Oregon, USA

[elesdeejay]

My name is Jesse, I feel like I have experienced being one with everything and have since lost touch with that conceptualization. I only every briefly feel this. I think that in the past I was unable to discern what it was I was actually experiencing and that is why I cannot attain the state.

I understand that my ego separates me from you, the person reading this. It is a construct which forces the sense of separation from others and everything. I feel that losing this sense is what true enlightenment is, I have been there... I want to stay. Can anyone help me? Can I help anyone else?

I have had seconds elapse into hours, I have stood outside of time... I understand that it is an individual construction and that everyone has their own perception of it that changes constantly based upon many factors of your surroundings and your feelings and knowledge of upcoming events, ect ect... Its a perception... These things can be changed.

I feel like the abandonment of "self" and the dismissal of time is my spiritual goal, only then can I begin to live.

Please, I am lost but seeking!

I came to these conclusions on my own, but I know in my heart I cannot be the only person who has abandoned these notions and sees it as a positive thing. Is there a religious path I can follow which outlines these ideas as a goal or am I truly on my own?

Everyone I try to explain this to does not seem to understand nor do they care to. Please help. Someone has to know.

[The Uncreated]

May 14, 2009 12:46:46 GMT -5 elesdeejay said:

I feel like the abandonment of "self" and the dismissal of time is my spiritual goal, only then can I begin to live.

If it's a goal of yours, get used to the idea that neither life nor death touches what you are after. You'll be that which generates the conditions for life and death as with all opposites that project out of the infinite potential of the Void and split through lens of the ego (the I AM).

I understand that it is an individual construction..

'It' never changes, and is impervious to external influence for the simple reason that it itself is the source of all influences. The reality a person realizes today is identical to the reality a person living ten thousand years ago would have realized, and it's the same reality someone ten thousand years from now will realize.

Regarding the "path" you're after, what ultimately works for you depends on your temperament, but it would do no harm if you considered any material that would give you a good sense of what infinity is and help convince you that it's simply not a mathematical concept. Virtually any material that rides the border between common and esoteric knowledge will help push you to the brink like a koan.

There are roadsigns everywhere. Your job as a seeker is to realize them, but you won't know they exist until you're ready. There are children's books that have been written upwards of 100 years ago that were found by ripe seekers to be thorough treatises of the search for truth, containing instructions as complete as any other for helping people break through. Moby D1ck is one of them, written by the enlightened Herman Mellville.

That book is not merely a book about a man hunting a whale, the book are instructions for the world to wake up, cleverly disguised as a book for kids, and only those evolved enough will realize it as such. Melville's purpose in writing that book was twofold -- to tell a cute little story to those incapable of realizing it as more than that, and to serve an encouraging kick in the tail to the few that do. He knew exactly what he was doing and he did it in a way that makes seeking attractive, because let's be frank: the average person does not care to hear a discourse on Voids and Realities, egos and suffering. Melville made the esoteric teaching exoteric.

You say you are seeking, but there's literally nothing to find. What you aim to do is stop seeking. Doesn't mean you should give up exploring everything you can, but dive headlong into all sorts of disciplines -- scientific, religious, philosophical, psychological until you have your answer. Until you've BECOME the answer.

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[elesdeejay]

I have gathered something from this.
I will read Moby D. and let it look whatever way it can.
I'm not certain we meet eye to eye, but I am certain we don't have to.
Thank you.

[The Uncreated]

Forget about Moby for now. Go buy Ken Wilber's Spectrum of Consciousness and study it from the first page to the last. While you do that, research the concept of infinity. Learn about who tried to define it, and learn about who failed, and why. Find out where the idea of infinity first emerged, and follow that rabbit hole as deep as it goes. To evolve, you need to be ripe, at the very least so that you may guide others when you're ready. Bottom line, you should come to a point where you develop a bitter distaste for knowledge and discourse about this stuff. Only then will you begin to realize.

And when you do, go read Ramana Maharshi's "Nan Yar" to drive the final nail into yer coffin.

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[The Uncreated]

May 14, 2009 15:18:12 GMT -5 @The Uncreated said:

While you do that, research the concept of infinity.

Reading Peter's response in your other thread, I thought I'd paste something for you that I found in a quick Google search, to help urge you along in your search and give you quick example of how understanding simple relative truths could open the door to deeper realizations.

Aristotle [cleverly suggested] that infinity both existed and didn't exist. Instead of being a true property of anything real, he argued, there was just potential infinity. Infinity that could in principle be, but in practice never was. Aristotle gives us an excellent example to illustrate this. The Olympic Games exist - it is impossible to deny this. Yet were an alien to beam in (Aristotle didn't actually include an alien in his example) and ask us 'show me this Olympic Games of which you speak', we couldn't do it. At the moment they don't exist in reality but they do exist as a potential. And infinity, Aristotle argued, was in exactly the same potential state.

A Brief History of Infinity (article):
www.firstscience.com/SITE/ARTICLES/infinity1.asp

Aristotle was a scientist. The above theory of his blurs the lines between science and mysticism. How so? The most relevant point:

• ..both existed and did not exist.
  

Sounds a lot like Nagarjuna's logic. Nagarjuna was a master dialectic (debater) who was capable of disproving anything as false in the ultimate sense. He formulated the logic of the Middle Way, which is essentially the "logic" of enlightenment. The essence of that is:

• Infinity exists.
  
• Infinity does not exist.
  
• Infinity both exists and does not exist.
  
• Infinity neither exists nor does not exist.
  

Completely doing away with logic that makes any sense to the non-enlightened, Nagarjuna suggests that enlightenment involves all of these logical statements at once -- in essence that it's a principle that exists primarily in potential; that is, it's a shapeless object prior to everything else -- the source of creation itself. Essentially it's your face before your parents were born; pure potential.

Amazing how a hardened scientist like Aristotle could come to the same conclusion as Nagarjuna and the Buddha, no?

So as you research infinity as I suggest, think about how it applies to your existential state, because to ultimately understand infinity in the fullest sense, you cannot approach it and work with it in the detached scientific manner -- you must merge with it.

Infinity holds no opposite. One without a second. If you want to understand, the only way is to become it, but there are risks you should be aware of, one of which Peter illustrated to you in the other thread and one that drove a lot of great minds to the edge (Kurt Godel for instance). If you read Ken Wilber's book as I suggest, pay espesically close attention to the chapter on the Transpersonal Bands. I won't say more on that except to recommend you read it.

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[lightmystic]

Hey Jesse,

Sounds like you're in the process of waking up. Wonderful. I know that it can be difficult to have thisawesome oneness experience and have it go away. But that is how the process starts. It's a beginning.

I would look into the identity issue.... there is this experience that you are enjoying. It comes from the source of something. Looking into that source, starting to develop a relationship with it more and more is the beginning. And that is what I would recommend.

Eventually, when enough relationship with that is developed, there is a recognition that you are not a separate person, but you are That. That IS what you are and have always been. This is, of course, not an intellectual recognition, but something much deeper that changes all of experience. That comes over time with honest inquiry, openness to life, and the beginning of starting a relationship with That which felt as if to take you out of time and space and unite you with everything.

If you have any questions on anything, I would be happy to address them...intellectual understanding about what your experience already is can be very useful....

May 14, 2009 12:46:46 GMT -5 elesdeejay said:

My name is Jesse, I feel like I have experienced being one with everything and have since lost touch with that conceptualization. I only every briefly feel this. I think that in the past I was unable to discern what it was I was actually experiencing and that is why I cannot attain the state.

I understand that my ego separates me from you, the person reading this. It is a construct which forces the sense of separation from others and everything. I feel that losing this sense is what true enlightenment is, I have been there... I want to stay. Can anyone help me? Can I help anyone else?

I have had seconds elapse into hours, I have stood outside of time... I understand that it is an individual construction and that everyone has their own perception of it that changes constantly based upon many factors of your surroundings and your feelings and knowledge of upcoming events, ect ect... Its a perception... These things can be changed.

I feel like the abandonment of "self" and the dismissal of time is my spiritual goal, only then can I begin to live.

Please, I am lost but seeking!

I came to these conclusions on my own, but I know in my heart I cannot be the only person who has abandoned these notions and sees it as a positive thing. Is there a religious path I can follow which outlines these ideas as a goal or am I truly on my own?

Everyone I try to explain this to does not seem to understand nor do they care to. Please help. Someone has to know.

[Deleted]

www.headless.org/english-new/americangathering