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Post by question on Apr 17, 2010 19:21:39 GMT -5
Thank you all for your replies!
I understand how the progress of the relative/outer 'person' can be charted and that the highest point in this chart is one where the person and the dualities it creates are no more. My question refers to what lies beyond this point.
If one is without ego, then firstly it's just that, life undisturbed by the ego. All that happened is that artificially produced dualities are now gone. To the one for whom these dualities are now gone, this state must seem like the absolute peak, but on what grounds can one then proclaim to have reached the absolute truth and disqualify those, who claim to have went beyond that, to be still stuck within ego other than that of the self-evidence of this truth?
Let me put it like this: There is a question. Some people claim to have lost the question and declare that to be the answer. Some other people claim to have lost the question and then to have found an answer much different from the answer of simply having lost the question.
Now obviously I have no idea what it's like to be without ego. What I wrote is simply how the 'nonduality vs step-by-step cosmologies' question presents itself to me. It's not fully answered yet. I suspect that your answer will be something along the lines of: "See for yourself, when you have the 'experience' there will be no more such questions, Truth will be self-evident." But what am I supposed to do with such an answer?
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Post by question on Apr 18, 2010 7:31:51 GMT -5
I just reread my question and it sounds somewhat ambiguous. I don't mean to downplay the nondual experience in any way.
Let me clarify my question some more: For many people nonduality is the endpoint. Then they make charts of personal evolution and this chart ends at the realisation of nonduallity.
For some few others the nondual realisation is merely a starting point. Then they claim to have went far beyond that and make charts of that. People for whom the nondual realisation is the endpoint probably won't understand these claims and explain such claims as the products of an inflated ego.
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Post by zendancer on Apr 18, 2010 14:54:19 GMT -5
Excellent posts, Zendancer. How would you describe that which perceives through the body (or through the mind)? Porto: It can't be described.
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Post by Portto on Apr 19, 2010 7:48:50 GMT -5
How would you describe that which perceives through the body (or through the mind)? Porto: It can't be described. Then, it's a mischievous "little thing."
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Post by Portto on Apr 19, 2010 8:58:43 GMT -5
OK. I was mean. I apologize to it.
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Post by philemon on Apr 19, 2010 13:44:40 GMT -5
Dear question
I live with the same question as you !!!
From where I stand today with my level of experience and " understanding" of the TRUTH I have following coments: you can be enligted without the ability to see and understand with your thinking what you percieve. Some enligtned people experiences that they are enligthned but they are realy caught up in there own self. Problem we always have understanding the spirit world is - that the concepts we have for "normal" world dont apply for the soul world or the spirit world. I give you a example Christ is for many people only a highly devolped man but Christ can not be truly understod without the knowledge of a higher world. Jesus was a human being but Christ was a spirit there for the first time incarnede in a human body. Christ was the first with heart thinking and because of his deed in Golgata - We as human being have the posibility to experience him in the Ether world. Some of the Enligthed people on this site here probaly have meet Christ in that element. So my answer to you is realy that you have nonduality and cosmosology is "stories" from the same REAL world but decriebtions depends of the level of the being when he enter the REAL world. This is very normal if you look on the old shaman there was always some one who have a higher level My appologies to everyone for my english. With love to all
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Post by Portto on Apr 19, 2010 19:30:32 GMT -5
Porto: It can't be described. You are right, Zendancer. Thank you for your reply.
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Post by enigma on Apr 19, 2010 23:39:28 GMT -5
I just reread my question and it sounds somewhat ambiguous. I don't mean to downplay the nondual experience in any way. Let me clarify my question some more: For many people nonduality is the endpoint. Then they make charts of personal evolution and this chart ends at the realisation of nonduallity. For some few others the nondual realisation is merely a starting point. Then they claim to have went far beyond that and make charts of that. People for whom the nondual realisation is the endpoint probably won't understand these claims and explain such claims as the products of an inflated ego. On another forum right now, some folks have latched onto the term "the oneness", as though oneness were a being that exists and can be concerned and 'perceives through humans' and such. I no longer try to refute the reality of this notion, but the point is that there are concepts that point to the reality of what is the case, here and now, and they are necessarily abstract and cannot be objectified. In the same way that oneness is not a critter of some sort, nonduality is not a goal of some sort, they simply are the case, here and now. While such things can be realized, such realization denies the reality of the one who seemingly travels a path to 'get there'. As such, personal evolution would be a myth of epic proportions, and the notion 'something' going beyond nonduality is the hastily produced B-movie sequel to that. (What part of non-dual oneness would be going beyond non-dual oneness?)
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Post by zendancer on Apr 20, 2010 8:18:00 GMT -5
Wonderfully and hilariously stated! Yes, going beyond non-duality would be a truly stupendous feat! (giggle, gasp, wheeze, sigh)
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Post by lightmystic on Apr 20, 2010 13:26:23 GMT -5
Well, I seem to be a bit late to the party here. Obviously the clearest answer is that nonduality is a concept that is trying to refer to something more fundamental than any system, and so getting caught up in systems just gets in the way from our being able to do actual work that moves forward, and from us actually looking at our experience directly without being able to have the safety of "boxing it" in some way. I just want to say, mischeviously, that, in my experience, there are very specific structures to the illusion of relative Creation, and the "stages" (i.e. the degrees of sinking in) of how the direct visceral knowledge of nonduality sinks in more and more and more. But those, of course would be a distraction. That doesn't mean they don't exist though. Hey guys, I have a fundamental question about nonduality. Many spiritual teachers developed metaphysical systems of stages of existence. Such systems can represent stages of evolutionary, cosmological, cultural, and most importantly spiritual development. I'm having trouble reconciling nonduality with these systems. Ken Wilber talks of ten stages: various levels within the prepersonal, personal, and then the transpersonal consist of the psychic, subtle and causal. Sri Aurobindo also has a complex cosmology that starts at the physical level and reaches up to the logical mind, then the higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind/overmind and finally to Satchitananda/Supermind/Godhead. These are the two examples of such step-by-step comsmologies that I'm most familiar with, but there are many more out there. Jean Gebser, Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy, Kaballah, Neoplatonism etc. My question is two-part: 1) Where exactly is nondual realisation located in such systems? 2) Did you go through these stages yourself? Is it necessary or even unavoidable to go through the whole thing?
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Post by enigma on Apr 21, 2010 0:58:19 GMT -5
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Post by lightmystic on Apr 22, 2010 10:14:04 GMT -5
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Post by question on Apr 22, 2010 19:52:21 GMT -5
Ok so I guess the summary for me would be that you think that the 'step-by-step' and 'beyond nonduality' metaphysicians are still caught up in dualism and you seem to be categorically discarding any possibility of being wrong. I'm not judging it, I just wanted to be clear on this one thing. I just want to say, mischeviously, that, in my experience, there are very specific structures to the illusion of relative Creation, and the "stages" (i.e. the degrees of sinking in) of how the direct visceral knowledge of nonduality sinks in more and more and more. But those, of course would be a distraction. That doesn't mean they don't exist though. Too bad that it's a distraction, because I'm a lot better at doing a job that has a specific goal rather than doing things for their own sake. It's very satisfying for me to know what I have to do, how and when, what the goal is and where exactly I stand in the process. You know, like I look at the chart and it says I'm at 73%, alright!, only 27% to go, I can do it, let's go! Compared to that, nonduality is a nightmare. Being left completely in the dark, not having a clue... it's appalling, what does it take to not refuse this process?
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Post by enigma on Apr 23, 2010 1:56:51 GMT -5
If it is recognized that you are not trying to become something, but rather to realize what you already are, it becomes clear that no movement could ever take you either closer to, or farther away from your goal.
If you were to fall into the delusion that you are the tree in your back yard, how many steps would the tree require to arrive at the realization that you are not a tree? The entire process would be delusional and nothing at all could be accomplished to bring the tree closer to it's humanness since the identification with treeness is, itself, delusional. What ultimately would occur is that the identification with the tree would be abandoned all together, along with all of it's apparent progress toward the realization of humanness. It will then be noticed that whatever process took place was, itself, a diversion from that realization.
The purpose of the spiritual search is to end the search, not to find something. What is sought is that which is seeking. The goal is the realization of the futility of the search.
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Post by Peter on Apr 23, 2010 4:01:20 GMT -5
If it is recognized that you are not trying to become something, but rather to realize what you already are, it becomes clear that no movement could ever take you either closer to, or farther away from your goal. And yet it would seem to be self evident that that realization is not going to occur if one were to spend 10 hours a day in front of a TV, drinking beer and playing computer games (which at least in my case I find to be "effortless action"). So it seems to me that at least some personal effort in a particular direction is required. Would you agree? Cheers, Peter
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