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Post by krsnaraja on Jan 12, 2020 17:14:50 GMT -5
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? Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. My deceased father a professor in dermatology and pathology use to check our attendance in class. But he stopped when my classmates who don't attend let others bring their tape recorders inside , place them on their vacant seats and do the listening when my father's lecturing. Their presence absent only their tape recorders placed on their empty seats were.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2020 17:36:24 GMT -5
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? Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. I honestly don't think that he refuses. Sometimes when posts are written in here it can be 'completely' impossible to see what is being asked. The clarity necessary to see just isn't operative. I'll not make that personal, because ultimately it isn't a personal responsibility issue, it's probably more of an environmental issue.. as in, the environment of the forum.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 17:39:50 GMT -5
I don't know how else to state it. From within the state of NS there is neither an outside nor an inside world; there is only pure awareness. NS is like the experience of pure awareness without an experiencer. It doesn't make sense logically. But you've never used the word organism before (versus pure awareness). Well, there's a human body sitting on a cushion while that state is occurring, so whether we call it a body, or an organism, or a character, or an individuation doesn't seem to matter much.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 17:40:22 GMT -5
But you've never used the word organism before (versus pure awareness). One definition of organism refers to a “living being“. Maybe that's what he means by organism in this case? Yes.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 12, 2020 17:42:23 GMT -5
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? Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. I think he means that he concludes after the fact the difference between the two states.
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Post by krsnaraja on Jan 12, 2020 17:43:49 GMT -5
Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. I honestly don't think that he refuses. Sometimes when posts are written in here it can be 'completely' impossible to see what is being asked. The clarity necessary to see just isn't operative. I'll not make that personal, because ultimately it isn't a personal responsibility issue, it's probably more of an environmental issue.. as in, the environment of the forum. There are experiences better left unsaid because the environment is not conducive to let go of such an experience. The preacher says, "Follow what I preach not what I do in my room."
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2020 17:58:25 GMT -5
Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. I think he means that he concludes after the fact the difference between the two states. The point is that perception or your preferred word apperception must have been happening to know that he wasn't there.
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Post by krsnaraja on Jan 12, 2020 18:14:57 GMT -5
I think he means that he concludes after the fact the difference between the two states. The point is that perception or your preferred word apperception must have been happening to know that he wasn't there. IOW.. how does he know that he wasn't wearing himself? One should be careful with words to ask. Some reader might interpret it as, " How does he know that he wasn't wearing (any underwear) himself ? " 😔
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jan 12, 2020 19:32:28 GMT -5
Yup, but he refuses to apply it to his experience. That's what I was arguing with him about. Somehow he can be aware of the fact of his own absence -- without having been there in any way during the absence. Totally inconsistent with what he says otherwise. I think he means that he concludes after the fact the difference between the two states. The after the fact comparison would still rely on a memory, which would require, in Tenka’s parlance, a self-reference. The same point applies to why we don’t simply cease to exist in deep sleep. We know we slept — and that suggests a kind of very primitive self-reference.
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Post by enigma on Jan 12, 2020 19:56:20 GMT -5
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! Well, peace and bliss are nothing to sneeze at. What I was getting at is that thought and feeling are quite different 'modes of being', for lack of a better phrase, and an encounter with the Infinite is not going to include mind created illusions such as time, space, self identity, fear, etc. It isn't something actual that goes away but rather that which never was to begin with. Maybe you've heard me say feeling is the language of God. What I mean is that God transcends mind, but not feeling. Creation, in it's natural expression unbroken by mind, is about love of life, beauty, wonder, freedom, power, unbounded expression, fearless exploration. There is an unabashed creative expression of sublime wonder mixed with unmitigated destruction. Mind can do nothing but darken this expression. Creation is feeling based. All of this to suggest that the absence of mind and self implies the total presence of God. What mind makes of such an encounter is meaningless at best.
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Post by enigma on Jan 12, 2020 20:01:09 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 moved on without a second thought. I hope it wasn't important.
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Post by enigma on Jan 12, 2020 20:26:02 GMT -5
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. Other people and the world are real. Things are real, people, places and events, real. Personality/false self can, and in most people (that would mean at least 51%, but it's much higher), gives a distorted impression of 'what's out there', a false view of what's out there. Personality/false self is a distorting filter, *it* causes a view that corresponds to itself, it sees what it is. We think we see the world how it is, but most people don't. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For example, this is how President Trump has a base of 40% of the voters. He said during the campaign he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his base would not desert him. He learned how to tell enough lies to reflect 40% of the voter base. They mirror each other, but not really. If and when they find out that Trump actually doesn't care about them, he cares only for power and to build monuments to himself (Trump Towers), they will desert him. I hope that happens before November 2020. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To understand essence and personality, one has to experience it in themselves. I consider myself lucky to have hated myself. This drove the search. I'm not interested in peace. Gurdjieff called self calming the only devil in us. Self calming means we will do anything to get rid of discomfort. Some kinds of peace costs too high a price. Gurdjieff said we all have a sheep, a wolf and a cabbage in ourselves. The trick is to keep them all alive, each has their own value and function. Personality/ego/false self also has a value and function, fertilizer. I actually had what seems a pretty normal childhood and environment. So I don't know why all the trouble, the internal trouble. But one thing, I loved my Grandfather dearly, spent every minute I could with him. He died when I was four (+ 5 months). Maybe that had an effect. Also think I was very nearly autistic, probably part of the why of living inside myself, too much. Other reasons explored...but you have to start from where you are anyway. How you got there, not so much. ~~~~~~~~~ One's personality is mostly formed by about the age of six. So we don't remember too much any of the how it was formed. So your unhappy childhood was experienced on the basis of the already-formed personality. There's something deeply disturbing about that man.
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Post by enigma on Jan 12, 2020 20:37:29 GMT -5
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? I haven't a clue what you are talking about . What is difficult to understand in regards to what I have said? I have said You only know that 'I AM' was not existing when I AM aware of I AM .I have said you only know you have been asleep the moment you wake up . Please tell me you understand this because you experience this daily .. You can't RECALL that I AM was absent .. You only know that I AM was absent when there is a thought of yourself that returns . You would know precisely nothing about what was present or absent while you were absent, even after returning from that absence. What is difficult to understand in regards to that?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jan 12, 2020 22:46:39 GMT -5
Other people and the world are real. Things are real, people, places and events, real. Personality/false self can, and in most people (that would mean at least 51%, but it's much higher), gives a distorted impression of 'what's out there', a false view of what's out there. Personality/false self is a distorting filter, *it* causes a view that corresponds to itself, it sees what it is. We think we see the world how it is, but most people don't. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For example, this is how President Trump has a base of 40% of the voters. He said during the campaign he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and his base would not desert him. He learned how to tell enough lies to reflect 40% of the voter base. They mirror each other, but not really. If and when they find out that Trump actually doesn't care about them, he cares only for power and to build monuments to himself (Trump Towers), they will desert him. I hope that happens before November 2020. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To understand essence and personality, one has to experience it in themselves. I consider myself lucky to have hated myself. This drove the search. I'm not interested in peace. Gurdjieff called self calming the only devil in us. Self calming means we will do anything to get rid of discomfort. Some kinds of peace costs too high a price. Gurdjieff said we all have a sheep, a wolf and a cabbage in ourselves. The trick is to keep them all alive, each has their own value and function. Personality/ego/false self also has a value and function, fertilizer. I actually had what seems a pretty normal childhood and environment. So I don't know why all the trouble, the internal trouble. But one thing, I loved my Grandfather dearly, spent every minute I could with him. He died when I was four (+ 5 months). Maybe that had an effect. Also think I was very nearly autistic, probably part of the why of living inside myself, too much. Other reasons explored...but you have to start from where you are anyway. How you got there, not so much. ~~~~~~~~~ One's personality is mostly formed by about the age of six. So we don't remember too much any of the how it was formed. So your unhappy childhood was experienced on the basis of the already-formed personality. There's something deeply disturbing about that man. peterszaszmemorial.com/the-sheep-the-wolf-and-the-cabbage
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Post by satchitananda on Jan 12, 2020 22:49:15 GMT -5
Well I have spoken about beyond mind as not being a realisation as such it is only referred to as that when one returns back to self awareness . No-one it seems has a reference for what I am speaking of here . What I have asked as a question is straightforward . What supersedes pure awareness? S.R. doesn't does it, because S.R. is mindful according to you because it refers to seeing thru illusions . Nothing supersedes pure awareness as far as I know, but no one lives in a state of pure awareness more than a few hours, perhaps one or two days at the most, and subconscious mental functioning obviously continues because the body continues to live and breathe. NS has nothing to do with SR because NS is not a realization, and it doesn't help us understand anything. It MAY help trigger future realizations that will result in new understanding, but all we can say about it is that it's a deep state of mind. NS is like being unconscious but highly aware because the "outside world" does not exist for the organism abiding in that state. What does one learn from abiding in NS? Only that such a deep state of mind is possible, that it's blissful, that it relaxes the body and probably loosens up the intellect, and that it seems to precede various subsequent realizations. The only state of mind that really matters is SS because that state of mind can continue in the midst of ordinary life, and it manifests as peace, freedom, flow, and equanimity. It's like being at home, knowing you're at home, and knowing that home is the only place one can BE because it's the only place there IS. We could also call it "abiding in the Self, as Self" if we wanted to put it in spiritual terms. You think that NS has got nothing to do with SR because you think that SR is a woo woo experience which reveals relative truths about existence. That's clear enough because you talk about realizations in the plural, never about THE realization which is Self realization and which is beyond and prior to all concepts. It's not about understanding anything, it's about Being. We are always living in the state of pure awareness not just for one hour or one day. Your mind blowing satori stories have nothing to do with SR.
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