silent thunder

so then as polarity relates to awareness then... local and non-local seem to be the dynamic instead of aware and not aware.

Ha, how awesome.. the timing! synchronicity mate...! synchronicity!

Happened upon this interesting article, where a Stanford professor claims to have ferreted out the secret of Damascan or Wootz steel in his pursuit of the creation of a synthetic 'plastic steel'. Mystery of Damascan Steel solved?

Thanks for checking. It's already been a labor of love... drooling over the various blades, styles, knowing a couple of them will eventually be resting in my hands.

lives in a hole

so where does awareness lie upon this scale of oscillation? does it? or is it foundational? beyond it, underlying it...

fully integrated systems... networks of completely interrelating sub-systems that comingle in the myriad forms and patterns of the ten thousand. as opposed to: the old cartesian mechanistic model of individual, separate parts, separate machines, operating completely independent of each other which seems a true impossibility. that said... don't kill a water dog! I'm reminding me of a great film, one of my all time favorites, that deals with just this interplay. Mindwalk A conversation in an old Irish Castle, between a poet, a politician and a physicist... about the difference between the old cartesian model of the universe, with the then emerging 'systems theory' of the interconnectedness of life.

A powerful distinction... the myriad layers of awareness physical sensation is awareness yet awareness in the manner of an abstract thought which exists in the mind only is also awareness and yet abides in no particular place, though a thought has a spot in time, beginning, and fading... so many layers and spheres of awareness... pure awareness is... where in space? is it in a place? does it come and go in time? doesn't seem to be bound in that manner... perhaps only my perceptual process can lend that sense to it silent, empty darkness seems permeated with awareness to me my physical body with all its myriad sensations, seems not the source of awareness either, but rather more like a dense, slow vibratory speck within the field of my awareness which is vast beyond reckoning and not even fully mounted or fixed to the dimensions I commonly refer to as 'reality'.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. ~Augusten Burroughs

Deep, abiding thanks to those who've reached out in pm's to share. The sense of connection I derive from those sharings are truly gems to me... value beyond measure. :love: :joy: :gratitude: !

A couple years ago, my wife and I shared yet another paradigm shifting and unique experience together. The latest of several that have occured in our three decades together. On a weekday afternoon in our kitchen, we were utterly consumed and saturated in a sphere of White Light, for a span of about six seconds. Complete white out. Total white out. All vision gone white. We were standing in our kitchen together when it occured. I was on the phone with a friend in mid sentence, when I went silent as the entire interior of our home was engulfed in pure, non-directional, utterly saturating, White Light. It was roughly 3pm on a cloudless, typical Southern California day. Sun blazing overhead. This White Light blocked out all other sight in both of us and if it came from a source, it seemed that it was within us, or between/within us. Our field of vision rapidly irisced up until all vision was whited out. I remember looking at the mirror on the wall 14 feet away as it just dissolved in this dense fog of white light until neither I nor my wife could see even our hands in front of our face for a span of about six seconds. It was just like a pure black out, only white. Then it rapidly receded just as it had come on and was gone, leaving us both gaping and me repeatedly asking "what was that?... what could do that?" The light had no direction, like a reflection. And any light of that intensity, capable of whiting out all sight, should have left us both white blinded for a time. I work in the film industry and am constantly moving between very low and very intense light situations, not only should we have had some sort of retinal ghosting after such an intensity of light... there should have, by all my previous experiences, been stabbing pain in the intensity of such a light. My eyes are so sensitive it was often an issue back in my acting days... when the light was sufficient to render my face for film, my eyes would be watering and ruin the shot. i also struggle with night driving and will often tear up due to clear lenses and piercing sensitivity. With this, there was nothing. No retinal response at all. Literally zero sensitivity reaction to this light, as did Willow my wife. Our son, who sat in the living room noticed nothing. These seem to reinforce the sense that the source of the light was internal. It utterly saturated and engulfed us both, along with the entire interior of our home. I've never seen a light of this color, nor intensity in my life. Perhaps it's relevant to add that this manifested in the midst of a time of the worst emotional upheaval I have ever experienced in my rather blessed life. Having just lost both of my parents, several dear friends, the child of another friend, and in the second year of witnessing the near complete emotional collapse of my beloved partner and wife as she wrestled with the awakening of long buried memories of childhood trauma at the hands of her parents, whom we had subsequently excised from our lives and home. To say it came at a point of deep emotional pain is understatement. I've only spoken of this once before. Matters of this nature, like the silent thunder my wife and I experienced together and where I take my name here from are always tough to share... but the time seems right given the state of the board and the nature of the recent light topics. So I'm curious what your various lineages, and hopefully some of your direct experiences with such open eyed visual strangeness have to say.

Precisely this oscillation/interplay between polarity that lends easily to the seeming appearance of 'two', yet are unified in experience/phenomenon. All waves have crests and troughs. All sticks have a top and bottom, snap one in half and you have two complete sticks, not two bottoms. phenomenal experience manifests/emanates within the polarity/oscillation of unified fields... and yet at its base what is present? awareness seems to be there. Does awareness have an oscillation? Is there non-awareness? Is it possible? if it were, could we even know? Or is Awareness a unified process that phenomenal perception lends a sense of on/off? Or is it constant? foundational? sure seems foundational... yet if there is a realm beyond awareness... how would one check?

visible awareness... that! the awareness one is aware of... and what one is not aware of...? what is the limit of awareness? is there a limit to awareness? if there were a limit, could we even be aware that we weren't aware? what lies beyond awareness? the three circles of knowledge... picture two circles, one vast and one tiny. the tiny one represents what you will learn and know in this life. the vast one represents what you will know that you don't know, can't know, in this life. and the third circle is no circle, it has no boundaries and extends outside the vast circle and represents what you will never be able to know, that you don't know. now substitute the concept knowledge with awareness and replay the previous... (woof) I love this place! thank you!

Aw bugger, I know voids posts can be a bit jarring and overbearing at times but hoped they wouldn't get swatted out as several brought up some key points for me, regarding the interplay of sound and light, silence and darkness as well as a new term pratyahara and the withdrawing of the senses, that directly relates to the development of several anti-cravings I've developed along the path of my practice. Post a link to the new thread here so we may find those as well when this all sorts out? I'm still rebounding and chewing on the notion that we cannot perceive light as it is in this instant, this moment, but only as it was prior to our interpreting and processing it visually. Always a step behind so to speak. Perhaps this is why so much emphasis is placed on going within in spiritual pursuits of realization... pratyahara, darkness, silence, stillness... withdrawing the sensory which is by its very nature innacurate, toward the unsensory, which by comparison is more accurate?

Fog like is a very apt way to describe the nature of what we experienced... Interesting! Thanks for sharing mate.

sure thing mate... here it is. silent thunder experience

Yea likely will never know a source. More curious to know of any similar accounts. Figure someone here will have encountered such. I know I came upon some buddhist descriptions of the silent thunder, or the roaring water inside silence experience that my wife and I shared on our honeymoon and figure, if ever there was a community where this sort of thing would be potentially shared... it'd be here.

Nice one! Hardly seems possible. Even the nature of seeing is imbued with inaccuracy and delay. Objects are all reflected light before even entering our eyes. And source light (sun/stars) still gets reflected within the eye itself. Then the added caveat that we see the past when we use our eyes. There is a distinct delay in what reaches our eyes, and then is filtered and interpreted and experienced as a sensation. Couple that with the fact that the colors we observe objects to be, are only the colors that the object can't absorb and so in addition to our sight always being a little delayed, it's also only perceiving the color the objects are not. This always obsessively sticks in my craw as important... thankfully, eventually I tire of not finding an answer and accept ignorance as bliss on the subject.

Well how rude... they didn't even bother to probe me. The nerve.

In recent years... I've noticed a growing longing for pitch dark in which to sit. At first it started as a manner of working with my third eye, inducing open eyed visions in pitch black... and it was very effective. I built a box just large enough to comfortably sit in, placed it in a closet, covered the window in the room, closed the closet, got in the box, pulled a blanket over the box, then sat in pitch dark with eyes open usually, inducing open eye visions and eventually just abiding in and relishing the dark, losing interest in the colorful eye play. To increase the effect, I would use headphones as well, set to binaural beats, or solfeggio harmonic white noise, at a level just capable of drowning out the background city sounds near our home. What I didn't anticipate was the longing that would grow for true darkness in which to sit and simply be... no agenda, just to have a place where there is no discernible light at all in which to simply... be. The peace that seems to emanate from this seeming lack of light. I've often wondered what the long term effects of living in modern cities with the constant artificial light, making night as bright as dusk in most places might be on our awareness. The constant exposure to indoor, partial spectrum light. This question was first put in my mind by a very enlightened short film called Village of the Water Wheels by Kurosawa. It was the final segment in his incredible film Dreams that came out around 1990. In it, Kurosawa as a young man approaches a small village and meets an spry, centenarian sitting alongside a clear, swift flowing river who is slowly fixing a water wheel. They have a short pleasant conversation in which the elder eventually chastises the modern way of life in one quippy exchange remarking particularly at the lack of darkness in city life... "all your lanterns and candles... you make the night as bright as day! Who can tell a difference now? Why all this bother to make the night like the day?" three unanticipated side effects of praxis in recent years: longing for darkness craving emptiness of body/fasting silence/lack of sound...

Reagan's dismantling of federal support for mental health in america is another in his list of a nasty legacy most don't seem to recall... particularly here in LA where we are currently undergoing yet another scandal over mental health and the homeless encampments along the river. The results of this act are resonating today all across America in my opinion. Full Source Article

ok, done spamming now

some potentially useful info in this thread...

I normally wake without aches and pains in spite of working in construction/sculpting and propmaking for the last twenty odd years 50-70 hours a week. My wife and I sleep on an airchamber mattress that sets on a wooden platform. I nap at work from time to time on lumber stacks, always on my back with a small rolled up blanket under my knees and neck. At home at night, I sleep on my sides only, though when I nap mid-day, I sleep on my back in free fall pose. At home, I have a rather elaborate system of pillows I use to keep my legs separated and in line with my hips, and to support and spread open and support my chest and shoulders to maintain good space in the lungs while maintaining a good line for the neck and spine. I find myself going to bed far earlier as I approach 50 than I did any time previously in life. I no longer fight it when I feel tired. I hug my son and wife and bid them goodnight and head off to bed without hesitation. Sleep is glorious. I love her dearly and squirm with joy when I enter my bed sheets and begin my settling process. There is another sleep thread around here that I recall had some good information. Though the search engine on this site tends to mock me heavily whenever I try to use it... you may have better luck than I.

Lockdown features with bullet proof doors in schools would potentially limit casualties. Since there is no way to ever really prevent all of these events, it seems logical to institute. It would take cash. We could perhaps divert some of the cash we use to maintain our 19 aircraft carriers in order to accomplish this. Like we have in so many secure facilities... as soon as the alarm is triggered, each section, corridor and room are locked down providing no way out and no way to move to another area until the system is reset and the situation under control. If there were any way to improve the prevention aspect of this... I imagine it involving a move back to pre-Reagan mental health system funding levels would be required, in order to re-develop the infrastructure that could provide a place and a system to identify and then isolate the potential harm seekers.