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Post by enigma on Jan 12, 2020 10:16:11 GMT -5
I AM is the sense of existence. There will be nothing to recall from when there was no sense of existence. Yes, I am is a sense of existence . Beyond mind is beyond I AM existing . You only know that I was not existing when I AM aware of I AM . But you had to exist to recall/conclude that you weren't existing. Isn't this really the same argument you've been making for weeks?
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Post by Reefs on Jan 12, 2020 10:30:31 GMT -5
Read what I wrote. I said description, not example. Which means her life story is of no relevance here. Segal is actually a rather odd case. But her descriptions of what we are pointing to are one of the best you can find in books. Do you have a good quote or two that illustrates that? I haven't read her book. Her book is called Collision with the Infinite. I've read it more than 20 years ago. I don't remember all the details now, but it's mostly about her initial realization of no-self, which has been (IMO falsely) portrayed as SR. Here's a link to her description: realization.org/p/suzanne-segal/segal.collision.htmlTo me this always sounded a little weird. She was in that state for almost a decade. In the end, she did seek professional help, I think. So it probably was just a severe case of depersonalization disorder. The symptoms are identical. However, after about a decade in that weird state, she finally had a breakthrough, an actual realization. You can read her descriptions here: realization.org/p/suzanne-segal/suzanne-segal-interview.lumiere-wins.htmlAnd there she perfectly describes what we call CC/kensho.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 12, 2020 10:40:06 GMT -5
Agreed. There obviously is a false sense of self if one "is mistaking the limited sense of self to be what you are." I think that's the definition of a false sense of self. In all fairness, the underlying point that the false sense of identity always borrows itself from the infinite is true enough. Seems to me that's why the Moon appears so often in Zen stories. It's the ultimate existential context mix. Good. The false self is always reflected light.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 10:44:26 GMT -5
Here's what I can add. Tolle claimed that he didn't remember anything from the moment he got sucked into the vortex until he woke up the next morning. When someone comes out of NS, it's a similar situation, but not exactly. One can remember what happened just prior to everything disappearing, and one can remember that there existed a state of pure awareness without content, but unless a clock were right in front of someone, there would be no idea of how long one was in that state or anything else about that state except that it was deeply peaceful, blissful, and empty of content. While one is in that state, there is no knowledge of anything, and there is no sense of existence. Satch has more experience with deep samadhi, so he might be able to add something more than this. I think it's obvious that some sort of subconscious mental functioning continues in deep samadhi (otherwise nothing about it could be remembered), but apparently the state goes so deep that even the sense of I am disappears. That's why I consider pure awareness to be foundational. During a CC it became obvious that awareness is infinite and that awareness would remain even if the "physical" universe totally disappeared. Would you say there is a kind of feeling present, just nothing we would normally associate with mentation? There's not any specific feeling in that state except peace and bliss, but the peace and bliss are impersonal and there's no focal point or sense of anyone or anything that feels the peace and bliss. As I've mentioned in the past, as one enters that state, it feels like everything is solidifying into a state of unity--almost as if one were turning into a block of ice that remains extremely aware. There are various somatic phenomena as that happens, but at a certain point it feels as if some external force is sucking everything (the sense of selfhood, thoughts, perceptions, bodily sensations, etc) into a black hole where everything disappears except awareness. Before that happens, breathing slows down to such a degree that it seems almost as if breathing stops, and the "off sensation"--a kind of body surface numbness--spreads over the body. Many Zen Masters think that NS is foundational for Zen practice, but I've talked to dozens of long-time meditators who never encountered that state. Some people, however, find it ver easy to enter that state, and some of those people, like Satch, say that they periodically entered that state as children. My experience is that it requires highly focused or extreme concentration. The first time it happened to me, I was doing a breath-following exercise. At some point I shifted the practice slightly into feeling the breath--how it came into and out of the body. At a certain point I was watching and feeling the process so meticulously that I became the breathing rather than someone watching or feeling the breathing. That's when I noticed that something unusual was happening, and I began to feel the off sensation on the backs of my hands. The numbness spread up my arms, over the shoulders, and eventually to the head. The process of coalescence and unification continued until all thoughts ceased and then everything disappeared except awareness. The amazement at what had happened did not occur until after thoughts again began to occur and the body began to "thaw out" so to speak. I had no idea what had happened, but it was clear that for about an hour the "outside world" had disappeared and the body had been in some sort of highly unusual state. I happened to be sitting on a couch facing a small clock when that happened, so I had a sense of about how long "I" had been submerged in that state. The following two nights I immediately fell into that state and stayed in it for several hours. It must have been deeply relaxing for the body because I had tons of energy during the following days despite have had very little sleep. I didn't encounter that state again until several years later when I began wondering if I could enter it again. During that period of time it was much harder to get into NS, but over a period of about two weeks I found that I could do it, although the state was never again as deep as when I first encountered it. It would interesting to hear about Satch's experiences with NS. He might be able to add something that I haven't remembered. Suzanne Seqal claimed that as s small girl she would sit on a couch and say her name over and over until she disappeared into what I assume was NS. She writes, "I used to meditate on my name. As a child of seven or eight I would sit cross-legged, eyes closed, on the long white couch in my parent's living room and say my name over and over to myself. The name would reverberate in my mind with each repetition, starting off solid and strong. My name, who I was. Then fainter, repeating, repeating, repeating, until a threshold was crossed and the identity as that name broke, like a ship released suddenly from its mooring to float untethered on the ocean waves. Vastness appeared. The name became a word only, a collection of sounds pulsing in a vast emptiness. There was no person to whom that name referred, no identity as that name. No one. Then fear would arise, my heart would pound hard in my ears, and I would struggle for air, my lungs squeezed in fear's iron grip. I would stop, get up from the couch, walk around, force myself back from the vastness and into the identity of that name. It was too frightening to bear for one so young. But later that day I would return to the couch, sit again, start the name. I will never know what compelled me to do this practice or how the idea of it ever arose. But he dropping away of personal identity, the dissolution if I-ness that occurred in this daily practice when I was just a young child, was only a preparation, a foreshadowing, for the profound and permanent state that has become my abiding reality. The journey began when that name was peeled away, leaving a mountain of emptiness in its stead. This is where the story begins." Interestingly, I've talked to several adults who remember experiences from childhood similar to this, and all of them found it very frightening. It happened to me when I was in the fourth grade. I had a dream one night in which I found myself in something like deep space with giant planets moving around me, and the vastness of what I encountered scared me to death. The dream recurred several times, and each time I found the vastness with no point of stability quite frightening. I happened to tell that story to a friend of mine who related a similar story. He said that at the age or about eight or nine he was sitting on a toilet one day when he started thinking about what was holding up the toilet. He concluded that the floor of the house was holding it up, but then he wondered what was holding up the floor of the house? He concluded that the ground was holding up the floor, but then he wondered what was holding up the ground? He concluded that the earth was holding up the ground, but then he wondered what was holding up the earth? With that thought, suddenly everything broke loose and he encountered a vast emptiness that was too frightening to contemplate. He said that what he encountered was so scary that he refused to let himself think about it again because he was afraid that the vastness might reappear. Haha. Life can be quite strange!
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Post by Reefs on Jan 12, 2020 10:45:54 GMT -5
I don't really disagree with you re: ego. But the story you have been telling, that's only half the story or half the truth. And only knowing have the story and clinging to half truths can be dangerous business. You see, if NS doesn't result in seeing thru the false sense of self then it's very likely that what we have as a result is a spiritual ego with a literal god complex. The whole story is that there is nothing but the Self and there is nothing that is not the Self, but it's only a story until it's realized. There is no false sense of self. The falsity is in mistaking the limited sense of self to be what you are. That's not the same thing. Correct. Therefore, the limited sense of self is a false sense of self.
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Post by Reefs on Jan 12, 2020 10:56:29 GMT -5
It sounds to me as if what happened to you was a CC event similar to what happened to Tolle. Zen people distinguish between those kinds of events and satori, which is equivalent to SR. Some people apparently attain SR as a result of a CC event, but that's pretty rare. SR is usually a separate realization/event. AAR, I now have a better understanding of what you've been writing aboutDoesn't sound like CC to me. Tenka once said that Bernadette Roberts best describes what he experienced. Here's a link to an interview with BR: awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/07/bernadette-roberts-interview.htmlMaybe this helps.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 12, 2020 11:06:54 GMT -5
All that we can do via language is attempt to relate our own experiences and realizations with those of others. I can tell you that NS, in which everything disappears but awareness remains, is not equivalent to SR. SR is a distinct event--a seeing through of the illusion of personal selfhood. One can have numerous experiences of NS--pure awareness beyond any sense of I am--, and still not attain SR. Most people, after sensory perception and thoughts return, still imagine that they are separate volitional entities who entered a state of psychological unity without content and remained in that state for some period of time. They would not know how long that period of time was unless they happened to see a clock before and afterwards. Some people stay in that state of pure awareness for more than 12 hours, but typically the state lasts between 1 and 5 hours. From what I've read about Ramana he apparently stayed in deep states of samadhi for very long periods of time, and in some cases for more than two days at a time. .. If a dude had a N.S. realisation then this supersedes S.R. using your premise hands down for this is beyond S.R. You can't have a N.S. realisation and not realise Self . To suggest that peeps who have N.S. realisations don't necessarily S.R. makes no sense, it's the cart before the horse . Let me put it this way, what is beyond pure awareness as a realisation had .. What supersedes pure awareness ..
Seeing through the the so called illusory self doesn't that is for sure .I hope somebody untangled this?
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Post by Reefs on Jan 12, 2020 11:15:26 GMT -5
I don't really disagree with you re: ego. But the story you have been telling, that's only half the story or half the truth. And only knowing have the story and clinging to half truths can be dangerous business. You see, if NS doesn't result in seeing thru the false sense of self then it's very likely that what we have as a result is a spiritual ego with a literal god complex. "Enlightened ego" is an oxymoron. That's not what I am saying. The context here is that the Self is all there is and that there is only what you are. Remember what Seth said, that the outer self (ego) is just the outer layer or outer face of the inner self (Source) and that the distinction between inner self and outer self is done rather arbitrarily and only for the sake of convenience so that we can talk about it this kind of stuff. The way we define ego or the false self has a lot to do with the human framework of reference. Because we all have that more or less identical framework (camouflage in Seth's terms), we can more or less agree on a definition for ego.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 11:39:09 GMT -5
It sounds to me as if what happened to you was a CC event similar to what happened to Tolle. Zen people distinguish between those kinds of events and satori, which is equivalent to SR. Some people apparently attain SR as a result of a CC event, but that's pretty rare. SR is usually a separate realization/event. AAR, I now have a better understanding of what you've been writing aboutDoesn't sound like CC to me. Tenka once said that Bernadette Roberts best describes what he experienced. Here's a link to an interview with BR: awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/07/bernadette-roberts-interview.htmlMaybe this helps. You're probably correct. After Tenka responded, I realized that he was describing something else, but I'm not sure what.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 11:40:38 GMT -5
.. If a dude had a N.S. realisation then this supersedes S.R. using your premise hands down for this is beyond S.R. You can't have a N.S. realisation and not realise Self . To suggest that peeps who have N.S. realisations don't necessarily S.R. makes no sense, it's the cart before the horse . Let me put it this way, what is beyond pure awareness as a realisation had .. What supersedes pure awareness ..
Seeing through the the so called illusory self doesn't that is for sure .I hope somebody untangled this? I couldn't untangle it because NS is not a realization, and it's not connected to what we call "SR" in any way that I'm familiar with.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2020 11:54:34 GMT -5
That may be an important distinction, though who's to say what the term 'mindful' really means. Yes, that's another word that's clearly interpreted in many different ways. Yeah it's an interesting idea that 'an awareness of the earth ties may have temporarily disappeared' in the revelation of a greater reality. And there is a concrete possibility that this greater reality is what this physical universe is manifested in. Though to imply that there was an expansion of the mind only, is clearly incorrect.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2020 11:59:08 GMT -5
.. If a dude had a N.S. realisation then this supersedes S.R. using your premise hands down for this is beyond S.R. You can't have a N.S. realisation and not realise Self . To suggest that peeps who have N.S. realisations don't necessarily S.R. makes no sense, it's the cart before the horse . Let me put it this way, what is beyond pure awareness as a realisation had .. What supersedes pure awareness ..
Seeing through the the so called illusory self doesn't that is for sure .I hope somebody untangled this? Someone ask Andrew to get off Twitter for an hour..
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 12, 2020 12:46:45 GMT -5
It's also just happens to be a concise abstract model for the dynamics of the false sense of personal, material "I". So now it's you as well as sdp and reefs who are referring to the false sense of I. The sense of I is no more false than the wave is false rising from the ocean. I can only assume that satch has never been too conflicted, and your life has turned out beautifully. That is not me. I knew I was different from an early age, probably about age 7. About that age I began to hate myself. My comfort zone was being alone. I did not know how to talk to people, how to connect. And things got worse from there. Probably about 13 I went to the lesser level of worst, and things continued to degrade. I kept my life somewhat structured because I had to go to college to get a deferment to stay out of Vietnam. Then we had the draft lottery and my number was 360 (out of 366, as 1952 was a leap year). So then having completed 60 hours in two years, my college began to suffer, and that ended badly January 1974. My search began about 17, in an attempt to try to understand my f**e* self. March 1975-March 1976 I in a pretty real sense experienced in a slow grinding year the crisis Tolle experienced in one night, the I that hates my life and the I that is in the comfort zone, but the two can't coincide. Tolle resolved this, that is, it got resolved. When I read The Power of Now his story resonated, but I had by that time, over some years, somewhat resolved my issue. His description of living, now, was by then quite familiar to me also. Backing up, my stress level got so severe that in May 1975 I seriously considered suicide to end the (psychological) pain. I got through that crisis period (a few days), but it came back March 1976. During that year one way I got some relief from the punishing thoughts and feelings was to go ice skating, and watch the movement of my legs. That periodically stopped the punishing thoughts. Oh, during this time my search had continued. J Krishnamurti had been ~*IT*~ for me for about six years, about 1970-that time, 1976. I knew at that time that they key to everything was attention. By that time I had probably read over 20 of his books. But there was still this war between myself alone inside and myself in the world. That year I was pretty non-functional. I had moved back to live with my parents, so I really didn't have to take care of my self, except not to kill myself. I knew things could not go on the way they were. So I kept my eye out, in the search. I saw this poster in a bookstore, self-study Gurdjieff method, time and date given at the Main Public Library. I had already seen this advertisement for a book, Basic Self-Knowledge by Harry Benjamin about J Krishnamurti and Nicoll's Commentaries on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, it said Nicoll told one how to do what Krishnamurti talked about. So I ordered it along with Meetings With Remarkable Men. (I later realized I had encountered Gurdjieff several time previously, but nothing had 'grabbed' me). But they had not arrived by the time of the meeting, so I knew nothing about the Gurdjieff ideas. A young lady did the lecture, probably about 50-60 people there, and afterwards an older gentleman with a marvelous voice announced there would be a followup meeting the next week, giving the time and address. It so happened I had a date that night, but at the last minute she called and canceled because she was sick. So I went to the meeting. The older gentleman with the voice led did the meeting, the young lady was there, about 15 people total, mostly people from the lecture. I learned about the book In Search of the Miraculous from the voice (he didn't even give his name until somebody asked about a month later), went out and bought it and read it within one week before the next meeting. At that point I knew there was nothing on the planet that could keep me from the next meeting. We had weekly meetings through that year, but the next year there were no meeting through the 3 summer months. This continued the next 2 years, weekly meetings except during summer. In 3 & 1/2 years I missed only two meetings, one because of my job, one because a friend was visiting from Colorado. I learned that I am two, I am essence, who I truly am, what is my own, but also, personality had formed from an early age and had covered over my essence. Personality is what is not one's own. So now everything made sense, who I was when I was alone, my comfort zone, was closer to my essence. The thing I hated, was this artificial personality that had been formed haphazardly from people and events encountered from birth. So I began learning to be myself and observe and separate from my personality (my false self). Essence is what we are born as and born with and is what we truly are. Essence is a seed of potential. Personality is acquired. Personality is defined as the contents of the centers (which belong to essence, the centers themselves belong to essence, as what we are born with. Essence is like the hardware, personality is like the software). So our thoughts belong to personality, our emotions/feelings as learned responses, and our bodily actions which have been learned, also belong to personality. The goal/aim is to live from what's genuinely one's own, and not from the false. So satch, I'm happy for you, that you did not and do not have this nasty aspect like I did, I consider you fortunate. But over the years sdp learned how to deal with this (false) self, and life and people. This ~model~ explains almost everything I see and encounter in myself, and in life and in the world.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 12, 2020 12:47:43 GMT -5
I hope somebody untangled this? I couldn't untangle it because NS is not a realization, and it's not connected to what we call "SR" in any way that I'm familiar with. I couldn't even untangle the grammar.
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Post by satchitananda on Jan 12, 2020 13:25:32 GMT -5
So satch, I'm happy for you, that you did not and do not have this nasty aspect like I did, I consider you fortunate. But over the years sdp learned how to deal with this (false) self, and life and people. This ~model~ explains almost everything I see and encounter in myself, and in life and in the world. Well actually I had a very unhappy childhood as a result of a very domineering and violent father. But what I wanted to ask is how you think you can have peace of mind if you don't love your own personality. I don't see self, people and world as false because all those things are me, the totality, unity, oneness and it's all real. Being happy about your essence but then seeing falsity everywhere else is not a good recipe for unconditional peace.
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