The Myth of Conscious awareness in Sleep

Jonesboy · January 28, 2019

10 minutes ago, Everything said:

Do you feel good when you have an addiction?

Sure you can.

Do you feel good when smoking dope, crack, taking X, or drinking beer? Most people would say yes.

dwai · January 28, 2019

23 minutes ago, s1va said:

There are examples of others who disagreed with the topic and did respectfully and it turned out to be a very interesting discussion. You were the only person to call someone juvenile and imply what is mentioned in this thread as crack-pot theory. I sent a friendly note objecting to those and requesting you to remove the link. Which you flatly denied. When a moderator's request to remove certain content is denied, I could have automatically suspended you for 3 days initially before we discussed the issue. Neither me nor the rest of the team took any such action.

Just because Alan Wats called something or someone crack-pot in some context, it does not justify to use that as an insult against someone or some idea here when convenient. Everyone knows of some teacher calling someone jackass in some article in some context. If I use that article to imply some member here or their theory is jackass, then that is an issue.

In my post, I mentioned as long as you follow the terms of the site, you should be fine. This applies to all including the staff. Not sure why it would upset someone to go off as you did, talking about some group and the banning of others, which I have no clue about.

You may think you are clever and you know how to intelligently insult others and get away with it, use another teacher's quote to call someone or their post as crack-pot. There is a thing called walking the ropes and getting away with things. When confronted, to challenge and say show me where I broke the rule, give excuses, "I never mentioned that insult myself, it is not against anyone", "it's the article I called juvenile", etc. But, it's mostly clear to everyone here that such comments here are not made in good spirit. Please don't join others into your side. Everyone else, though they argued vehemently, never once engaged in condescending insults to others like you.

You have discounted the teachings of masters like Swami Lakahmanjoo (anyone that does not confirm to your idea of Advaita) of Kashmir Shaivism in multiple posts before. Calling them amateurish and using your "clever" techniques like using quotes or other intelligent second hand methods to insult. In communication to me, you have openly insulted others members here as having no clue or expertise like you in topics, claiming you know more than everyone here!

Most people try to get along with others. They agree to disagree on certain topics and be respectful towards each other. Steve and I agreed to disagree on this topic, which I see as a decent and respectful thing to do.

Let me illustrate your actions in the recent times with an example like a story. Let's say someone or a set of people believes in God and someone else or another set doesn't and they believe only in nature. They both participate in same spiritual forum. Those that believe in nature start discussions or posts to share their feelings and thoughts. They want to discuss the beauty of nature, but they don't believe in a God person. But, a person that believes in God, comes and argues in their topics stating God is the ultimate truth for everyone, nature is not the final truth, etc. These people that love nature disagree. Both parties realize that they have irreconcilable difference of opinions. They need to agree to disagree on this to co-exist in the same place. Supposing, the believer of the God, comes to every topic created by the nature lovers about nature, and posts repeatedly, this is all not true, you people don't know the ultimate truth. I have realized it as God. These people try to tell him, we respect your beliefs and thoughts, we won't interfere in your practice, but this is what we believe. But this God believing person cannot give up, he argues nature is also God and wants the other party to accept this. Doesn't matter who is right, but he has to butt into every discussion or post that is in this topic. To prove he is right. The othe side tries to reason, says let's not get into the same arguments we have done 1000 times in every single thread. But this person cannot help and keep bringing up the same thing in every single discussion and at times becomes condescending and starts to insult others. If confronted, he says this is a public place, I would like up do whatever I like.

Instead of believing in God, substitute it with Advaita. You are doing exactly what I mentioned above as the person believing in God does. Every single topic that we create about KS or Abhinavagupta's thoughts, some of us can't have an open discussion without you barging in every single thread to say we are wrong. Pushing your ideas of Advaita on others claiming it is the only final truth. Some of us believe in Kashmir Shaivism and other systems that are different from Advaita. There is room for everyone to co-exist and have decent discussion. If we treat each other with respect and not barging into every discussion or topic that is against our principles.

That is your opinion and while I respect your right to hold it, I respectfully disagree with the contents therein.

Everything · January 28, 2019

delete

Edited January 28, 2019 by Everything

s1va · January 28, 2019

21 minutes ago, Spotless said:

Is anything you are describing from your experience?

Everything I have written in this topic such as lucid dreaming, yoga nidra, chakra openings, layers of mind, clear light state, samadhi states such as nirvikalpa and higher samadhi's afterwards where we retain consciousness in samadhi, the transformation into jiva-shiva phase integrating subconscious layers into the conscious mind are all from my experiences. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will be happy to answer the best I can. I am not sure if you read the thread entirely from the start to understand the things I stated in proper context. When it is not my experience, I have pointed out clearly like I have not yet reached the 4th state that transcends the other 3. I have also stated earlier, I talk about certain things from the glimpses of temporary states I have been in, though it is not my permanent reality yet. Not sure if you noticed the part where I mentioned that I consider myself to be fortunate to know or be in contact with some who I consider to have reached the fully awakened state of Buddha.

I have unconvered certain veils or cloaks (kanchukas as described in KS), to understand their nature and to talk about them confidently. A fully awakened person is not constrained by any of the five kloaks and they are radiant.

I have realized that we are all not septate and form is void. This is not fully a Buddha realization yet. For that, I still need to realize the other part, void = form from the heart sutra. I admit that I am open or expanded enough to understand or discern if a person radiates fully in awakened state like Jesus or Buddha, or if they have all their chakras open and reached the light state. I can connect or merge with deities and beings from other realms including Gautam Buddha, Jesus, etc., or connect them to others to help -- if they request me to do so. I don't even have to be in front of that person to determine if they radiate the light or not. Happy to demonstrate in the chat room, if anyone wants me to connect them to any deity or to a realized being like Jesus or Buddha.

I generally don't talk about myself and do not see any of this as achievements. All of us are in the image of Shiva. When we unconver the following 5 veils, we are just as him. Which means we are able to create universes or worlds from emptiness at will. To me full Awakening such as Buddha's or Jesus comes with all the magical and mystical abilities of Shiva (or our own true nature). Until this happens, I am not done. I don't even think there is a end goal post like enlightenment or, I am done. I even created a topic about that.

kāla - the cloak of time
vidyā - the cloak of limited knowledge
rāga - the cloak of desire
niyati - the cloak of causality
kalā - the cloak of being limited

Jonesboy · January 28, 2019

17 minutes ago, Everything said:

Not me, I feel terrified, overwhelmed, ill, I have to puke, and then the idea alone makes me wanna puke. I feel confused, dazed, I can no longer see clearly, or focus in anyway whatsoever when I take these drugs or alcohol. You know why? EVERYONE has their own emotional guidance system that is specifically and unique for themselves! That is wonderful, so you recognize now the value of these drugs for your life specifically. And if you understand their value, then you can align with the value of it, without needing the the drugs themselves. But not resisting them either. Because everything can be of benefit. If you use it as such. in a good way.[/quote]

No, I don't find the value in them. Such attachments is what all the spiritual traditions talk about moving beyond.

Quote

Now let's say, you're one who's been focused on negative things, ideas and conditions your whole life, and you feel absolutely garbage, and you look at reality and it looks like garbage. Now you take these drugs and alcohol, and it changes your perspective, for example, weed or alcohol takes away your ability to focus, what happens, you no longer can focus negatively for very long. And as a result, your life experience becomes very reliefed, it is sort of like a forced diffusing of your focus. It is sort of like saying, meh whatever.

Taking that drugs or alcohol, is the same as saying "I care so much about how I feel, I'm no longer gonna care about anything that bothers me anymore." [/quote]

That is called suppression and has nothing to do with becoming spiritual. It is very dangerous and unhealthy. Instead of dealing with the thoughts, the attachments you are looking for a "thing" to make you happy. That is not the way.

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That is the same thing that Jesus and Buddha did! It is called unconditional love. So you're practicing enlightenment if you use drugs in that way, and you relise also you don't need drugs to stop caring either about things that bother you. And then you become more solution oriented in your life, more focused on all the good things in life. Why? Cause you simply wanna feel good, and in doing so, your life thus then becomes good, because you've chosen to be your true self, unconditionally, meaning regardless of any conditions whatsoever.

So can you see how taking these drugs and alcohol can cause people to let go of their negative attachments and can you see the value in that? As you already have recognized for yourself?[/quote]

No, do not see how using drugs is anywhere close to what Jesus or the Buddha taught. The exact opposite to be honest.

Quote

The same with all addictions, they are just tools and permission slips that we use to allow ourselves to become more of who we truely already are. So for example, taking jog or walk outside is the same thing. People don't call it an addiction, but if you feel you need to do that in order to focus in such a way that is beneficial to you, you simply do it, and you enjoy it, and you feel better, and you let go of negative attachments.[/quote]

They keep you trapped in the local mind and very, very far from who you really are.

Quote

Same with listening to good feeling music to distract you from things that might bother you, and thus recognize more good things that do please you in your life. So we can all just pop some music in our ears, and be happy, as long as we keep our focus and attention on the music. Now that is using an attachment in the positive sense. But realise, eventually, you're gonna want to just say to yourself, I don't need those things to focus on what I want to focus and feel good, under any and all circumstances that may only inspire me more and more, evermore, of all the good things I may actually be wanting to focus upon.

Another example of using a thing to suppress what is bothering you.

Work on clarity and let it all flow through.. you really don't need a "thing" to feel better.

P.S. At the same time.. nothing wrong with a good beer

Edited January 28, 2019 by Jonesboy

Everything · January 28, 2019

delete

Edited January 28, 2019 by Everything

Spotless · January 28, 2019

22 minutes ago, s1va said:

Everything I have written in this topic such as lucid dreaming, yoga nidra, chakra openings, layers of mind, clear light state, samadhi states such as nirvikalpa and higher samadhi's afterwards where we retain consciousness in samadhi, the transformation into jiva-shiva phase integrating subconscious layers into the conscious mind are all from my experiences. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will be happy to answer the best I can. I am not sure if you read the thread entirely from the start to understand the things I stated in proper context. When it is not my experience, I have pointed out clearly like I have not yet reached the 4th state that transcends the other 3. I have also stated earlier, I talk about certain things from the glimpses of temporary states I have been in, though it is not my permanent reality yet. Not sure if you noticed the part where I mentioned that I consider myself to be fortunate to know or be in contact with some who I consider to have reached the fully awakened state of Buddha.

I have unconvered certain veils or cloaks (kanchukas as described in KS), to understand their nature and to talk about them confidently. A fully awakened person is not constrained by any of the five kloaks and they are radiant.

I have realized that we are all not septate and form is void. This is not fully a Buddha realization yet. For that, I still need to realize the other part, void = form from the heart sutra. I admit that I am open or expanded enough to understand or discern if a person radiates fully in awakened state like Jesus or Buddha, or if they have all their chakras open and reached the light state. I can connect or merge with deities and beings from other realms including Gautam Buddha, Jesus, etc., or connect them to others to help -- if they request me to do so. I don't even have to be in front of that person to determine if they radiate the light or not. Happy to demonstrate in the chat room, if anyone wants me to connect them to any deity or to a realized being like Jesus or Buddha.

I generally don't talk about myself and do not see any of this as achievements. All of us are in the image of Shiva. When we unconver the following 5 veils, we are just as him. Which means we are able to create universes or worlds from emptiness at will. To me full Awakening such as Buddha's or Jesus comes with all the magical and mystical abilities of Shiva (or our own true nature). Until this happens, I am not done. I don't even think there is a end goal post like enlightenment or, I am done. I even created a topic about that.

kāla - the cloak of time

vidyā - the cloak of limited knowledge

rāga - the cloak of desire

niyati - the cloak of causality

kalā - the cloak of being limited

Do you use trance?

Everything · January 28, 2019

Delete

Edited January 28, 2019 by Everything

Kar3n · January 28, 2019

Mod Team Notice

@Jonesboy and @Everything, please get back on topic or create a new topic for your discussion. I am happy to move all of your posts for you if you would like.

s1va · January 28, 2019

31 minutes ago, Spotless said:

Do you use trance?

Not sure what you mean by using trance. Trance is a term used to refer to various states of alerted perceptions people get into. Not something anyone can use as far as I know. You can eloborate if you use it and if it's relevant to this topic.

Everything · January 28, 2019

24 minutes ago, Kar3n said:

Mod Team Notice

@Jonesboy and @Everything, please get back on topic or create a new topic for your discussion. I am happy to move all of your posts for you if you would like.

Thanks very much, and my appologies. I made a new topic.

Still_Waters · January 28, 2019

8 hours ago, s1va said:

Mandukya is a simple (yet profound) Upanishad with very few words. No one is debating it's power or usefulness in certain contexts. I haven't heard anything about your interpretation, or any quote to back up the statements you made about conscious sleep and practices! We can praise Mandukya all day. But that doesn't prove that this Upanishad proposes jagrat consciousness in sleep. Because I know for a fact it doesn't! I am just trying to avoid unnecessary mixups and confusions.

Excerpt from the Mandukya Upanishad, as per Eknath Easwaran:

"The third state is called Prajna, of deep sleep,

In which one neither dreams nor desires.

There is no mind in Prajna, there is no

Separateness; but the sleeper is not

Conscious of this. LET HIM BECOME CONSCIOUS

IN PRAJNA AND IT WILL OPEN THE DOOR

TO THE STATE OF ABIDING JOY."

"Of Turiya, without parts, beyond birth

And death, symbol of everlasting joy.

Those who know AUM as the Self become the Self;

Truly they become the Self."

Draw your own conclusions. I have nothing to add at this point. The words of the Mandukya Upanishad seem to speak for themselves. It clearly says, "LET HIM BECOME CONSCIOUS IN PRAJNA (deep sleep)".

In any case, I am not going to be drawn into a discussion on any differences you may raise between this translation and others. I will say, however, that if a person cannot even know himself in the three obvious states of man --- deep sleep, dream state, so-called waking state --- and turiya, then it seems pointless to carry on a discussion with them regarding their theories or theories that they have studied about the overall nature of the Reality. They should first know themselves before going any further. In my opinion, the value of "conscious sleep" has been sufficiently stated by posters here as well as masters of other traditions. Now, do what seems best for you. I can't think of anything more I can add to this particular dialogue.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Still_Waters

s1va · January 28, 2019

2 minutes ago, Still_Waters said:

Excerpt from the Mandukya Upanishad, as per Eknath Easwaran:

"The third state is called Prajna, of deep sleep,

In which one neither dreams nor desires.

There is no mind in Prajna, there is no

Separateness; but the sleeper is not

Conscious of this. LET HIM BECOME CONSCIOUS

IN PRAJNA AND IT WILL OPEN THE DOOR

TO THE STATE OF ABIDING JOY."

"Of Turiya, without parts, beyond birth

And death, symbol of everlasting joy.

Those who know AUM as the Self become the Self;

Truly they become the Self."

Draw your own conclusions. I have nothing to add at this point. The words of the Mandukya Upanishad seem to speak for themselves.

These are not words of Mandukya Upanishad! If you think Eaknath Easwaran or some person's commentary or book is true Mandukya Upanishad then I don't know what to say. Lot of people write whatever they feel as commentary on Mandukya or other Upanishads. There is Advaita bashyas, Vishidtadvaita bashyas and Dwaita bashyas to almost all major Upanishads, each explaining the Upanishads either from non-dual or qualified non-dual or entirely dual perspectives. On top of these there are Karikas that were added and tons of commentaries written on top of these bashyas. There are commentaries for commentaries. All of them make the claim they are authentic. Many people talk or present themselves as knowledgeable of Upanishads or even write commentaries. I honestly wonder how many truly read the original Upanishads or truly realized what is stated in there. I don't give a lot of value to book knowledge in general, even if it's from scriptures. But, when I say something is from a scripture or has basis in it, I try to ensure that it truly does.

1) Just because some commentary says something, it doesn't mean it is actually from the Upanishad. This is why I requested you to quote directly from the Upanishad. You can find a copy online in several sites including the Sanskrit documents.

2) It is not clear from this quote if it advocates someone to actively practice bringing conscious awareness of waking state (jagrat) into sleep swapna and sushupti. Everyone agrees Turiya is beyond birth, death etc. So, no contention there.

Entire Mandukya Upanishad is very small and cryptic. But people write eloborate commentaries in the sizes of large books and add lot of things as per each person's belief system. I trust my inner experience and and see if it fits or tallies with what's mentioned directly in the scriptures. There are very few exceptions to this, certain translations I consider as making sense and tallying with the original.

Whatever is stated in the quote is not very clear and does not indicate any sleep yoga practice to me. I am not discounting Eaknath Easwaran, I think he may be a good writer/author. Some of it makes sense, we need to consciouslly apprehend our true nature. That is what realization is about. There is no mind in prajna is debatable and depends on how we define mind. Anyway that's off topic and I don't want to get into that.

Thanks for the comments. If this is your belief and you feel this is what Mandukya Upanishad is about, then it's fine with me. I respect your opinion and have no intention to further debate on this. I simply don't see it that way.

Still_Waters · January 28, 2019

1 minute ago, s1va said:

These are not words of Mandukya Upanishad! If you think Eaknath Easwaran or some person's commentary or book is true Mandukya Upanishad then I don't know what to say. Lot of people write whatever they feel as commentary on Mandukya or other Upanishads. There is Advaita bashyas, Vishidtadvaita bashyas and Dwaita bashyas to almost all major Upanishads, each explaining the Upanishads either from non-dual or qualified non-dual or entirely dual perspectives. On top of these there are Karikas that were added and tons of commentaries written on top of these bashyas. There are commentaries for commentaries. All of them make the claim they are authentic. Many people talk or present themselves as knowledgeable of Upanishads or even write commentaries. I honestly wonder how many truly read the original Upanishads or truly realized what is stated in there. I don't give a lot of value to book knowledge in general, even if it's from scriptures. But, when I say something is from a scripture or has basis in it, I try to ensure that it truly does.

1) Just because some commentary says something, it doesn't mean it is actually from the Upanishad. This is why I requested you to quote directly from the Upanishad. You can find a copy online in several sites including the Sanskrit documents.

2) It is not clear from this quote if it advocates someone to actively practice bringing conscious awareness of waking state (jagrat) into sleep swapna and sushupti. Everyone agrees Turiya is beyond birth, death etc. So, no contention there.

Entire Mandukya Upanishad is very small and cryptic. But people write eloborate commentaries in the sizes of large books and add lot of things as per each person's belief system. I trust my inner experience and and see if it fits or tallies with what's mentioned directly in the scriptures. There are very few exceptions to this, certain translations I consider as making sense and tallying with the original.

Whatever is stated in the quote is not very clear and does not indicate any sleep yoga practice to me. I am not discounting Eaknath Easwaran, I think he may be a good writer/author. Some of it makes sense, we need to consciouslly apprehend our true nature. That is what realization is about. There is no mind in prajna is debatable and depends on how we define mind. Anyway that's off topic and I don't want to get into that.

Thanks for the comments. If this is your belief and you feel this is what Mandukya Upanishad is about, then it's fine with me. I respect your opinion and have no intention to further debate on this. I simply don't see it that way.

Thank you for your comments. What I quoted was not a commentary. It was simply one translation. I have other translations of the Mandukya Upanishad, but I agree with your suggestion that we should have no further discussion on this particular point. Let us simply agree to disagree. That is fine.

s1va · January 28, 2019

4 minutes ago, Still_Waters said:

Thank you for your comments. What I quoted was not a commentary. It was simply one translation. I have other translations of the Mandukya Upanishad, but I agree with your suggestion that we should have no further discussion on this particular point. Let us simply agree to disagree. That is fine.

Want to make this observation since you maintain it's not a commentary. I doubt it is just a translation based on what I read in your quote. If it is a direct translation of Mandukya, the entire translation should at most be a page or two. I am pretty sure Eaknath Easwaran's translation is based out of Gaudapada Karika which itself was commentary added later in the Advaita tradition. Advaita schools consider it as an extension of the original Upanishad. Other traditions do not consider so and they reject the Karika in its entirety. Most modern English translation and commentary on Mandukya by followers of Advaita tradition is actually the translation/commentary of the Karika not the actual Upanishad. I would be very surprised if this is not the case with Eaknath Easwaran. (I did a simple Google search and find an entire book authored by him on Gaudapada Karika of Mandukya Upanishad). I have read this original Karika also and the actual Karika also does not promote any sleep yoga practices either. This was why I was confident in my statements earlier.)

I am fine with agreeing to disagree on the actual topic. Best wishes 🙂.

.

thelerner · January 28, 2019

I have no idea where its from, but I like it. I see parallels with Daoist thoughts in it.. ie the final goal seems to be deep rejuvenating sleep, not lucid dreams or astral travel, but a deep sleep with an almost paradoxical bit of awareness in it.

voidisyinyang · January 29, 2019

On 1/27/2019 at 4:13 PM, Still_Waters said:

but my sense is that Ramana did not want to overly complicate things by defining the Absolute/Source or going into the various vertical levels or horozontal parallels.

my sense is that Ramana did not want to overly complicate things by defining the Absolute/Source

The secret is here - Ramana Maharshi:

Quote

Vritti belongs to the rajasic (active) mind. The satvic mind (mind is repose) is free from it. The satvic is the witness of the rajasic. It is no doubt true consciousness. Still it is called satvic mind because the knowledge of being witness is the function of abhasa (reflected consciousness) only. Mind is the abhasa. Such knowledge implies mind. But the mind is by itself inoperative. Therefore it is called satvic mind. Such is the jivanmukta’s state. It is also said that his mind is dead. Is it not a paradox that a jivanmukta has a mind and that it is dead? This has to be conceded in argument with ignorant folk. It is also said that Brahman is only the jivanmukta’s mind. How can one speak of him as Brahmavid (knower of Brahman). Brahman can never be an object to be known. This is, however, in accordance with common parlance. Satvic mind is surmised of the jivanmukta and of Iswara. “Otherwise,” they argue, “how does the jivanmukta live and act?” The satvic mind has to be admitted as a concession to argument. The satvic mind is in fact the Absolute consciousness. The object to be witnessed and the witness finally merge together and Absolute consciousness alone reigns supreme. It is not a state of sunya (blank) or ignorance. It is the swarupa (Real Self). Some say that mind arises from consciousness followed by reflection ( abhasa ); others say that the abhasa (reflection) arises first followed by the mind. In fact both are simultaneous.

So what he states is actually corroborated by science. I'll leave my personal experiences out of this - as well as what teachers have shared with me, etc. But in fact the "paradox" that Ramana is discussing is found in science - in advanced high level physics - and therefore this "paradox" is something that the "ignorant folk" need as a "concession to argument."

So Ramana Maharshi uses his mind - the spiritual ego as light - to "kill" his mind - by "turning the light around" (as it is called in Daoism). So in physics (or quantum biology if you want) - light is a paradox since it has no rest mass but light does have relativistic mass (that term is not normally used anymore). So now it is called "super momentum" or "superluminal momentum." So if you were to trap light in a box you could not tell if the light was matter or not. Light transforms into matter - but the MASS stays the same - the mass meaning spacetime itself as the ether. So in quantum physics this creates the paradox called the "measurement problem" because science relies on the speed of light as the limit to make measurements - and a measurement in time requires the loss of the ether of light. The ether of light or the spacetime of light is faster than the speed of light. This problem or "measurement problem" of science is actually inherent to Western philosophy, since it goes all the way back to Plato and how a "unit" is defined by based on infinity as an external geometric measurement that is symmetric in time.

So this paradox is actually solved by the three gunas - which is OLDER than the Brahmin Vedic philosophy. So the quote I give above refers to the three gunas - and it's actually from music theory as complementary opposites. So the three gunas are actually the same as Daoism. This is something that most "advaitins" do not acknowledge. In fact I have not seen ANY advaitins acknowledge this - not even David Loy who thinks he knows about Daoism. haha.

So then we think of light as frequency based on color - but by turning the light around - we go to "zero/infinite" time as the "rest mass" of light - and so this reverses the holographic spirit information. As qigong master Yan Xin states - the qi is "bidirectional" based on intention - the Yi as intention is actually from the Shen as light. So then red light is the yin qi energy - as the Tamas blockages - and blue light is the yang qi energy as the Sattva blockages - the golden light is from the blue light neutralizing the red light - so as the blue light is absorbed this is from the Future as an Ether spacetime shift. This is explained in relativistic quantum physics. So you then increase the golden light by increasing the yellow.

So the "yuan Shen" is called the "light of no light" because it is this eternal process of "turning the light around" - and so what Ramana Maharshi did was rely on left-brain logical inference (Vichara). But he said that at first you repeat the I-I-I-I not as a mantra but as logical enquiry and the I-thought gets concentrated. THEN you visualize light on the right side of the heart as the "direct path." Now since Jnana Yoga is the highest level - he doesn't focus on the preliminary requirements of celibacy and fasting - and not even eye contact with females (as I have read the Brahmin priest rules). A three day ritual purification is required if a male brahmin priest makes eye contact with a female. So all of this is glossed over in the Western Advaita scene. But if you read Vivekananda's books on yoga - he is quite clear that Jnana is the highest level of yoga. Even in Buddhist Vipassana, if you really study it - they also teach to visualize light and that it is the highest level of meditation.

So what happens then is that the Yuan Qi as the Ether has to "surround" the light - to empower the light - and this Ether is a spacetime vortex. Western science has proven that spacetime is curved even at only 1 centimeter in distance (the size of the pineal gland). So the experience of the Yuan Qi is that is it not HIGHER nor is it LOWER but rather it is at "zero/infinity" geometry and yet it is the 5th dimension as TIME that can not be seen! So it is an "ether-knowledge" based on time (not on space). Just as Kala means Time and so Kali means to turn time around as this spacetime vortex that both creates and destroys matter.

So then in Nirvikalpa Samadhi - the mind as spirit turns back on itself as pure "reflection" - and this reflection is "held" so that the external object being reflected is then "merged" with - and so this Sattvic mind state means there is no movement but while this "reflection" is being held - there is still movement or "doing" of the Ether itself - the Ether-Knowledge can then only be logically inferred after the fact. So if you read Poonjaji's memoir, "Nothing Ever Happened" - he doesn't know what happened - when six of him (as light-matter) all attended six different birthday invitations. So from the perspective of the Yuan Shen - as "clear light" - as Ramana Maharshi states - the light gets SO BRIGHT that there loss of the ego (just as in deep sleep there loss of the ego) But there is KNOWLEDGE that remains - only it is NOT your ego knowledge. It is the Ether-Knowledge itself as formless awareness or Shakti or Yuan Qi - and this Knowledge actually operates FROM THE FUTURE - and so it can solve whatever problem was "perceived" to be happening (in the past).

And so this is happening eternally - and we can LISTEN to it or logically infer the source of light. But we can not see the source of the light. That's why Ramana Maharshi calls it Mouna Samadhi. But the West fixates on visual perception and hence the misunderstanding and the need for "concession for the sake of argument" as Ramana Maharshi explains.

Edited January 29, 2019 by voidisyinyang

liminal_luke · January 29, 2019

I have to admit that I was a bit annoyed when I first saw this thread. What`s the point of casting aspersions on other people practices? Little did I know that it would provoke so many great posts about awareness during sleep and from such an amazing cast of Bums old and new. I feel newly inspired.

neti neti · January 29, 2019

Turiya, or that which is pointed to beyond the 3 most familiar states of being, is not another state. It is consciousness itself.

Everything · January 29, 2019

16 hours ago, Still_Waters said:

"LET HIM BECOME CONSCIOUS IN PRAJNA (deep sleep)".

There are many words for it, sleep, death, etc. You are basically withdrawing your consciousness from your body, but most of the time, you're not aware of it.

So if you simply meditate, and withdraw your consciousness from your body, while meditating, then you can be conscious of how it feels like to be in that state of being, and even recall the feeling of that joy. And then you can live in your natural joyful state of being, that you are ment to be in all of the time of your waking life aswell.

Often people fall asleep in their meditations, that is why it is helpful to meditate early in the morning, right when you wake up, you freshly come out of that state, and you're fully awake, and vital and alife. And the time is ripest thus then to meditate, preferrably somewhere you will not be disturbed, but focus is vital to maintain a mind that ceases to offer thought, and become empty and clear and yet precise and fine tuned and fully conscious and aware and awake.

And also even better, if you do this on a free day or two, so as to not have any limitations of time to care about. It is vital that you relax and ease into the experience, and allow it to happen all on its own. And when you're relaxed, free and clear, it's often gonna happen naturally and effortlessly. And after month's of practice, eventually, you will be so familiar with the feeling and state of being, that feels like tremendous joy. You can thus then allow that state of being at any time you wish, and you will also be more sensitive early on to all the things that may cause a dip or resistance in your own energy motional emotional state of your being that indicates your alignment with your greater soul and knowing and purpose in and as life aswell!

Then your entire waking life can be reflecting it, and you move through the path of least resistance, all throughout your life, along the path of this joy that inspires the right actions at the right time and place, always synchronised with your greater knowing and souls purpose, so as to not even come across anything that is not of that nature. Everything in your life shifts in such a way, that you automatically effortlessly, by virtue of your deliberate practicing of this state of being, meet up with all of the good aspects in your life, even in the midst of all that previously experienced bad circumstances.

So you could go up to the person you've hated the most in your life, and experience them in a new light, as your best friend, or one of your friends of the endless many friends of all friends that is yours ever more and more and more, evermore.

So you become more unconditional, and more aligned with your core soul frequency of your being, that is like the breath of God or Source of All Creation. And in this alignment with who it is you truely are in your greater nature, you can view your life through the eyes of God or Source. And in doing so, the benefits are immense for everyone, including yourself. And your benefits are so intense, that your alignment just expands evermore and the fine tuning takes place evermore and evermore precise and high frequency, and greater complexity arising out of this elegant simple state of being in alignment with who it is you really truely already are, always have been and always will be.

And it doesn't matter if you sleep and dream consciously, or you meditate, or you listen to some amazing music, or you focus on all the things you truely love and feel love in your focusing on them. And you focus on all the things you appreciate. Anyone can find alignment with their greater knowing and purpose of their higher truer being. How you go about doing that doesn't matter. And once you find your way and learn to stay in that state of being, it's not yours evermore.

You always have to practice to be there and allow yourself to be there evermore. It's always gonna be a deliberate and conscious effort of excersizing the art of allowing. There are endless many ways to go about aligning more with that, most often people chase behind conditions that allow them to feel their own connection and alignment with what they call God, some even do it through sex. When they have their orgasmic experience that speaks to the true creativity of that nature, even through the perpetuation of our species.

But once you realise the common and universal commonality in all of the different approaches, and you realise all that you have ever wanted in your life, be it money, love or enlightenment, you have only ever wanted it because you thought you would feel better in the having of it.

So if one takes the unconditional, inner journey, of feeling better. Then better feeling after better feeling, you can be in that state of being in alignment with your true original creatorhood nature, in a much shorter time. Thus then you allow any and all conditions to serve you, in helping you allow yourself to feel better in any and all conditions. And if you primarily and only care about how you feel and you make a deliberate and conscious effort to feel better under any and all conditions, as your soul purpose and reason for being here, then you will certainly succeed, in the most joyous and fun manner that you can ever possibly imagine for yourself, along your unique and individually blessedly unique journey along the path of least resistance, towards all that you want evermore.

But you have to do it, cause it feels better. And you want to feel better more than anything. And believe that you and all of creation also thus then deserves to feel better, through you aswell. So this service to self is the service to all. As the all are the one and the one is the all.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Everything

Everything · January 29, 2019

14 hours ago, thelerner said:

I have no idea where its from, but I like it. I see parallels with Daoist thoughts in it.. ie the final goal seems to be deep rejuvenating sleep, not lucid dreams or astral travel, but a deep sleep with an almost paradoxical bit of awareness in it.

Even ALL THAT IS, can wake up to more of itself.

Expansion is eternal. And the reason this is so, is because of individuals such as yourself, right here and now, on the leading edge of creation, the most specific furthest most extensions of that which you call non-physical and even the Source of All Creation.

This here is where the party is at. And to allow your soul to fully come here and out and play, is the original plan. So your non-physical greater YOU is still right here and now with you, as a non-physical state of ever expanding being, as are you. And to remember that, which is unconditional in and of and as your true nature, thus then, you can finally allow your life to become as the fulfillment that you planned it out to be, while still awake and remaining alife!

And yeah, being in alignment with your own greater soul does feel evermore rejuvinating, and that is the most important part! How it feels. As that will always guide you towards your own inner alignment with who it is you truely really already are, and have become, in your fully most expanded state of being, that has been expanding with you and through you and because of you in your physicalness.

You're not being withhold from all that you have ever wanted, it is just being maintained FOR YOU and AS YOU, as your non-physical greater consciousness. So nothing can ever go wrong, as you eternally more have acces to all of that you have become and will becoming evermore, through your heart and feeling of your own energy motional, emotional, indicating your alignment with who you really are, more, or less, in every feeling of every thought and awareness that you excersice for yourself.

Thus, the only discipline that is ever truely worthy of your discipline, is that you feel good, no matter what! Unconditionally. Regardless of any and all conditions whatsoever. As this is always the path of least resistance, towards the fulfillment of all your greater knowing and becoming as all that you have ever wanted to know or experience or be and become.

So even focusing on rejuvination, and the idea of the ever abounding well-being that is the stream of the entire universe, and the endless source of all creation, that has set all of this into motion, long before this planet even was, yeah all of that can help you in feeling better.

And if focusing too specifically and conditionally causes you to lose your alignment and activate thoughts and perspectives of resistance, then it is not ever worth it. Always then you can meditate again, and release all of resistance. There is not a condition in life worthy enough to be bothered about, ever. It all exists for the purpose of your joy.

Still_Waters · January 29, 2019

13 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

my sense is that Ramana did not want to overly complicate things by defining the Absolute/Source

The secret is here - Ramana Maharshi:

So what he states is actually corroborated by science. I'll leave my personal experiences out of this - as well as what teachers have shared with me, etc. But in fact the "paradox" that Ramana is discussing is found in science - in advanced high level physics - and therefore this "paradox" is something that the "ignorant folk" need as a "concession to argument."

So Ramana Maharshi uses his mind - the spiritual ego as light - to "kill" his mind - by "turning the light around" (as it is called in Daoism). So in physics (or quantum biology if you want) - light is a paradox since it has no rest mass but light does have relativistic mass (that term is not normally used anymore). So now it is called "super momentum" or "superluminal momentum." So if you were to trap light in a box you could not tell if the light was matter or not. Light transforms into matter - but the MASS stays the same - the mass meaning spacetime itself as the ether. So in quantum physics this creates the paradox called the "measurement problem" because science relies on the speed of light as the limit to make measurements - and a measurement in time requires the loss of the ether of light. The ether of light or the spacetime of light is faster than the speed of light. This problem or "measurement problem" of science is actually inherent to Western philosophy, since it goes all the way back to Plato and how a "unit" is defined by based on infinity as an external geometric measurement that is symmetric in time.

So this paradox is actually solved by the three gunas - which is OLDER than the Brahmin Vedic philosophy. So the quote I give above refers to the three gunas - and it's actually from music theory as complementary opposites. So the three gunas are actually the same as Daoism. This is something that most "advaitins" do not acknowledge. In fact I have not seen ANY advaitins acknowledge this - not even David Loy who thinks he knows about Daoism. haha.

So then we think of light as frequency based on color - but by turning the light around - we go to "zero/infinite" time as the "rest mass" of light - and so this reverses the holographic spirit information. As qigong master Yan Xin states - the qi is "bidirectional" based on intention - the Yi as intention is actually from the Shen as light. So then red light is the yin qi energy - as the Tamas blockages - and blue light is the yang qi energy as the Sattva blockages - the golden light is from the blue light neutralizing the red light - so as the blue light is absorbed this is from the Future as an Ether spacetime shift. This is explained in relativistic quantum physics. So you then increase the golden light by increasing the yellow.

So the "yuan Shen" is called the "light of no light" because it is this eternal process of "turning the light around" - and so what Ramana Maharshi did was rely on left-brain logical inference (Vichara). But he said that at first you repeat the I-I-I-I not as a mantra but as logical enquiry and the I-thought gets concentrated. THEN you visualize light on the right side of the heart as the "direct path." Now since Jnana Yoga is the highest level - he doesn't focus on the preliminary requirements of celibacy and fasting - and not even eye contact with females (as I have read the Brahmin priest rules). A three day ritual purification is required if a male brahmin priest makes eye contact with a female. So all of this is glossed over in the Western Advaita scene. But if you read Vivekananda's books on yoga - he is quite clear that Jnana is the highest level of yoga. Even in Buddhist Vipassana, if you really study it - they also teach to visualize light and that it is the highest level of meditation.

So what happens then is that the Yuan Qi as the Ether has to "surround" the light - to empower the light - and this Ether is a spacetime vortex. Western science has proven that spacetime is curved even at only 1 centimeter in distance (the size of the pineal gland). So the experience of the Yuan Qi is that is it not HIGHER nor is it LOWER but rather it is at "zero/infinity" geometry and yet it is the 5th dimension as TIME that can not be seen! So it is an "ether-knowledge" based on time (not on space). Just as Kala means Time and so Kali means to turn time around as this spacetime vortex that both creates and destroys matter.

So then in Nirvikalpa Samadhi - the mind as spirit turns back on itself as pure "reflection" - and this reflection is "held" so that the external object being reflected is then "merged" with - and so this Sattvic mind state means there is no movement but while this "reflection" is being held - there is still movement or "doing" of the Ether itself - the Ether-Knowledge can then only be logically inferred after the fact. So if you read Poonjaji's memoir, "Nothing Ever Happened" - he doesn't know what happened - when six of him (as light-matter) all attended six different birthday invitations. So from the perspective of the Yuan Shen - as "clear light" - as Ramana Maharshi states - the light gets SO BRIGHT that there loss of the ego (just as in deep sleep there loss of the ego) But there is KNOWLEDGE that remains - only it is NOT your ego knowledge. It is the Ether-Knowledge itself as formless awareness or Shakti or Yuan Qi - and this Knowledge actually operates FROM THE FUTURE - and so it can solve whatever problem was "perceived" to be happening (in the past).

And so this is happening eternally - and we can LISTEN to it or logically infer the source of light. But we can not see the source of the light. That's why Ramana Maharshi calls it Mouna Samadhi. But the West fixates on visual perception and hence the misunderstanding and the need for "concession for the sake of argument" as Ramana Maharshi explains.

Although you didn't really address the specific points I raised, your post is nonetheless very educated, informed and intellectual. Your knowledge of quantum physics is quite commendable. (If you haven't already read it already, you might want to read "Quantum Questions, Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists" edited by Ken Wilber. It contains the "mystical writings" of Nobel-Prize winning quantum physicists such as Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, De Broglie, Jeans, Plank, Pauli, and Eddington. In addition, the latest edition of "Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra is also quite good in exploring the parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism. I have found both books to be very illuminating relative to quantum physics and eastern mysticism.)

Now, let's move on to Ramana Maharshi. In the Ramana Maharshi quote that you provided, you highlighted (among other passages) " This has to be conceded in argument with ignorant folk" and "The satvic mind has to be admitted as a concession to argument." Have you considered the possibility that the Ramana passage that you quoted was similarly a concession to the intellectual folk? An aware observer will note, as I have said repeatedly, that Ramana often (not always) responds to questions in "Talks" at the level of the questioner. The passages that you highlighted, as I just re-quoted, clearly indicate this.

Instead of getting bogged down in the intellectual theories contained in the "Talks" which are concessions in one manner or another, let us proceed deeper to an abridged version of the "Ribhu Gita" which Bhagavan refers to often in His "Talks". In the abridged version of this classic, the translator includes in his selection passages made familiar by Sri Bhagavan. This was published by Sri Ramanasranam (ISBN 978-81-88018-81-3) with the Sixth Edition being published in 2010. According to the foreword, the translator was encouraged by Ramana himself to study the Ribhu Gita as his sadhana. The translator, Professor N.R. Krishanmoorthi Aiyer was the Head of the Department of Physics in the American college in Madurai and hence was steeped in the objectivity of modern science.

At the end of your post, you mention "Mouna Samadhi" as it is called by Ramana Maharshi, but it wasn't really clear to me though I obviously know the meaning of both words. In the Rabhu Gita, it clearly states that "One should not give room to any thought and should ever abide in Maha Mounam (peace of total stillness)" [Chapter 14, verse 38] Lest you question whether this is taken out of context, this theme is continuously repeated throughout this publication.

- "The state of firm abidance in that thought-free alert awareness-Self, constitutes integral perfection, yoga, wisdom, Moksha, Sahaji Samadhi, the state of Siva and the state of Atman-Self, which scriptures proclaim by the title of Brahman." [Chapter 5, verse 26]

- "The Vdeka Mukta is free from the least trace of thought; he abides all alone in his effulgent pure-Awareness-Self in intense unbroken bliss, totally oblivious of limited forms, in a state of Maha-Mounam (stillness of body, speech, and mind)." [Chapter 9 Verse 1}

- "Abidance in the state of thought free alert Awareness is the state of mukti beyond thought and expression. The emergence of thought is the bondage of untold suffering. Abidance in the Self is the true non-dual samadhi , and that alone leads one to the eternal bliss of mukti. [Chapter 21 Verse 41].

Those quotes should suffice for now, but I could easily have provided more.

I don't want to turn this into intellectual theorizing based on Ramana's concessions to the intellectual folk. Although I can only speak for myself, my direction is clearly geared towards proceeding to the thought-free Alert-awareness of which this speaks. This is consistent across traditions. In Judaism, Ramana quotes Psalm 41:10 ("Be still and know ... THAT ... I AM ... God"). That passage is also one of my own personal favorites and guidelines. The first Buddhist jhana involves thought-conception and discursive-thought but subsequent jhanas are thought free. One of my favorite quotes from a Taoist/Buddhist handbook is "In utter emptiness and complete silence, simply watch the return". Lord Jesus said "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see/realize God" (Beatitudes). My sense is that, at the deepest levels, all the traditions ultimately point to the stillness of "Mouna Samadhi", the expression with which you ended your post and with which I fully concur. Each of us comes to our conclusions in our own way as we are all unique.

The subject of this thread related to conscious sleep and that is one of the meditation vehicles I use to observe the emergence of thoughts at both the conscious level and at the subconscious level so that, one by one, they can be eliminated in full accordance with yet another tradition that I did not mention above --- the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I am more into undoing and uncluttering as opposed to filling my head with theories that are essentially concessions to the intellectual folk who thrive on words and theories. I weary of theory.

Your quote and your post was interesting but I had difficulty translating it into action. Turning the light inward is easy to say, but I'm still in the dark regarding exactly WHAT is your practice, WHAT experiences you have had, WHAT were the results of your practice, and WHAT action your entire post suggests. Please help me to understand better.

P.S. I loved reading your post as it is indeed very educated, informed, well-written and intellectual but there is a point at which one must go past the intellectual. I was an intellectual in the past and it took a very tough spiritual mentor to shake me loose of all that. Now, I am at a stage of de-cluttering, not accumulating more clutter.

Still_Waters · January 29, 2019

6 hours ago, Everything said:

There are many words for it, sleep, death, etc. You are basically withdrawing your consciousness from your body, but most of the time, you're not aware of it.

So if you simply meditate, and withdraw your consciousness from your body, while meditating, then you can be conscious of how it feels like to be in that state of being, and even recall the feeling of that joy. And then you can live in your natural joyful state of being, that you are ment to be in all of the time of your waking life aswell.

Often people fall asleep in their meditations, that is why it is helpful to meditate early in the morning, right when you wake up, you freshly come out of that state, and you're fully awake, and vital and alife. And the time is ripest thus then to meditate, preferrably somewhere you will not be disturbed, but focus is vital to maintain a mind that ceases to offer thought, and become empty and clear and yet precise and fine tuned and fully conscious and aware and awake.

And also even better, if you do this on a free day or two, so as to not have any limitations of time to care about. It is vital that you relax and ease into the experience, and allow it to happen all on its own. And when you're relaxed, free and clear, it's often gonna happen naturally and effortlessly. And after month's of practice, eventually, you will be so familiar with the feeling and state of being, that feels like tremendous joy. You can thus then allow that state of being at any time you wish, and you will also be more sensitive early on to all the things that may cause a dip or resistance in your own energy motional emotional state of your being that indicates your alignment with your greater soul and knowing and purpose in and as life aswell!

Then your entire waking life can be reflecting it, and you move through the path of least resistance, all throughout your life, along the path of this joy that inspires the right actions at the right time and place, always synchronised with your greater knowing and souls purpose, so as to not even come across anything that is not of that nature. Everything in your life shifts in such a way, that you automatically effortlessly, by virtue of your deliberate practicing of this state of being, meet up with all of the good aspects in your life, even in the midst of all that previously experienced bad circumstances.

So you could go up to the person you've hated the most in your life, and experience them in a new light, as your best friend, or one of your friends of the endless many friends of all friends that is yours ever more and more and more, evermore.

So you become more unconditional, and more aligned with your core soul frequency of your being, that is like the breath of God or Source of All Creation. And in this alignment with who it is you truely are in your greater nature, you can view your life through the eyes of God or Source. And in doing so, the benefits are immense for everyone, including yourself. And your benefits are so intense, that your alignment just expands evermore and the fine tuning takes place evermore and evermore precise and high frequency, and greater complexity arising out of this elegant simple state of being in alignment with who it is you really truely already are, always have been and always will be.

And it doesn't matter if you sleep and dream consciously, or you meditate, or you listen to some amazing music, or you focus on all the things you truely love and feel love in your focusing on them. And you focus on all the things you appreciate. Anyone can find alignment with their greater knowing and purpose of their higher truer being. How you go about doing that doesn't matter. And once you find your way and learn to stay in that state of being, it's not yours evermore.

You always have to practice to be there and allow yourself to be there evermore. It's always gonna be a deliberate and conscious effort of excersizing the art of allowing. There are endless many ways to go about aligning more with that, most often people chase behind conditions that allow them to feel their own connection and alignment with what they call God, some even do it through sex. When they have their orgasmic experience that speaks to the true creativity of that nature, even through the perpetuation of our species.

But once you realise the common and universal commonality in all of the different approaches, and you realise all that you have ever wanted in your life, be it money, love or enlightenment, you have only ever wanted it because you thought you would feel better in the having of it.

So if one takes the unconditional, inner journey, of feeling better. Then better feeling after better feeling, you can be in that state of being in alignment with your true original creatorhood nature, in a much shorter time. Thus then you allow any and all conditions to serve you, in helping you allow yourself to feel better in any and all conditions. And if you primarily and only care about how you feel and you make a deliberate and conscious effort to feel better under any and all conditions, as your soul purpose and reason for being here, then you will certainly succeed, in the most joyous and fun manner that you can ever possibly imagine for yourself, along your unique and individually blessedly unique journey along the path of least resistance, towards all that you want evermore.

But you have to do it, cause it feels better. And you want to feel better more than anything. And believe that you and all of creation also thus then deserves to feel better, through you aswell. So this service to self is the service to all. As the all are the one and the one is the all.

Awesome post ! What more can one add to it ! I particularly liked your concluding statement: "But you have to do it, cause it feels better." I completely agree. Once one gets even a glimpse of what you so eloquently described, one surrenders to it completely "cause it feels better" than anything else and, in that state, one is guided unerringly in the best interests of all with no expectation of a return and one gravitates quite naturally to abiding as continuously as possible in that state.

Awesome post !

voidisyinyang · January 31, 2019

On 1/29/2019 at 1:51 PM, Still_Waters said:

Although you didn't really address the specific points I raised, your post is nonetheless very educated, informed and intellectual. Your knowledge of quantum physics is quite commendable. (If you haven't already read it already, you might want to read "Quantum Questions, Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists" edited by Ken Wilber. It contains the "mystical writings" of Nobel-Prize winning quantum physicists such as Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, De Broglie, Jeans, Plank, Pauli, and Eddington. In addition, the latest edition of "Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra is also quite good in exploring the parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism. I have found both books to be very illuminating relative to quantum physics and eastern mysticism.)

Now, let's move on to Ramana Maharshi. In the Ramana Maharshi quote that you provided, you highlighted (among other passages) " This has to be conceded in argument with ignorant folk" and "The satvic mind has to be admitted as a concession to argument." Have you considered the possibility that the Ramana passage that you quoted was similarly a concession to the intellectual folk? An aware observer will note, as I have said repeatedly, that Ramana often (not always) responds to questions in "Talks" at the level of the questioner. The passages that you highlighted, as I just re-quoted, clearly indicate this.

Instead of getting bogged down in the intellectual theories contained in the "Talks" which are concessions in one manner or another, let us proceed deeper to an abridged version of the "Ribhu Gita" which Bhagavan refers to often in His "Talks". In the abridged version of this classic, the translator includes in his selection passages made familiar by Sri Bhagavan. This was published by Sri Ramanasranam (ISBN 978-81-88018-81-3) with the Sixth Edition being published in 2010. According to the foreword, the translator was encouraged by Ramana himself to study the Ribhu Gita as his sadhana. The translator, Professor N.R. Krishanmoorthi Aiyer was the Head of the Department of Physics in the American college in Madurai and hence was steeped in the objectivity of modern science.

At the end of your post, you mention "Mouna Samadhi" as it is called by Ramana Maharshi, but it wasn't really clear to me though I obviously know the meaning of both words. In the Rabhu Gita, it clearly states that "One should not give room to any thought and should ever abide in Maha Mounam (peace of total stillness)" [Chapter 14, verse 38] Lest you question whether this is taken out of context, this theme is continuously repeated throughout this publication.

- "The state of firm abidance in that thought-free alert awareness-Self, constitutes integral perfection, yoga, wisdom, Moksha, Sahaji Samadhi, the state of Siva and the state of Atman-Self, which scriptures proclaim by the title of Brahman." [Chapter 5, verse 26]

- "The Vdeka Mukta is free from the least trace of thought; he abides all alone in his effulgent pure-Awareness-Self in intense unbroken bliss, totally oblivious of limited forms, in a state of Maha-Mounam (stillness of body, speech, and mind)." [Chapter 9 Verse 1}

- "Abidance in the state of thought free alert Awareness is the state of mukti beyond thought and expression. The emergence of thought is the bondage of untold suffering. Abidance in the Self is the true non-dual samadhi , and that alone leads one to the eternal bliss of mukti. [Chapter 21 Verse 41].

Those quotes should suffice for now, but I could easily have provided more.

I don't want to turn this into intellectual theorizing based on Ramana's concessions to the intellectual folk. Although I can only speak for myself, my direction is clearly geared towards proceeding to the thought-free Alert-awareness of which this speaks. This is consistent across traditions. In Judaism, Ramana quotes Psalm 41:10 ("Be still and know ... THAT ... I AM ... God"). That passage is also one of my own personal favorites and guidelines. The first Buddhist jhana involves thought-conception and discursive-thought but subsequent jhanas are thought free. One of my favorite quotes from a Taoist/Buddhist handbook is "In utter emptiness and complete silence, simply watch the return". Lord Jesus said "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see/realize God" (Beatitudes). My sense is that, at the deepest levels, all the traditions ultimately point to the stillness of "Mouna Samadhi", the expression with which you ended your post and with which I fully concur. Each of us comes to our conclusions in our own way as we are all unique.

The subject of this thread related to conscious sleep and that is one of the meditation vehicles I use to observe the emergence of thoughts at both the conscious level and at the subconscious level so that, one by one, they can be eliminated in full accordance with yet another tradition that I did not mention above --- the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I am more into undoing and uncluttering as opposed to filling my head with theories that are essentially concessions to the intellectual folk who thrive on words and theories. I weary of theory.

Your quote and your post was interesting but I had difficulty translating it into action. Turning the light inward is easy to say, but I'm still in the dark regarding exactly WHAT is your practice, WHAT experiences you have had, WHAT were the results of your practice, and WHAT action your entire post suggests. Please help me to understand better.

P.S. I loved reading your post as it is indeed very educated, informed, well-written and intellectual but there is a point at which one must go past the intellectual. I was an intellectual in the past and it took a very tough spiritual mentor to shake me loose of all that. Now, I am at a stage of de-cluttering, not accumulating more clutter.

yes the emphasis should be on practice - and as for "what" my practice, and "what" my experiences I've had, "results", and "action" - etc. -

first - on Ken Wilber - I consider him to be a pseudo-intellectual. I critique him in my master's thesis and that was way back in 2000 (University of Minnesota). So then I attempted to contact him to get a response from him about my critique. Instead his volunteer webmaster just published my master's thesis on his website (it's no longer up - what was that urL? )....

So without going into my critique of Wilber - one thing that I did notice as you quoted on Mouna Samadhi - is Wilber claimed that the mind could never be quieted - that there was ALWAYS thoughts going on. And I disagreed with him right there. But then Master Nan, Huai-chin emphasizes how to claim you have no thoughts is itself a thought - and so there has to still be a deeper level.

So a good book that critiques Ramana Maharshi is the book "Measuring Meditation" by Bill Bodri (based on Master Nan, Huai-chin).

What Master Nan, Huai-chin emphasized is that there is a need to empty out the conceptual mind - the 6th level of consciousness - in our modern world today with it's low level of dharma. And so that is what my project was for the past 20 years.

But in the end I returned back to the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" - I consider that to be the best book on what you are "still in the dark" about. It's a free book - just search the title. I like the "word searchable" full text version in archive - but if you want the images in the book then you need the pdf archive.

So when I finished my master's thesis - then I realized I had to "unlearn" more - and that book Taoist YOga states that after the first enlightenment experience of achieving the Tao - chapter 6 or so - there is a period of great confusion. In other words - I did experience directly this Ether-Knowledge as the Emptiness space-time vortex. This was AFTER I saw ghosts and smelled cancer in people (after I had fasted for a week - and meditated the whole time and my qi energy kept increasing). In other words I did achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi which is what the real Emptiness is in Taoist Yoga.

So here is the deal - the dreams do have to be controlled as the subconscious has to be controlled. This is called "preparing" for sleep - as Master Ni, Huang-chi describes it. But in today's "tantric" technology world - this is like going against a black hole - a psychic black hole. So in my case - I sought out a qigong master who does the Shakti energy healing like Poonjaji did - or Ramana - only in the Buddhist-Daoist tradition - there is a more "hands on" approach. For example Poonjaji gives the example in his memoir how he gave a Westerner TOO MUCH Shakti - and so for several days the Westerner, a young male, was running around claiming he was Jesus. haha. So in Daoism, it is realized there first HAS to be a strong foundation (the Lower Tan T'ien) - so that there is not too much resistance when (to put it into Western terms) the high voltage is then transformed or step-downed into higher amps.

OK so since I had read a lot of Advaita philosophy - like David Loy's book (back when I was doing the qigong meditation training in 2000) - then I was confused too easily. I thought of the Emptiness as a static realm that was everywhere. So in other words there was the same amount of Emptiness in a piece of crap as in an angel - and so I began hanging out with homeless people and I ate out of dumpsters and I practiced tantra - ate meat and garlic and did psychic full lotus free healing for years in fast food restaurants. I even reported all this as it happened on THIS website - back starting around 2007 and up to 2009. So this was very intense tantra training but I didn't realize I was burning off my Yuan Qi energy. It was only the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" that describes this problem of the "evil fire of the heart." But as Professor Hugh B. Urban details - the poor people in India could not afford to be direct students of Vivekananda (and Ramakrishna) since it was too expensive. So instead the poor people opted for tantra practice.

And this is the problem of the Western advaita "scene." So for example in Daoist - Buddhist meditation - if a so-called spiritual guru can not sit in full lotus with ease - for as long as the person wants - then their body channels are not open and clearly they can not even achieve real Nirvikalpa Samadhi!! Yet the WEstern Advaita scene does not acknowledge this truth. haha. As I mentioned - for real Jnana Yoga then the other types of yoga are preliminary training. So celibacy and vegetarianism and fasting, etc.

The other thing to consider as I mentioned - Ramana states at first to repeat I-I-I-I and listen to the source of the I-thought. But as the I-thought concentrates then he says to visualize light on the right side of the heart. Now if you read the book Taoist Yoga it states the yuan qi originates on the right side of the heart. I was given this experience by qigong master Jim Nance http://guidingqi.com and he is the only 2nd level qigong master student of Chunyi Lin who was the teacher I did intensive training from to finish my master's degree http://springforestqigong.com

So Ramana Maharshi calls this the "three-in-one unity" - referring to the three gunas. As I stated this is in fact the same as Daoist philosophy. In fact Kriya Yoga is considered to be from the three gunas also and is also the same as Daoist alchemy meditation training. I go into this in my free pdf training links below. So as for action - all we can do is continual purification and harmonization of the body-mind-spirit-Emptiness (formless awareness).

So yes essentially the phrase "Silence is Golden" is the key to the practice but what Westerners don't realize is that music theory is the secret to meditation. I figured this out from my intense music studies privately while in high school. So in science it's called "noncommutative phase." This is more advanced than anything that Ken Wilber or Capra can realize - you have to study Eddie Oshins of SLAC (STanford Linear Accelerator Center). Trust men - no one knows about Eddie Oshins!! I had to really search him out. Although I have corresponded with his collaborator - math professor Louis Kauffman who was also at SLAC. OK so Oshins had worked with Karl Pribram on the holographic model, but Pribram could not grasp the noncommutative phase math logic. Oshins also taught Wing Chun (Bruce Lee's lineage) and Oshins realized that Daoist alchemy meditation (Neigong) was the SAME as noncommutative phase logic of relativistic quantum physics.

This is not to equate the two - but rather, dialectically - they are two opposite extremes that have now overlapped. And so my actions and experiences - well it's like Crazy Zen style. In other words only the Formless Awareness is not hypocritical. So I could be a total shit-head right after I heal someone and people might think I'm crazy. And yet the healing does take place. haha. As the book Taoist Yoga states - the "yin qi" is actually just an immature form of the yuan qi. So this is what Ramana Maharshi is referring to - Poonjaji called it the "space between thoughts." So when we dream at night - it is our Liver yin qi that is active since our spirit is going out of our eyes when awake. In fact we can experience this through meditation - at the first breath upon waking we can actually experience the light shoot up to our skull and out of our eyes. So then for example flying dreams - Jim Nance said to me - yes that is actually a liver blockage! So this is solved by Daoist alchemy - if you study the book Taoist Yoga for details. Also his lineage (the author of that book) - on using standing active exercises, etc.

So as the Daoist tradition teaches - along with the Buddhist - the main blockage is emotional and then nutritional. For example Shri Dhanyogi - he traveled across the US giving Shaktipat healings. But he could NEVER find a diet pure enough to his suiting. As one of his students explained - the toxins of the body get leached out of the skull - out of the gums. Qigong master Chunyi Lin says as "qigong people' we can only eat to 70% full or else the food "goes to the head." So this is a permanent rewiriing of the physiology into an ascetic lifestyle after the pineal gland and heart are opened up - the main channel as the Emptiness- Nirvikalpa awakening. I even stopped practicing for several months to see if the permanent magnetic bliss of the pineal gland would go away - back in 2001. NOPE - all my body channels closed up though. haha.

So then the third blockage is environmental - meaning the feng shui and also the weather and social conditions - practice conditions. So most people are never going to get past these three main blockages. For example Jim Nance quit his career job so he could train in qigong full time. Why? He said he kept getting energy blockages from his job. So then he meditated 12 hours a day - for 10 years. Then he was declared a 2nd level qigong master only after he did a sabbatical of nonstop meditation for months - to truly achieve "eternal liberation" as Ramana Maharshi called it - or as Jim called it a true enlightenment experience of the heart. So yes - he gave me that experience briefly - of the deep right side heart Yuan Qi activation beyond death.

So I have written several free books - pdfs - about my training experiences and my "unlearning" experiences - linked on my old blog http://ecoechoinvasives.blogspot.com

But I don't recommend people waste their time on that stuff. I am just a beginner. As Jim says, I "fell out of enlightenment" or as Master Nan, Huai-chin states - most people in the modern world develop "heroic over-exuberance" as the spiritual powers manifest - and so then use those spiritual powers and then "fall back into worldliness." So his books are available online free in pdf - if you dig. They were in print when I read them but now no longer and he died maybe five years ago. One person who used to post here - they translate Master Nan's talks and post the video talks with translation on youtube.

Everything · January 31, 2019

6 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

yes the emphasis should be on practice - and as for "what" my practice, and "what" my experiences I've had, "results", and "action" - etc. -

first - on Ken Wilber - I consider him to be a pseudo-intellectual. I critique him in my master's thesis and that was way back in 2000 (University of Minnesota). So then I attempted to contact him to get a response from him about my critique. Instead his volunteer webmaster just published my master's thesis on his website (it's no longer up - what was that urL? )....

So without going into my critique of Wilber - one thing that I did notice as you quoted on Mouna Samadhi - is Wilber claimed that the mind could never be quieted - that there was ALWAYS thoughts going on. And I disagreed with him right there. But then Master Nan, Huai-chin emphasizes how to claim you have no thoughts is itself a thought - and so there has to still be a deeper level.

So a good book that critiques Ramana Maharshi is the book "Measuring Meditation" by Bill Bodri (based on Master Nan, Huai-chin).

What Master Nan, Huai-chin emphasized is that there is a need to empty out the conceptual mind - the 6th level of consciousness - in our modern world today with it's low level of dharma. And so that is what my project was for the past 20 years.

But in the end I returned back to the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" - I consider that to be the best book on what you are "still in the dark" about. It's a free book - just search the title. I like the "word searchable" full text version in archive - but if you want the images in the book then you need the pdf archive.

So when I finished my master's thesis - then I realized I had to "unlearn" more - and that book Taoist YOga states that after the first enlightenment experience of achieving the Tao - chapter 6 or so - there is a period of great confusion. In other words - I did experience directly this Ether-Knowledge as the Emptiness space-time vortex. This was AFTER I saw ghosts and smelled cancer in people (after I had fasted for a week - and meditated the whole time and my qi energy kept increasing). In other words I did achieve Nirvikalpa Samadhi which is what the real Emptiness is in Taoist Yoga.

So here is the deal - the dreams do have to be controlled as the subconscious has to be controlled. This is called "preparing" for sleep - as Master Ni, Huang-chi describes it. But in today's "tantric" technology world - this is like going against a black hole - a psychic black hole. So in my case - I sought out a qigong master who does the Shakti energy healing like Poonjaji did - or Ramana - only in the Buddhist-Daoist tradition - there is a more "hands on" approach. For example Poonjaji gives the example in his memoir how he gave a Westerner TOO MUCH Shakti - and so for several days the Westerner, a young male, was running around claiming he was Jesus. haha. So in Daoism, it is realized there first HAS to be a strong foundation (the Lower Tan T'ien) - so that there is not too much resistance when (to put it into Western terms) the high voltage is then transformed or step-downed into higher amps.

OK so since I had read a lot of Advaita philosophy - like David Loy's book (back when I was doing the qigong meditation training in 2000) - then I was confused too easily. I thought of the Emptiness as a static realm that was everywhere. So in other words there was the same amount of Emptiness in a piece of crap as in an angel - and so I began hanging out with homeless people and I ate out of dumpsters and I practiced tantra - ate meat and garlic and did psychic full lotus free healing for years in fast food restaurants. I even reported all this as it happened on THIS website - back starting around 2007 and up to 2009. So this was very intense tantra training but I didn't realize I was burning off my Yuan Qi energy. It was only the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" that describes this problem of the "evil fire of the heart." But as Professor Hugh B. Urban details - the poor people in India could not afford to be direct students of Vivekananda (and Ramakrishna) since it was too expensive. So instead the poor people opted for tantra practice.

And this is the problem of the Western advaita "scene." So for example in Daoist - Buddhist meditation - if a so-called spiritual guru can not sit in full lotus with ease - for as long as the person wants - then their body channels are not open and clearly they can not even achieve real Nirvikalpa Samadhi!! Yet the WEstern Advaita scene does not acknowledge this truth. haha. As I mentioned - for real Jnana Yoga then the other types of yoga are preliminary training. So celibacy and vegetarianism and fasting, etc.

The other thing to consider as I mentioned - Ramana states at first to repeat I-I-I-I and listen to the source of the I-thought. But as the I-thought concentrates then he says to visualize light on the right side of the heart. Now if you read the book Taoist Yoga it states the yuan qi originates on the right side of the heart. I was given this experience by qigong master Jim Nance http://guidingqi.com and he is the only 2nd level qigong master student of Chunyi Lin who was the teacher I did intensive training from to finish my master's degree http://springforestqigong.com

So Ramana Maharshi calls this the "three-in-one unity" - referring to the three gunas. As I stated this is in fact the same as Daoist philosophy. In fact Kriya Yoga is considered to be from the three gunas also and is also the same as Daoist alchemy meditation training. I go into this in my free pdf training links below. So as for action - all we can do is continual purification and harmonization of the body-mind-spirit-Emptiness (formless awareness).

So yes essentially the phrase "Silence is Golden" is the key to the practice but what Westerners don't realize is that music theory is the secret to meditation. I figured this out from my intense music studies privately while in high school. So in science it's called "noncommutative phase." This is more advanced than anything that Ken Wilber or Capra can realize - you have to study Eddie Oshins of SLAC (STanford Linear Accelerator Center). Trust men - no one knows about Eddie Oshins!! I had to really search him out. Although I have corresponded with his collaborator - math professor Louis Kauffman who was also at SLAC. OK so Oshins had worked with Karl Pribram on the holographic model, but Pribram could not grasp the noncommutative phase math logic. Oshins also taught Wing Chun (Bruce Lee's lineage) and Oshins realized that Daoist alchemy meditation (Neigong) was the SAME as noncommutative phase logic of relativistic quantum physics.

This is not to equate the two - but rather, dialectically - they are two opposite extremes that have now overlapped. And so my actions and experiences - well it's like Crazy Zen style. In other words only the Formless Awareness is not hypocritical. So I could be a total shit-head right after I heal someone and people might think I'm crazy. And yet the healing does take place. haha. As the book Taoist Yoga states - the "yin qi" is actually just an immature form of the yuan qi. So this is what Ramana Maharshi is referring to - Poonjaji called it the "space between thoughts." So when we dream at night - it is our Liver yin qi that is active since our spirit is going out of our eyes when awake. In fact we can experience this through meditation - at the first breath upon waking we can actually experience the light shoot up to our skull and out of our eyes. So then for example flying dreams - Jim Nance said to me - yes that is actually a liver blockage! So this is solved by Daoist alchemy - if you study the book Taoist Yoga for details. Also his lineage (the author of that book) - on using standing active exercises, etc.

So as the Daoist tradition teaches - along with the Buddhist - the main blockage is emotional and then nutritional. For example Shri Dhanyogi - he traveled across the US giving Shaktipat healings. But he could NEVER find a diet pure enough to his suiting. As one of his students explained - the toxins of the body get leached out of the skull - out of the gums. Qigong master Chunyi Lin says as "qigong people' we can only eat to 70% full or else the food "goes to the head." So this is a permanent rewiriing of the physiology into an ascetic lifestyle after the pineal gland and heart are opened up - the main channel as the Emptiness- Nirvikalpa awakening. I even stopped practicing for several months to see if the permanent magnetic bliss of the pineal gland would go away - back in 2001. NOPE - all my body channels closed up though. haha.

So then the third blockage is environmental - meaning the feng shui and also the weather and social conditions - practice conditions. So most people are never going to get past these three main blockages. For example Jim Nance quit his career job so he could train in qigong full time. Why? He said he kept getting energy blockages from his job. So then he meditated 12 hours a day - for 10 years. Then he was declared a 2nd level qigong master only after he did a sabbatical of nonstop meditation for months - to truly achieve "eternal liberation" as Ramana Maharshi called it - or as Jim called it a true enlightenment experience of the heart. So yes - he gave me that experience briefly - of the deep right side heart Yuan Qi activation beyond death.

So I have written several free books - pdfs - about my training experiences and my "unlearning" experiences - linked on my old blog http://ecoechoinvasives.blogspot.com

But I don't recommend people waste their time on that stuff. I am just a beginner. As Jim says, I "fell out of enlightenment" or as Master Nan, Huai-chin states - most people in the modern world develop "heroic over-exuberance" as the spiritual powers manifest - and so then use those spiritual powers and then "fall back into worldliness." So his books are available online free in pdf - if you dig. They were in print when I read them but now no longer and he died maybe five years ago. One person who used to post here - they translate Master Nan's talks and post the video talks with translation on youtube.

You remind me of me.

I also fell out of alignment for literally nothing. But you can't change the past. What you can do is change the future. Evermore.

Everything is always going weller. And better. We don't have to worry about anything. All is going well.

The life experiences all good, they launched your lovely details into your vortex of creation. And it's all ready for you to receive it. Evermore.

It's all for you, no one else. Every little detail and all the things you've asked for are all given. It's all ready 99% of creation is done vibrationally non-physically.

All you have to do is care about how you feel and feel better. And all else takes care of itself anyway. Then you become ready for all of it. You become part of its ever becoming. It's like the joy of carving out a path for God's creation to come forth. The joy part is because God's agreeing with everything you're doing at that point. And God's right there, doing it with you.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Everything

The Myth of Conscious awareness in Sleep

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