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Post by Portto on Mar 22, 2010 18:37:09 GMT -5
Yes, I hear you clearly.
Looking back, I actually wanted to say "the sense of a separate self (individual mind) is imagined in childhood." Is this better?
Your view on the relationship between mind and awareness is very interesting.
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Post by enigma on Mar 22, 2010 19:12:59 GMT -5
Yeah, the newborn is innocence, not really the same as self realized, but still on the other side of hell, closer to the entrance than the exit. To reach the exit, one can't buy back innocence because it burned up in the flames, so it's necessary to defeat the devil himself. This usually involves a bit of bloodletting, and frankly, most don't have the courage.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 22, 2010 20:48:23 GMT -5
"This sense of self is imagined into existence during early childhood. It seems that Suzanne suddenly lost that piece of imagination" The 'sense of self' is your sense of existence, and is not, itself, imagined. It is generally projected onto an object of perception (the mind/body), and it seems that in this case it was noticed that it's not really the case. Mind isn't what notices this, and so mind was still looking for it to be there, but the Self was informing mind that this wasn't true. This 'informing' does not take place conceptually, and so mind didn't have an alternative concept to grasp. The end result is that a localized center is looked for, because it is still imagined, but can't be found. It also cannot be found 'here'. Does that make sense? Enigma: That is so perfectly stated that it takes my breath away. I bow in honor of such eloquence and understanding. |
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Post by Portto on Mar 22, 2010 21:07:23 GMT -5
Maybe I can add one more issues here: it seems that a body/mind cannot talk/discuss about the past unless there is some concept of "I".
There is some scientific research in this area as well, which confirms that this is why we can't remember the first few years of life - until the "I" appears. ("Enigma" mentioned this as well somewhere)
So, if Suzanne was able to recall the experience of losing the self, I guess she still had some identity left.
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Post by enigma on Mar 22, 2010 22:25:27 GMT -5
"Enigma: That is so perfectly stated that it takes my breath away. I bow in honor of such eloquence and understanding."
As I say, it's a pleasure to meet you. Beats villagers with lanterns and pitchforks. Hehe.
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Post by enigma on Mar 22, 2010 22:46:37 GMT -5
Maybe I can add one more issues here: it seems that a body/mind cannot talk/discuss about the past unless there is some concept of "I". There is some scientific research in this area as well, which confirms that this is why we can't remember the first few years of life - until the "I" appears. ("Enigma" mentioned this as well somewhere) So, if Suzanne was able to recall the experience of losing the self, I guess she still had some identity left. Yeah, well, the identity that mind holds is a concept only, and so the concept of a mind/body self remains, just as it does in all mind/bodies through which the Awakening event occurs. She would have to have lost her entire memory for that to have gone. In the absence of the mental confusion she was obviously experiencing, it's seen for the concept that it is. |
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Post by Portto on Mar 23, 2010 8:35:05 GMT -5
That is correct.
Wouldn't it be better to say that she didn't lose the "I" but instead noticed suddenly that there was something 'terribly' wrong with it?
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Post by frankshank on Mar 23, 2010 12:37:06 GMT -5
My head's mashed again lol. Im finding it difficult to quite get how the illusory self fits into the equation. Time to take a step back and revisit in a few days or so I think. Silence is golden!  ZD: I'm sure it must have been terrifying for her. Perhaps the therapy, whilst not a solution, helped her, and if so, it wasn't a waste of time! |
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Post by zendancer on Mar 23, 2010 14:01:06 GMT -5
Frankshank: I don't remember that the therapy helped her at all. It's been a while since I read the book, but I seem to remember that there was something else that helped her accept the fear and allow it to be there without resisting it, thereby freeing her from its grip. If I get a chance, I'll check the appropriate chapter and refresh my memory about the sequence of events.
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Post by frankshank on Mar 23, 2010 14:11:19 GMT -5
Frankshank: I don't remember that the therapy helped her at all. It's been a while since I read the book, but I seem to remember that there was something else that helped her accept the fear and allow it to be there without resisting it, thereby freeing her from its grip. If I get a chance, I'll check the appropriate chapter and refresh my memory about the sequence of events. Once she came to understand that no 'me' did not mean that there was a gap to fill, as it was replaced with 'I am everything', she felt at peace. The therapy wasn't a solution and it wasn't stated in the book that it did help. What I meant was that I imagine it helped her to some extent to talk about the issue. Frustrating perhaps, but without being able to grasp what was happening to her, better than nothing. |
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Post by enigma on Mar 23, 2010 20:42:01 GMT -5
Mooji (one of my favorites) tells the story of when he was regularly attending Satsang with Papaji, he was upset by something Papaji had said to him, which brought a lot of anger to the surface. Later, as he was walking and fuming over the events, he took a step and suddenly realized he couldn't find himself.
The reason I mention it is to note the contrasting reaction. He was so elated that he "went running like a little boy to his guru's house to fall at his feet."
It seems to be very important that the mind be adequately prepared, and have at least a glimmer of understanding of what's taking place.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 23, 2010 21:57:24 GMT -5
That's right. Segal got on the right track after she encountered Jean Klein and some other advaita teachers who told her that what had happened to her was good news rather than bad news. It took awhile for the "good news" to sink in, but eventually her winter of discontent turned to spring as she realized that her "emptiness of self" was actually fullness of the infinite.
This sort of thing manifests in various body/minds in an infinite variety of mysterious ways. When I lost my sense of personal selfhood the first time, I felt like I had hit the trillion-dollar jackpot. I was one deliriously happy unknowing non-person. LOL. It was time for dancing in the streets. On the other hand, several years ago I met a guy whose brother had had some sort of super-scary experience shortly after starting to meditate, and as a result he ran off and joined a fundamentalist cult and vowed to never meditate again. The whole thing is a mystery.
The Christian mystic, Bernadette Roberts, writes about her experience of no-self in her books, but she never got much feedback about her experience that she trusted (to the best of my memory), and she seems to live in a world that is pretty hard to relate to. Average Christians certainly don't know what she's talking about, and the non-duality people are generally put off by her terminology. I often wonder if her need to interpret her experiences in strictly Christian terms and her unwillingness to see any valid similarities in non-Christian traditions hasn't had a rather one-off effect on her understanding. The last time I read one of her essays I felt like she must be writing about some sort of non-dual waste land--a T.S. Eliot-like world of obscurative symbology. In short, I didn;t detect much peace, joy, love, or equanimity, and I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to follow her into the world that she describes. I mention Roberts only because she was a loner who also had dramatic mystical experiences that she couldn't relate to the broader context of the non-duality spectrum. Of course, I haven't read much of her stuff lately, so I don;t where she's coming from these days. Hopefully its somewhere the sun is shining!
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Post by enigma on Mar 23, 2010 23:42:37 GMT -5
Yeah, it sometimes seems that Beingness wants to play this out in every conceivable way. For me, I fell into the void, which redefined my idea of hell. No past or possibility of a future, no potential for happiness, no hope, even the Earth was unstable. All I wanted to do was escape but it had to be transcended. My 'salvation' was that the void is also devoid of 'me'. Such an odd and wondrous play.
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Post by frankshank on Mar 24, 2010 4:55:50 GMT -5
Many years ago when I had a deep long lasting spiritual experience I had no idea what was happening to me. I'd read one book on meditation. I didn't know anything about enlightenment, the void etc.. I used to just cross my legs and breath in and out. I found it very relaxing. Then strange things started happening and I took a back seat as everything just happened. It got to the stage where I was watching myself and I think I pulled back. The experience had shifted from mental sharpness, amazing highs, a feeling of closeness with ohers etc.. to something darker. That was 13 years ago and only now am I starting to understand what happened. It didn't twig that the meditation had had anything to do with it. If memory serves me right I'd stopped meditating a few months before the strange experiences kicked in. I'm really glad I've found this website as it's been invaluable to me. I'm not sure (if I have a choice), that I want to go the whole hog though. Like Bernadette Roberts I'm a bit of a loner. I have friends of course but I like my own company; perhaps too much. Would my experience of the void be similar to hers based on your assumptions ZD? It's interesting stuff.
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Post by loverofall on Mar 24, 2010 5:47:35 GMT -5
The Christian mystic, Bernadette Roberts, writes about her experience of no-self in her books, but she never got much feedback about her experience that she trusted (to the best of my memory), and she seems to live in a world that is pretty hard to relate to. Average Christians certainly don't know what she's talking about, and the non-duality people are generally put off by her terminology. I often wonder if her need to interpret her experiences in strictly Christian terms and her unwillingness to see any valid similarities in non-Christian traditions hasn't had a rather one-off effect on her understanding. The last time I read one of her essays I felt like she must be writing about some sort of non-dual waste land--a T.S. Eliot-like world of obscurative symbology. In short, I didn;t detect much peace, joy, love, or equanimity, and I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to follow her into the world that she describes. I mention Roberts only because she was a loner who also had dramatic mystical experiences that she couldn't relate to the broader context of the non-duality spectrum. Of course, I haven't read much of her stuff lately, so I don;t where she's coming from these days. Hopefully its somewhere the sun is shining! I found this interesting because of all the spriritual teachers I read, David Scoma has a dark and scary tint to his whole experience and Bernadette Roberts and Catholicism were influences in his life. |
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