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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2020 19:46:30 GMT -5
Truth is the state beyond concepts
Niz: To exist as a separate individual constitutes the entire problem. And all these things, the various sense caterings, all reading, search for knowledge, for pleasure, everything is related to that. Once all that subsides, there is no more problem. Then the bliss you experience is true bliss. The foregoing, however, is not a ban on activities. Do whatever you want, but never forget the reality, never forget what you really are. You are not the body, you are not the food, you are not this vital air (prana). Whatever has appeared is a state, and as such it has to go.
So long as you are firmly convinced that you are the body, whatever I am telling you is not going to be of any use to you. Because whatever knowledge we take, we take it as body-mind, since it adds to our existing store of information. We then feel we have become more knowledgeable. The fact is, I cannot describe reality to you, I cannot explain it, because it is beyond expression. So from that, everything flows; but every time I say something, I am aware that it is to be negated, “not this, not this” (neti- neti)...that is my experience. We human beings have so many pet notions, preconceived ideas. Whenever we listen to somebody whose idea tallies with ours, we agree. Otherwise, we reject. Similarly, those jnanis who state they are established in the Absolute are actually in beingness. They are known as sages. They like certain ideas, certain concepts, and they want to propagate those. But they propagate only “ideas,” and an idea is not the truth. Truth is the state beyond concepts. But the fact is that you are going all over the place...to saints and ashrams and all that, collecting knowledge in your capacity of being an “individual.” Don’t do that. Go beyond. This amassing of knowledge is not going to help you, because it is in a dream. The Ultimate Medicine: Dialogues with a Realized Master, Chapter 1 I see this as linked to what I interpret of Adya and ZD's writing about "embodiment". Also, a common experience I've read and heard about elsewhere is when someone has a profoundly deep experience or realization but then eventually "loses it". It's not something I've read very often on this forum and I think that's because of how it would immediately brand the writer as low realization status. The way that I see it linking - and this is speaking from my personal, direct, experience - is that body/mind identification goes really deep. There are all sorts of very subtle movements of body/mind that reconfirm the basis of the existential error. Everyone's different, but I can say for sure that it's quite possible to have a very convincing realization as to the nature of the ephemeral, and even after a proper informing of mind: time, space and material can conspire to weave a dream curtain, all in the subconscious. So when Niz says "convinced" .. well, that's a rather tricky and loaded word.  But the subconscious isn't capable of maintaining such a fabric indefinitely. Especially against, as you say, the 'very subtle movements of body/mind..' |
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Post by laughter on Mar 1, 2020 20:25:35 GMT -5
What I'd read myself years ago in "I AM THAT" was a dialog where the questioner remarks on chanting rituals going on in his apartment. JLY posted a story a few weeks back about how Niz himself used to have a daily ritual of praying in front of and smudging photographs of saints. Niz talked about his guru and what his guru told him to do and how that effected him quite a bit, so, no, no surprise. His path had quite a bit of devotion in it, no doubt. Ok, thanks. When you say smudging do you mean burning sage sticks? Something like that by the way I took it in context. Here's the link JLY put up. It was "puja" and "kum-kum", and google reports that puja translates roughly to a ritual of devotion involving prayer, and apparently, kumkuma is a powder used in those kinds of rituals. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 1, 2020 20:34:09 GMT -5
I see this as linked to what I interpret of Adya and ZD's writing about "embodiment". Also, a common experience I've read and heard about elsewhere is when someone has a profoundly deep experience or realization but then eventually "loses it". It's not something I've read very often on this forum and I think that's because of how it would immediately brand the writer as low realization status. The way that I see it linking - and this is speaking from my personal, direct, experience - is that body/mind identification goes really deep. There are all sorts of very subtle movements of body/mind that reconfirm the basis of the existential error. Everyone's different, but I can say for sure that it's quite possible to have a very convincing realization as to the nature of the ephemeral, and even after a proper informing of mind: time, space and material can conspire to weave a dream curtain, all in the subconscious. So when Niz says "convinced" .. well, that's a rather tricky and loaded word. But the subconscious isn't capable of maintaining such a fabric indefinitely. Especially against, as you say, the 'very subtle movements of body/mind..' Guess that depends on what we mean by subconscious. In Jungian terms it's kinda' like .. everything.  If we limit it to the individual mind, then it seems to me that we have to at least acknowledge that this is where and how the plain existential truth gets hidden from most people for all of their lives. I take your point to be that no, it can never survive sincere and open, pure awareness. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2020 9:18:36 GMT -5
I find Meister Eckhart interesting in that regard, because judging by the content of his sermons, he's basically a Jnani like Niz. But the circumstances of his time forced him to express it via bhakti means only. And it still got him into trouble. to read that stuff now.  Thanks. ( i guess)  Yeah. Cool stuff. I bet if I only had the slightest clue about the Bible and JC, reading ME would have been much much coolerer. Said that, and while I'm mostly glad having basically no religious baggage based on my upbringing, that sometimes does seem to have its disadvantages, too. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2020 9:36:44 GMT -5
yeah, on one hand, that goes directly to and is illustrated quite well by the point that SR isn't any sort of material gain. Just a modicum of self-honesty makes it obvious that there are a myriad of high-functioning SVP's that are able to achieve stuff that are out of my reach by way of their alignment. Just watch any politician speak, and think about what it would take to stand there and just talk for 20 minutes. About anything. On the other hand, suffering is ultimately subjective, and the way I put it is that pain is an inevitable aspect of life, but suffering, isn't. In objective terms, that distinction has limits that are obviously demonstrable by any one of a number of gruesome hypothetical's. But that limit, is only on the efficacy of the distinction to relate what it's pointing to. Well, one could argue that both groups suffer in their own way. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 5, 2020 19:31:54 GMT -5
yeah, on one hand, that goes directly to and is illustrated quite well by the point that SR isn't any sort of material gain. Just a modicum of self-honesty makes it obvious that there are a myriad of high-functioning SVP's that are able to achieve stuff that are out of my reach by way of their alignment. Just watch any politician speak, and think about what it would take to stand there and just talk for 20 minutes. About anything. On the other hand, suffering is ultimately subjective, and the way I put it is that pain is an inevitable aspect of life, but suffering, isn't. In objective terms, that distinction has limits that are obviously demonstrable by any one of a number of gruesome hypothetical's. But that limit, is only on the efficacy of the distinction to relate what it's pointing to. Well, one could argue that both groups suffer in their own way. Which is, to my eye, to reject the pain/suffering distinction out of hand. That's a dialog-killer, and hey, that's fine. Other concpetual limits here are the idealizations that we're making about individuals. SR is binary, but the sense of identity that obscures it, and the potential interest in the topic that can lead to the tiger's mouth, aren't. Also, alignment is always going to be a matter of degree. All of that can vary in multiple directions over time, so our idealization about any given individual would necessarily have to be dynamic, and composite. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 5, 2020 19:39:15 GMT -5
Got to read that stuff now. Thanks. ( i guess) Yeah. Cool stuff. I bet if I only had the slightest clue about the Bible and JC, reading ME would have been much much coolerer. Said that, and while I'm mostly glad having basically no religious baggage based on my upbringing, that sometimes does seem to have its disadvantages, too. , I was always cognizant of the fact that almost everyone around me while I was growing up - family, teachers, contemporaries - most of them had some sort of Christian indoctrination. So even if I didn't, I was conscious of that influence long before I even had a concept of "becoming conscious". And I was also cognizant of what filled the void instead: secular humanism. It's gonna' be .. something, for: where there's a people-peep, there's an identity poker deck. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2020 21:28:53 GMT -5
Well, one could argue that both groups suffer in their own way. , and hey, that's fine. Other concpetual limits here are the idealizations that we're making about individuals. SR is binary, but the sense of identity that obscures it, and the potential interest in the topic that can lead to the tiger's mouth, aren't. Also, alignment is always going to be a matter of degree. All of that can vary in multiple directions over time, so our idealization about any given individual would necessarily have to be dynamic, and composite. No, not really. There's still a big difference between the two groups. I was just looking at the dictionary definitions of suffering again. And the way we use the term, it's rather unusual. The reason I phrased it in such a controversial ways is that the way we use the term, it opens the door to subtle mind games and self-deception based on clever word-lawyering, i.e. you have a clear definition of what constitutes a problem. And the circumstances match that definition. But instead of working on changing the situtation, you just change your definition of what constitutes a problem in such a way that the current circumstances don't match the definition of a problem anymore. Done. Problem solved! That's what it sometimes looks to me when I compare the walk and talk of some peeps here. Anyway, to me, SR basically comes down to the topic of existential questions. If you are plagued by these questions, it will add a certain heaviness of being to your experience that never really leaves no matter how 'well' your life unfolds or how 'happy' you are. It's always there. And in that sense, the difference between a hardcore seeker and Joe Average seems that to the seeker this is conscious and somewhat always in the foreground and wants to be resolved, but to Joe average it is unconscious and in the background and wants to better not be touched, ignored or covered up at all costs. Now, while SR does result in a certain lightness of being that will never leave no matter what happens, there's still always an awful lot of self-realized folks out there (especially on these forums) who, no doubt, are free from suffering (in the existential questions sense) but at the same time are clearly stuck in some rather unhealthy and unproductive behavior patterns, relationships or ways of thinking. Some of them even inhabit very sick bodies, just think of Niz or RK. And looking at that, this clearly matches the dictionary definitions of suffering. So, while I am very much in favor of putting physical, emotional and mental suffering into perspective, this shouldn't lead to or used as an excuse to ignore the obvious either. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2020 21:45:06 GMT -5
Yeah. Cool stuff. I bet if I only had the slightest clue about the Bible and JC, reading ME would have been much much coolerer. Said that, and while I'm mostly glad having basically no religious baggage based on my upbringing, that sometimes does seem to have its disadvantages, too. , I was always cognizant of the fact that almost everyone around me while I was growing up - family, teachers, contemporaries - most of them had some sort of Christian indoctrination. So even if I didn't, I was conscious of that influence long before I even had a concept of "becoming conscious". And I was also cognizant of what filled the void instead: secular humanism. It's gonna' be .. something, for: where there's a people-peep, there's an identity poker deck. Yes, the influence on everyone, including those without special indoctrination or training, is worth paying attention to. Even though I was sort of removed from that, I still grew up in a society where those were the core values and so I still assimilated a great deal of it. I first noticed that when living in a different country with a very different culture. They care about things we wouldn't really care about, and they don't care about things we would care a lot about. They got very different ideas of justice or success as well. Just think of the TED talk I post a while ago about how language shapes our experience ("He broke the vase" vs. "the vase broke"). There's always also a culture attached to a language and with that certain values and a certain way of sorting out experience. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 5, 2020 21:52:58 GMT -5
Which is, to my eye, to reject the pain/suffering distinction out of hand. That's a dialog-killer, and hey, that's fine. Other concpetual limits here are the idealizations that we're making about individuals. SR is binary, but the sense of identity that obscures it, and the potential interest in the topic that can lead to the tiger's mouth, aren't. Also, alignment is always going to be a matter of degree. All of that can vary in multiple directions over time, so our idealization about any given individual would necessarily have to be dynamic, and composite. No, not really. There's still a big difference between the two groups. I was just looking at the dictionary definitions of suffering again. And the way we use the term, it's rather unusual. The reason I phrased it in such a controversial ways is that the way we use the term, it opens the door to subtle mind games and self-deception based on clever word-lawyering, i.e. you have a clear definition of what constitutes a problem. And the circumstances match that definition. But instead of working on changing the situtation, you just change your definition of what constitutes a problem in such a way that the current circumstances don't match the definition of a problem anymore. Done. Problem solved! That's what it sometimes looks to me when I compare the walk and talk of some peeps here. Anyway, to me, SR basically comes down to the topic of existential questions. If you are plagued by these questions, it will add a certain heaviness of being to your experience that never really leaves no matter how 'well' your life unfolds or how 'happy' you are. It's always there. And in that sense, the difference between a hardcore seeker and Joe Average seems that to the seeker this is conscious and somewhat always in the foreground and wants to be resolved, but to Joe average it is unconscious and in the background and wants to better not be touched, ignored or covered up at all costs. Now, while SR does result in a certain lightness of being that will never leave no matter what happens, there's still always an awful lot of self-realized folks out there (especially on these forums) who, no doubt, are free from suffering (in the existential questions sense) but at the same time are clearly stuck in some rather unhealthy and unproductive behavior patterns, relationships or ways of thinking. Some of them even inhabit very sick bodies, just think of Niz or RK. And looking at that, this clearly matches the dictionary definitions of suffering. So, while I am very much in favor of putting physical, emotional and mental suffering into perspective, this shouldn't lead to or used as an excuse to ignore the obvious either. Currently watching this, and as Dalrymple puts it at one point "we're all responsible for our own health". Now, to the extent that someone is "spiritually bypassing" and redefining their problems, then sure, they're suffering and fooling themselves. But, discerning whether that's happening from the outside looking in is to base a judgment on camouflage. The dichotomy that I was referring to in terms of a dialog killer was the distinction between pain and suffering, not realization and alignment. The western notion of karma is a complete travesty. There is no cosmic bookeeper, but there are certain patterns to the way appearances appear. Realizing the existential truth isn't a process of healing, anymore than it's a reward for good behavior, good deeds or correct beliefs. An individual can "wake up" into all sorts of negative pre-conditions that they essentially inherit. That's karma - or at least, one facet of it. To expect some sort of perfected physical/emotional/psychological state, especially one that's permanent, is a misapprehension of what is pointed to by the notion of freedom. Freedom, in existential terms, ultimately has nothing to do with conditioning, or conditions. It's true that the existential dilemma will be the source of at least a baseline sense of dread for as long as it's unresolved. Personally, however, the act of questioning was something that I always found to be uplifting and even joyous at times. As it involved a process of shedding falsity, it was one that involved hope, resulted in an incremental movement away from insanity, and for me, was net positive. I'm sure there are other's who would say the same. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 5, 2020 22:02:28 GMT -5
yeah, I was always cognizant of the fact that almost everyone around me while I was growing up - family, teachers, contemporaries - most of them had some sort of Christian indoctrination. So even if I didn't, I was conscious of that influence long before I even had a concept of "becoming conscious". And I was also cognizant of what filled the void instead: secular humanism. It's gonna' be .. something, for: where there's a people-peep, there's an identity poker deck. Yes, the influence on everyone, including those without special indoctrination or training, is worth paying attention to. Even though I was sort of removed from that, I still grew up in a society where those were the core values and so I still assimilated a great deal of it. I first noticed that when living in a different country with a very different culture. They care about things we wouldn't really care about, and they don't care about things we would care a lot about. They got very different ideas of justice or success as well. Just think of the TED talk I post a while ago about how language shapes our experience ("He broke the vase" vs. "the vase broke"). There's always also a culture attached to a language and with that certain values and a certain way of sorting out experience. Yes, your points about language were interesting to me, especially as I've got no serious second other than computer coding. Ever read something similar to this book? It's benighted in several sense, but it offers some relative insight into how and why culture moves through cycles of evolution and decay over time, and so some insight into why various culture differ. Societies, much like the planet, have a sort of life of their own, as do the various social building blocks that comprise them. The secular humanist idea at the root is that of the environment encoding itself, onto various media, like, say the chemical make-up of the Earth and it's climate encoded itself onto DNA over time. It's ultimately a physical, secular-realist notion, but once they started thinking in terms of information, the need for an idea of consciousness is inevitable. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2020 23:40:50 GMT -5
But, discerning whether that's happening from the outside looking in is to base a judgment on camouflage. The dichotomy that I was referring to in terms of a dialog killer was the distinction between pain and suffering, not realization and alignment. Sure, it does involve some mind-reading/loserthink. I remember a discussion about pain/suffering. But I forgot what the final conclusion was. It's not really my main area of interest. Maybe you still remember and can refresh my memory. I do remember Andrew posting a crying baby video though. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2020 18:04:23 GMT -5
But the subconscious isn't capable of maintaining such a fabric indefinitely. Especially against, as you say, the 'very subtle movements of body/mind..' In Jungian terms it's kinda' like .. everything. If we limit it to the individual mind, then it seems to me that we have to at least acknowledge that this is where and how the plain existential truth gets hidden from most people for all of their lives. I take your point to be that no, it can never survive sincere and open, pure awareness. Yes. Obviously. |
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Post by laughter on Mar 12, 2020 2:13:45 GMT -5
But, discerning whether that's happening from the outside looking in is to base a judgment on camouflage. The dichotomy that I was referring to in terms of a dialog killer was the distinction between pain and suffering, not realization and alignment. Sure, it does involve some mind-reading/loserthink. I remember a discussion about pain/suffering. But I forgot what the final conclusion was. It's not really my main area of interest. Maybe you still remember and can refresh my memory. I do remember Andrew posting a crying baby video though. Never was a final conclusion, but there was plenty of ego involved and many a multi-page unconscious-koan-conversation that happened .. which is kind of self-explanatory as to why it's a dialog that will recur endlessly in human culture for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the fact that it's a dialog that most people likely never encounter might be interesting, in and of itself. From the culture and my direct experience it seems to me that most American's are subject to all sorts of conditioned responses - most of them social - that bury and suppress the existential question beneath layers of thought and emotion. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 15, 2020 7:11:19 GMT -5
Sure, it does involve some mind-reading/loserthink. I remember a discussion about pain/suffering. But I forgot what the final conclusion was. It's not really my main area of interest. Maybe you still remember and can refresh my memory. I do remember Andrew posting a crying baby video though. Never was a final conclusion, but there was plenty of ego involved and many a multi-page unconscious-koan-conversation that happened .. which is kind of self-explanatory as to why it's a dialog that will recur endlessly in human culture for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the fact that it's a dialog that most people likely never encounter might be interesting, in and of itself. From the culture and my direct experience it seems to me that most American's are subject to all sorts of conditioned responses - most of them social - that bury and suppress the existential question beneath layers of thought and emotion. --- -.- |
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Thanks. (i guess) 