dwai

The Self is not affected by anything. All things rise and fall in the Self. You’re basically mixing concepts up.

Happy New Year to all you bums May 2025 be fruitful. May all be prosperous, peaceful and joyous. Om Shanti 🙏🏾

“Unreal” is only apparent after realization. That’s why they say, before realization there are only questions but no answers. After realization there are no questions. The term “illusory” is a mischaracterization. When Advaita Vedanta says the transactional world is “unreal” we have to understand what reality means. It doesn’t mean the transactional world is non-existent, it only means that it is temporary/transitory, and therefore “unreal” in comparison to the absolute reality (that is the Self/consciousness) that doesn’t change. That is from your perspective without having realized (assuming you haven't had that switch happen). All these doubts and concerns fall away when that happens. The transactional world is not negated by realization, rather one becomes better equipped to deal with anything one experiences in the transactional world.

Beautiful! Nothing needs to be transcended - just realized

How does the equation change if you consider both as being nothing apart from water?

I think different minds deal with it in different ways. To quote the old Daoist master (paraphrasing here) - “when the droplet of water merges with the ocean, it doesn’t lose itself, it becomes the ocean!”

These “horrific scenarios” as outlined in a previous post point back to a “fear” that arose in my mind when I was deep in the process of self-inquiry several years ago. I think it is a pertinent point that all serious seekers should cogitate. It happened as I was listening to an especially moving piece of music. The thought arose, “the enjoyment of the beauty of music is an expression of the bliss that is the Self. If the separate-self drops, will I be able to experience bliss as I’m able to?” Will I be able to experience the sweetness of sugar if I become the sugar itself? The question itself is non-sequitur actually. The reason is, these fears arise when a clear understanding of the true nature of Self has not risen yet. In reality, nothing changes - only the fear and psychoses that are a consequence of mental agitation (and identity-preservation) disappear. What IS “freedom”, really? Is it the freedom to experience whatever/act however the mind desires? Or is it to be completely natural, without the limitations of identifixation?

The following is an attempt to show how the 4 methods defined within Kashmiri Shaivism can be used to explain the reason why different methods exist and why people with different psychosomatic makeup might find one more effective than another. Stage 1: Purification & Preparation Description: Focus on ethical living, self-discipline, and basic practices to purify the body and mind. Upaya (Method): Āṇavopāya (predominantly) Yoga Practices & Examples: Ashtanga Yoga: Building foundational strength and discipline through asanas and breathwork. Kundalini Yoga: Initial practices to activate and balance energy. These would be primarily the four outer limbs (angas) - Yama, Niyama, Asana and Pranayama. Bhakti Yoga: Cultivating faith and devotion through rituals and chanting. Jnana Yoga: Beginning study of scriptures and self-reflection. Stage 2: Deepening Practice & Insight Description: Increased self-awareness, refinement of practices, and glimpses of deeper truths. Upaya (Method): Śāktopāya (increasingly prominent) Yoga Practices & Examples: Ashtanga Yoga: Developing deeper concentration and internal awareness during practice. These would focus on Pratyahara (sense-withdrawal) and Dharana (focus). Kundalini Yoga: Working with more advanced techniques to awaken Kundalini energy. Bhakti Yoga: Deepening devotion through surrender and self-offering. Jnana Yoga: Intensified self-inquiry and contemplation. Svapna Yoga: Exploring the dream state for self-understanding. Stage 3: Transcendence & Awakening Description: Spontaneous insights, experiences of unity, and liberation from limitations. Upaya (Method): Śāmbhavopāya (emerging) Yoga Practices & Examples: All practices: Moments of transcendence and deep connection can arise spontaneously through grace in any practice. These would be focused on developing dhyana and entering samadhi. Svapna Yoga: Spontaneous spiritual experiences in the dream state. Stage 4: Realization & Freedom Description: Full recognition of the true nature of the Self and reality. Upaya (Method): Anupāya Yoga Practices & Examples: Jnana Yoga: Direct realization of the Self, transcending all practices. Bhakti Yoga: Complete union with the divine. Svapna Yoga: Recognizing the dream-like nature of reality. These are often also associated with the psychosomatic make up of seekers (called gunas in Sanskrit). How the Gunas correlate to these methods - 1. Tamas-dominant Seekers: * Characteristics: Inertia, dullness, negativity, resistance to change, lack of motivation. * Suitable Methods: * Āṇavopāya: This path's emphasis on structured practice, physical purification, and disciplined effort can help overcome inertia and build momentum. Practices like Hatha Yoga, with its focus on physical postures and breath control, can be particularly beneficial. * Bhakti Yoga: Devotion to a higher power can provide a sense of purpose and inspiration, helping to lift them out of negativity and cultivate positive emotions. Chanting, rituals, and service to others can be supportive. * Challenges: May struggle with self-discipline and consistent effort required for spiritual progress. Might find it difficult to engage in practices that demand mental focus and concentration. 2. Rajas-dominant Seekers: * Characteristics: Activity, passion, ambition, restlessness, desire for results. * Suitable Methods: * Śāktopāya: This path's emphasis on knowledge, willpower, and self-reflection can help channel their energy constructively and cultivate discernment. Practices like Jnana Yoga and Raja Yoga, with their focus on self-inquiry and meditation, can be beneficial. * Kundalini Yoga: This path can provide a powerful outlet for their energy, while also teaching them to harness and direct it towards spiritual awakening. * Challenges: May become attached to achieving spiritual experiences or powers, leading to ego inflation. Might find it challenging to cultivate stillness and surrender. 3. Sattva-dominant Seekers: * Characteristics: Purity, clarity, harmony, balance, wisdom, serenity. * Suitable Methods: * Śāmbhavopāya: This path of spontaneous recognition resonates with their natural inclination towards inner peace and higher awareness. Meditation, contemplation, and surrender to the divine grace can lead to profound experiences. * Anupāya: May readily grasp the concept of effortless liberation and recognize the truth beyond all practices. However, they may still benefit from practices that support their inherent clarity and deepen their understanding. * Challenges: Might become complacent or overly passive, mistaking their natural serenity for spiritual realization. May need to cultivate discernment to avoid spiritual bypassing. Important Considerations: * Guna Fluidity: The gunas are not fixed; they fluctuate within each individual. Therefore, the most suitable method may change over time. * Integrated Approach: While one method might be more dominant, incorporating elements from other paths can create a well-rounded practice. * Teacher Guidance: A qualified teacher can help assess a seeker's dominant gunas and guide them towards the most appropriate practices. By understanding the interplay of the gunas and their influence on spiritual seeking, individuals can choose practices that support their unique needs and tendencies, leading to a more fulfilling and effective journey towards liberation. NOTE: it must be said that the end goal from a nondual perspective is to go beyond the gunas - or become trigunatita. But typically if we assume that a seeker starts with a tamas dominant position, the practice of the specific stage will naturally drive them towards the sattvic state, which is where Self-realization will occur.

No, just from providing a bona fide spiritual path. In any case, it wasn’t his objective in the first place.

What’s that got to do with Freud? Freud’s theories are disproven in general in modern psychology (except for some of his ardent followers). I didn’t intend to suggest that was guilty of misconduct, just his theories are mostly invalidated.

Jung borrowed heavily from the Hindu traditions to develop his system. So it is more than likely that he used svapna yoga and much more. Freud didn’t rise beyond his obsession with sexuality, he doesn’t count.

It is called svapna yoga and is part of several tantric traditions such as Kashmiri Shaivism and Sri Vidya. Kundalini is part of the spectrum of modalities employed. Of course that’s not to say you’ve not come up with your dream practice completely independently. But the point is that the practice (even if you’ve undertaken it piece meal) is part of the kundalini tradition. I was referring to how you colored the word samskara to mean a negative thing exclusively.

if you can do it without using that methodology, good luck to you It’s not about what’s been taught but what has empirical evidence to support its efficacy. Do you know why “kundalini” yoga is so hard? Because it doesn’t work for most people. Why? Because it is too complicated and most people don’t have the discipline to practice it. Incidentally that lack of discipline is why any other practice doesn’t work. what you describe as your method IS yoga. And it seems to rely heavily on Kundalini yoga to be precise. I have never said anything of that sort. Au contraire, Realization cannot be brought about by anyone other than the one who’s seeking it. What can be done is point at what nondual realization is. Well, you have just distorted the meaning of the word to fit your view

in order to process emotional trauma one needs to create distance from the mind which acts on those emotions (such as experiencing sorrow, anger, guilt, depression, self-loathing etc). If you can’t do that, you can’t resolve them. One needs to first identify the problem (for which distance is needed) and then identify the cause of the problem. Any mindful repetitive action will help create the separation between the mind and the awareness. Yoga is absolutely one excellent way to do it. if it works for you, more power to you. It depends on what kind of preparatory work has been done. I would venture to say that without proper purification of the mind, nondual realization is not possible. And not all samskaras are bad. For instance If you have the samskara of helping the needy, what purpose would it serve to removing it? Sure, if it works for you. Do let us know how it’s panned out for you.

Not knowing one’s true nature as consciousness in which all phenomena arise and dissipate, when action (karma) is taken in pursuit of pleasure or in avoidance of pain, it sets into motion patterns of behavior that accumulate and lead to more such action. In essence a chain reaction of actions leading to more action.

Fascinating! I think you’re mistaking the symptom for the cause. If you focus on treating the symptom you can’t cure the disease. The root of karma is delusion/ignorance.

Interesting. What is the root cause of “karma” according to you?

Advaita Vedanta clearly states that you get what was always yours and you lose that which was never yours to begin with. Instead of looking at nondual systems as transcendence models, I would suggest to look at them as models to dispel delusions (about identity, etc). How does one dispel a delusion? By first becoming aware that it is a delusion, and further by recognizing what is causing the delusion. The source of delusion is the ego which assumes ownership of labels meant for categorization. this works for all forms of identification (gender, nationality, job, skill, and so on). This even extends to emotions. The identification can happen for both positive or negative attributes. The positive part is obvious to most - if someone is good at something, and they get social approval etc, their ego will fixate on it. But it can happen for negative (someone their intellect would rationalize as undesirable) things too. There’s an upanishadic parable I'm reminded of. There was a washerman who lived in a typical Indian village a long time ago. He has a donkey that he used to carry his load of clothes every morning to the riverbank where he washed dirty clothes, dried, folded and delivered them back to his customers in the village. One day, he had a big argument with his wife, and absent-mindedly he loaded that day’s clothes on the donkey’s back and walked to the riverbank. As he unloaded the clothes off the donkey’s back, he sought to tie the donkey to a branch of the tree where he usually left it, before proceeding to do his washing. But he realized that he had forgotten to get the rope he used to tie the donkey. And so he was in a fix, because the thought that if he left the donkey untied under the tree to wash clothes, it would wander off. The washerman was poor, and he couldn’t afford to lose the donkey. But he couldn’t go back home either, because his day’s livelihood depended on him washing and returning the clothes to his customers. If he didn’t work, his family wouldn’t eat. As he stood there looking stressed, the village wise man, who was walking by, asked him what was wrong. He explained the predicament. The wise man said, “listen — this is a donkey, it’s not known for its intellectual prowess. Just pretend like you’re tying it up, and leave for your work. It will be there when you come back.” Given that it was the wisest man in the village who gave him the advice the washerman followed the instructions. And sure enough, when he came back with his washed and folded load of clothes from the river bank in the evening, the donkey was standing right where he left him, happily munching on the leaves he left for him. He loaded up the donkey, and tried to walk back, but the donkey wouldn’t budge. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t move. He pleaded, cajoled, raged and beat the poor beast, but it was as though the donkey was transfixed in the very spot where he had left him all day. luckily for him, the wise man whose advice he had followed in the morning happened to be returning to the village around then. Seeing the washerman distraught again, he asked “what is the problem now?” The washerman explained what the problem was. The wise man laughed and said, “it’s very simple. Remember how you had pretended to tie your donkey up in the morning? Now pretend to untie it.” Although skeptical of the solution, the washerman followed the instructions. And lo and behold the donkey happily started walking away from the tree. The washerman profusely thanked the wise man as they walked back together to the village. He asked for an explanation as they were walking back. The wise man explained, “donkeys are creatures of habit. Whatever you train them to do, they will do. All its life you’ve trained it to respond to the tying and untying of the rope. It learned early on that it couldn’t wander off to graze elsewhere, so it didn’t wander off when you pretend tied it up this morning. It also learned that it couldn’t move without being untied first, as it would hurt if it tried to walk away while still tied to the tree. So it waited for you to untie it.” Now let us consider a hypothetical person who has suffered a lot of emotional trauma. It is likely that their ego has to attached to this as an identity. Why? Habit/familiarity. The mind is comprised of four functions. The field of thoughts we normally associate with the “mind” - - called manas in Sanskrit. The intellect (aka buddhi), which helps in analyzing and understanding. The storehouse of memories and feelings (aka chitta) from which both memories and feelings are extracted when we experience any phenomenon (this happens in a flash, and the intellect then uses these to evaluate and label/categorize it - such as good or bad, etc). Finally is the ego (ahamkara) that affixes ownership of the label/category (such as my memory, my feeling as so on). The ego is like the donkey, it fixates on these labels and categories and stays attached to them. Just like with the washerman, as long as the donkey was expected to do the right it without the right conditions, it didn’t follow the commands given by the washerman. But once the washerman (informed by the wise man in the parable) figured out the right conditions to make it behave properly, the donkey followed the commands happily. Nondual traditions don’t transcend manas, chitta or ahamkara, but using the intellect (buddhi), overcomes the tendencies they are susceptible to, to become free of delusions. Emotions don’t need to be transcended or transmuted, but rather they need to be recognized along with their triggers, and that will allow us to release ourselves from their bondage.

Sunlight is yang and promotes yang qi. Too much exposure can deplete yin. There are certain times of the day to avoid direct sunlight exposure (for example in India it is the noon to 3 pm time in the summer ) depending on where in the world you are. Also it is not advised to practice things like qigong, yoga etc in direct exposure to strong sunlight (or for that matter heat, cold or wind). The reason being that you need to be in an environment where you can sense your qi and if there are external stimuli at play then your mind is not attuned inward as easily. A distracted mind means scattered qi.

This thread is going into slander territory. Please be responsible and refrain from posting slanderous and wild conspiracy theories.

Very impressive documentary involving some very high level pro athletes testing some skilled taiji people (Lyoto Machida, Febricio Verdum to name a few, trying their hands with Adam Mizner, Master Zhu etc). I watched it and loved it. https://thepowerofchi.com/ Will be a good watch for all the IMA bums as well as the skeptical bums (any Fajin Project members here)? PS: Narrated by Morgan Freeman himself PPS: they have a promo for usd $4.95 to watch the movie. Well worth it, imho.

Indeed! I don’t know what happened to Joey, he is a good-natured person (based on the limited interactions I’ve had with him over several years via FB).

@Apech has agreed to volunteer time as a moderator. Please welcome him back to the mod team.

But Brahman is never “unawakened”.

I agree. I’ve had the good fortune of being in the presence of a few swamis who I know are realized (including swami sarvapriyananda). There is something that happens beyond a mere exchange of words. Similar is my experience with my Sifu - being in his presence has a profound stilling effect on the mind. I agree with this too. I do think that a realized person’s field has an effect on a qualified listener. This doesn’t necessarily require physical proximity - it could be remote/videos too. I’ve had very interesting things happen when I listened to Eckhart Tolle a few times.