dwai

Things and nondual? 🤔 🤦🏾‍♂️

In duality all we have are questions, not many convincing answers. In nonduality there are only answers, but no questions at all.

I did answer it in response to Apech's cross-eyed post

It wasn't a trick question. Does anyone need proof other than the act of seeing? Similarly with consciousness. Only thing is, it is mixed up with the mind and experiences for most of us. The acts of thinking, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and feeling (subtle body falls under this category) are all that are needed to recognize consciousness.

How does one know one has eyes?

I didn’t start with any ideas or awareness about body, mind, etc. when I was little, usually it was about doing, being interrupted by pain or pleasure. Fall down, cry, get patched up, go outside and play. Eat some candy, enjoy, overeat, get a stomach ache, cry, play (or fall asleep). I think it pretty much sums up early childhood. School started, study, play, read books, paint, and so on. Body awareness didn’t start until I was a hormonal teenager (which is when the reproductive imperatives of the body kicked in). Which is what I think is the pivotal point of most human beings. I also didn’t have any “self-image” or any idealized sense of “body”. I still don’t. I never did. I find it fascinating that so many do.

You’re a not-two woke dude!

Now I’ve really “arrived”. I’m being quoted on the internet with a tilde. This is not a matter of opinion - it is empirically verifiable. You have to simply go through a simple exercise to realize this. I have to disagree with Steve on this. There are techniques available in the Advaita Vedanta tradition which will clearly establish why consciousness is not anything that one can experience.

Swami Sarvapriyananda tells a story about the purpose of samsara which I find is very on the nose — Once a young monk asked his teacher, “if there is only the nondual reality, what is the purpose of this world and all the things in it?” The teacher smiled and said, “I’ll tell you, but first can you fetch me some water from the river. I’m thirsty.” The student ran to the river nearby, and brought his teacher a glass of water. The teacher looked up and roared, “what is this you’ve got me?!?” The student was stunned at the sudden outburst of the teacher, but replied, “but sir, you asked me for the water…” The teacher said, “I asked for water, why the glass?” The student’s question was answered.

Spot on!

How well you know me @liminal_luke PS: the guitar, musician and music are one when music is created. Ask @steve on the internet if it resonates… The subtle body is certainly dual. But recognizing the nondual reality will certainly help “share” certain aspects of the subtle and causal layers. Does a drop of water disappear into the ocean, or does it become the ocean? Reminds of a powerful story @silent thunder once shared of a western Buddhist scholar who went to visit a Daoist Master, asking to learn about “daoist enligthenment”.

Master Zhu is a very advanced teacher. From what I’ve heard, he used to be the teacher of the famous Master Shi Ming (of the pbs documentary fame). I’ve seen such criticism of “woo woo” before. There certainly are elements of biomechanics involved, but there’s more to the story than just that. The chi stuff works irrespective of whether the recipient is muscling or not. It works more dramatically with people using extreme physical strength because of the very reasons shown in the video above. But consider this for a moment — why would top level pro athletes allow themselves to be shown up as mentally deficient fools if things were that simple? Yeah one could certainly argue that they were paid handsomely, or worse, they are stupid, or something to that order.

Who/What is it that is aware of these oscillations? That IS nondual.

For all the duelistic dualists

They probably are I mean, the practice of methods is intended to work at the level of the mind (or the mind through the body). The purpose is to purify and prepare the mind. The nondual "teaching" is not direct, because the rarest of the rare teachers can directly share it with the rarest of rare students. The "teaching" is an indirect thing -- like fingers pointing to the moon. In order for nondual realization to be possible, in most cases, there has to be an intellectual understanding of what is being pointed towards. That understanding comes from the study of the "teachings". In Advaita Vedanta, it is in three steps, similar to what Steve mentioned in his tradition. The steps are -- Listening to the teachings (preferably studying with a teacher who is themselves Self-realized and knows the material well) Cogitating on the teachings (to solidify the intellectual understanding of the teachings) Meditating on the teachings (to make the intellectual understanding a directly apperceived reality - this is where the irreversible flash of realization occurs).

Exactly the same in Advaita Vedanta as well.

This resonates with me deeply. Thanks for sharing these. It might come as a surprise, but I don't like to dwell in philosophical argumentation either ... it is a slippery slope into fanning the ego (so I'm watchful of it). So, your idea of exchanging practical tips is most welcome imho. One very direct and simple practice I found useful in the Self-Inquiry mode is to see if one can identify "who am I?" in a fraction of a second before a single thought has arisen. I found this very puzzling at first, and after repeated attempts, the answer was revealed. It is meant to be explored individually by the practitioner (this is a variation of Ramana Maharshi's 'Who am I?' inquiry). Another method I found useful in the earlier days of my practice was to observe the gap between thoughts. If we pay attention to the thoughts rising and falling in the mind, in the gap there is a luminous clarity. One day, after a relatively vigorous yoga session, I lay down in shavasana and melted my entire physical body away, like butter on a hot pan, only paying attention to the thoughts and the gap between thoughts. Suddenly, the thoughts (mind-stream) became like a bunch of debris floating on a river-surface. The stillness-movement paradigm is also one which has been helpful to me, in tai chi form practice. In standing practice, it leads to deep cessation of the mind (time and space - collapse). In moving practice, it leads to deep ceassation of time and expansion of space (of awareness). My teacher's early instruction to me was, "don't try to eliminate the ego. The ego is necessary for proper functioning in this world. Let the ego become your obedient servant instead of the tyrannical master it is today". But I must also state that one needs to study the pointers provided by the wisdom traditions (whatever they might be) to allow the mind/intellect to come into alignment. That is required for closing the proverbial loop of this process.

Synchronicity much? A live session by Swami Sarvapriyananda today, much on this very topic — Is the Swami a DB? 🤔

What if this “chi” thing not a substance at all but the result of a process? Tbh my tai chi brothers and I can do most of what I’ve seen mizner do on video (there might be much more he’s capable of that we don’t know about), and I’ve not met him in person, nor has anyone else I work out with on a regular basis. The way we “activate” it is using a feeling of flow internally, and a field externally. What is this flow? We call it qi. Is it a consequence of setting one’s body and mind up in a certain way? Yes. Does that sense of flow internally feel like an energetic thing? Yes. Is there a palpable field effect as a result? Yes. Can we manipulate that? Yes. That hopping thing that he does (sticking or Na Jin), I’ve heard him and other yang style teachers describe it in various ways, such as maintain sung and ting and it will happen, etc. My teacher taught us that it is done by expanding out and then pulling the field of the opponent/recipient back towards us. It is very easy to demonstrate step-by-step, and harder to write about. The consequence is that the recipient will feel like they’re relying on the issuer for balance. Like the center of gravity of the recipient has been transferred over to the issuer. So, when the issuer moves, the recipient is compelled to move. Whatever the issuer does to with their own body and intention, reflects in the body of the recipient. A few weeks back, our teacher who is ~ 120 lbs in weight, tapped me in the chest lightly, lifted my body up physically as a consequence, which hit another person standing behind me and slammed his body into the wall. To me it didn’t feel like anything at all - felt his fingertips on my chest, and like I was a feather floating in a breeze. In fact, I didn’t even feel it when I slammed into my friend behind me. To my friend, It felt like he was hit by a 200+ lb body traveling at fast. What kind sophisticated technique can make that possible?

I think you miss the whole “simplicity of wisdom” perspective. It is not meant for self-aggrandizement, but rather for direct insight of one’s true nature as pure consciousness that shines forth with all phenomena. And it is certainly not difficult for moderately intelligent people to “get”, at the intellectual level. To turn that into realization is a relatively harder process, because one has to work against a lifetime of conditioning (at least). That’s the allure of direct path systems for westerners, as I see it — the westerner society is intellectually oriented. It has less to do with the judeo-Christian worldview. Also, if you infer from Advaita Vedanta the abrahamic idea of God, something has gone wrong in your understanding. I find more usurpation/transference of judeo-Christianity happening from within the hatha yoga circles.

What is it with some westerners and their narcissistic tunnel vision wrt themselves? What about the ~ 1billion Indians Hindus? What Judeo-Christian position does it fit for us? It seems that you adjust your understanding to fit your intellectual proclivity. You’ll not be the first to do that, and certainly the last.

An amusing development. The Fajin Project fb group is abuzz with discussions about how these athletes were paid large sums of money to prop up a propaganda video by Adam Mizner’s Chelas 😂 And most of them haven’t even watched the movie!! One worthy says, “I don’t want to watch it….even if I’m paid to do so!”

I’d recommend watching this conversation between a modern consciousness/brain scientist and swami Sarvapriyananda

I disagree Monism IS dualistic. Nonduality is, well, not dualistic, so can’t be monistic. Monism would say, “the absolute is the whole, the individual is a part of the whole”. Nonduality says, the individual IS the absolute, the whole, but only sees separateness due to ignorance (of one’s true nature). When it (true nature) is realized, it will be understood. A nondualist doesn’t have trouble with duality, because that is the standard condition of all humans. Subject-object duality is the bulwark of perception and conception (of theories and ideas). Duality takes hold very early in life (right when ideas start to take hold in the child’s mind). Indeed not. Even this discourse is dualistic. But if you continue to stare at the fingers pointing at the moon, you will miss all the wondrous glory of the moon (channeling Bruce lee here). No matter what your “choice” is, your true nature was, is and will continue to be nondual. There is no choice there. No quarters will be given in that regard. Because there can be no parts of the indivisible whole.

bully for free will and volition