Vedanta/James Swartz

[nowhereman]

Okay got ya.. I would just go ahead and write him. His beautiful wife takes most of his emails these days.
I will say James seems to me to be the most grounded of all the teachers I have come accross. His book How to attain Enlightenment is by far the best book I have ever read. I have much respect for James and his work. Their was a time I was broke with no money to buy his book and they sent it to me free and asked for nothing. They will also teach you for free! No money game here they really believe in what they teach and it shows in all their action.
So just send a email. I am far from a perfect student so taking much advise from me would not be your best choice lol
Nowhereman

[Deleted]

JOHN: I have another teaching that I would like to discuss.

Ram: Sure, but let me make one more comment on this one before we move on because Ramana defines enlightenment in the first part of this quote and it is important to know what enlightenment is if you are seeking it. He says, “As the Self of a person who tries to attain Self-realization is not different from him and as there is nothing other than or superior to him to be attained by him, Self-realization being only the realization of one’s own nature…etc.

I think this statement should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand what enlightenment is. Ramana makes if very clear that it is not about being different from what you are or of getting something that is better than what you already have…like a high state of consciousness. He uses a very interesting word here…only…to make the point that incredible spiritual experiences or altered states of consciousness or transforming oneself is not enlightenment.

He says it is ‘only’ realizing what you are.

JOHN: But isn’t this realization something unique?

Ram: No. What is being realized might be considered unique if you had been ignorant for a long time but this realization is no different from realizing or understanding or knowing anything. When it happens there is always a sense of irony because it is something that has always been well known. What could be any more familiar to you than you? It may seem like a big deal because something that is so obvious can be easily be taken for granted and forgotten.

So Self realization is always a re-discovery, not a discovery.

JOHN: So this is the whole cosmic joke idea.

Ram: Yes. To solve the riddle you need a trick, a technique, which Ramana calls inquiry or viveka. You need to be reminded that you are eternal, that you have always been, that nothing can be added to or subtracted from you, that experience is impermanent, and that you need to start paying attention to your own mind and its ideas to the contrary and get to work dismissing them. As long as you hold erroneous views about yourself you will not hold the right view about yourself.

[silence]

Oct 15, 2013 12:33:10 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Ram: Yes. To solve the riddle you need a trick, a technique, which Ramana calls inquiry or viveka. You need to be reminded that you are eternal, that you have always been, that nothing can be added to or subtracted from you, that experience is impermanent, and that you need to start paying attention to your own mind and its ideas to the contrary and get to work dismissing them. As long as you hold erroneous views about yourself you will not hold the right view about yourself.

The bolded is an important point in that paying attention doesn't mean more analysis and thinking about other thoughts but rather actually looking at the distortions you've become compelled by regardless of how much pain and confusion they cause.

[Deleted]

From a Consciousness TV interview:

Iain: No. But James, for me it is like sometimes I feel that I am awareness but other times I may be awareness, but I am also something else that is interfering with my fundamental realisation that I am aware.

James: That’s right.

Iain: That is the question I am asking.

James:That could be a confidence problem. You are awareness, but when you are not 100% confident in that knowledge and when the old patterns come up - the “I am Iain” pattern, or some desire or some little fear maybe creeps in - you identify with that. And then your knowledge of yourself as awareness disappears and you re-identify with Iain. Isn’t that correct?

Iain: Absolutely correct, yes.

James: So it’s just confidence. That is the beauty of the teacher. I knew who I was, but I didn’t have 100% confidence until I saw my guru, who had absolute confidence. You can be confident because awareness is you. As long as you define enlightenment experientially - as a state that you can enter and leave - you will never be confident, because experience isn’t under your control. No human being controls experience; it is controlled by factors that are beyond humans. The macrocosmic mind produces all these experiences and nobody - including Sai Baba and all the big guys who are claiming to have yoga powers and all that - controls experience either. The vasanas or samskaras cause experiences.

The Self is beyond experience. If you say you are enlightened, you are wrong, because you are saying that you had some special experience which is different from non-enlightenment experience. I won’t say I am enlightened nor will I say I am unenlightened, because the whole topic of enlightenment doesn’t apply to me, to awareness. I am speaking now as awareness, not as James. This is not to say that I can’t speak as James, but I know James is just a character in a play or a dream. He is an appearance that awareness is making here in time and space. He is not me.

So no, you can’t lose it once you know. That is why it is said in the Vedas, “What is it, knowing which, everything else is known?” You can’t lose it because this knowledge is not memory-based. That is the interesting thing about Self-knowledge. Most people think that knowledge is intellectual and is based on memory.

Say you commit a crime and are sent to a desert island for fifty years with no one to talk to all that time, so you have no reason to speak your name. Then after fifty years they come to get you and they say, “Iain McNay? Are you Iain McNay?” And without checking with your memory you say immediately, “Yeah, you bet!” The knowledge of who you are is right there at the tip of your tongue. It is there because it is you.

It is the same with the Self. It is never apart from you. So once you understand who you are, you can’t forget it. But if it is only an intellectual idea, you can forget it. If it is experiential, you can lose it. But if it is knowledge - and we said earlier that knowledge is what can’t be negated - then you can’t lose it. So no, it’s the wrong question!

[maxdprophet]

The rope/snake thingy is referenced a lot but I hadn't seen a full account.  Here's one version via Ted Schmidt's site (endorsed by James Swartz):

During the twilight hour, a weary traveler happens upon a well from which he is anxious to draw water to slake his thirst. While making his way toward the well bucket, however, he is stopped dead in his tracks when he spies a cobra rearing up beside it.



Paralyzed with fear the man stands as if rooted in the ground, daring to neither advance nor retreat as even the slightest movement might cause the snake to strike. As fate would have it, just at this moment an old man comes ambling along the road. Noticing the traveler’s widened eyes and trembling body, the old man pauses to ask the traveler what is troubling him. Hardly daring to speak, the traveler, in a loud whisper, warns the old man about the imminent danger presented by the snake and importunes him to get a stick and kill the serpent. After momentarily sizing up the situation, however, the old man breaks into a hearty chuckle and tells the traveler to relax, pointing out that the what he had mistaken for a poisonous snake was in reality simply the well-rope curling up over the side of the bucket to which it was tied. Upon blinking his eyes and taking a closer look, the traveler’s terror immediately abated. Thereafter, the two men shared a cool drink and a congenial laugh.

The implications of this simple story are profound. Just as the traveler’s fear and suffering were the result of an erroneous notion based upon his misapprehension of the true nature of the circumstance before him, so our existential angst and anguish are the result of our ignorance about the true nature of reality and our own identity as whole and complete, limitless, non-dual awareness.

It is important to note that the traveler’s fear was not extinguished by killing the snake. Many spiritual seekers think that the means to enlightenment involves “killing” or leaving the world and running off to some cave in the Himalayas or retreating into some more idyllic life in an ashram or spiritual community and that, in any case, the spiritual path involves the renunciation of worldly possessions and so they give away their stuff and in some cases gift their money to spiritual organizations that promise them either salvation and/or self- realization. Such means, however, despite their romantic association with the spiritual path, are based on a misinterpretation of the true meaning of renunciation and are completely incapable of producing the lasting peace and happiness that are the nature of liberation.

Neither did the traveler have to die. One of the most grievous misconceptions in the spiritual world is that the ego must be slain. Though taking the “I”-thought or ego to be real and consequently mistaking oneself for the individual person one appears to be rather than understanding one’s true nature as limitless awareness is the essential error that causes all one’s suffering, doesn’t mean that the ego needs to be “killed” or completely eradicated. As long as one is embodied, one will appear to be an individual. This apparent person doesn’t need to be dropped, but simply reeducated. The “I”-thought doesn’t need to be removed, but simply reoriented.

Moreover, the traveler’s release was not the result of some cosmic experience of oneness with the snake during which both entities erupted in a blinding white light and merged with the Supreme Source. Almost invariably spiritual seekers believe that “enlightenment” is indicated or characterized by some mystical, mind- blowing epiphany or eternal experience of bliss. Given the fact that all experience takes place in the arena of the apparent reality and is constrained by the parameters of time and space, however, no experience lasts forever. All experiences – no matter how mind- blowing or blissful – eventually end. For this reason, no limited experience can characterize that which is limitless and without attributes.

[maxdprophet]

Nov 16, 2015 0:01:43 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Nov 14, 2015 23:14:27 GMT -5 enigma said:

Well....you can't.

The whole idea of self deception is odd, and it's not quite as simple as consciously saying 'Okay, I choose to be aware of everything I choose to not be aware of'. You're choosing to not be aware of it, and deceiving yourself into believing you do want to be aware of it. Still, you're choosing to not be aware.



"To thine own self be true."

Some unconscious processing is deeper than mind, is even pre-mind. There three energies which show this operation, the three gunas, rajas, tamas, sattva. Some quotes:



These three energies are called gunas, which means rope, because they bind the soul, the indweller in the body, to habitual thoughts, feelings(emotions) and actions. Each binds in a different way. Rajas binds by longing and attachment. ...Tamas binds by ignorance and its effects. ...Although sattva is a necessary stepping stone to self realization, it binds to attachment to pleasure and happiness. When the mind is sattva, you feel good. When you feel good, there is a strong tendency to identify with the feeling. ....Sattva also binds by attachment to knowledge. ...



We believe that we consciously interpret our experiences, but actually rajasic, tamasic and sattvic values do the interpreting. ...When self knowledge dawns in a sattvic mind, it is a perfect means to evaluate and process experience. Unexamined experience no longer accumulates, because it is processed on the spot.... Self knowledge removes doubt about the nature of the world because it reveals things as they are. ....People would not be who they are if they could help it; we would all be the gods and goddesses we want to be. We are victims of our ignorance of the truth. ...



It is not a secret that psychological dysfunction is carefully handed down from generation to generation. Conditioning means that you do not have any choice. It happens when you are not aware.



How Can I Get A Pure Mind?



...First, pay close attention to the mind and recognize the energy in play in the moment. Rajas and tamas, by their very nature, are inimical to self study. Rajas diverts attention into the world, when it should be focused within. Tamas conceals the intellect behind a dark cloud, making observations difficult. To further complicate matters, the ego resists every effort at self study because it is attached to the way it sees things. .....



You are not special and the universe is not eagerly sitting around waiting to deliver a much needed miracle. If you are looking for outside help or a sign from the cosmos, know that your mind is firmly in the grip of delusion. Resistance to change is tamasic. ...Assuming that you have overcome your resistance and are actually ready to begin transforming your mind, how do you begin? On the surface it seems that you have no control over the three energies. ...Our moods motivate our behavior. It does not have to be like this. Rajas and tamas are unconscious energies, viruses that thrive in the dark. They survive because they fly beneath the radar of attention and replicate themselves secretly as we act. To expose them, we need to connect our actions and their results. This seems obvious, but it is not as easy as you might imagine.



...When you are caught in the rajas-tamas cycle, you are not happy and cannot assimilate the knowledge you gain from experience. Thanks to the samskaras your bad habits keep replicating themselves. .......One part of the mind lives in daylight and another in darkness. Such is the nature of duality. Consequently, it often seems that we are two very different people. ...Compassion is the understanding that nobody, including you, would be who they are if they could help it. Ignorance is not something you do. It is something that happens when you are not aware of who you really are.



...If you discover resistance, it is important to identify the problematic values and understand why they are not serving you. ...When you value your desires unnecessarily, you are asking for anger. ....anger is just frustrated desire.



Rajas projects and tamas obscures, but sattva reveals things as they are. When sattva is present the intellect is clear and experience is seen for what it is. Unlike rajas and tamas, sattva is an indirect means of enlightenment, because it reveals the self. In the diagram on the next page, the self, awareness shines upon each of the three energies in the causal body. ......The conclusion is obvious: if I want to experience the self as it is, I should cultivate the sattvic mind. Experience of the self is not enlightenment, but it can lead to enlightenment if the intellect can assimilate the knowledge-- "I am awareness" --that arises when the attention is turned within and the mind is sattvic.



When rajas dominates the mind, desires interpret experience. When tamas dominates, fear interprets experience. Both obscure the truth. When sattva dominates truth interprets experience. pages 174-189 How To Attain Enlightenment, The Vision of Nonduality by James Swartz, 2009



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The point is these energies operate automatically and unconsciously, and they keep operating perpetually, unless something enters and sees what's going on, attention. The bold sentence is the operation of the average person. If they fly beneath the radar of attention, is what usually happens with most people. The underlined is the solution. (Which E has shared, but the post points out the whole process is not as easy as E says it is, because the three gunas operate below the level of ordinary mind). Unconscious means you don't have a choice. There isn't a choice until one deliberately begins looking at this whole process. Why? Because we take the ordinary mind to be the 'actor', but it is not, it's merely the re-actor. What we think of as self is merely the conditioning (as self-referential thinking, feeling/emotions, acting), and is the problem.

[stardustpilgrim]

Cool, thanks mdp

[upsetter]

He, James Swartz, thinks he is Ishvara, which means: God (in sanskrit). I met him personally in 2012. He spend a week in my appartement and we got along very well. (No sex was involved! That's an information for his wife to know about, because she, I guess, was a little but upset about the fact that James visited me).

Anyhow...he, James, thinks he is Ishvara, God, and he also calls himself Ramji, when he corresponds to some of his devotees. Guess what that means.

And NO! I don't complain about his behaviour or his attitude at all. What I complain about is: His huge spiritual ego. And spiritual ego means, in my definition: Being totally self-absored as a major narcissist, driven by meeting devotees all over the world for the sake of...well...superimposing his brand of "advaita-vedanta" on them. "You are the Self". That's his teaching.

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Annnndddd...he is just an old prick who knows lots of other pricks and talks about it. That's why I think he can be of some value. He knows EVERY moron in spiritual-moron-town. Because he, James, is the oldest MOFO and knows best who is inferiour to him.

Gottcha, dude.

[upsetter]

Annndddd....he, James, gave me all his writings as has been visiting me. I read some of it, and came to the conclusion: It's all pseudo-spiritual hores-sh!t.

That been said, for the sake of Truth.

[stardustpilgrim]

Aug 24, 2013 18:46:03 GMT -5 nowhereman said:

I wish to thank you all for such a warm welcome today. A lot of sincere folks are here and I am enjoying all of them.
As a passing gift I have attached James free book on meditation a inquiry into self. It's free as quite a few items on his site are also for those that have interest.
His site is www.shiningworld.com
View Attachment

Much love
Nowhereman

Thanks.