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Post by freejoy on Jun 18, 2015 9:32:26 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness?
Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc?
Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness?
Thanks
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2015 9:49:11 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc? Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks 'Consciousness Raising' is a term often used by folks who want to teach other folks that (a) there is something that exists that they weren't aware of; and/or (b) there is a correct way to understand that something. For example, (assuming you don't know this) (a) did you know that drinking water is bad for your health? Drinking too much water will kill you. (b) drinking water of course is a good idea -- your body is 60-70% water -- flushes out your system, sates appetite, gets you moving, but don't be an idiot and force down too much. So 'consciousness raising' used in this way is just a term used for learning stuff. Will that help you get enlightened? Probably not. AfAIK, it's completely beside the point. Others may use it in a more daffy sense, like consciousness is like a reptile living at the base of your spine and if you work hard enough, get trained by beturboned yogis, and entrain your brainwaves, you can awaken the beast within and it will uncoil and rise and erupt out the top of your head. As far as enlightenment goes, that's supposed to work. However, if you do it wrong and it slithers up different pathways you could be seriously fuc.ked, and suffer a life of eternal fire coursing through your veins. Your call.
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Post by AlphaA on Jun 18, 2015 9:53:03 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc? Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks I love your thirst Friend. The one true purpose of your life is to become conscious of your existence. SO, try and not get caught up in the fantasy of becoming enlightened or becoming holy, etc. Those are just different forms of the same truth, like a Christian who claims God; and Muslim who claims Allah. Are they not the same God?.. lol but there is no concrete technique in becoming conscious, because no one can essentially teach you how to be you. You must develop ways into your thoughts, then consciously re-engineer them to your likeness....again I love your thirst, may you be quenched.
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Post by quinn on Jun 18, 2015 19:35:12 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc? Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks 'Consciousness Raising' is a term often used by folks who want to teach other folks that (a) there is something that exists that they weren't aware of; and/or (b) there is a correct way to understand that something. For example, (assuming you don't know this) (a) did you know that drinking water is bad for your health? Drinking too much water will kill you. (b) drinking water of course is a good idea -- your body is 60-70% water -- flushes out your system, sates appetite, gets you moving, but don't be an idiot and force down too much. So 'consciousness raising' used in this way is just a term used for learning stuff. Will that help you get enlightened? Probably not. AfAIK, it's completely beside the point. Others may use it in a more daffy sense, like consciousness is like a reptile living at the base of your spine and if you work hard enough, get trained by beturboned yogis, and entrain your brainwaves, you can awaken the beast within and it will uncoil and rise and erupt out the top of your head. As far as enlightenment goes, that's supposed to work. However, if you do it wrong and it slithers up different pathways you could be seriously fuc.ked, and suffer a life of eternal fire coursing through your veins. Your call.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 18, 2015 21:33:59 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc?Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks Hey freejoy ....... I've been considering a thread along these lines, so I'll just input here. maxdprophet is somewhat correct (definition of terms), but that's not what you're asking, what you're asking has little to do with knowledge, gaining ordinary knowledge. My title was going to be, Being more conscious is like juggling, it's not passive. Almost everything we do is passive, we react to people, situations and events. Thinking just happens (for most of us). Thoughts just roll out like from an assembly line, we don't have to do thinking. The same with feelings/emotions, even more-so. The same with what we do, bodily actions. All these are quite passive and are carried on virtually unconsciously (but you have to come to see this). So the first thing is that you have to make a distinction between thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions and being conscious of these. Our sense of me is derived from thoughts, feelings/emotions and bodily actions. The bold underlined I would say do not help, maybe could be a secondary help, but in no way a primary help. But you do have one thing that is a great help, it is always with you whether you know it or not (and it is quite "concrete", and you can come to see why it is helpful in becoming more conscious, or we could say in the beginning, extending periods of being more conscious). Unlike thoughts, which are almost by definition tied to the past or the future, and feeling/emotions, which are very illusive, difficult to recognize and difficult to 'tie down', this thing is, again, quite concrete. I am reluctant, for reasons I'm reluctant to share, what exactly this thing is, this thing that will help one to become more conscious. Next you have to realize there is a 'next level of being conscious'. We are all somewhat conscious when we wake up from a "good night's sleep". We could not negotiate the day without being conscious. We could step from the sidewalk and get hit by a car. We can be more conscious or less conscious throughout the day. But what you are asking about is this deeper sense of being conscious. When you get a sense of it you find that it is never passive, it is like juggling. If your mind goes to "la-la land" while juggling, the balls fall. So this deeper being of consciousness is, likewise, never passive. As to the last question, this other consciousness is actually a substance, or rather, it becomes a substance. This consciousness is enlightenment. Now, of course, all this has very little to do with nonduality as discussed here and SR as discussed here.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 19, 2015 6:47:56 GMT -5
So what is a point of entry here, discovering when one is less conscious and when one is more conscious? One thing is to recognize when you are operating from auto-pilot. At some point throughout the day, you can come to see that you were operating on auto-pilot or you are now operating on auto-pilot. Were is usually the case, to catch yourself on auto-pilot is a little more difficult. Until one practices some form of meditation, we usually have a sense of I/me that lives in the head between the eyes. This I/me consists of a series of thoughts, primarily, feelings/emotions, and then bodily actions. But these are merely recordings in the mind/body/brain. So the sense of I/me always comes from the past. Buddha had a great teaching called fourfold mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh has a good book on this, Transformation and Healing: Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. An early great book on this is The Heart of Buddhist Meditation by Nyanaponika Thera. But this goes all the way back to Buddha and the Satipatthana Sutra. So what are the four establishments? The body, feelings/emotions, the mind (thoughts) and mind-objects, which include internal and external sensing (page 125 of the Thera book). So how is one mindful of thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions and sensations? Thera says the means is Bare Attention (yes, he uses capital letters). So what is bare attention? This is just what ZD calls ATA-T.
So, why ATA-T? My first taste of operating on auto-pilot was about the age of eight or nine. I recall this dentist we went to, beside his building were about thirty signs, one every parking space along the main road, every sign said No Parking This Side. I remember as we left, my mind read every sign, No Parking This Side, No Parking This Side, etc., etc., etc., etc., ..........it was quite annoying, why did my mind refuse not-reading the signs? Does you mind ever get stuck on a song and it keeps playing the song over and over.......?......, also very annoying. That's a form of auto-pilot, but auto-pilot is much more subtle also. So, welcome to your mind, that's what the mind does, it plays recordings over and over. So you can either be the mind-recordings, feeling/emotional recordings and bodily action recordings, or you can be the awareness and (bare) attention which is separate from the recordings. Attention/awareness is the living 'cutting edge', recordings are dead things. Now, it can sometimes get pretty boring, this bare attending. So this is where evaluation must come in. Eventually you come to see that you may not know what you really are, but you know you'd rather be the bare attention than the thoughts, feelings/emotions and bodily actions, on auto-pilot. Because you eventually begin to see that every sense of I that you are, that you think you are or thought you were, is merely left-overs, past recordings. I would say one has to become disgusted with being on auto-pilot. And then you chose to be attention/awareness and not the thoughts/feelings/emotions/bodily actions, you see these are but smoke and mirrors, an illusory sense of I/me.
Now, I depart here with the SR "people" on what happens next. If your center of gravity/default position has totally shifted from I/me to awareness/attention, then yes, I can see why "practice" is no longer necessary. You have essentially become the practice. But it seems that this is not always the case, that thoughts/feelings/emotions and bodily actions still hang around annoyingly. If this is the case then I'd say it's necessary to keep juggling, keep coming back to attention/awareness. Correct attention/awareness builds up a field of energy, but if one doesn't 'maintain' living through awareness/attention, this field dissipates. Now some say this distinction between thoughts/feelings/etc. and attention/awareness creates a split mind. I simply disagree. And what is this concrete "anchor" (anchor in a good sense, as holding one firmly, secure) discussed previously, this something which can keep the grounding? It's one of the 'objects' of fourfold mindfulness Buddha taught about. Which one? (Don't guess). It is one means of 'getting out of the head'. I/me is an anchor in the bad sense, a ball and chain. So to raise one's consciousness, is to first see this operating from auto-pilot. Then maybe some day the ball & chain are cut loose.
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Post by freejoy on Jun 19, 2015 9:29:41 GMT -5
Maybe I wasn't clear enough.
Would one say a serial murderer has high consciousness?
What I'm saying is that different actions say, killing and healing, one might be a low consciousness action while another would be higher consciousnesses action.
One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is aware of more of the contents of the unconscious mind.
One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is more aware of the subtle energies around us.
One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is more loving in the world.
I see people that I would consider having a low consciousness because they are unaware of their motives.
If one adds in that that is no person and therefore no free will then everyone would be doing "Gods Will" even the murderer.
So in that way having a low consciousness or high consciousness would be the Will of God.
Besides any of that, practically speaking, for enlightenment it seems one might have to raise thier consciousness to a more rarefied state.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 19, 2015 17:57:21 GMT -5
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Would one say a serial murderer has high consciousness? No.What I'm saying is that different actions say, killing and healing, one might be a low consciousness action while another would be higher consciousnesses action. OTOneH there are functions, thinking, feeling/emotions, bodily actions (learned behaviors) and sensations (which don't have to be learned) and OTOH there is consciousness of these functions. The use of functions does not lead to higher consciousness, but I would say they can somewhat reveal the state of consciousness.One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is aware of more of the contents of the unconscious mind. Yes.One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is more aware of the subtle energies around us. Yes.One might say having a high consciousnesses would mean one is more loving in the world. Yes.I see people that I would consider having a low consciousness because they are unaware of their motives. Yes.If one adds in that that is no person and therefore no free will then everyone would be doing "Gods Will" even the murderer. We are responsible for our actions whether free will exists or not. This is a very sticky complicated issue. I would say we have the possibility of free will, but no guarantee of it. Acquiring consciousness and acquiring a higher state of consciousness is the means to freedom. First you have to row a little boat. So in that way having a low consciousness or high consciousness would be the Will of God. Not IMvhO. Besides any of that, practically speaking, for enlightenment it seems one might have to raise their consciousness to a more rarefied state. Yes. (Of course recognizing that's probably a minority opinion here).
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2015 18:39:46 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc? Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks 'Consciousness Raising' is a term often used by folks who want to teach other folks that (a) there is something that exists that they weren't aware of; and/or (b) there is a correct way to understand that something. For example, (assuming you don't know this) (a) did you know that drinking water is bad for your health? Drinking too much water will kill you. (b) drinking water of course is a good idea -- your body is 60-70% water -- flushes out your system, sates appetite, gets you moving, but don't be an idiot and force down too much. So 'consciousness raising' used in this way is just a term used for learning stuff. Will that help you get enlightened? Probably not. AfAIK, it's completely beside the point. Others may use it in a more daffy sense, like consciousness is like a reptile living at the base of your spine and if you work hard enough, get trained by beturboned yogis, and entrain your brainwaves, you can awaken the beast within and it will uncoil and rise and erupt out the top of your head. As far as enlightenment goes, that's supposed to work. However, if you do it wrong and it slithers up different pathways you could be seriously fuc.ked, and suffer a life of eternal fire coursing through your veins. Your call. *reaches for bottled water and drinks*
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Post by relinquish on Jun 19, 2015 18:44:55 GMT -5
Hi SDP. Quick question. Given your worldview, do you feel there is any true place for serious praise or blame in reality?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 19, 2015 21:05:01 GMT -5
Hi SDP. Quick question. Given your worldview, do you feel there is any true place for serious praise or blame in reality? Hey r, oh sure, absolutely. I tried to teach my kids that the universe responds to us, to what we do. When they were young and into HS, I set up a points reward system, points for work as well as other means for earning reward points. When my oldest son was sixteen I found this book by a Spanish guy, a philosopher I think he was. I think it was called Amador (yes, looked it up) by Fernando Savater. He wrote it as advice for his own 15 year old son. I cut a live stick from a tree and carved the date in it with my son's name, explained about yin and yang in life and how things cycle, and how for most things, good follows bad and bad follows good, IOW, every stick has two ends. Oldest daughter was close to son, they are 20 months apart, so I started thinking about what to give her and what book could be for advice growing up. I had just told son some things, but decided to write down what I wanted to say to daughter, that ended up being about three handwritten pages. I decided to give her a rose. I think I told her what I had written, and gave it to her and the rose a symbol. I told her it wasn't easy finding the rose I wanted to give her, as most of the roses I found for sale had the thorns removed. I wanted to give her a rose with thorns, as in life, roses always come with thorns. I said sometimes the roses come first, sometimes the thorns come first. You will see this in many areas of life, especially in work/career and in economics. I always encouraged my kids to find what they love to do in life and then find a way to make money from what they love. But, otherwise, a paycheck is the roses, putting in your forty hours or whatever, is the thorns. I warned about using credit, buying on credit might be roses, but paying the debt is the thorns. And in relationships, there will always be both roses and thorns. I had gotten some advice in my twenties to, whenever possible, always take the thorns, always take the nasty end of the stick, as sooner or later the good end would follow. I wished I had kept a copy of the letter to older daughter, as in two more years what I wanted to say to second daughter didn't flow out as well. Anyway, I also gave her a rose with thorns (told them both to press it in a book to keep as a reminder). And in two more years I gave younger son a one dollar coin, heads and tails. Also in my 20's I chanced to have a very good boss for 3 and 1/2 years. He said he had learned that you can get more work out of a man by patting him on the back than kicking him in the ass. I never forgot that. So I tried to praise my kids when they deserved it. In my job I trained my own electrical helpers, some I had for a short time, some I had for a couple of years. (I trained them, didn't hire them). I was pretty equal in 'ass-kicking' and back patting for many years, until I finally saw what my old boss meant, 'ass-kicking' is very ineffective as motivation. I finally learned to praise, and also praise my fellow workers (the other electricians). So I would say praise is very effective, and teaching responsibility. Blame is not so effective, however, we must learn and know that blame means the universe will kick your ass when appropriate. Most of all I'd probably say today that you can't really learn without making mistakes. Nobody taught me that, to expect to make mistakes. I'd say the universe is corrective, do what's right and the universe will balance the books. Probably the key to many things in life is right motivation. I heard the writer and Buddhist monk on NPR the other day, Matthieu Richard. Diane Reems asked him what his title was in the monastery. He said I'm the sweeper, the lowest position. He said it's best to have the lowest position, nowhere to fall. :-) That seems a good attitude in life.
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Post by freejoy on Jun 20, 2015 0:44:26 GMT -5
Hi SDP. :) Quick question. Given your worldview, do you feel there is any true place for serious praise or blame in reality? The answer that most spiritual teachers would say is no. But I don't know.
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Post by laughter on Jun 20, 2015 12:13:01 GMT -5
So what is a point of entry here, discovering when one is less conscious and when one is more conscious? One thing is to recognize when you are operating from auto-pilot. At some point throughout the day, you can come to see that you were operating on auto-pilot or you are now operating on auto-pilot. Were is usually the case, to catch yourself on auto-pilot is a little more difficult. Until one practices some form of meditation, we usually have a sense of I/me that lives in the head between the eyes. This I/me consists of a series of thoughts, primarily, feelings/emotions, and then bodily actions. But these are merely recordings in the mind/body/brain. So the sense of I/me always comes from the past. Buddha had a great teaching called fourfold mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh has a good book on this, Transformation and Healing: Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. An early great book on this is The Heart of Buddhist Meditation by Nyanaponika Thera. But this goes all the way back to Buddha and the Satipatthana Sutra. So what are the four establishments? The body, feelings/emotions, the mind (thoughts) and mind-objects, which include internal and external sensing (page 125 of the Thera book). So how is one mindful of thoughts, feelings/emotions, bodily actions and sensations? Thera says the means is Bare Attention (yes, he uses capital letters). So what is bare attention? This is just what ZD calls ATA-T. So, why ATA-T? My first taste of operating on auto-pilot was about the age of eight or nine. I recall this dentist we went to, beside his building were about thirty signs, one every parking space along the main road, every sign said No Parking This Side. I remember as we left, my mind read every sign, No Parking This Side, No Parking This Side, etc., etc., etc., etc., ..........it was quite annoying, why did my mind refuse not-reading the signs? Does you mind ever get stuck on a song and it keeps playing the song over and over.......?......, also very annoying. That's a form of auto-pilot, but auto-pilot is much more subtle also. So, welcome to your mind, that's what the mind does, it plays recordings over and over. So you can either be the mind-recordings, feeling/emotional recordings and bodily action recordings, or you can be the awareness and (bare) attention which is separate from the recordings. Attention/awareness is the living 'cutting edge', recordings are dead things. Now, it can sometimes get pretty boring, this bare attending. So this is where evaluation must come in. Eventually you come to see that you may not know what you really are, but you know you'd rather be the bare attention than the thoughts, feelings/emotions and bodily actions, on auto-pilot. Because you eventually begin to see that every sense of I that you are, that you think you are or thought you were, is merely left-overs, past recordings. I would say one has to become disgusted with being on auto-pilot. And then you chose to be attention/awareness and not the thoughts/feelings/emotions/bodily actions, you see these are but smoke and mirrors, an illusory sense of I/me. Generally speaking I agree that subjective investigation can be transformative, and I'd recommend it to anyone, anytime, in any condition. Specifically with regard to what you've written, what I've found from subjective investigation is that not all autopilot programs are created equal, and the fact is that the differential is revealed by the question, what is watching? That question, "what is watching?", is, of course, self-inquiry, and has no mind-answer. Now, as the investigation is subjective, comparing notes is of course ultimately problematic, and this is compounded by the fact that there's no way to directly communicate, mind-to-mind, what self-inquiry reveals. I've found that two ways to bridge this gap are through either poetry or describing direct experience. Now, for example, The best example I have to offer on my point that not all autopilot programs are created equal is a story I've related on the forum a few times about one day on the slopes. Now, if anyone's interested in it I'll repeat it, but we share a common experience that might illustrate what I mean: when you wire a residential 120 outlet, do you think to yourself "black to brass and save yer ass"? .. or, instead, rather than consciously and deliberately connecting the black wire to the brass screw, does it instead come naturally as a conditioned action? The bottom line is that in any given instant of subjective investigation there are only two possibilities: a split mind or not. It's true that this is a logical abstraction, but discerning the differential between the two has nothing to do with logic. "What is watching" can either be what it is that you really are, or it can just be another thread of the thinking/feeling mind. Now, I depart here with the SR "people" on what happens next. If your center of gravity/default position has totally shifted from I/me to awareness/attention, then yes, I can see why "practice" is no longer necessary. You have essentially become the practice. But it seems that this is not always the case, that thoughts/feelings/emotions and bodily actions still hang around annoyingly. If this is the case then I'd say it's necessary to keep juggling, keep coming back to attention/awareness. Correct attention/awareness builds up a field of energy, but if one doesn't 'maintain' living through awareness/attention, this field dissipates. Now some say this distinction between thoughts/feelings/etc. and attention/awareness creates a split mind. I simply disagree. And what is this concrete "anchor" (anchor in a good sense, as holding one firmly, secure) discussed previously, this something which can keep the grounding? It's one of the 'objects' of fourfold mindfulness Buddha taught about. Which one? (Don't guess). It is one means of 'getting out of the head'. I/me is an anchor in the bad sense, a ball and chain. So to raise one's consciousness, is to first see this operating from auto-pilot. Then maybe some day the ball & chain are cut loose. Yeah I agree that post-SR practice can reveal and alter conditioning, although I see this, similar to SR itself, as playing out in as many particular ways are there are people. Some peeps might still practice, others might not. We could go on from there and extrapolate about how for one dude there might be some really gnarly conditioning left over that could lead to a big post-SR shift while for others that conditioning either was never instant or was dealt with pre-SR. We could speculate as to how for some folks there might be a stronger pull into "further" than others, although I'd opine that a taxonomy of that situation could easily and quickly devolve into silly mind-stuff. One opinion that I would hold though, is that expectations as to some sort of final static state are always likely subject to disappointment. The problem as it relates to the dialog on the forum is that we can't agree to disagree on our differing opinions on what SR refers to. I find this kinda' sad and a missed opportunity, because the dialog on post-SR practice is one that that I'm actually the most interested in presently, and one, given how it seems that more and more peeps are waking up these days, to be rather timely.
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jazz
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Post by jazz on Jun 20, 2015 13:52:12 GMT -5
After reading this thread I came to think of this article by Scott Kiloby on post SR and the notion of being "done".
"Mr. Done and Me - (a long read indeed) This is a true story . . . well, as true as stories go - as one-sided as they are. I once met a teacher who became a friend. He was very brilliant with words. He mesmerized many with his eloquent use of language. He could land with just the right concise set of verbs and nouns to explain how reality is simply here, already as it is right now, and that any seeking towards reality as it is was futile. I resonated with his words so much. They were so simple, direct and clear. Spiritual seeking had already been put to rest for "me" at that point. So I wasn't looking to him for guidance. I was just sort looking at him, listening, sometimes from afar and sometimes asking questions just to see where he was coming from. I noticed he had a lot of followers. People tended to flock to him to hear the simplicy of his language. He talked a lot about the nonconceptual and had many words to explain how it was already here, beneath the words. I listened and listened and finally I heard what he may have been really saying. You see, he had spent nearly 40 years in the spiritual search. He had exhausted every path. He was done. He was so done that you could stick a fork in him. He was so done that he made it seem like reality was done, that life itself was done. I remember walking alone one day after speaking to him. I looked for done. I looked for the changeless that he spoke so articulately about. I noticed the space of the moment, how quiet it really is and how done it feels. I noticed that the space itself wasn't labeling itself as done though. It didn't seem to be in the business of discerning between done and not done. It was just space, as quiet and peaceful as it was. Then I began to look at the forms around me. I saw a catepillar moving really slowly. The catepillar wasn't done. He was going somewhere, but that didn't seem like a problem. I noticed the streetlights, the cars, the trees with their ever-changing leaves. I noticed my heartbeat, my breathing, a few thoughts and sensations. None of those things seemed done. It didn't appear that any of them were concerned with done v. not done or with reality as unchanging v. reality as changing. It seemed that these things were constantly in flux. And that didn't seem like a problem. And the space was still there. And that didn't seem like a problem. The things in flux and the space also didn't seem at war with each other. They appeared inseparable as if there was no line of division between them at all. It appeared that none of the forms had a psychology that valued being done or not done. Stuff was just either moving or not moving, without much of a preference for either. "What is done?" I asked to the wind. "And where is it by the way?" The wind didn't have an answer. It didn't seem interested in the question. I couldn't find done anywhere, nor could I find not done. What seemed interested in the question was the mind. As I noticed the mind contemplating the question, while nothing else was contemplating it at all, I began to see the psychology behind it all. Of course, 40 years of spiritual seeking is exhausting. I can relate, having been seeking drugs and anything else I could find to fulfill me for at least 40 years. I saw how satisfying it was to label my life experience as done, how content I felt to identify myself as someone who just wasn't seeking anymore. How peaceful it was to just be space apart from all those pesky changing forms. But that was the key. I was identifying myself as done. That was the self making itself into something again. Because none of the other forms - the wind, the clouds, the lights, the catepillar - seemed to be interested in labeling themselves as done, I wondered why he or I would care about that at all. The mind cares about identity mostly. And it doesn't seem to matter what identity it cares about. "Done" works just fine. Living in the here and now, in the nonconceptual, changeless space. Wow, that sounds like done. I must be done. He must be done too. We must belong to a special club. But if that club was all about identifying oneself as someone who is done, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be a member. Who am I to say I am done? Who am I to say I am anything at all, that I have landed in any place or even that I have landed in a place somehow removed from all the constantly changing phenomena? I went back to him to ask these questions. "Isn't the self the only thing that would be interested in being done?" I asked. He got angry with me. He scolded me. Gone were the concise pointers to reality. He entered into a rage, a complete and total defense of doneness. I left the conversation. I was done with it. In the years following that conversation, he never spoke to me again. I suppose he thought I had a lot of nerve to question the notion of being done. In fact, I wasn't questioning just "done." I was questioning both identities - done and not done. But questioning his done personality must have struck the wrong chord with him. I was ousted from the done club. He let other teachers know that I was confused, apparently because I was just as interested in watching and seeing myself as the moving catepillar as I was in seeing I was the unchanging space of now. This didn't bother me much, as I had a lot of good company - the catepillar, the wind, and all other phenomena. They didn't seem like part of the done club, nor interested in any other club. They just lived and moved. Since losing my friend, I have enjoyed the changeless done space and the ever-changing phenomena that are never done. I have made friends with both. I have seen them dance together so beautifully. Mr. Done eventually left the spiritual teaching game. He was done. Done with all the spiritual seekers who were never done. Done with the teachers who didn't see that it's all about being done. Done with websites, books, all of it. As I sit here writing the story of Mr. Done and me, I harbor no ill will, no resentment. I don't even see myself as right. I just wonder about loneliness itself. I wonder why it is we humans sometimes pull ourselves back into a lonely corner and build up walls of separation between things, between those who are teachers and those who are seekers, between those who are done and those who are not done, between the nonconceptual and the conceptual, between the changeless and the changing. Is this what reality is - one great division in the mind that seeks to make selves lonely and isolated, withdrawing more and more from the world and from each other? My ongoing inquiry, my muse is really only this these days: in what ways am I making such a division, pulling myself more and more into a lonely place? I think I'd rather embrace all opposites, all divisions. There seems to be room for all of it, for the done and not done and every other division. And isn't that what Oneness is anyway? I don't know. I refuse to answer the question. I will just look instead, for answering the question might just isolate me into some corner and make me want to withdraw from everyone and everything. Mr. Done, if you are reading this, I love you! Come back and play!"
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Post by tenka on Jun 20, 2015 14:16:36 GMT -5
What does it mean to raise ones consciousness? Are there technologies that one can use to raise ones consciousness, like stones, crystals, prayers, geometric symbols, blessed objects, ashes of enlightened beings, etc? Is it easier to get enlightened after one raises their consciousness? Thanks I speak of purifying a lot so there are no surprises on that score when it comes to raising one's consciousness . Perhaps it's not really consciousness that alters butt one's vibrational frequency that is associated with consciousness . Feeling happy compared to sad can be measured within ourselves regarding our vibrations and doing certain practices can raise the energies butt what comes from within stands the test of time .
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