Haunted Universe - by Steven Norquest

[thistoo]

Hi all,

I just read Haunted Universe (the new and improved version!) a few days ago.

I think it's just the brass-knuckles-to-the-jaw kind of straight talk that some of us need. Had I not already read Jed "Invisible Man" McKenna's first book, it would have really blown me away.

Some common themes in both works, along with much of David Scoma's writings and some things that LightMystic has written here, are especially resonant with me right now, namely that the reality of "the path" can be an uncomfortable ride (it may not resonate that way with everyone).

I didn't see it as all "doom and gloom" as was stated earlier, but I could see how it might seem so if one clings to a feel-good mental concept about this stuff.

If Haunted Universe challenges your hopes/beliefs, then it's done its duty.

[lobo]

Jun 17, 2010 2:43:07 GMT -5 thistoo said:

Hi all,

I just read Haunted Universe (the new and improved version!) a few days ago.

I think it's just the brass-knuckles-to-the-jaw kind of straight talk that some of us need. Had I not already read Jed "Invisible Man" McKenna's first book, it would have really blown me away.

Some common themes in both works, along with much of David Scoma's writings and some things that LightMystic has written here, are especially resonant with me right now, namely that the reality of "the path" can be an uncomfortable ride (it may not resonate that way with everyone).

I didn't see it as all "doom and gloom" as was stated earlier, but I could see how it might seem so if one clings to a feel-good mental concept about this stuff.

If Haunted Universe challenges your hopes/beliefs, then it's done its duty.

thistoo, I am glad you found something that speaks to you.

But consider this:
When someone tells you how terrible the whole ordeal of awakening is, what do you think is talking?
A whole lot of ego that doesn't want to let go.

Please contrast with the teachers who disclosed their awakening process in "Closer than Close".

Also read "The end of Your World" by you know who.

These guys are being honest about their experience, as far as I could know, no reason to doubt it. But not everyone has that hard of a time with it.

For some reason I feel this point needs to be made.
So I make it.

[Peter]

Jun 17, 2010 22:06:31 GMT -5 lobo said:

Please contrast with the teachers who disclosed their awakening process in "Closer than Close".

Also read "The end of Your World" by you know who.

Hi Burt

I was able to find The End of your World by Adyashanti (and have added it to my wish list!), but I couldn't find "Closer than Close" except as a novel by Bettye Griffin. Can you provide a link or more info?

Cheers,
Peter

[thistoo]

Hi Peter,

Closer than Close is a DVD. I found it to be very well done.

Here's a link to it: www.poetryinmotionfilms.com/

[thistoo]

Hi Burt,

I appreciate your perspective. Based on what I've read, the experience isn't the same for anyone. Steven isn't alone in in describing it as potentially unpleasant, though.

Suzanne Segal's Collision with the Infinite includes an account of a period of intense fear lasting I think nearly a decade. David Scoma's site as I recall makes several mentions of St. Thomas Acquinas's St. John's of the Cross "Dark Night of the Soul," along with an interesting list of quotes from others.

justperception.net/archives/category/read-this-first

Bottom line is that I don't find it difficult to believe that, at least for some, the ego may not be taken from you (As Richard Rose once put it) quietly.

Reminds me of the saying, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall."

[ravenscroft]

Jun 17, 2010 23:40:19 GMT -5 thistoo said:

I appreciate your perspective. Based on what I've read, the experience isn't the same for anyone. Steven isn't alone in in describing it as potentially unpleasant, though.

thistoo it depends on what you want

if you want nice slumber and a better life - I would go with the silence, stillness, and meditation crowd - From what I see - ego's seem to be good at wasting lifetimes following this thought our gently questioning that feeling etc. - what those teachers are selling is a wonderful lifestyle choice, but it all takes place INSIDE the dream.

but if you want to wake up, you don't get to take any of those teachings with you

your first instinct was a deep emotional reaction to Norquist because he is not like all those (no offense to any of them - some very good folks)

but what norquist is talking about is the spiritual equivalent of taking your ball and going home - checking out of the dream-state - not playing the game anymore -

In the human animal that looks like a war and it is pretty terrible to the ego and the self, if it isn't Armageddon - it ain't real

If you get a chance

watch this youtube video that ahab had put up

it is Walt Whitman talking about how this stuff comes in and crushes you "the self"

best of luck friend

[synapticrythms]

It is both. It is both light and darkness. What would you expect of the actual non-dual experienced as dual? The problem is that so much of our lives have been spent in burying the unpleasant, ignoring the lies, building our houses on sand that when the house comes down... it crashes. That is bound to be unpleasant.

At the root of all... what really needs to burn is the feeling of separateness... which is made in so many different ways, so incredibly engineered, so knowable as "love" and "hate" and "good wishes" and "death-filled violence"... but who we are is not knowable. The knowable has to be destroyed. Since it is all we know, the separation itself has become our "life". It is not life... it is separation, which is life's antithesis. That is why it is so painful; why it feels like a countless mini-deaths, leading (I can only trust at this point) to the real death, which is an awakening to the fact that all I thought I was, I was not.

Osho says that you must walk through hell to understand all that you have built, because it is only when you walk through hell that you understand that it is not what you want. There are a lot of hells masquerading as heaven, and we continue to cling to our hell in a mistaken attempt at holding heaven. Heaven can't be held, however; it can only be allowed.

[lobo]

So Ravenscroft, do you believe that this incredibly difficult experience is waiting for you? Do you believe that it is waiting for everyone?

I am pointing out that there are counter-examples that prove that not evryone has this terribly bad experience.

Bob Cergol, at TAT teacher wrote somewhere that he thought he would be carried out on a stretcher. But his experience was quite different.
Same goes for the three guys who are also TAT teachers featured on closer than close.

So maybe it will not be so bad for you either.
But maybe it will.
Who knows.

[ravenscroft]

synapticrythms and Burt

you both raise some good points here

I didn't mean to sound so "fire and brimstone"

just looking back on my own journey (and that is all I have to go with here)

when it seem spectacularly painful - I seem to advance and overcome some piece of illusion

when I am being silent, feeling groovy, and getting in touch with my inner whatever, I am biding time, waiting to died

we are all on death row here and no one can think their way out of the maze, no one can pray that the maze will go away

now one CAN become peaceful in the maze and even become a "maze expert" teaching others how to be at peace with the maze

my post was just about smashing out of said maze

that seems to take a ruthless mind and pure hatred for what is false (inside and out)

[lobo]

Ravenscroft, I know what you mean. I see the same in my own experience.
And I have plenty of motivation in the form of self generated suffering.
It is funny that the same truth that is so hard to face when one is identified with the flase self is so freeing when the identification is lessened or released.

[thistoo]

Jun 19, 2010 9:07:53 GMT -5 ravenscroft said:

if you want nice slumber and a better life - I would go with the silence, stillness, and meditation crowd...what those teachers are selling is a wonderful lifestyle choice, but it all takes place INSIDE the dream.

but if you want to wake up, you don't get to take any of those teachings with you

Exactly. To use a metaphor from The Matrix, seems to me it's a little like choosing between the blue pill and the red pill. ;D

Anyway, again, I think Norquist's book is worth reading because it makes that distinction clear, in bold letters (literally), as does Jed "Invisible Man" McKenna's first book.

This essay on David Scoma's site I think pretty much sums it up:

justperception.net/archives/1440

[ravenscroft]

yeah, I like Scoma's stuff

wonder why that dude doesn't write a book?

[lobo]

Something I just noticed in my experience with the "stark" teachings like those mentioned.

They are apealing to me when I am stuck in ego conciousness, attached, struggling, suffering.....
It is this process that they describe. The tighter one holds onto the identification of the separate self, the more suffering when it is being "removed" by whatever means....

But when there is little or no attachment, and the experience of separate self is not activated, when the conciousness is open and free.....abiding as awareness....
at these times there is no attraction or interest in this "blood and guts" or "grunge spirituality" if you will LOL

Has that teaching ever helped me?
I really cannot say with certainty that it has.
I sure can relate to the attachment and suffering they describe...
And when I am suffering, it seems attractive.
Interesting.

I cannot say that it is necessary, or even helpful for me personally.

It certainly may be helpfull in poking a hole through the illusion, but in my case I have quite a few holes there already LOL

I suppose, whatever helps you at the moment helps, and that is that. Maybe you need to hear it in that way right now. Maybe not.

peace everybody

[synapticrythms]

Thanks, thistoo, for posting that link. There was a lot in there to digest. I especially liked the description of seeing... seeing when one is awake.

It is interesting, burt, that you have that experience of it... when you are suffering, the blood and guts appeals to you. I have almost the opposite experience of it. Things like that help me refocus, because I have a tendency to drift into thinking it is all me "living righteously" (LOL) that causes the good times. Things like that help me refocus on the task at hand, get serious about my monomania , and get on with it... after all, every step I have taken on this journey has made me more free and more joyful (even though it may hurt like an mf to go through it).

It seems like one has to constantly reaffirm direction on this path. There are so many side roads that it takes extreme focus to stay with it... coupled with constant questioning of motives and thoughts that are arising. Sites and books like the one above just tend to refocus me on the task at hand... and nothing goes awry if I remember that there is nothing wrong... there is nothing wrong even with ego and the stripping of it from this perspective of me.

[ravenscroft]

Jun 20, 2010 16:07:39 GMT -5 synapticrythms said:

It seems like one has to constantly reaffirm direction on this path. There are so many side roads that it takes extreme focus to stay with it... coupled with constant questioning of motives and thoughts that are arising.

this is so true