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Post by satchitananda on Aug 27, 2019 23:37:05 GMT -5
The world appears in the same way for both the unrealized and realized. The unrealized see the appearance of the world as the reality, but the realized see the appearance of the world as the appearance of reality. Reality itself does not appear.
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Post by satchitananda on Aug 28, 2019 0:02:23 GMT -5
This is an important distinction between taking the appearance of the world as the reality and seeing appearance as the reality appearing as form. It is the same thing as saying that one sees God in all things. Reality permeates appearance making appearance just an appearance on the surface of reality that is essentially no different to the reality itself. The Self is the totality and there is nothing that is excluded from Self including the appearance of reality when realized. This is quite different to saying that appearance is illusory or false which has been debated endlessly elsewhere. Knowing you are the reality means that appearance is seen as appearance of reality and not reality itself which cannot appear. The falsity is in not knowing you are the reality, whether it appears or doesn't appear, it doesn't matter. It isn't about whether a tree has an objective reality or not, because the tree is always going to be reality appearing as a tree. It's whether you see the tree as being nothing other than your own Self which is the reality.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2019 7:33:09 GMT -5
This is an important distinction between taking the appearance of the world as the reality and seeing appearance as the reality appearing as form. It is the same thing as saying that one sees God in all things. Reality permeates appearance making appearance just an appearance on the surface of reality that is essentially no different to the reality itself. The Self is the totality and there is nothing that is excluded from Self including the appearance of reality when realized. This is quite different to saying that appearance is illusory or false which has been debated endlessly elsewhere. Knowing you are the reality means that appearance is seen as appearance of reality and not reality itself which cannot appear. The falsity is in not knowing you are the reality, whether it appears or doesn't appear, it doesn't matter. It isn't about whether a tree has an objective reality or not, because the tree is always going to be reality appearing as a tree. It's whether you see the tree as being nothing other than your own Self which is the reality. The unenlightened will be pondering whether the tree is real or not as it falls on their head, the enlightened will be too busy running and screaming to care, IMHO.
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Post by satchitananda on Aug 28, 2019 7:49:04 GMT -5
yeah, but, DUDE..... this body-mind is a fleeting window of experience - when it ceases you do not cease..... bong-ka-bong Ka baba bonk bonk bonk Well I'm not dead yet dude! 😀
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Post by laughter on Aug 28, 2019 17:25:18 GMT -5
This is an important distinction between taking the appearance of the world as the reality and seeing appearance as the reality appearing as form. It is the same thing as saying that one sees God in all things. Reality permeates appearance making appearance just an appearance on the surface of reality that is essentially no different to the reality itself. The Self is the totality and there is nothing that is excluded from Self including the appearance of reality when realized. This is quite different to saying that appearance is illusory or false which has been debated endlessly elsewhere. Knowing you are the reality means that appearance is seen as appearance of reality and not reality itself which cannot appear. The falsity is in not knowing you are the reality, whether it appears or doesn't appear, it doesn't matter. It isn't about whether a tree has an objective reality or not, because the tree is always going to be reality appearing as a tree. It's whether you see the tree as being nothing other than your own Self which is the reality. The unenlightened will be pondering whether the tree is real or not as it falls on their head, the enlightened will be too busy running and screaming to care, IMHO. Well, even the most noisy-minded people-peep can get a fleeting glimpse of mushin. If the price is right.
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Post by andrew on Aug 29, 2019 13:06:43 GMT -5
Not a lot of talking happening. I tell you why I think it could be..personally, I don't quite know where I stand in regard to conversation. I read the announcement and think the psychology point was very fair, but I just didn't see a whole lot wrong with the conversation in the big thread. Perhaps it's just me, but it all seemed quite tame.
Not trying to step on toes here, just saying that if I'm second guessing my conversation, perhaps others are. This doesn't belong in this thread, but not sure where to put it. Fig, I saw the invite to your forum , but it's not a real option for me, cheers though. I think I quite like moderation, but am a bit confused about the situ here right now.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2019 15:07:47 GMT -5
The unenlightened will be pondering whether the tree is real or not as it falls on their head, the enlightened will be too busy running and screaming to care, IMHO. Well, even the most noisy-minded people-peep can get a fleeting glimpse of mushin. If the price is right. True enough. Not sure about price comment though.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 29, 2019 15:31:06 GMT -5
Not a lot of talking happening. I tell you why I think it could be..personally, I don't quite know where I stand in regard to conversation. I read the announcement and think the psychology point was very fair, but I just didn't see a whole lot wrong with the conversation in the big thread. Perhaps it's just me, but it all seemed quite tame. Not trying to step on toes here, just saying that if I'm second guessing my conversation, perhaps others are. This doesn't belong in this thread, but not sure where to put it. Fig, I saw the invite to your forum , but it's not a real option for me, cheers though. I think I quite like moderation, but am a bit confused about the situ here right now. I didn't see an explanation for why the pettifoggery thread was closed, but I can guess why. It had become rather circular, tedious, and argumentative, and I only scanned it occasionally to see if anything new or interesting had popped up. I still don't see how or why it makes any difference whether one sees a world that is interpreted as equivalent to a dream--a moment-to-moment appearance in consciousness--or is understood to be some sort of energy manifestation. I also don't know if what Figs calls "abidance in being" is equivalent to what Zen people call "non-abidance in mind." Non-abidance in mind as a way of life makes more sense to me as a pointer because those words point to detachment from thoughts and a disinterest in rigid ideas about anything (which seems to be a relatively rare state), and "abidance in being" seems to point to everyone regardless of the depth of their insights or understanding.
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Post by bluey on Aug 29, 2019 15:43:46 GMT -5
When I was with my first teacher David he mentioned as we were at the convention centre in Birmingham having a cup of tea. Shakespeare's poem. The Phoenix and The Turtle. The nature of beauty and Beauty. The pull and lure of Maya. The understanding of it came later. The deeper understanding through the experiential side.
I've only ever come across Rupert Spira mention Shakespeare's poem. Here's an interview
Q. After leaving art school, you worked as an artist to make a living. You say you believed that beauty was linked to spirituality and it was a way in which you could bring that concept to life. It reminds me of Keats lines:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Could you expand on that?
Our apparently objective experience consists of thoughts, sensations and perceptions that is, the mind, body and world.
When Awareness takes the shape of thinking, it seems to become a thought. When it takes the shape of sensing, it seems to become a body and when it takes the shape of perceiving, it seems to become an object, other or world.
When thinking comes to an end, the apparently objective part of it (the thought part) disappears but its substance, Awareness, remains. In that timeless moment (timeless because the mind is not present) Awareness tastes itself as it is, unmediated through the apparent objectivity of thought. This experience is known as Understanding.
When sensing comes to an end, the apparently objective part of it (the sensation or body part) disappears but its substance, Awareness, remains, knowing itself as Love or Happiness.
And when perceiving comes to an end, the object, other or world disappears but their substance, Awareness, remains, knowing itself as it is, unveiled by the appearance of objects. That is the experience known as Beauty.
In other words, Understanding, Love, Happiness and Beauty are all different names for one and the same experience, the presence of Awareness, the knowing of our own Being.
The paths through Understanding and Love (the paths of Jnana and Bhakti) are well documented but the path through perceiving is less often mentioned. The path of perceiving or the Way of Beauty is the way of the artist.
It is a path through which it becomes clear, and the means through which it is expressed, that the substance of all perceptions is made out of Awareness.
Although all seeming objects are made out of Awareness, it is not, at a relative level, the function of all objects to reveal this. For instance, the purpose of a kettle is to boil water, not to reveal the true nature of experience.
However, there is one category of objects, which are made specifically with the intention of revealing the true nature of experience and such an object is what we call a work of art.
The function of a work of art is not simply to point towards, but actually to reveal the true nature of experience. As Cezanne said, to give us a taste of Eternity.
Like the words of the teaching, such objects come pregnant with their origin, the silence and love from which they originate and, as such, are tremendously powerful.
So, Beauty is the experience through which we come to know and feel that all seeming things are made out of that which knows them.
Keats was right. 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' The experience of Truth and Beauty are one and the same experience.
'That is all ye know on earth.' The mind (which is the expression of Truth) and the world (which is the expression of Beauty) are one. That is, the apparent knower and the apparently known are one. Whether we recognize it or not, this is always our experience. It is, as Keats says, all ye know on earth' the knowing of our own Being in and as all seeming things.
'and all ye need to know.' Yes, this knowledge alone, if deeply considered and made ones own and subsequently applied to all circumstances, is all that is required to lead a sane, happy and loving life.
Keats was rather more economical with his words than I am!
The great artists of the past, of whom Keats was one, were perhaps the vehicles through which this knowledge was communicated most powerfully in our culture but it is not their provenance alone.
This experiential knowledge of the true nature of experience is, in fact, known by all but sometimes seemingly forgotten. However, it is never far from the surface and even in popular culture - music, fashion etc. we see this same longing for Love, Beauty and Happiness, all of which are simply variations of our longing to return to the true nature of our most intimate being.
When this Love, Beauty and Happiness is seemingly veiled by the appearance of the entity, it cries out all the more loudly. All around us in our culture we hear these love cries all desperately searching in the wrong place for what lies at their heart.
Q. For myself, I attended the sister school of the Study Society, called the School of Economic Science, where beauty was also exulted. Inasmuch as I agree that beauty is a means by which the heart may be opened, I wonder if it is at the exclusion of other parts of life that are very unbeautiful. On a day-to-day level, the cult of physical perfection is effectively distorting peoples attitudes to their own and other peoples bodies and causing a great deal of suffering. As a woman, I feel forever judged by my physical appearance.
The cult of physical perfection is a pale reflection and a misinterpretation of our innate knowing of Beauty. When we forget about the presence of Awareness, Beauty is relegated to the status of an object, in just the same way that when Awareness is seemingly forgotten, the self, other, object and world seem to become real.
If Beauty is considered to be a property of objects then it will be considered to be just the opposite of ugliness. Even in some expressions of contemporary advaita this is sometimes misunderstood and in these expressions of the teaching, Beauty is relegated to an objective experience that is considered to be just one more appearance within Awareness.
But it is not. Beauty is another name for Awareness, the knowing of our own Being.
And likewise when we love another, it is truly the Self in the other that is loved. And it is the Self that loves. That is, the Self is the lover and the beloved. In other words it is Love itself, with no other. That is what Love is the absence of the apparent other. We all know that experience of dissolving in Love. All that keeps us separate and apart is dissolved and that dissolution, even in common parlance, is known as Love. Of course when the mind returns, it appropriates the non-objective and timeless experience of Love and creates out of it a lover and a beloved and then wonders why the experience of Love itself has seemed to disappear!
So, Beauty and Love are one and the same experience. It is only in our culture where this has been overlooked that they have been reduced to objects. The cult of physical perfection you refer to springs from this misunderstanding although there is still a flame of recognition of the true nature of Beauty and Love that burns at its heart.
Shakespeare knew this well: 'All things seem but cannot Be. Beauty brags but tis not She.'
All things seem to have an existence of their own, separate and independent of Awareness, but do not. The Isness of an apparent object belongs to Awareness alone.
'Beauty brags,' that is, the beauty (with a small b) that seems to belong to the object 'brags,' pretends to be the real thing, draws attention to the object, 'but tis not She,' that is, tis not She, the true love of our hearts, objectless Beauty itself.
Beautiful, my boss and his family are away on their travels. They are in the shangri la resorts as mentioned by James Hilton in his book Lost Horizon.
The youngest they told me has been out scouting rocks. And she told her grandfather these are for Bach. Her grandfather said give me one of those rocks as I want to throw one at Bach as I'm so jealous 😂
The Sufis also have a beautiful way of putting this over.
As Hafiz wrote
Between the lover and beloved there must be no veil. Thou thyself art thine own veil.
Get out of the way.
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Post by andrew on Aug 29, 2019 15:54:49 GMT -5
Not a lot of talking happening. I tell you why I think it could be..personally, I don't quite know where I stand in regard to conversation. I read the announcement and think the psychology point was very fair, but I just didn't see a whole lot wrong with the conversation in the big thread. Perhaps it's just me, but it all seemed quite tame. Not trying to step on toes here, just saying that if I'm second guessing my conversation, perhaps others are. This doesn't belong in this thread, but not sure where to put it. Fig, I saw the invite to your forum , but it's not a real option for me, cheers though. I think I quite like moderation, but am a bit confused about the situ here right now. I didn't see an explanation for why the pettifoggery thread was closed, but I can guess why. It had become rather circular, tedious, and argumentative, and I only scanned it occasionally to see if anything new or interesting had popped up. I still don't see how or why it makes any difference whether one sees a world that is interpreted as equivalent to a dream--a moment-to-moment appearance in consciousness--or is understood to be some sort of energy manifestation. I also don't know if what Figs calls "abidance in being" is equivalent to what Zen people call "non-abidance in mind." Non-abidance in mind as a way of life makes more sense to me as a pointer because those words point to detachment from thoughts and a disinterest in rigid ideas about anything (which seems to be a relatively rare state), and "abidance in being" seems to point to everyone regardless of the depth of their insights or understanding. I can explain the bolded quite easily. The suggestion is that if one understands 'the relative'/'the universe' to be an 'energy manifestation', then one is 'lost in mind'. I can explain why they think that, but II think that would be part of the circular debates, so I'll leave it. (I don't disagree that the conversation was circular and argumentative, though I wasn't finding it tedious).
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Post by zendancer on Aug 29, 2019 16:30:45 GMT -5
I didn't see an explanation for why the pettifoggery thread was closed, but I can guess why. It had become rather circular, tedious, and argumentative, and I only scanned it occasionally to see if anything new or interesting had popped up. I still don't see how or why it makes any difference whether one sees a world that is interpreted as equivalent to a dream--a moment-to-moment appearance in consciousness--or is understood to be some sort of energy manifestation. I also don't know if what Figs calls "abidance in being" is equivalent to what Zen people call "non-abidance in mind." Non-abidance in mind as a way of life makes more sense to me as a pointer because those words point to detachment from thoughts and a disinterest in rigid ideas about anything (which seems to be a relatively rare state), and "abidance in being" seems to point to everyone regardless of the depth of their insights or understanding. I can explain the bolded quite easily. The suggestion is that if one understands 'the relative'/'the universe' to be an 'energy manifestation', then one is 'lost in mind'. I can explain why they think that, but II think that would be part of the circular debates, so I'll leave it. (I don't disagree that the conversation was circular and argumentative, though I wasn't finding it tedious). I understand that that was one of the arguments, but if the issue doesn't even arise, then what? What if there doesn't need to be an attachment to any kind of explanation or interpretation? This is what non-abidance points to. I think dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but if they're just an appearance in consciousness occurring now and never physically existed, would it make a difference in how one lives life? If so, in what way?
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 29, 2019 16:50:58 GMT -5
Not a lot of talking happening. I tell you why I think it could be..personally, I don't quite know where I stand in regard to conversation. I read the announcement and think the psychology point was very fair, but I just didn't see a whole lot wrong with the conversation in the big thread. Perhaps it's just me, but it all seemed quite tame. Not trying to step on toes here, just saying that if I'm second guessing my conversation, perhaps others are. This doesn't belong in this thread, but not sure where to put it. Fig, I saw the invite to your forum , but it's not a real option for me, cheers though. I think I quite like moderation, but am a bit confused about the situ here right now. I didn't see an explanation for why the pettifoggery thread was closed, but I can guess why. It had become rather circular, tedious, and argumentative, and I only scanned it occasionally to see if anything new or interesting had popped up. I still don't see how or why it makes any difference whether one sees a world that is interpreted as equivalent to a dream--a moment-to-moment appearance in consciousness--or is understood to be some sort of energy manifestation. I also don't know if what Figs calls "abidance in being" is equivalent to what Zen people call "non-abidance in mind." Non-abidance in mind as a way of life makes more sense to me as a pointer because those words point to detachment from thoughts and a disinterest in rigid ideas about anything (which seems to be a relatively rare state), and "abidance in being" seems to point to everyone regardless of the depth of their insights or understanding. To Andrew too... I speculate that Reefs was concerned that there was an Appearance that E and figgs were tag-teaming a certain someone and it was getting a little nastier day by day, and maybe if not nipped maybe someone or sometwo were going to get banned, or maybe even somethree. But the Reality is the certain someone wasn't too upset and wasn't going to go ballistic (wasn't going ballistic). But if I'm right, Reefs made a good decision. (Reefs made a good decision even if I'm not right).
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Post by andrew on Aug 29, 2019 17:00:51 GMT -5
I can explain the bolded quite easily. The suggestion is that if one understands 'the relative'/'the universe' to be an 'energy manifestation', then one is 'lost in mind'. I can explain why they think that, but II think that would be part of the circular debates, so I'll leave it. (I don't disagree that the conversation was circular and argumentative, though I wasn't finding it tedious). I understand that that was one of the arguments, but if the issue doesn't even arise, then what? What if there doesn't need to be an attachment to any kind of explanation or interpretation? This is what non-abidance points to. I think dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but if they're just an appearance in consciousness occurring now and never physically existed, would it make a difference in how one lives life? If so, in what way? Because if you think dinosaurs walked the earth (and if you think there was an earth), then you also think there is time and space in some way. This would indicate that you are lost in mind. They would say that if you have seen through the illusion of time-space then you shouldn't think they walked the earth. I'm just presenting their argument to be clear.
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Aug 29, 2019 17:13:05 GMT -5
I understand that that was one of the arguments, but if the issue doesn't even arise, then what? What if there doesn't need to be an attachment to any kind of explanation or interpretation? This is what non-abidance points to. I think dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but if they're just an appearance in consciousness occurring now and never physically existed, would it make a difference in how one lives life? If so, in what way? Because if you think dinosaurs walked the earth (and if you think there was an earth), then you also think there is time and space in some way. This would indicate that you are lost in mind. They would say that if you have seen through the illusion of time-space then you shouldn't think they walked the earth. I'm just presenting their argument to be clear. Both/and trumps either/or, IMvh(not really)O.
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Post by zendancer on Aug 29, 2019 18:58:45 GMT -5
I understand that that was one of the arguments, but if the issue doesn't even arise, then what? What if there doesn't need to be an attachment to any kind of explanation or interpretation? This is what non-abidance points to. I think dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but if they're just an appearance in consciousness occurring now and never physically existed, would it make a difference in how one lives life? If so, in what way? Because if you think dinosaurs walked the earth (and if you think there was an earth), then you also think there is time and space in some way. This would indicate that you are lost in mind. They would say that if you have seen through the illusion of time-space then you shouldn't think they walked the earth. I'm just presenting their argument to be clear. I understand their argument, but clearly don't see it the same way. An initial CC experience in 1984 made it obvious to me that time and space are cognitive illusions, and that what we call "reality" is infinite and unified. Time and space were simply recognized as cognitive grids overlying the unified substrate. From my POV this realization related to how such things as time, space, and thingness are conventionally distinguished, but the issue of appearances never arose. IOW, the seeing of unity/oneness did not mean that dinosaurs never existed; it simply meant that dinosaurs and humans are both aspects of the same infinite field of being.
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