Hello!

[catherine]

Hi, everybody!

Just a little presentation. I am 48 years old, live in Arizona. Been a bit of a traveler. Was born in France, where I lived for 23 years, then moved to England. Spent 9 years there, and moved to the United States. I was brought up as a Catholic, and as far as I can remember, I was searching for something. Even as a young girl, I felt that there must be something more to life than meets the eye. I was lucky enough to come in contact with wonderful souls along the way that showed me things that I had not even known existed. My first encounter with the catholic priest of my little village was a defining moment. This man was always happy, even when he was suffering horribly with bone cancer. As a young girl, it really piqued my interest. Why was this man so different? Where did he find his joy and gratitude? Things have not progressed smoothly in my life. I am afraid I remained stuck in victim consciousness for decades, until the pain of being miserable and sorry for myself became unbearable. I then embarked on a spiritual journey, embracing meditation and a hinduism-based practice. Now, I am at a point where I am realizing how much brainwashing we all go through, and how much we complicate things. I am seeing clearly that the mind is the obstacle. I see it intellectually, but am not able (except for glimpses from time to time) to let go, and just be present. I am so glad to have found this discussion board, and cannot wait to discuss with you all. I read Zendancer's book (Pouring concrete...) and could not put it down. Looking forward to a wonderful fellowship, guidance, exchange with you all!

Catherine

[laughter]

Mar 26, 2018 17:10:13 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi, everybody!

Just a little presentation. I am 48 years old, live in Arizona. Been a bit of a traveler. Was born in France, where I lived for 23 years, then moved to England. Spent 9 years there, and moved to the United States. I was brought up as a Catholic, and as far as I can remember, I was searching for something. Even as a young girl, I felt that there must be something more to life than meets the eye. I was lucky enough to come in contact with wonderful souls along the way that showed me things that I had not even known existed. My first encounter with the catholic priest of my little village was a defining moment. This man was always happy, even when he was suffering horribly with bone cancer. As a young girl, it really piqued my interest. Why was this man so different? Where did he find his joy and gratitude? Things have not progressed smoothly in my life. I am afraid I remained stuck in victim consciousness for decades, until the pain of being miserable and sorry for myself became unbearable. I then embarked on a spiritual journey, embracing meditation and a hinduism-based practice. Now, I am at a point where I am realizing how much brainwashing we all go through, and how much we complicate things. I am seeing clearly that the mind is the obstacle. I see it intellectually, but am not able (except for glimpses from time to time) to let go, and just be present. I am so glad to have found this discussion board, and cannot wait to discuss with you all. I read Zendancer's book (Pouring concrete...) and could not put it down. Looking forward to a wonderful fellowship, guidance, exchange with you all!

Catherine

Hello, back.

With a limited knowledge of Hinduism, from the outside looking in, it seems to me a big tent. Are you familiar with this idea of describing a path in terms of "devotion", "insight", "service", etc.?

[catherine]

Hi,

This was a funny video. Thank you for sharing it. It is the idea that we are all different, and using a particular way (according to our natural tendencies) to reach the same place: enlightenment. The Bhakti yogi is more heart-based. The Jnana yogi is more wisdom-based, the Karma yogi is more action-based, etc. It does not describe the path itself, and you can be a mixture of these.

If you want to know more about the path, look up the Eight Limbs of Yoga (Union with the divine).

Yama : Universal morality
Niyama : Personal observances
Asanas : Body postures
Pranayama : Breathing exercises, and control of prana
Pratyahara : Control of the senses
Dharana : Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness
Dhyana : Devotion, Meditation on the Divine
Samadhi : Union with the Divine

Catherine

[Reefs]

Mar 26, 2018 18:29:28 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi,

This was a funny video. Thank you for sharing it. It is the idea that we are all different, and using a particular way (according to our natural tendencies) to reach the same place: enlightenment. The Bhakti yogi is more heart-based. The Jnana yogi is more wisdom-based, the Karma yogi is more action-based, etc. It does not describe the path itself, and you can be a mixture of these.

If you want to know more about the path, look up the Eight Limbs of Yoga (Union with the divine).

Yama : Universal morality
Niyama : Personal observances
Asanas : Body postures
Pranayama : Breathing exercises, and control of prana
Pratyahara : Control of the senses
Dharana : Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness
Dhyana : Devotion, Meditation on the Divine
Samadhi : Union with the Divine

Catherine

These 3 are quite popular, actually. They may not help you get enlightened but they certainly will help you get back in alignment. So I would recommend them to the unenlightened ones as well as the enlightened ones.

[catherine]

Hi,

What is your definition of enlightenment?

Catherine

[laughter]

Mar 26, 2018 18:29:28 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi,

This was a funny video. Thank you for sharing it. It is the idea that we are all different, and using a particular way (according to our natural tendencies) to reach the same place: enlightenment. The Bhakti yogi is more heart-based. The Jnana yogi is more wisdom-based, the Karma yogi is more action-based, etc. It does not describe the path itself, and you can be a mixture of these.

If you want to know more about the path, look up the Eight Limbs of Yoga (Union with the divine).

Yama : Universal morality
Niyama : Personal observances
Asanas : Body postures
Pranayama : Breathing exercises, and control of prana
Pratyahara : Control of the senses
Dharana : Concentration and cultivating inner perceptual awareness
Dhyana : Devotion, Meditation on the Divine
Samadhi : Union with the Divine

Catherine

oh! I think you just helped me connect two dots. Is that why there are either eight (or eight extra) arms in these images? Learn somthin' new everyday.

Yes, I'm with you 100% that every path is unique and it's unlikely any path can be described purely in any single one of those terms. I can relate my past experiences to these eight limbs, and could even do a secular translation for each of them. That said, the notion of control and spiritual practice has been a topic that's generated some intense interest on the forum in the past. Also, I would never mischaracterize myself as a particularly disciplined individual.

If you're interested in sharing some of your past influences with us I'm sure there would be some interest by the readers. But please don't feel obligated. I'd be more than happy to reciprocate if it would make you feel more comfortable, but I've blabbed about myself here more than enough over the years so that it would likely just bore everyone else. What got you interested in yoga, and how would you describe your practices, then, and now? What do you do them for these days? Was there any particular teacher or yogi or other source of information that you found particularly useful or transformative?

[Deleted]

matters of the mind

[Reefs]

Mar 27, 2018 10:30:09 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi,

What is your definition of enlightenment?

Catherine

Self-realization.

[catherine]

Thank you, all!

I don't think the eight arms are related to the eight limbs of yoga. I did not know this either, so thanks to you, I am learning something also. Check this out:

I liked the idea of a philosophy that was based on meditation, and I started learning meditation with SRF. The guru is Yogananda. More than the teachings themselves, I can say with certainty that the practice of meditation has helped me tremendously. I used to be very depressed, and it is a thing of the past. I still have my tendency to be negative, but it has lessened a lot. I can see how much more quality of life I have. The degree of pain has lessened, and the reactivity also. I have had a few glimpses of my True self, and it was a tremendous experience, in that it showed me that it is possible to be in a different state of consciousness. I still meditate, and find the technique of Kriya Yoga fantastic. I try to meditate every day, but I miss some days. I also go through phases when I really want to meditate, and phases when I don't want to meditate. I notice, however, that when I have not been meditating for a while, my negativity, thought patterns, racing mind come back. So my life becomes unbearable again, and I go back to meditation. My goal is self-realization.

By the way, I started off being born in France and being a Catholic, not by choice, but to conform to family and cultural habits. I remember clearly the day that I stopped being receptive. I was talking to the priest and he said: "When you do something good, it is God that works through you, and when you do something bad, it is just you. I thought: "It does not make sense." The idea of always seeing myself as a sinner crushed me, left me in despair, and discouraged me. I prefer to try and cultivate the best in myself and others. Build on something positive. I find it more helpful and constructive, and I understand that we all have our own way, and it is perfect the way it is!

What are your practices, and your path?

Catherine

[laughter]

Mar 28, 2018 18:08:13 GMT -5 catherine said:

Thank you, all!

I don't think the eight arms are related to the eight limbs of yoga. I did not know this either, so thanks to you, I am learning something also. Check this out:

The plot thickens! I can kinda' see a correlation between a few of the limbs and the list in the first two pics .. almost as if the yoga limbs are the methods and the diety limbs are the qualities the yoga are meant to cultivate.

[laughter]

Mar 28, 2018 18:08:13 GMT -5 catherine said:

I liked the idea of a philosophy that was based on meditation, and I started learning meditation with SRF. The guru is Yogananda. More than the teachings themselves, I can say with certainty that the practice of meditation has helped me tremendously. I used to be very depressed, and it is a thing of the past. I still have my tendency to be negative, but it has lessened a lot. I can see how much more quality of life I have. The degree of pain has lessened, and the reactivity also. I have had a few glimpses of my True self, and it was a tremendous experience, in that it showed me that it is possible to be in a different state of consciousness. I still meditate, and find the technique of Kriya Yoga fantastic. I try to meditate every day, but I miss some days. I also go through phases when I really want to meditate, and phases when I don't want to meditate. I notice, however, that when I have not been meditating for a while, my negativity, thought patterns, racing mind come back. So my life becomes unbearable again, and I go back to meditation. My goal is self-realization.

By the way, I started off being born in France and being a Catholic, not by choice, but to conform to family and cultural habits. I remember clearly the day that I stopped being receptive. I was talking to the priest and he said: "When you do something good, it is God that works through you, and when you do something bad, it is just you. I thought: "It does not make sense." The idea of always seeing myself as a sinner crushed me, left me in despair, and discouraged me. I prefer to try and cultivate the best in myself and others. Build on something positive. I find it more helpful and constructive, and I understand that we all have our own way, and it is perfect the way it is!

That's wonderful you've found that in meditation, thanks for sharing. The orientation of the members of the forum on the topic are quite diverse. But there are many of us that have found meditation important, and I've learned quite a bit on the topic from corresponding with them. A quick look at the SRF site shows a potential appeal for me as to how they've systematized and apparently related the techniques to what I'd describe as a holistic theory of the human organism. I can relate to how you use your practice to "align", but for me that hasn't been though meditation, but rather sports and other forms of recreation. For me meditation has been more of a sort of exploration of curiosity. In sitting, I practice what I'd describe as a Zen-inspired "emptiness meditation", where I just ... sit quietly.

The term "alignment" is one I've borrowed from the folks here with an interest in "LOA", Reefs, primarily.

[laughter]

Mar 28, 2018 18:08:13 GMT -5 catherine said:

What are your practices, and your path?

Catherine

Ok, well, this is the best abbreviation I can manage ... this is your intro thread, after all. Feel free to PM if you're curious about any of it. I don't mind writing about the story publicly but like I've already said I think most here are bored with it by now.

I fell into meditation unexpectedly over eight years ago in reading Tolle's "The Power of Now". Before that was over four decades of unconscious seeking. I was blessed by a family and culture that conditioned an affinity for outdoor recreation and intellectual curiosity. A bonus was that my parents were lapsed Catholics who assiduously kept me away from religion. Growing up in the New York State public education system it was natural that science became my first dogma. But life softened my views over time, and Tolle completely rearranged the mental furniture.

For several months after Tolle I was completely free of curiosity for the first time ever in my life. Eventually though I had to go out onto the internet to find out what had happened. So I did a self-study online crash course in spiritual history, Zen, Advaita and pop spirituality/nonduality/neo-Advaita, and went through almost two years of intense and conscious seeking. Albert Low's "arouse the mind without resting it on anything" was my primary pointer, and I benefited during that time from some very sane, wise and experienced folks on these forums. Washed up here right at the end of that, and include several on this forum in that group of sane and wise voices (like "sim", for instance ). The story keeps rollin' from there, and has surprisingly enough (to me anyway), since even re-intersected with Catholocism.

[catherine]

Hi,

Sorry, got busy! It is so interesting to see everybody's path. I feel so caught up in the mind. Do not know how to get out of it. Any suggestions? Practices?

All the best!

Catherine

[stardustpilgrim]

Apr 4, 2018 12:50:45 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi,

Sorry, got busy! It is so interesting to see everybody's path. I feel so caught up in the mind. Do not know how to get out of it. Any suggestions? Practices?

All the best!

Catherine

Hey Catherine...There is mind and then there is conditioned mind. Mind has many names, the names are not important, to discover original mind is what's important. Why call it original mind? Up above this post is an add, an add for Gerber Life Insurance Co. with the Gerber baby picture on it. Many animals are born with instinctive functions, and just start living their life upon birth. But a human baby is not born with a great deal of instinctive functions, so has to learn. But what is a baby born with? Attention (and awareness). So this is your original mind. So what is the conditioned mind? That's pretty easy, it's what you refer to by "caught up in the mind". So how does conditioned mind arise? The baby explores the world with its attention, that's original mind. And then everything it explores gets stored in the neural structure of the brain, through associations. See original mind as a clean white sheet of paper. As the baby encounters the world and that information is stored in the brain, see that data as a mark on the clean white paper (you can actually do it, use some colored pens, or just make an image in your mind). The crisscrossing of pen marks is a good example of the associative nature of the neural structure. Thousands of marks will enter the babies paper every day. As the days add up to years, the clean white paper can hardly be seen, but it's still there.

So at about the age of six there is very little white showing. What does this mean in our analogy? It means that now all incoming information falls on the pen marks, the network of associations in the brain, and not on the clean white paper. What does this mean? It means your attention is captured by stored information, that is, now, everything the young child encounters, activates the information already stored, the the child sees life through its own store of information and interprets life not as it is, but according to the stored information. That's what conditioning is. And what do we call that massive stored information? We call it self, Mary or John or Calvin or Ruth. The stored information constitutes what we consider self to be.

So the youth, the teenager, the young adult, the adult and the middle aged, do not really encounter life like the baby. And all this stored information operates all-by-itself, encountering life makes things pop right up out of the brain, minute by minute, daily, this becomes our life. How do we refer to it? "I feel so caught up in my mind". That's a very good way to put it, ~you~ actually are caught up in your mind. Original mind is caught and captured by the conditioned mind. Your attention is continually forced into a rut, the rut called the conditioned mind. Your attention, ~you~, are in a very real sense held prisoner, by the conditioned mind. From your post, this seems very clear to you.

Now we come to "Do not know how to get out of it. Any suggestions"?

The clean white sheet of paper is still there underneath all the marks. What to do? You can access the clean white paper. We generally call it meditation. All forms of meditation are attempts to access the clean white paper. Watching the breath is a good beginning form of meditation. So what happens? You watch the breath for two seconds, and then a thought jumps up, the thought tries to take back your attention, that's virtually the job description of ego (our conditioning). So that's what we experience, all day long. Meditation is a way to try to ~take back~ our original mind (in Buddhism also called no-mind, the no-mind is the clean white paper).

But then also, one can take this into daily life. You can find moments where it's a little easier to do. Driving, just bring your attention to the driving, watching traffic. Standing in any line, just bring your attention to now. Getting a drink of water at the water fountain, just "Be, Here, Now". Your conditioned mind is going to continually try to recapture your attention. But now it's up to you. Just explore this. It can go deeper and deeper. Just keep exploring, if you wish to. Maybe you come to value the *clean white paper*, more than the conditioned ruts. Eventually you can find the clean white paper, while in the midst of the marks.

Maybe eventually you come to reevaluate what you consider self to be. But maybe this takes a lot of exploration, but sometimes not. But just remember, maybe self (conditioned self) will not be put out of its job so easily.

For most people life is just one damn thing after another, and then they die. There is another way to live.

[laughter]

Apr 4, 2018 12:50:45 GMT -5 catherine said:

Hi,

Sorry, got busy! It is so interesting to see everybody's path. I feel so caught up in the mind. Do not know how to get out of it. Any suggestions? Practices?

All the best!

Catherine

Does getting caught up in mind happen more often some times rather than others? What are the circumstances that lead to it?