The Nature of Self

[Marblehead]

Hello Bla... err... Marblehead,

 

I would say one should never say "can't", but rather that they are unable to right now, at least in matters such as these. I am simply stating the opinion that hate propagates hate, that in order for us to ever be able to live in peace with each other, that we must first be rid of hate, and more importantly fear. Fear is the basis of hate after all.

 

As far as people that hurt children and women, they are sick and need to be treated, but again, a society and culture is defined by how they treat the most heinous of their people.

 

Aaron

 

I agree. Hate and fear are negative traits. One will never find inner peace, I think, if these two hold a place inside of us.

 

To the best of my ability I will act according to the laws of the land where I live. But I can still hold my opinions regarding what should be done or with what size round they should be treated with.

[Sundragon]

Here's what I have experiencially sensed and have intuited regarding the Self. The Self exists as a relative reality the way that our physical body does, and all of our other bodies (astral, causal, mental, spiritual, etc.) exist. I see the Self, sometimes called the Higher Self as an oversoul and as a personal deity. This Higher Self is, from our perspective, God(dess), Christ, Buddha, Atman, Krishna, etc. and both can and often does appear to individuals as figures of religious significance for those of a religious temperment. Bhakti yoga is effective because it allows one to personify the Self in a manner that allows one to feel deep devotion. Does that mean that the gods, buddhas, neteru, etc. aren't real...no. They're "real" from a certain perspective of consciousness and act as wayshowers to the Self that lies beyond all form.

 

This Self is only relatively real and only exists from levels of consciousness and awareness equivalent to or "lower" than itself (though it is infinitely more "real" than the ego-consciousness of the personality) From a "higher" vantage point (the Self's Higher Self so to speak), it too is unreal (as we are from levels of awareness higher than our own) and so on and so on as Self-realization ever-increases within endless planes of Being. Ultimately this Self is all of this, is indivisable from All That Is and can be said not to exist, in the Buddhist fashion, because its more a process of ever-expanding awareness than it is a singular Being to be grasped and understood.

 

This is my tentative understanding through study and experience. However I know that I have it wrong to one degree or another just as I am certain that everyone (including the great saints, sages, avatars, and gurus) else has it wrong insofar as their understanding of the Self or No-Self is based on their perspective.

 

 

Sundragon

Edited May 9, 2011 by Sundragon

[Simple_Jack]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Simple_Jack]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Aaron]

Who's to say my intention wasn't pure?

 

To follow up what I said to you in my previous post:

 

Why did I say, what I said? The "original nature" is something that is not truly tangible. To say it really has material form, to say "IT is this," "IT is that;" would be saying IT, truly "exists!" This material body, and the "soul" are illusory functions, describing something that has no form: Would that not be relegating IT to the cycle of life and death, when IT has not been born? IT is beyond the notions of existence, yet we can't say that it isn't existent; Lo! Does it not give rise to phenomena? Here we are squabbling on a forum! This body of ours: Is it not something of this realm? It's functions, it's sensual desires, the things we love and hate...Oh! To be human, is it not grand? Yet just as we are born, we must die...Though our mindstream, due to our accumulated karma, takes on another form, going through six cycles of existence: It is all an ephemeral dream! There is something that is not born, that does not age, nor dies: It neither moves here or there; Lo! IT, hasn't moved at all! "Knowing," this buddha-nature, this "thing" we must uncover! All the characteristics of a Buddha, are there from primordial times! This self-perfected state, beyond all intellectualization, beyond all dogma or traditions! Alas! Due to our karma, through revolving in samsara: Accumulated over lives that are uncountable...Is obscuring us from realizing Thusness! To "know" this state, takes much meditation! It is only thus, can we be the same as the Buddhas of the past, present, and future!

 

I know you don't want to hear this. So I ask: Let's put this behind, lets forget about Buddhism: Why do you feel that you don't need more meditation? I'm not trying to convince you to believe anything I say, nor to seek any more insight....

 

I am merely trying to figure out, why you think the way you do...

 

Samadhi is not a psychosis, of ideas implanted by religion. Aren't you at least a little curious to see if it's real? What I am asking is aren't you a little curious? You do not have to fear of being "brainwashed:" Teachings are just tools to help us progress! You do not have to believe any of it, until you prove it through experience. Is this not a true scientific way to see if religions are lying? You have the merit to be born a human; this is a rarity! Do not waste this precious life! You have already done 20 years of meditation....what is 20 more? I ask again: Are you not a cultivator? Why do you feel that teachings will lead to someone being brainwashed?

 

Hello Simple Jack,

 

You should let this go. No good for you will come of this. We are like two children debating about the rules of a game that we've made up. If you truly must discuss this then let me make a few points.

 

First, I never directed my comments at you in particular, but rather everyone. I don't think you are a bad person in any sense, maybe a bit insistent, but not bad in the least. I understand you mean well and that what you're debating is not simply out of a need for discourse, but rather out of a sincere belief that you do understand something that I don't. That's noble, really it is, but what I would recommend is that you remember that there is a time for all things, including a time to lay things to rest.

 

Intentions are funny things. We like to think that they matter, but in the grand scheme of things they don't. If you have good intentions, but it ends up causing something bad to happen, does that change the fact that something bad happened? Intentions should not be used as a defense for one's actions, but rather one should admit when they've done wrong and simply apologize. To accept responsibility for what you've done, without qualifying that blame, is a sign of High Virtue. I want to also make it clear that I am not blaming you for anything. Yes you might have insulted me, but you clearly felt provoked and it was a natural response. I would not have you apologize, but rather ask that in the future we treat each other as brothers sitting together for a cup of tea.

 

I think something that I've realized, that Deci Belle helped me to realize in another thread, is that we probably are much closer in thought than what appears on the surface. The only difference is that I don't define it the same way you do. Is this world an illusion, yes, but for me the illusion must exist in order for reality to exist. Something needs to exist for nothing to exist. I think that Buddha understood this and tried to teach it initially, but his followers couldn't understand, so he went about explaining it in a way that was easier to understand. This of course is my opinion, so please take it as that, and not an attack on your faith.

 

Do I believe that I need to further my practice? Yes, by all means, I am simply saying that meditation isn't the only way, nor necessarily the best way to do this. Is there original nature? Yes. Is there something before original nature? Yes. One we can know in this life, the other we can't. Again, my opinion. There are things we will never be able to understand or explain, the notion that we can is absurd to me.

 

If you really wish to discuss this topic with me, then tell me what you feel and experience, rather than what you've been told the experience is. I ask that before you do this you clear your mind and examine it and explain to me the sensation, the knowledge gained, and the effect of your experience. It is from that point that this discussion will truly go further, rather than turn in circles.

 

I honestly believe that when you can see the things in this life that are illusions, morality, philosophy, and religion to name a few, then you can begin to see these experiences for what they really are and from there you can begin to bear witness to the Sea of Beauty. Once you've witnessed this vast ocean, you will find that you have more questions than answers, and that is truly the beauty of it all.

 

I know nothing, of that I am sure.

 

Aaron

Edited May 10, 2011 by Twinner

[xabir2005]

This is something I wrote weeks ago in another forum, but I felt it might be of relevance here as well.

 

--------

 

I saw some writings in facebook and online articles (commonplace, really) about 'I am not my body, I am the deathless Presence/Absolute/Awareness' and this triggered me to write a post about this...

 

I was living in the state named as 'enlightenment' by Richard since February 2010 since the my self-realization culminating from almost two years of self-inquiry practice, and since Feb '10 I went from being identified as a formless Presence, and later to a seamless Awareness that unites every experience into a seamless field in which subject and object are inseparable and everything is simply seen to be inseparable expression of that single field of awareness (August 2010, onwards).

 

At that time I see myself as being a bodiless, birthless and deathless, transcendent Self, a metaphysical Absolute, God, Awareness, etc.... because my view had it that Presence, Awareness has an independent, permanent, inherent existence.

 

In September, while I was busy doing my BMT, I had a dream*... of awakened beings whose bodies were semi transparent. I immediately intuited that, to deepen my experience I have to undergo what is known as a 'body-mind drop-off' to experience total transparency... I also asked him, What are You!? That semi transparent being gestured non-verbally and it was very clear what it meant: this sensate body.

 

Two weeks later I got it... the realization of Anatta arose, and also, the body-mind construct dissolved... there is no longer the sense of a solid object 'in here'... the body is merely disjointed sensations and perceptions that we link up into a feeling, a conjured mental construct of a solid entity with forms and shapes being a stable, solid entity 'here'... that is merely an illusion.... yet at the same time, it is not the dissociative experience of 'I am not my body' I had even much earlier on.

 

I am not a grandiose universal consciousness, rather, I am this sensate, flesh and blood body only (which is nothing solid, but an ever-dynamic, fresh, sensate experience of being this body, being these sense organs seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and thinking)... I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being, interacting with other fellow beings in a process of interconnectedness (as contrast to oneness) without agency or control and the illusion of being an Identity, a Soul, a Feeler, Seer, Observer 'inside my body' looking outwards at the world... has dissolved. And neither is the world seen as being subsumed or contained in an all-subsuming Awareness... And awarerness is now realised to be more of an effect rather than a cause or source: cognizance depends on body and its sense organs for its manifestation... It is a dependently originated manifestation, in contrast with the previous state where the entire universe is seen to be a mere projection of awareness/consciousness, which is seen to be a single unchanging, unifying and universal source. There is absolutely nothing immortal and metaphysical about consciousness/awareness.

 

I am the seeing, the hearing, which means in the seeing is JUST the seen... the scenery... in hearing is just the sound... there is no such thing as a perceiving nor controlling agent.... perceiving is just the perceived. This is the insight of anatta. This was what I basically realized after contemplating on bahiya sutta. Awareness, the seeing, is just the seen! There is nothing metaphysical and 'absolute' about Awareness... there is no 'The Awareness' or 'One Awareness'... there is pure awareness of sight, pure awareness of hearing, etc... to pure awareness of thought. There are six kinds of pure awareness corresponding to the six senses (five senses + mental activities). Awareness is nothing transcendental or metaphysical, it is precisely the activities, the manifestation... The process itself rolls and knows without a knower. Without an identity, that separates and distances 'me' from 'the world', I am in intimacy with all things actual... with the floor, the chairs, the trees, and so on. The sun feels as close as my breath. The entire universe is experienced as alive, wonderful, delightful, a fairy-tale like paradise.

 

It is now seen that there is no two entities, one called body and one called spirit. Our universe is not made of entities, but activities and processes. All there is is this body, and it is not that there is a body 'in here' in contrast with the environment 'out there' - our perception of a body is simply a bunch of disjointed sensations and perceptions not seperated from, and forms part of the environment... The perceptual environment made of various sensations and perceptions. The clinging to a construct and sense of a solid body 'in here' dissolves without denying or disassociating from the actuality of the bodily sensations (the body reveals itself to be a luminous and transparent field of aliveness), and there is a sense of being transparent and intimate with the entire environment, without any sense of and inside or outside, and this is what is known in Zen as the 'mind-body drop'.

 

Nowadays there are rarely any authors that have clear insight into anatta, most just stop at I Am (realization of the formless Presence, taken to be one's purest Identity), and the deepest most go is substantialist non-dual (subject-object collapsed into oneness, all forms subsumed into a single field of awareness), the realization of anatta (I.e. The seeing IS the seen, in hearing just the heard, etc) and for this I am greatly indebted to Thusness's guidance. The least I could do is to share what I know and experience and hopefully it can be of help to someone else.

 

 

* Thusness later revealed that my dreams manifested due to his intention for me to know certain important issues crucial for my next phase of insight... And that he could manifest dreams to me due to our deep connection. He also does seem to have an uncanny ability to know accurately what is the 'next step' for another person, and even exactly when will those insights occur for that person. I had a number of such spiritual dreams during my BMT phase (possibly because I hardly had much time to talk with Thusness during that period) of profound significance regarding my spiritual practice that helped me to understand a lot of what I am going through and was very helpful... now not much anymore and Thusness often visits me... physically, not in dreams, haha.

[xabir2005]

Scenery delighting scenery.

 

Music enjoying music.

 

I am not a spiritual being having a human experience.

 

But the universe experiencing itself as a human being.

 

...........

 

Finger types, sound hears.

 

Finger stops typing, sound stops hearing.

 

An intrically interconnected and impersonal process is what the universe is.

[gendao]

In September, while I was busy doing my BMT, I had a dream

 

I had a number of such spiritual dreams during my BMT phase (possibly because I hardly had much time to talk with Thusness during that period) of profound significance regarding my spiritual practice that helped me to understand a lot of what I am going through and was very helpful...

Interesting.. What is BMT, though?

[xabir2005]

Interesting.. What is BMT, though?

Basic Military Training:

(the video makes it appear like it's really easy - my field camp was much worse but still fun when you look back at it haha)

 

Which might be tough at times, and I can recall Thusness saying something like... he was encouraging and reminding me to practice (through the dreams).

Edited May 12, 2011 by xabir2005