After SR

[zendancer]

Nov 18, 2015 10:34:49 GMT -5 @tano said:

I will write here, and perhaps, others could also use this thread to record their moment of realisation.

I have no religious or spiritual background whatsoever. Looking back - this was a blessing, less of the stuff to dismantle.

The loss of psychological self was a gradual process over the two years preceding TR. The details are not important, but in that process I stopped being affected by anything that anyone says or does. No reacivity of any kind, just obsering another's motions, but not being touched by it.

At the same time the process of deconstruction from the world conditioning was taking place, it was torturous, painful as hell. Everything I believed I was - I wasn't. Everything I thought about the world _ wasn't. Mind you.. I had lived life pretty much on my own terms, but felt somehow guilty, not normal in the world which completely lacked common sense. In retrospect.. I've since met a few people whom I now call 'unconsciously enlightened', those who live from the INNER SENSE. And I was that too before it got me. Of course, now it's clear to me that we all are enlightened, and so in its conventional sense - enlightenment is as much a fairytale as any story ot there. Just that the lens of the human mind prevents most from seeing it, recognising it.

By that point I just lay myself down, both physically and metaphorically, and said 'I don't care. Show me, or kill me. Anything is better than this'. I surrendered. And then... I came across that passage from Jed's online, accidentally, and immediately recognised its genuine provenance, that state of clawing madness to see, to know..

Here’s a simple test. If it’s soothing or comforting, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy; if it’s about getting into pleasant emotional or mental states; if it’s about peace, love, tranquility, silence or bliss; if it’s about a brighter future or a better tomorrow; if it makes you feel good about yourself or boosts your self-esteem, tells you you’re okay, tells you everything’s just fine the way it is; if it offers to improve, benefit or elevate you, or if it suggests that someone else is better or above you; if it’s about belief or faith or worship; if it raises or alters consciousness; if it combats stress or deepens relaxation, or if it’s therapeutic or healing, or if it promises happiness or relief from unhappiness, if it’s about any of these or similar things, then it’s not about waking up. Then it’s about living in the dreamstate, not smashing out of it.
On the other hand, if it feels like you’re being skinned alive, if it feels like a prolonged evisceration, if you feel your identity unraveling, if it twists you up physically and drains your health and derails your life, if you feel love dying inside you, if it seems like death would be better, then it’s probably the process of awakening. That, or a helluva case of gas.

I was exactly in that space.

So I torrented (stole) the first book and started reading. By that point the Ego (ideas, thoughts, emotions or whatever else we call 'us' when we aren't that) was in a crumbled state, but I still couldn't see Reality clearly. All I had was the dots in my mind of this and that, not connected, no fluidity, no picture, a garbled jigsaw.

I don't remember much about it now, because my mind was on fire, a completely destroyed sense of everything I knew, a cleared demolition ground, but where was the Clarity? What was that empty space? I needed to know where I had landed.

The details were not important, the book RESONATED to an unimaginable degree. I recognised the path, because I did exactly the things Jed did: quit my job two years prior, locked myself in, with only my son and an occasional friend dropping by. Read, but it was more of a blind reading, anything concerning 'spiritual' matters, except I threw away one book after another - not it, not it, not it...going by the gut instinct. I remember I could open any book in the local shop at a random page and within one paragraph recognise if there was anything valuable and true in it or not.

Anyway... Jed's book.. it was late evening, I read near half of it, I remember thinking 'Tired, will continue later', put it down and then two things happened. My mind made what felt like 180 degree turn and what I call for lack of a better word - opened up. And also perceptually it felt like one of those moments in movies, visually, when the person stands still, but everything around them suddenly spins out of focus and rapidly moves away... I got physically still and... suddenly I could SEE with my inner eye (again, just a metaphor). All the questions disappeared. All the dots got connected. I could see past this present moment into the entire human history, from the life of a bacteria and the life of a galaxy to a life of a human.. I could zoom in on the smallest detail and fly out into space, I was the Worm God - everything and nothing at the same time. I had no questions, but strangely, could see the answers, it was mind blowing.

After a few minutes of being paralised by the vision I began to laugh and cry.. must have been a sight, got a particular song out and played it on the loop, laughed and cried again. Everything looked new. Not in a 'new' new sense, but different like seen for the first time.

It all sounds big and mystical, but it wasn't. Very quiet, no levitation or seeing through objects or any other such nonsense. It changed nothing - and it changed absolutely everything. For the next few days I was in a state of haze: awe, gratitude, relief, wonder, amazement.. I also wrote loads, pages and pages of stuff. new understandings pouring out of me, couldn't stop. Was 'I' still present? Yes, I was there, but I was not 'me' as I knew, a different being. I kept dropping into a perceptive state
of great expansiveness every few days, it was not the same bliss as I had known before, but I know now there are many kinds of bliss.

The thing is... I didn't know what kind of being I had become. I want to say that it's a myth that dissolution of Ego means Ego absence. No human being has ever lost their ego. it cannot be 'killed', without one you are nothing but a jellyfish. BUT. Ego can be SEEN. I saw mine, it was there, but - NOT ME!!! Around one month into this I wrote to Jed for the first time. Shifts kept coming, some days small inner movements, I could see just that little bit more, and some days massive waves, a new realisation of this and
that, deeper and deeper, it carried on and actually - never stopped since, although the intensity subsided.

What followed is kinda.. Flow. I don't bother naming things for the sake of giving a name... I don't plan much, but do the things which need to be done, what is placed in front of me at the time it's placed. I packed my life back in the UK and moved to Asia, because I felt suffocated back there. I don't emote, but have feelings, like clouds, passing in succession, some stay a bit longer, some - minutes, none stick. Very few attachements, and I feel no anger or resentment or judgement towards anyone, serial killers included.

I can see through people's games very easily, how they feel, their true intent. I have psychological tools at my disposal to destroy a person's sense of 'selfhood' very fast, and it will hurt them (although nothing can be hurt, and no one hurts, people just tell themselves they do), but only do so if their Ego is shoved right in my face, and it could benefit them in some way.

I've learned to read. Properly read what others write, what they MEAN. And if it's still unclear - I will simply ask questions, no petty human games with words.

I saw that our true nature cannot be changed, it's unchangable and eternal in that sense. What one has been given from birth is what one will take away to the grave. It's futility to fight against the Blueprint. It sounds simple, but to get this on a gut level - is not easy, and most people never do.

I am still human on the outside, ordinary and sometimes a tad unnerving for people, but ONLY for those who don't know who they are. And those who do - don't feel threatened.. Jed is one of those, and he got plenty of straight talk. Makes me smile, but he can take it. I'm just not crazy anymore in the way most people are out there.., and I see Life for what it is, not for whatever story, wish, desire, thought, fairytale - is carried within the mind. Aware of my state of being, and frankly.. nothing is really that important anymore.

Oh... and Death, my faithful companion - is ever present. Every day. Every few weeks I drop into that sense of physically dying, as it was when I was eight... it's only a feeling, but boy!!! does it bring home the reality of this Existence. Death awareness has been with me for a long long time, that helped I guess.

I love life and am immensely grateful that I got a chance to experience it... until the day comes when it's no more. And it WILL come. I have seen it.

Here... I am THIS. And if THIS can be named, and its experiences - given a word.. so be it, it is not necessary nor important to me. Love that I am - is not a noun. Ever changing, ever speeding up and slowing down, falling into Infinity that we are. No limits.

I could write loads, it's multifaceted and ever present and so ordinary and yet - out of this world. But in the end of the day all comes down to this: ALL BEGINS AND ENDS - with YOU.

Life is Simplicity itself.

The flow of THIS. That says it all.

[laughter]

Nov 18, 2015 10:34:49 GMT -5 @tano said:

I could write loads

[quinn]

Nov 18, 2015 10:34:49 GMT -5 @tano said:

I saw that our true nature cannot be changed, it's unchangable and eternal in that sense. What one has been given from birth is what one will take away to the grave. It's futility to fight against the Blueprint. It sounds simple, but to get this on a gut level - is not easy, and most people never do.

I'm curious what you mean by this, Tano. What you're referring to when you say 'true nature'.

I could write loads, it's multifaceted and ever present and so ordinary and yet - out of this world. But in the end of the day all comes down to this: ALL BEGINS AND ENDS - with YOU.

Life is Simplicity itself.

Please do!

[justlikeyou]

Nov 18, 2015 18:49:47 GMT -5 quinn said:

Nov 18, 2015 10:34:49 GMT -5 @tano said:

I saw that our true nature cannot be changed, it's unchangable and eternal in that sense. What one has been given from birth is what one will take away to the grave. It's futility to fight against the Blueprint. It sounds simple, but to get this on a gut level - is not easy, and most people never do.

I'm curious what you mean by this, Tano. What you're referring to when you say 'true nature'.

I could write loads, it's multifaceted and ever present and so ordinary and yet - out of this world. But in the end of the day all comes down to this: ALL BEGINS AND ENDS - with YOU.

Life is Simplicity itself.

Please do!

I don't know for sure but I suspect Tano is pointing to what Krishna points to in the Bhagavad Gita "My true being is unborn and changeless. I am the Lord who dwells in every creature. Through the power of my own maya, I manifest myself in a finite form."

[justlikeyou]

Nov 18, 2015 18:49:47 GMT -5 quinn said:

Nov 18, 2015 10:34:49 GMT -5 @tano said:

I saw that our true nature cannot be changed, it's unchangable and eternal in that sense. What one has been given from birth is what one will take away to the grave. It's futility to fight against the Blueprint. It sounds simple, but to get this on a gut level - is not easy, and most people never do.

I'm curious what you mean by this, Tano. What you're referring to when you say 'true nature'.

I could write loads, it's multifaceted and ever present and so ordinary and yet - out of this world. But in the end of the day all comes down to this: ALL BEGINS AND ENDS - with YOU.

Life is Simplicity itself.

Please do!

Nisargadatta says it here too. "All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is changeless reality itself."

[quinn]

Nov 18, 2015 19:13:58 GMT -5 justlikeyou said:

Nov 18, 2015 18:49:47 GMT -5 quinn said:

I'm curious what you mean by this, Tano. What you're referring to when you say 'true nature'.

Please do!

Nisargadatta says it here too. "All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is changeless reality itself."

Yes, could be. If so, then my next question would be what's meant by "It's futility to fight against the Blueprint".

[justlikeyou]

Nov 18, 2015 20:28:20 GMT -5 quinn said:

Nov 18, 2015 19:13:58 GMT -5 justlikeyou said:

Nisargadatta says it here too. "All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is changeless reality itself."

Yes, could be. If so, then my next question would be what's meant by "It's futility to fight against the Blueprint".

I think she points to the mind's tendency to fight against Reality here...i.e. mind's resistance to what is. But we can see what she says.

[zendancer]

Nov 18, 2015 20:28:20 GMT -5 quinn said:

Nov 18, 2015 19:13:58 GMT -5 justlikeyou said:

Nisargadatta says it here too. "All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is changeless reality itself."

Yes, could be. If so, then my next question would be what's meant by "It's futility to fight against the Blueprint".

I suspect that this is what Gopal means by his statement, "Nothing can be done." After a CC experience, I had the distinct impression that "nothing ever happens by accident" (because of the underlying unity of reality.) I call it "the Script" whereas Tano calls it "the Blueprint."

The first few minutes of the movie "Magnolia" makes this same point by relating three stories that are almost impossible yet true, and today I heard another similar example. Today Carol told me that "The View" ran a story about a guy who met a girl on the internet. On their first real date he instantly fell head over heels in love. She felt the same way. They both felt that finding each other was like finding something that they both knew had been missing. Later, he told her that finding her was like finding the little girl he had been in love with in preschool. She told him that she felt the same way. He mentioned that it was ironic that her first name was the same as the girl in his distant past. At some point he mentioned the city and the preschool where he had met the girl that he had been so attracted to at such an early age, and she was astonished that she had been in the same city and the same preschool at the same time. They looked through a family album and found photos of the two of them at that same school sitting together as young children. This is where the theme music from "Outer Limits" starts playing in the background---ta ta ta da, ta ta ta da.........Life is very strange....

Here's another great story along the same line. When I was a fifth grader, I was intensely attracted to an exhibit in a Nashville museum of a 3 year old child mummy. I used to stare at the mummy, lying in a glass case, and wonder about its life in Egypt several thousand years ago, and how it happened to end up in Nashville. There was something strange and existential about it. One afternoon I walked up to the exhibit, and there was a young boy about my age who was standing there looking at it. I told him that I had always been drawn to that exhibit. He told me that the same thing was true for him. As we stood there talking, we discovered that we were both the same age, and had many of the same interests--fossils, indian relics, Egyptian history, electronics, science, etc. After we had talked for a long time, I asked him his name. He replied, "Robert." I laughed and said, "That's amazing. My name is also Robert. What's your last name?" He replied, "Harwood." I was dumbfounded because we had the same name! At that time there were only four "Harwoods" listed in the Nashville phone book. That afternoon the curator of the museum took us with him to the local TV station where he related the "coincidence," and then discussed one of my favorite Indian relics-- a skull with a hole in the temple from which had been extracted a crystal arrowhead. I called the skull "George," and "George" was a bit hit with everyone who learned about his story.

A funny update to the "George" saga: eight months ago there was a false security alarm at our company's office. I was out of town, and a co-worker let the police enter and look around. They saw "George" sitting on a shelf in the office, and declared the office a "potential crime scene." I talked to the police on the phone, and told them that I had been given George by a Nashville archaeologist more than 55 years ago. Nevertheless, they took George to police headquarters, and transferred "him" to the Tennessee Medical Examiner's Office to be studied. I still haven't gotten George back.

FWIW, life is much stranger than fiction. You can't make this stuff up! LOL

[onehandclapping]

Nov 18, 2015 21:22:32 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Nov 18, 2015 20:28:20 GMT -5 quinn said:

Yes, could be. If so, then my next question would be what's meant by "It's futility to fight against the Blueprint".

I suspect that this is what Gopal means by his statement, "Nothing can be done." After a CC experience, I had the distinct impression that "nothing ever happens by accident" (because of the underlying unity of reality.) I call it "the Script" whereas Tano calls it "the Blueprint."

The first few minutes of the movie "Magnolia" makes this same point by relating three stories that are almost impossible yet true, and today I heard another similar example. Today Carol told me that "The View" ran a story about a guy who met a girl on the internet. On their first real date he instantly fell head over heels in love. She felt the same way. They both felt that finding each other was like finding something that they both knew had been missing. Later, he told her that finding her was like finding the little girl he had been in love with in preschool. She told him that she felt the same way. He mentioned that it was ironic that her first name was the same as the girl in his distant past. At some point he mentioned the city and the preschool where he had met the girl that he had been so attracted to at such an early age, and she was astonished that she had been in the same city and the same preschool at the same time. They looked through a family album and found photos of the two of them at that same school sitting together as young children. This is where the theme music from "Outer Limits" starts playing in the background---ta ta ta da, ta ta ta da.........Life is very strange....

Here's another great story along the same line. When I was a fifth grader, I was intensely attracted to an exhibit in a Nashville museum of a 3 year old child mummy. I used to stare at the mummy, lying in a glass case, and wonder about its life in Egypt several thousand years ago, and how it happened to end up in Nashville. There was something strange and existential about it. One afternoon I walked up to the exhibit, and there was a young boy about my age who was standing there looking at it. I told him that I had always been drawn to that exhibit. He told me that the same thing was true for him. As we stood there talking, we discovered that we were both the same age, and had many of the same interests--fossils, indian relics, Egyptian history, electronics, science, etc. After we had talked for a long time, I asked him his name. He replied, "Robert." I laughed and said, "That's amazing. My name is also Robert. What's your last name?" He replied, "Harwood." I was dumbfounded because we had the same name! At that time there were only four "Harwoods" listed in the Nashville phone book. That afternoon the curator of the museum took us with him to the local TV station where he related the "coincidence," and then discussed one of my favorite Indian relics-- a skull with a hole in the temple from which had been extracted a crystal arrowhead. I called the skull "George," and "George" was a bit hit with everyone who learned about his story.

A funny update to the "George" saga: eight months ago there was a false security alarm at our company's office. I was out of town, and a co-worker let the police enter and look around. They saw "George" sitting on a shelf in the office, and declared the office a "potential crime scene." I talked to the police on the phone, and told them that I had been given George by a Nashville archaeologist more than 55 years ago. Nevertheless, they took George to police headquarters, and transferred "him" to the Tennessee Medical Examiner's Office to be studied. I still haven't gotten George back.

FWIW, life is much stranger than fiction. You can't make this stuff up! LOL

Gotta find a way to get George back. He'd make a good prop for future ZD talks.

[laughter]

Nov 18, 2015 20:28:20 GMT -5 quinn said:

Nov 18, 2015 19:13:58 GMT -5 justlikeyou said:

Nisargadatta says it here too. "All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is changeless reality itself."

Yes, could be. If so, then my next question would be what's meant by "It's futility to fight against the Blueprint".

What that meant to me is that some conditioning might change -- either before or after TR -- but the realization re-orients perspective toward and reveals the nature of all conditioning generally. Part of that revelation is the point that for as long as we're alive we'll be operating by and through and expressing some sum of conditioned form. Portions of it, like our DNA, isn't very likely to change, and other parts like our language skills and ability to dress and feed ourselves we wouldn't want to lose and wouldn't help us see any more clearly if we did.

[laughter]

Nov 19, 2015 3:18:37 GMT -5 onehandclapping said:

Gotta find a way to get George back. He'd make a good prop for future ZD talks.

"Alas, poor THIS, I not-knew him well ..."

[laughter]

Nov 19, 2015 8:44:02 GMT -5 @tano said:

Nov 18, 2015 21:22:32 GMT -5 zendancer said:

I suspect that this is what Gopal means by his statement, "Nothing can be done." After a CC experience, I had the distinct impression that "nothing ever happens by accident" (because of the underlying unity of reality.) I call it "the Script" whereas Tano calls it "the Blueprint."

Nothing can be done, yes. Everything has already been done and happened, a million time over.

People say 'all happens for a reason'.... Yes. The reason is - YOU.

FWIW, life is much stranger than fiction. You can't make this stuff up! LOL

Life is incomprehensible. isn't it.

[quinn]

Nov 19, 2015 8:39:30 GMT -5 @tano said:

Nov 18, 2015 18:49:47 GMT -5 quinn said:

I'm curious what you mean by this, Tano. What you're referring to when you say 'true nature'.

The ancients spoke about these matters without a frame of reference, purely from seeing what was, in the same way they used, let's say, herbs for medicinal purposes, without knowing the chemistry behind. It makes it difficult for the modern mind to connect the dots, and people look up to ancient texts as mystical and otherwordly.

They are not.

You were given a set of structure at birth - your DNA, unique to you, but consisting of the same building blocks as everyone else's. It will regulate all your inner responses, your inbuit illnesses, your lifespan, your emotional and physical nature, your inner compulsions and inclanations, your likes and dislikes, your so called 'choices' (there aren't any really)...

Your true Self (or what I called 'the who') - Awareness immersed in THAT, sprung forth from THAT. Hence, HOW one goes about their life after TR/SR - will not be the same (many paths down the mountain), although levels of Awareness and seeing will be shared with people of the same level of attainment.

Now.. try to change THAT. Can we?

Jed is not aware of these, he is cerebral by nature, while I am very visceral. I had another teacher, an unknown. His Seeing was unprecedented, but I see that I've moved beyond that too.

Ah - thanks for explaining. Do you see any value in looking at what is 'true self' and what isn't before TR as a way of exploring self?

[maxdprophet]

Nov 19, 2015 12:44:14 GMT -5 @tano said:

Nov 19, 2015 12:16:45 GMT -5 quinn said:

Ah - thanks for explaining. Do you see any value in looking at what is 'true self' and what isn't before TR as a way of exploring self?

Quinn, I see value in looking, but I don't know what will work for you. For me it was backwards... first it was lost, then I could see what I had lost (or rather what I wasn't NOT, nothing true can be lost).. It was the side effect of TR, rather than the reason how I came into it.

One can't paint the stripes and become a tiger. None of the questioning on the lines of 'Who am I' or meditation or retreats worked for me in those two years prior.

I went through an intense inner autolysis, without knowing the name for it. Intense emotion. It can 'kill', and it did.

Does that mean in the 2 years prior to TR you did engage inquiry/meditation/retreats?

[maxdprophet]

Nov 20, 2015 9:11:16 GMT -5 @tano said:

Nov 19, 2015 14:42:14 GMT -5 maxdprophet said:

Does that mean in the 2 years prior to TR you did engage inquiry/meditation/retreats?

'Engage' is not the right word. I TRIED to engage, but couldn't.

The question 'Who am I?' is the stupidest of all, because in absolute terms the answer cannot be known.

Meditation - a three month run of inconsistent attempts, until I came to see that in my case it was a waste of time.

One four day silent retreat.. while the people there honestly believed they were 'getting somewhere', I saw us, a clueless bunch, running away from something... of course, now I know what it was.

But hey,, may work for some, and one has to kiss a few frogs....

Yes I think I've kissed about every frog in the swamp about now.

On 'Who am I?' -- the value for me has been exactly what you say: no answer.  As opposed to the dominant thinkstory which assumes an answer.  Clears the air.

My guess is that, in retrospect, everything was a distraction.