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Post by tenka on Sept 8, 2017 13:58:47 GMT -5
I think the definitions of key wordings/meanings create a manner of problemo's I had trouble back in the day when peeps were trying to sway me to use common meanings to certain words which would then scramble up how I see things . My realizations / experiences pave way to my understandings of mind for instance and I am sure that's how it is for others too, I can't for instance relate to destroying mind butt I can relate to transcending it . Back to the bliss bunny or contentment or feeling blue and permanence .. The thing is that one cannot permanently entertain any state while entertaining the mind-body . That is the nature of the mind-body experience . When I spoke about coming out of the realization itself I was met with comments of you don't come out of S.R.There were comments of permanence of Bliss and eternal peace and such likes . I would say that is a myth . You don't always feel contentment / peace / bliss ... If we base S.R. on permanence then there is no-one that has walked this earth that is S.R. because of the nature of the mind-body experience and the sufferings of it . I agree there are levels of alignment if we can call it that post S.R. I see it more to do with absorption levels and how long one's mind-body can maintain Self absorption within an environment of the flesh . It ties in nicely with the non functional state and with having no self identity .. for how long does one maintain these states? It's never a lengthy period of time .Right, your so called SR was a temporary mind state experience. The realisation itself is not an experience . Post realisation is an experience .
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Post by Reefs on Sept 8, 2017 20:55:14 GMT -5
What case is that? You mean the question of whether or not an appearance represents a point of perception in Consciousness? If so, what's the verdict? .jpg Something just occurred to me. Do you remember our discussions about this 'all ideas are empty' insight which had been portrayed as a major realization on par with SR? What are the chances that they've just morphed that into 'all appearances are empty'?
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Post by Reefs on Sept 8, 2017 21:24:05 GMT -5
I think the definitions of key wordings/meanings create a manner of problemo's I had trouble back in the day when peeps were trying to sway me to use common meanings to certain words which would then scramble up how I see things . My realizations / experiences pave way to my understandings of mind for instance and I am sure that's how it is for others too, I can't for instance relate to destroying mind butt I can relate to transcending it. The destroying mind episode was just Satch taking Ramana literally. As he later conceded, there's no such thing as destroying mind happening or even necessary. Back to the bliss bunny or contentment or feeling blue and permanence .. The thing is that one cannot permanently entertain any state while entertaining the mind-body . That is the nature of the mind-body experience . When I spoke about coming out of the realization itself I was met with comments of you don't come out of S.R. There were comments of permanence of Bliss and eternal peace and such likes . I would say that is a myth . You don't always feel contentment / peace / bliss ... If we base S.R. on permanence then there is no-one that has walked this earth that is S.R. because of the nature of the mind-body experience and the sufferings of it . I agree there are levels of alignment if we can call it that post S.R. I see it more to do with absorption levels and how long one's mind-body can maintain Self absorption within an environment of the flesh . It ties in nicely with the non functional state and with having no self identity .. for how long does one maintain these states? It's never a lengthy period of time . This can be resolved easily. Realization 1 reveals that your identity and idea of a personal self has been entirely fictitious and the boundaries you set were actually arbitrary. In this sense, the personal self (or SVP - separate volitional person) doesn't actually exist. What remains is Self. This will resolve a whole bunch of existential questions. Once that is realized, you will never go back to this limited and arbitrary sense of self because the foundation for that just disappeared. That's what is meant by 'you are not coming out of SR'. And the peace that results from resolving those nagging existential questions is permanent because those existential question have been resolved once and for all, they've been seen as misconceived, they've been seen as baseless and so they will never arise again and so the agony that was attached to it won't ever arise again as well. That's what is meant by 'the peace that passes all understanding is an absence and not a presence'. And yes, permanent peace/bliss/contentment as a presence (instead of an absence) or EPJ (ease-peace-joy aka the perpetugasm) is a myth.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 8, 2017 21:39:04 GMT -5
Maybe instead of SR or CC, we should call it Realization 1 and Realization 2. Realization 1 refers to the screen metaphor. Realization 2 refers to the extensions of source metaphor. Realization 1 is more of a horizontal surface nature while Realization 2 is more of a vertical in-depth nature. And so intellect feels more comfortable with analyzing and talking about Realization 1. Realization 2 is also the key to understanding this deliberate creation and LOA stuff (aka "you create your own reality"). I will go more into this in my posts on the Seth Model. The sticky point I see here is lack of clear and consistent definitions. As we've seen with the 'bliss' or 'destroying mind' example, the definitions kept changing. And as we've seen with the 'consciousness' example, there seems to be no definition at all. Now is it any wonder that those discussions have been mostly noise? And to your last bit, alignment can show up in many ways and take many forms. Bliss is one of them. Quiet contentment is another. There's a natural rhythm to everything. A natural balance. So in that sense, if bliss is referring to the dictionary definition, then blissful forever means there's something seriously out of balance. UG talked about this eternal bliss stuff actually being harmful to the body because it means over-stimulation. Seth talked about the usefulness of feeling blue (one of Jane's regular moods) because it gives the body/mind time to rest. The distinction between SR and CC has the potential to be profoundly informative to mind. But like any other set of ideas this trio has it's limits. The potential facets to the human experience, and the way that folks will express their existential understandings (and why they express them), are as numerous as the stars in the sky. Whatever the event, life goes on afterwards, and while the end of existential questioning is a milestone that has to be lived to be understood, it doesn't only not negate the mystery of the Cosmos, but it really is when things just start to get interesting. On the one way street, there's no way for realization not to color experience, but it's a trick of the mind to associate the cause of self-realization with the sum total of life experience. Of course the experience of bliss is impermanent, and self-realization can represent such a realignment of a person's inner state that confusion is a natural result, and sometimes confusion can be anything but blissful. Personally, I recall it as rather exhilarating. The end of the questioning in these cases has to involve both the realization and the informing of mind. But of course that's not some sort of rule, just a conditioned tendency. Now, there's an obvious difference between the end of the questioning and the skill of helping other people gravitate away from reliance on their thoughts and feelings and toward silence in that process of questioning. In the final analysis that skill, like any other, is cultural, situational, conditioned and subject to changing conditions. I'm sure that more than one well-known historical figure widely accepted as enlightened changed their tune over time after having dealt with enough peeps. And it's not too hard to find two of them that would sound superficially as if they're contradicting one another. No realization is happening in a vacuum. As Seth is pointing out, knowledge has to be individualized in order to be realized. And so you naturally get lots different flavors. But they all tend to have some common denominators. In that sense, I'd say SR doesn't really have significant variations. It's pretty clear-cut. Not so CC. There are lots of variations in terms of depth. So SR it's a lot easier to talk about SR than CC for that reason alone. Now, regarding post SR/CC, there are even more variations. And it's fascinating to hear the individual stories and see how that plays out in actuality.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 8, 2017 21:53:25 GMT -5
I know that's what you are saying. It's what the screen metaphor is pointing to. And I don't have an issue with that. What I have an issue with is that this is the realization that will resolve the solipsism issue. There's another realization, also prior to intellect and based on direct seeing, that will reveal that everything is actually alive (and conscious). It's what the extensions of source metaphor is pointing to. And that's the realization that will put the solipsism issue to rest as yet another misconceived existential question. It's what Tenka is pointing to when he says that once you've realized your own nature (or Self) you can't possibly be in doubt about the nature of others. But just in case, let's hear your definitions of 'intellect', 'appearances' and 'empty'. This is pretty close to how I see it. I would say there is a small but valid context in which one can question or not know if a human or rock or chair is conscious and alive but the broader context of knowing that everything is intrinsically conscious and alive always trumps the small context. This intuitive knowing is stable, though as has been said, it may have to be realized or cosmically experienced. And yes, appearances are empty, hence why we use the word 'appearance', but this has little or nothing to do with the point under discussion. What I am telling you here is what can be seen directly. There are no conclusions involved. That's why I say that it can be seen that everything is alive (or conscious) and not that everything is aliveness (or consciousness). So there is no logical deduction happening, like 'because everything is consciousness everything that appears is conscious' as some want to believe. That's not the case. And it should also be mentioned that when you see that the rock or chair is alive, you don't actually see a rock or a chair. The perception is happening but it doesn't register as a rock or a chair. That's what I was pointing to when I mentioned anthropomorphism in reply to Enigma's post. A rock, by definition, is not alive. And yet, prior to registering as a rock, it is. This is very difficult to explain. But I think you get it. You've been very clear on this topic lately, even though you've approached it mostly conceptually. So it's interesting that we basically agree here.
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Post by andrew on Sept 8, 2017 22:17:31 GMT -5
This is pretty close to how I see it. I would say there is a small but valid context in which one can question or not know if a human or rock or chair is conscious and alive but the broader context of knowing that everything is intrinsically conscious and alive always trumps the small context. This intuitive knowing is stable, though as has been said, it may have to be realized or cosmically experienced. And yes, appearances are empty, hence why we use the word 'appearance', but this has little or nothing to do with the point under discussion. What I am telling you here is what can be seen directly. There are no conclusions involved. That's why I say that it can be seen that everything is alive (or conscious) and not that everything is aliveness (or consciousness). So there is no logical deduction happening, like 'because everything is consciousness everything that appears is conscious' as some want to believe. That's not the case. And it should also be mentioned that when you see that the rock or chair is alive, you don't actually see a rock or a chair. The perception is happening but it doesn't register as a rock or a chair. That's what I was pointing to when I mentioned anthropomorphism in reply to Enigma's post. A rock, by definition, is not alive. And yet, prior to registering as a rock, it is. This is very difficult to explain. But I think you get it. You've been very clear on this topic lately, even though you've approached it mostly conceptually. So it's interesting that we basically agree here. Yep I get it. A rock, or chair, by definition is not alive....but deeper than the superficial registering of the particular things we are talking about, it is all alive. So yes, when you see the chair or rock is alive, you dont actually see 'the rock' and 'the chair'. You see the aliveness. We don't actually lose the superficial registering but the deeper level is more powerful than the superficial.
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2017 0:14:18 GMT -5
Something just occurred to me. Do you remember our discussions about this 'all ideas are empty' insight which had been portrayed as a major realization on par with SR? What are the chances that they've just morphed that into 'all appearances are empty'? Haven't been following this line of dialog all that closely. First of all, wouldn't it at least be a progression from the skin-deep positionless position to the " bones" of the matter? Funny irony that the underlying issue is the nature of the appearance of physical bodies. The difference between a process of questioning masquerading as opinionated lecture and the real deal pointing to the truth is found in the dynamic interplay of the conversation. You know what to look for. Confusion. The underlying question is the nature of appearances, the meaning of the information presented by the senses, the nature of reality as it relates to the undeniable and sublime ground of being. It's the nose on a face that the seeker pretends not to recognize.
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2017 0:29:31 GMT -5
The distinction between SR and CC has the potential to be profoundly informative to mind. But like any other set of ideas this trio has it's limits. The potential facets to the human experience, and the way that folks will express their existential understandings (and why they express them), are as numerous as the stars in the sky. Whatever the event, life goes on afterwards, and while the end of existential questioning is a milestone that has to be lived to be understood, it doesn't only not negate the mystery of the Cosmos, but it really is when things just start to get interesting. On the one way street, there's no way for realization not to color experience, but it's a trick of the mind to associate the cause of self-realization with the sum total of life experience. Of course the experience of bliss is impermanent, and self-realization can represent such a realignment of a person's inner state that confusion is a natural result, and sometimes confusion can be anything but blissful. Personally, I recall it as rather exhilarating. The end of the questioning in these cases has to involve both the realization and the informing of mind. But of course that's not some sort of rule, just a conditioned tendency. Now, there's an obvious difference between the end of the questioning and the skill of helping other people gravitate away from reliance on their thoughts and feelings and toward silence in that process of questioning. In the final analysis that skill, like any other, is cultural, situational, conditioned and subject to changing conditions. I'm sure that more than one well-known historical figure widely accepted as enlightened changed their tune over time after having dealt with enough peeps. And it's not too hard to find two of them that would sound superficially as if they're contradicting one another. No realization is happening in a vacuum. As Seth is pointing out, knowledge has to be individualized in order to be realized. And so you naturally get lots different flavors. But they all tend to have some common denominators. In that sense, I'd say SR doesn't really have significant variations. It's pretty clear-cut. Not so CC. There are lots of variations in terms of depth. So SR it's a lot easier to talk about SR than CC for that reason alone. Now, regarding post SR/CC, there are even more variations. And it's fascinating to hear the individual stories and see how that plays out in actuality. Ironically the experiences are as easier to compare than the realizations as they are entirely unique because they're all relative and time-bound, so language is well-suited. But the type of language that gets used runs toward the poetic because of the underlying theme of unity. Where it breaks down is in trying to explain that there is no sense of a separate experiencer in the experience while it's happening, it's the "infinite perceiving the infinite". "The infinite perceiving the infinite" is, of course, a big fat fastball for the analysts and word parsers. What's confounding about the commonality of SR is that simple statements of the truth are like a duck/bunny in that there's no way to determine on the face if the understanding expressed is intellectual or embodied, and like you're seeing with the idea of "all is conscious, but that doesn't mean that every thing is conscious", the point where the CC and SR descriptions meet gets easily twisted by mind into the mental confusion of paradox.
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Post by laughter on Sept 9, 2017 0:40:56 GMT -5
This is pretty close to how I see it. I would say there is a small but valid context in which one can question or not know if a human or rock or chair is conscious and alive but the broader context of knowing that everything is intrinsically conscious and alive always trumps the small context. This intuitive knowing is stable, though as has been said, it may have to be realized or cosmically experienced. And yes, appearances are empty, hence why we use the word 'appearance', but this has little or nothing to do with the point under discussion. What I am telling you here is what can be seen directly. There are no conclusions involved. That's why I say that it can be seen that everything is alive (or conscious) and not that everything is aliveness (or consciousness). So there is no logical deduction happening, like 'because everything is consciousness everything that appears is conscious' as some want to believe. That's not the case. And it should also be mentioned that when you see that the rock or chair is alive, you don't actually see a rock or a chair. The perception is happening but it doesn't register as a rock or a chair. That's what I was pointing to when I mentioned anthropomorphism in reply to Enigma's post. A rock, by definition, is not alive. And yet, prior to registering as a rock, it is. This is very difficult to explain. But I think you get it. You've been very clear on this topic lately, even though you've approached it mostly conceptually. So it's interesting that we basically agree here. And in my experience there was a progression of levels to this over the course of my life. As a child and a young adult I reveled in the senses, in different ways of course. But at each stage there were these peak experiences that really put me in touch with the feeling of being alive and plugged into the world. Those experiences and the underling joy of them contributed to my acceptance of the idea of interconnected material oneness. The shock of discovering what was underneath this when the mind suddenly stopped during self-inquiry was sublime, and I've written a few times how my mind made the meaning of more than one meditation where it seemed to me like my car or a room or a landscape was literally staring back at me.
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Post by tenka on Sept 9, 2017 2:36:31 GMT -5
I think the definitions of key wordings/meanings create a manner of problemo's I had trouble back in the day when peeps were trying to sway me to use common meanings to certain words which would then scramble up how I see things . My realizations / experiences pave way to my understandings of mind for instance and I am sure that's how it is for others too, I can't for instance relate to destroying mind butt I can relate to transcending it. The destroying mind episode was just Satch taking Ramana literally. As he later conceded, there's no such thing as destroying mind happening or even necessary. Back to the bliss bunny or contentment or feeling blue and permanence .. The thing is that one cannot permanently entertain any state while entertaining the mind-body . That is the nature of the mind-body experience . When I spoke about coming out of the realization itself I was met with comments of you don't come out of S.R. There were comments of permanence of Bliss and eternal peace and such likes . I would say that is a myth . You don't always feel contentment / peace / bliss ... If we base S.R. on permanence then there is no-one that has walked this earth that is S.R. because of the nature of the mind-body experience and the sufferings of it . I agree there are levels of alignment if we can call it that post S.R. I see it more to do with absorption levels and how long one's mind-body can maintain Self absorption within an environment of the flesh . It ties in nicely with the non functional state and with having no self identity .. for how long does one maintain these states? It's never a lengthy period of time . This can be resolved easily. Realization 1 reveals that your identity and idea of a personal self has been entirely fictitious and the boundaries you set were actually arbitrary. In this sense, the personal self (or SVP - separate volitional person) doesn't actually exist. What remains is Self. This will resolve a whole bunch of existential questions. Once that is realized, you will never go back to this limited and arbitrary sense of self because the foundation for that just disappeared. That's what is meant by 'you are not coming out of SR'. And the peace that results from resolving those nagging existential questions is permanent because those existential question have been resolved once and for all, they've been seen as misconceived, they've been seen as baseless and so they will never arise again and so the agony that was attached to it won't ever arise again as well. That's what is meant by 'the peace that passes all understanding is an absence and not a presence'. And yes, permanent peace/bliss/contentment as a presence (instead of an absence) or EPJ (ease-peace-joy aka the perpetugasm) is a myth. I agree that one never goes back to 'that' self identity . What I have been speaking about was the actual realisation itself there was no identity at all . You have to engage with the world with some sense of self as I AM . That is why you can't pluck a chicken and eat the chicken without a sense of I AM being hungry . In the realisation itself there is no sense of I AM in reflection of the chicken and hunger . You have to reemerge with the waking world in order to identify with I AM and the chicken . You have to come out of the non identity, Self unmanifest-ness, Self realisation in order to engage with experience .. S.R. is more than just realizing you are not that self you once believed yourself to be .. it's the total disengagement / transcendence /disappearance with the reality that housed such perceptions / beliefs .. S.R. as I see it is not looking in the duality mirror and realizing what I see is not what I am . S.R. is transcending the duality mirror to reveal what you are that exists beyond that . You have to at some point return to the dual experience and then look at yourself in the mirror . Coming back into the dual reality is the coming out of the realisation itself .
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Post by enigma on Sept 9, 2017 9:28:36 GMT -5
What does it mean to say a shoe lace is conscious and alive? I wouldn't say that. At the superficial level of thingness...shoelaces, chairs, rocks, animals....I would agree that we can distinguish between some things as alive and some as dead, some as having consciousness/presence and some as not having consciousness/presence etc. But this is the most superficial level, there is a deeper level of intuitive knowing that all things (non specific) have an aliveness, a consciousness, a presence. And this knowing is more potent than our enquiry or superficial curiosity about individual things. I would say all things have an aliveness and presence because they are not 'out there' in the world being alive and present but rather 'in here' being Me. There is an intimacy with all things because they are Consciousness, not because they are conscious. That's why the 'intuitive knowing' falls apart when we try to find a conscious shoe lace.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 9, 2017 10:08:09 GMT -5
I mentioned it because you implied the 'solipsist' position is mentally derived and doesn't include direct seeing. But moving on, the issue seems to be that this realization tells you that there are other conscious perceivers while it just tells me that appearances are empty. I've not had that realization. The realization I've had is that everything is actually empty, and nothing is conscious. I've said, myself, that everything is alive, but what I mean is that everything is Consciousness itself, not that every appearance in Consciousness is imbued with it's own life and conscious awareness. I'm, inclined to believe that it IS misconceived, but I'm not buying any of the arguments I've heard so far and I've not had the direct seeing that reveals that misconception. When you realize your own nature, you know there are no others. You don't learn something about the nature of others. The question of others doesn't arise, but this doesn't reveal the relationship between appearances and experiential perspective any more than it reveals how the dream itself will unfold. Before I can respond to this in detail you have to tell me your definitions of those terms that you regularly use because your vocabulary is a little confusing. Except for the term 'empty' I go with the dictionary definitions. And so to me, if consciousness doesn't imply conscious and alive doesn't imply conscious then that's unintelligible. I am also wondering, how does this realization work out in practical terms? What's the difference between Marie and a rock and a character in your nightly dreams if nothing is conscious? How about so-called heartfelt deep emotional bonds between a parent and a child or two lovers? Right, when you realize your own nature, you know there are no others. But there are two ways of realizing this. One in a negative way by seeing directly what is not the case (Realization 1), one in a positive way by seeing directly what is the case (Realization 2). So in this sense, Realization 1 is half circle and Realization 2 is full circle. Remember what Ramana said, he said that both the ordinary man and the sage say "I am the body".
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Post by andrew on Sept 9, 2017 10:18:36 GMT -5
I wouldn't say that. At the superficial level of thingness...shoelaces, chairs, rocks, animals....I would agree that we can distinguish between some things as alive and some as dead, some as having consciousness/presence and some as not having consciousness/presence etc. But this is the most superficial level, there is a deeper level of intuitive knowing that all things (non specific) have an aliveness, a consciousness, a presence. And this knowing is more potent than our enquiry or superficial curiosity about individual things. I would say all things have an aliveness and presence because they are not 'out there' in the world being alive and present but rather 'in here' being Me. There is an intimacy with all things because they are Consciousness, not because they are conscious. That's why the 'intuitive knowing' falls apart when we try to find a conscious shoe lace. It doesn't fall apart though, the knowing remains primary even though we are constantly also engaging with the smaller context. Everyone has this intuitive knowing, but some folks emphasise or focus on the small context more, thus the knowing is not at the front of their experience.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 9, 2017 10:25:01 GMT -5
The issue I have with the CC experience is that, regardless of how powerful and true it seemes, it is experience, and experience involves mind, and any and all conclusions derived from it are suspect. Consciousness is tricky because it's a made up term used to talk about the movement of creation. There is no Consciousness thingy, and it certainly is not meant to imply that everything in creation is conscious. Agree. That 'balance' is fundamental to the relative movement of dualistic experience itself. Bliss, in the way we seem to be talking about it, is both intermittent and addictive, not unlike a drug high. Well, this is a bit of word-lawyering. CC is called an experience because it has a definite ending and beginning. But if you really want to go down this road then SR also has at least a definite beginning. So in that sense CC is as much an experience as is SR. Fact is that both refer to something that happens prior to mind (intellect) and both realizations don't happen in time. And as such it is not what we usually call an experience. Yes, consciousness is not a thing. But the dictionary definition of consciousness is very clear. So what you are doing here seems counterproductive in terms of clarity.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 9, 2017 10:29:25 GMT -5
What does it mean to say a shoe lace is conscious and alive? If you see shoe laces then mind (intellect) has already entered the picture and shoe laces are not conscious and alive by definition.
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