dwai

Becoming awakened (countenancing the pure awareness/objectless consciousness) is the first step towards what we Hindus call "Kaivalyam" or "Moksha" -- it has less to do with being enlightened and more to do with becoming free. This involves becoming free from the the cycle of reincarnation and karma. Once one is "awakened", then the real work starts...Then it is a constant process of refinement and practice (sadhana) to slowly eliminate the modifications of the consciousness that bind us to patterns of behavior and actions, drawing us back into the cyclical world of Maya.

I hear what you're saying and my friend keeps insisting that somehow the "enlightenment" process is an instantaneous process where before you exist and after you don't exist (and various permutations and combinations thereof). He watches videos by people like Lisa Cairns, Roger Castillo etc. I tried watching them but I don't feel the inspiration he claims to feel in the videos. On the other hand when I watch Ramesh Balasekar's videos I completely resonate with what he's saying. My friend watches the same videos and comes back with a different understanding of what is being said. However my friend is a mainly intellect driven person and has chosen the path of direct inquiry. His energetic sensitivity is very dull. When I claim I can feel the energy flowing in my body, the chakras vibrating etc, he cannot understand what I mean. I think different pre-conditions and predilections dictate our experiences and course of realization. If you read Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa or the Kriya Yoga Gurus, you will find they have a different approach and describe experiences differently.

So you mean to say "We suffer fear?" -- yes we do. We simultaneously fear suffering too...

I think the "incredible" nature is very subjective. I had a deep series of conversations around this with a friend who's starting down the path of inquiry. I think some people are naturally conditioned to perceive and experience "supra-mundane" phenomena. When we go from zero to 100 in a blink of an eye, it is incredible. If the progress is gradual and we have progressed steadily from 0 to 100, the experience might not be as "incredible"... Traditional methods of training will help the seeker advance gradually. Then the ignorance slowly falls away, and the "knowing" is revealed naturally...then there is no cognitive dissonance.

Haha that was very honest of you. But that's not entirely correct that you don't know. We all know...don't we. If we don't know why we suffer, that is indeed a travesty. Suffering is a very personal thing...no one else can suffer on my behalf. From my personal analysis of suffering, it seems to be a result of aversion to certain experiences or fear of losing certain experiences (pleasurable). What is this aversion (could be many things...aversion to pain, sorrow, stress, et ) if not fear? Without the aversion, suffering would just be experience that exists in a moment in time and then subsides.

But why do we consider "suffering" suffering? What makes a certain set of experiences suffering versus some others that are not suffering?

Actually wind chimes happen to anyone who's working on the chakras/dan tiens. There is a complete yoga tradition that deals with sounds...and wind chimes, bells, flutes etc can be heard in the inner ear (not the physical ear but the esoteric ear) as part of opening the heart chakra. imho, those who hop from tradition to tradition are usually like scavengers. They cannot commit to one tradition and therefore hop between systems. Typically it involves a need for quick gratification. There might be genuine seekers who cannot resonate with one system so they jump to another. They think they're going for the "short cut", but end up getting confused and disoriented. To use a Daoist quote - "It is better to dig one deep well than a thousand shallow ones"... I'm not saying Spotless is not doing good work. I'm just suggesting that his premise for rejecting the Eastern Texts is flawed, imho. This attitude gives rise to more charlatans than good teachers. There is a reason why over thousands of years, specific styles and systems of teaching the esoteric have evolved. There is no better laboratory than time. So by all means, express the indescribable in our own words...it is very important. but don't reject the very traditions that have given you the abilities.

I think all the signs of "awakening" are in the ancient Eastern literature. Usually Westerners suffer because they can't let go of their entrenched framework of categorization. Or in other words, they want to have their cakes and eat them too Of course I'm not saying that it could not be a shortcoming on part of the teacher. But the DIY culture is so deeply entrenched in the West, and the propensity for "I don't need anyone to show me anything" is so strong, that in my opinion, it becomes a case of self-flagellation in most cases. I will give you an example. One of my friends is a long term Taiji practitioner and a very high level one at that (far more accomplished than myself). He practices taiji every day, meditates every day, several hours a day and is very powerful and connected to energy. But for years he has this "problem" - when he starts practice he starts hearing a strong wind chime like sound going off in his ear and it stays constantly. He told me about this recently. This is called Anahata dhwani in Yogic parlance, or the "unstruck sounds". And is associated with the Anahata chakra (Heart chakra). Since he didn't have access to/didn't know where to look, he lived for years struggling to understand what was happening to him. Once he heard that, he got a sense of resolution that it wasn't an aberration in the way he practiced etc but just a phenomenon along the path of"awakening". All this information is available in the spiritual texts of the Eastern societies. One has to know where to look. Why re-invent the wheel when all you have to do is learn where to look to find it?

. Does it make sense to say qi feels like qi. Our Brains interpret it to feel like one thing or another? Hot, cold, magnetic, electric, heavy, light etc. It is so because we don't have a frame of reference to feel qi as qi. Also just like jing is transformed to qi, qi is vibrated and condensed and converted into Jin. Jin is further refined and sped up and made into Shen. What we feel is the qi, what others feel is Jin. We cannot feel our Jin and others can't feel our qi.

And I'm not averse to quotable quotes like these

The insatiability is actually a craving for the Dao/God/Emptiness whatever you call it. Most people stumble from one object to another in search of something. It is actually an incomplete feeling that we seek to address. That is the reason for the insatiability...we call it "trishna" (thirst) in India. This trishna when channelized into a proper spiritual path will lead the individual back to overcoming it.

But wetness is what causes the discomfort (or comfort)

Well not all aversion from suffering is based on experience. Somethings are innate (biologically/genetically imprinted). Some others are learnt as part of growing up and education. Fear is predicated on the individual identity, but I still hold that Fear is the root because the individual identity cannot be eliminated entirely. As part of our self inquiry/self realization, we will be reducing the individual identity to the bare minimum needed to survive. This also involves dropping of fear...and clinging in general.

Someone had already pointed out that duality causes us to ascribe values to things. For in a dualistic framework, one can be known only in context of the other. To use a Buddhist (*shudders!*) term - Pratitya Samutpaada (or depending co-rising). Something is only known in terms of it's opposite. For happiness to exist, there needs to be the opposite of it (unhappiness). But I still say Fear is the root of suffering because suffering happens as a result of clinging to one over another. But this clinging is rooted in fear of the opposite, or of losing the opposite. Fear can be many things...but at it's core it is an aversion to suffering. So in essence, we suffer because we strive to not suffer, imho.

Exactly! We cannot deny or wish away this physical body and the mind associated with it, any more than we can make the Earth spin around some other sun in the universe. It is all par for the course though...when people embark on the spiritual path, especially non-dualism, the milestones are exactly as you put them. The second and third milestones are a result of understanding what makes a reality a reality. Rules of how we categorize and label things. In order for things to be categorized, they must be observed. In order to observe, we need the sensory apparatuses. In order for sensory apparatuses to be applied, we need something that makes it "alive". That brings us to point 3. After getting to a stage of immersion into the "something else" of point three, which naturally implies a cessation/stilling of the modifications of the consciousness (aka mind), it is very natural to assume that the appearances are in fact really ghosts and that only "that" is real. But then as we spend more time straddling both, it becomes clear that the appearances cannot be rejected any more than "that" can be. Both are real...if we understand that and the reason why they are both real, then there's no paradox. Also there is progressively less clinging to the "distinctions" as you put it. That's why, both in Vedanta as well as Buddhism, there are the two levels of reality. That which is called the "absolute reality" and that which is called "relative reality".

What?!?? We're going down the path of comparing how zero our zeroes are? Bwahahahaha!!! Please don't invite the quote gremlins!!!

Why are time and space illusory? Do you not move and breath in space? Does your body not age with time?

If there's a subject and an object, then it is dualistic. If that is what you call mind (I do), then it is. It cannot be non-dualistic.

Haha yes...but Shankara also mentions limitations of the upAdhi. I'm not saying that Ego identification is not reduced, but it cannot go away entirely as long as the physical body and associated mind exist. I said fear is the root because fear is one of the things that prevents people from venturing into atma-vichara -- self-inquiry and other practices. With proper practice fear is neutralized and that involves working with the body-mind complex. Fear has to be let go of, little by little. And as 3Bob put it...fear cannot be removed by fear...it can be removed by letting go of the value judgements we superimpose on things (both material as well as immaterial...such as ideas and thoughts)... I know it is kind of silly to try and distill down to "one thing" that is the root of something like suffering (which comes in many shapes, forms and sizes...). This was just and attempt to delve deeper into the notion of fear and how it affects us and our behaviors and thoughts

This second mind is actually non thinking...it is pure clarity imho. And it is always there of course. When the monkey mind becomes too noisy then the clear mind/spiritual mind is obscured.

haha Ramesh is not my teacher. I find I can resonate with his teaching though. My teacher doesn't talk about non-duality. He shows by helping us experience. Powers are a side effect - he has them and he shows us a bit from time to time. Haha Siddhis will not take you to advaita. They happen but those are not important. Really, what do Siddhis enable us to do? Advaita is where there is no duality. What that means is very important to know. That is what Jnana yoga is about...

Ego exists as long as the body exists. Ego is the mind. What goes away is the attachment to the Ego. There is always the clarity and empty awareness but the mind flows like a stream of debris beneath the surface. This mind is what helps us operate in this world. We eat, sleep, wake, drink, poop, pee etc because of the mind. My teacher put it this way to me - "To think that somehow the Ego dies is wrong. It just doesn't control our actions anymore. It becomes a servant of the Spiritual mind...that empty clarity/awareness that is always present". I see experientially that it is true. This is what happens when we take the spiritual experiences (samadhis) into our everyday life. Here's a wonderful snippet of Advaita Master Ramesh Balsekar talking about it...

New life is not new For it always is New perspective arises though and the process begins anew

Mysterious Force Standing you are in motion Moving you are still The mysterious force acts Empty cup and then you refill Up is down and down is up front is back and back is front Right is left and left is right mysterious force fills the empty cup Do you breath in or breath out? There is one within the other infinitely regressing intertwined within each other They say its not real it is all in the structure your mind plays tricks it is biomechanical architecture What they don’t know is that they just cannot feel the mysterious force that is spinning the wheel Why is it that they cannot feel? because their cup isn’t empty they cannot refill… The old has to go for the new to arrive effortless effort striving without strive The mysterious force is all that there is to know is to feel the spontaneous bliss

Yes you can. My teacher says it like this -- The lower dan tien is a copy of the universe and anything you put into it is going to stay for a long time. The LDT is like a golf ball and there's a very thin hole in it. Most people don't know this. So when they send their qi back into the LDT, it just washes off the surface. The way to "put qi back into the dan tien" is a delicate and gentle process. We have to let it take its time. As we practice more, it will get better. When the qi goes in properly, the sensations in our hands (palms especially) will subside. There is the concept of "touch but don't touch" (so you don't touch your body physically...as close to the body as we can get without physically touching. We have to feel the connection of the centers of the palm (lao gongs) to the the LDT. As we gather around and form a taiji ball (energetic) we compress it and gently start pushing it into the lower dan tien. Then we just keep the intention and let it fall inward into our inner space (inside the Lower Dan Tien). Like this --