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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 17:12:11 GMT -5
Tzu: It's too bad that you've never had either an experience or a realization that would allow you to understand what many of us on this forum write about, but your questions make it obvious that you haven't. One of the significant differences between most religious believers and peeps who have had experiences and realizations related to non-duality is their advice to other peeps NOT to rely upon second-hand accounts, but to look within themselves in order to find the living truth. Their advice is to give up ALL ideas and beliefs, and to enter the unknown in order to discover what can be found there. Ironically, your repeated admonition to "look with a still mind" is wonderful advice, and all that I can suggest is to keep looking with a still mind. Perhaps one day you'll get a glimpse of what many of us who have followed that advice enjoy writing about. You have no way of knowing that with certainty. What if Tzu has 'gone further/deeper' and has seen/realized something YOU have not seen? After all, You can only see what you can currently see. If that were so, he would at least have an understanding of what he left so far behind. He doesn't.
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 17:13:39 GMT -5
Conditional love is personal, and unconditional Love is impersonal. That's the difference. I mentioned to somebody that since there are limits to describing that which is inherently indescribable, your logical analysis will always eventually seem to prove you to be right, and I'll have to surrender as I did once already. The only question is, how far can I go with the words before we reach that logical impasse. But when you talked bout a certain kind of relationship (based upon appreciation rather than expectation) you seemed to be created at least somewhat of a bridge between the two (love and Love). After all, as you said yourself, 'relationship' requires form. And...
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Post by andrew on Mar 29, 2015 17:24:12 GMT -5
Precisely. His description of Love sounds very similar to his description of Peace, and yet, he does make a distinction between the two. ..and, of course, he makes an even larger distinction between Love and Hate. Well, lets just call it Hate, then. It hardly matters since neither of you knows what I'm talking about. I was, and am, fine with your description of Love.
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Post by zin on Mar 29, 2015 17:36:34 GMT -5
Today's emoticon comment: It seems the frog ate the cigarette smoking small thing (if I remember rightly) that was there before!! It was a bit dangerous (made me remember the good old days of smoking) but I will keep the memory.. (but frog is nice, too! )
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2015 18:56:12 GMT -5
He said essence is conscious and aware. He also said essence is energy. You said that was succinct and accurate. Hence, my question about the conscious, aware fire. Essence is a movement of energy that is conscious and aware. Any living thing is a movement of energy. That's one requirement of life, a something that feeds on something else.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2015 19:00:33 GMT -5
Say goodnight D!ck. Goodnight D!ck (You can't be that old ).
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2015 19:20:03 GMT -5
Yes, that's a good point. Thomas Dewey in his book "Art as Experience" makes this same distinction. He notes that when we talk about "an experience," we are talking about a cognizable period of time that has a beginning, middle, and end. If, however, we are talking about "the experience of life," we are talking about something that is continuous, and is not being imaginatively cognized into distinct segments, or separate happenings. Until E. came to the forum I had never thought about the difference between realizations and experiences, but one of his first posts brought that difference to my attention. As a body/mind that had had many unusual and distinct experiences, as well as many different realizations, this distinction seemed highly significant. Realizations have always been instantaneous and experiences have always involved duration. A CC experience might last fifteen minutes, and an experience of nirvikalpa samadhi might last two hours, but a realization has always involved a sudden seeing of something that was previously unseen. SR falls into the latter category, so even though it occurs within the lifetime of an individual, when it occurs, it is instantaneous, and most people can remember the exact time when it occurred. I now place even more importance on this distinction than before because it highlights the difference between transitory experiences of unity consciousness and unity consciousness that is continuous. Sat posted a quote from Ramana that cleared up a detail that I had often wondered about. Ramana and several other sages in the Advaita tradition distinguish between numerous forms of Samadhi (between 4 and 10), whereas Zen Masters usually only refer to two kinds of samadhi. I was familiar with the terminology, but I was never quite certain what each kind of samadhi in the Advaita tradition described. Because of this thread that issue has now been cleared up. Advaita sages use the word "samadhi" to refer to all of the various kinds of unity consciousness. What they consider a "lesser" samadhi is simply what happens when someone focuses so strongly upon a particular activity that self referential thought is absent for a while. A "higher/deeper" samadhi is the kind of unity consciousness that occurs when someone (often an athlete) enters "the Zone." Zone experiences are often deeply mystical, and they are remembered as highly unusual because it is obvious that time, space, and selfhood were totally absent for some period of time. An even "higher/deeper" form of samadhi is what Advaita sages call "nivikalpa samadhi" (Zen Masters call it "absolute samadhi"). In that kind of samadhi body and mind totally fall away and only pure awareness without content remains. Ramana and other Advaita sages have always referred to "sahaja samadhi" as the highest form of samadhi, but I never knew what they were using that phrase to refer to. When I read the Ramana quote that Sat posted, it suddenly became clear that what that phrase refers to is not a state at all; it is what I've been calling "flow," and it can only occur after SR (because there is no longer a separate person having transitory experiences). I'm relatively sure that Advaita sages have a phrase that refers to the samadhi of CC experiences, because they are another form of unity consciousness, but I don't yet know what that kind of samadhi is called. Your distinction between experience and experience is misconceived, you're comparing 'event vs happening', as if the same process of experience doesn't reveal both.. The whole Zen/Advaita/Buddhist religion stuff are really just mind-traps in the flow of experiencing existence, like whirlpools in the stream of consciousness where ideas go round and round, until they don't.. The realization scam is just another effect of experience informing intelligence, and mind hijacking the process as another side-show Spiritual Circus.. No, I don't really even have realization in my vocabulary, but even I get the distinction. I relate realization with understanding. Once you see something as true, you can't unsee it. It's like you can't unring a bell. It's like a light bulb going off (I guess that would be, on).
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 19:28:17 GMT -5
Oh, yes. Logic is a crap. Can you please stop making this grammatical error? Logic is a craps ok? All these crap, too many to count. Oops! Sorry.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2015 19:34:55 GMT -5
Kay, so if feeling is involved in the experience of the movement of what you are terming "Love", but the Love is not itself, just the feeling, couldn't it then be said that the feeling component of love (small "L"..absent the conditions that limit it) is not distinct, apart from or separate from "Love"? I would say that any and every feeling of love/loving, is an indication of at least a temporary, momentous absence of the conditions that would otherwise interfere with the presence of appreciation. Indeed, the reason for the arising of the feeling of love may be very conditional, but that present moment of the feeling of love, itself, is only 'attached' to those conditions in the sense that they are believed to be necessary, and true. The actual, specific feeling of love, in the moment it IS, is arising in spite of those conditions...those attachment...those beliefs in limitation. The reason peeps find love hard to define is because it's so subjective. Some mistake sexual attraction for love, others mistake need fulfillment for it, or the mothering instinct, etc. There are various kinds of love. That's what happens when something is fundamentally an idea. Bottom line, no, I'm not inclined to make the sort of connections you're referring to. In fact, the more I look at it, the less connection I see. Love is not hard to understand. That thing I described of instances between me and a little kid in a restaurant, that's love exchanged, practically, concretely.
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 19:45:39 GMT -5
So why a 'loveless' world without women? I didn't say anything about there being a world without women or that it would be loveless, did I? Boredom is lovelessness. You may not have meant to, but yeah, ya did. linky
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 19:51:23 GMT -5
Are you referring to the person as 'the act of perception which has been held by perception'? When you say perception, it can't remain without perceiver, So perception always holds the perceiver. If you give the definition for person as perceiver, then yes. Lemme ask it this way: When you say "Perception is holding the attention", the attention of what?
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 29, 2015 20:12:35 GMT -5
Your distinction between experience and experience is misconceived, you're comparing 'event vs happening', as if the same process of experience doesn't reveal both.. The whole Zen/Advaita/Buddhist religion stuff are really just mind-traps in the flow of experiencing existence, like whirlpools in the stream of consciousness where ideas go round and round, until they don't.. The realization scam is just another effect of experience informing intelligence, and mind hijacking the process as another side-show Spiritual Circus.. No, I don't really even have realization in my vocabulary, but even I get the distinction. I relate realization with understanding. Once you see something as true, you can't unsee it. It's like you can't unring a bell. It's like a light bulb going off (I guess that would be, on). I get the distinction, too.. it's the attachment to the realization that fails.. It is as you describe, at some point you 'realize' that what had been understood, is now revised by virtue of change happening in response to experience.. realization can often refine or negate a prior realization, like: realizing the rope is a snake, then realizing the snake is a stick, then realizing the stick is a shadow.. all of which can only be resolved by additional experience, and greater clarity..
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 20:19:52 GMT -5
You have no way of knowing that with certainty. What if Tzu has 'gone further/deeper' and has seen/realized something YOU have not seen? After all, You can only see what you can currently see. Excellent point figgles. What ZD has to explain, is this ordinary world we live in, people and things, time, space, energy, matter, cause and effect, IOW, duality. What is all this? His version of non-duality merely explains it away, it doesn't explain anything. I've tried to go into this but all I get is what Tzu has gotten here, Oh...if you only really 'got it', if you only understood. Hardcore version of non-duality: There is only Oneness, non-separation. You and me are merely appearances in Oneness, we're merely dream "characters". Bob and Ted and Alice are just dream people in non-separation. We have the dream analogy, except it's not really an analogy, so says hardcore non-duality. But what happens when we wake up in a dream? Let's say I, Ted, am having an affair with my best friend, Bob's wife, Alice, in my dream. I'm actually really terrified, howTF did I get in this mess? My best friend's wife? But then at the worst part of the horror, we're in bed again, and I wake up. I'm stunned for just a second, and then my whole universe flip-flops, there is tremendous relief that this isn't real, it was just a dream. I didn't really destroy three lives. I don't actually have a best friend Bob and the nonexistent Bob doesn't have a wife Alice, she is nonexistent too. But wait a minute, from the hardcore non-dual perspective, I am just a dream character in Oneness. I don't really exist. SR (more or less) is to come to see this, clearly. So then, why don't I cease to exist when I really SR see this, just like the best friend Bob I don't have ceased to exist when I awaked from my dream? Explain that, ZD or E or R. Hardcore non-duality pulls down a grid on the experience of Oneness (edit for the word lawyers, non-experience or "realization" of non-separation) which explains away all this. I say it's an artificial grid which is actually imaginary, meaning, you have to actually explain duality, in my book. Maya is very clever and ruthless, you can dream you are awake. Why doesn't all this go poof when one awakens? (Hint, it's real and serves a purpose). I'm not saying (what's called) SR isn't real, I'm saying it gets misinterpreted, it needs a bigger context to be fully understood. Oh...if you only really 'got it', if you only understood.
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Post by enigma on Mar 29, 2015 20:22:36 GMT -5
Excellent point figgles. What ZD has to explain, is this ordinary world we live in, people and things, time, space, energy, matter, cause and effect, IOW, duality. What is all this? His version of non-duality merely explains it away, it doesn't explain anything. I've tried to go into this but all I get is what Tzu has gotten here, Oh...if you only really 'got it', if you only understood. Hardcore version of non-duality: There is only Oneness, non-separation. You and me are merely appearances in Oneness, we're merely dream "characters". Bob and Ted and Alice are just dream people in non-separation. We have the dream analogy, except it's not really an analogy, so says hardcore non-duality. But what happens when we wake up in a dream? Let's say I, Ted, am having an affair with my best friend, Bob's wife, Alice, in my dream. I'm actually really terrified, howTF did I get in this mess? My best friend's wife? But then at the worst part of the horror, we're in bed again, and I wake up. I'm stunned for just a second, and then my whole universe flip-flops, there is tremendous relief that this isn't real, it was just a dream. I didn't really destroy three lives. I don't actually have a best friend Bob and the nonexistent Bob doesn't have a wife Alice, she is nonexistent too. But wait a minute, from the hardcore non-dual perspective, I am just a dream character in Oneness. I don't really exist. SR (more or less) is to come to see this, clearly. So then, why don't I cease to exist when I really SR see this, just like the best friend Bob I don't have ceased to exist when I awaked from my dream? Explain that, ZD or E or R. Hardcore non-duality pulls down a grid on the experience of Oneness which explains away all this. I say it's an artificial grid which is actually imaginary, meaning, you have to actually explain duality, in my book. Maya is very clever and ruthless, you can dream you are awake. Why doesn't all this go poof when one awakens? (Hint, it's real and serves a purpose). I'm not saying (what's called) SR isn't real, I'm saying it gets misinterpreted, it needs a bigger context to be fully understood. Nice!.. that's the crux of it.. most people have SR experiences at some point, but some turn that into a religion, a ritualistic attachment to the 'idea' of SR, building a right/wrong way for SR to be interpreted and communicated, and.. rather than see the commonality in other SR experiences, the religious SR advocates insist that SR is only real if it is affirmed by their religious judgments.. I remain hopeful that SR/oneness advocates will realize this fundamental flaw in their BS (Belief System), that they believe they are right, at the expense of a still-mind's clarity, at the expense of opportunities for expanding their awareness beyond the attachment to being 'right'.. What's a self realization experience?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2015 20:54:34 GMT -5
Nice!.. that's the crux of it.. most people have SR experiences at some point, but some turn that into a religion, a ritualistic attachment to the 'idea' of SR, building a right/wrong way for SR to be interpreted and communicated, and.. rather than see the commonality in other SR experiences, the religious SR advocates insist that SR is only real if it is affirmed by their religious judgments.. I remain hopeful that SR/oneness advocates will realize this fundamental flaw in their BS (Belief System), that they believe they are right, at the expense of a still-mind's clarity, at the expense of opportunities for expanding their awareness beyond the attachment to being 'right'.. What's a self realization experience? Yea, I edited my post after Tzu responded, didn't catch it quick enough.. I knew that was going to get word lawyered.
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