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Post by vacant on Jan 28, 2010 6:56:24 GMT -5
" _____________________! "
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Post by skyblue on Jan 28, 2010 8:41:53 GMT -5
"So, look around. Can you see what's here without imagining that its divided into ten thousand things? There is only oneness.........only _____________________! Cheers."
ZD, what about experiencing oneness as a feeling? I don't get anything visually. I feel it. Same thing?
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Post by lightmystic on Jan 28, 2010 12:09:42 GMT -5
Hey Question, ZD gave a good answer. It's not that the world is not real, it's that it's not really separate or limited. It's just impossible to see that when there's the quiet, but deeply ingrained and persistent assumption that it IS separate. The mind tells us the story of different things, of separation, etc.. And it's ultimately no longer identifying with that, seeing through that, that brings clarity. Of course, the mind itself is none other than the Self as well, but it takes having that distance to see that the story of limitation was never true to realize that everything, including the mind itself, is already unlimited, and has always been. The only problem is that, because it's unlimited, no amount of concepts of what it is can ever do it justice. That doesn't mean it doesn't look like anything. What it looks like can always be directly experienced. All that it means, ultimately, is that what it is cannot be conceptualized by the mind, which has to separate things in order to "understand them" and create a story out of them. With the mind it always has to be "either/or". But that is not the reality. Does that make sense? Hey ZD and LM, sorry that I'm so late. I have no problem with admitting that the mind classifies every experience and that then it's like a feedback loop, where such classifications to some degree alter actual experience. This has even been confirmed scientifically. But when I walk around what I, for the lack of better words, classify as an object, and then this object changes its appearance relative to my senses' position towards this object... how can this experience possibly be caused by the mind? When you guys walk around a chair, does this chair change its appearance or do you perceive some kind of a platonic idea of this chair? Don't get hung up on words please, I'm simply asking whether you're actually perceiving perspectivity or not. And if not, I mean, the mind can't grow me a third leg, how on earth is it supposed to be able to create something like subjectivity, perspectivity etc.? You guys often say things like "without the mind there are no limitations, no you, no me, nothing". It sounds to me like when a child, playing hide and seek, covers his eyes in order to be invisible, as if he would dissapear if only the world disappears for him. I can't phrase it to my satisfaction, but something feels fishy about the way advaita teachers say it. I say I see an object, but you say that you see the absolute, but if we both are seeing the same shapes and colours, isn't it kinda awkward? And I also liked Klaus' comment about perception. I too have a hard time believing that perception itself, or an absolute perceiver is the last stop, simply because perception itself is such a complex idea, way too complex and unnatural to be this fundamental. |
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Post by skyblue on Jan 28, 2010 15:41:35 GMT -5
"So, look around. Can you see what's here without imagining that its divided into ten thousand things? There is only oneness.........only _____________________! Cheers." ZD, what about experiencing oneness as a feeling? I don't get anything visually. I feel it. Same thing? I will explain a little more. As a teen, I had an experience where i felt all time as one, all of it, and there was no distinction between the past, present and future. However, I experienced it within my body and the mind. All past lives were not in the past but being experienced right now and it was not seen but felt. I don't know how to explain how it felt-there aren't any words. I don't even know if this is a 'oneness' experience or not. |
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Post by zendancer on Jan 28, 2010 21:50:20 GMT -5
"So, look around. Can you see what's here without imagining that its divided into ten thousand things? There is only oneness.........only _____________________! Cheers." ZD, what about experiencing oneness as a feeling? I don't get anything visually. I feel it. Same thing? Skyblue: That's an interesting question, but I don't know the answer. For one thing, oneness is not a visual experience for me. It is not any other kind of experience either. I have had distinct oneness experiences in the past, but the oneness I am usually pointing to these days is not an experience, per se. It is a kind of alive emptiness, or beingness, that is very ordinary and not bounded in any way. Life is simply lived without much reflection. Things happen and then other things happen. These happenings are seen, but there is no felt sense that there is someone seeing them. Feelings and experiences come and go, but they are all contained within something like a continuum of pure isness. Whether it's the same as a felt sense of oneness, I don't know. In my case there doesn't seem to be anything around which a sense of oneness could coalesce. There is just too much unknowingness--as if life is being lived somewhere out beyond any world that can be described in words. Your experience sounds like a unity-consciousness type of experience, but those type of experiences generally happen to someone who senses a distinct beginning and ending and you're describing it as if it is a continuing condition. Is that right? Maybe Lightmystic or someone who is more of a feeler will have better insight into this. I think you could sum up my condition at this time as that of being a true simpleton. LOL. I never thought of it like this before tonight, but the term "simpleton" captures some essential aspect of this. Tonight I feel so simple that it's almost like I got erased. What was that movie that starred Billy Bob Thorton--The Man Who Wasn't There? Yeah, I feel like there used to be somebody here, but I can't remember exactly who it was. For some reason this seems exceptionally funny at the moment. Maybe the humor is arising because of that last glass of wine I had with dinner! Cheers. |
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Post by Carla on Jan 28, 2010 21:54:17 GMT -5
The same wish I have every moment of every day ~
Highest Good for All That Is!
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Post by skyblue on Jan 28, 2010 22:24:44 GMT -5
Your experience sounds like a unity-consciousness type of experience, but those type of experiences generally happen to someone who senses a distinct beginning and ending and you're describing it as if it is a continuing condition. Is that right?
No, it hasn't been a continuing condition so I suppose you could describe it as a spiritual experience; however it did seem as if the I of me disappeared while it was happening. I was only 13 when it occurred and it rocked my little world.Skyblue: That's an interesting question, but I don't know the answer. Well, I appreciate the humbleness or maybe it was the wine!  |
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Post by Portto on Jan 29, 2010 7:22:48 GMT -5
The same wish I have every moment of every day ~ Highest Good for All That Is! Nice wish, Carla. If you are willing to explore it, and perhaps learn more about it, can you be more specific? What does the "highest good for all" look like? |
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Post by lightmystic on Jan 29, 2010 10:59:21 GMT -5
Hey skyblue, I definitely appreciate hearing your experience. There are direct experiences of connectedness with everything that are very pleasant, and can be integrated to be there all the time. Prior to the disappearance of self, that was pretty much exactly what life was like for me. There did seem like there was a separate self to be connected at the time, so it wasn't quite the full thing, but a lot of cosmic knowledge and recognition is available in that experience, and those kinds of recognitions, even if they are initially fleeting, is a very important part of a very important process. When you described the experience, it came through your words, which means that it's still there inside of you. You can go back and revisit it, and start to extract and knowingness out of it. It sounds like you had some very nice meaningful insights on time in that experience as well. In terms of HOW these things are experienced, it's at a level that is not separate from the senses, but is not limited to them either. Usually I find that people have a primary mode of experiencing it. Some people hear it initially, some people see it initially, and some people feel it initially....I was much more visual of a person....although it ultimately pervaded all of my senses....(or was rather seen not to be separate from any of them, and was experienced in a concrete way). Sometimes it's so subtle people don't even want to call it a feeling, just Being, or Knowingness or something like that. When you revisit the experience in you, can you still feel it? Does it get clearer the more attention you put on it? "So, look around. Can you see what's here without imagining that its divided into ten thousand things? There is only oneness.........only _____________________! Cheers." ZD, what about experiencing oneness as a feeling? I don't get anything visually. I feel it. Same thing? I will explain a little more. As a teen, I had an experience where i felt all time as one, all of it, and there was no distinction between the past, present and future. However, I experienced it within my body and the mind. All past lives were not in the past but being experienced right now and it was not seen but felt. I don't know how to explain how it felt-there aren't any words. I don't even know if this is a 'oneness' experience or not. |
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Post by question on Jan 29, 2010 14:20:57 GMT -5
Question: Okay, let's take it one step at a time. Imagine that we decided to name every quadrant defined by grids of longitude and latitude. Imagine that we named the quadrant located halfway between America and England "quadrant 23." If we took a boat out to the middle of quandrant 23, what would we see? We would see ________(I hold out my hand and simulate the movement of waves). We wouldn't see "quadrant 23," or "the ocean," or "waves." We would see ____________(I point to the truth and repeat the above movement.). "Quadrant 23" is imaginary. So is "the ocean," and so are "waves." The truth is_________. So, does quadrant 23 exist? Yes, but only as an idea. Does the ocean exist? Yes, but only as an idea. The truth is what we see from the deck of the boat we are on. We see _____________. Does the state of Kansas exist? Yes, in the same way as "quadrant 23." It is an idea--an imaginary grid superimposed on reality. The truth is ____________(if I'm standing in Kansas, I stomp my foot on the ground to point out the truth). In reality there is no state of Kansas. It is part of an imaginary mental grid. We can see what Kansas IS by looking with our eyes, but we cannot see "Kansas" because "Kansas" is imaginary. I hold up my hand and I ask three people to take an ink pen and draw the two lines that separate my hand from my wrist and my wrist from my arm. They will draw the lines in slightly different places because the boundaries are imaginary and each person imagines the location of those boundaries in a slightly different place. So, do hands, wrists, and arms exist? Yes, but only as ideas. The truth is_________(I shake my hand silently). We can see what IS, but what IS is neither a "hand" nor "not a hand." It is___________. In reality there is only oneness without division or separation. As humans, we choose to imagine reality as if it were divided into "things" like quadrants, states, hands, wrists, arms, human beings, computers, stars, etc, but there are no real boundaries anywhere other than in our heads. Whatever this is ________(I shake my hand) it is connected to this _________(I shake my arm), and this _______(I shake my shoulder), and this ________(I shake my whole body), and this ________(I stomp on the ground), and that ____________(I point to a tree), and that ___________(I point to a star). Because there are no real boundaries (other than in our imagination) who we ARE is the totality of the entire universe. The whole blooming thing is alive and unified. Hold up your arm and look for yourself. Do you see three separate things in front of your eyes or one thing? Now hold up your other arm, stick out your legs, and look at your entire body. Do you see twenty separate things or one thing? Now look at the entire environment surrounding "your body." If you are sufficiently relaxed and open, you will not even see one thing. You will only see "what is," the entire field of your being. The problem for all adults is that we become habituated to seeing the world as we imagine it to be rather than seeing it as it is. We spend 99% of our time naming, thinking, reflecting, fantasizing, and talking to ourselves in our heads, so we constantly reinforce the illusion of "thingness." To see the truth clearly requires practicing some silent observation. It requires us to interact with the world in a different way than usual. With practice we can learn to see the truth with our eyes, but we can never perceive the truth using the intellect. The intellect only functions by dividing what we see into imaginary states of differing value. Most of us look out at the world as if we are little people inside our heads looking "out there" through our eye sockets. This, too, is an illusion created by the mental habit of incessant imagination. With sufficient clarity and silence we discover that who we are is the entire process of reality looking at something that cannot be imagined, and the something we see is not even a something. This cannot be understood with the mind. The mind cannot enter the world of the absolute because it only deals with products of imagination. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is reported to have said, "The Kingdom of my Father is spread out upon the earth, but men do not see it." In another verse he says, "I am he who has come forth from the Undivided." In still another verse some guy comes to Jesus and asks him to make his brother divide up his dead father's belongings with him. Jesus says, "O man, do you think that I'm a divider?" He then turns to his disciples and says, "I am not a divider, am I?" It is easy to imagine the grin on his face when he asked this question of his disciples. LOL. So, look around. Can you see what's here without imagining that its divided into ten thousand things? There is only oneness.........only _____________________! Cheers. Hey Question, ZD gave a good answer. It's not that the world is not real, it's that it's not really separate or limited. It's just impossible to see that when there's the quiet, but deeply ingrained and persistent assumption that it IS separate. The mind tells us the story of different things, of separation, etc.. And it's ultimately no longer identifying with that, seeing through that, that brings clarity. Of course, the mind itself is none other than the Self as well, but it takes having that distance to see that the story of limitation was never true to realize that everything, including the mind itself, is already unlimited, and has always been. The only problem is that, because it's unlimited, no amount of concepts of what it is can ever do it justice. That doesn't mean it doesn't look like anything. What it looks like can always be directly experienced. All that it means, ultimately, is that what it is cannot be conceptualized by the mind, which has to separate things in order to "understand them" and create a story out of them. With the mind it always has to be "either/or". But that is not the reality. Does that make sense? I don't get it. I know that the map is not the territory. I know that the universe is one, and whatever is writing these words is part of the universe. I know that the unvierse isn't made up of ten thousand things. And everyone else knows all that, too. It's common sense. So now apparently what happened is that the universe played a joke on itself by making up human beings and messing up their minds so that human being's minds unconsciously believe themselves to be seperate. Whether the mind logically knows itself to be not seperate or not, doesn't matter, apparently there's some unconscious habit or force or whatever that makes them "feel" seperate. So now the task is to un-do this unconscious habit? You may jump in and say, "no no it can't be understood by the mind", but I disagree, because everything that you wrote in your last post is highly logical. In fact, every sane human would agree with what you wrote. Well except for the part where you say that the whole thing is alive and conscious. But that's probably a question of how we define life and consciousness. You know, it's the part when you say that "the FEELING of seperation is deeply ingrained into the UNconsious" that makes me feel most awful, because I don't even know that I feel it, and even if I did clearly feel it, working on that seems like an impossible and at best an incredibly tedious task. I can't access that area, it's like a have a disease for which there is no cure, either it goes away, or, like for most people, it doesn't. So there's these two points. You continually repeat what everybody already knows logically, and at the same time you point out that the unconscious behaves differently to the logical mind. But you have no techniques that can remedy this, except for TRYING to experience what is already experienced anyways and trying to realize what is already known logically on some level other than the mind. Except that there's no way to try. You probably know the story of the master asking his student to try to give him the pen. The student gives him the pen and the master says "No, don't give me the pen, TRY to give it to me." |
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Post by karen on Jan 29, 2010 14:38:36 GMT -5
Hi Question,
I'm just curious, have you ever intentionally let your consciousness hang on these questions without trying to answer them yourself? I learned this back in my personal development days and that technique proved its value.
But it really only works when I ask a question I don't already think I have an answer for.
For example, I could ask: "Why am I fat?" But that is a poor question since I think I already know the answer to that: "Because I over eat!". So the question then goes: "Why do I over eat?" "Because I have poor will power!" "Why do I have poor will power?" Or even better is: "Why does will power seem so strong sometimes, and it evaporates like ether at the next moment?" <-- now this is a question that silence can help with.
Forgive me if you are already familiar with this technique.
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Post by question on Jan 29, 2010 15:20:55 GMT -5
Hi Question, I'm just curious, have you ever intentionally let your consciousness hang on these questions without trying to answer them yourself? I learned this back in my personal development days and that technique proved its value. But it really only works when I ask a question I don't already think I have an answer for. For example, I could ask: "Why am I fat?" But that is a poor question since I think I already know the answer to that: "Because I over eat!". So the question then goes: "Why do I over eat?" "Because I have poor will power!" "Why do I have poor will power?" Or even better is: "Why does will power seem so strong sometimes, and it evaporates like ether at the next moment?" <-- now this is a question that silence can help with. Forgive me if you are already familiar with this technique. Hey Karen, yes I know this technique. So I follow the questions, end up with a fundamental one, realize that I don't know the answer, admit it, don't bother further and go play a computer game, which is more fun than solving what is per definitionem an unsolvable question. Easy life, lol. |
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Post by skyblue on Jan 29, 2010 15:41:00 GMT -5
When you revisit the experience in you, can you still feel it?
The only thing I feel when I revisit the experience is a slight vibration. I have memories of an incredible amount of information being fed to me but once I was out of the moment, I didn't understand it. At age 13 and with no spiritual foundation, I didn't have any frame of reference. Then I became fearful of the experience and just wanted to dismiss it from my mind. It wasn't until I was 25 and had a spiritual awakening(not referring to any enlightenment here), then I remembered what happened at age 13. I've had other experiences but that was the one where I felt my body disappear.
LightMystic and Zendancer, thank you so much for your replies. It's nice to be able to sort through these old memories.
Sky
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2010 17:01:15 GMT -5
Question: First of all, I would disagree with your first statement and say that most human beings do NOT realize that the map is not the territory, except on the most superficial level. I would guess, based on my conversations with people, that 99% of them totally identify with the map rather than the territory. They may understand that lines of longitude and latitude and geographic states are imaginary grids, but they do NOT understand that "thingness" is the same sort of imaginary grid.
Second, contrary to your claim, I did give you a technique for moving beyond an intellectual understanding of these issues. I explained the importance of shifting from the repetition of thoughts to direct sensory perception. Whether you decide to use that technique is up to you. Thinking is an extremely powerful habit, and I can understand why most people do not have the curiosity or desire to see what would happen if they changed that habit. This is perfectly so, and I am quite content regardless of what other people decide to do.
As I noted in a long-ago post, I only had to fumble in the dark for about five months. Then, I had a big mind-blowing experience. After that, I knew, without any doubt, that the world as I had previously conceived it (my map), was a total fiction hiding something huge (the territory). This gave me the impetus for pursuing the world of the absolute with utter fanaticism. I am always surprised that people who have not had such mind-bending experiences sometimes are willing to spend years fumbling around in the dark searching for the truth without having any confirmatory experiences. I can therefore understand why most people would ignore the advice to leave thinking behind and shift to direct sensory perception.
Third, you say that when you encounter an existential question that has no obvious answer, you know (assume?) that it can't be answered, and you don't waste any time contemplating it (you go play a computer game.) That's perfectly okay, but in doing so you are making an assumption that most of the people posting on this board would tell you is invalid. Contemplating an existential question for which there is no obvious intellectual answer does the same kind of thing as shifting attention from thoughts to isness. It forces the mind to go deeper than the intellect to find answers. The answer to any existential question can be accessed through the body. I'm not saying that you should tackle these sorts of questions; I am only saying that by writing off the possibility that you have another source of knowledge inside of you that is deeper than the intellect, you are severely limiting the range of your understanding.
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Post by lightmystic on Jan 29, 2010 18:04:43 GMT -5
Hey question, It's true that it's the mind that creates the story, including the story of recognizing that one is not limited to the story. But even though the mind may recognize the experience, the mind cannot contain the experience, and so has to let go. So one can intellectually understand the basis for there being no separation, but that has little or no practical value in helping someone get there other than as a starting point. And it's not that everything is somehow unified, but that the idea that it's separate is a misconception to begin with. The idea that the universe is divided into 10,000 things is something that people take for granted every day on the most basic level. I know only a very small handful of people who really know, directly, that it isn't true. Again, intellectually understanding it is not the doing of it. And I certainly understand that it can be frustrating not to be able to see that, but it's the very self that wants to see it that's the product of an assumption in the first place. And the process is tricky, because there is the looming fear of death, of obliteration, so subtle and so ingrained that we would do anything not to look at it. So it really cannot be approached directly, because there is too much of a habit of avoidance. What was most effective for me was to be aware of whatever hurt, and notice what I was resisting. Then I would start to feel into those uncomfortable or painful feelings until the resistance was no longer there, and the need for the feelings to go away dropped, and the situation resolved itself, no longer hurting/causing suffering. So it's noticing the assumptions based on the assumptions first that help one start to get into the core assumptions that are driving the whole fear/duality thing. And it may happen relatively quickly, but it happens bit by bit. As the black hole of the core assumption looms closer, spiritual gravity kicks in anyway, so the last step need not be taken by you. It's only getting in the proximity that's necessary...and that just means follow the pain, and feel the source of it, deeper and deeper - find the assumption that's causing the resistance. Because the resistance is causing the pain. This is how the house of cards starts to fall.... Note this has nothing to do with humans in particular, other than that humans are aware enough for it to be possible for them to break free of the whole illusion. Every being that thinks they are an individual in any way is trapped in the same dream. And what is freed is always the universe, freed from the illusion of separation. There is no such thing as an Enlightened personality.... I'm kind of an intense person, so my path involved incredible highs and crushing lows. While everyone's experience may not be as extreme as all that (although I've met many whose are), the ups and downs are very common to this unwinding process. It's not always comfortable or enjoyable, and certainly takes a lot of courage, but it is anything but tedious. Although it's made to sound like it, the "disease" (the dis ease) doesn't just magically vanish one day. As I said before, it, in the end, is a function of spiritual gravity, so the final moments are like that, but the getting nearer is really one of consciously creating more internal space, more awareness, through noticing what one is resisting and allowing it to fade. It's intense, but it works. The hell with there being no way to try. I say go to war! Do it! It's helpful, I think, to recognize that it's a process of letting go more and more, but that does not mean there is nothing you can do. There is everything you can do. It's just a question of how honest you can be with yourself, how open and gentle you can be with yourself, and how courageous you can be with yourself, feeling into all those dark places and emotions that most people would literally do anything to avoid.....And then letting the resistance to those places release inside, so that it no longer hurts.... It really is as if the personality starts dropping off bit by bit. Disturbing, and amazing, and intense, and real, and beyond any possible description..... I don't get it. I know that the map is not the territory. I know that the universe is one, and whatever is writing these words is part of the universe. I know that the unvierse isn't made up of ten thousand things. And everyone else knows all that, too. It's common sense. So now apparently what happened is that the universe played a joke on itself by making up human beings and messing up their minds so that human being's minds unconsciously believe themselves to be seperate. Whether the mind logically knows itself to be not seperate or not, doesn't matter, apparently there's some unconscious habit or force or whatever that makes them "feel" seperate. So now the task is to un-do this unconscious habit? You may jump in and say, "no no it can't be understood by the mind", but I disagree, because everything that you wrote in your last post is highly logical. In fact, every sane human would agree with what you wrote. Well except for the part where you say that the whole thing is alive and conscious. But that's probably a question of how we define life and consciousness. You know, it's the part when you say that "the FEELING of seperation is deeply ingrained into the UNconsious" that makes me feel most awful, because I don't even know that I feel it, and even if I did clearly feel it, working on that seems like an impossible and at best an incredibly tedious task. I can't access that area, it's like a have a disease for which there is no cure, either it goes away, or, like for most people, it doesn't. So there's these two points. You continually repeat what everybody already knows logically, and at the same time you point out that the unconscious behaves differently to the logical mind. But you have no techniques that can remedy this, except for TRYING to experience what is already experienced anyways and trying to realize what is already known logically on some level other than the mind. Except that there's no way to try. You probably know the story of the master asking his student to try to give him the pen. The student gives him the pen and the master says "No, don't give me the pen, TRY to give it to me." |
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