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Post by klaus on Jul 15, 2010 19:27:43 GMT -5
How many of those on the forum have directly experienced "I" as an illusion or is it just a belief you have that "I" is an illusion?
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Post by karen on Jul 15, 2010 20:06:49 GMT -5
I have not noticed that the I is an illusion. I don't seem to be able to find anything there, and yet I still seem to be distinct and separate.
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Post by unveilable on Jul 15, 2010 20:48:26 GMT -5
I dont understand what and where the I is but there sure are a few me's. I must need to look harder! I sometimes notice a 'not me' that more resembles a state than a thing. That not me does not have any great distinction in location though I sometimes imagine it to be behind my closed eyelids looking at the inside of my head.
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Post by klaus on Jul 15, 2010 21:05:58 GMT -5
I have not noticed that the I is an illusion. I don't seem to be able to find anything there, and yet I still seem to be distinct and separate. Karen, That is my experience too. No matter how many "trancendent" experiences I have there still seems to be a distinction and separateness. unveilable, Keep looking. LOL
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Post by charliegee on Jul 15, 2010 21:51:21 GMT -5
I don't know ...
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Post by loverofall on Jul 15, 2010 21:58:49 GMT -5
I can see the reference disappear and with that feelings of separateness drop away. As the reference point arises separateness returns.
The more I see how this personality is nothing but the genetics passed on and the interaction with its environment help. Everything affects everything. Take away Hitler and his affect on the world and I doubt we would be here. Thats just one out of billions, trillions etc events that had to happen for this body mind to type this email. It feels very connected at times when it sees how its just a part of its environment which is the universe.
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Post by robert on Jul 15, 2010 22:10:18 GMT -5
i used the I until i had it firmly established in my everyday awareness. then it became a stepping stone or a marker for looking/listening to the space where the I originated. that silent beyond that is fullness itself. r.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 15, 2010 23:04:23 GMT -5
Between 1984 and 1999 I had many direct experiences (kensho, samadhi, and other types of unity-consciousness experiences) during which all separateness disappeared, but after each experience I returned to a "me in here" looking at "a world out there." In 1999 I realized directly, though not through any kind of experience, that who I had always thought I was and felt myself to be did not exist and had never existed--that there was no personal entity separate from the whole of reality. I/IT simply looked and saw that selfhood had been nothing more than a deeply ingrained idea, and the idea was seen for what it was--an idea, only. This realization has never changed.
The sense of self identity still sometimes arises in a vague sort of way, but it is seen, recognized, and smiled at, like an old friendly ghost that occasionally swirls into view and then dissolves into emptiness again. This may all change tomorrow, LOL, but this is how it's been for the last eleven years. My name refers to a cartoonish and somewhat humorous collection of stories associated with a particular body/mind--a ragtag assemblage of thoughts, feelings, and memories that hovers like a thin cloud, but sometimes coalesces into something slightly more solid. I know what I am, but at the same time I don't know. I do not identify with the All, nor do I identify with pure awareness in the way that Nisargadatta apparently did. I identify, if it can be called that, as both a particular body/mind with various inclinations, habits, skills, etc. and simultaneously as something utterly unknown and unknowable. Who I am is really quite a mess! LOL
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Post by enigma on Jul 16, 2010 1:18:11 GMT -5
I have not noticed that the I is an illusion. I don't seem to be able to find anything there, and yet I still seem to be distinct and separate. Karen, That is my experience too. No matter how many "trancendent" experiences I have there still seems to be a distinction and separateness. unveilable, Keep looking. LOL I think it's useful to notice how generally ineffective these transcendent experiences are, which Zen talks about too. They don't really change anything because they're basically mind states; a 'me' having an experience of 'no-me', or whatever, which ends as all experiences do. Instead, realization is not an experience at all. It leaves no tracks in the mind to be recalled as an experience. If there's something in the mind about it, it's a story ABOUT it. If it's talked about, it must be looked at again, Now, since it doesn't reside in memory. A distinction and separateness is not actually what 'seems to be'. These are conclusions derived from a sense of existence together with the nature of perceiving. What seems to be is a sense of presence. Nothing else actually seems to be.
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Post by runstill on Jul 16, 2010 3:32:02 GMT -5
I don't remember how I found this place but it was a day or two after I experienced perceiving with out separation. Words can't convey what it was like. I will try anyways because I want to keep the memory strong and it may not happen again.
I didn't even know what non duality was until I joined this discussion board. There is lot of information here, I've learned a lot and I'm still learning.
Well what caused me to search for an explanation wasn't so much the experience itself. It was a realization after I came back to my (normal) state that I didn't exist and never did. This wasn't so much a thought as it was a knowing feeling sort of thing that became a thought that's why I call it a realization.It caused me to feel eerie and frighten at the same time. There was such a strong reaction in me that I had the thought I don't ever want the experience again.
What a wuss I am. Now I'm consumed wanting and trying to have the experience.
Some words that convey this state some-what are deep peace, absolutely no fear of any kind. I was looking at a vista when it happened so there was great space but I didn't feel like I was in this spot looking at something.It was one whole thingness. see-er and seen at the same time,there was no separate me between perceiving and perception. I understand why there was no fear because I was not there.
There were no thoughts but I was richly conscious. I think I was a baby god lol.
The knowledge learned here help me put the experience to words and gives my duality conscious hope even though it thinks it may be an illusion its starting to accept the idea.
It seems to me reality is one big paradox or at least that is how I experienced it.
My response to Klaus would be when you experience reality directly "I" the illusion isn't there it cant be, it really doesn't exist.Only when your back in illusion can you know that "I" is an illusion.Anyway that is what I experienced.
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Post by zendancer on Jul 16, 2010 8:20:58 GMT -5
Runstill: When an experience of unity-consciousness occurs, it is so extraordinary compared to everyday experience that after it ends we seek to have it again. However, it is a distinct experience. It has a beginning and an end. Virtually everyone who has such an experience wants to have it back because, as you stated, there is deep peace and absolutely no fear (there may also be incredible euphoria, bliss, joy, and siddhis). In that state one needs nothing and wants nothing, but no matter how deep or how long the experience lasts, it is still an experience that will come to an end. Even Ramana finally came out of his seven-year samadhi. At the least, such experiences show us that the nature of the universe is not what we thought it was.
Realization is not an experience because it has no duration. It is a kind of insight, and, as Enigma said, it does not reside in memory. It is as if you were looking at a mirage and the mirage was seen for what it was. This is the reason that non duality teachers emphasize presence so much. If we are waiting and hoping for an experience of unity-consciousness, we overlook the unity-consciousness that is already here. The mind, of course, finds everyday life boring compared to peak experiences of non-separation, so mind looks to the future hoping to get back to a unity-consciousness state when "I" will disappear. But the "I" isn't here now, except in imagination. If we stop, become silent, and look around NOW, there is no separation anywhere. There is nothing to wait for; all that is required is to notice what is already and always here.
Someone will read these words, take a look around, and then think, "I don't see anything unusual, so what's so great about this?" My advice would be to stop comparing what IS seen with some idea of what SHOULD be seen and relax. Just keep looking. Stay present.
I was recently reading about Plotinus, a mystic who lived about 200AD. Plotinus had lots of cosmic-consciousness experiences, and he wrote about them eloquently. He developed a theory about what caused them and tried to duplicate the situation that seemed to precede them. We might translate his ideas into the modern world by saying, "Turn down the lights, put some ethereal music on the hi fi, relax, get comfortable, and think some sublime thoughts. Then, if we get lucky, God will grant us entry into her world." I don't think Plotinus ever realized that his ordinary everyday life was one-with his rare peak experiences of cosmic consciousness. He obviously needed to focus a bit more on what he considered the mundane. The mundane is not nearly as mundane as the mind imagines! LOL
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lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
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Post by lobo on Jul 16, 2010 9:12:22 GMT -5
If we stop, become silent, and look around NOW, there is no separation anywhere. There is nothing to wait for; all that is required is to notice what is already and always here. Someone will read these words, take a look around, and then think, "I don't see anything unusual, so what's so great about this?" My advice would be to stop comparing what IS seen with some idea of what SHOULD be seen and relax. Just keep looking. Stay present. Right on brother ;D This is of course the natural state but the attention frequently gets pulled into the next compelling distraction, speaking for myself.
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Post by loverofall on Jul 16, 2010 9:44:25 GMT -5
If we stop, become silent, and look around NOW, there is no separation anywhere. There is nothing to wait for; all that is required is to notice what is already and always here. Someone will read these words, take a look around, and then think, "I don't see anything unusual, so what's so great about this?" My advice would be to stop comparing what IS seen with some idea of what SHOULD be seen and relax. Just keep looking. Stay present. Right on brother ;D This is of course the natural state but the attention frequently gets pulled into the next compelling distraction, speaking for myself. And its not really what we see but what we feel that drives the distraction.
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lobo
Full Member
Posts: 193
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Post by lobo on Jul 16, 2010 10:00:02 GMT -5
How many of those on the forum have directly experienced "I" as an illusion or is it just a belief you have that "I" is an illusion? Klaus, that question is not so simple as it seems at first. It is loaded with assumptions. You have received interpretations of experiences, and I was about to add one, but these more fundamental questions come up for me. Your use if capital I. Does that have some specific meaning, like some use i and I with different meanings? At this point I am assuming not. First, are you asking if one can tell the difference between direct experience and thinking about experience? Can you experience a thought? how about a dream? If you experience a thing as an illusion, does that mean the sense perception has been misinterpreted? Do you include a misinterpreted thought as an illusion, which therefore can be experienced?
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Post by enigma on Jul 16, 2010 15:34:28 GMT -5
That was an excellent description, Zen. While reading about runstill's experience, I'm thinkin how amazing it is that mind identification is re-engaged again, and yet this is almost always the case. And when it is, and the experience is lost, and there's the deep desire to experience it again, why doesn't it happen?
The fact that mind reaches for the experience at all is what ends it. We now have an experience that is possessed by an experiencer, and the 'me' that was clearly absent suddenly reappears in the form of the supposed experiencer, and to the extent that this imagined experiencer wants to repeat the experience of 'no-me' it must fail, which is why very often such experiences are not repeated. The harder the 'person' tries to experience 'no-person', the less likely it will be experienced.
So one is not returning to mind in order to find a way to repeat the experience and somehow make it permanent but to resolve the interest in being the experiencer. After all, during the 'experience' there was no experiencer, which is the whole point. "No fear, space, wholeness, Peace" etc was apparent only because of what was NOT apparent; the experiencer.
Through mind, there's a bit of difficulty with this, since mind is the imagined experiencer of everything. Mind believes that without an experiencer, there can be nothing of interest, and yet it happened without a 'me' to experience it, so how could this be so? Runstill says "see-er and seen at the same time,there was no separate me between perceiving and perception. I understand why there was no fear because I was not there." Even after understanding this, the desire still arises in the 'me' to be there for the experience of it, and yet it simply cannot. What is aware of all this space and Peace if there was nobody there? Clearly, whatever was aware of it is not the same thing that is trying to repeat an experience of it. Is it not the 'space' that was aware of the space? Did that space go away? Does it need to be found again?
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