Just
because your mind is a constant companion, does not mean it is you. By “you”, I mean your fundamental state. The mind is added on. How many times have you caught yourself doing
things and there was nothing on your mind?
No thoughts, images, or feelings?
Remember, mind is witnessed by you, or can be when you make an effort to watch
the mind. Is the witness merely a split
off part of the mind as Jiddhu Krishnamurti claims, or is it an entirely
different functioning within Consciousness, or is it beyond Consciousness
altogether as claimed by Nisargadatta and Immanuel Kant?
Here
is a question to ponder: Who is the
seeker looking for the Self? Is it the
Witness itself, the subject, the Self, trying to understand its own existential
nature? Or, is it the mind who has read
many spiritual texts that say you must try to understand or discover who you
are? Is it only a big trick foisted upon
us by mischievous gurus? That is, is the whole self-realization by self-inquiry
trip just a joke?
Or,
is the mind first made aware by these teachers, that you do not know who you
are? You have been too busy with the
world to ever turn that intelligence inwards to find out who and what you were?
All
of self-inquiry is aimed precisely at self-discovery, discovering the
subjective aspects of Self that one grasps after your attention is turned
inwards. Self-inquiry is JUST about
turning inwards, turning your attention into your inner world instead of the
external world, because eventually you will find that the entirety of the
external world is just a projection of your internal world and your ideas about
the external world.
You
will eventually discover first hand, not as an idea offered by some guru in a
book, that the world you perceive “out there” is really created by internal, “in-here”
processes you never were aware of before.
What a discovery! The world you
perceive, the world you see, hear, taste and touch, is totally created in your
subjectivity! You are, so to speak, King
of your world, not merely a pawn. Change
your subjectivity and you change the world you live in.
This
is easier said than done, but when you know this key, you no longer feel small,
finite, easily killed, injured, or otherwise destroyed.
I
am not saying an external world does not exist.
I am saying that the external world that you live in, is an illusion and
has nothing to do with the external world you have never really seen because of
your ignorance of the “real,” or noumenal external world.
The
world you live in is a co-creation of the real world and the world you lay on
top of it with your senses, based on a lifetime of being taught about what the
world is like by parents and schooling.
Have
you ever taken a class at any level of school that questions what the external
world is really like?
Maybe
if you studied ontology and epistemology in college in a philosophy course, but
even then, was more than a month of reading of idealist-leaning philosophers
ever explored?
Physics
classes turn the “real” world into a conceptual world of emptiness, atoms, electrons,
sub-atomic particles, quantum phenomena, and invisible curved space. None of this is observed through the
senses. It is speculation back by
repeatable experiments which conjecturally “prove” the existence of invisible
phenomena based on inference. The world
of science is not directly observable.
Now
we cannot directly perceive matter as it is in itself, nor the world of
science. We only know our perceptions
and the concepts that help create the world we see.
One
method of self-inquiry, and a very difficult and slow path, is to “deconstruct”
all the ideas we have about ourselves as humans, as sentient beings, and as the
Self and Witness. As long as we have
ideas about any of this subject matter we cannot know the subject matter as
directly as possible.
A
new path that we have created in the sense that we use phenomena that others have
long observed and used to change the world, can also be used to discover who
and what the self is, and that is to direct the student of Self to explore
various “levels of consciousness” within the complex matrix of Consciousness
that is “us” and BEYOND “us.”
We direct such to explore their Subtle Body phenomena, which are all of the
conscious and unconscious phenomena associated with being a sentient being,
such as: feeling the body from inside, feeling the energetic body or sense of
presence, feeling various kinds of energies, intensities and flow patterns, perceiving
the inner emptiness or voids and what they are like, emotions, images,
thoughts, and most importantly, the feeling of self, of I-Am.
This
complex exploration can take many years, or a very short time depending on you,
depending on your spiritual maturity, your preciseness of focus and how
awakened your spiritual intelligence is.
However,
I direct students to explore this Subtle Body with LOVE, because love has an
enormous power to focus all one’s energies on the object of love and the
experience of love itself. When one can
love someone or something intensely, arousing extremely intense love, one’s
total beingness becomes like a laser, self-absorbed by the object, then the
love itself in merger, and then the discovery that you are love itself. That is your one and only property---for a
time, that will allow you to go “deeper” into more esoteric and subtle “layers”
of your own awareness.
All
of this is covered in great detail in Siddharameshwar’s book, “Masters of
Self-Realization” available on Amazon.
Really, you only need to read the 85 or so page introduction several
times to understand better my approach.
Not that I follow his approach that closely, but he presents a model I
use to take people to Self-Realization through love, by practicing self-inquiry
with a loving, accepting, open, and wondering attitude towards Self, which because
of the laser-like ability of love to focus attention, speeds the whole
Self-Realization process.
Also, Siddharameshwar does not emphasize love of another as much as I do as an aid to self-realization, whether it is love of God as an idea or experience, love of guru, or love on another. Love of an “outer” other is a very natural path in itself, Bhakti Yoga, but it can seamlessly be used alongside self-inquiry to discover who you are.
AMAZING DISCUSSION REGARDING THIS POST ON FACEBOOK BELOW. It explicates various positions more clearly:
Also, Siddharameshwar does not emphasize love of another as much as I do as an aid to self-realization, whether it is love of God as an idea or experience, love of guru, or love on another. Love of an “outer” other is a very natural path in itself, Bhakti Yoga, but it can seamlessly be used alongside self-inquiry to discover who you are.
AMAZING DISCUSSION REGARDING THIS POST ON FACEBOOK BELOW. It explicates various positions more clearly:
·
Susan De Muynck and
when that LOVE of another is rejected, then there is the chance to truly
dissolve...when the "love " cracks, there is melting, there is just
the unknown and heart breaking gratitude to LIFE. and yet that melting and
dissolving is ALIVE.......as the breath , breathes......there is endless
falling......
2 hours ago · Like · 1
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Ed Muzika And
when it is accepted and returned, one can experience such ecstasies and enter
the Fourth State effortlessly.
2 hours ago · Like · 3
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Jackson Peterson If
we discover the empty nature of thoughts, we have discovered the empty nature
of mind. When we discover the emptiness of the mind we discover our true nature
was itself the empty nature of the mind, not a "witness" of it. The
energetic and formative creativity of pure Awareness is itself the mind,
not an outside influence. By discovering the empty nature of our thoughts as
mind, we discover our true nature to be the empty nature of the mind itself.
This message is approved by Nagarjuna...
2 hours ago via mobile · Like · 2
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Susan De Muynck as
long as it is DIRECT experience YES..:)>
2 hours ago · Like · 1
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Ed Muzika But
not by me. Emptiness is a quality of beingness, of Consciousness, it is an
object, nothing more, the container of the manifest world, both
"external" and "internal." What you are has two aspects:
the manifest and the unmanifest. Nisargadatta and Siddharameshwar point to the
unmanifest noumenal witness as our true nature, and it has nothing to do with
the emptiness of the manifest world and inner world we experience.
The neo-Advaitins and you apparently think emptiness is your true nature. Actually, you are much LESS than that on one hand, and much MORE than that on the other, the experiential hand.
I cannot disagree with you more Jackson.
The neo-Advaitins and you apparently think emptiness is your true nature. Actually, you are much LESS than that on one hand, and much MORE than that on the other, the experiential hand.
I cannot disagree with you more Jackson.
2 hours ago · Like · 2
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Jackson Peterson Also
"no one" enters the Fourth State. The ideas and energetic contraction
called "me" is a bundle of concepts only. When that bundle of
"me" thoughts are seen to be empty of an inherent self-entity, there
is no one left to enter any state. What remains is exquisitely indescribable.
2 hours ago via mobile · Like
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Susan De Muynck Is
this your experience Jackson?
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Ed Muzika Of
course no one enters the fourth state; that is a metaphor. The fourth state is
revealed is another metaphor. And to say it is indescribable is not true. One
can use words, but they are still metaphors, such as used by Ramana and
Nisargadatta, Satchitananda, existence, knowledge and bliss, which are
characteristics of this stateless state, but the subjective experience itself,
like describing the experience of the color "yellow," is not
communicable except between two who have shared that experience.
2 hours ago · Like · 1
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Ed Muzika Susan,
what can you make of someone who claims to experience an experience that cannot
be described?
2 hours ago · Like · 1
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Jackson Peterson Emptiness
is the insubstantial nature of Being. Emptiness is the transparent and
impermanent nature of thoughts and mental events. However the empty nature of
Being is luminous Clear Light knowingness. Manifestation is the radiance of
that empty Nature. Self Nature is empty of all affliction and substance but not
empty of its divine attributes. Perhaps the Buddhist model is a bit more
precise and accurate as it is free of all reifications of a cosmic Self. The
ego loves the notion of becoming a Super Self. That's the flaw in Vedanta and
Advaita in general.
2 hours ago via mobile · Like
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Jackson Peterson Susan,
there is "no one" that "has" this experience. It's simply
the ground of Being flashing on Itself.
2 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1
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Susan De Muynck ED,
it is a "sense".a "feeling"..........and Jackson " Do
you KNOW this for SURE"????
·
Jackson Peterson Ed,
there is no "subjective" experience in the Absolute knowingness. If
there is then it was not Absolute it was some lesser ego state. If you can
remember the state clearly then it wasn't "super-consciousness" or
Absolute. However one can write down the flash while its happening and
read it later and be startled by the beauty of what was written. It's the only
way to really know what happens when the mind is completely absent.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
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Susan De Muynck I
HAVE no idea, and yet there is a softness to this "not knowing",
soooo much laughter, and endless gratitude to the endless unfloding.
about an hour ago · Like · 1
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Jackson Peterson Susan,
have you read my book? I document this and offer a means for others to
experiment and find this out as well. The certainty in that moment is
invincible clarity.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
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Ed Muzika Jackson,
I never, ever said you can experience the Absolute. The absolute is entirely
beyond experience. One can only be the Absolute.
about an hour ago · Like · 3
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Susan De Muynck Jackson,
I have not read your book...
·
Ed Muzika It
is poor taste to advertise your book on someone else's thread, especially I was
trying to explain my own points which are completely different and opposed to
yous Jackson.
about an hour ago · Like · 1
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Jackson Peterson Ed,
you were in Zen for years. Zen is grounded in Madhyamaka as Nagarjuna taught as
well as the Prajnaparamita. A quote from the Prajnaparamita: "Mind is
no-mind, Mind is Luminous Clarity." You are opposed to Nagarjuna and the
Prajnaparamita? Am I saying anything different?
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
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Ed Muzika Zen
has no concept or experience of Self. Buddhism in general has no concept of
Self, therefore the Buddhist explorer of the inner world has no experience of
Self.
Self-Realization is an entirely different path than Zen and most of Buddhism.
Self Realization as I speak of it, is realizing who and what you are as a human being and as the "divine." It occurs within experience. However, there is also another, separate realization of the Absolute as I mention above and in previous posts, as noumenal witness that cannot be perceived as an object in Consciousness, because it is the subject, the missing Indian in the fable of the ten Indians who count only find 9 Indians because they did not count themselves, the tenth Indian as subject, as witness of Consciousness, which is ephemeral.
This is entirely outside what you are talking about because you talk within an entirely different spiritual path, so the Absolute, the Witness, does not exist for you, and cannot as long as you hold onto your worldview.
Self-Realization is an entirely different path than Zen and most of Buddhism.
Self Realization as I speak of it, is realizing who and what you are as a human being and as the "divine." It occurs within experience. However, there is also another, separate realization of the Absolute as I mention above and in previous posts, as noumenal witness that cannot be perceived as an object in Consciousness, because it is the subject, the missing Indian in the fable of the ten Indians who count only find 9 Indians because they did not count themselves, the tenth Indian as subject, as witness of Consciousness, which is ephemeral.
This is entirely outside what you are talking about because you talk within an entirely different spiritual path, so the Absolute, the Witness, does not exist for you, and cannot as long as you hold onto your worldview.
about an hour ago · Like · 1
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Ed Muzika But
when you realize your Self, the Self of All, it is a profound EXPERIENCE unlike
any Buddhist experience; a path of Love, Acceptance, Bliss, and enormous
energetic power that extends everywhere, but also permeates your body and mind
as profound gratitude and humility.
about an hour ago · Like · 2
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Jackson Peterson That
would still be just an "experience" Ed, that implies a separate
experiencer" and an experience. For mystics of all traditions they claim
"realization" is not an experience, but something beyond all
paradigms of experience. The Absolute can't be "experienced" by an
experiencer.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
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Jackson Peterson Realization
is the total absence of an experiencer. That's the experiencer had by no one.
The Self is No Self, otherwise its objective.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like
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Ed Muzika Jackson,
precisely my point. I am talking about realization of the Self as
Consciousness. This is classical Advaita of 900 years ago, not the Advaita of
Nisargadatta. This is realization of Self as the manifest energy and love of
Consciousness, as Satchitananda. You have to read what I said so clearly in my
post.
Then there is also the other “self-realization,” going entirely beyond the world, beyond the manifest Consciousness. That self you can never "know" in any classical sense of experience or knowledege, although one can "apperceive" the Witness as explained elsewhere.
Other than apperception, one can only be the Self as subject, as Seer. Even there you don't know yourself. All that you can know is the manifest world of Consciousness.
Then there is also the other “self-realization,” going entirely beyond the world, beyond the manifest Consciousness. That self you can never "know" in any classical sense of experience or knowledege, although one can "apperceive" the Witness as explained elsewhere.
Other than apperception, one can only be the Self as subject, as Seer. Even there you don't know yourself. All that you can know is the manifest world of Consciousness.
about an hour ago · Like · 1
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Rahul Gautam Edji,if
I may,that's 1200 years not 900 if we take Adi Shankara, and if we go by the
upanishads in Rig Veda,it can be said that it is close to 3500 yrs.
·
Markus Raphael Interesting
discussion. Maybe all the perspectives exchanged have their validity. That is
to say that there is beyond the apparent incompatible describtions is a common
ground that is just hard to put into words. The deeper we go the more we become
quiet and unable to grasp verbally what we discover.
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Rahul Gautam No
perspective is inherently any truer than any other,but why a common
ground,escepcially after what Jackson has written,he is plain ignorant and he
is selling books? Ridiculous.
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Rk Unmanifest A
'Point of View'......searching for THE ' Point of view'......not finding THE
'Point of view ...realizing A point of view is The point of view,,,:-)
16 minutes ago via mobile · Like
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Ed Muzika What
common ground? Consciousness is so deep and profound that it can hold dozens of
apparently incompatible paths because they go to different realizations and
states. No need to find a common ground; even finding the endpoint of even one
path is an incredible success. No need to find the common elements of all.
One can spend 30 years studying Zen and not fathom its wisdom totally, and 30 years being a Sufi without exhausting its depths. Each path is a jewel by itself.
One can spend 30 years studying Zen and not fathom its wisdom totally, and 30 years being a Sufi without exhausting its depths. Each path is a jewel by itself.
13 minutes ago · Like · 3
Self+mind -> searching. Mind are like glasses that brings images to the Self. Inquiry is putting down the glasses. No mind, no search.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to "achieve" no mind, it happens for me as a "falling passivly into" it.
Kathy