No it's not self-Realization, it's Self-Realization. Is there Self, for one? And can it be Realized? And does that matter with respect to equanimity/TNS?
Max: Little children live in TNS, but as their intellect develops, they quickly start making distinctions, learn the symbology for those distinctions, and gradually develop a stronger and stronger sense of separateness as they shift from direct experience (looking, listening, feeling, etc) to thoughts ABOUT what they see, hear, feel, etc. They begin talking to themselves (the internal dialogue), and their distinctions, reflections, and ideas about the world soon create a kind of imaginary verbal interface through which they interact with the world. Little children live in the NOW, but as they grow up, they spend more and more time thinking about an imaginary future and an imaginary past. By the time humans become adults, they spend most of their time interacting with the verbal meta-reality in their heads rather than with the real world. They don't interact with "what is;" they interact with their thoughts ABOUT "what is."
IMO, to attain THS, as an adult, one must first attain SR, because it is only after SR that the mind becomes pacified (informed) by seeing the big picture. Until that happens one will continue to interact with the world through lots of unconscious self-referential thought patterns that are based on a false sense of selfhood. As I've noted in the past, one can intellectually understand that selfhood is an illusion, but until the conventional sense of "me" vanishes, and one realizes the infinite unified intelligence behind all phenomena, I don't think that true freedom is possible.
I've been questioning various ND people (who appear to be free) about this issue, and I've discovered that they fall into at least three categories. The first category are people who will say something like this, "Five years ago, on a particular day, I looked inside and the 'me' was no longer there; it had totally disappeared. There was no longer an inside or an outside. I then realized that the Infinite is all there is, and I realized that my past sense of being a separate volitional entity had been a monumental illusion. I then knew what I truly am, and my spiritual search came to an end." I have no doubts whatsoever about these people because they all seem to "walk the talk." These people all seem relaxed, down to earth, full of humor and joy, self deprecating, and totally at peace.
The second category seem to be people who realize at some point that the whole intellectual quest for understanding is a mind-game, and this realization causes them to give it up. They simply stop thinking about the existential questions that once bothered them. If you ask them questions about self versus Self, or other similar issues, they refuse to engage because they no longer see any point in thinking about such issues. I can understand where people in this category are coming from, but from my POV they seem to have stopped before encountering the Infinite. It's like they didn't go all the way and see what lies "behind the curtain" so to speak.
The third category are people who claim to have had a CC experience or attained SR, accept what is as it is, and consider themselves enlightened, but who say or do things that seem incompatible with true freedom or lasting equanimity. I was recently surprised when a ND teacher sanctioned in a well-known ND tradition told me that for him suffering is just part of human life and that it never really ends. That kind of statement makes me have serious doubts about their clarity or level of attainment.
Veddy interesting. The crystallized, the gradualist, and SRINO ('in name only')? Seems like gradations on the gnosis-episteme spectrum.
Mostly, the simplest facets of eating clean, sleeping well, and undertaking healthy physical activity are far more relevant than anything else in that regard.
I agree, and I was fascinated by a recent article in TIME Magazine. Apparently mindfulness, meditation, yoga, physical exercise, and similar activities "can actually reverse stress-related changes in genes linked to poor health and depression. According to recent research,
"Inherited genes are not static, and DNA activity can depend upon things within people's control. 'By choosing healthy habits every day, we can create a gene activity pattern that is more beneficial for our health,' says the study's lead author, Ivana Buric of Coventry University in England. 'Even just fifteen minutes of practicing mindfulness seems to do the trick.'"
I have had a spate of relatives die from "modern diseases" recently (Alzheimer's, Cardio, cancer). So I've been looking into it and have been trying a low-carb,high fat diet the last year (consistently). Probably in a state of nutritional ketosis most of the time. Strength training throughout (been on that for about 10 years). Fittest in my life now (measured by strength, bodycomposition). This is partly due as well to getting sleep and circadian rhythms tuned up in the last 2 years. The most amazing thing I've noticed -- due to context of mindfulness -- is the loss of carbohydrate-consuming-related thoughts. And actually most thoughts about food or hunger. That alone has been proof to me of 'you are not your thoughts' and that the content of thoughts are driven not by me the thinker but by the beast and it's desires.
No it's not self-Realization, it's Self-Realization. Is there Self, for one? And can it be Realized? And does that matter with respect to equanimity/TNS?
Basically, 'equanimity' is used to describe the nature of awareness - so it's called 'natural'.
It matters greatly in the sense that a great many people are not knowing of this presence of themselves, and they think it's different to the way they are now, but the way I say it is, you are not the self you remember, and you are not the imagined future self - you exist here and now - just the way you are - not some other way.
Ha no just a funny example of some self referential thinking.
The Uber Natural State:
AKA "do the next thing 100%"
Precisely!
Many people will find this hard to believe, but if all thinking stopped completely, the body would continue to respond to its environment intelligently, and in some cases, very swiftly! It's a good thing that that eland in the video didn't waste any time thinking about what the next thing to do was!
Laughter: Tess Hughes is one of those people about whom I have no doubts, and she is a good example of someone who searched for the truth, found it, and was changed forever by what she found. She grew up on a farm in Ireland in the 1950's, and her first existential crisis occurred when she was 8. As a child, she assumed that only old people and old things die, but a young calf died, and it shook her world. She realized that if a young calf could die, she could die. She asked her mother, a simple farm woman, about this issue, and her mother replied matter of factly, "Yes, Tess, everything dies." Tess realized that every living thing in her world would be dead in a hundred years, and the horror of that realization stayed with her for a long time. Later, other questions arose, but it was;t until after she had married and had children that she became a serious seeker.
She had no one with whom to share her existential search until she googled the name of an old boyfriend. Ironically, his name was Richard Rose, and her google search led her to the Richard Rose who started the TAT foundation. She was amazed to discover that there were other people interested in the same thing she was interested in, and she came to a TAT retreat in the USA and met Art Ticknor, as well as many serious seekers. Later, she went on retreats with people like Jac O'Keefe. It's a long and interesting story, but her search finally came to an end on the last day of a week-long solitary retreat. She writes,
"About an hour after the mind had come back, I (the mind) decided to look inside to see what I was feeling or thinking, only to realize that there was no inside anymore. I was gone, totally. It was then I realized that when there is no inside, there is no outside because inside and outside exist only in relation to each other. There is only This. Consciousness is all, no center, no boundaries. It just is. Despite what I had read or heard about "no self" or "all is one," in the past, the reality of coming upon this was completely unexpected and startling, shocking even.......Such a thing I could not have imagined. But, here I was and this was the new me--no center, no boundaries--just spacious Awareness. No ego is one thing, no self is another....
Some weeks into this new way of being, I became aware that I no longer felt the slightest twinge of of fear or anxiety. On looking at this I realized that not only did I no longer experience fear or anxiety, I was incapable of it. Fear had vanished along with the inside.....
There was a great sense of peace and relief, relief that the struggle was over, relief that confusion and insecurity had ended. It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from me, a weight I hadn't realized that I was carrying until it was removed. The world, "I," was spacious in a way it had not been before. I was in no doubt that what had happened was the final revelation. I knew I had found what I had been looking for,I knew who I am....."
When I talked to Tess at a TAT retreat earlier this year, she said, "Nothing ever really changed since that day seven years ago when I looked inside and discovered that Tess had vanished. Life has been peaceful and simple ever since." I told her that the same thing was true for this body/mind. "Bob" disappeared 18 years ago next month, and all I can say is, "Good riddance to that crazy little guy in the head!" haha.
I do not understand how anyone could have the kind of realization Tess describes, and then claim that suffering continued. It also makes me suspect the enlightened claims of people who cannot answer the simple question, "Who are you?" although I realize that Zen people have a more concrete way of expressing their understanding than people who are not familiar with how koans can be answered somatically.
A supposedly-enlightened individual gave a talk a few months ago during which he claimed that his major existential question had been "Who am I?" After the talk was finished, and people in the audience began asking questions, someone asked, "So, who are you?" The speaker just shrugged his shoulders and remained silent with a look on his face that seemed to say, "The question is meaningless to me." I can't believe that anyone who has had the kind of realization that Tess describes in her book, which we refer to here as "SR," would respond in that way. At the least, I would have serious doubts about the depth of their insight and understanding.
Thanks for taking the time to share that ZD. I can definitely rezz with what Tess writes and says about getting in touch with the absence. For me there was an intense experience (the "brass hasp" event) that led to a new normal during the months of equally intense existential questioning that eventually followed. I remember the day when I was very young and was told about the fact of death. I can time it to when I was 4 or 5 years old because we only lived in that apartment for a year my first year of Kindergarten. I bawled like the baby I was.
Does Tess write in her books or speak about encountering painful experiences after her realization? Events like accidents and illnesses of her own or death or other major misfortune of loved ones? The point someone might make about the inevitability of suffering is that these sort of painful events are an inevitability for all but someone with no personal ties who dies suddenly when they're healthy. Only someone out of touch with their emotions would deny that these sort of experiences are painful. I say that the natural state is not devoid of emotion, but rather, that the possibility for a depth of pathos that's a challenge to describe without poetry is quite unique to it.
From these forum dialogs, it seems to me that it's impossible to explain the distinction between that sort of pain, on one hand, and suffering, on the other, to someone still left with existential questions. The natural state isn't one that can ever be made sense of from the outside looking in.
As far as that presenter is concerned, there seems to me -- again, from these forum dialogs -- a very wide gap between SR and the ability to communicate and convey what SR is and means in any productive sense and terms. I hesitate to even use the term "teach" because SR can't be taught, and there's no leading someone to themselves. But in this context, the word fits. Perhaps that guy really is SR but just isn't a very effective spiritual teacher as yet. It's interesting reading old Zen literature because this issue seems to me to be quite central to it from the flip side of the coin -- "what has this guy/gal discovered?".
As far as anxiety goes, what I find is that these days I can pick up on the anxiety of other people around me, and sometimes, feel it quite viscerally. It's only in these past two years that I've come to understand where the source of that is when it happens.
Last Edit: Jul 22, 2017 8:55:11 GMT -5 by laughter
Many people will find this hard to believe, but if all thinking stopped completely, the body would continue to respond to its environment intelligently, and in some cases, very swiftly! It's a good thing that that eland in the video didn't waste any time thinking about what the next thing to do was!
Yep, when the reflex kicks in without the reactivity... you pretty fast.
“God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow.” ~ Hegel
Mostly, the simplest facets of eating clean, sleeping well, and undertaking healthy physical activity are far more relevant than anything else in that regard.
I agree, and I was fascinated by a recent article in TIME Magazine. Apparently mindfulness, meditation, yoga, physical exercise, and similar activities "can actually reverse stress-related changes in genes linked to poor health and depression. According to recent research,
"Inherited genes are not static, and DNA activity can depend upon things within people's control. 'By choosing healthy habits every day, we can create a gene activity pattern that is more beneficial for our health,' says the study's lead author, Ivana Buric of Coventry University in England. 'Even just fifteen minutes of practicing mindfulness seems to do the trick.'"
I believe it, not so much in the scientifiv sense, but in the subjective sense, regular strunuous physical activity is the most effective mood enhancer the world has ever known, and when this is done in particular way, as it is in yoga, with mind to body awareness, and mindful care in coordination of motion, then double it - and if a regular still meditation practice is added - as it often doen in yoga class - and the diet is whole and well balanced - then it's a pretty sure fire recipe for a lot of happy days.
It can be felt as 'vitality', and depression as a sadness is one thing, but the depression we think of as an illness is more like the vitality is drained away, lethargy, no motivation, exhaustion, complete despondency. The research shows that regular exercise enhances mood and vitality, but and ain;t no gym, fitness professionals or yoga instructors getting around psych wards - and the wards are such listless boring places, like manifestions the melancholy mind, which seems to fit the LOA paradigm, but really, it;s the manifestation of a larger, older ideology that pervades Western cultural consciousness - the Cartesian mind/body duality - where the treatment of the mental health is removed from that of the physical.
“God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow.” ~ Hegel
I agree, and I was fascinated by a recent article in TIME Magazine. Apparently mindfulness, meditation, yoga, physical exercise, and similar activities "can actually reverse stress-related changes in genes linked to poor health and depression. According to recent research,
"Inherited genes are not static, and DNA activity can depend upon things within people's control. 'By choosing healthy habits every day, we can create a gene activity pattern that is more beneficial for our health,' says the study's lead author, Ivana Buric of Coventry University in England. 'Even just fifteen minutes of practicing mindfulness seems to do the trick.'"
I believe it, not so much in the scientifiv sense, but in the subjective sense, regular strunuous physical activity is the most effective mood enhancer the world has ever known, and when this is done in particular way, as it is in yoga, with mind to body awareness, and mindful care in coordination of motion, then double it - and if a regular still meditation practice is added - as it often doen in yoga class - and the diet is whole and well balanced - then it's a pretty sure fire recipe for a lot of happy days.
It can be felt as 'vitality', and depression as a sadness is one thing, but the depression we think of as an illness is more like the vitality is drained away, lethargy, no motivation, exhaustion, complete despondency. The research shows that regular exercise enhances mood and vitality, but and ain;t no gym, fitness professionals or yoga instructors getting around psych wards - and the wards are such listless boring places, like manifestions the melancholy mind, which seems to fit the LOA paradigm, but really, it;s the manifestation of a larger, older ideology that pervades Western cultural consciousness - the Cartesian mind/body duality - where the treatment of the mental health is removed from that of the physical.
Agreed. Exercise and mindfulness definitely promote a sense of well being and increased energy.
Laughter: Tess Hughes is one of those people about whom I have no doubts, and she is a good example of someone who searched for the truth, found it, and was changed forever by what she found. She grew up on a farm in Ireland in the 1950's, and her first existential crisis occurred when she was 8. As a child, she assumed that only old people and old things die, but a young calf died, and it shook her world. She realized that if a young calf could die, she could die. She asked her mother, a simple farm woman, about this issue, and her mother replied matter of factly, "Yes, Tess, everything dies." Tess realized that every living thing in her world would be dead in a hundred years, and the horror of that realization stayed with her for a long time. Later, other questions arose, but it was;t until after she had married and had children that she became a serious seeker.
She had no one with whom to share her existential search until she googled the name of an old boyfriend. Ironically, his name was Richard Rose, and her google search led her to the Richard Rose who started the TAT foundation. She was amazed to discover that there were other people interested in the same thing she was interested in, and she came to a TAT retreat in the USA and met Art Ticknor, as well as many serious seekers. Later, she went on retreats with people like Jac O'Keefe. It's a long and interesting story, but her search finally came to an end on the last day of a week-long solitary retreat. She writes,
"About an hour after the mind had come back, I (the mind) decided to look inside to see what I was feeling or thinking, only to realize that there was no inside anymore. I was gone, totally. It was then I realized that when there is no inside, there is no outside because inside and outside exist only in relation to each other. There is only This. Consciousness is all, no center, no boundaries. It just is. Despite what I had read or heard about "no self" or "all is one," in the past, the reality of coming upon this was completely unexpected and startling, shocking even.......Such a thing I could not have imagined. But, here I was and this was the new me--no center, no boundaries--just spacious Awareness. No ego is one thing, no self is another....
Some weeks into this new way of being, I became aware that I no longer felt the slightest twinge of of fear or anxiety. On looking at this I realized that not only did I no longer experience fear or anxiety, I was incapable of it. Fear had vanished along with the inside.....
There was a great sense of peace and relief, relief that the struggle was over, relief that confusion and insecurity had ended. It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from me, a weight I hadn't realized that I was carrying until it was removed. The world, "I," was spacious in a way it had not been before. I was in no doubt that what had happened was the final revelation. I knew I had found what I had been looking for,I knew who I am....."
When I talked to Tess at a TAT retreat earlier this year, she said, "Nothing ever really changed since that day seven years ago when I looked inside and discovered that Tess had vanished. Life has been peaceful and simple ever since." I told her that the same thing was true for this body/mind. "Bob" disappeared 18 years ago next month, and all I can say is, "Good riddance to that crazy little guy in the head!" haha.
I do not understand how anyone could have the kind of realization Tess describes, and then claim that suffering continued. It also makes me suspect the enlightened claims of people who cannot answer the simple question, "Who are you?" although I realize that Zen people have a more concrete way of expressing their understanding than people who are not familiar with how koans can be answered somatically.
A supposedly-enlightened individual gave a talk a few months ago during which he claimed that his major existential question had been "Who am I?" After the talk was finished, and people in the audience began asking questions, someone asked, "So, who are you?" The speaker just shrugged his shoulders and remained silent with a look on his face that seemed to say, "The question is meaningless to me." I can't believe that anyone who has had the kind of realization that Tess describes in her book, which we refer to here as "SR," would respond in that way. At the least, I would have serious doubts about the depth of their insight and understanding.
Thanks for taking the time to share that ZD. I can definitely rezz with what Tess writes and says about getting in touch with the absence. For me there was an intense experience (the "brass hasp" event) that led to a new normal during the months of equally intense existential questioning that eventually followed. I remember the day when I was very young and was told about the fact of death. I can time it to when I was 4 or 5 years old because we only lived in that apartment for a year my first year of Kindergarten. I bawled like the baby I was.
Does Tess write in her books or speak about encountering painful experiences after her realization? Events like accidents and illnesses of her own or death or other major misfortune of loved ones? The point someone might make about the inevitability of suffering is that these sort of painful events are an inevitability for all but someone with no personal ties who dies suddenly when they're healthy. Only someone out of touch with their emotions would deny that these sort of experiences are painful. I say that the natural state is not devoid of emotion, but rather, that the possibility for a depth of pathos that's a challenge to describe without poetry is quite unique to it.
From these forum dialogs, it seems to me that it's impossible to explain the distinction between that sort of pain, on one hand, and suffering, on the other, to someone still left with existential questions. The natural state isn't one that can ever be made sense of from the outside looking in.
As far as that presenter is concerned, there seems to me -- again, from these forum dialogs -- a very wide gap between SR and the ability to communicate and convey what SR is and means in any productive sense and terms. I hesitate to even use the term "teach" because SR can't be taught, and there's no leading someone to themselves. But in this context, the word fits. Perhaps that guy really is SR but just isn't a very effective spiritual teacher as yet. It's interesting reading old Zen literature because this issue seems to me to be quite central to it from the flip side of the coin -- "what has this guy/gal discovered?".
As far as anxiety goes, what I find is that these days I can pick up on the anxiety of other people around me, and sometimes, feel it quite viscerally. It's only in these past two years that I've come to understand where the source of that is when it happens.
One of the reasons that Tess went on a solitary retreat was to take a break from being a full-time care-giver for her husband who was dying of cancer (the retreat and replacement care-giver was a gift from a friend). Her husband died not too long after her retreat, but what I remember from her book was the matter-of-fact quality of everything that happened in her life after her spiritual search ended. I don't remember her mentioning anything particularly painful, but I'll re-read that section of the book and see if my memory is correct about that.
As for the presenter, I talked to him at length after his presentation trying to get a sense of what he had discovered. I ended up with more questions than answers. At one point I discussed Tess's realization, and her statement to me about what she had discovered--"I realized that I am This." His response to this was to say that he would be suspicious of anyone who would make such a statement. Haha! That's when I became convinced that we were not on the same book and page.
FWIW, I talked to Gangaji one day before my own spiritual search came to an end in 1999, and in my book I explain how that interaction may have fortuitously contributed to what happened the following day. Two years ago I again talked with Gangaji, and gave a report that I told her would be in the form of Paul Harvey's "the rest of the story." I told her what had happened on the day after our previous talk sixteen years earlier, and then described some of the things that had become clear in the aftermath of seeing through the illusion of the old "me." I told her that I had often been perplexed by Ramana's claim that sahaja samadhi was the highest form of samadhi until one day when I suddenly realized that what he was talking about was what I called "flow." I said to her, "The great thing about sahaja samadhi is that you can't fall out of it because it's not transient." She agreed, and we shared a lot of laughs. Ironically, what triggered the realization that sahaja samadhi and flow are pointing to the same thing--TNS--was a quote by Ramana that someone posted on this forum a few years ago (I think it was Satchitananda). In Arthur Osborne's book, "Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self Knowledge," sahaja samadhi is defined as, "Continuous samadhi not requiring trance or ecstasy but compatible with full use of the human faculties."
I once thought that the other fellow, who claims that suffering continues throughout life, was enlightened even though he had periodically said and done a few things that I found questionable. It was only when he spoke about suffering that I began to have much more serious doubts.
The research shows that regular exercise enhances mood and vitality, but and ain;t no gym, fitness professionals or yoga instructors getting around psych wards
I agree that exercise is excellent for lifting one's mood. In fact, it's what I'm currently trying to do more of and with excellent effect.
On the other hand, just to be the devil's advocate, I saw a fitness instructor that ended up in a psych ward after trying to kill himself. I also know of an athlete that does hours of exercise each day with debilitating panic and anxiety attacks. "Not always so" :-)
p.s. sorry, I apparently can't seem to detect how to properly use the quote function.
I agree that exercise is excellent for lifting one's mood. In fact, it's what I'm currently trying to do more of and with excellent effect.
On the other hand, just to be the devil's advocate, I saw a fitness instructor that ended up in a psych ward after trying to kill himself. I also know of an athlete that does hours of exercise each day with debilitating panic and anxiety attacks. "Not always so" :-)
p.s. sorry, I apparently can't seem to detect how to properly use the quote function.
And there's a bucket load of steroids, debilitating injuries, body image obsession like anorexic exercise, it can really suckballs come to think of it
“God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow.” ~ Hegel
In Arthur Osborne's book, "Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self Knowledge," sahaja samadhi is defined as, "Continuous samadhi not requiring trance or ecstasy but compatible with full use of the human faculties."
And that's basically the definition of alignment. As I've said before, A-H teach how to live a life in flow.
zendancer - Tess once told me that she was depressed. This was after her SR. So apparently it's possible to be SR and depressed? What do you think?
I'm not SR, but do believe (just an oppinion) that a state where some depression was not "available" would be pretty thin tea.
Well, if SR folks can get cancer, then they also can fall into depression because every illness has an emotional cause. And the cause of your emotions can be found in your focus. This applies to everyone, no matter if SR or not SR. That's why this alignment business is so important.