The "One Wish" Game

[karen]

Hi ZD,

I guess you can tell I haven't had too many "spiritual" experiences. Yes with others, they see all sorts of amazing stuff, but with me, I probably interpret it as gas.

I wake up mornings feeling the worst for whatever reason. I feel the most separate and the most like meat in the mornings.

I don't seem to have much peace or silence. My mind is quite active and restless.

Nothing to be done except be honest to the pain and horror of it all. And continue with practice.

[zendancer]

Karen: Believe me, if you ever have a kensho experience, you won't mistake it for gas! LOL. You're right about the importance of honestly seeing and accepting "what is." Whatever practice you're pursuing may not be having consciously noticeable results, but it is having a subconscious effect. Sometimes those effects only become noticeable after a year or more. It depends to some extent upon how much time you are spending in thought versus direct perception. "You" have no control over this, but if the body/mind gets into the habit of regularly shifting to direct sensory perception, the consequences become noticeable much sooner. You're essentially performing an experiment to see what will happen if you shift your attention away from thought. As Ramana said, "Think and be bound or suspend thinking and become free." It is that simple. Psalms 46:10 is saying the same thing in a different and more spiritually-oriented way, "Be still and know that I am God."

Here is a great quote from G. Spencer Brown's book "Laws of Form:"

P. 110: To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrust upon them.
_____________________
Because you have an interest in math, you would probably enjoy this book. It may be out of print now, but it's a classic. As Brown writes in the introduction: "The theme of this book is that a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart.....the act is itself already remembered, even if unconsciously, as our first attempt to distinguish different things in a world where, in the first place, the boundaries can be drawn anywhere we please. At this stage the universe cannot be distinguished from how we act upon it, and the world may seem like shifting sand beneath our feet.........Although all forms, and thus all universes, are possible, and any particular form is mutable, it becomes evident that the laws relating such forms are the same in any universe. It is this sameness, the idea that we can find a reality which is independent of how the universe actually appears, that lends such fascination to the study of mathematics......Unlike more superficial forms of expertise, mathematics is a way of saying less and less about more and more.

[lightmystic]

Hey question,

I didn't mean provocative in a negative way. Anyway, I'll look forward to your response.

Jan 13, 2010 18:31:42 GMT -5 question said:

Lightmystic: Thanks. I didn't even really mean for it to be provocative, just trying to be brutally honest with myself. I'll try to reply to your "novel" tomorrow.

[karen]

Hi ZD, obviously if I had a kensho experience, I wouldn't mistake it for gas. But I've heard some say how one must be "careful or you might miss it" - the door - or at least what seems like the door to the greater experience. I'm afraid I'll blow that.

Yesterday whilst walking I got a glimpse of an echo, of a shadow of ***something***...then blip...gone...

In the case of yesterday, I started to laugh, and then I immediately started judging: "Is this laugh genuine, or some bullshyt simulation?" And then the mentation takes center stage.

I'm relying on this not being choice at all. Like how I'm trying to thread the needle till someday the eye engulfs me no matter what my reaction.

I will look into that book.

[klaus]

Question.

To be blunt the more questions you ask the more answers you will get, which will lead to more questions.
None of which will get you what you want.

The only obstacle between you and what you want is- you.

Triradiated matrices residual detritus of Buddha-Mind.
Invalidator.

[klaus]

Karen,

I have two copies of Laws of Form, you're welcome to one of them.
The book is out of print and used copies are expensive.

[zendancer]

Karen: Fortunately, you can't blow it. FWIW, in the past I've had exactly the same kind of experience you described. As soon as I sensed a tiny crack in the cosmic egg, the mind jumped in there and started second-guessing what was happening. "Hey, was this something real or just my imagination again?" It's a good sign; just keep paying attention.

Klaus: I'm impressed. Two copies, no less! I didn't think anybody knew about the book except weirdos like me. LOL. He has another book that's kinda cool titled "Only Two Can Play This Game," about a girl he fell madly in love with. When people say that they've never had a mystical experience, I sometimes ask them if they've ever fallen head over heels in love? The same sort of thing happens as a result of falling in love as in enlightenment experiences. Selfhood disssolves, thought ceases, one lives totally in the present, bliss is pervasive, etc.

[karen]

Thanks klaus, I'd like that! I'll PM you.

ZD, thanks for the confirmation.

BTW, as a tangent, is your hunch about the photon not being what current science thinks - they're confusing a unit of measurement (based on the proteins in human eyes that change shape slightly depending on the wavelength it's receiving) with what it's measuring? The classic map and territory error?

[question]

Lightmystic: I never really believed that newtonian physics is universally true and I don't believe in a separate, limited, concrete and solid world. How could the universe possibly be limited, from what could it possibly be separate? I have no problem with the world, but anyways, I think I get your point about looking closer and closer, until what is believed in, is seen as incompatible to what is seen on the smallest level.

I'm not fully clear on that, but I'm open to the possibility that awareness is not made up of perceptions, but that perceptions are like a fluctuation or appearance of awareness. But what I don't get, is how awareness can be a) detached from the brain and b) how a rock can be awareness, and how a rock can be the same awareness as mine (right now or even long after my brain has ceased to exist). As I see it, awareness is a fluctuation of whatever the universe fundamentally is, as is matter, space, time and all. So there is neither a primacy of awareness, nor of matter. This emptiness (terrible word, but I can't think of a better one) is watching itself right now, because there it awareness-ing right here and now. But after this brain is gone, emptiness won't be watching itself from this particular perspective (my subjective perspective) anymore, it will be awareness-ing from all the bazillion other perspectives, it will also be being a black hole, molecule, coca-cola, cigarette etc, and after it had enough of being forms, it will go do some emptiness-ing. Well that's kinda my cosmology right now, it's not experienced in some extraordinary way, it's just what logically makes sense.

The part about watching thoughts and feelings is easy. Going into perception mode is easy. But within that nothing is happening, it's flat and dry, that experience or insight, that is supposed to happen, isn't there. And such meditation is boring, or rather, there is nothing special going on there that isn't going on when I watch tv.

About that feeling you've mentioned of "something not being right" that brings a seeker to a forum like this one. Somewhere I've heard or read a nice description of it as sometimes being so faint, that one isn't sure that it even exists and it's so faint that it's mistaken for imagination. That kinda how it is for me.

As for NDE's, I'm keeping it in mind and I'm very interested in NDE research, but I don't have an opinion yet. There aren't enough cases, the environment isn't controlled, the patients are in extreme situations. It led me to think of another interesting question: There are so many fully enlightened masters with siddhis on this planet who try to awaken humanity. Why don't they do us all a favour and spend a few afternoons in a controlled environment in a research lab and actually prove the nonlocality of awareness? The tests have already been devised and scientists are waiting eagerly for participants, some are even offering tons of money to those who can prove that consciousness is entirely independent of the brain. But the best we get are some buddhist monks showing that they can slow down their brain. I'm not being sarcastic here. In my opinion it would be a tremendous service to humanity!

Jan 14, 2010 8:29:15 GMT -5 Portto said:

It looks like you have seen the self. What you wrote above is also true for the physical body.
But probably you're still looking for something else...
What do you think it is? Satisfaction? Long-lasting peace?

Porto: Hm, had I seen the Self, I probably wouldn't be writing so much crap, lol. I want to know that I am whatever it is this whole nonduality industry is making money pointing towards.

[jimmytantric]

You will never know what he univers is. Simply because theres no YOU. Read Ramana maharshis Self Inquiry method which ask you to question who is this I you keep alluding to. Good luck.

[lightmystic]

Hey question,

You said a lot of good things, so, in order to address them all, I'm going to reply between your paragraphs under LM: What you said will be in quotes:

"Lightmystic: I never really believed that newtonian physics is universally true and I don't believe in a separate, limited, concrete and solid world. How could the universe possibly be limited, from what could it possibly be separate? I have no problem with the world, but anyways, I think I get your point about looking closer and closer, until what is believed in, is seen as incompatible to what is seen on the smallest level."

LM: Cool. That's good to hear.

"I'm not fully clear on that, but I'm open to the possibility that awareness is not made up of perceptions, but that perceptions are like a fluctuation or appearance of awareness. But what I don't get, is how awareness can be a) detached from the brain and b) how a rock can be awareness, and how a rock can be the same awareness as mine (right now or even long after my brain has ceased to exist)."

LM: It goes back to that association of Awareness with story. It's very common for people to lump those two things together, but they are actually very different things. And the first step is starting to get some distance of identification from the mind so that it can be more and more clearly seen that Awareness and the mind are not the same thing. The way that happens is by paying attention to the Awareness as different than mind. That attention enlivens the Awareness, making it more obvious and more clear. That can happen by trying the watching of the thoughts thing that I mentioned in my last post to you, by meditation, or, sometimes, by self inquiry. Ultimately you just have to go with what works for you, but it's very necessary to start to see the Awareness more clearly, so that it can be recognized that it is not the same as thought. Thoughts, stories, perceptions OF things are actually just a combination of a.) total impersonal awareness and b.) the mind telling a personal story (i.e. you are an individual in a separate world with separate thing feeling separate ways, etc.). And it's seeing through that personal story, recognizing that you are, in no way, limited to that story that actually changes the story and experience. But, obviously it isn't, and cannot be, an intellectual thing, but is a visceral, gut-level thing. And so it means revisiting the assumptions that we have made about reality, really looking more closely in order to enliven the impersonal awareness. That impersonal awareness is all there has ever been, as it contains, ultimately, even the mind, but that doesn't mean the mind, in any way, accurately portrays that process of awareness. Because the mind's job is to make a story, make it individualized, make it personal. That's what maya is, the illusion of individuality by believing the mind so strongly that it's impossible to see what is really going on. What has been really going on this whole time. Impersonal Awareness, as it gets more and more clear, is even there when there is deep sleep. There is no Awareness "of" anything, but there is a continuity that remains. It's very subtle (maybe even impossible to see at first), but that is the idea of what I'm talking about. It's so everpresent and all pervasive that we just completely miss it. It's TOO simple. It's like trying to show water to a fish. But Awareness cannot be shown the way other things can be shown, because there IS no such thing as "not awareness", but there is a way to experience it more directly, to experience less in terms of the mind, less in terms of "things" and starting to see that starts the process of allowing the limitations of the mind to not be identified with so completely....


"As I see it, awareness is a fluctuation of whatever the universe fundamentally is, as is matter, space, time and all. So there is neither a primacy of awareness, nor of matter. This emptiness (terrible word, but I can't think of a better one) is watching itself right now, because there it awareness-ing right here and now. But after this brain is gone, emptiness won't be watching itself from this particular perspective (my subjective perspective) anymore, it will be awareness-ing from all the bazillion other perspectives, it will also be being a black hole, molecule, coca-cola, cigarette etc, and after it had enough of being forms, it will go do some emptiness-ing. Well that's kinda my cosmology right now, it's not experienced in some extraordinary way, it's just what logically makes sense."

LM: There is no such thing as Awareness as separate from any part of the universe. If there was, if your Awareness didn't contain some part of the universe, then you would never know (because we couldn't be aware of it). Awareness, while not static, is unchanging. It's always there. And so the only difference there is the story that the mind tells. The idea that there are different minds, and that there is a difference between "Gods mind" (which is the whole objective Creation) and your personal mind is all a function of the individual story. All a function of mind itself. That distinction does not exist except within the story, within mind.
I would also suggest that your story about all pervasive impersonal awareness is actually a subtle experience that you are having right now. It's just too subtle, perhaps, to be clear or satisfying. You actually already ARE experiencing the way your Awareness works, but it doesn't mesh with the current assumptions about reality, so it's being relegated to the future - after we die. But I think it's actually a current experience that is going on now, a recognition of what's really been going on this whole time. Your openness suggests that you actually are having the experience on some level, but are, naturally, having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how that could be possible considering how it clashes with the previous worldview. I find that paying more attention to that subtle experience helps enliven it, and the reality will get clearer and clearer as that happens.

"The part about watching thoughts and feelings is easy. Going into perception mode is easy. But within that nothing is happening, it's flat and dry, that experience or insight, that is supposed to happen, isn't there. And such meditation is boring, or rather, there is nothing special going on there that isn't going on when I watch tv."

LM: Look again, the assumption that you know what's going on makes it boring. It could even be a subtle level of discomfort, of resistance to what's going on. I find that, in those situations of boredom, particularly extreme boredom, the mind is actually so overwhelmed by how much is going on that it blocks it all out and just says that "nothing" is there. That doesn't mean you have to do the technique, but there does need to be something that will help you see through this. And, as long as there is the assumption that you are your thoughts, that you are the mind, then there is not the openness to seeing the reality, which is that you are not. And there can even be deep seated protections in there, because the idea that you are not the mind, if the mind is what is being identified with, could like the destroying of your own existence, and so naturally there's a impulsive fear, and impulsive resistance, and impulsive not wanting to look. It gets very serious and very real at a certain point. And that's anything but comfortable. And so it means really being emotionally open to these uncomfortable places, so the resistances to them can slowly fade (like a tight muscle slowly relaxes with physical attention) and as that not wanting to look at it fades (because that's what resistances is), then it is seen clearly for the first time.

"About that feeling you've mentioned of "something not being right" that brings a seeker to a forum like this one. Somewhere I've heard or read a nice description of it as sometimes being so faint, that one isn't sure that it even exists and it's so faint that it's mistaken for imagination. That kinda how it is for me."

LM: Awesome. That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Exactly. It really takes giving ourselves the space and time to get to the bottom of it, and how we really feel. And the paying attention it, while scary, helps make it clearer too.
Everything burns. Speaking of, you might check out Jed McKenna's books....

"As for NDE's, I'm keeping it in mind and I'm very interested in NDE research, but I don't have an opinion yet. There aren't enough cases, the environment isn't controlled, the patients are in extreme situations. It led me to think of another interesting question: There are so many fully enlightened masters with siddhis on this planet who try to awaken humanity. Why don't they do us all a favour and spend a few afternoons in a controlled environment in a research lab and actually prove the nonlocality of awareness? The tests have already been devised and scientists are waiting eagerly for participants, some are even offering tons of money to those who can prove that consciousness is entirely independent of the brain. But the best we get are some buddhist monks showing that they can slow down their brain. I'm not being sarcastic here. In my opinion it would be a tremendous service to humanity!"

LM: Because nonlocality of Awareness has nothing whatsoever to do with non-locality of mind. There can be experiences, when the non-locality of Awareness is realized fully enough, of non-locality of mind, but, as clear as that can get, the function of individuality is somehow still preserved. So it can really feel like I know everything, even though I don't know the details. It's exactly the same way that I feel about my body. I KNOW it's me, I feel totally connected to it, and I can feel into any place and get a real sense of things going on in there, but I cannot necessarily predict or describe any of the details. The whole body is LM, and I can feel that, but that doesn't mean I know everything, or anything on an intellectual level about it. That's exactly how it feels for me and Creation. All of Creation has become by body.

Do you see the distinction I'm making between infinite impersonal awareness (which is all that awareness has ever been) and mind (whose job is to make the unlimited appear limited for the sake of a story)?

[zendancer]

Jan 15, 2010 5:49:22 GMT -5 jimmytantric said:

You will never know what he univers is. Simply because theres no YOU. Read Ramana maharshis Self Inquiry method which ask you to question who is this I you keep alluding to. Good luck.

Certainly true.

[zendancer]

LM: That was a good explication of the issues. I thought I was going to write about non-locality, Bell's Theorem, and other related stuff yesterday, but I/It just didn't have the energy to think that much. Instead, It decided to hike up a nearby ice-encrusted mountain. It's an unpredictable little sucker isn't it? LOL

[Portto]

Jan 15, 2010 5:49:22 GMT -5 jimmytantric said:

You will never know what he univers is. Simply because theres no YOU. Read Ramana maharshis Self Inquiry method which ask you to question who is this I you keep alluding to. Good luck.

What if I am the universe (or what perception reveals)?
Is there a "me" or not?

[zendancer]

Porto: I think what he was saying is that the truth is incomprehensible and unknowable to the mind.