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Post by conradg on Feb 7, 2017 15:48:42 GMT -5
Got a little behind here, sorry. And sorry also that I'm not going to fall down and beg forgiveness for being wrong here. I think you're misreading both me and Nisargadatta. The quote you give here fully supports what I said. "I am" to Nisargadatta is the gateway to the source of the "I am". It is that source that he is realized, and that he is aiming for us to realize. He strongly recommends meditating on the "I am" not because it is the Absolute in itself, but because it is the best way to find the source of our sense of being. The feeling of being "I" is like the snake that our minds have overlaid on the non-dual rope. From the "I am" comes every delusion we have, and naturally leads to "I am the body" or "I am X". The first step, therefore, is to detach from identification with objects, and immerse oneself in the subject, the "I am". By doing this, we are able to feel past the "I am" to the inherent, natural bliss at the very heart of our being. Why would this work? Because both are in the same place, just as the snake and the rope are in the same place. That doesn't mean the snake is the rope, it means that by persistently bringing the force of consciousness to the rope, we can see that it isn't there, and that there has only been the rope all along. Nisargadatta does not refer to the "I am" as being the goal, only the method. Beyond the "I am" is the witness, and beyond the witness is what he called "the Supreme". It is the Supreme that is realized in the final stage of this process. The "I am" vanishes in the Supreme. One does not realize one's identity, in the form of "I am the Supreme", though that too can be a useful pointer. But meditating on "I am", the subject, helps free us from the attachment to objects, allowing us to find the source of "I am". Ramana sometimes called this the "I-I", or the "I of the I". THough he too said this was not the final stage, it was very important to meditate upon the feeling of "I" to pass beyond our object-fixation. He even suggested that people repeat "I, I, I," to themselves to help locate this feeling of "I" in themselves. Not because that's the Self, but because that's the subjective sense of ego upon which the rest of our identifications build. The point of that is not to know who this "I" is, but to find it's source. The question "who am I?" does not lead to identification with something subtler, but to the source of the whole delusion of "I". And that's why we are told by both Ramana and Nisargadatta to meditate on this "I am" feeling. That's where Maya first emerges, as Niz says in your quote. I'll see if I can find the time to locate some quotes for you later. Hope this isn't too frustrating for you. I don't see any problem with this, you have understood Niz very well here.  Thanks |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2017 15:52:07 GMT -5
I don't see any problem with this, you have understood Niz very well here. Thanks De nada, Niz is my main, go to guy, Satch also understands him very well. At times there can be confusion to that Niz is pointing to when he says I Am. I did the I am thang for a while it seem to help me drop quite a bit, however it was the Unborn that blew me away. Niz did not talk much about it but he knew exactly how to point it, to hit you , between the eyes. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2017 15:53:54 GMT -5
Can you achieve Samadhi with the eyes open? Another question, if you are SR s it anything like the sensation of lucid dreaming? You can enter Samadhi with the eyes half open, as in standard Zen meditation, but when unification begins to occur, and the event horizon is crossed, selfhood, vision, sound, thoughts, and everything else disappears except pure awareness. The advent of the event horizon can be tangibly felt on the surface of the skin by many people, and everything can be felt to start solidifying, as if the body was in the process of freezing into a block of solid ice. Intensified concentration at that point allows the solidification to continue until the state is fully entered. Zen people call it "body and mind fallen off." I've doing zazen for 30 years. Never experienced this. There were times when I would get disoriented and forget who or what I was. The shadows through the half open eyes would start to become things I was unfamiliar with, but I'd snap out of it quickly before anything else happened, back to the breath. Sense I warned against this kind of experience. Some in the zendo would even hallucinate. He encouraged us to ignore this and return to the breath. This was a Soto zendo. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2017 15:56:36 GMT -5
You can enter Samadhi with the eyes half open, as in standard Zen meditation, but when unification begins to occur, and the event horizon is crossed, selfhood, vision, sound, thoughts, and everything else disappears except pure awareness. The advent of the event horizon can be tangibly felt on the surface of the skin by many people, and everything can be felt to start solidifying, as if the body was in the process of freezing into a block of solid ice. Intensified concentration at that point allows the solidification to continue until the state is fully entered. Zen people call it "body and mind fallen off." I've doing zazen for 30 years. Never experienced this. There were times when I would get disoriented and forget who or what I was. The shadows through the half open eyes would start to become things I was unfamiliar with, but I'd snap out of it quickly before anything else happened, back to the breath. Sense I warned against this kind of experience. Some in the zendo would even hallucinate. He encouraged us to ignore this and return to the breath. This was a Soto zendo. Sic (Sensei) |
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Post by zendancer on Feb 7, 2017 17:58:45 GMT -5
You can enter Samadhi with the eyes half open, as in standard Zen meditation, but when unification begins to occur, and the event horizon is crossed, selfhood, vision, sound, thoughts, and everything else disappears except pure awareness. The advent of the event horizon can be tangibly felt on the surface of the skin by many people, and everything can be felt to start solidifying, as if the body was in the process of freezing into a block of solid ice. Intensified concentration at that point allows the solidification to continue until the state is fully entered. Zen people call it "body and mind fallen off." I've doing zazen for 30 years. Never experienced this. There were times when I would get disoriented and forget who or what I was. The shadows through the half open eyes would start to become things I was unfamiliar with, but I'd snap out of it quickly before anything else happened, back to the breath. Sense I warned against this kind of experience. Some in the zendo would even hallucinate. He encouraged us to ignore this and return to the breath. This was a Soto zendo. When I used to practice zazen, the eyes were half open, unfocused, and pointed downward at about a 45 degree angle. When I was focused on following the breath, for example, I would be so focused on the breathing process that nothing was seen through the eyes. The first time I entered deep Samadhi I had no idea what was happening. I had been doing a breath following exercise, and then I shifted to feeling the breathing process. As I concentrated more and more strongly on feeling what was happening, breathing slowed down and a subtle shift occurred into BEING the breath rather than FEELING the breath. As this happened, I was vaguely aware of a skin surface numbness that started on the backs of my hands and began to spread up my arms to my shoulders and ultimately to the forehead. Some Zen people call this "off sensation." Coupled with the off sensation was a strange sense of everything solidifying into a state of unity. It's hard to describe, but selfhood soon disappeared and there was no longer an observer separate from what was happening. A few random thoughts were still arising, but it felt like awareness or consciousness was being pulled inward. I sometimes describe it as if one has gotten onto an elevator in the mind and descended into the depths of being. As thoughts came to an end, everything just went deeper and deeper until finally nothing remained other than a crystalline blissful state of pure awareness. The body was initially like a frozen block of ice, but eventually there was no sense of even having a body. I've also described it as if awareness has sunk to the bottom of deep sea and remained there motionless. After perhaps 45 minutes or an hour, a thought arose followed by two or three other thoughts. With the arising of thoughts, the state of total unity began to dissipate, and I once again became conscious of the body. It felt as if the body were thawing out, and when I attempted to turn my head, it felt as if it were moving in extremely slow motion. I had no idea what had happened, but I knew that selfhood had somehow disappeared, and that I had entered some sort of extremely deep and unusual state. This happened three nights in a row, and on the fourth day I had a mind-blowing cosmic consciousness experience. It would be several more years before I once again entered this kind of Samadhi. I subsequently became curious about it, and began to experiment with entry into that state and what is required to remain in that state. The key seems to be intense one-pointed concentration and focus. In the following years I could enter Samadhi by listening to universal sound and also by listening to other sounds, such as the hissing of some gas logs in a fireplace. More later.....gotta go to dinner now. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 18:25:45 GMT -5
Yes, agree. But my point is, why use the phrase I-thought to refer to something that isn't thought? It's misleading. (Explained a little further in post above). Yes I agree it can be misleading. How about I by itself? Well, having a name is mostly for new people. So I can ~cause problems~ also. Something more descriptive like FM-W's Consciousness without an object is maybe better, but unwieldy. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 18:50:54 GMT -5
Being isn't gone, but awareness of being can be gone. If there is no awareness that would be sleep or a coma. Samadhi is not blacking out. That's not exactly what I'm talking about. I've tried to make the following distinction many times here, but somehow it must be difficult to ~get~, because nobody has said, Oh yea, I know what you mean (to satisfy me anyway, maybe some do). In a very real sense you can say: I am conscious, as opposed to being asleep or in a coma, but that is not the distinction say Niz is making which we have been hashing out. Yes, in one sense if we are thinking and feeling, we are conscious. But when Niz talks about staying in the 'I am', he's not talking about this ordinary kind of being conscious while thinking, feeling and doing stuff (from the Niz quote earlier, he says this is misidentification). I'm talking about awareness of ~being~ or being conscious of being. This is what I meant by awareness of being can be gone. So then you are in an ordinary state of consciousness. You can be ~lost in thought~. An extreme example of this is when some snaps their fingers at you, they see you are ~far away~. Or they might say: Earth to sdp, earth to sdp. Or they might say: Where were you just now? But what I mean is even more subtle, and you can ~have it~ one second and not-have-it the next second. It's the sense of being, here, now; I, now, in-this-place. ~We~ say, you can have function (thinking, feeling and body-doing) without consciousness and you can have consciousness without function. Function without consciousness is merely ordinary state of mind, reading, watching TV, watching a movie, having a conversation, driving, playing a sport, this state of witness (one name for It), not present. And then there is a ~middle ground~, thinking present, but consciousness present also. And then one can have consciousness-only, FM-W's consciousness with out an object. But it's difficult to describe to others if they have not experienced it (but in many threads I've tried to point-to-it). |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:03:24 GMT -5
Are you aware during sleep? Sorry. If I am awareness then I must be aware in deep sleep. You have to consider practically, "nuts and bolts" (not theoretically). Either you are aware or you are not. Just answer the question. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:05:52 GMT -5
Sorry. If I am awareness then I must be aware in deep sleep. Okay, if you say so.  .....  (But sdp likes satch's answer [sometimes you just have to give up]). |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:10:37 GMT -5
I must be. If I am awareness. This fellow Jan Esman reports on awareness during deep sleep. There have been a few others I've heard of but not many. Portto, once active here but long silent, admitted to it. Stablized awareness, states of consciousness coming and going, including deep sleep. I can't fathom the mechanics of it -- reporting on awareness during deep sleep requires memory formation, doesn't it?, for example. Latest neuroscience positing that sleep is necessary for forgetting, so the idea that memories are formed seems counter. BATGAP Rick suggests that it is some sort of litmus test. However it seems SR doesn't necessarily imply such stabilized awareness, as being aware of deep sleep seems even more rare than SR. Awareness during sleep is a "test" for ~having something~ which can survive the death of the physical body. IOW, if you cannot ~survive~ sleep, you cannot survive the death of the physical body (that is, consciously). Alternatively, if you can be aware during the body sleeping, maybe there is something present that will survive death. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:15:22 GMT -5
This fellow Jan Esman reports on awareness during deep sleep. There have been a few others I've heard of but not many. Portto, once active here but long silent, admitted to it. Stablized awareness, states of consciousness coming and going, including deep sleep. I can't fathom the mechanics of it -- reporting on awareness during deep sleep requires memory formation, doesn't it?, for example. Latest neuroscience positing that sleep is necessary for forgetting, so the idea that memories are formed seems counter. BATGAP Rick suggests that it is some sort of litmus test. However it seems SR doesn't necessarily imply such stabilized awareness, as being aware of deep sleep seems even more rare than SR. I am sometimes aware of sleep but I don't really put much importance on it. I've heard Rick call this a litmus test, but I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about it. It's true to say that if awareness is what you are then that must include sleep. It's a question of whether you remember it. I could ask you if you remember your awareness of exactly two minutes ago. You would probably say no, but you were clearly aware two minutes ago in the waking state. It's not a question of remembering it. It's a question of are you aware? but ATST the body is asleep. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:26:25 GMT -5
Can you achieve Samadhi with the eyes open? Another question, if you are SR s it anything like the sensation of lucid dreaming? You can enter Samadhi with the eyes half open, as in standard Zen meditation, but when unification begins to occur, and the event horizon is crossed, selfhood, vision, sound, thoughts, and everything else disappears except pure awareness. The advent of the event horizon can be tangibly felt on the surface of the skin by many people, and everything can be felt to start solidifying, as if the body was in the process of freezing into a block of solid ice. Intensified concentration at that point allows the solidification to continue until the state is fully entered. Zen people call it "body and mind fallen off." I have not read you saying that before. (Nor have I heard or ready of that anywhere before. Awesome. But the "freezing" is not cold. Correct? [That's just a partial "metaphor"?]) |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 7, 2017 19:36:19 GMT -5
Last post continued, here. By 'I am' Niz (nor his teacher) meant the words I am. The words 'I am' are there to represent something else (as are all words, all words represent something). This something else is not verbal in any way whatsoever. The words 'I am' represent the (nonverbal) sense of beingness. Where did Niz say that? And in what context (in what conversational context)? I'm sorry I'm not a Niz scholar. I'm just taking orders.  If he says it anywhere, I don't remember. About nine months ago (maybe more), at laughter's speaking about Niz, I pulled out the book I already had and started reading. I read about 75-80 pages in a couple of days. There was a great sense of recognition. The recognition is how I understood what Niz was saying. It's pretty clear to me. And then I ordered one book by the teacher of Niz. Niz came-out-of a very traditional ~structure~. He obeyed what his teacher told him to do (he says so). And in three years Niz popped open (as Istahota would say). If I am wrong, then I am wrong. But I don't see any way I can be wrong (in the post above). Niz is talking about stuff few people have even gotten near. |
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Post by maxdprophet on Feb 7, 2017 20:12:29 GMT -5
I am sometimes aware of sleep but I don't really put much importance on it. I've heard Rick call this a litmus test, but I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about it. It's true to say that if awareness is what you are then that must include sleep. It's a question of whether you remember it. I could ask you if you remember your awareness of exactly two minutes ago. You would probably say no, but you were clearly aware two minutes ago in the waking state. It's not a question of remembering it. It's a question of are you aware? but ATST the body is asleep. It's both. Aware of deep sleep and able to report on it (requiring memory). Because if you don't remember it, it can't be reported on. |
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Post by maxdprophet on Feb 7, 2017 20:15:41 GMT -5
This fellow Jan Esman reports on awareness during deep sleep. There have been a few others I've heard of but not many. Portto, once active here but long silent, admitted to it. Stablized awareness, states of consciousness coming and going, including deep sleep. I can't fathom the mechanics of it -- reporting on awareness during deep sleep requires memory formation, doesn't it?, for example. Latest neuroscience positing that sleep is necessary for forgetting, so the idea that memories are formed seems counter. BATGAP Rick suggests that it is some sort of litmus test. However it seems SR doesn't necessarily imply such stabilized awareness, as being aware of deep sleep seems even more rare than SR. Awareness during sleep is a "test" for ~having something~ which can survive the death of the physical body. IOW, if you cannot ~survive~ sleep, you cannot survive the death of the physical body (that is, consciously). Alternatively, if you can be aware during the body sleeping, maybe there is something present that will survive death. Says who? Being aware during deep sleep may or may not be like being aware when and after the body dies. As far as I know there is no verification one way or the other. OBEs are close though. Though all those witnesses survived to tell about it. What we need is Houdini's quest of afterlife testimony. And there is lots of those, but hard to believe. |
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