Post by lightmystic on Feb 19, 2010 12:01:11 GMT -5
Hey inquiringmind,
I see that you have addressed some of the issues that I have brought up in your post to ZD, so I will address them. You've got a lot of good stuff in there....
I'll put your posts in quotes, and respond below that:
"Beliefs/religions do NOT cause suffering. They are nothing but "beliefs." It is "believing" that you are suffering that causes suffering."
Well, I do find that it's true that it isn't exactly beliefs that make someone suffer, but the putting stock in them, the believing them to be true, the identification with them, that causes suffering. But, in the case of religion, it's kind of like telling someone what their experiences should be. And, if we are not identifying with our thoughts, then it's much easier to be innocent about it, and notice what our experiences already are. And so there is no reason to have these beliefs if they do not match experience, and that is why religions tend not to make sense. I mean, if you want to take your direct experience and put it in terms of religious terminology, then, of course, that's not what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter HOW one wants to talk about it. But, if someone is believing something that is not their experience, then a sort of cognitive dissonance is created, and that is uncomfortable. The only reason to cling to that is out of a desire for safety, because, otherwise, it hurts. I know many people that do not believe in suffering, but they are deeply identified with their thoughts, and so they suffer deeply. They actually suffer all the more because they are not being honest with themselves, not admitting the suffering....
"Spirit is intangible and cannot suffer."
Not to get too nitpicky, but I find that spirit can, and does, do all things. There is nothing spirit cannot do, because there is nothing other than spirit. Even the mind itself is made of none other than spirit.....
"Suffering is merely a concept of the mind. I agree with you that you won't find God with the mind. And yes I do "go within" to directly experience that which Is."
Cool. Nice to be on the same page there.
"But a lot of "new age non-dualists" seem to think that they are in fact God! You ARE NOT God... rather God IS YOU! There is a distinct difference! "
It sounds like you are saying that it's not that someone's idea of individuality is the whole thing (God), but, rather, that one is the whole thing (God) and not individuality. If that is what you are saying, then that makes perfect sense and I find that to be my experience too, and a very important distinction. When one truly realizes themselves to be God, then they are God in a way that everything is else is also God. No one is God as opposed to anyone else.
"Until you have been fully liberated, kaivalya, you are still under the influence of Maya and thus "beliefs"; which are merely "ideas" Yet there is a difference between the Source's Ideas and the ego's ideas. If you want to say that Source is "No-Self"; in the sense that it has no definition then fine. But if you're suggesting that "No-Self"; is the absence of "Self" (or anything) then that is clearly an oxymoron because it takes "someone" to "directly experience" "some-thing." "
For me, the difference between Source's ideas and ego's ideas is that the ego clings to ideas that are not our direct experience, looking for a sense of safety. The Source, having given up the need to cling, and so realized it's inherent safety, can stay comfortably in not knowing. And, from there, one's natural honesty about experience starts to emerge. For me, the experience of "maya" is so infinite and unlimited that it bears no resemblance anymore in most ways to my experience of it when I thought that it could be limited. And so, because the mind cannot really conceptualize unlimited (it can only be directly experienced), my thoughts tend to act more and more as simply placeholders to represent the infinite that's being experienced in each aspect of life directly. So, the thought process just starts to become increasingly honest with what the experience already is, and that can happen because there is no need to cling to something limited for safety (like the idea of individuality) anymore....
In terms of no self, I have discovered, for me, directly, that the idea of a separate individual never existed. It just appeared that way, so I thought it did. It was always life functioning as life the whole time, and there was never any separation in the first place. Any experience of individuality that can come up has only ever been just another impersonal thought arising within impersonal Awareness. I was just identifying with that before, and felt like it could mean the destruction of what I was if I was to lose identification with that (although I would not have phrased it that way at the time). To get more specific, I discovered that every experience of individuality, of separation being real, was simply an assumption. And nonduality, no-self, is meant as a pointer to whatever is left when that assumptions drops away. It is certainly not a concept of self negation, because that implies belief in separate self. There is no self anymore than there is a "not-self"....
"Absolute Consciousness is some "thing" it cannot NOT exist. If you truly thought "beliefs" caused suffering then you would drop everything, go sit under a tree like Buddha, and never come from under it until you overcame all delusion!"
Agreed, it's the IDENTIFICATION with beliefs that cause suffering. Actually, it's a definitional difference. I was defining beliefs as identification with (i.e. putting stock in) thoughts of the mind. If you want to call thoughts "beliefs" then it would be identification with beliefs. We are saying the same thing here I think.
"Anyone in a physical body - Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta or otherwise is still interacting with their environments through "beliefs" and some degree of "maya." The goal isn't to try to deny the belief or maya (that which you resist - persists) but to simply recognize that it is a dream or an idea; IS you and yet is NOT you. Balance is the key. Evenmindedness in all dualities..."
Right, again what I am calling thoughts, you are calling beliefs. What I am calling beliefs, you are calling identification with beliefs. Same thing, just a definitional difference here. Obviously, there is some collection of thoughts, some story, which has to appear limited for the sake of functioning....but it never was limited, and life is not whatever story we tell about it. If I conceptualize a tree, it's simple enough, but the concept is not taking into account all the infinite things going on with a specific tree (at the cellular level, the energetic level, the tree's experience moment to moment, etc.) and so thoughts are, at best, a VERY VERY rough approximation of reality (a cardboard cut out) and, at worst, totally wrong about reality. So, in the process of not identifying with thoughts so much anymore, the reality underneath those thoughts can start to come through....
"As far as Love, that is as difficult to define as God. However, it can be a feeling and yet it is not limited to that. It can be a behavior all though it's not limited to that either."
Ah, very well said! That sounds a lot like a direct experience.
"It is synonomous with Truth. It is a unifying force. It holds all things together in the Reality of Oneness while all else divides into the illusion of many. It is the baptizing and purifying transformation of ignorance into awareness."
This is all true on one level, but I would suggest that, if you look deeper, you might find that the unification is not needed, because the idea of separateness in the first place (that would then need to be unified) has never been more than a belief in the first place.....That is what I found for me anyway....
"It is the absence of judgment for who is there to judge other than Self?"
Again, what's wrong with judgment? Are you putting stock in the belief that judgment is bad? Do you feel like it can limit you? If you do, then judgment certainly does not make sense, but judgment is simply the faculty of discrimination. If one is judging something as inherently "wrong" then one is clearly not seeing the whole thing. But that does not mean one has to like or agree with anything. Any response can be appropriate to a situation and doesn't have to invalidate the recognition of perfection. Example: I can see a child being beaten on the street, and I can recognize the perfection in that, and I can feel strongly that I, as the appearance of individual, does not like that, and that feeling of not liking is perfect, and then I can try to stop it, and that is perfect, and I can succeed or not succeed, and that is perfect. The whole thing can be experienced, can be appreciated sa right, and that has nothing to do with the the personality's natural responses. There was a time that I realized I did not like certain people, and the admission of that to myself allowed a huge amount of universal love for them to come in because I was admitting my truth. I still did not like them, but I deeply love them. And that love could only come BECAUSE I was freely admitting to myself what my natural responses were.
" Whomever is unable to express it at ALL TIMES is not yet Realized and thus still under the influence of Maya, beliefs and delusion."
Yes, it must be a fundamental recognition, as that cannot be unseen at that fundamental level. But you still seem to believe that it has something to do with the personality. That certain behaviors can confirm or deny it. It really has nothing to do with the personality, although the personality gets the benefits of it.....
"Experience & karma leads to the desire to awaken. Love filters the imperfect from the perfect. It is repentance & purity that brings one to the door of Truth, it is Love that opens the door and it is Consciousness that welcomes Itself home... "
It can be that way. Sometimes it's suffering. Usually though, it's both from what I've seen.
"Untruth cannot become Truth, Unreal cannot become Real."
It can seem like the untruth is truth, it can seem like the unreal is real, but the recognition that it isn't, FOR REAL, brings clarity. If I see someone who looks like my friend on the street from the back. That person REALLY looks like my friend, but if I examine her closely, I'll realize that she never was my friend in the first place. The idea that the world is limited is real the way the appearance that the person on the street was my friend was real. The question of where maya goes is like asking where my friend went. My friend was NEVER there in the first place.
"Relative cannot become Absolute, Duality cannot become Non-Dual!"
It's actually the reverse. There was never any such duality as Relative/Absolute. It's a way of talking about it, and the experience really feels like that as relativity is not being identified with so strongly. There NEVER was duality, but only one thing. And part of that one thing is the appearance of duality. And it's real as an appearance, but that is all it is and has ever been.... relativity is actually just as infinite as the absolute, because they are two aspects of the same thing. And even that is not true, because there is not really two of them.
"Only that which "IS, always WAS and ever WILL BE Truth, Real, Absolute & Non-Dual" can do is REALIZE it was never anything untrue, unreal, relative or dual - IT was simply imagining Itself to be..."
Right.
I see that you have addressed some of the issues that I have brought up in your post to ZD, so I will address them. You've got a lot of good stuff in there....
I'll put your posts in quotes, and respond below that:
"Beliefs/religions do NOT cause suffering. They are nothing but "beliefs." It is "believing" that you are suffering that causes suffering."
Well, I do find that it's true that it isn't exactly beliefs that make someone suffer, but the putting stock in them, the believing them to be true, the identification with them, that causes suffering. But, in the case of religion, it's kind of like telling someone what their experiences should be. And, if we are not identifying with our thoughts, then it's much easier to be innocent about it, and notice what our experiences already are. And so there is no reason to have these beliefs if they do not match experience, and that is why religions tend not to make sense. I mean, if you want to take your direct experience and put it in terms of religious terminology, then, of course, that's not what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter HOW one wants to talk about it. But, if someone is believing something that is not their experience, then a sort of cognitive dissonance is created, and that is uncomfortable. The only reason to cling to that is out of a desire for safety, because, otherwise, it hurts. I know many people that do not believe in suffering, but they are deeply identified with their thoughts, and so they suffer deeply. They actually suffer all the more because they are not being honest with themselves, not admitting the suffering....
"Spirit is intangible and cannot suffer."
Not to get too nitpicky, but I find that spirit can, and does, do all things. There is nothing spirit cannot do, because there is nothing other than spirit. Even the mind itself is made of none other than spirit.....
"Suffering is merely a concept of the mind. I agree with you that you won't find God with the mind. And yes I do "go within" to directly experience that which Is."
Cool. Nice to be on the same page there.
"But a lot of "new age non-dualists" seem to think that they are in fact God! You ARE NOT God... rather God IS YOU! There is a distinct difference! "
It sounds like you are saying that it's not that someone's idea of individuality is the whole thing (God), but, rather, that one is the whole thing (God) and not individuality. If that is what you are saying, then that makes perfect sense and I find that to be my experience too, and a very important distinction. When one truly realizes themselves to be God, then they are God in a way that everything is else is also God. No one is God as opposed to anyone else.
"Until you have been fully liberated, kaivalya, you are still under the influence of Maya and thus "beliefs"; which are merely "ideas" Yet there is a difference between the Source's Ideas and the ego's ideas. If you want to say that Source is "No-Self"; in the sense that it has no definition then fine. But if you're suggesting that "No-Self"; is the absence of "Self" (or anything) then that is clearly an oxymoron because it takes "someone" to "directly experience" "some-thing." "
For me, the difference between Source's ideas and ego's ideas is that the ego clings to ideas that are not our direct experience, looking for a sense of safety. The Source, having given up the need to cling, and so realized it's inherent safety, can stay comfortably in not knowing. And, from there, one's natural honesty about experience starts to emerge. For me, the experience of "maya" is so infinite and unlimited that it bears no resemblance anymore in most ways to my experience of it when I thought that it could be limited. And so, because the mind cannot really conceptualize unlimited (it can only be directly experienced), my thoughts tend to act more and more as simply placeholders to represent the infinite that's being experienced in each aspect of life directly. So, the thought process just starts to become increasingly honest with what the experience already is, and that can happen because there is no need to cling to something limited for safety (like the idea of individuality) anymore....
In terms of no self, I have discovered, for me, directly, that the idea of a separate individual never existed. It just appeared that way, so I thought it did. It was always life functioning as life the whole time, and there was never any separation in the first place. Any experience of individuality that can come up has only ever been just another impersonal thought arising within impersonal Awareness. I was just identifying with that before, and felt like it could mean the destruction of what I was if I was to lose identification with that (although I would not have phrased it that way at the time). To get more specific, I discovered that every experience of individuality, of separation being real, was simply an assumption. And nonduality, no-self, is meant as a pointer to whatever is left when that assumptions drops away. It is certainly not a concept of self negation, because that implies belief in separate self. There is no self anymore than there is a "not-self"....
"Absolute Consciousness is some "thing" it cannot NOT exist. If you truly thought "beliefs" caused suffering then you would drop everything, go sit under a tree like Buddha, and never come from under it until you overcame all delusion!"
Agreed, it's the IDENTIFICATION with beliefs that cause suffering. Actually, it's a definitional difference. I was defining beliefs as identification with (i.e. putting stock in) thoughts of the mind. If you want to call thoughts "beliefs" then it would be identification with beliefs. We are saying the same thing here I think.
"Anyone in a physical body - Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta or otherwise is still interacting with their environments through "beliefs" and some degree of "maya." The goal isn't to try to deny the belief or maya (that which you resist - persists) but to simply recognize that it is a dream or an idea; IS you and yet is NOT you. Balance is the key. Evenmindedness in all dualities..."
Right, again what I am calling thoughts, you are calling beliefs. What I am calling beliefs, you are calling identification with beliefs. Same thing, just a definitional difference here. Obviously, there is some collection of thoughts, some story, which has to appear limited for the sake of functioning....but it never was limited, and life is not whatever story we tell about it. If I conceptualize a tree, it's simple enough, but the concept is not taking into account all the infinite things going on with a specific tree (at the cellular level, the energetic level, the tree's experience moment to moment, etc.) and so thoughts are, at best, a VERY VERY rough approximation of reality (a cardboard cut out) and, at worst, totally wrong about reality. So, in the process of not identifying with thoughts so much anymore, the reality underneath those thoughts can start to come through....
"As far as Love, that is as difficult to define as God. However, it can be a feeling and yet it is not limited to that. It can be a behavior all though it's not limited to that either."
Ah, very well said! That sounds a lot like a direct experience.
"It is synonomous with Truth. It is a unifying force. It holds all things together in the Reality of Oneness while all else divides into the illusion of many. It is the baptizing and purifying transformation of ignorance into awareness."
This is all true on one level, but I would suggest that, if you look deeper, you might find that the unification is not needed, because the idea of separateness in the first place (that would then need to be unified) has never been more than a belief in the first place.....That is what I found for me anyway....
"It is the absence of judgment for who is there to judge other than Self?"
Again, what's wrong with judgment? Are you putting stock in the belief that judgment is bad? Do you feel like it can limit you? If you do, then judgment certainly does not make sense, but judgment is simply the faculty of discrimination. If one is judging something as inherently "wrong" then one is clearly not seeing the whole thing. But that does not mean one has to like or agree with anything. Any response can be appropriate to a situation and doesn't have to invalidate the recognition of perfection. Example: I can see a child being beaten on the street, and I can recognize the perfection in that, and I can feel strongly that I, as the appearance of individual, does not like that, and that feeling of not liking is perfect, and then I can try to stop it, and that is perfect, and I can succeed or not succeed, and that is perfect. The whole thing can be experienced, can be appreciated sa right, and that has nothing to do with the the personality's natural responses. There was a time that I realized I did not like certain people, and the admission of that to myself allowed a huge amount of universal love for them to come in because I was admitting my truth. I still did not like them, but I deeply love them. And that love could only come BECAUSE I was freely admitting to myself what my natural responses were.
" Whomever is unable to express it at ALL TIMES is not yet Realized and thus still under the influence of Maya, beliefs and delusion."
Yes, it must be a fundamental recognition, as that cannot be unseen at that fundamental level. But you still seem to believe that it has something to do with the personality. That certain behaviors can confirm or deny it. It really has nothing to do with the personality, although the personality gets the benefits of it.....
"Experience & karma leads to the desire to awaken. Love filters the imperfect from the perfect. It is repentance & purity that brings one to the door of Truth, it is Love that opens the door and it is Consciousness that welcomes Itself home... "
It can be that way. Sometimes it's suffering. Usually though, it's both from what I've seen.
"Untruth cannot become Truth, Unreal cannot become Real."
It can seem like the untruth is truth, it can seem like the unreal is real, but the recognition that it isn't, FOR REAL, brings clarity. If I see someone who looks like my friend on the street from the back. That person REALLY looks like my friend, but if I examine her closely, I'll realize that she never was my friend in the first place. The idea that the world is limited is real the way the appearance that the person on the street was my friend was real. The question of where maya goes is like asking where my friend went. My friend was NEVER there in the first place.
"Relative cannot become Absolute, Duality cannot become Non-Dual!"
It's actually the reverse. There was never any such duality as Relative/Absolute. It's a way of talking about it, and the experience really feels like that as relativity is not being identified with so strongly. There NEVER was duality, but only one thing. And part of that one thing is the appearance of duality. And it's real as an appearance, but that is all it is and has ever been.... relativity is actually just as infinite as the absolute, because they are two aspects of the same thing. And even that is not true, because there is not really two of them.
"Only that which "IS, always WAS and ever WILL BE Truth, Real, Absolute & Non-Dual" can do is REALIZE it was never anything untrue, unreal, relative or dual - IT was simply imagining Itself to be..."
Right.