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Post by zendancer on Apr 12, 2013 14:20:36 GMT -5
To be with 'reality' as it is, is to perceive, without the perceiver, that which is here/now, knowing nothing of there or then. It is not beautiful, it is what it is, and that is enough because there is nothing that it is not. A kaleidoscope of movement and change that lacks nothing. Beautifully put E, couldn't agree with you more man. Amen!
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Post by enigma on Apr 12, 2013 14:49:03 GMT -5
Phil: You wrote: “ATA opens up a space in that thought process that is normally very closed and constricted. In this space is the potential for realization, and in this realization is the potential for the collapse of various thought structures. (seeing through illusions) They collapse because the realization informs mind and not because they simply starved to death due to lack of proper care and feeding. The distinction is important because the former does not require mind involvement while the latter does. When I hear of folks mantra meditating or practicing presence or Zen zoning or bobber blissing for decades, I suspect that this distinction is not being recognized, and it's quite understandable because the effect of what I'll call proper mind involvement is quite subtle. Realization eats away at (mostly unconscious) belief structures and one simply stops thinking about them because they aren't there anymore. Mind is not interested in noticing what doesn't happen anymore, and so the entire process may not be recognized at all, especially if one is disinclined to engage mind. It might seem like Grace, or it may seem like withdrawing attention from the thoughts has caused them to starve to death, but that's not what happens.” I guess I don’t understand the distinction you are making regarding how mind is involved in realizations. You talk about “proper mind involvement,” but what do you consider proper mind involvement to be? Bottom line: what would you advise a seeker to do? When I review the specific moments when various thought structures collapsed in my life, I find that they first collapsed, and afterwards the mind realized that they had collapsed. Mind was always late to the party. Afterwards, the mind often had other realizations concerning the implications of the collapse. From my POV the actual collapse had nothing to do with mind because mind did not know what had happened until afterwards. Yes, mind is always late to the party, and yes, we could say mind did not know what happened until afterwards, and in fact likely never finds out what happened, which is why we're talking about it, but lets slow down a bit right at the point where we conclude that mind had nothing to do with the collapse cuz you're talking about the conscious mediator. What you're saying is that mind didn't consciously do something to collapse beliefs, but the conscious level of mind is like the monitor you're looking at now. If you lost a file, you wouldn't say the computer had nothing to do with it because the monitor remained passive throughout the loss and simply no longer displays the file. The monitor did not 'know' what happened and can never tell you what events led up to the loss of that data, it can only reveal to you after the fact that the data is gone. The data did not go away because you failed to access it for a while and it just dissolved on it's own. Something happened there that very much involved the computer even though it did not involve the monitor as such. Conscious thoughts are the end result of the playing out of conditioned beliefs, fears, needs, attachments, etc, that are operative mostly in the background. This is why thoughts can't be controlled very well from the conscious level of mind. It's also why we work with that conditioning and challenge beliefs and try to see through our illusions. I think you agree that a realization is required in order to impact that conditioning, and maybe ATA will trigger that realization, but the realization is not the realization of something. It's more like the witnessing of the actuality of no boundaries. It isn't conceptual, and so there can be a division remaining between the realization, and the collapse of the conceptual boundaries formed by the illusory belief. IMO, lots of folks have realizations of some kind that never impact the mind's conditioning because mind never gets involved. It's this involvement to which I refer that I talk about as 'informing mind', and this process, which may or may not occur, is what results in the collapsing of the belief, and not the realization itself. The reason there may be a delay between the realization and the collapse of the belief is that this processing is a function of mind and may require time. The reason it may not be noticed for a while even after it collapses is that mind has no interest in what is no longer there; what no longer bubbles up to the surface of the conscious mind. I think I have more to say about the rest of your post, which I'll get to later. Thanks for the interesting conversation.
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Post by relinquish on Apr 12, 2013 15:45:56 GMT -5
Yes, what is going on here in this moment? When Mooji asks "Can the seer be seen?", he is talking about this NOW moment of perceiving. In other words, he is asking the mind that conceives if it can be a perceiver of this NOW moment? He's asking if subjectivity can objectify itself. He's asking you to notice that you cannot be an object appearing to you. He's implying that nothing you can see can be what you are. He's not actually addressing mind. As he says "I love you too much to treat you like a person." Yep, and as he also says, "It's not a mental question, and there's not a mental answer".
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Post by enigma on Apr 12, 2013 16:35:05 GMT -5
Like most folks on this path I’ve had lots of realizations, but the most significant one was the one that ended the spiritual search. After six days of fairly continual ATA’ing, the body had an emotionally-unifying experience coupled with a feeling of immense gratitude. The emotional thing seemed to arise, spontaneously, but it’s possible that it was triggered by thoughts that are no longer remembered. After the experience, I felt just like anyone who has had a deeply emotional experience; there was a feeling of emptiness, peace, contentment, buoyancy, joy, etc, as if the body/mind had been washed clean in some manner. After that emotional experience, there was a subtle sense that something was missing, but that sense of missingness did not rise to the level of cognition. It was only later that I realized that the sense had been extant in some vague under-the-surface way. Two hours after the emotional experience, I suddenly realized that the sense of being a separate entity, a “me,” had totally vanished, and it became instantly obvious that there had never been a “me” in any sense. I realized that the body/mind’s sense of having a personal identity had been an illusion. When it was seen that who I had thought I was had vanished, it then became crystal clear that what I AM is “what is.” This became obvious simply because there was no longer anything separate from “what is.” Yeah, you're describing an emptying out, which is something mind simply can't identify in it's own language because it's literally the absence of conditions, and it's those conditions that mind uses to identify what's going on. Mind lost something, and the robbery was carried out by the realization, but the realization, itself, is empty. It's the power of this emptiness that empties mind. The realization precedes the loss that happens in mind. Both the realization and the robbery of mind must occur. [/quote]
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Post by enigma on Apr 12, 2013 16:56:26 GMT -5
We might then ask, "What leads to an uncompromising acceptance of 'what is?" I would answer, in essence, "By looking at ‘what is’ without intellectual knowing until body-knowing becomes dominant." ATA will initially be pursued under the illusion that there is someone pursuing it, but if pursued, that illusion will collapse because eventually "what is" is all that will remain. For most people, I think ATA, alone, will lead to clarity, and the speed will depend upon how much time is spent pursuing it. I see the path to truth as the replacement of intellectual knowing with body knowing. The body already understands everything, but the intellect hides the truth by projecting a screen of ideas in front of it, so to speak. I see this notion of body knowing as a conceptual convenience only. Nothing is actually known, nor does anything need to be known. Intellectual knowledge isn't actually replaced with anything, it's just revealed for what it is. The boundaries of that knowledge are realized. It may never occur because there may not be the willingness for it to occur. This would not be an issue if it were simply a relatively mechanical matter of attending or non-abidance in mind, but the point here I guess is that mind is still a full partner in this and is not being left out, and it is still a game, and under no conditions is one ever obliged to 'awaken'.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2013 16:56:52 GMT -5
You said, "To be with 'reality' as it is, is to perceive, without the perceiver, that which is here/now, knowing nothing of there or then." 'Without the perceiver', implies a perceiver, which is conceived by a mind aligned with duality. So your statement implies doing something to perceive Reality without your dualistic perceiver. The fact is that a perceiver that perceives Reality doesn't exist. So perceiving Reality ' without the perceiver' is the dualistic mind engaging in non-dual gymnastics. In the name of all that is good and holy, stop the insanity! <--Diseased apple or sumthin. Stop the insanity?? You could try keeping a death grip on the sane end of the duality stick, but that would only work for a while. Or you could realize that you can't appreciate the beauty of sanity without appreciating the ugliness of insanity... >>>>Does a non-dual back-flip>>>>
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Post by silence on Apr 12, 2013 16:59:53 GMT -5
Eckhart was once asked by an interviewer, "You have said that Ramana Maharshi was once asked how one could judge the level of a person’s spiritual attainment, and he answered,'By the degree to which thought is absent.' Do you agree with Ramana? Eckhart responded, "Yes, I do." He went on to explain that the structure of egoic thought revolves around the non-acceptance of "what is," and he concluded by saying, "The most powerful spiritual activity is the uncompromising acceptance of 'what is', and this kind of acceptance is most likely to occur when thought is absent." To me, it's a distraction. Thought doesn't actually have the power to obstruct clarity in and of itself. Thinking is one of those things happening that isn't problematic until thought is believed to be more than it actually is. Which is to say that imagination is taken to be more than simply imagination. Egoic thought is a subcategory of the movement of thought as a whole. Meaning that not all thought is a movement of resistance nor does the cessation of thought to me have something to do with how attained someone is. On the contrary, thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. Rather I would say that the quality of thought is much more to the point. One that is looking to thought for what's true will find thought to have an overbearing solid nature that dominates their experience as a whole. One that has lost interest and/or seen through thinking as a whole will find thought to be much more transparent and more of a background movement. I'd say it's true that a quieter mind is likely but not guaranteed over the long term. To the degree that one begins to suspect they are not as spiritually attained as they thought because thinking is present is also arising as more thought. At the end of the day, there is no experience outside of mind. Experience is literally the movement of thought. If we're to talk about spiritual attainment in any sort of meaningful and practical way, it must be about mind coming to rest. Rest not meaning that it goes away but rather that it stops going to war with itself and returns to a role where it serves the organism rather than the other way around.
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Post by zendancer on Apr 12, 2013 18:08:58 GMT -5
Phil: You wrote: “ATA opens up a space in that thought process that is normally very closed and constricted. In this space is the potential for realization, and in this realization is the potential for the collapse of various thought structures. (seeing through illusions) They collapse because the realization informs mind and not because they simply starved to death due to lack of proper care and feeding. The distinction is important because the former does not require mind involvement while the latter does. When I hear of folks mantra meditating or practicing presence or Zen zoning or bobber blissing for decades, I suspect that this distinction is not being recognized, and it's quite understandable because the effect of what I'll call proper mind involvement is quite subtle. Realization eats away at (mostly unconscious) belief structures and one simply stops thinking about them because they aren't there anymore. Mind is not interested in noticing what doesn't happen anymore, and so the entire process may not be recognized at all, especially if one is disinclined to engage mind. It might seem like Grace, or it may seem like withdrawing attention from the thoughts has caused them to starve to death, but that's not what happens.” I guess I don’t understand the distinction you are making regarding how mind is involved in realizations. You talk about “proper mind involvement,” but what do you consider proper mind involvement to be? Bottom line: what would you advise a seeker to do? When I review the specific moments when various thought structures collapsed in my life, I find that they first collapsed, and afterwards the mind realized that they had collapsed. Mind was always late to the party. Afterwards, the mind often had other realizations concerning the implications of the collapse. From my POV the actual collapse had nothing to do with mind because mind did not know what had happened until afterwards. Yes, mind is always late to the party, and yes, we could say mind did not know what happened until afterwards, and in fact likely never finds out what happened, which is why we're talking about it, but lets slow down a bit right at the point where we conclude that mind had nothing to do with the collapse cuz you're talking about the conscious mediator. What you're saying is that mind didn't consciously do something to collapse beliefs, but the conscious level of mind is like the monitor you're looking at now. If you lost a file, you wouldn't say the computer had nothing to do with it because the monitor remained passive throughout the loss and simply no longer displays the file. The monitor did not 'know' what happened and can never tell you what events led up to the loss of that data, it can only reveal to you after the fact that the data is gone. The data did not go away because you failed to access it for a while and it just dissolved on it's own. Something happened there that very much involved the computer even though it did not involve the monitor as such. Conscious thoughts are the end result of the playing out of conditioned beliefs, fears, needs, attachments, etc, that are operative mostly in the background. This is why thoughts can't be controlled very well from the conscious level of mind. It's also why we work with that conditioning and challenge beliefs and try to see through our illusions. I think you agree that a realization is required in order to impact that conditioning, and maybe ATA will trigger that realization, but the realization is not the realization of something. It's more like the witnessing of the actuality of no boundaries. It isn't conceptual, and so there can be a division remaining between the realization, and the collapse of the conceptual boundaries formed by the illusory belief. IMO, lots of folks have realizations of some kind that never impact the mind's conditioning because mind never gets involved. It's this involvement to which I refer that I talk about as 'informing mind', and this process, which may or may not occur, is what results in the collapsing of the belief, and not the realization itself. The reason there may be a delay between the realization and the collapse of the belief is that this processing is a function of mind and may require time. The reason it may not be noticed for a while even after it collapses is that mind has no interest in what is no longer there; what no longer bubbles up to the surface of the conscious mind. I think I have more to say about the rest of your post, which I'll get to later. Thanks for the interesting conversation. Okay, I get what you're saying now, and that makes sense to me. I'll have more to say about this later, too.
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Post by enigma on Apr 12, 2013 19:22:49 GMT -5
Eckhart was once asked by an interviewer, "You have said that Ramana Maharshi was once asked how one could judge the level of a person’s spiritual attainment, and he answered,'By the degree to which thought is absent.' Do you agree with Ramana? Eckhart responded, "Yes, I do." He went on to explain that the structure of egoic thought revolves around the non-acceptance of "what is," and he concluded by saying, "The most powerful spiritual activity is the uncompromising acceptance of 'what is', and this kind of acceptance is most likely to occur when thought is absent." To me, it's a distraction. Thought doesn't actually have the power to obstruct clarity in and of itself. Thinking is one of those things happening that isn't problematic until thought is believed to be more than it actually is. Which is to say that imagination is taken to be more than simply imagination. Egoic thought is a subcategory of the movement of thought as a whole. Meaning that not all thought is a movement of resistance nor does the cessation of thought to me have something to do with how attained someone is. On the contrary, thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. Rather I would say that the quality of thought is much more to the point. One that is looking to thought for what's true will find thought to have an overbearing solid nature that dominates their experience as a whole. One that has lost interest and/or seen through thinking as a whole will find thought to be much more transparent and more of a background movement. I'd say it's true that a quieter mind is likely but not guaranteed over the long term. To the degree that one begins to suspect they are not as spiritually attained as they thought because thinking is present is also arising as more thought. At the end of the day, there is no experience outside of mind. Experience is literally the movement of thought. If we're to talk about spiritual attainment in any sort of meaningful and practical way, it must be about mind coming to rest. Rest not meaning that it goes away but rather that it stops going to war with itself and returns to a role where it serves the organism rather than the other way around. Yes, that sounds more betterer than the Ramana/Eckhart declaration. I think they should have have thought about that more. It's also not as obvious as it may seem to know "the degree to which thought is absent". Most, perhaps, have had the experience of writing creatively in a mode that is effortless and the writing seems to basically write itself. That same sort of 'flow' experience can happen when one is 'looking', seeing and conceptually translating what is seen effortlessly. The result may appear to involve a great deal of mentation, especially to one who does not see what is being talked about, and yet it too may be a virtually effortless 'reporting' of what is being seen. The difference is in where one is speaking FROM. For example, the woo woo guru is talking but he may not be thinking as we would normally define it.
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Post by laughter on Apr 12, 2013 19:34:21 GMT -5
To me, it's a distraction. Thought doesn't actually have the power to obstruct clarity in and of itself. Thinking is one of those things happening that isn't problematic until thought is believed to be more than it actually is. Which is to say that imagination is taken to be more than simply imagination. Egoic thought is a subcategory of the movement of thought as a whole. Meaning that not all thought is a movement of resistance nor does the cessation of thought to me have something to do with how attained someone is. On the contrary, thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. Rather I would say that the quality of thought is much more to the point. One that is looking to thought for what's true will find thought to have an overbearing solid nature that dominates their experience as a whole. One that has lost interest and/or seen through thinking as a whole will find thought to be much more transparent and more of a background movement. I'd say it's true that a quieter mind is likely but not guaranteed over the long term. To the degree that one begins to suspect they are not as spiritually attained as they thought because thinking is present is also arising as more thought. At the end of the day, there is no experience outside of mind. Experience is literally the movement of thought. If we're to talk about spiritual attainment in any sort of meaningful and practical way, it must be about mind coming to rest. Rest not meaning that it goes away but rather that it stops going to war with itself and returns to a role where it serves the organism rather than the other way around. Yes, that sounds more betterer than the Ramana/Eckhart declaration. I think they should have have thought about that more. It's also not as obvious as it may seem to know "the degree to which thought is absent". Most, perhaps, have had the experience of writing creatively in a mode that is effortless and the writing seems to basically write itself. That same sort of 'flow' experience can happen when one is 'looking', seeing and conceptually translating what is seen effortlessly. The result may appear to involve a great deal of mentation, especially to one who does not see what is being talked about, and yet it too may be a virtually effortless 'reporting' of what is being seen. The difference is in where one is speaking FROM. For example, the woo woo guru is talking but he may not be thinking as we would normally define it. Eckhart is pretty clear on the point of not going to war with thought or the thinking mind and draws the distinction between you using the mind or the mind using you. Of course just as this point: thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. ... is completely valid on it's face but can serve as a sort of rationalization for maintaining a driver at the wheel, the question of who's at the wheel at any one given moment is rife for the potential of self-deception.
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Post by enigma on Apr 12, 2013 19:48:09 GMT -5
Yes, that sounds more betterer than the Ramana/Eckhart declaration. I think they should have have thought about that more. It's also not as obvious as it may seem to know "the degree to which thought is absent". Most, perhaps, have had the experience of writing creatively in a mode that is effortless and the writing seems to basically write itself. That same sort of 'flow' experience can happen when one is 'looking', seeing and conceptually translating what is seen effortlessly. The result may appear to involve a great deal of mentation, especially to one who does not see what is being talked about, and yet it too may be a virtually effortless 'reporting' of what is being seen. The difference is in where one is speaking FROM. For example, the woo woo guru is talking but he may not be thinking as we would normally define it. Eckhart is pretty clear on the point of not going to war with thought or the thinking mind and draws the distinction between you using the mind or the mind using you. Of course just as this point: thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. ... is completely valid on it's face but can serve as a sort of rationalization for maintaining a driver at the wheel, the question of who's at the wheel at any one given moment is rife for the potential of self-deception. Yeah, I was teasin about Ramana and Eckhart. I suspect they're both purdy clear about that war thingy.
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Post by zendancer on Apr 12, 2013 19:56:37 GMT -5
Eckhart was once asked by an interviewer, "You have said that Ramana Maharshi was once asked how one could judge the level of a person’s spiritual attainment, and he answered,'By the degree to which thought is absent.' Do you agree with Ramana? Eckhart responded, "Yes, I do." He went on to explain that the structure of egoic thought revolves around the non-acceptance of "what is," and he concluded by saying, "The most powerful spiritual activity is the uncompromising acceptance of 'what is', and this kind of acceptance is most likely to occur when thought is absent." To me, it's a distraction. Thought doesn't actually have the power to obstruct clarity in and of itself. Thinking is one of those things happening that isn't problematic until thought is believed to be more than it actually is. Which is to say that imagination is taken to be more than simply imagination. Egoic thought is a subcategory of the movement of thought as a whole. Meaning that not all thought is a movement of resistance nor does the cessation of thought to me have something to do with how attained someone is. On the contrary, thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. Rather I would say that the quality of thought is much more to the point. One that is looking to thought for what's true will find thought to have an overbearing solid nature that dominates their experience as a whole. One that has lost interest and/or seen through thinking as a whole will find thought to be much more transparent and more of a background movement. I'd say it's true that a quieter mind is likely but not guaranteed over the long term. To the degree that one begins to suspect they are not as spiritually attained as they thought because thinking is present is also arising as more thought. At the end of the day, there is no experience outside of mind. Experience is literally the movement of thought. If we're to talk about spiritual attainment in any sort of meaningful and practical way, it must be about mind coming to rest. Rest not meaning that it goes away but rather that it stops going to war with itself and returns to a role where it serves the organism rather than the other way around. For the most part I agree with this. I would only point out that thinking is highly over-rated and is unnecessary for most of life's activities. In the silence that occurs when thinking is absent many things become obvious that would not otherwise be noticed. I did not mean to imply that mental silence is necessary for spiritual attainment, or that spiritual attainment even matters, and I don't think Eckhart is saying that either. It is probably more of a correlation thing. People who are relatively free of thought tend to see more deeply and more clearly the nature of "what is."
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Post by laughter on Apr 12, 2013 19:59:41 GMT -5
To me, it's a distraction. Thought doesn't actually have the power to obstruct clarity in and of itself. Thinking is one of those things happening that isn't problematic until thought is believed to be more than it actually is. Which is to say that imagination is taken to be more than simply imagination. Egoic thought is a subcategory of the movement of thought as a whole. Meaning that not all thought is a movement of resistance nor does the cessation of thought to me have something to do with how attained someone is. On the contrary, thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. Rather I would say that the quality of thought is much more to the point. One that is looking to thought for what's true will find thought to have an overbearing solid nature that dominates their experience as a whole. One that has lost interest and/or seen through thinking as a whole will find thought to be much more transparent and more of a background movement. I'd say it's true that a quieter mind is likely but not guaranteed over the long term. To the degree that one begins to suspect they are not as spiritually attained as they thought because thinking is present is also arising as more thought. At the end of the day, there is no experience outside of mind. Experience is literally the movement of thought. If we're to talk about spiritual attainment in any sort of meaningful and practical way, it must be about mind coming to rest. Rest not meaning that it goes away but rather that it stops going to war with itself and returns to a role where it serves the organism rather than the other way around. For the most part I agree with this. I would only point out that thinking is highly over-rated and is unnecessary for most of life's activities. In the silence that occurs when thinking is absent many things become obvious that would not otherwise be noticed. I did not mean to imply that mental silence is necessary for spiritual attainment, or that spiritual attainment even matters, and I don't think Eckhart is saying that either. It is probably more of a correlation thing. People who are relatively free of thought tend to see more deeply and more clearly the nature of "what is."If I may be so bold as to offer an example such a person would likely either not see a paradox in the idea of spiritual attainment/level of spiritual attainment or if they did they'd see that for what it was.
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Post by laughter on Apr 12, 2013 20:02:29 GMT -5
Eckhart is pretty clear on the point of not going to war with thought or the thinking mind and draws the distinction between you using the mind or the mind using you. Of course just as this point: ... is completely valid on it's face but can serve as a sort of rationalization for maintaining a driver at the wheel, the question of who's at the wheel at any one given moment is rife for the potential of self-deception. Yeah, I was teasin about Ramana and Eckhart. I suspect they're both purdy clear about that war thingy. I saw the pirate! -- no need to applogize! ... even without 'em!
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Post by silence on Apr 12, 2013 20:06:34 GMT -5
Yes, that sounds more betterer than the Ramana/Eckhart declaration. I think they should have have thought about that more. It's also not as obvious as it may seem to know "the degree to which thought is absent". Most, perhaps, have had the experience of writing creatively in a mode that is effortless and the writing seems to basically write itself. That same sort of 'flow' experience can happen when one is 'looking', seeing and conceptually translating what is seen effortlessly. The result may appear to involve a great deal of mentation, especially to one who does not see what is being talked about, and yet it too may be a virtually effortless 'reporting' of what is being seen. The difference is in where one is speaking FROM. For example, the woo woo guru is talking but he may not be thinking as we would normally define it. Eckhart is pretty clear on the point of not going to war with thought or the thinking mind and draws the distinction between you using the mind or the mind using you. Of course just as this point: thinking is actually a critical part of functioning as an adult human. ... is completely valid on it's face but can serve as a sort of rationalization for maintaining a driver at the wheel, the question of who's at the wheel at any one given moment is rife for the potential of self-deception. Right. I'm not suggesting the statement that "thinking is a critical part of functioning as an adult human" become a belief that stands in the way of examining the nature of thought. I'm basically talking about the confusion that results in one's spiritual approach becoming about ending thinking. In the thousands of years people have been practicing spirituality, things haven't much changed. The same traps happen again and again.
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