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Post by andrew on Oct 17, 2018 10:53:05 GMT -5
Well, as a good start point, I'm DEFINITELY suggesting that because you don't know if this 'Beingness' applies to 'others', that you should be questioning it. Okay, now I get it. What you are saying is, given her specific method of realization (skepticism), if she would really follow thru and be true to her method/process, she wouldn't just stop there. She would have to go further. This doesn't mean that you suggest that it would be reasonable to doubt it per se, it just means that her specific method of realization would actually require her to doubt it, no matter how absurd it may seem otherwise. But she won't do it. Did I get this right? This would actually make sense since in the past she actually doubted it. When we were talking about absolute certainties and I asked her "Do you exist?" it took her almost 2 months until she came up with an answer. She didn't consider it as an absolute certainty or else she would have answered in the affirmative right away. Interesting developments. The difference between spirituality and spiritual solipsism is that in spirituality, what is fundamental/actual is known to be universal/whole. Whereas in spiritual solipsism, what is fundamental/actual is only known to apply to 'I' and not 'you/other'. So in this case, Fig has 'seen' or 'knows' Being, but this has left her with a new question...'is Being actually present in others' (here the word 'actually' means the same as 'fundamentally'). So I would suggest she continues to look and question, until she finds what leaves her with no question about, or even a notion of, 'others'. Equally, she will then know that what she considers to be actual/fundamental to Fig, HAS to be actual/fundamental to Andrew, Reefs, dogs, trees, rocks etc. That's wholeness/oneness/advaita. For example, if Being is actual to the Fig bodymind, then it is actual to the Andrew bodymind. If intelligence/alive/consciousness is actual to the Fig bodymind, then it is actual to Andrew bodymind. It doesn't really matter what specific abstract concept she explores, the point is discovering that what is actual to her, must be actual to others. Now, she is free to say that there are NO 'actual/fundamental' qualities at all. But if oneness/wholeness is the case, then that would mean that consciousness, awareness, beingness, intelligence, perception, experience etc....are ALL just superficial appearances, that would have to equally apply to her as it does to 'others'. What she shouldn't be left with is the idea that it is possible for 'something' to be actual/fundamental to her, and not to others.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2018 10:53:36 GMT -5
I don't know what's this prior quality of awareness Awareness is the looker or knower. It knows something=It perceives something. Fig doesn't believe that it knows/perceives/is aware. There is no 'it' that perceives, is aware. Rather there is perception, and there is awareness.
No, I don't objectify Awareness. I don't assign 'it' quality/property.
To say 'awareness' knows, is a pointer at best.
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Post by andrew on Oct 17, 2018 10:58:16 GMT -5
It depends on whether I had an interest in pointing beyond conceptual ideas/beliefs, or if I had an interest in pointing beyond all perceptions, experiences, knowings. There are times when I might say that 'Truth' is what is 'known to be fundamental beyond mind', and there are times when I might say that 'Truth' is a pointer to 'the unknown'. They are two slightly different things. I would tend to use the word 'Being' to talk about what is 'know to be fundamental beyond mind', so in that context they would be equivalent. Regarding "Being," is there any uncertainty of it? I don't know how to answer that because we are coming from different places. If I am wondering whether 'Being' is actually present in others, then yes, there is an uncertainty associated with 'Being'. I'm not sure that answers it to your satisfaction, but it's the most appropriate response I can give you right now.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 17, 2018 11:00:50 GMT -5
It is said of these experiences that they happen via an impersonal perspective, absent any sense of 'me' and yet, surely if there's an experiential story to relay in the wake of "Kensho" there had to have been a 'me' present during. [/div] [/quote] There is no "me" present in kensho. After reality disintegrates and the world comes alive, t is not known what is seeing what is seen. In the case of this body/mind organism it could not even remember the body's name. As I've said, somehow the intellect gets bypassed or short-circuited during kensho. Later, after self-identity returns, one tries to make sense of what happened. The event is remembered, and what was seen is remembered, but while it was happening, no "me" was there. Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) put it perfectly in his poem: God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can't come to visit you unless you aren't there. LOL
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Post by andrew on Oct 17, 2018 11:03:28 GMT -5
How could it not? 'Infinite' doesn't mean 'large', it means immeasurable, unlimited, countless. If 'oneness' is the case (unlimited, without boundary), then what is expressed AS 'oneness' must also be unlimited, without boundary.As spiritual-solipsists would have it, what is expressed as oneness might be limited, boundaried and measurable to what is appearing in just one POP. That's not oneness! That's finiteness and limitedness! Even 10 POP's is finiteness/limitedness. Don't get me wrong, folks are entitled to believe that finiteness/limitedness is the actuality of 'This' or MIGHT be the actuality of 'This'. I can't prove them wrong. But I would say that spirituality points to oneness, not finiteness/limitedness, and oneness is accepted as true. The opposite is true. The expression of boundlessness is necessarily bounded; limited. You're making an irrational connection between boundlessness and the number of bounded expressions. Boundless Intelligence doesn't have to express at all. The number of expressions can be zero. You also don't understand the meaning of oneness. No. What is expressed AS 'unbounded oneness' cannot be bounded, because it IS 'oneness' itself. There's no 'gap' between oneness, and oneness expressed. Every expression/distinction is apparently bounded, but the oneness of expression is not. Meaning is infinite, ideas are infinite, information is infinite, forms are infinite, expressions are infinite. So when our apparently personal attention moves and lands on 'something', it's not our apparently personal attention that is 'creating/perceiving' that 'something'....the process of 'creating/perceiving' goes deeper and beyond just our personal attention. In fact, it goes infinitely deep and beyond. If you consider a 'colour chart' as a metaphor. You could draw your own colour chart....let's say you did 100 colours. But in actuality, a 'colour chart' has infinite colours, you are just focused in on a select few, because that's the nature of individual experience. The actuality is infinite. If there is only 'the unmanifested', then it wouldn't be appropriate to offer the idea of 'oneness' or 'wholeness'. I'm offering them because we are talking about expressions/appearances. But the moment there is one distinction, there is infinite. Furthermore, if form/expressions did have am actual finite and countable end point, then they would be objective. They would be 'things'.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Oct 17, 2018 11:03:58 GMT -5
There is no "me" present in kensho. After reality disintegrates and the world comes alive, t is not known what is seeing what is seen. In the case of this body/mind organism it could not even remember the body's name. As I've said, somehow the intellect gets bypassed or short-circuited during kensho. Later, after self-identity returns, one tries to make sense of what happened. The event is remembered, and what was seen is remembered, but while it was happening, no "me" was there. Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) put it perfectly in his poem: God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can't come to visit you unless you aren't there. LOL I’ve had experiences to the dot like this, but they simply aren’t transcendental truth. They are just outrageously cool yet perfectly fallible mystical experiences.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2018 11:18:35 GMT -5
Focus on the word 'experience' misses the point, and should be a different topic of conversation. Like a realization, its not the event which matters, it is the resulting "seeing". But in the case of these "kensho" experiences where one comes away having gained knowledge about the material world, the seeing is the very same as the content of the experience had. 1) I haven't had a Kensho experience, so that's not something I know anything about. 2) I didn't come away from the experience I did have thinking I had "gained knowledge about the material world". Some illusions were gone is all, and there was more clarity in its wake. 3) A realization is not what you would call "an experience", it only becomes an experience when you describe the circumstances surrounding it afterwards. True realization involves a seeing through of material knowledge not the acquisition of knowledge about the material world. I don't see how knowledge has anything to do with it. I do think it's possible to have a mystical experience that serves as an apparent 'catalyst' to a seeing through, in the sense that it's just the mind component of the actual seeing through, and thus, they are arising pretty much in tandem. I don't know what a mystical experience is, so I don't know.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 17, 2018 11:33:01 GMT -5
Fig doesn't believe that it knows/perceives/is aware. There is no 'it' that perceives, is aware. Rather there is perception, and there is awareness. [/div][/quote] Yes, this is probably the key issue. For some of us, based on what's been seen, _____________________is alive, aware, infinite, and unified, and all of us are one-with THAT. I assume that's why Niz said, "I am THAT," and why many sages have said, "I am the cosmos." For others, based on what's been realized, there are appearances, but nothing beyond appearances. I think all of us can agree that personal selfhood is an illusion, even if SR hasn't occurred, so the only significant issue that's being discussed or argued about is whether there is a field of being beyond appearances, and whether it is alive. That being the case, why don't we all just agree to disagree about this issue and be done with it? It doesn't seem to me as if any minds are going to change regarding this issue even if this convo goes on for a thousand pages.
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Post by zendancer on Oct 17, 2018 11:49:09 GMT -5
But in the case of these "kensho" experiences where one comes away having gained knowledge about the material world, the seeing is the very same as the content of the experience had. 1) I haven't had a Kensho experience, so that's not something I know anything about. 2) I didn't come away from the experience I did have thinking I had "gained knowledge about the material world". Some illusions were gone is all, and there was more clarity in its wake. 3) A realization is not what you would call "an experience", it only becomes an experience when you describe the circumstances surrounding it afterwards. True realization involves a seeing through of material knowledge not the acquisition of knowledge about the material world. I don't see how knowledge has anything to do with it. I do think it's possible to have a mystical experience that serves as an apparent 'catalyst' to a seeing through, in the sense that it's just the mind component of the actual seeing through, and thus, they are arising pretty much in tandem. I don't know what a mystical experience is, so I don't know. Simon: I love your honesty. FWIW, kensho results fundamentally in the realization that the world is not what it seems to be, and that almost all previous ideas about it were erroneous. The cosmos is directly seen to be infinite and whole, and that all apparent boundaries are imaginary.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2018 13:01:28 GMT -5
Simon: I love your honesty. FWIW, kensho results fundamentally in the realization that the world is not what it seems to be, and that almost all previous ideas about it were erroneous. The cosmos is directly seen to be infinite and whole, and that all apparent boundaries are imaginary. Honesty is an interesting word, it means more than just some moral code of not telling blatant untruths (which generally you are aware of), or not pretending to know more about a subject than you actually do (which often times you may not be aware of), but I think of it as greeting each situation with sincerity humility and openness, and I like a description given of the word as "simple, unpretentious, and unsophisticated".
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Post by Reefs on Oct 17, 2018 21:02:09 GMT -5
All, Unfortunately the discussion has been slowly deteriorating into a the usual 'I am right, you are wrong' and 'us vs. them' kind of quarrel that creates mostly noise and only little content so I moved it into a more appropriate thread (mega thread) here. R
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Post by lolly on Oct 17, 2018 21:09:18 GMT -5
Where does the hand end and the brush begin? That's the kind of questions you should be asking. Ramana said that both the jnani and the ajnani say "I am the body". If one asks where the hand begins and ends it will turn out there is no hand, and thus no question of its being alive or aware. It's more that there is no enduring substance behind the hand than there is no hand. It's just that everything is momentary, rather than of an enduring substance. A person can say one thing in one context and the opposite thing in another. For example if fully engaged in life then I am the body, and when questioned about suffering from cancer, then no, I am not the body. And besides, there is still a distinction between what you imagine happening and what is actually being experienced, so the oversimplifications presented as answers seem kinda sage, but the conversation never arrives at a conclusion and it's all about that process.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Oct 17, 2018 21:15:19 GMT -5
If one asks where the hand begins and ends it will turn out there is no hand, and thus no question of its being alive or aware. It's more that there is no enduring substance behind the hand than there is no hand. Technically there can neither be said to be a hand or not. It’s not merely about endurance. It’s about the fact that “things” are categories drawn by a mind, and reality is far beyond those categories. One is never the body, really. Never.
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Post by lolly on Oct 17, 2018 22:20:33 GMT -5
It's more that there is no enduring substance behind the hand than there is no hand. Technically there can neither be said to be a hand or not. It’s not merely about endurance. It’s about the fact that “things” are categories drawn by a mind, and reality is far beyond those categories. One is never the body, really. Never. You can feel your hand and it's one thing to say the sensation is insubstantial but another to say it doesn't exist.
Of course, one is never the sensation, so we're on the same page there.
Then you see the how the view 'I am the world' (because there is only one) is the same as saying 'I am the sensation', which doesn't quite work - and that's the problem with 'answers'.
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Post by Reefs on Oct 18, 2018 4:09:56 GMT -5
I am in training for the interrogation / mental torture yet to come .. I have a karate kid headband due for delivery anytime soon .. I will be ready This should be interesting. Are you ready for interrogation, Tenka? Let's start with your definition of SR.
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