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Post by zendancer on Jan 26, 2020 16:47:56 GMT -5
From reading the vast array of spiritual literature and biographies about people involved in the non-duality spiritual traditions (Zen, Advaita, Mystical Christianity, Sufism, etc), one would think it obvious that each human is unique, and that each seeker's path is unique, even though there are often many commonalities. However, people frequently get attached to a particular tradition or practice, and fail to see that there are many other pathways that can lead to the truth besides their own path. I remember going to hear Gangaji speak for the first time in Nashville. At that time I was very attached to the idea of serious meditation practice, and I was shocked when she said that although practice was okay, a human could wake up in one moment, with or without practice. Her point was that you can't practice your way to being what you already are. Unlike Tolle, who I suspect is more palatable to an intellectual looking for clear directions, Gangaji struck me as all over the place. IOW, she didn't seem to have what I considered a coherent explanation for what's going on or what to do to attain freedom. ATST, however, it was obvious to me that she was extremely clear, and her answers to questions from the audience seemed totally on target. Later, after I listened to her a bit more, I began to accept what she was saying even though I didn't fully understand it. Today, of course, what she said at that time makes perfect sense! There seems to be a wide range of possibilities, and here are just a few examples: 1. Hakuin: this famous Zen Master claimed that he experienced more than 150 kensho events during his lifetime, but he never distinguished between cosmic-consciousness-type events and simple realizations. It seems clear that his two initial kenshos were extremely powerful and were probably CC events. He doesn't make it clear what he considers to be satori, but he claimed that he re-experienced satori at the age of 60, and that it was the deepest of all his experiences. Because he claims that it was triggered by the sound of falling snow, it was almost certainly a CC event. Some of us consider SR to be the realization involved in penetrating the illusion of selfhood, so it seems unlikely that Hakuin was pointing to anything like that as his "deepest experience." 2. Paul Morgan-Somers: At the age of 16 Paul was kicking a soccer ball around when he felt compelled to sit down on his back porch. Suddenly, he became psychologically one-with the cosmos, and that never changed. Unlike most ND sages, I've never heard Paul give any advice to anyone concerning how to attain such a state of oneness, and that's probably because he, himself, didn't do anything to fall into that state of flow, freedom, and equanimity. 3. Ramana: His story is well known, and self inquiry concerning the inexorable fact of death apparently resulted in immediate SR. 4. Tolle: His story, too, is well known, but more is known about his "vortex" experience and resulting bliss than exactly what happened over the next several years. He was clearly in a state of flow during his "park bench" years, but whether that ever changed is not something I've read about. 5. Adyashanti: His story parallels that of many soto Zen practitioners. In his own words he was "a spiritual athlete" who meditated like crazy for two decades without success. He finally realized his true identity one day while sitting in a small church, and that resulted in freedom. 7. Norio Kushi: He had several significant existential realizations while driving a big rig and contemplating the meaning of life. He finally saw through the illusion of selfhood and got free after spending two weeks driving his truck in total mental silence. 8. The Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama's story is pretty well known, but he is the only individual I can think of who had one big CC event that resulted in complete awakening and a resolution of all his existential questioning. 9. Seung Sahn: At the age of 19 SS was conflicted about many things related to the Japanese occupation of Korea. He was told by a Zen Master to go do a 100 day solo retreat in the mountains in order to get clear. During the retreat he had many unusual experiences, and on the final day of the retreat he heard a temple bell in the valley ring out, and he had a huge CC. He then joined a monastery and studied with Ko Bong for two or three years, during which time he discovered the answers to all of the formal koans in the Rinzai tradition. He became a Zen Master at the age of 22. Other people could be added to this list to illustrate the different paths that can lead to awakening. Although most seekers seem to find what they're looking for via meditation practices, contemplation of existential questions, and mental silence, a few rare people, such as Morgan-Somers, wake up and attain what we call "the natural state" without doing anything at all. In effect, they get struck by grace right out of the blue. A few other rare souls, such as Ramana, ask a single question, inquire within, and the same sort of thing happens. Reality can be much stranger than fiction.
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Post by laughter on Jan 27, 2020 15:42:17 GMT -5
Tolle does tell in broad strokes what led him off the park bench, and the bottom line is that he gradually formed a new identity as a spiritual teacher. That's the way he puts it: that at some point he realized a new identity sort of coalesced, while on the park bench he was blissfully free from any semblance of one. Have you ever heard Rupert Spira describe his path? Some interesting overlap with yours, and counterpoint to Tolle, and yet, the pointing is completely resonant between the two, while different. Hakuin is such an obviously influential figure for anyone with any sort of interest in Zen. In a nutshell, I'd describe him as looking back compassionately on everyone behind him to try to spare them his hard knocks.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 27, 2020 15:53:19 GMT -5
I'll check out Spira. Carol was telling me about him yesterday because she saw a video in which he told his story. He sounds like an interesting guy.
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Post by laughter on Jan 28, 2020 5:02:10 GMT -5
I'll check out Spira. Carol was telling me about him yesterday because she saw a video in which he told his story. He sounds like an interesting guy. Spira's path is foreign to my particular experience because it involved a long period of conscious seeking - that he evidently got frustrated with - after having understood the existential truth intellectually. Tolle's path is foreign to me in so far as I never went through as dark a night as he did and, of course, I had his work to benefit from, which he didn't. Two of the guys you've mentioned that I've rezzed with are Norio and aircraft-controller-guy. I got the impression from reading what you wrote about them that they didn't have a particularly strong interest in nonduality or spirituality generally before what happened to them, is that about right?
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Post by zendancer on Jan 28, 2020 9:17:25 GMT -5
I'll check out Spira. Carol was telling me about him yesterday because she saw a video in which he told his story. He sounds like an interesting guy. Spira's path is foreign to my particular experience because it involved a long period of conscious seeking - that he evidently got frustrated with - after having understood the existential truth intellectually. Tolle's path is foreign to me in so far as I never went through as dark a night as he did and, of course, I had his work to benefit from, which he didn't. Two of the guys you've mentioned that I've rezzed with are Norio and aircraft-controller-guy. I got the impression from reading what you wrote about them that they didn't have a particularly strong interest in nonduality or spirituality generally before what happened to them, is that about right? Correct. Norio's story is particularly funny, and highly unusual. His contemplation of existential issues began after he had a big realization that "life is not going to work out!" haha! Up to that point all he was interested in was making money, becoming rich, etc, but his business failed, and after that happened, he decided to give up all of his plans and do what he most enjoyed--driving. He had been a taxi driver in the past, so he decided to get a license to drive big rigs. After he began driving cross country, he became curious about life, and various questions arose. Those questions led to various realizations, and all kinds of emotional processing and an understanding of how he had been culturally conditioned to believe all kinds of nonsense. In short, he began waking up from the concensus paradigm. At some point he noticed the gap between thoughts. As he focused his attention upon those gaps out of curiosity, they grew in length, and eventually his internal dialogue totally ceased. After two weeks of total internal silence, he suddenly realized (in his words), "I don't exist!" He found that to be hysterically funny, and even today he often starts laughing about what he calls "the biggest cosmic joke of all." You can get a sense of his personality by watching one or more video interviews on youtube or batgap.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 29, 2020 11:14:02 GMT -5
I'll check out Spira. Carol was telling me about him yesterday because she saw a video in which he told his story. He sounds like an interesting guy. I went thru several videos of Spira last night, but couldn't find one that told his story in any detail, but I'll search again because Carol saw one where he was fairly specific about what happened. I agreed with much of what he said in his videos, but I wouldn't say that the goal of the spiritual path is happiness; I see it more as peace and contentment that results from putting the mind (intellect) to rest via understanding. The word "happiness" carries a connotation that doesn't seem totally on target. Of course, this may be because my search for truth, and the search of many of my friends in the ND community was driven by intellectual curiosity, and if someone else's search was driven by suffering, then "happiness" that equates to "an end of suffering" might be an appropriate term for describing what is sought. Virtually all of the people I know who found what they were searching for can point to an exact time when a realization of some sort finally put their minds to rest, and ended their existential questioning--even if that realization did not result in SR. People who still have unfinished business always seem to know that something is not yet settled because they can't fully rest and relax. They know that they haven't reached a final resolution that has ended the search. I have a friend, for example, who is about 83 who has been on the path for a long time. He recently told me that his search remains ongoing because, despite numerous realizations and experiences, he still hasn't reached a point where he can feel satisfied with his understanding. This obviously means that some issue remains unresolved, or that his understanding remains intellectual to some degree and not yet fully embodied. I know of at least two people who did NOT attain SR, but whose search came to an end. In both cases they reached a point where they realized that all of their effort had been based upon the idea of doing something to attain freedom, and they concluded that their dissatisfaction and lack of peace was a direct result of that idea, alone. They thereby attained satisfaction by recognizing that the search, itself, was a useless attempt to discover something that probably wasn't discoverable. One of these people had been pursuing the question, "Who am I?" He described his moment of realization regarding the intellectual/mental/psychological nature of the search so graphically that many people now consider him enlightened. This is ironic because when asked, "Who are you?" he responded by shrugging his shoulders to indicate that the question was now meaningless to him. When I asked him what he would think about someone who would answer that question with, "I am THAT" or "I am THAT which asks that question," he said that he would doubt that person's attainment. This indicated to me that a seeker's search for truth can come to an end without the realization of what one fundamentally IS. IMO what this means is that some people can reach a state of peace and contentment without discovering what Ramana, Niz, and other sages are pointing to.
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Post by laughter on Jan 30, 2020 18:50:37 GMT -5
Spira's path is foreign to my particular experience because it involved a long period of conscious seeking - that he evidently got frustrated with - after having understood the existential truth intellectually. Tolle's path is foreign to me in so far as I never went through as dark a night as he did and, of course, I had his work to benefit from, which he didn't. Two of the guys you've mentioned that I've rezzed with are Norio and aircraft-controller-guy. I got the impression from reading what you wrote about them that they didn't have a particularly strong interest in nonduality or spirituality generally before what happened to them, is that about right? Correct. Norio's story is particularly funny, and highly unusual. His contemplation of existential issues began after he had a big realization that "life is not going to work out!" haha! Up to that point all he was interested in was making money, becoming rich, etc, but his business failed, and after that happened, he decided to give up all of his plans and do what he most enjoyed--driving. He had been a taxi driver in the past, so he decided to get a license to drive big rigs. After he began driving cross country, he became curious about life, and various questions arose. Those questions led to various realizations, and all kinds of emotional processing and an understanding of how he had been culturally conditioned to believe all kinds of nonsense. In short, he began waking up from the concensus paradigm. At some point he noticed the gap between thoughts. As he focused his attention upon those gaps out of curiosity, they grew in length, and eventually his internal dialogue totally ceased. After two weeks of total internal silence, he suddenly realized (in his words), "I don't exist!" He found that to be hysterically funny, and even today he often starts laughing about what he calls "the biggest cosmic joke of all." You can get a sense of his personality by watching one or more video interviews on youtube or batgap. Norio's batgab was worth the watch time. One point I rezzed with quite deeply was how he described his inquiry as wanting nothing, essentially, just for the sake of the inquiry, in and of itself. I needed Tolle to get me consciously interested in silence, that really is fascinating how he (** ahem **) reinvented the wheel. "Life is not going to work out" is an insight that I think lots of people can relate, to one degree or another. Getting informed as to the nature of time out of it is certainly on the extreme end of the spectrum. But sudden shifts in perspective tend to be memorable. I recall one night, walking home in Manhattan on East 85th from the reservoir track, and crossing paths with this young couple walking south on Madison (or it might have been 5th). They were dressed to the nines. Young kids, probably 17 or 18, and while it wasn't prom season he was in a tux and she was in a gown. I was struck with both admiration and a tinge of envy. They truly were an example of the "beautiful people". It occurred to me that I'd never share an experience like the one they were having that night - and that wasn't new to me, I'd had that matter of degree of insight on the issue long before. But what was different this time was that there was no compensatory fantasy of eventually surpassing them somehow or some sort of excuse about how theirs were the ill-gotten gains of an inherently unjust world. Just a pair of attractive kids, on their way to some sort of party, on a warm city night. Now if I were interviewing Norio I'd dig a little deeper into his cultural background. It was notable what his mother told him about trusting his feelings, certainly as it relates to the way he describes his state of realization and how he points to reality, thought, the body and the Universe. But also interesting to me, in particular, that she had that connection to new-age culture (proprietress of an organic food store in the '60's). Nonduality has been expressing through pop culture by way of those new-age influences throughout my entire life, and looking back, I can see how they operated as subconscious cues, the importance of which didn't become clear until .. well, afterward. I suspect the same is true for Norio, but, it's just an idea about a relative sequence of events, and Norio's comments about time and space in his interview are all, of course, well made. There's a re-make of Dune coming out this year, and that's a work that's rife with all sorts of references to nonduality and the associated notions of inner stillness and silence, some explicit, others subtle and woven deeply into the tapestry of the story. Some symbolic, others, front and center. So, it's good to see that cultural thread getting extended into the present, even if it's an old one that's being produced for a third time around.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 31, 2020 6:59:24 GMT -5
Laughter: Last night I watched some more videos of Spira, and he made one point that I thought was quite important (considering the theme of this thread) is that some people gradually integrate or embody various realizations over an extended period of time whereas other people get gobsmacked all at once and require a subsequent period of time to integrate and understand what happened to them. He was asked if he thought his 20 years of serious meditation and inquiry had been necessary as a preparation for attaining SR, and Spira replied, "Yes, but that might not be the case for someone else." He used Tolle as an example of someone who suddenly got sucked into a state of flow/oneness, but needed a few years of silent park bench sitting, reading, etc. before he could understand what had happened to him. In Spira's case, the final shift was almost a non-event because he had already been embodying the teachings for many years before the final shift into clarity and understanding occurred. The same was true for Adyashanti.
His view about this is pretty much the same as my own, and it highlights a misunderstanding that is sometimes perpetuated by teachers who are disparaged as being "Neo Advaitists." Papaji and other such sages, for example, often say things like, "Meditation is not necessary for attaining SR," even though they, themselves, may have meditated for 20 years prior to SR. What they're saying is not incorrect in the sense of what's possible; it's only incorrect when applied to a particular human being who has pursued a particular path that involved an extended period of time involving various experiences and realizations.
Spira's comments tie in rather well with a claim that I often make--"It's impossible to make a mistake." Each human life unfolds in a particular way, but there were never any alternative scenarios other than the one that actually occurred. If someone asked me, "Was it necessary for you to spend 20 years thinking about existential issues, and then spend another 15 years meditating and doing ATA-T for you to discover what you wanted to know about the nature of reality?" My answer would be, "Absolutely, because that's what happened." Would that sort of thing be necessary for someone else? Not at all; someone else might walk out the door one morning and, like Paul Morgan-Somers, suddenly be sucked into a state of psychological oneness. This was a point that Satch could never seem to accept, and perhaps that's because he was exposed to only one tradition and one pathway, and that pathway seemed to "work" for him. By contrast, I've read so many different stories of how people attain freedom and peace, that I know that it can happen in an infinite number of different ways. For this character SR was also virtually a non-event because by the time it happened, my entire life had already changed, and all of the previous ND experiences and realizations had already become embodied. I had already gotten out of my head and into the body, and life had become quite simple and straight forward. All that was needed was one last realization (seeing through the illusion of the SVP) for the big picture to finally become obvious. It was like, "Oh, of course, how humorous that this couldn't be seen until now."
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Post by laughter on Jan 31, 2020 13:37:01 GMT -5
Laughter: Last night I watched some more videos of Spira, and he made one point that I thought was quite important (considering the theme of this thread) is that some people gradually integrate or embody various realizations over an extended period of time whereas other people get gobsmacked all at once and require a subsequent period of time to integrate and understand what happened to them. He was asked if he thought his 20 years of serious meditation and inquiry had been necessary as a preparation for attaining SR, and Spira replied, "Yes, but that might not be the case for someone else." He used Tolle as an example of someone who suddenly got sucked into a state of flow/oneness, but needed a few years of silent park bench sitting, reading, etc. before he could understand what had happened to him. In Spira's case, the final shift was almost a non-event because he had already been embodying the teachings for many years before the final shift into clarity and understanding occurred. The same was true for Adyashanti. His view about this is pretty much the same as my view, and it highlights a misunderstanding that is sometimes perpetuated by teachers who are disparaged as being "Neo Advaitists." Papaji and other such sages, for example, often say things like, "Meditation is not necessary for attaining SR," even though they, themselves, may have meditated for 20 years prior to SR. What they're saying is not incorrect in the sense of what's possible; it's only incorrect when applied to a particular human being who has pursued a particular path that involved an extended period of time involving various experiences and realizations. Spira's comments tie in rather well with a claim that I often make--"It's impossible to make a mistake." Each human life unfolds in a particular way, but there were never any alternative scenarios other than the one that actually occurred. If someone asked me, "Was it necessary for you to spend 20 years thinking about existential issues, and then spend another 15 years meditating and doing ATA-T for you to discover what you wanted to know about the nature of reality?" My answer would be, "Absolutely, because that's what happened." Would that sort of thing be necessary for someone else? Not at all; someone else might walk out the door one morning and, like Paul Morgan-Somers, suddenly be sucked into a state of psychological oneness. This was a point that Satch could never seem to accept, and perhaps that's because he was exposed to only one tradition and one pathway, and that pathway seemed to "work" for him. By contrast, I've read so many different stories of how people attain freedom and peace, that I know that it can happen in an infinite number of different ways. For this character SR was also virtually a non-event because by the time it happened, my entire life had already changed, and all of the previous ND experiences and realizations had already become embodied. I had already gotten out of my head and into the body, and life had become quite simple and straight forward. All that was needed was one last realization (seeing through the illusion of the SVP) for the big picture to finally become obvious. It was like, "Oh, of course, how humorous that this couldn't be seen until now." Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I had a suspicion you might find Spira, in particular to be interesting because of both the similarities and the contrasts between your paths and your pointing. I'd say you've got both ends of the spectrum in your path as sort of bookends: the world melting away with the ring of a phone near the start, and the subtle shift of the existential light on getting the cosmic joke at the end. Spira was a TM guy, and I've never heard him talk about CC experiences. Couldn't agree more with the thread title, and the thing is, one size also doesn't fit all in terms of pointing to not-two nor in describing the world from a perspective of having realized that pointing. Norio's idea about sorrow, for instance, is one that I understand, but that I'd describe in a completely different way. I think that Adya's distinction between awakening and enlightenment is a good one, but definitely don't fit my own path into his precise explanations of embodiment and sense of identity. I think that Tolle is ultimately too circumspect, on one hand, but then again, I'd be far more likely to refrain from saying some of the things that Niz said as far too direct in terms of giving the brass tacks to a people-peep in those transpersonal terms, because the potential negative reaction is one I would find counter-productive. But these are only my opinions, my take on the cultural mixing bowl. Essentially, Norio's point about language is a very deep one, and reality is so far out of reach of any symbolism that even just mentioning that distance distorts what is meant by the point of opening one's mouth to begin with.
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Post by Reefs on Feb 1, 2020 23:28:41 GMT -5
Laughter: Last night I watched some more videos of Spira, and he made one point that I thought was quite important (considering the theme of this thread) is that some people gradually integrate or embody various realizations over an extended period of time whereas other people get gobsmacked all at once and require a subsequent period of time to integrate and understand what happened to them. He was asked if he thought his 20 years of serious meditation and inquiry had been necessary as a preparation for attaining SR, and Spira replied, "Yes, but that might not be the case for someone else." He used Tolle as an example of someone who suddenly got sucked into a state of flow/oneness, but needed a few years of silent park bench sitting, reading, etc. before he could understand what had happened to him. In Spira's case, the final shift was almost a non-event because he had already been embodying the teachings for many years before the final shift into clarity and understanding occurred. The same was true for Adyashanti. His view about this is pretty much the same as my own, and it highlights a misunderstanding that is sometimes perpetuated by teachers who are disparaged as being "Neo Advaitists." Papaji and other such sages, for example, often say things like, "Meditation is not necessary for attaining SR," even though they, themselves, may have meditated for 20 years prior to SR. What they're saying is not incorrect in the sense of what's possible; it's only incorrect when applied to a particular human being who has pursued a particular path that involved an extended period of time involving various experiences and realizations. Spira's comments tie in rather well with a claim that I often make--"It's impossible to make a mistake." Each human life unfolds in a particular way, but there were never any alternative scenarios other than the one that actually occurred. If someone asked me, "Was it necessary for you to spend 20 years thinking about existential issues, and then spend another 15 years meditating and doing ATA-T for you to discover what you wanted to know about the nature of reality?" My answer would be, "Absolutely, because that's what happened." Would that sort of thing be necessary for someone else? Not at all; someone else might walk out the door one morning and, like Paul Morgan-Somers, suddenly be sucked into a state of psychological oneness. This was a point that Satch could never seem to accept, and perhaps that's because he was exposed to only one tradition and one pathway, and that pathway seemed to "work" for him. By contrast, I've read so many different stories of how people attain freedom and peace, that I know that it can happen in an infinite number of different ways. For this character SR was also virtually a non-event because by the time it happened, my entire life had already changed, and all of the previous ND experiences and realizations had already become embodied. I had already gotten out of my head and into the body, and life had become quite simple and straight forward. All that was needed was one last realization (seeing through the illusion of the SVP) for the big picture to finally become obvious. It was like, "Oh, of course, how humorous that this couldn't be seen until now." Excellent post, ZD! In the past, I used to talk about how the complexity of our concepts about reality pre-SR may actually influence the informing of mind process that is happening post-SR. Some people's concepts about reality are like huge, massive skyscraper-like structures while others are more like little straw huts. SR will make any such structures collapse, of course. And, naturally, when such a massive skyscraper comes down, that's quite a spectacle and it leaves a lot to talk about and debris to sort out. On the other hand, when such a shaky little straw hut collapses or just gets blown away, there isn't much to write home about.
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