minutia

[robert]

when i began this path i was completely lost in wanting to know each and every detail. i searched every bookstore for every new technique especially if the word secret was in the title. in truth i just wanted it faster and i had no teacher so i had no ground in the learning traditions that i was pouring over. so i was forced to stop and ask myself what i wanted. do i want to know god? do i want to be a mystic or a healer? do i want to be a professor? or do i want to know a little about everything and have all of that knowledge be of NO practical use? what do i want? well i want to wake up in the dream and stay awake.
then i went back to the 3 original books that i started with i found the most basic practice that the teacher advocated, i stopped going to bookstores and i practiced i used a technique that can be used at any time.
i think that sometimes we allow ourselves to look too large.
r.

[Myself]

Good one, Robert!
When you have time, maybe you can tell us about the technique you're using.

[karen]

When I was 10 y/o or so while watching a Doug Henning TV special, it occurred to me - that perhaps if I were to look into the stream of my own awareness something important would happen.

"Nah!!"

It would be 30 years later before I would actually take this practice up in earnest.

[robert]

karen, for me the most effective technique was the simplest, and as most people on this site have confirmed, they hate it and don't believe it. so each person has to find one that suites their temperment. i used the I AM, because i could keep it in the back of my mind through out the day. the second was standing. just standing in the wu chi position. nothing more. i have come farther in the last year than i had in 15 years. i learned to take some things on trust from my reading. i began to see life an an illusion, but not needing a degree in physics to do so. and i was taught by this forum by one of our teachers to realize that even those aspects of being, in this place, that i vehemently disagree with are still part of THAT. so i have unplugged the emotional charge, and freed a considerable amount of energy.
robert

[unveilable]

I am an I am hater myself. I just dont get it unless its the same as I am that? I was speaking to a friend recently about this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sOw3mCz4Oc

It seems to me that on some level I am both the food and the consumer. That relationship between the squirrel and the crow is me. Is that the I am that thing that never made sense to me?

Anyhoo, Ive been experimenting with a technique mentioned by Tolle of feeling the inner body and its been amazingly helpful. Ive even had a couple intense experiences as far as those go.

[robert]

it really took me a long time to begin to use the I AM, as it is prescribed by nisargadatta in the book Consciousness and the Absolute, i had read I AM THAT and i thought to myself that there was no way that that could work for me. i couldn't see it. it was just too simple. then i promptly purchased every complex, obscure, and lengthy meditation book that i could find wasting much more than money in the process. finally in a fit of sheer exasperation i said to myself that there is no way that this has to be this complex and hard. what is the simplest meditation technique that i have learned and the I AM was there. belief has nothing to do with it i started by just repeating the words to myself when ever i would think of it throughout the day.
i have never regretted it.
robert

[zendancer]

I started off with breath-counting, and then proceeded to following the breath, feeling the breath, looking at the world, listening, koan meditation, focusing on a candle flame, looking at specific objects, watching the body, contemplating the body's functionality, feeling the body, being the body, chanting, mantras, self-inquiry, watching thoughts, listening to universal sound, being aware of awareness, and lots of other practices.

These days I would not call what the body/mind does "a practice." I simply find myself silently looking and listening (both to universal sound and "external" sounds) during much of my free time. I assume that this sort of abiding in pure awareness is what Nisargadatta called "staying in the 'I am.'"

The other day I did some breath-counting and breath awareness for the first time in several years, sort of out-of-the-blue, which goes to show that you can never predict what the body/mind will do next. LOL

Lately I've been in the mood to find a motel room balcony overhanging a small river where I can sit for a few days in silence and listen to the sounds of the water. Tomorrow my wife and I will drive to Gatlinburg and look at three or four places I've seen on the internet that look interesting. We want an isolated place that is off the beaten track and away from any traffic. One of our favorite retreat locations in the past was a home with a meditation deck overlooking a river near Dalonega, GA, and we thought it would be fun to find a similar place closer to where we live.

[unveilable]

Is the I am an aid to to free up some energy that would have normally been spent enslaved in thought? Is self inquiry also another approach with the same outcome? Are all these things hacks to get you out of the draining experience of thought hypnosis so that you have the energy and resources to see what really is?

[robert]

yes, for me the process did free up energy, but there was also the fact that i was committed to actually doing it. for most people that i know the problem is that they will not actually DO IT. but i can tell you now that if you wonder constantly how or why it may possibly work then what you are going to do is what i did. you are going to talk yourself right out of it. but often the path to the correct technique is a path of negation.

[zendancer]

Unveilable: I don;t think many people on this forum do these practices in order to increase their energy. They're primarily doing them in an effort to wake up and penetrate the illusions that are part of the usual consensus trance. Increased energy is sometimes a side effect because many of these practices reduce stress and have a calming effect. Most folks don't realize it, but thinking and talking consumes a lot of energy. Chess masters, for example, frequently lose five to ten pounds during a tournament, and they're not doing anything physical.

These practices can also have the opposite effect, and make a person feel like they're having to drag the body around like a dead weight. This is because the practices sometimes affect the way energy (chi) circulates through the body.

People who go on silent multi-day meditation retreats often experience both extremes in energy levels. One woman I know didn't sleep for eight days because she became almost manic with energy, and another man claimed that he stayed in an exhausted condition throughout the entire retreat. Each individual will be affected differently, and sometimes the effects will oscillate from day to day.

[unveilable]

Thanks robert and ZD.

Ive tried most of the techniques mentioned in this thread and Im just continually surprised at how some resonate with one person and not another. What strikes me and at what time is completely out of my control.

Maybe energy was a poor choice in words. I was just thinking that all these techniques are really various ways to get us unhooked from thought and that maybe the 'problem' with believing thought is that we expend too much energy on them rather than on the truth.

But then none of this really matters because its all just a bunch of thoughting and concepting yes?

[robert]

find what works for you.
good luck.
robert

[unveilable]

Thank you Robert. I sat with this last night and saw a glimpse of how much Im resisting self-inquiry.

[ethereal]

If you're interested in self-enquiry, please take a look at the Nisargadatta Gita which is a book of quotes from Nisargadatta Maharaj and commentary from a follower, that is focused exclusively on the "I am" and how to practice.

[unveilable]

Hi Etheral,

Will give it a try.

cheers