got curious about what happened in that first conscious self-inquiry that resulted in the disappearance of the dread. That process was relatively short in comparison to the years of looking with the mind. The notion of examining all belief, and allowing for and actively looking for conceptual structures that I was unconscious of relying on, accelerated that process. So the resonance with not-two could be stated as: "there is no conceptual answer to be found in self-inquiry". Hope this helps fit my experience into your grid and I'll be glad to go into more detail if you'd like.
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Post by amit on Jan 27, 2015 12:19:34 GMT -5
Hi Steve,
Fair enough if that's the case.
Id be interested to know which "method(s) of experience" you found most helpful in addressing your interests and why they were particularly useful. How is it going with those? Did they answer any questions for you?
amit
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Post by amit on Jan 27, 2015 12:26:58 GMT -5
Hi Laughter,
That's really helpful and clear.
Thank you.
amit
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Post by steven on Jan 27, 2015 14:22:00 GMT -5
Hi Steve, Fair enough if that's the case. Id be interested to know which "method(s) of experience" you found most helpful in addressing your interests and why they were particularly useful. How is it going with those? Did they answer any questions for you? amit Hello Amit, Let me preface by saying that this is my CURRENT story about what happened, and it's very likely to change later hehehe A flaw in your research is that modern nuero science has very clearly proven that our memories are NEVER accurate, and that effectively we ALL piece together largely inaccurate stories of what has happened before, and this is true even of our own direct experiences. So whatever people relate to you is in every single case going to be a fabrication to some extent. Still though, one could argue that it's still interesting to look at the patterns of memory fabrications or story-telling on this subject matter, but even so, you have to ask how much you line of questioning and the previous remarks of yourself and the other people offering their experiences are shaping the stories/memories shared by latter participants in your case study ;-) Having said that...:-) My early interest was in pushing outwards to the limits of the human experience...somehow I chose the direction of Budhahood to push the envelope in my late teens early twenties....I could have pushed the envelope in another direction, and tried to set athletic world records, or tried to push the envelope of scientific understanding etc, but reasons unknown to me I chose Budhahood as the direction I would push into. Somewhere along the way though, that exploration shifted to just a genuine awe and curiousity of experience. Meditation was a big part of my experience, and the result of meditation is a shifting of one's perspective in a way that reveals much more of the nature of things than simply experience life from the singular perspective of an individual viewing a world so-to-speak. So to answer your question, the 'methods' I used were countless forms of meditation that shifted my perspective, and therefore my direct experience of this existence. Regarding whether those methods answered my questions, certainly they did for a bit, but ultimately they lead to the lack of a strong inherent NEED for answers and questions....in a way they lead to the lack of the compulsion to ask questions and get answers. I still ask questions of existence, but it's no longer a NEED or a compulsion, it's more of a an entertainment that I sometimes engage in, and sometimes, frequently, do not. My questioning now-a-days is not so much a questioning, as it is a kind of fascination with what reveals itself lol Its more of an open type of curiousity that says, "wow, that's amazing, what's next?" :-)
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Post by amit on Jan 27, 2015 15:14:25 GMT -5
Hi Steve,
I don't know about the proof you mention but yes great care has to be taken to avoid those pitfalls and there are still no guarantees that what has been recorded is a reasonably accurate account. I can say however that the vast majority of the participants described it as a useful self inquiry, in some cases, into an aspect of themselves that had not been the subject of self inquiry before. Most of them were clearer about the aspect of the description held that was most important, than they were about the main concern driving the search. It was that aspect that took more time to consider and describe perhaps not surprisingly as it involved looking within , often at painful feelings, rather than outward at an idea although they were asked to relate that idea back inside to their feelings.
Thank you for your description of how things are and have been for you. It doesn't fit with the parameters of this study which relate only to non-duality. I wish it did as your response was most open but you excluded non duality as something resonated with.
Thanks again.
amit
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