Split from The face of a guru - kindness versus emptiness

[bax44]

Karl I know we debated earlier about the trivium vis a vis meditation etc. Since I am always looking to open my mind more I have tried looking into the trivium more to see if its something that could help me. I came across the guy you linked to who interviewed Joslin earlier, Jan Irvin. He has the Trivium education site Im sure youre aware. I listened to him interviewed by Dave Asprey and was kind of taken aback by how he just in that interview himself made quite a few leaps of logic and when Dave questionsed some of the things he was saying he usually cut him off and rambled. He did a very poor job of getting across what the trivium could do to benefit someone to follow the method.

 

I also perused his website and was astounded. Its conspiracy theory central. Having already been told by you that you believe definitively in a Nwo amongst other things I can only conclude that either the trivium leads to these types of beliefs or these beliefs have been indoctrined into you. I listened to 3 or 4 of his interviews and again, the leaps of logic made are incredible. a few of the interviews about how music throughout our history has been used to control us were entertaining, yet I found it extremely disparaging that Irvin didnt appear to be using the trivium on his guests who were making some VERY dubious connections and logical fallacies almost every 2minutes. Alleister Crowley is apparently the godfather of the modern musical devil worshipping groups from the beatles to david bowie. The rolling stones apparently have performed ritual sacrifices. and on and on. Yet in these same interviews meditation is frowned upon as a mind control device. They never really backed up their facts, and a google search revealed the same tenuous connections with not much substance.

 

I guess I am dissapointed. The trivium itself may in fact be a great way to see reality, but since we are on the topic of gurus in this thread I guess maybe the method itself most likely deserves better representatives to pass it down. I guess im asking who would be a better source to go to to maybe look into learning this stuff? I have to admit visiting Irvins site and seeing the massive amount of beliefs that are just to me another system of fear mongering was extremely off putting. Thanks.

[Karl]

Karl I know we debated earlier about the trivium vis a vis meditation etc. Since I am always looking to open my mind more I have tried looking into the trivium more to see if its something that could help me. I came across the guy you linked to who interviewed Joslin earlier, Jan Irvin. He has the Trivium education site Im sure youre aware. I listened to him interviewed by Dave Asprey and was kind of taken aback by how he just in that interview himself made quite a few leaps of logic and when Dave questionsed some of the things he was saying he usually cut him off and rambled. He did a very poor job of getting across what the trivium could do to benefit someone to follow the method.

 

I also perused his website and was astounded. Its conspiracy theory central. Having already been told by you that you believe definitively in a Nwo amongst other things I can only conclude that either the trivium leads to these types of beliefs or these beliefs have been indoctrined into you. I listened to 3 or 4 of his interviews and again, the leaps of logic made are incredible. a few of the interviews about how music throughout our history has been used to control us were entertaining, yet I found it extremely disparaging that Irvin didnt appear to be using the trivium on his guests who were making some VERY dubious connections and logical fallacies almost every 2minutes. Alleister Crowley is apparently the godfather of the modern musical devil worshipping groups from the beatles to david bowie. The rolling stones apparently have performed ritual sacrifices. and on and on. Yet in these same interviews meditation is frowned upon as a mind control device. They never really backed up their facts, and a google search revealed the same tenuous connections with not much substance.

 

I guess I am dissapointed. The trivium itself may in fact be a great way to see reality, but since we are on the topic of gurus in this thread I guess maybe the method itself most likely deserves better representatives to pass it down. I guess im asking who would be a better source to go to to maybe look into learning this stuff? I have to admit visiting Irvins site and seeing the massive amount of beliefs that are just to me another system of fear mongering was extremely off putting. Thanks.

Yes, Gene Odening. He does appear on Jans site as that's how Jan started his interest in the Trivium. The warning, as always, is that everything should be questioned. I know what you mean about Jan :-) Gene has a free download sheet for courses and reading matter which I can send you if you wish ?

 

Another option is the Mises course on Mises.com but that comes in at $49. I used Peikoff on the advice of Gene. That course was $11 and you must factor in that Peikoff is an objectivist although he sticks essentially to the pure Aristotlian logic and he does put out where objectivism can offer an alternate.

 

Finally of course you could buy Lionel Ruby's book -Logic and Introduction and work through it yourself ( the issue here is that you won't get the more intense

 

There are always downsides to every option, but once you have the basics you will be able to see where the faults lie anyway.

 

As far as 'conspiracy theory' I was also of that opinion. However there are conspiracies and conspiracies. Some, like Fabian's, Unesco, Club of Rome and the US governments own announcement of Agenda21/NWO are stated world aims and not hidden in any way. No reason you have to buy into any of it in order to work through the Trivium and really it's best to have the Trivium onboard if you interest runs into investigation so you can seperate reality from fiction.

 

Make your logic better than theirs :-) there are no gurus here, learn then be better.

 

A better link probably :

 

 

http://www.triviumeducation.com/

Edited September 23, 2015 by Karl

[Jonesboy]

I do not 'claim' that's what I did. Define 'bliss'. I could never have actually become SRM, but I learned how to model him. It's hard to know who exactly Jesus was or if he even existed as a single person. I've never had a spiritual experience that I didn't use my power of imagination to create. Define Samahadi. The Trivium is the best meditation there is-infinitely superior if you wish to know reality. If you want a mystic experience then carry on with your practices and you will discover many. Define natural state/primordial consciousness. Plateau Orgasm is better than sex. Love is better than both. I'm already real-I-see. I know you mean well TI :-) so do I.

Karl,

 

Please stop deflecting.

 

Answer the questions or say you have never experienced them. But dismissing people and then claiming Trivium is like the end all be all is kinda funny.

 

Also, if you have ever been around Jesus you would know he is real. It would not be a question of is he real or multiple people.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Jonesboy

[Jonesboy]

double post

Edited September 23, 2015 by Jonesboy

[Karl]

Karl,Please stop deflecting.Answer the questions or say you have never experienced them. But dismissing people and then claiming Trivium is like the end all be all is kinda funny.

 

How can I say if I have or haven't if I don't know how you define your experience so I can contrast it with mine ?

 

Neither have I said the Trivium is the be all and end all, unlike the practitioners on this website who do say exactly that. The Trivium is simply a more accurate way of establishing the veracity of your claims for practices.

[Tibetan_Ice]

I do not 'claim' that's what I did.Define 'bliss'.I could never have actually become SRM, but I learned how to model him. It's hard to know who exactly Jesus was or if he even existed as a single person.I've never had a spiritual experience that I didn't use my power of imagination to create. Define Samahadi.The Trivium is the best meditation there is-infinitely superior if you wish to know reality. If you want a mystic experience then carry on with your practices and you will discover many. Define natural state/primordial consciousness.Plateau Orgasm is better than sex. Love is better than both.I'm already real-I-see. I know you mean well TI :-) so do I.

You are absolutely right. You do not have the same grammar as me, or most of the people on this forum. Without first establishing grammar, there is no way to apply trivium. And how do you establish grammar except through common experiences which are then labeled. But you don't seem to have the common experiences, so I guess this is just a waste of time.

 

All the best.

[Karl]

You are absolutely right. You do not have the same grammar as me, or most of the people on this forum. Without first establishing grammar, there is no way to apply trivium. And how do you establish grammar except through common experiences which are then labeled. But you don't seem to have the common experiences, so I guess this is just a waste of time.

All the best.

Right, because your experiences are simply feelings. You don't wish to label them as such because, you would then be unable to label them as credible phenomena of shared reality (and you notice you do invoke a shared forum 'experiencing'). That you feel 'Samahdi' and 'Bliss' I do not doubt, but they are not permanent reality, only fleeting, impermanent feelings, thus you should discard them, but you cling to them instead. Attachment right ?

 

This is only slightly different in comparison to an existing object such as car. An attachment to a car is not simply ownership, but when ownership manifests as 'this car defines me' and 'this car is who I am and it's loss would destroy me'. You can develop inward attachment to pure feelings without outward attachment to existing objects. 'I have Samahdi/bliss and this defines me, without it I am destroyed'.

 

Can you see that at least, or is your ego so strong that even take that first small step is a threat ? When your castle falls here is only you left, it is the core and is strengthened by authenticity, by knowing thyself without attachments. It takes a lot of work to get there, but you can take small steps just by recognising what you are doing-SRM would recommend self inquiry to follow the stream.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Karl

[Tibetan_Ice]

Right, because your experiences are simply feelings. You don't wish to label them as such because, you would then be unable to label them as credible phenomena of shared reality (and you notice you do invoke a shared forum 'experiencing'). That you feel 'Samahdi' and 'Bliss' I do not doubt, but they are not permanent reality, only fleeting, impermanent feelings, thus you should discard them, but you cling to them instead. Attachment right ?

 

This is only slightly different in comparison to an existing object such as car. An attachment to a car is not simply ownership, but when ownership manifests as 'this car defines me' and 'this car is who I am and it's loss would destroy me'. You can develop inward attachment to pure feelings without outward attachment to existing objects. 'I have Samahdi/bliss and this defines me, without it I am destroyed'.

 

Can you see that at least, or is your ego so strong that even take that first small step is a threat ? When your castle falls here is only you left, it is the core and is strengthened by authenticity, by knowing thyself without attachments. It takes a lot of work to get there, but you can take small steps just by recognising what you are doing-SRM would recommend self inquiry to follow the stream.

You don't have a clue, do you?

Emotional bliss is an emotion. It is an obscuration, like thought. I wouldn't even call it bliss in the non dual sense.

Imagine you are a jawbreaker. At the center of the jawbreaker lies a state of ultimate bliss and clarity and a spot where reality wraps back around and encompasses all. A kind of portal or doorway to ALL. When it opens, golden light subtly appears.

 

You can't see the portal because there are these layers wrapped around the center of the jawbreaker preventing you from accessing the center.

 

So you start to lick the jawbreaker. You practice various methods, like shamatha, vispassana, Bodhicitta, ethics, single pointed concentration, awareness of awareness, seeking the self, kundalini yoga, raja yoga, turning the attention around to the self, observing the mind, dream yoga, etc etc.

 

Sometimes you break through and get a glimpse of the bliss and clarity at the center of the jawbreaker. You become everything, the trees, the grass, other people... There is great love, silence and a peculiar water-like luminescent quality to everything. Then it goes away and you resume your "normal state".

 

When you practice single pointed concentration correctly, you succeed in punching a little hole through the layers of the jawbreaker and you get a glimpse, a taste. But it doesn't last long because you are still licking the jawbreaker and the sauce fills the hole back up.

 

So, you keep at it. You keep doing practices. You augment your understanding by reading books. You test various hypotheses and record their effects. You study the known greats like Buddha, Ramana, Jesus, and try to understand what they have said. Gradually, like water dripping in a rock, you wear away more and more layers of he jawbreaker, getting closer to the center. You have more mind blowing experiences which confirm that you are on the right path. But you don't settle for the experiences because they are just signs along the way. You want to reach the center, to taste the clarity, bliss, love, truth of existence.

 

If you hold one form in your mind, one thought or visualization, one object or point of attention and try to maintain that one point you will eventually succeed in attaining one-pointed concentration. What happens is that there are signs which present themselves along the way up to the point where you succeed.

 

At first, there are many distractions. Thoughts and emotions arise. Sensations, itches or pain in the body. Distractions. But you keep focusing on your object. You practice over and over again.

 

You learn that there is tendency in the mind to start something up and then release it. The release distracts you and you are no longer focused on the object of attention. Then you learn that you must direct your attention and then sustain your attention. You develope or recognize another component of attention that monitors whether or not the attention is on the object of meditation or not. You try very hard and keep at it.

 

One day you succeed in holding your attention on the object for one minute without interruption. You notice that the periphery or background surrounding the object gets brighter, like someone turned on a light. The noticing of the brightness distracts and you lose the stream of attention. So, you try again, and again and again. Then you get to the point where the background brightens up but you maintain your stream of attention on the object.

 

Then, the object starts to brighten up. You can see more detail. You become very interested and notice that your mental vision of the object is like brilliant clear high res definition. It distracts you and you lose it. So you try again.

 

Eventually, you get to the point where the background brightens up, the object of concentration becomes brilliant (a mental representation in the mind and then you experience bliss, better than any orgasm you've ever experienced. You merge into the object and then bounce back out to your normal state. You get up from your meditation and you wonder what that was. You notice that everything is shiny and beautiful. You could stare at the colors in the rug forever. The effect lasts for a few hours and then dissipates.

 

That was samadhi.

 

When you are in it, the senses have shut off. You cannot feel your body. You are no longer aware of any distracting thoughts or emotions. The obscurations are being held at bay. It is only temporary, but it gives you an idea what the center of the jawbreaker might be like. So, you keep at, slowly melting each layer of the jawbreaker and then maybe one day...

 

Karl, in your case, you should quit clenching the jawbreaker in your hand, put it in your mouth and start sucking on it. You won't be able to talk while you are sucking away, but then, that might be a good thing.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[Karl]

thus spake ozymandias :-)

 

 

[Tibetan_Ice]

thus spake ozymandias :-)

Thus spake Icarus.

[Karl]

Thus spake Icarus.

 

If you wish.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Karl, so that now you have the general instruction, are you going to see if you can reach samadhi?

Consider it an exercise in concencentration, an intellectual challenge to test the theory.

Can you focus on the sensation of the breath as it touches your nostrils for one consecutive minute with absolutely no distraction? How about two minutes?

[Karl]

Karl, so that now you have the general instruction, are you going to see if you can reach samadhi?

Consider it an exercise in concencentration, an intellectual challenge to test the theory.

Can you focus on the sensation of the breath as it touches your nostrils for one consecutive minute with absolutely no distraction? How about two minutes?

 

Childs play. I can do that at any time without any need for nostril breathing, it's a pointless dead end, but enjoy.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Childs play. I can do that at any time without any need for nostril breathing, it's a pointless dead end, but enjoy.

If you are not focusing on the sensation of the breath as it enters and exits the nostril then you are not doing what I asked you about.

I did not ask you if you could enter what you perceive to be samadhi.

There is great benefit to mastering the mind, to train in concentration.

It has taken me over a year to gain some success with that technique. I know the steps and components that have to come together very well.

Are you saying that you can maintain one pointed concentration on the sensation at the nostril for 3 hours? That that is child's play?

I don't want to hear a dismissal that samadhi is pointless, a dead end. For if you have not mastered your mind your claim is just hearsay.

[Karl]

If you are not focusing on the sensation of the breath as it enters and exits the nostril then you are not doing what I asked you about.

I did not ask you if you could enter what you perceive to be samadhi.

There is great benefit to mastering the mind, to train in concentration.

It has taken me over a year to gain some success with that technique. I know the steps and components that have to come together very well.

Are you saying that you can maintain one pointed concentration on the sensation at the nostril for 3 hours? That that is child's play?

I don't want to hear a dismissal that samadhi is pointless, a dead end. For if you have not mastered your mind your claim is just hearsay.

 

What happened to the 10 minutes ? Now doesn't count unless it's 3 hours ? I'd probably get hungry and my wife would hit me with a stick for not doing the housework. :-) I'm liking this Samahdi stuff less and less as you move the goalposts. Your practices would end with a divorce.

[Jonesboy]

Deflecting again.

 

In truth Samadhi like TI is saying takes a second.

 

How far can you let go is what he is asking.

 

Can you observe your thoughts? Can you observe them without noticing them, labeling them.. grasping after them?

 

Where are you at in your practice?

[Karl]

Deflecting again.In truth Samadhi like TI is saying takes a second.How far can you let go is what he is asking.Can you observe your thoughts? Can you observe them without noticing them, labeling them.. grasping after them?Where are you at in your practice?

 

....takes a second....is exactly what I said in the previous post. I can do it at will and stay in that state for as long as I wish. It's a dead end. It was TI that insisted I must do it his way.

 

I have been able to observe thoughts and more subtle nuances that I suspect you are not yet even aware of as yet for a long while. I was an advanced practitioner, a very diligent and conscientious student. Of course TI won't accept that because he thought Yogani was wrong and he-TI-was right. However, Yogani was not my master.

[Tibetan_Ice]

What happened to the 10 minutes ? Now doesn't count unless it's 3 hours ? I'd probably get hungry and my wife would hit me with a stick for not doing the housework. :-) I'm liking this Samahdi stuff less and less as you move the goalposts. Your practices would end with a divorce.

What I have learned is that most of the time when I'm going to succeed in making the mind one-pointed, it takes about 1 minute from start of the session.

 

Mastery of the process is indicated by the ability to sit in one-pointed concentration for 3 hours and enter that state any time.

 

Forget the samadhi part, just from a concentration point of view, can you make your mind one-pointed on the sensation of the air as it enters and exits your right nostril? 

 

It is not child's play as you suggest. It is pretty hard.

 

And you know, the funny thing is that if your mind is one-pointed, you lose track of time, so three hours can fly by in no time at all.

 

And, not sure why you bring up AYP in your responses. AYP does not teach one-pointed concentration as per Patanjali.

[Karl]

What I have learned is that most of the time when I'm going to succeed in making the mind one-pointed, it takes about 1 minute from start of the session.

 

Mastery of the process is indicated by the ability to sit in one-pointed concentration for 3 hours and enter that state any time.

 

Forget the samadhi part, just from a concentration point of view, can you make your mind one-pointed on the sensation of the air as it enters and exits your right nostril? 

 

It is not child's play as you suggest. It is pretty hard.

 

And you know, the funny thing is that if your mind is one-pointed, you lose track of time, so three hours can fly by in no time at all.

 

And, not sure why you bring up AYP in your responses. AYP does not teach one-pointed concentration as per Patanjali.

 

Yes, I can, how many more times do I have to tell you ?

AYP does not teach one pointed concentration which is why I said Yogani wasn't my only master. I brought it up because you have suggested in previous posts that I couldn't possibly have practiced correctly because I was following AYP.

I don't want 3 hours to fly by in a state of dead minded bliss, I have few enough hours left and prefer to live them.

 

 

 

[Tibetan_Ice]

Yes, I can, how many more times do I have to tell you ?

...

Yes you can what exactly? Edited September 28, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[Karl]

Yes you can what exactly?

 

Single pointed mind without disturbance. For as long as I choose.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Single pointed mind without disturbance. For as long as I choose.

For some reason I don't believe you.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Yes. I was about twenty-nine, and had gone through years of depression and anxiety. I had even achieved some successes, like graduating with the highest mark at London University. Then an offer came for a Cambridge scholarship to do research. But the whole motivating power behind my academic success was fear and unhappiness.

 

It all changed one night when I woke up in the middle of the night. The fear, anxiety and heaviness of depression were becoming so intense, it was almost unbearable. And it is hard to describe that "state" where the world is felt to be so alien, just looking at a physical environment like a room. Everything was totally alien and almost hostile. I later saw a book written by Jean-Paul Sartre called Nausea. That was the state that I was in, nausea of the world. [Chuckle] And the thought came into my head, "I can't live with myself any longer." That thought kept repeating itself again and again.

 

And (then suddenly there was a "standing back" from the thought and Looking at that thought, at the structure of that thought," If I cannot live with myself, who is that self that I cannot live with? Who am I? Am I one—or two?" And I saw that I was "two." There was an "I," and (here was a self. And the self was deeply unhappy, the miserable self. And the burden of that I could not live with. At that moment, a dis-identification happened. "I" consciousness withdrew from its identification with the self, the mind-made fictitious entity, the unhappy "little me" and its story. And the fictitious entity collapsed completely in that moment, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What remained was a single sense of presence or "Beingness" which is pure consciousness prior to identification with form—the eternal I AM. I didn't know all of that at the time, of course. It just happened, and for a long time there was no understanding of what had happened.

 

As the self collapsed, there was still a moment of intense fear—after all, it was the death of "me." I felt like being sucked into a hole. But a voice from within said, "Resist nothing." So I let go. It was almost like I was being sucked into a void, not an external void, but a void within. And then fear disappeared and there was nothing that I remember after that except waking up in the morning in a state of total and complete "newness."

 

I woke up in a state of incredible inner peace, bliss in fact. With my eyes still closed, I heard the sound of a bird and realized how precious that was. And then I opened my eyes and saw the sunlight coming through the curtains and felt: There is far more to that than we realize. It felt like love coming through the curtains. And then as I walked around the old familiar objects in the room I realized I had never really seen them before. It was as if I had just been born into this world; a state of wonder. And then I went for a walk in the city. I was still in London. Everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the traffic. [Chuckle]

 

I knew something incredible had happened, although I didn't understand it. I even started writing down in a diary, "Something incredible has happened. I just want to write this down," I said, "in case it leaves me again or I lose it." And only later did I realize (that my thought processes after waking up that morning had been reduced by about eighty to ninety percent. So a lot of the time I was walking around in a state of inner stillness, and perceiving the world through inner stillness.

 

And that is the peace, the deep peace that comes when there is no longer anybody commenting on sense perceptions or anything that happens. No labeling, no need to interpret what is happening, it just is as it is and it is fine. [Laughter] There was no longer a "me" entity.

After that transformation happened, I could not have said anything about it. "Something happened. I am totally at peace. I don't know what it means." That is all I could have said. And it took years before there was some "understanding." And it took more years before it evolved into a "spiritual teaching ."That took time. The basic state is the same as then, but the external manifestation of the state as a teaching and the power of a teaching, that took time. It had to mature. So when I talk about it now to some extent, I add something to it. When I talk about the "original experience" something is added to it that I didn't know then.

 

-Eckhart Tolle

[Karl]

For some reason I don't believe you.

As I said you wouldn't. So we are no further forward despite all that nostril breathing malarkey. Sure glad I didn't do three hours.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Karl

[Tibetan_Ice]

As I said you wouldn't. So we are no further forward despite all that nostril breathing malarkey. Sure glad I didn't do three hours.

You make jokes, but now I don't even believe that you know what one-pointed concentration is nor realize the implications of your declaration.

 

If you could make your mind one-pointed for as long as you wanted, you would have accomplished all the jhanas, realized all the siddhis. If you could focus on awareness being aware of awareness (meditation without an object) for as long as you want, you would have accomplished what most people can only dream of accomplishing.

 

There is something terribly wrong with what you say.