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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 26, 2023 10:24:07 GMT -5
I just came back to change my avatar. Great OP and thread ZD (I have been reading in order, I'll probably say that again). I have never defined essence, except, what we are born with or born as. That was maybe the first thing I learned in March 1976. I don't define essence as it was never further defined for me. I was also told, you have to find your essence (meaning, nobody [in the Teaching] will tell you what your essence is). And then I was given some tools to discover my essence, and then 6 months later given the *~real tools~* to discover my essence. I was a poor student, it took me 15 years to discover my essence. Now, I've said more here in the past than I was ever told/taught. In my tradition it's considered sort of being a thief to tell someone something they should discover for themselves, to do so is to rob them of the privilege of self-discovery. And it's also a kind of test, if you don't discover stuff, you won't be given more. So most everything I understand was from blood, sweat and tears, that's not metaphor. So, when I came here, actually before 2009, before there was even a forum, there was just spiritual friends locator, I decided not to describe experiences, only to talk from theory, as that is the way my tradition goes, basically you can ask questions (about your experience). So, all this is why this is a most excellent OP, ZD is absolutely perfectly correct. And I considered this essence definition, what you are born with, a lot during those 15 years, you can learn an immense amount, putting yourself in the position of a newborn baby. Now, I've done whole threads on the following, but I'll say it again, trying to be brief (a somewhat answer to someNOTHING). ZD has said it, precisely, beautifully. A baby does not have a sense of self, that happens about 18 months to 2 years, when a child starts to say I. Joseph Chilton Pearce goes into this a great deal in his wonderful book, Magical Child. A newborn has the most neurons it will ever have in its life, but no connections between neurons, or very few (learning begins in the womb, so it does have some connections upon birth). So info comes in, this info is recorded in the neural structure, mostly associatively ("What fires together, wires together". Donald Hebb). You learned more in the first 2 years of life than you will ever learn in any two-year period, even becoming a doctor or lawyer (Magical Child, Pearce did tons of research for his books). So, as a baby you are your real genuine individuality, your essence, essence is the default mode. But with all this information collected and stored, and a lot of it turns into protection, a kind of hedge around essence, to protect it. But about age six, a flip-flop occurs, all this haphazard information forms a false sense of self, ego/persona/("personality")/small s self/mask. It chokes out essence, covers over essence. So we then live through this false sense of self, the small s self then becomes the default mode of operation. Now, some people realize something is amiss, and so begins a spiritual journey. And so some people can have a flip-flop, back, back to essence. The sages knew all about this, the Zen stories, they're all about the flip-flop, back, as it's all about living in the present moment. Yes, a baby and small child always and only live in the present moment. Slowing, as ZD has pointed out so well over the years, the person lives through the abstraction/concepts/ideas of their own neural structure, the info stored, again, associatively (it helps to consider that also). So, if you are thinking, it's a good chance you are in false-sense-of-self mode. Attending the actual, you are in essence-mode. But to show what you are up against, achieving a flip-flop back to essence, an adult, one person, has more neural connections between neurons than there are stars in the whole universe, those are what constitute the default-mode of most adults, the small s self.  Yes, what you call "essence" is what many of us call "the natural state." "But the third state of consciousness [self-consciousness, explained in paragraphs above and below, note sdp] constitutes the natural right of man as he is, and if a man does not possess it, it is only because of the wrong conditions of his life". Gurdjieff, reported by Ouspensky, page 142, In Search of the Miraculous |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2023 0:16:31 GMT -5
Definition of Yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
Sutra 1. 2 yogash citta-vrtti-nirodah
"Yoga is the complete settling (nirodha) of the activity (vrtti) of the mind (citta)."
When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in Transcendence, devoid of all material desires, he is said to have attained yoga.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, Verse 18.
Some verses from the Vijñāna-bhairava-Tantra.
12. ‘Cessation’ (nirodha) [of the mind] was taught by previous [masters] through the yoga/method of renunciation [of the mind and senses] and arduous practice. Here I will teach a cessation that is [comparatively] effortless.
13. Focus the mind upon something that then dissolves. Because it is not grasping anything else [other than the dissolving object], the mind comes to rest in one’s Self.
14. It is similar to the case of a powerful thunder-clap gradually fading: when it dies away, the mind, due to being [totally] focused on it, comes to rest.
15. One should give oneself to one-pointedness [i.e. meditate] on any enchanting (manohara) sound that comes into one’s hearing, until ceasing it brings about the cessation [of mind].
When the mind turns inward seeking ‘Who am I?’ and merges in the Heart, then the ‘I’ hangs down his head in shame and the One ‘I’ appears as Itself. Though it appears as ‘I am I’, it is not the ego. It is Reality, Perfection, the Substance of the Self.
From Reality in Forty Verses
Ramana Maharshi
I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
"the jiva, which is in bondage through mental identification with the body should put forth effort in the form of reflection on the Self in a gradual and sustained manner; and when thus the mind gets destroyed, the jiva would become the Self."
"How long should one practice? Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of freedom from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer."
Ramana Maharshi
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Post by zendancer on Mar 29, 2023 4:10:01 GMT -5
Definition of Yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Sutra 1. 2 yogash citta-vrtti-nirodah "Yoga is the complete settling (nirodha) of the activity (vrtti) of the mind (citta)." When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in Transcendence, devoid of all material desires, he is said to have attained yoga. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, Verse 18. Some verses from the Vijñāna-bhairava-Tantra. 12. ‘Cessation’ (nirodha) [of the mind] was taught by previous [masters] through the yoga/method of renunciation [of the mind and senses] and arduous practice. Here I will teach a cessation that is [comparatively] effortless. 13. Focus the mind upon something that then dissolves. Because it is not grasping anything else [other than the dissolving object], the mind comes to rest in one’s Self. 14. It is similar to the case of a powerful thunder-clap gradually fading: when it dies away, the mind, due to being [totally] focused on it, comes to rest. 15. One should give oneself to one-pointedness [i.e. meditate] on any enchanting (manohara) sound that comes into one’s hearing, until ceasing it brings about the cessation [of mind]. When the mind turns inward seeking ‘Who am I?’ and merges in the Heart, then the ‘I’ hangs down his head in shame and the One ‘I’ appears as Itself. Though it appears as ‘I am I’, it is not the ego. It is Reality, Perfection, the Substance of the Self. From Reality in Forty Verses Ramana Maharshi I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. Nisargadatta Maharaj "the jiva, which is in bondage through mental identification with the body should put forth effort in the form of reflection on the Self in a gradual and sustained manner; and when thus the mind gets destroyed, the jiva would become the Self." "How long should one practice? Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of freedom from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer." Ramana Maharshi Yes, and there are a dozen other ways to also attain non-abidance in mind. I talked to someone last night who woke up without doing any meditation. He just tried to understand what some of us were pointing to, and within three months, BAM! He read TPON and that triggered one shift. He then talked to two ND teachers, and that triggered a realization that he was the watcher of thoughts and that detached him from thoughts. Finally, he spent about two weeks trying to understand, and suddenly BOOM! He got free. Pretty amazing. He still has more to see, but he got the big picture faster than anyone I've met before. He's young and bright, and that helps. TPON was a huge help because he resonated with the "pain body" stuff Eckhart writes about, and he had suffered that kind of depression in the past, and he saw how his mind had created all of his past suffering. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 29, 2023 6:01:31 GMT -5
Definition of Yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Sutra 1. 2 yogash citta-vrtti-nirodah "Yoga is the complete settling (nirodha) of the activity (vrtti) of the mind (citta)." When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in Transcendence, devoid of all material desires, he is said to have attained yoga. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, Verse 18. Some verses from the Vijñāna-bhairava-Tantra. 12. ‘Cessation’ (nirodha) [of the mind] was taught by previous [masters] through the yoga/method of renunciation [of the mind and senses] and arduous practice. Here I will teach a cessation that is [comparatively] effortless. 13. Focus the mind upon something that then dissolves. Because it is not grasping anything else [other than the dissolving object], the mind comes to rest in one’s Self. 14. It is similar to the case of a powerful thunder-clap gradually fading: when it dies away, the mind, due to being [totally] focused on it, comes to rest. 15. One should give oneself to one-pointedness [i.e. meditate] on any enchanting (manohara) sound that comes into one’s hearing, until ceasing it brings about the cessation [of mind]. When the mind turns inward seeking ‘Who am I?’ and merges in the Heart, then the ‘I’ hangs down his head in shame and the One ‘I’ appears as Itself. Though it appears as ‘I am I’, it is not the ego. It is Reality, Perfection, the Substance of the Self. From Reality in Forty Verses Ramana Maharshi I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. Nisargadatta Maharaj "the jiva, which is in bondage through mental identification with the body should put forth effort in the form of reflection on the Self in a gradual and sustained manner; and when thus the mind gets destroyed, the jiva would become the Self." "How long should one practice? Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of freedom from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer." Ramana Maharshi Yes, and there are a dozen other ways to also attain non-abidance in mind. I talked to someone last night who woke up without doing any meditation. He just tried to understand what some of us were pointing to, and within three months, BAM! He read TPON and that triggered one shift. He then talked to two ND teachers, and that triggered a realization that he was the watcher of thoughts and that detached him from thoughts. Finally, he spent about two weeks trying to understand, and suddenly BOOM! He got free. Pretty amazing. He still has more to see, but he got the big picture faster than anyone I've met before. He's young and bright, and that helps. TPON was a huge help because he resonated with the "pain body" stuff Eckhart writes about, and he had suffered that kind of depression in the past, and he saw how his mind had created all of his past suffering. , here, too. I'm more a tortoise, not a hare. |
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Post by zendancer on Mar 29, 2023 10:20:28 GMT -5
Yes, and there are a dozen other ways to also attain non-abidance in mind. I talked to someone last night who woke up without doing any meditation. He just tried to understand what some of us were pointing to, and within three months, BAM! He read TPON and that triggered one shift. He then talked to two ND teachers, and that triggered a realization that he was the watcher of thoughts and that detached him from thoughts. Finally, he spent about two weeks trying to understand, and suddenly BOOM! He got free. Pretty amazing. He still has more to see, but he got the big picture faster than anyone I've met before. He's young and bright, and that helps. TPON was a huge help because he resonated with the "pain body" stuff Eckhart writes about, and he had suffered that kind of depression in the past, and he saw how his mind had created all of his past suffering. , here, too. I'm more a tortoise, not a hare. Well, the good news is that you can't go wrong. THIS, in the form of SDP, is unfolding perfectly in accord with what a religiously-oriented person might call "the Will of God." |
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Post by laughter on Apr 4, 2023 18:00:02 GMT -5
Definition of Yoga from Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Sutra 1. 2 yogash citta-vrtti-nirodah "Yoga is the complete settling (nirodha) of the activity (vrtti) of the mind (citta)." When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in Transcendence, devoid of all material desires, he is said to have attained yoga. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 6, Verse 18. Some verses from the Vijñāna-bhairava-Tantra. 12. ‘Cessation’ (nirodha) [of the mind] was taught by previous [masters] through the yoga/method of renunciation [of the mind and senses] and arduous practice. Here I will teach a cessation that is [comparatively] effortless. 13. Focus the mind upon something that then dissolves. Because it is not grasping anything else [other than the dissolving object], the mind comes to rest in one’s Self. 14. It is similar to the case of a powerful thunder-clap gradually fading: when it dies away, the mind, due to being [totally] focused on it, comes to rest. 15. One should give oneself to one-pointedness [i.e. meditate] on any enchanting (manohara) sound that comes into one’s hearing, until ceasing it brings about the cessation [of mind]. When the mind turns inward seeking ‘Who am I?’ and merges in the Heart, then the ‘I’ hangs down his head in shame and the One ‘I’ appears as Itself. Though it appears as ‘I am I’, it is not the ego. It is Reality, Perfection, the Substance of the Self. From Reality in Forty Verses Ramana Maharshi I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence. Nisargadatta Maharaj "the jiva, which is in bondage through mental identification with the body should put forth effort in the form of reflection on the Self in a gradual and sustained manner; and when thus the mind gets destroyed, the jiva would become the Self." "How long should one practice? Until the mind attains effortlessly its natural state of freedom from concepts, that is till the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ exists no longer." Ramana Maharshi Yes, and there are a dozen other ways to also attain non-abidance in mind. I talked to someone last night who woke up without doing any meditation. He just tried to understand what some of us were pointing to, and within three months, BAM! He read TPON and that triggered one shift. He then talked to two ND teachers, and that triggered a realization that he was the watcher of thoughts and that detached him from thoughts. Finally, he spent about two weeks trying to understand, and suddenly BOOM! He got free. Pretty amazing. He still has more to see, but he got the big picture faster than anyone I've met before. He's young and bright, and that helps. TPON was a huge help because he resonated with the "pain body" stuff Eckhart writes about, and he had suffered that kind of depression in the past, and he saw how his mind had created all of his past suffering. some!  |
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Post by steven on Apr 9, 2023 22:12:48 GMT -5
Isn't this a contradiction? Isn't it like saying "there is just nothing after you take everything away" ...? Besides, duality is a qualitative qualifier rather than quantitative one. Like in "wave-particle duality of light". "Not-two", as non-duality, should mean a non-duality in characteristics, not as in having only one, not two whatevers, which is a quantitative evaluation. There isn't a consciousness-matter duality of reality, matter being created in and by consciousness. It isn't like reality sometimes seems / acts like consciousness, other times as matter. This doesn't mean that consciousness is homogeneous, that it doesn't have a structure, dimension(s), that it doesn't change. I believe that consciousness is a multi-dimensional structure of gestalts of gestalts. EDIT: For example, believing that the position of your body during meditation influences your realization, to me, seems an example of "non non-dual" belief: there is something physical that impacts the non-physical, directly. Matter over mind. Yes, but there is no actual contradiction. When everything (every thing) is taken away (not imagined by the intellect as separately existing), nothing (no thing) is what remains. "No thing" is a synonym for THIS, or "all-that-is" in an undivided state. It bears repeating that reality is non-dual; duality is solely a product of imagination. Separation is the fundamental illusion created by abstract thought. Yes, but it is that vibration point, that movement in the stillness where the observed and observer rise like waves from the ocean that all creation as we know it appears. I find that creation, and being immersed in it to be a wonderful show. A wonder filled entertainment that’s very enjoyable. |
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Post by steven on Apr 9, 2023 22:25:04 GMT -5
I'll be expanding on the theme of this thread during some ND zoom meetings this week, and here are three scenarios that I'll ask people to consider in regard to this: 1. If asked, most people would NOT say that little children (between the age of 0 and 7 years old) are meditating most of the time. 2. If asked, most people would agree that sitting and looking at a candle flame is a form of meditation. 3. If asked, most people would NOT say that sitting on a park bench and watching ducks on a lake is a form of meditation. I have a 10 year old and a 3 year old, certainly the 3 year old is in a state of near continuous meditation as I define it below, by age 7 that’s happening far less if the time. The other activities you described certainly CAN be part of meditation, but aren’t always, even ‘ATA’. You can ATA in a zoned out state, no thoughts or mental dialogue occurring, but still not meditating. Meditating is a more specialized state wherein one is both still and silent with regard to the internal mental dialogue, while having an increasingly high level of alertness and focus. (even without mental dialogue running there is still mental activity, for example, simply knowing or recognizing something even without a mental dialogue running is a removal from meditation). There is the second crucial aspect of meditation that makes it meditation, and that is focus, meaning the exclusion of other phenomena that you could give attention to. Meditation is a mix of mental stillness, with an exclusionary sustained focus on some thing, or things, or the oneness of perceived things. Meditation without sustained one pointedness of focus is just a trance, or zoning out, you can certainly do either of those with simply a still mind. |
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