dawg

Very much agreed. You see your spirit world while I perceive a completely different way of life and illumination. For example..since you believe in hells they manifest in your subjective phase of consciousness regardless if they objectively exist. Or since you believe in reincarnation you re create it for yourself.

 

Your eye witness is in fact your exploration into your own inner dream state. While you live off imagined past lives and necessary reincarnations..I live off of creating my own essence and realities as I move through change.

 

Your eyes are much different than mine

 

Hello Eviander,

 

It is obvious that you don't believe in reincarnation... while I know it for a fact... I have no fear of death, because I know that I couldn't die even if I wanted too... I believe there is really not need to strive to be "an immortal", because we already are one... we are all immortal whether we like it or not... in my opinion the only thing worth striving for is spiritual attainment...

 

the spirit world has little to do with my meditation and spiritual practice... but ever since I reached one pointedness (that in Buddhism is called "little nirvana", or "a taste of nirvana")... I sometimes spontaneously find myself able to see and visit the spirit world while wide awake... if I close my eyes I can see and interact with the spirit world, and walk off into the spirit world if i want to... if I open my eyes I can see and interact with the the physical world... close my eyes and be back in the spirit world,,, open my eyes and be back in the physical world, etc... it is an effortless by product of attaining one pointedness... and I can assure you that it is not my imagination that I can see the spirit world, it is your imagination that I cannot see it...

 

The spirit world is half of our universe... if you deny it,(like science does) you are denying half of our cosmic reality... and the spirit world is the important half, so you deny everything that is important and of value in your life... How do you expect to reach any kind of spiritual attainment, when you don't even believe that there is a spirit world... you cripple yourself... don't think that the universe is only what you are aware of or can imagine, it is also everything that you are not aware of and can't imagine... your brain is just a piece of meat, where do you think your awareness comes from, if not your spirit ?

 

It is obvious that you don't have the spiritual attainment to see the spirit world and explored it, and talk with spirits... nor have you ever experienced telepathy... if you had, you would realize how easy it is to tell the difference between reality and imagination... the spirit world is nothing like the stuff that comes out of your subconscious mind, which is called "nimitta"... it is very much different than what you might imagine... the spirit world is much more "real" than the physical world (which surprised me)... heavenly beings in the heavenly realms are beautiful beyond anything you could possibly imagine... people on earth sometimes rate a woman or man on a scale of one to ten... on that scale, a heavenly being would rate as a five hundred... it is not just how they look, but also how they talk and laugh, what they say, how they move and gesture, their radiance and perfection, their clothes styles and hair styles, etc... earth people look like monkeys by comparison... the beauty of landscapes, houses, villages and towns is also amazing... while spirits in the ghost realm, could walk past you on the street (and maybe have) and they would look no different than the other people... ghosts are just people waiting to reincarnate, trying to lead a "normal physical life", except that they don't have a physical body... demons in the demon realm are grotesquely ugly and smell of evil, and can assume the shape of a human man or woman, or lizard people, or whatever (they are shape shifters)... and can be charming "silver tongued devils" but are ultimately vicious (they are dangerous and disguise themselves to deceive you)... the only hell realm I have visited, was like visiting an insane asylum that contained the most hopeless cases... it was a flat featureless floor with a featureless void above it (sensual deprivation ?)with grotesquely ugly people dressed in grey rags, glued to the floor about 5 feet apart in every direction, as far as the eye could see... the people ranged from drooling vegetables, to angry glaring people snarling at each other... the people in the heavenly realms looked like people who were spiritually and physically super rich... the people in the hell realm looked like people who were spiritually and physically super poor...

 

seeing the spirit world, is seeing the other half of our life, and the other half of our universe... by interacting with spirits I have learned very much, that I could only speculate about before... seeing the spirit world is just seeing the other half of our reality... It makes me a whole person who understands how it all fits together... It gives me a "unity" (non duality) that I did not have before... but my goal is enlightenment, everything else is just a by product of attainment as I progress towards that goal.

 

Metta,

 

I wrote this comment as an answer to someone who asked me what I thought of “Bashar” the “multi-dimensional E.T.”, channeled by Darryl Anka… I am posting it here in this forum because I thought it might be of interest, as many of us use “self hypnotic techniques” on ourselves in the course of our meditation practice… and to remind you to notice, when other people try to use “hypnotic techniques” on you.

 

Now consider that all other life in the universe would consider you and I (and everyone else on earth) to be an E.T.… does that give us any special “cosmic wisdom” ?

 

So as one E.T. (me) to another E.T. (you), I will proceed with this comment.

 

I don’t doubt that E.T.s are real… that is not the issue… I know from personal experience that E.T.'s are real... 4 of us were sitting around a campfire in the woods one night... and a UFO snuck up on us, and stopped about 40 feet above us and to one side, then turned blindingly bright lights on us, lighting up the whole forest... the birds woke up and started chirping a dawn chorus... when it turned the lights off, we could see the UFO clearly... we could see the lights on stalks folding up into a hatch on the underside, and its’ doors close… it had a window on the side tilted down at a 45 degree angle, and we could see a brightly lit interior through the window... we didn't see any E.T.s, but if it had a window and was lit up inside, there must have been E.T.s inside... we didn't see it coming, but we had a good view of it going... nothing on earth can fly like that UFO did... it must have gone from zero to thousands of miles per hour in seconds, as it shot up at an angle into the sky, flickered a couple of times and lit up like a round light, then swept back around us, rising straight up above us in a spiral until we lost sight of it… leaving us staring at the sky with our mouths agape, while the birds were still chirping, but now sounding very confused… we had a portable radio, so we turned it on to the local radio station, which was being swamped by people reporting lights in the sky… two other times I saw a UFO, but not at such close range…

 

The issue is not whether E.T.s are real… The issue is whether Bashar is (1) an E.T. with a physical body, (2) a spirit & what kind, or (3) a figment of Darryl’s imagination…. Darryl can say that Bashar is not a spirit, but Darryl can not know what Bashar is, except for what Bashar tells him… the possibilities are that (1) Bashar is a real voice that Darryl is channeling, or (2) Bashar is a produce of Darryl’s subconscious mind which he thinks is real, or (3) that Bashar is Darryl pretending to be Bashar… if Bashar is a channeled voice, it is impossible for Darryl to “know” for sure what Bashar is… but Darryl insists that Bashar is an E.T. with a body... the most he could know is that “Bashar SAYS he is not a spirit, but an E.T. that claims to have a body !”… If he emphatically insists that Bashar is NOT a spirit, it implies that Bashar is his own creation… that he invented Bashar… it is the only way he could be 100% sure that Bashar was not a spirit…

 

I first checked out “Bashar” about six months ago, because some people in a forum were talking about him… but I found Darryl’s site uninteresting, because everything on it was stuff I had already seen before and was already aware of… then when I was asked about it, I went and checked Darryl’s site again with an eye for content, reading text and looking at videos… looking for anything that indicated that Bashar was an E.T… again, none of the ideas were “new wisdom”, but the videos really put me off (explained below)… then when I got a reply from Darryl himself, I went back, and with a very critical eye checked out more than twenty sites… reading his site, looking at videos as far back as 1984, reading comments in forums, looking at sites for and against Bashar…

 

(I will keep this as simple as possible…)... there are many mistakes in what Bashar says, and he quotes the Buddha and other people (word for word sometimes) as if the ideas and concepts are his… THIS IS BLATANT DECEPTION, but I don’t want to elaborate on that, because saying that the content contains nothing new, sums it up… and anyway the content is not the issue.

 

CONCLUSION…

 

1)… NOTHING NEW… Most of the ideas and concepts on Darryl’s site are good… But that is because these ideas and concepts were all taken from the best of existing earth sources… the site is a rehash of much of the earth’s mystic wisdom concerning consciousness… none of the ideas are from Bashar of Darryl… none of the material is original… my conclusion is that Bashar and Darryl are the same person, and that he knows it.

 

2)… HYPNOYIC PRESENTATION TECHNIQUE… Bashar’s “manic” presentation is a hypnotic technique… in the videos when Darryl is channeling Bashar, it looks like Darryl is having a “manic episode” (as in manic/depressive)… because of his gestures, loud forceful voice, the cadence and selective inflection of his voice, repetition, and non-stop monologue… Bashar/Darryl is making a “hypnotic presentation”… Darryl’s performance as Bashar is an engineered “hypnotic technique” to put you into a state of euphoria (light trance state), through the production of brain chemicals called endorphins. It gets you high without drugs. It also makes you vulnerable to suggestion. The mechanics are similar to what you might experience in some “controlled” meditation courses, where you listen to tapes… chanting a mantra can have the same effect… The difference is that with Bashar/Darryl, it is likely that you will be fed a number of beliefs designed to manipulate you (both within the written materials and the videos)…

 

"yes sets."… You will find strings of two or three statements anyone would agree with as being true. As you read or listen to them, you will automatically say "yes." Then there will be an arbitrary statement of an opinion that Darryl wants you to buy into by continuing to say "yes."

 

Darryl is using the same manic hypnotic presentation technique that fundamentalist evangelical Christian preachers uses; to work their congregation up into a temporary state of bliss (he titillates their endorphins), so that they feel good… the congregation thinks that the bliss is spirituality (but it is not, it is just induced bliss)… so they keep coming back for more… thinking that the preacher is channeling the voice of God… and…. It is the same manic hypnotic technique that Hitler used in Germany to make the Germans “feel good”, so that he could gain power… the same method that he continued to use non-stop for years, driving the Germans into the madness (mania) of the Nazi atrocities… and… it is the same method that Rush Limbaugh, the right wing commentator uses to pump up an endorphin high in his neo-con listeners… the same method that a fast talking comedian, or fast talking salesman uses.

 

Darryl is using Bashar “to give importance and authority” to what he says… without Bashar, no one would pay any attention to him… he would be just another voice in the wilderness… Bashar is his ticket to fame and fortune… By speaking as Bashar, the multi-dimensional E.T. living in the future, he has made himself rich and famous… people flock to him because they think they are talking to an E.T…

 

3)… EMPOWERING YOURSELF… To develop your “spirituality”, you need to have the “confidence” or “self esteem”, to believe that you can do it… but never forget that “empowering yourself” JUST means building up your self esteem, so that you believe in yourself, and that you believe that you are capable of doing what you aspire to do… it is not spirituality itself… and if you take “empowering yourself” too far, it will give you a very big ego, and you will have too much self esteem… causing you to look down on other people as being “inferior” (it will turn you into a “Nazi”)… and then your big ego will keep you from developing your “spirituality”… too little or too much is a problem, you need to “feel” your way, and find “the middle path” (balance).

 

The only useful thing that Darryl’s site offers is “how to empower yourself”… using the idea of imagining a “new positive reality”, and then dropping the “old negative reality”… you create an avatar of yourself that is the person you want to be, then you assume that avatar as the real you, and then you live it as your “new positive reality”…

 

Darryl probably used this method on himself… he wanted to be able to channel an E.T… so he created the reality he wanted, and just assumed it… whether he “believes” that Bashar is real, or not, I don’t know… but he has no qualms about deceiving people (he is already blatantly passing off other people’s wisdom, as Bashar’s wisdom)… to him it is just living his dream… and Bashar is an extremely profitable (multi-millions) business venture as well… and he would justify any deception by saying how much good he is doing by helping people to empower themselves… or in Darryl’s own words (from his reply), he has “helped people make positive, self-empowering changes in their lives”…

 

Other people who claim to be channeling Bashir as well, cannot even prove that they are channeling anything… much less that they are channeling an E.T., a spirit, or Bashar… it is impossible to prove or disprove… any con-man could mimic Bashir, just to get a piece of the action, to cash in on Basher’s “fame” (because Bashar is a very profitable business)… no matter what people “claim” as “proof”, it is impossible to prove or disprove…

 

In any case, even if Darryl really is channeling Bashar, I would not want to have anything to do with the entity he is channeling… not only because he is deceptive… but also because I don’t trust any entity (human or otherwise) that tries to use a “hypnotic technique” on me… especially when they are not up front about it… a “hypnotic technique” is a “control trip”, that I might use on myself in my meditation practice to “reprogram” myself… but I would never use it on someone else, nor would I allow someone else to use it on me.

 

4)… THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY… In my opinion, Darryl is just another “spin-off” from the “church of scientology”, because a lot of his methods and morals come from scientology… scientology people are famous for scamming other people… their de-programming methods (called “auditing”) are designed to “hypnotize” people into trusting them completely, then they will victimize people (sucking money & free labor out of them)… then after victimizing them, if they complain, scientology people will then tell them that, “In this life there are no victims, only opportunities”... their “new positive reality” that they have assumed, conveniently shifts the “blame” onto the “victim”… it is the victim’s fault for allowing themselves to be victimized… although it is true to say that it is the victims fault for allowing themselves to be victimized, it is also true to say that the victims were hypnotized into trusting deceptive slime balls who then victimized them…

 

Quote from Anderson Report… “It is the firm conclusion of this Board that most scientology and dianetic techniques are those of “authoritative hypnosis” and as such are dangerous ... the scientific evidence which the Board heard from several expert witnesses of the highest repute ... leads to the inescapable conclusion that it is only in name that there is any difference between authoritative hypnosis and most of the techniques of scientology. Many scientology techniques are in fact hypnotic techniques, and Hubbard (the founder of “scientology”) has not changed their nature by changing their names.”

 

This is the “Bashar” site, if you don’t know who he is.

http://www.bashar.org/

 

I think you may find the four links below, which are articles, all from the same site, to be interesting. The first three articles are about Hypnosis.

http://www.ericksonian.info/history_ericksonian_hypnosis_p1.html

http://www.ericksonian.info/Gilligan1.html

http://www.ericksonian.info/summers_eve_transcript_p3.html

 

This article is about Qidong.

http://www.ericksonian.info/WEIL1.html

 

Metta,

A non-sticky awareness... well put, my friend. That's a good analogy for the kind of mental poise we could all aim to stabilize in our day to day living.

 

Yes, bliss can be a great trip and a great trap.. this is the reason why my parents decided to name me Ananda when i was born - they had great compassion and decided to give me a permanent reminder of how easy it is to get swept away by the winds of distractions in life, with Bliss being at the top of the list if one is not well-practiced enough.

 

Do you believe in a literal Nirvana? From your words it appears that you do, but of course, i could well be mistaken. I know of pure lands and have been once or twice to blissful planes and mingled with the cool crowd there, but i am not certain that Nirvana could be associated with such realms. There are those who may want to cling tightly to the assertion of a literal Nirvana, but i am not buying this interpretation. As i understand, it simply points to non-returning to the cycle of birth and death, or to reach a point of enough non-attachment that one's being is able to rise above all dualistic phenomena. The suttas allude to different levels of this cultivation of non-attachment, culminating in Parinirvana.

 

What's your learned opinion?

 

 

Hello Cowtao,

 

My teacher says that there is a literal nirvana, the Buddha realm, which is the highest spiritual realm, and is your last reincarnation which is eternal…

 

he says that people of very very high attainment who are almost enlightened, but die before they reach enlightenment are reincarnated (born) in “the pure lands”… there their attainment ripens into enlightenment, and when they “die” there, they are reborn as pure awareness in the Buddha realm… that the “pure lands” are just another realm where you are born and die,

 

DISCLAMER : what follows is just my opinion.

 

If one pointedness is a “taste of nirvana”, nirvana is nothing like the heavenly realms… in one pointedness you are a single point of awareness, you don’t have a body… there is not time and space… that single point of awareness is “unbounded fire”… “a sea of energy” (bliss)…

 

space in the heavenly realms of the spirit world is not 3 dimensional (or 4 dimensional if you include time) like space in the physical world… in the heavenly realms a point is a just a unity, that can expand into anything… you could pull a herd of elephants out of a small shoe box… you can “think” yourself from place to place instantly… you can fly… you can create things with your thoughts… etc… if you can do all this in a mid level heavenly realm, it seems to me that you would be able to do this, plus much more than this in nirvana… so that nirvana should not be limited to a point, or just 3 or 4 dimensions of space…that the point of awareness (the “unbound fire”, the unbounded limitless energy of the bliss) could “go anywhere”, “do anything”, and “be anything”… on a no-clinging temporary basis, creating time and dimensions of space, or anything else, just by intending it with a thought.

 

you say, “I know of pure lands and have been once or twice to blissful planes and mingled with the cool crowd there”… so you know that in the (fine material) heavenly realms, you walk on the ground, there are buildings and cities, incredibly beautiful people (with bodies), it is spotlessly clean, a very blissful world, but it is a world that is not so very different from the physical world, except that it is a very beautiful and blissful place, without physical limits…

 

Now consider the lowest realm, the “hell realm” at the bottom of the spirit world, which is so dreadfully awful, and full of all the nasty people from the physical world… look at the vast difference between the heavenly realms you visited, and how much worse the hell realms are… now imagine that the difference between the heavenly realms you saw and nirvana as being just as great… that nirvana (the highest realm) is that much better than the heavenly realms you visited… I trip all the circuit breakers in my brain, just trying to imagine it…

 

Note :

“Parinirvana” is the final immortal state of nirvana that an enlightened being (Buddha or arahat) reaches after they die, and shed their physical body… as compared to being enlightened (“nirvana”) and still being alive with a physical body.

 

Metta,

Hi Dawg,

 

I have really enjoyed your posts, but...

 

Don't you think you're focusing solely on concentrative techniques and not insight? Also it is my understanding that enlightenment is insight into the nature of reality and not the power to "do anything" necessarily.

 

Just 2 cents...

 

Hello Lucky7Strikes,

 

Thanks for your comment,

 

A good point... I agree that enlightenment is insight into the nature or reality... then I would add that the power to "do anything" is just a by product of that insight into reality... that you know how everything works so you could manipulate "realities"... but the question then is, "would you want to ?"

 

I could also describe enlightenment as a single point of Teflon coated non-stick awareness, with insight into the nature or reality... swimming in a sea (unlimited, unbounded) of pure energy (bliss).

 

Metta,

 

Hi there,

I was told by a friend, that is gone now... That when he would go on an OBE. That he would look at his self in the mirror and it was amazing. This is as you say. You look kind of like yourself, but more beautiful. He also told me, if I got the chance to look at my hands and feet. Do you know what he meant?

I was also told there is a beautiful city built. And that there are people that look just like us, and higher beings, also. I have only got to go twice on my own and talk to two regular people, and i have to say they did just look like anyone you would see on the street.

But there was someone there talking to a man I could not see. And the man I could see said to the other, I couldn't see. "Where did you get this one?" And it was said kinda funny.... I have to add. I have had a presence of something in my home for over a year now.

I can smell it, and it has a smell of nothing I have ever smelled before. Not bad, not good. Just different... I have talked to it through pendulum work, which I don't mess with anymore. Long story. And he told me he is a fallen Angel, and that they take many brides, but only one queen. And I have been being watched ever since...

Any ideas on any of this, I would sure appreciate it. There is more to the story. But i would feel better on a pm if you don't mind. If you do, anything you have to say would be greatly appreciated...

I want to add. I brought attention to myself through a Ouija board a couple of years ago, when this all started. And I pray, and read my Bible. I seem to be drawn to this type of communication. Rather I wanted it or not. Because I got ride of that board, and all things, that have to do with that type of thing along time ago. And my body would go to the astral plain on it's own. I would wake up just vibrating, and watching myself from above, this is one of the reasons. I came looking to this site for some understanding...

So anyways, If you might have some ideas for me... Thank you, and you can PM if you don't mind... Melanie

 

Hello goonis38

 

I will reply to your comment by PM sometime tomorrow... I want to give your comment some thought before I reply... and I am going offline now.

 

Metta,

Careful with this thread everyone. Don't let your egos interfere with your practice because it is easier to reach "egohood" than "buddhahood", for sure. The mind is a trickster and a master of deception.

 

WATCH YOUR MINDS.

 

 

Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...Buddho... Buddho...etc

 

Metta,

 

 

I am pretty aware of what you mentioned. The images I saw didn't popped out of my head and I wasn't certainly thinking of anything or trying to think of parallel realities. Same happens when I practice standing meditation and see gates through specific trees that open to those realities I already referred to in this and other threads.

 

Btw, Daoist energetic practitioners I know of had similar experiences to mine. I also belief the vortex of energy (similar to that of the spinning of galaxies or planets around their stars) you create as a result of Bagua practice is ceertainly very powerul, more than what I experienced during silent Vipassana retreat which requires an extended period of time, too many hours a day and leaves you too ungrounded if you are not careful.

 

 

Hello Durkhrod Chogori,

 

Nimitta appear spontaneously, and are not produced by the conscious mind (what you are thinking about)... they just appear, seemingly out of no where... any one who does serious meditation is likely to experience nimitta ... visual nimitta are the most common type... I usually see nimitta while I am doing walking meditation, or doing standing meditation on the walking path at the Buddhist temple where my teacher lives... sometimes in the middle of the night it can get pretty weird, but I just chill and enjoy the show... and keep on walking...

 

although we are not in the spirit world, some nimitta can be caused or created by spirits... (i guess they are pushing buttons in our head)... nimitta are experienced by the body's senses, so can be sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch... they are physical phenomena that we experience with our physical body.

 

When doing walking meditation in the wee hours of the night, I have several times had the candles on my walking path grow into blazing multicolored sparklers with sphere shaped halos around them... making the walking path look like a magic place amid the dark forest that surrounded it.

 

I have had spirits poking me in the legs when I tried to sleep... my teacher said, "they are needy spirits that want you to give them some "merit" (good karma energy), the next time they bother you, offer them (intend) some of your merit and send them on their way... your generosity will earn you more merit than you give, so you will lose nothing"... I did what he said, and I was not bothered any more...

 

Then I had spirits flicking water in my face, I could feel the water but my face would be dry... again this would happen when i was trying to go to sleep, 3, 4, maybe 5 times they would flick water in my face... even when I pulled the blanket over my face, I could still feel it... until I started offering them merit, then they went away...

 

Then one day at the monastery, after it had rained all night and the leaves of the trees were wet, I went to do walking meditation on a walking path (which is shaded by trees)... I stepped onto the end of the walking path facing the other end, and did 6 six deep breaths in and out, and the tree I was standing under dropped all of it's water on me... I thought it was a very odd thing to happen, but shrugged and started walking down the path... as I walked, every tree that I passed under dropped it's water on me, I was soaked... when I told my teacher what happened, he said, "the devas were blessing you", then he had a really good laugh...

 

My teacher said to ignore nimitta, that they are just a by product of your meditation, and are not important.

 

Good luck in your practice,

 

Metta,

Hello dawg,

 

how about something less obvious than your de riguer "the other guy/gal who is not me obviously doesn't realize or understand what I, dawg, realize and understand" -- e.g., it will be much less obvious for you but just consider for a moment this outlandish possibility... how about I remember, and I remember it differently?.. and what I remember requires no "beliefs" at all, unlike what you propose?.. and therefore is inherently a tad more credible than any infant memory that falls apart unless propped up by an adult belief system?..

Have a nice day too.

 

Hello Taomeow,

 

Good Advice...

 

You should practice what you preach...

 

But I will repeat, as a fact, that my memory is continuous from the present, all the way back to the womb... If you don't believe it, it doesn't change the fact.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Metta,

Dawg,

 

During astral type - or spirit world travels, have you ever come across what is called the "Higher Self"?

 

hello Mokona,

 

No... I have always though of the higher self as being the awareness of your (eternal) spirit, as opposed to the awareness (conditioned reflex) of your conscious mind...

 

that said, I have seen my spirit body while in the spirit world... I was looking at my spirit body from outside my spirit body... and I was amazed by it... it looked like me, but unlike my physical body, it was perfect flawless and radiant... but note that the spirit body that I saw in the spirit world, is the same spirit body that occupies my physical body...

 

so the only "higher self" that I know, is the awareness of my normal spirit body, as opposed to the conditioned reflexes of my mind.

 

Metta,

Not so sure that 'enlightenment' is itself an experience.

 

According to your practice (and mine too), there is no 'I' to experience this enlightened state.

 

At the onset of the realization of non-dual awakening, which can only happen in the now-ness of the moment, always, the self drops away. Who remains to experience, when the very act of acknowledging any experience, following which the reference of a self must necessarily arise, immediately regresses the mind to recall and reflect on past experiences as rough or subtle measures to arouse meaning in the present one.

 

Which is why i said enlightenment cannot be an experience. That which can be experienced(named) can not be true enlightenment.

 

What is true enlightenment? That which can not be named. Therefore, silence.

 

To conclude, just wanna say that enlightenment is not like skydiving.

 

 

Hello CowTao,

 

Enlightenment is pure awareness... awareness does not need an "I" to exist...

 

you are correct in thinking that enlightenment cannot be an experience, because an experience implies attachment to something, and in nirvana there is no attachment.

 

"silence" is a physical sensation, nirvana is not physical, so it is better to think of it as stillness of awareness (no turbulence) and bliss.

 

and you are certainly correct in saying that enlightenment is not like skydiving.

 

You could think of enlightenment as like being aware of everything, but attached to nothing... in an eternal state of "now"...

 

Metta,

 

DISCLAIMER FOR NIT PICKERS : yes I know that nirvana can not be described with words, that words can only describe things with bounds, and that nirvana is unbounded.

Definitely you are not alone.

 

I was shaking my head at the "memories of birth" of a premature baby placed in the incubator and comparing them to my own... wow, what fun it must be to belong to the species of baby dawg describes! but unfortunately, a premature human baby is not this lucky. For starters, the neocortex which does our conceptual thinking for us is not there yet, it is simply not formed anatomically at birth... so stories of what one thought about when being born are akin to a story of, e.g., growing a beard at three days of age and mom complaining about the stubble interfering with nursing. The beard machinery is not there yet... and the conceptualizing machinery is not there yet. That's human. Some other species may be born with a cranium-full of abstract ideas about its experiences of the moment, but not ours. Regardless of whether you remember your past lives or not, in this-here life you are born feeling, not thinking.

 

Feeling, on the other hand, is present full blast at birth, more so than in an adult -- not only all the machinery for it is already there but much of it is cranked up to intensity later unavailable to adults or even babies three months old. And none of it is mediated with neocortical ideation and conceptualization that disperses its intensity in adults. What kind of machinery?.. E.g., the retinas of the newborn baby are ten times more sensitive to light than those of an adult (which makes the "bright light in the room" mentioned by dawg an intensely traumatic experience in real retrieved memories of birth, of which I've witnessed a couple hundred, besides my own. One of the ways we screw up our species is by allowing birth into bright lights, something that never happens to natural/indigenous humans). On top of that, the retinas of a premature baby are ten times more sensitive to light than those of a full term baby. (Dawg, let me guess... your current eyesight is not 20/20, am I correct?..)

 

Now then. When they cut the umbilical cord, the feeling experience is invariably that of suffocating. Again, natural humans don't do that, allowing the baby's own circulation to gain momentum before it will be separated from the mother's. The abrupt cutting of the umbilical cord and the horrible feeling of dying because one can't breathe right after being born is behind all subsequent suicidal activities known to man that involve the cutting off of air, unconsciously aimed at replicating the conditions of the unresolved original life-and-death trauma in order to resolve it. On top of that, in a premature baby, a special foam-like fluid that is released by the lungs a couple of days before full-term birth so as to soften the impact of air hitting this infinitely tender organ not yet accustomed to it is not formed yet. Which is why my earliest memory, the real one, is of breathing in what felt like coarsely crushed glass.

 

And so on... And particularly because I have real memories and have helped other people retrieve them, I'm having a hard time with dawg's contributions of pretty fairy tales... The harm of these tales (not dawg's alone, of course, I mean the cumulative harm from all such tales) is tremendous. If we don't realize that we horribly traumatize our children by all the methods we utilize to "help" them into this world, the obliviousness will never end, and the cruelest abuse of the most vulnerable and dependent of humans, newborn babies, will never stop... and because the effects of a traumatic birth are permanently damaging and body-and-soul-altering, and someone has seen to it that every single modern birth is traumatic, we will never recover from our predicament.

 

Hello Taomeow

 

You obviously don’t realize or understand that the body of a baby is not driving the development of that baby's spirit or awareness… that the reincarnated mind is fully developed and aware at birth… that the awareness is not dependent on the development of the brain in any way… which indicates that you either don’t believe in reincarnation, or simply don’t understand it

 

Have a nice day,

 

Metta

I've tried this with feelings for my father, no luck yet.

 

Hello Mokona

 

This is not about your father, it is about you... it is about you understanding that your anger, hurt, and pain, are a part of him, not you... but that you are "clinging" to it as if it were a part of you... that your anger, hurt, and pain is his control trip still controlling you... that you do not have any anger, hurt, and pain in you that belongs to you... that it belongs to your father, poor fellow... "here dad, here's your anger, hurt, and pain... I don't need it any more so I'm returning it... thanks for the loan... I'll leave it in the kitchen... you can do what you want with it... see you latter... bye".

 

Just keep doing it on a regular basis... and you will cleanse your self of any baggage your father dumped on you.

 

Metta,

I feel that multi-tasking is possible, for example and as described below:

 

"...All of the states of turya from nijananda to cidananda comprise the various phases of nimilana samadhi. Nimilana samadhi is internal subjective samadhi. In your moving through these six states of turya, this samadhi becomes ever more firm. With the occurrence of krama mudra, nimilana samadhi is transformed into unmilana samadhi, which then becomes predominant. This is that state of extraverted samadhi, where you experience the state of samadhi at the same time you are experiencing the objective world. And when unmilana samadhi becomes fixed and permanent, this is the state of jagadananda"

 

From Swami Lakshmanjoo Brahmachari

 

Om

 

Hello Bob,bob,bob,

 

"Samadhi" is just the Pali word(a dialect of Sanskrit) for "concentration"... it is not the spirit world...

 

And any way, the quote is talking about a series of ever deeper states of concentration... not multi tasking...

 

And the goal of Samadhi is to reach "one pointedness" which is the opposite of multi tasking.

 

Have a nice day,

 

Metta,

I like the computer illustration, and will run with it... So lets say you don't reach enlightenment in a given life time, but you do acheive a degree of cultivation (i.e. your seriously upgrade your computer) in your next incarnation do you start from scratch, or (if you have upgraded enough, do you get a free cupon for a more advanced model when you get your new computer), that is does your spirit body retain some of the cultivation, so you pick up from where you left off?

 

Hello Dmattwads

 

your spirit body retains all of your cultivation, so you pick up from where you left off... with a new computer that is an up grade or down grade, depending on whether your cultivation went up or down.

 

Metta,