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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2013 11:56:28 GMT -5
Hmmm, we are 'already' free... Let me think about that ***Prison door makes loud, metallic SLAM! as it closes again*** Hmmm, well that sound of a metallic SLAM!, just might be the reminder to drop whatever separating thoughts or feelings I'm indulging in... But I'll have to think about that too.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2013 12:45:21 GMT -5
Seems to me your pointing at what 'IS'... It knows experiences but it is itself not an experience. It knows thoughts and memories but it is itself not memories or thoughts. It knows knowledge but it is itself not knowledge. It knows time but it is itself timeless. Yes, it is the view from that which is viewing. It's also what we've been calling the impersonal perspective. The boundaries of mind can be seen from that position because the seer is not mind. This clears up a lot of things. When someone says that they are pointing to that impersonal perspective, the pointing finger turns 180 degrees and points back towards that which is viewing. The viewer cannot view itself, but views the finger pointing in it's direction. The finger is neither pointing to a Where or a What, but points at the capacity for the entire universe.
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Post by enigma on Jul 2, 2013 22:52:49 GMT -5
***Prison door makes loud, metallic SLAM! as it closes again*** Hmmm, well that sound of a metallic SLAM!, just might be the reminder to drop whatever separating thoughts or feelings I'm indulging in... But I'll have to think about that too. That's why seekers start to look like clowns in the circus after a while.
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Post by enigma on Jul 2, 2013 22:59:54 GMT -5
Yes, it is the view from that which is viewing. It's also what we've been calling the impersonal perspective. The boundaries of mind can be seen from that position because the seer is not mind. This clears up a lot of things. When someone says that they are pointing to that impersonal perspective, the pointing finger turns 180 degrees and points back towards that which is viewing. The viewer cannot view itself, but views the finger pointing in it's direction. The finger is neither pointing to a Where or a What, but points at the capacity for the entire universe. Well, it points to subjectivity itself, and the personal is always an 'object' to that subject. The 'person' is always being observed. Identification with the thoughts and feelings happening in that person make it seem like one is viewing FROM that perspective, but it is never the case.
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Post by amit on Jul 4, 2013 1:25:22 GMT -5
Hi topology, Realization was being spoken about regarding the search for enlightenment, so required in the sense that whatever transcends the idea of that separate self needs to be seen, rather than not required as in the nondual perspective that it is already Oneness not seeing so not seeing does not have to be transcended. "What I have often found is that insight is often preceded by cognitive dissonance. It's from our dissonant experiences that we are challenged to find a deeper understanding, a deeper resonance." Can you give an specific example? amit amit In 2004 I had an event which reframed a lot of things for more. I met the TAT group, or at least Art Ticknor, in 2000 after a breakup of a very codependent and abusive relationship. Art introduced me to the teachings of Richard Rose (and other enlightenment teachers) and practices of self-observation and confrontation. I was extremely unhappy (dissonance) and spent nights in coffee shops journaling and reviewing the life events that lead up to me being the way I was. I realized several patterns which helped me understand how I had set myself up for this codependent relationship. I was very insecure. While doing my time with Art and TAT folks I became an intentional seeker of Enlightenment. I read tons of books and explored tons of material. In 2002 I graduated with my BS and moved from Pittsburgh to Nashua, NH to work at an Internet startup. I was still unhappy and depressive, still questing after enlightenment. A year and a half later I went to Tom Brown's tracker school and did a week of being in nature. There were several exercises we performed which had a tremendous effect on my nervous system. Slow walking to lower the internal bio-rhythms, paying attention to the peripheral vision and seeing everything at once in a 3D panorama. When I got back from that week, I was restless and discontent. I hated working at what I felt like was becoming a meaningless job, I just wanted to go back to the woods. I had very recently read a book called "Laws Of Form" by G Spencer Brown. The combination of all my seeking, my emotional discontent, having gone and experienced being in the woods, feeling trapped and stuck at my job and just wanting life to be meaningful caused something inside me snap. I spent two days trying to make myself work, but couldn't. Finally I got up and started pacing outside my office building letting everything boil over emotionally inside me and I became very angry at everything. What ever energy block I was stuck on collapsed and my energy state shifted. My vision switched over to the 3D panorama and I literally felt energy shooting out of my shoulder blades as if I had wings. My conscious experience became fluid and time lapsed. As birds would fly by I felt them move through me. In the sky I would see them leaves trails of black as color would slowly fill in after their passing. Eventually the event subsided and I returned from that state back to the situation I was unhappy with. I quit my job and moved back to Lubbock, Tx. I realized several things from that experience. This experience made real the understanding that I am not a body living in the context of the world, I am consciousness and the body and world live in me. Objects are only appearances, hallucinatory patterns within consciousness. The perceived experience felt fluid, very much like it was a chemical exchange occurring, but then there was that which was having the experience, a vast perceptive faculty, a backdrop of silence and stillness that could be more clearly seen when the phenomenal experience was going wonky. I had believed that enlightenment made you egoless. But if anything was an enlightenment experience, I thought this was it... But the Ego was still fully intact, and if anything I became very full of myself and arrogant thinking I was becoming enlightened. But something inside me whispered in my eat and got me to see that this wasn't it either. If this wasn't enlightenment then there was no enlightenment, or nothing I could ever do to become enlightened. This event shifted the understanding of what this experience is and changed how I related to it. It foregrounded my ego in my own ears and attuned me to how I was not humble. The change in perspective didn't fix my problems, which is what I was hoping it would do. It only gave me a few more tools and and awakened a few more sensitivities to help figure out what was going on. The game shifted from seeking an idealized state to simply wanting to become more self-aware of my psychology as that was the root of how my experience manifested and created the story that plays out. The story doesn't end there, but It was the most pivotal event which facilitated many realizations. The dissonance is pivotal in causing a collapse in old belief structures. We believe we are seeing the actual world. We might resonate with the idea that it's all an illusion or a dream, but it's just a patch job over our visceral interaction. Knock on a wall and it feels solid. We are convicted that this world exists and that there are objects, etc. But when the experience starts melting and becomes fluid like a Hallucination losing it's coherence, you get direct evidence to the contrary. The world we experience and think we see is a mirage appearing in ________? The physical assumption collapses. It's realized that everything is just in a state of seeming. The wall FEELS-LIKE it is solid. Is it really? I don't know. I don't think about it anymore. There are no objects, objecthood is part of the hallucination. That was realized in a profound and fundamental way. My psychology creates the story that plays out, that was realized in a fundamental way. I saw it in an instant and the mind has been playing catch-up ever since. Still processing my psychology. Still integrating the realizations into the way I relate to my experience. But the dissonance happens when old belief structures are being challenged and old coping mechanisms start failing to cope with a changing experience. The dissonance is the clearing out of the old, breaking up it's strangle hold. Resonance happens when the existing structure is able to resonate, dissonance is necessary for the structure to evolve or collapse. Is realization necessary? I think it boils down to epistemology. How do you know what you know? Is it from belief of external testimony? (which is what resonance can facilitate developing) or is it from experience and directly perceiving the way the world is, even then confirmation might be at play and dissonance is essential in revealing confirmation bias. Purely relying on resonance doesn't challenge false assumptions which may be skewing the understanding of what is happening in the experience. Hi topology, Understood. Thanks. Characters vary. Whilst looking for the truth, which I believed would end my feeling of disconnection, I discovered Soren Kierkegaard which ended the search for the truth. The feeling of disconnection remained however but I was no longer bound by having to discover truth in order to end it. There was no longer anything like what you call "false assumptions" so I was no longer limited in the way you describe. I considered many spiritual paths and practices on the level of opening myself to what was being offered and see what happens without believing in or resonating with any of them. There were various experiences, some profound, but they didn't last and none ended the feeling of disconnection. It was amazing that during that period I never came across the concept "All is One" or maybe I did but was not ready to hear it. One fateful day it was heard and a strong resonance occurred which resulted in an intense focus on the concept to understand its implications. These can be very challenging as we have seen from reactions on this forum and elsewhere and were certainly challenging to the character amit. But after a number of years the implications were assimilated and the end of the feeling of disconnection, which started at the time of the original resonance, was consolidated. You could call some of what happened in those "number of years" a process of self inquiry when parts of the character that objected to the concept were overcome, but the main effect was the seeing that becoming enlightened/realized/awakened/liberated was not required by the concept because it was already Oneness not seeing. amit
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Post by amit on Jul 4, 2013 1:54:20 GMT -5
Hi enigma, "The true guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self-appointed guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples." --Sri Nisargadatta Mahara This is an example of the the sort of contradiction referred to. On the one hand he talks about knowing the seeker needs nothing without qualifying that statement by referring to the need to realize, and in the same paragraph talks about encouragement to inquire within. There may well be many similar references among the multitude of nondual teachings out there. If I come across any more I'll post them. amit I don't see a contradiction. He knows you need nothing, but this must be realized. IOW, it's just a belief that something is needed. To then conclude that it can't be true that nothing is needed, is what we refer to around these parts as TMT. It's necessary to realize that you are already free. That's all. Hi enigma, "...without qualifying that statement by referring to the need to realize," amit
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Post by amit on Jul 4, 2013 2:01:34 GMT -5
Hi topology, Yes resonance is a useful term to describe a connection which does not have to be based on believing that what one resonates with is the truth. There is value in dissonance in the sense that it indicates that which one does not resonate with:) Do you regard realization as required?amit This is what I overheard him say to you: If the mind is not informed with that initial realization, when the mind boots back up it picks up right where it left off and dismisses the experience as "I got lost in daydreaming, time to get focussed on the task at hand". Realizations is the force that pushes on the first domino (or house of cards), causing it to topple. Read more: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/2853/advaita-splits?page=3&scrollTo=128605#ixzz2XuCqRTjNHi enigma, Cant find that. Can you quote it including the context? amit
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Post by enigma on Jul 4, 2013 10:21:14 GMT -5
I don't see a contradiction. He knows you need nothing, but this must be realized. IOW, it's just a belief that something is needed. To then conclude that it can't be true that nothing is needed, is what we refer to around these parts as TMT. It's necessary to realize that you are already free. That's all. Hi enigma, "...without qualifying that statement by referring to the need to realize," amit He wasn't writing a technical paper. He's pointing, you're analyzing.
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Post by enigma on Jul 4, 2013 10:24:24 GMT -5
Hi enigma, Cant find that. Can you quote it including the context? amit Realization is how mind is informed about the experience. In the recognition of experiencing the loss of a sense of separation it is realized that there never was a separate person to begin with. That realization then cascades as the mind reinterprets (or drops its interpretation of) everything it thought about the nature of existence and personal identity. If the mind is not informed with that initial realization, when the mind boots back up it picks up right where it left off and dismisses the experience as "I got lost in daydreaming, time to get focussed on the task at hand". Realizations is the force that pushes on the first domino (or house of cards), causing it to topple. Read more: spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/2853/advaita-splits?page=2&scrollTo=128476#ixzz2Y5hhg0wd
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Post by zendancer on Jul 4, 2013 17:32:44 GMT -5
Never been to a meeting, no. It's legit to talk about an awakening event, and also to say there is no awakening because awakening is the realization that there is nobody to awaken. It's the realization that the person is an illusion, and this realization is the awakening referred to. It's not actually true that somebody realizes this, though we can talk about it that way. The two statements are not really contradictory once the difficulty in talking about it is understood. Hi enigma, Understood. Thanks. Lets still use pronouns for ease of communication. Has it occurred for you. If so how would you describe "the realization that the person is an illusion" Is it a feeling/experience (whose?) or neither? What would you say about it? amit I'll jump in here and add a few comments even though E. has probably explained things as well as language permits. If one seriously pursues the truth, there are a wide range of possible realizations that may occur. Some of them are minor and some of them are major. They all happen spontaneously (have no duration) and include: 1. The realization that time, space, and thingness are mental constructs. 2. The realization that reality is a unified field of being. 3. The realization that reality is alive, intelligent, and infinite. 4. The realization that there is no limit to what reality can do. 5. The realization that even if the universe disappeared, that which is aware would remain--that awareness is prior to any and all manifestation. 6. The realization that the concept of volition is a concept rather than something real. 7. The realization that thoughts separate the thinker from the truth. 8. The realization that love is a fundamental quality, force, and manifestation of reality. 9. The realization/acceptance of how the body must manifest. 10. The realization that goodness is more important than correctness. 11. The realization of answers to thousands of existential questions, conundrums, and seeming paradoxes. 12. The realization of how mind functions to create and maintain a state of entrancement. 13. The realization of the importance of freedom from the mind. 14. The realization of the difference between how little children perceive and interact with the world versus how adults perceive and interact with products of imagination. 15. The realization that selfhood is an illusion created by thought. The first four of these realizations and the last one are probably the most important ones because they reveal (1) that the universe is not what it is usually imagined to be, and (2) self reflection, self-referentiality, and self imagining has unnoticed tendrils of thought that permeate the body/mind and only disappear when the illusion of selfhood is seen through. Selfhood is apparently a highly complex thought structure that affects every aspect of life in ways that are not recognized until the structure collapses. After the collapse, there is a greater freedom of action because the mind does not reflexively check back on the structure in the way that it did previously and unconsciously. Bernadette Roberts and other writers have attempted to describe this phenomena. In short, life has a kind of free flow to it when the mind isn't habitually relating the happeningness of reality to an imaginary entity. After the illusion of selfhood is seen through, the process of Self-discovery and Self-realization does not stop because Self/Reality/God/the Truth is infinite, and there is no limit to what It may choose to learn about Itself.
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 4, 2013 17:52:55 GMT -5
Greetings.. Hi enigma, Understood. Thanks. Lets still use pronouns for ease of communication. Has it occurred for you. If so how would you describe "the realization that the person is an illusion" Is it a feeling/experience (whose?) or neither? What would you say about it? amit I'll jump in here and add a few comments even though E. has probably explained things as well as language permits. If one seriously pursues the truth, there are a wide range of possible realizations that may occur. Some of them are minor and some of them are major. They all happen spontaneously (have no duration) and include: 1. The realization that time, space, and thingness are mental constructs. 2. The realization that reality is a unified field of being. 3. The realization that reality is alive, intelligent, and infinite. 4. The realization that there is no limit to what reality can do. 5. The realization that even if the universe disappeared, that which is aware would remain--that awareness is prior to any and all manifestation. 6. The realization that the concept of volition is a concept rather than something real. 7. The realization that thoughts separate the thinker from the truth. 8. The realization that love is a fundamental quality, force, and manifestation of reality. 9. The realization/acceptance of how the body must manifest. 10. The realization that goodness is more important than correctness. 11. The realization of answers to thousands of existential questions, conundrums, and seeming paradoxes. 12. The realization of how mind functions to create and maintain a state of entrancement. 13. The realization of the importance of freedom from the mind. 14. The realization of the difference between how little children perceive and interact with the world versus how adults perceive and interact with products of imagination. 15. The realization that selfhood is an illusion created by thought. The first four of these realizations and the last one are probably the most important ones because they reveal (1) that the universe is not what it is usually imagined to be, and (2) self reflection, self-referentiality, and self imagining has unnoticed tendrils of thought that permeate the body/mind and only disappear when the illusion of selfhood is seen through. Selfhood is apparently a highly complex thought structure that affects every aspect of life in ways that are not recognized until the structure collapses. After the collapse, there is a greater freedom of action because the mind does not reflexively check back on the structure in the way that it did previously and unconsciously. Bernadette Roberts and other writers have attempted to describe this phenomena. In short, life has a kind of free flow to it when the mind isn't habitually relating the happeningness of reality to an imaginary entity. After the illusion of selfhood is seen through, the process of Self-discovery and Self-realization does not stop because Self/Reality/God/the Truth is infinite, and there is no limit to what It may choose to learn about Itself. Hi ZD: Who/what is it that you suggest would benefit from the realizations? Be well..
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2013 18:32:19 GMT -5
Your question was answered by Realization number 7
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 4, 2013 18:49:51 GMT -5
Greetings.. Your question was answered by Realization number 7 That's what 'you' think, but.. you're not Zendancer.. Be well..
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Post by Deleted on Jul 4, 2013 19:10:44 GMT -5
Greetings.. Your question was answered by Realization number 7 That's what 'you' think, but.. you're not Zendancer.. Be well.. No, that is what you think...
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Post by tzujanli on Jul 4, 2013 19:47:08 GMT -5
Greetings.. Greetings.. That's what 'you' think, but.. you're not Zendancer.. Be well.. No, that is what you think... Great! another 'i'm rubber, you're glue' kind of distorted perspective.. it's not easy to just have a simple discussion around here.. Be well..
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