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Post by question on Mar 21, 2010 2:02:38 GMT -5
So then no teacher can help me, they don't exist as a person that could choose to help me or not and even if they did, they don't have any tools with which to help me. And I can't help myself, because I also don't exist. So then what helps is something that is not a person, but it's so weird when trying to turn to that. That something that is not even remotely specifiable is capable of helping intelligently... it's hard to accept that, hard to put faith in that. I don't think I could do that, since at this point in my development such surrender would be based on belief and not experiential, and I'm not a believer. If you could...why don't you just let go of everything right now? You are That...there is no other. You don't do it right now because you don't really want to. Who am I to go against what you really want? You are the That playing a frustrated seeker wanting enlightenment...but not really wanting to be enlightened right now or you would be. When I first read that, I thought "What nonsense, of course I want enlightenment." But later as I was trying to get some sleep but couldn't, this question came up again and I really couldn't answer it. I was gravitating more towards No than to Yes. Afterwards some rationalizations came a la "Well if I knew what enlightenment is I could answer with a yes easily and it's probably just the horror stories (ego demolition etc) that Eric mentioned that make me reconsider..." But honestly it's not the reason why I can't say yes. I don't know why I can't. That's a shocking realization, what to do with it? It's not like it's in my power to want it if I don't really really want to, right? And how to let go if I don't really want to? But if I don't let go... I can't live a "normal" life anymore, I'm content, but honestly I'm just doing my time. It's an absurd situation. |
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Post by amit on Mar 21, 2010 5:18:21 GMT -5
Thanks for your replies LM, Eric and Amit! I still don't fully understand how it can be that teachers are so powerless. Mine and the masters consciousness is supposedly the same, so what is it that makes him see the truth but prevents his understanding to be present where I am? Since we're the same consciousness, then why can't he just tune into me and do his thing? Not as a seperate person, but as oneness working with the refined tools of his bodymind? Some people went to Ramana and got a huge experience. Same people go to another certified master and this master is unable to give them anything. Both are oneness in action, both are enlightened, but the effect they have on people is so radically different. Does it have something to do with energy levels or something? Like if master2 were to meditate for 25 years non stop and acquire special powers, then he could do the same magic that Ramana did? From my reading it seems like seekers can get a lot of spiritual experiences from teachers. But what they can't get is the teachers making them do the final step. So apparently the teachers have tools in their bodymind's arsenal that can make people have spiritual experiences, but they don't have any tools in their bodymind that can make my bodymind get to enlightenment? Would that be a correct way if saying it? What is that thing in me is so inaccessible to them? In some versions the illusion of difference (duality) holds itself in perfect balance at all times. It is this automatic system that defines what apparently goes on. So if you appear different to what some regard as Masters it is simply how it must be for that balance to be maintained. It does all this by itself to itself. No separate you with something inaccessible involved whatsoever even though it may look and feel like there is. It will determine who looks like they are enlightened and who is not but of course One plays both and All so is beyond any need for or concept of enlightenment. No enlightened or unenlightened persons at all. -amit- |
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Post by zendancer on Mar 21, 2010 7:20:19 GMT -5
Thanks for your replies LM, Eric and Amit! I still don't fully understand how it can be that teachers are so powerless. Mine and the masters consciousness is supposedly the same, so what is it that makes him see the truth but prevents his understanding to be present where I am? Since we're the same consciousness, then why can't he just tune into me and do his thing? Not as a seperate person, but as oneness working with the refined tools of his bodymind? Some people went to Ramana and got a huge experience. Same people go to another certified master and this master is unable to give them anything. Both are oneness in action, both are enlightened, but the effect they have on people is so radically different. Does it have something to do with energy levels or something? Like if master2 were to meditate for 25 years non stop and acquire special powers, then he could do the same magic that Ramana did? From my reading it seems like seekers can get a lot of spiritual experiences from teachers. But what they can't get is the teachers making them do the final step. So apparently the teachers have tools in their bodymind's arsenal that can make people have spiritual experiences, but they don't have any tools in their bodymind that can make my bodymind get to enlightenment? Would that be a correct way if saying it? What is that thing in me is so inaccessible to them? Question: There are hundreds of stories wherein a teacher helped a student make the final leap, but the student had to be ripe. Remember the story about the student and master who were walking along when some geese flew overhead and then went out of view? The master asked his student, "Where did they go?" The student responded, "They've already flown away." The master grabbed the students nose in his fingers, violently twisted it, and said, "How could they possibly have flown away?" The student had a massive experience and finally got what he was looking for, but he had been meditating for many years prior to this event. Rinzai had been meditating for several years before Obaku and his head monk conspired to totally confound his understanding. It then only took a single sentence from the next Zen Master to bust him wide open. In short, the student's state of mind is as much a part of the equation as anything the teacher does or says. Remember, too, that very few people wake up all at once and get totally clear. It is much more common for people to have multiple insights and experiences from which they gain increasing levels of clarity. The Buddha, Ramana, and Nisargadatta were more the exception than the rule. Ultimately, how it happens in each case is a mystery, but this is how oneness has constructed the play. Also remember that many people don't start off with a teacher, and many people never have a teacher. A lot of people have spontaneous spiritual experiences "out of the blue," and then go off in search of a teacher in an effort to understand what happened to them and to learn how to proceed. BTW, your confusion and frustration is a very good sign. It looks like the tiger has its teeth into you pretty deeply. Should we offer condolences or congratulations? LOL |
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Post by eputkonen on Mar 21, 2010 10:12:31 GMT -5
No teacher can MAKE you enlightened...I would not go so far as to say no teacher can help you. What I say to people who come to me is “Who are you?...”What are you?” I like Ramana Maharshi’s method of self inquiry best...so ”who are you?” When I first read that, I thought "What nonsense, of course I want enlightenment." But later as I was trying to get some sleep but couldn't, this question came up again and I really couldn't answer it. I was gravitating more towards No than to Yes. Afterwards some rationalizations came a la "Well if I knew what enlightenment is I could answer with a yes easily and it's probably just the horror stories (ego demolition etc) that Eric mentioned that make me reconsider..." But honestly it's not the reason why I can't say yes. I don't know why I can't. That's a shocking realization, what to do with it? It's not like it's in my power to want it if I don't really really want to, right? And how to let go if I don't really want to? But if I don't let go... I can't live a "normal" life anymore, I'm content, but honestly I'm just doing my time. It's an absurd situation. Good...you have delved beneath the superficial surface. Yes, there were some shocking realizations...but there is nothing to do with it. As for letting go...let go of only as much as you are able to let go. The fictitious “I”...self image...ego...does not want to let go and can’t let go of everything. In the end, the mirage (this “I”) is just seen through. And in seeing through the mirage and understanding it is a mirage, there comes the understanding that mirages can not fundamentally hold onto anything. So again we come to self inquiry...who are you...what are you? Who are you really? This is the main question...and teachers give hints as seekers play with the question. That is the only help I can offer...say congratulations - that was a good realization. But who is it that can’t say yes to enlightenment? Who is it that really doesn’t want to let go? More importantly...who are you really...what are you? |
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Post by enigma on Mar 21, 2010 13:00:11 GMT -5
Question:"So then no teacher can help me, they don't exist as a person that could choose to help me or not and even if they did, they don't have any tools with which to help me. And I can't help "myself, because I also don't exist. So then what helps is something that is not a person, but it's so weird when trying to turn to that. That something that is not even remotely specifiable is capable of helping intelligently... it's hard to accept that, hard to put faith in that. I don't think I could do that, since at this point in my development such surrender would be based on belief and not experiential, and I'm not a believer."
Good. Being a 'question' is better than being a believer. Questioners are looking while believers think they see answers.
The universe unfolds with such immediate power and perfection that the notion that there is someone in need of help instantly becomes an experiential reality. It's true to say that the volitional person does not exist, and therefore false to say that fate or destiny is running the show. Truly, nothing and nobody is running the show, and while this isn't generally a source of comfort, it points to a greater truth in which no comfort is needed. This is the function of transcendence; to dissolve questions rather than answer them, to simply see that a mirage is a mirage and stop choking on sand.
As you are not a believer, lets take this approach: You know only that you exist. It's not a belief, but something in the heart that cannot be denied. Not the heart in your chest, but in the core of your being, not as a feeling but as an intuitive knowing that nothing in your experience can rob you of, since you must be here before any such thievery can take place.
You know that you exist, and you know nothing else. It's not that you haven't figured out the rest or haven't yet realized anything else, it's quite literally that there is nothing else to know. Have you noticed that everything we can say about Truth is an expansion on the realization of what is NOT so? And so nobody knows anything, and the wonder of it is that we can prattle on interminably about nothing. You are not a body or mind or person. You don't have free will or choice. You are not separated from anything. You were not born and cannot die. These are things that are not true, and there are no things that are true, and no need of them.
How can this be? Can it be so absurdly simple that there is nothing to know and nobody to know it? Can it be that all this suffering is happening because we have fallen into our own delicious and devious dream and have come to believe in our own fairy tales of glory and defeat? No help needed, nowhere to get to, nothing to become, no-one to turn to. You are already the maker of universes, but the deepest mystery is that you can take yourself to be one of your own creations, asking the creator for help to bring you out of your own self delusion. What sorcery is this that clips the wings of angels and makes fools of Gods?
As you expand your identity beyond the confines of your individuality, even if you do this in imagination, what do you find? The person is forever lost and remains only as a dream character, your dream character. Your existence becomes impersonal, which is not to say cold, heartless, uncaring or unfeeling, which is not to say feeling is real, only that it is a reflection of the nature of your Being, which is not only real but more solid than granite and more unshakable.
From this centerless center, this empty fullness, this spaceless space, this stillness out of which all movement arises, this eternity out of which time unfolds and imagination reels out the play of life, tell me what help you need, and who it is who can give it. Even God cannot make the unreal, real.
Absolute Freedom demands the power to imprison itself for a time, or it would not truly be Freedom, but it's also true that the door cannot be locked. You have yet to rattle the bars to see for yourself, and so the question begins to haunt your dreams; why do I not get up from my cot and check the door?
It's a good question because all the other questions must await an answer to that one.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 22, 2010 3:43:33 GMT -5
Enigma: Beautifully said! Welcome to the board.
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Post by enigma on Mar 22, 2010 10:16:04 GMT -5
Thanks, Zen. It's a pleasure to meet you.
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Post by question on Mar 25, 2010 18:44:37 GMT -5
Thank you for your help!
I think I understand the master-student connection better now. But what still eludes me is the self-enquiry thing "Who am I?" I'm having difficulty asking that question, because I understand intellectually that there is no "I" that deserves having such a title, so the question isn't taken seriously, it can't be asked, it immediately evaporates. What I can ask is "What is it wherin the thought I (and every other perception and experience) arises?" And I can't "ask" this one either because I know that what I am seeking is already 100% present here (well, at least in theory) and so instead of asking I just have to look. So the question is performed in the act of looking.
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Post by loverofall on Mar 25, 2010 19:31:10 GMT -5
Now that i can really relate too. For months I would go back and forth between who am I and I am. What worked better was to whom does this .... though come or .... feeling come.
When you think I, what images arise.
Think I and then pause.
What were you before you even thought I?
Feel that the I is a scam. When the realization hit there was laughter and laugher of how the I thought is the scam of all scams which it is. I still get caught up in it but it is easy to let go of it more and more.
Who are you if you don't think?
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Post by enigma on Mar 25, 2010 20:47:02 GMT -5
Thank you for your help! I think I understand the master-student connection better now. But what still eludes me is the self-enquiry thing "Who am I?" I'm having difficulty asking that question, because I understand intellectually that there is no "I" that deserves having such a title, so the question isn't taken seriously, it can't be asked, it immediately evaporates. The question only 'evaporates' conceptually, as in, if the concept is that I'm really a brontosaurus, the question of whether I'm a tyrannosaurus evaporates in that concept. 'Something' doesn't want the question asked for reasons that are likely obvious. There IS an 'I'. You have a sense of existing. You've also derived some conclusions about what that 'I' is, and most folks have never even looked to see what those assumptions are, much less questioned if they are valid or have any real foundation. Assuming they don't have a foundation is no better than assuming they do. Yes, looking is the way to go, but looking at what? Mind is needed to form a focus, because mind's beliefs are what are being challenged. What do you know to be true from your own actual experience? Lots of stuff falls away or falls into doubt when we sincerely ask this. We might say that doubt is the goal at this stage. What can you say for certain that you know? It turns out that the list is maddeningly short. |
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Post by question on Mar 25, 2010 22:01:05 GMT -5
Enigma: So you're saying that the 'ego' is more comfortable in intellectually admitting its non-existence, losing a small battle, than having the feeling of itself end and thus assuring its existence for a while longer? That means that actually 'ego' is a feeling that doesn't want to end? I'm having difficulty in finding an 'ego'-feeling.
Recently I was listening to birds sing and naturally every now and then a thought would pop up but the bird's songs were so beautiful that there was no interest in giving the thoughts any attention. And then it appeared like the bird's songs appeared in exactly the same 'space' as the thoughts. And the songs had almost the same 'texture', 'taste', as the thoughts. Thoughts felt like songs and vice versa, but there was still the assumption that 'birds sing' and 'I think', more like a felt assumption, because it was logically very clear that the songs and thoughts were totally in awareness and 'I' wasn't doing them. Is that the kind of ego-feeling that I think you're talking about?
When I'm looking, I'm looking at whatever there is, while trying to have concepts about what I'm looking at, stay out of the way, not paying attention to the concepts. This is done accompanied with the assumption that whatever is, is Being 100%.
When I do the cartesian meditation, all I'm certain of is that 'Being is'.
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Post by enigma on Mar 25, 2010 23:39:55 GMT -5
Question:
Enigma: So you're saying that the 'ego' is more comfortable in intellectually admitting its non-existence, losing a small battle, than having the feeling of itself end and thus assuring its existence for a while longer? That means that actually 'ego' is a feeling that doesn't want to end? I'm having difficulty in finding an 'ego'-feeling.
Ego is an idea about which there is some interest. It's not something that feels comfy or not, or seeks compromise to cut it's losses, nor is it a feeling. These are more thoughts being added to the thought structure. The question is simply, is there something real at it's foundation or not?
From within that thought structure, it's all singularly uninteresting. That's what I'm saying.
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Post by zendancer on Mar 26, 2010 8:54:13 GMT -5
Question: You wrote, "Recently I was listening to birds sing and naturally every now and then a thought would pop up but the bird's songs were so beautiful that there was no interest in giving the thoughts any attention. And then it appeared like the bird's songs appeared in exactly the same 'space' as the thoughts. And the songs had almost the same 'texture', 'taste', as the thoughts. Thoughts felt like songs and vice versa, but there was still the assumption that 'birds sing' and 'I think', more like a felt assumption, because it was logically very clear that the songs and thoughts were totally in awareness and 'I' wasn't doing them."
When it became clear that the songs and thoughts were totally in awareness and had nothing to do with "you," as a separate entity, then clarity was present. The more that you identify with awareness rather than a person to whom things are happening, the more clearly it will be seen what is going on. Awareness is who you are. Awareness is undisturbed by anything that happens. It does not change. It cannot be grasped. It does not need anything or want anything. It just is. Awareness hears the bird songs and awareness sees thoughts. The bird songs will lead you home whereas thoughts will lead you back into the labyrinth of mind.
Rather than saying to yourself "I think" substitute the phrase, "there is thinking," or "thinking is present," or "awareness is aware of thinking." If it is worded impersonally, it helps erode the idea that there is a person who is doing the thinking.
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Post by question on Mar 27, 2010 22:07:04 GMT -5
Ego is an idea about which there is some interest. It's not something that feels comfy or not, or seeks compromise to cut it's losses, nor is it a feeling. These are more thoughts being added to the thought structure. The question is simply, is there something real at it's foundation or not? If ego is just an idea, then it can't have a real foundation, it can't be a 'thing'. (Although maybe there is a neurological correlate to what we call ego? Similar to dark thoughts that are triggered by a depression, which itself is triggered by a messed up brain chemistry.) I'm having lots of ideas and assumptions and when I finally falsify one, it just vanishes without a trace. But if ego is also just an idea, and it's now well understood that it is incapable of doing anything, or existing independently, why is it still around? Actually, I'm not even sure that it's even around, it's just... something simply doesn't feel right. From within that thought structure, it's all singularly uninteresting. That's what I'm saying. Not sure what that means. Ego is incapable of reflecting upon or even 'undoing' itself? If I believe that the earth is flat, I'm going to do some calculations or fly to outer space take a better look and then the 'flat earth' idea is falsified and it vanishes. But the 'flat earth' idea isn't going to go away simply because someone says or even if I try to make myself believe that the earth is actually spherical. The truth has to be seen. Usually a cognitive understanding is sufficient experience required for a falsification of an idea, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be the case in the context of 'ego'? How come? I don't get it. It's known here that the ego is illusory (I haven't been to outer space, but I've done plenty of calculations), but there is still this itch that I can't scratch... |
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Post by question on Mar 27, 2010 22:17:46 GMT -5
When it became clear that the songs and thoughts were totally in awareness and had nothing to do with "you," as a separate entity, then clarity was present. The more that you identify with awareness rather than a person to whom things are happening, the more clearly it will be seen what is going on. Awareness is who you are. Awareness is undisturbed by anything that happens. It does not change. It cannot be grasped. It does not need anything or want anything. It just is. Awareness hears the bird songs and awareness sees thoughts. The bird songs will lead you home whereas thoughts will lead you back into the labyrinth of mind. Rather than saying to yourself "I think" substitute the phrase, "there is thinking," or "thinking is present," or "awareness is aware of thinking." If it is worded impersonally, it helps erode the idea that there is a person who is doing the thinking. Yes that's actually what awareness is trying to do here as often as possible.  |
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If you could...why don't you just let go of everything right now? You are That...there is no other.
