Jetsun

Its not that complicated . Just pay attention to the sounds in your environment right now, where did they arise from? Where did they go to? What do they arise within? What is it that is aware of reading this post? What is it that is aware? They are a few basic pointers to try to get a experience of that fourth state of consciousness, yet it isn't really a state, it is what all states arise within. It is the only constant yet we miss it. You don't need to transcend anything to get it, it is already what you are and already present right now as you read this post.

There seems to be a contradiction in that I both crave liberation and freedom while also craving security and stability. It is only because of suffering that the drive for liberation seems to be winning out, without that suffering the drive for security would probably be the dominant force.

Empowered mantras and meditating on avatars can bring in divinity , which the egoic mind can never dominate. Whether that comes from inside or outside of you depends on how you define the self, it will come from the freedom part of you rather than the part which wants to control and dominate. Other than that selfless service is probably the best way, but that is going to be a lot more purifying if it is done from the basis of some recognition of selflessness or from the place those that you serve are extensions of yourself.

That is pretty much the way most of my practices went until the last year or so. The mind takes ownership of them and then they no longer work, there is a great lesson in that failure which is basically that all this stuff will never go the way that you want it to go, in the end all you can really do is surrender to whatever happens. I really understand that, the mind can manipulate and control things in very subtle and clever ways to try keep control, the good news is that that influence from the outside is available, for example you can get empowered mantras from certain lineages and individuals which bring in the outside influence which the mind can never really own or control. devotional practices could also bring that in possibly, also meditating on avatars.

I have done kum nye and some Tibetan lung practices and seen trul khor and Tummo and I think they are working on different aspects of energy than the descent of energy from above the head, what some Christians call the descent of the dove, that current is quite specific and isn't forced in any way rather it is just a matter of becoming aware of it and available to it. I don't think many Taoist practices are working in this way either as most of the ones I have found anyway like the Water Method which try work with the descent of energy do it in a forced way like it is the responsibility of the practitioner to make it happen and make the opening, whereas in reality is is an existing current already in place you just have to become aware of whats already going on, and you are more likely to become available to it through surrender than anything you try make happen through force, which is why I expect most of the Taoist practices around these days have probably been corrupted by ego. My perspective on all of this has changed a lot recently mostly due to my experiences while on retreat with Adyashanti in the summer, as the first part of the retreat involved more Zen and Vedanta type work which revolved around meditation and resting in the stillness and inquiring into the sense of "I", all of which are pretty classic Eastern ways of penetrating to the ground of being, which aim to help the person awaken or wake up, which in energetic terms means the energy moving up and out so it is no longer limited by the human form. But surprising to me was one day involved an energetic transmission and meditation on the descent of energy, the decent of grace from above the head down into your humanity to redeem it, which was a Christian based transmission. That descent meditation was probably one of the most shockingly powerful movements and meditations I have ever done in terms of its capacity to touch the heart and feel like my human life was being affirmed, a good proportion of the hall of 300 people were in tears by the end of it with barely a word being said. Nothing at all was forced, it was just about becoming aware of and sensitive to what was already occurring. As well as the movement to wake up out of and away from humanity there is a simultaneous pouring in of spirit directly in to your humanness which redeems and liberates everything it touches, like the dna helix there are two opposite yet not opposing currents occurring simultaneously. I expect Taoists knew about and used both currents at one point, some probably still do but I haven't found any myself who really teach and transmit anything around this any more. Adyashanti actually spoke about Antony De Mello before the transmission, basically the Jesuits have a method they call the Spiritual exercises of St Ignatius which use forms of imaginative prayer and the Bible is used to put yourself in the position of the various characters in the book, the purpose of which is to discover that entire spectrum of humanity lives within you, which makes you far more open and forgiving to your entire being which also brings more of you together and available for the descent of love or Christ into your human form. Antony De Mello taught awakening but he also continued to do retreats on the spiritual exercises.

Is it? Most Eastern methods are about waking up, which means bringing the energy up and out of the top of the head. The Christian transmission is bringing spirit and love back down into humanity. In my personal experience the transmission of Zen is different from the Christian transmission, the only thing comparable I have found in other paths is the Bodhisattva tradition, Buddhism without that element lacks that downward movement of energy in my experience.

The headless way isn't about imagining you have no head, its about being brutally honest about what you really know and can perceive in the moment. The imagination doesn't come in to it. To the OP it sounds like you have seen straight through the flaws in those methods and need more direct teachings. By the sounds of things you already have plenty of recommendations but I will give you one more which is Adyashanti whose clarity and understanding is hard to rival in my experience, he has a book and mp3 set called "True meditation" which I can recommend.

Christianity can help with this issue to a certain extent, if you look at Jesus he knew his fate of extreme torture and painful death yet he still said yes to it all and yes to life, even if he did have moments of wavering and doubt. Which is why all the saints say try to emulate Jesus as all they are really saying is say yes to it all, even the hardship and pain, which is what brought St John through the dark night of the soul, he was in prison and in despair yet still didn't enter complete resistance to his life as it was.

If you believe in reincarnation then suicide doesn't solve much

It's probably far more common than people realise to resent being born. You begin life in safe oceanic bliss in the womb then as soon as you enter the world you are smacked and you start to cry, that is how life begins, so it is no surprise that it can be a bit of a shock. Even the old psychoanalysts realised that many people spend a lot of their time trying to regress back to the womb, the insanity and violence of the world can be hard to take if your eyes and heart are even half open.

What is the search for immortality except the neurotic attempt to escape the inevitability of death? Yet if non-duality is a deeper truth then on another level your identity is just as much with the entirity of existence than it is with your individual body, therefore you are already immortal and death only exists in the imagination.

Just being honest and sincere is the best place to start, how important is the question of who you are? Many years ago when I first heard of Ramana and self enquiry I would do it but there was no real intensity or sincerity in it, which is strange in itself because what is more important than finding out who you are? Yet if I was honest at the time it wasn't any sort of priority or hold much importance beyond the few minutes a week I would ask the question. I realised most of us either think we know who we are with blind confidence or we don't realky care who we are, its not a vitally important question for our lives and you can't pretend its important if it isnt, you are better off investigating why it isn't important and whether our other priorities which we put all of our attention on have any real value or reality.

Ram Das and some of his rich devotee friends would often try to give their guru Neem Keroli Baba money as he was known to wander around India penniless with only a blanket to keep himself warm, his response was always along the lines of "why do I need money? I already own all the money in America"

I think we all just have to be good boys and girls now and wait to be told by a scientist what is real and what isn't and what is meaningful in our lives, if an aspect of our lives can't be put in a pie chart then we have to ignore and repress it with all our strength until the day that it can be.

Troll thread

It is the minds job to think dualistic thoughts, to make distinctions, that is it's purpose as a tool to help us navigate in the world, to try to get it not to do its job is first of all not possible for any great length of time and second not necessary. What can change is our relationship to those thoughts and our identity within them, which is why there are techniques to find the gaps between thought because then you can realise that you still exist if there are no thoughts, you still exist in the still point in the gaps. It isn't done to get rid of thoughts or to try to create a permanent state of no thought, it is about the fundamental issue of identity. When your identity starts to break free from dualistic thoughts then there is no problem or difference if they are there or not as long as you don't believe they are true or identify with them as being you. There is a false king on the throne, but it isn't a matter of getting rid of the pretender or killing him, it is about making him a loyal servant

So the critical aspect in understanding the Dharma is Kensho, I wonder if that is the same thing that modern people call awakening ?

Why is it dangerous not to focus on the chest area? I agree that it is dangerous not to open the heart if that is what you mean, but I think opening the heart is different than placing your attention on the chest area. One full time healer I know said that it can cause heart problems to meditate on that area, as energy will focus there through your attention.

There are potential dangers with focusing on the chest area, there is a thread about it here http://thetaobums.com/topic/31874-heart-centered-living-and-middle-dan-tien-precautions/ It is said that if you track thoughts to their source or track their energy to their origin you end up at the heart, but then it is encouraged for you to go beyond it or further within it, if you focus on the physical area you may end up with negative consequences even if initially it produces pleasurable sensations and experiences.

In my own life I keep coming up against a force which it seems tries to keep me unconscious, to block growth. Some people call it evil, some the devil, some the force of Mara, but what is it really? It actively tries to do all it can to shun the light of awareness and consciousness and can be very cunning and subtle in controlling and manipulating. It is a force inside of each of us and in society at large and sometimes it even goes to the extreme to actively destroy those who try to bring the light of consciousness to the masses. There are famous examples of people being killed by this force such as Jesus, but there may well be many others such as Socrates, Osho, Anthony De Mello, maybe even people like John Lennon and probably many others. It may even be dangerous to become conscious, at least publicly because as it can't stand the light in ourselves it can't bare it in others either so will try to shut it out wherever and however it can. I see how it could turn some people into paranoid conspiracy fanatics, but I think that is just another one of its tricks to blame the Illuminati or aliens keeps you from really getting to the heart of it. Castaneda alluded to it being some sort of entity called the fliers or something, but that could be a concept used within a teaching rather than something more based in reality. So what is it? why does it exist?

Being absorbed in science can be just as much an avoidance of reality as being absorbed in spirituality, I know plenty of academic scientists and many of them are basically out of their bodies and completely cerebral beings, you ask them how they feel about something and you might get an answer a few hours later if your lucky. Take the anti religion pin up boy Richard Dawkins as an example, he has admitted that he was sexually abused as a child but he says it didn't affect him at all, in other words he is completely dissociated from his body and genuine feelings, which occasionally comes out in projected vehemence against the religious, its not hard to see what's really going on with him. Being absorbed in the intellectual can be a defence against discovering the deeper depths of your own being, which is what spirituality can help guide people towards, science won't help with that aspect of life very much i'm afraid.

It would probably be better for your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health to have lots of intimate sex.

What do I think? well I think power always has the strong temptation and potential to corrupt but it depends on the individual. Power is intimately related to powerlessness, so only if one has completely accepted powerlessness as part of their human experience and be prepared to experience it again can they deal with power effectively, otherwise they will likely abuse their power to try to avoid ever having such experiences again. The problem being that those that crave power are usually those who most want to avoid powerlessness so they are the least qualified to have it.

Including yourself

To put the blame on a external demon or other such external parasitic force may just be another trick to keep us unconscious, because if it is outside of us then we don't look within for the solution, yet I do sort of understand it because why would we do things which are counter productive to our own growth, to keep ourselves confined? When I talked about demons earlier I mean it more as an internal psychic force or attribute rather than an external entity. It could be that it is just the force of our previously erected defences which once upon a time served us but have grown out of use,but still fight for their survival. Yet it seems like most other things in nature die or change when required, except this,which is probably why there have been so many mythologies and theories about what it is and why it exists. I see this "force" all the time now, it is so obvious, for example when non tired people fall asleep in meditation "something" makes them sleep, and with the energy healing I do so far many people fall asleep within five minutes of it me starting it, either I am incredibly boring or something else is going on.