dwai

The kindle versions are free. Thanks for sharing _/|\_

I wonder why we expect personalities to be completely identical? Like this caricature -- with bleating voices and beatific pronouncements! If it doesn't meet the description, then they are judged... I would pose this question to those who claim Nisargadatta Maharaj was ego-deluded - Are you sure you are not projecting your own limitations and value ascriptions on to your perception of the person? Do his words have an impact on you? Or do they not? If they do have an impact on you, do you know if that is positive or negative? If you feel it is negative, do you feel it because it causes some sort of cognitive dissonance in you? Does that make you feel bad? If you feel it is positive, do you feel it because he says the same thing you believe? Does that make you feel good? If so, then where is the value ascription happening? Whose ego sees these things and labels him as "ego deluded"?

Oh the problems of syntax to describe the indescribable! Since Knowledge is a function of memory, knowing is really not being. But there is another kind of knowing...which is really not-knowing (as you put it), as it is Being. As long as we rely on memory and bounce between past and future, we cannot be present. If we are not present, we don't really know... Hari Om Tat Sat

Its better to just be...

Bwahahaha Self, Non-Self, Emptiness, Dao, Brahman, Atman are all labels. It is just presence.

Added towards the beginning recently..made things a bit sour, but that is a welcome taste to me

You only consider one apparently single lifetime. Spiritual evolution traverses many apparent lifetimes... Karma plays a HUGE role until the abidence in the Self is remembered....

No "who am I" is an excellent practice for beginners too imho. All it takes is a sincerity of practice and that will lead us to the I AM...

If they are not in the conscious mind then they are not thoughts maybe? Maybe they are "seeds" that will ripen into thoughts? This is an interesting topic to explore further imho.

You are quite accurate in your observation. There is a certain "joy" in the effort being applied (it is not a chore)...Is that still effort? I don't know!

Mind = stream of thoughts

What I meant with that example is that someone who is stabilized in the Self will not be affected by psychotropic drugs as their mind will be still. It goes back to whether the samskaras/vasanas will bind you or not. Many great masters had habits like smoking (nisargadatta maharaj), naga sanyasis often ritualistically partake in marijuana, aka bhaang (many are jivanamuktas), swami chinmayananda used snuff, RamaKrishna paramahamsa chewed betel nuts and leaves (I could be wrong about this though)... These were all liberated masters (I'm sure there's a list of more such beings). Some are set in motion by their prarabdha (activated causality) which have to run their course on the body. My first teacher was a teetotaler, pure vegetarian and was almost close to enlightenment (but not yet there I feel). My current teacher did all the "hippie things" in his youth, lived a very colorful lifestyle, being a martial artist, get into fights, etc and yet was already at a high level of attainment (from his childhood). He stopped all that but doesn't judge anyone for their habits. They will all fall away when the time is right...just keep up your practice...is his position. These external trappings don't mean anything if you have the right conditions/pre-conditions. Even Ratnakar the murderous highway robber became Maharishi Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana.

There are two types of vasanas and one does not affect the enlightenment process --

Did you ever read the story about Neem Karoli Baba and David Alpert (Ram Das)? Alpert was researching LSD at the MIT when he went to India and met NKB. He explained what he was doing and His research into consciousness. Baba asked him for some LSD. Instead of taking the suggested dose, baba downed the entire bottle of LSD. Alpert and his colleagues panicked thinking someone terrible was going to happen. Nothing did...Baba's consciousness was not affected by LSD... Jivanamuktas are free from these type of "addictions". Whatever they do, they continue simply by habit, not compulsion.

The biggest problem is when we take either the paramarthika or the vyavaharika as separate from each other. They are not. However, the vyavaharika is ultimately a projection of the paramarthika itself.

Yes indeed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Our regular life itself can be a way to either dissolve or reinforce our vasanas. So which comes first? I'd venture to say that as the mind rests more easily in the witness, the vasanas start loosening their grip. Vasanas are vasanas if there is identification with the ego/mind and body (which is also a concept in our mind itself). When that identification disappears, whom do those vasanas belong to? They will fall away with no clinging self left. Nisargadatta Maharaj was a chain smoker. Did that mean he had vasanas? No...he was liberated and free, so it didn't matter whether he smoked or not. When there is no doer, vasanas and karma cannot affect. They either fall away or remain as happenings, until they fall away. Karma is associated with the jivatma. vasanas or samskaras too belong to the jivatma. When there is no jiva left, whom do they belong to?

The way I was taught is was to count on digits, which involves doing the fast iteration on my right hand and slower iterations on my left. So while the right hand goes through various mudras faster, the left hand holds the mudras longer. There is also pranayama involved (nadi shodhan)

The self sees difference. To the Self there is none

There really is no difference to the Self. Only what the self perceives as differences

I have no reason to doubt them or my Master

I've seen him walk through walls in his energy body. But not physically teleport. That some others have seen...

I think so. Master can also do the matrix-bending stuff too - physical teleportation etc etc, but he says there is no "volition" when it happens...it needs to happen so it happens. He does pray for others though...and he says his master often intervenes when necessary.