Emotions are the path

[doc benway]

59 minutes ago, old3bob said:

that is one technical definition,  but there are others or different ways of description or meaning that can come across so why be a party pooper?   

 

I guess I pooped on the party because ascribing emotions to that which transcends subject-object distinction can be confusing. 

But if you want to use that word, go for it!

 

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, steve said:

 

I guess I pooped on the party because ascribing emotions to that which transcends subject-object distinction can be confusing. 

But if you want to use that word, go for it!

 

ok, also and in that case reason or intellect could also be tossed since they can't cut the mustard either when it comes to the so called transcendent...

[Bindi]

I see thoughts and emotions that have been restored to their original flowing nature as in service to the transcendent consciousness once it is established. 

[C T]

Thoughts and emotions are by nature empty. Attempts to establish will be frustrating, and ultimately futile.

 

Samsaric beings imagine, fixate, solidify, analyse, try to make sense of the self thru vain attempts at grasping and contracting that which by nature is ungraspable. This is the fundamental error that traps beings in the cycle of rebirth. 

 

Anything that's 'empty' in essence, like space, is beginningless, therefore without source. Which means its foolish (delusional even) to believe that at some point in future, thoughts and emotions will be tamed and peace beyond understanding will be found. 

 

 

[old3bob]

4 hours ago, C T said:

Thoughts and emotions are by nature empty. Attempts to establish will be frustrating, and ultimately futile.

 

Samsaric beings imagine, fixate, solidify, analyse, try to make sense of the self thru vain attempts at grasping and contracting that which by nature is ungraspable. This is the fundamental error that traps beings in the cycle of rebirth. 

 

Anything that's 'empty' in essence, like space, is beginningless, therefore without source. Which means its foolish (delusional even) to believe that at some point in future, thoughts and emotions will be tamed and peace beyond understanding will be found. 

 

 

sounds real uppity, could be a samsaric being...

[Lairg]

5 hours ago, C T said:

Thoughts and emotions are by nature empty.

 

Can enlightened humans be motivated/guided by thoughts/emotions provided by more profound beings?  

 

Perhaps nothing is wasted in this Creation

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Lairg

[old3bob]

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

I see thoughts and emotions that have been restored to their original flowing nature as in service to the transcendent consciousness once it is established. 

 

the way I'd put it is that the transcendent was, is and always be will be "established" but the veils over same will not be.  Grace is part of the "transcendent" that reveals such it being omni-present, omni-potent and omniscience - so and in that sense (or that perspective if one will, aka non-duality) is not separate from anything including so called samsara or the so called mundane.  Even some Buddhists state, (to paraphrase the saying)  "samsara properly understood is nirvana"

[old3bob]

2 hours ago, Lairg said:

 

Can enlightened humans be motivated/guided by thoughts/emotions provided by more profound beings?  

 

Perhaps nothing is wasted in this Creation

 

 

 I'd say "empty" is a dangerous four letter word when misunderstood (or misinterpreted along the lines of nihilism and or other high sounding connotations that are still negative)

Edited March 20, 2023 by old3bob

[doc benway]

 

2 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

the way I'd put it is that the transcendent was, is and always be will be "established" but the veils over same will not be.  Grace is part of the "transcendent" that reveals such it being omni-present, omni-potent and omniscience - so and in that sense (or that perspective if one will, aka non-duality) is not separate from anything including so called samsara or the so called mundane.  Even some Buddhists state, (to paraphrase the saying)  "samsara properly understood is nirvana"

 

2 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

sounds real uppity, could be a samsaric being...

[C T]

3 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

sounds real uppity, could be a samsaric being...

 

That's just your imagination on overdrive, making you hear things. 

[old3bob]

9 hours ago, steve said:

 

 

 

Granted,  that could have been put into better context as in,   sounds real uppity, could be a being identified somewhere in and with samsara;  but more importantly the historic Buddha said, "may all beings be happy".

(which btw sounds like an emotion...)

Edited March 20, 2023 by old3bob

[Bindi]

14 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

the way I'd put it is that the transcendent was, is and always be will be "established" but the veils over same will not be.  Grace is part of the "transcendent" that reveals such it being omni-present, omni-potent and omniscience - so and in that sense (or that perspective if one will, aka non-duality) is not separate from anything including so called samsara or the so called mundane.  Even some Buddhists state, (to paraphrase the saying)  "samsara properly understood is nirvana"

Off topic, but I’d like to respond. I agree that the transcendent might always be present, but not that it is always established. I’m thinking in terms of the ‘Shakti spirit’ as the transcendent principle, it is always present but asleep and locked away. Waking it correctly and establishing it where it needs to be is the concrete task in the subtle sphere that all the philosophy in the world cannot contrive. 

[Lairg]

7 minutes ago, Bindi said:

‘Shakti spirit’ as the transcendent principle, it is always present but asleep and locked away. Waking it correctly and establishing it

 

That may be a bottom-up view.

 

A top-down view might be that Spirit (like electricity) flows where it can.  The task of the human then is refining the personality so that it is transparent and properly aligned to receive as much flow of Spirit as the humanness can survive.

 

I recall a friend telling me he was having a shower when a very strong spiritual energy came upon him.  It grew so intense he was afraid it would kill him.  So he shouted:  Knock it off, guys!

 

And they did.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Lairg

[Mark Foote]

On 3/18/2023 at 11:57 PM, C T said:

 

I'm not arguing that one should not use emotions as a means to further one's spiritual goals. 

 

Considering that Gautama alluded to emotions as veils, and repeatedly stated that dispassion is one of the fruits of practice, and personally having been exposed to karmamudra teachings, I can vehemently state that due to the unstable, incomplete,  often tricky and ephemeral nature (yin?) of emotions, the only benefit one can derive from working with them is the realization of their empty, unstable and therefore unreliable nature. Ultimately unfulfilling and imbued with its own set of obstacles. 

 

Dispassion is the fruit of cultivating equanimity. Without equanimity, bodhicitta can only be realised on a mundane, relative level. According to higher yoga tantras, knowing only relative bodhicitta is an obstacle of the path. The implications should be obvious to experienced mahayana practitioners. 

 

Gautama spoke of five hindrances:  sensual desire, malevolence, sloth and torpor, flurry and worry, and doubt and wavering.  If you have a source for Gautama alluding to emotions in general as veils, I'd love to check it out--not doubting that he did, just too full of sloth and torpor to look for it.

In his mindfulness (the mindfulness he said made up his way of life), Gautama described the mindfulness of mental states as:
 

(One) makes up one’s mind:
 

Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe in. Contemplating impermanence I shall breathe out.

Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe in. Contemplating dispassion I shall breathe out.

Contemplating cessation I shall breathe in. Contemplating cessation I shall breathe out.

Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe in. Contemplating renunciation I shall breathe out.

 

At least in that instance, dispassion referred to dispassion with regard to the painful, the pleasant, and the neutral of feeling (the neutral being neither painful nor pleasant).  

Contemplating dispassion followed contemplating impermanence, and in my experience the one does follow the other.  The more I'm aware of my pending demise, however prolonged the "pending", the more detachment I can summon with regard to pain, pleasure, or neither, in feeling.  That's helpful in allowing the breath to place attention as necessary, "with no particle of the body left out", as Gautama would say.  

Like Feldenkrais said about standing up out of a chair:

 

…good upright posture is that from which a minimum muscular effort will move the body with equal ease in any desired direction. This means that in the upright position there must be no muscular effort deriving from voluntary control, regardless of whether this effort is known and deliberate or concealed from the consciousness by habit.
 

…When the center of gravity has really moved forward over the feet a reflex movement will originate in the old nervous system and straighten the legs; this automatic movement will not be felt as an effort at all.

 

( “Awareness Through Movement”, Moshe Feldenkrais, pg 76,78)

 

When the breath can place attention anywhere in the body, "with no particle left out", then the movement of breath can originate in the old nervous system and the autonomic movement of inhalation or exhalation need involve no effort at all.

Equanimity with respect to the multiplicity of the senses is a characteristic of the initial four concentrations, equanimity with respect to the uniformity of the senses is a characteristic of the further concentrations.  In the third of the initial concentrations, there is no ease without equanimity, ease apart from equanimity ceases.  In the fourth of the initial concentrations, there is no happiness without equanimity, the happiness apart from equanimity ceases.

As far as the emotions, Gautama stated that happiness was present in all the states of concentration, even in the cessation of "feeling and perceiving":
 

… the situation occurs, Ananda, when wanderers belonging to other sects may speak thus: ‘The recluse (Gautama) speaks of the stopping of perceiving and feeling, and lays down that this belongs to happiness. Now what is this, now how is this?’ Ananda, wanderers belonging to other sects who speak thus should be spoken to thus: ‘Your reverences, (Gautama) does not lay down that it is only pleasant feeling that belongs to happiness; for, your reverences, the Tathagatha (the “Thus-Gone One”, the Buddha) lays down that whenever, wherever, whatever happiness is found it belongs to happiness.

 

(MN I 400, Pali Text Society MN Vol II p 69)

 

Emotion as the path, do we count happiness as an emotion?

[Lairg]

43 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

do we count happiness as an emotion?

 

I suspect that being happy may occur physically, emotionally and mentally.

 

For example a happy baby is necessarily physically as well as emotionally content.

 

Joy, however, seems to be at soul level (higher mental) and above

 

 

[old3bob]

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

Off topic, but I’d like to respond. I agree that the transcendent might always be present, but not that it is always established. I’m thinking in terms of the ‘Shakti spirit’ as the transcendent principle, it is always present but asleep and locked away. Waking it correctly and establishing it where it needs to be is the concrete task in the subtle sphere that all the philosophy in the world cannot contrive. 

 

I'd put it differently in that the spiritual force never sleeps but we as various beings often do when it comes to being an aware vessel for it.  (like some purified and evolved souls are if that is what you mean)   I'd add that we should also exercise some caution if we only see  predetermined or concrete tasks.  Granted that steps and preparations are part of the process, but Spirit can suddenly show us that the plans of mice and men can go awry...or conversely reveals things or acts in the "twinkling of an eye". Oh how fast and powerfully the Spirit caught and lifted up one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus without that person having to go through additional lifetimes of preparation and tasks to know freedom.  That example can be found in the Bible and in other teachings.  (Jesus said in Luke 23:43 (NIV), "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.")

[C T]

 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Edited March 21, 2023 by C T

[Mark Foote]

7 hours ago, C T said:

 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu
 

 

 

Thanissaro looks a scream
Hang him on my wall

Thanissaro, Silver Screen
Can't tell them apart at all

 

(apologies to Thanissaro Bhikkhu and David Bowie)

Interesting.  the bhikkhu talks about the "mental fabrications that give you the material for talking to yourself, perceptions on the one hand and feelings on the other".   I wonder, if he's talking about what F. L. Woodward translated as "mental factors", in his Samyutta Nikaya?  Here's Wikipedia talking about the Tibetan take on "mental factors":
 

... Geshe Tashi Tsering explains:

 

... A mental factor, again, is defined as the aspect of the mind that apprehends a particular quality of an object.

 

... The relationship between the main mind (Sanskrit: citta) and the mental factors can be described by the following metaphors:
 

• The main mind is like screen in a cinema, and the mental factors are like the images projected on the screen. In this analogy, we typically do not notice the screen because we are so caught up on the images.
   
• The main mind is like a king who sits passively on a throne, and the mental factors are like the king's busy ministers.
   

Traleg Rinpoche states that the main distinction between the mind and mental factors is that the mind apprehends an object as a whole, whereas mental factors apprehend an object in its particulars.

(Wikipedia, "Mental Factors (Buddhism)")

 

 

I've not heard "feeling and perception" equated with "mental factors" before, but it does seem to fit with the explanation above.  Thanissaro does mention directed thought and evaluation in connection with the "mental factors" of "feeling and perception"--that would be Gautama's "determinate thought" in "feeling and perception", which ceases with the attainment of the final concentration.

However, F. L. Woodward translates the seventh and eighth elements of Gautama's mindfulness to include the "mental factors":

 

(One) makes up one’s mind:

 

“Aware of all mental factors I shall breathe in. Aware of all mental factors I will breathe out.

 

Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe in. Calming down the mental factors I shall breathe out.

 

(SN V 312, Pali Text Society Vol V pg 275-276)

 

I. B. Horner, translating the description of mindfulness in Majjhima Nikaya, used "activity of thought" in place of Woodward's "mental factors".  That would be a long way from "feeling and perceiving"!

For me, there's an interplay between the placement of attention by the movement of breath at a single point, and the inclusion in that placement of contact in the senses.  Contact in the senses does enter into the placement of attention by the movement of breath.   

The thing that needs calming the most for me, are the senses connected with the precarious balance of the body, when the stretch of ligaments is the sole source of the activity of the body in the movement of breath.  Relaxation of certain muscles and a calming of certain ligaments can enter into the singular place of attention.  As Layman P'ang put it:

 

"Good snowflakes--they don't fall in any other place."

 

(Yuanwu, "Blue Cliff Record", Shambala p 253)

 

 

I have a short span of attention.  Thanissaro Bhikkhu is concerned with being possessed by emotion, maybe as a monk, he has to be.  I stopped listening when that became apparent--I know, my loss.



 

 

 

 

 

[stirling]

On 3/20/2023 at 2:03 AM, Lairg said:

Can enlightened humans be motivated/guided by thoughts/emotions provided by more profound beings?  

 

Perhaps nothing is wasted in this Creation

 

If complete enlightenment understands that all appearances in consciousness are empty of any reality of their own, there is understanding that only the provisional view of reality is populated by illusory beings. From the absolute view of enlightenment then, "beings" are delusions. Given this, what would constitute a more "profound' being.

[Lairg]

37 minutes ago, stirling said:

 From the absolute view of enlightenment then, "beings" are delusions.

 

Technically, enlightenment occurs when bright energy flows easily through the human or other soul-bearing entity.

 

Is that bright energy (light) actually an intelligent entity itself?

 

It certainly appears so to me.

 

Is the light a delusion?

 

Perhaps it is time for a top-down view

 

  

[manitou]

I've found that emotions don't sway life as much as they used to.  When I was younger, it seems like I was a roller coaster of emotions.  The premise that awareness of emotions can lead to enlightenment, my view is that this happens only when the cause of emotions is examined and worked with.  Anger is the best.

Why so angry??  Why do you feel threatened?  What are you afraid you'll lose?  Why is it so important that you be 'right?'  There is always something to trace back to.  A fear of lack will trace back to a particular memory, or period of time.  Your desire to be 'right' is probably because at one time the young child was punished for being 'wrong'.  Once it can be seen and understood why the snowball started rolling downhill (and look how big it is now!) the  tendency which causes the fear/anger can be lovingly changed.  We understand that we are raised by imperfect human beings, who were brought up just the same way, who didn't know any other way to parent.  Once the pattern is seen, it can be disassembled.

Disassembling tendencies found through memory, if done fearlessly, will result in the loss of the 'trigger'.  If there is no trigger, there will be no need for anger.  That is because the more enlightened you become, the less you're at the mercy of your emotions.  All these snarls have been worked out, life can be viewed with 'acceptance', because your ego isn't involved one way or the other.  Forgiveness is important here.  Realizing that nobody is really 'doing anything TO us', they're just walking their own trigger path left over from childhood and sometimes we get in the way and take some incoming.  But to forgive, to truly forgive....is an acknowledgment that nobody's keeping score, that everyone's doing the best they can at any given moment.  There's no need for anger any more because  people are now given a hugely wide berth in which to operate, from our point of view, and we don't take it personally when someone 'doesn't treat us right'.

  With no triggers within, life becomes very easy.  The roller coaster of ups and downs straightens out, and there is nothing within the heart that is affected when someone 'disses' us, or acts contrary to the way we think they should act.  It is all acceptance, and once this is achieved, things actually get pretty funny, when we see all the situations that people get stuck in.  Once this is mastered within one's self, the transformation is unmistakable.  Our mood becomes lighter and lighter, fear of tomorrow leaves us.  The ups and downs are replaced with a feeling of joy and well-being, which will occasionally swell to bliss at the appropriate times. 

[stirling]

2 hours ago, Lairg said:

Technically, enlightenment occurs when bright energy flows easily through the human or other soul-bearing entity.

 

Is that bright energy (light) actually an intelligent entity itself?

 

It certainly appears so to me.

 

Is the light a delusion?

 

Perhaps it is time for a top-down view

 

I would say that enlightenment is realization of the non-dual/unity of reality. It is really just a perspective shift from thinking you are some being with agency that operates in a world of separate things, to suddenly seeing and completely understanding that this has never been "true" in the way you imagined.

 

I think of the common "light" affiliated phenomena as secondary experiential effects that aren't really related directly to the central insight. There can be an immense variety of experiences when the realization dawns, but these experiences aren't the insight, more like the paper and bows it is wrapped in, often colored by the belief system you had before the new understanding of things.

[stirling]

2 hours ago, manitou said:

I've found that emotions don't sway life as much as they used to.  When I was younger, it seems like I was a roller coaster of emotions.  The premise that awareness of emotions can lead to enlightenment, my view is that this happens only when the cause of emotions is examined and worked with.  Anger is the best.

Why so angry??  Why do you feel threatened?  What are you afraid you'll lose?  Why is it so important that you be 'right?'  There is always something to trace back to.  A fear of lack will trace back to a particular memory, or period of time.  Your desire to be 'right' is probably because at one time the young child was punished for being 'wrong'.  Once it can be seen and understood why the snowball started rolling downhill (and look how big it is now!) the  tendency which causes the fear/anger can be lovingly changed.  We understand that we are raised by imperfect human beings, who were brought up just the same way, who didn't know any other way to parent.  Once the pattern is seen, it can be disassembled.

Disassembling tendencies found through memory, if done fearlessly, will result in the loss of the 'trigger'.  If there is no trigger, there will be no need for anger.  That is because the more enlightened you become, the less you're at the mercy of your emotions.  All these snarls have been worked out, life can be viewed with 'acceptance', because your ego isn't involved one way or the other.  Forgiveness is important here.  Realizing that nobody is really 'doing anything TO us', they're just walking their own trigger path left over from childhood and sometimes we get in the way and take some incoming.  But to forgive, to truly forgive....is an acknowledgment that nobody's keeping score, that everyone's doing the best they can at any given moment.  There's no need for anger any more because  people are now given a hugely wide berth in which to operate, from our point of view, and we don't take it personally when someone 'doesn't treat us right'.

  With no triggers within, life becomes very easy.  The roller coaster of ups and downs straightens out, and there is nothing within the heart that is affected when someone 'disses' us, or acts contrary to the way we think they should act.  It is all acceptance, and once this is achieved, things actually get pretty funny, when we see all the situations that people get stuck in.  Once this is mastered within one's self, the transformation is unmistakable.  Our mood becomes lighter and lighter, fear of tomorrow leaves us.  The ups and downs are replaced with a feeling of joy and well-being, which will occasionally swell to bliss at the appropriate times. 

 

A beautifully written, plainly spoken, loving-kindness-flooded masterclass in working with emerging emotions as they arise and pass away. Deep respect and gratefulness to you for your teachings. 

[Lairg]

9 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

I think of the common "light" affiliated phenomena as secondary experiential effects that aren't really related

 

The other day I was remotely looking at a woman I know well who is struggling with her husband's severe dementia.   Her property backs on to a nature reserve and I could see a large cube of light just across from her place - that was probably there for her.

 

So I sent her an email to visualize it, test it for quality and take it if she wanted - with some in-out cycling to be sure it was actually good for her.  She had never done that stuff.

 

A couple of days later I noticed the cube was gone.

 

The next time I met her she said she felt much better having absorbed the light and wanted another cube.   I noticed that she was  bit brighter in her aura.

 

 So I asked her local tree spirits for another cube.  They took about a week to accumulate the substance:  higher emotional, mid-mental, mid-heart - all donations to help her function above her troubles.

 

When the cube was full, I thought of sending her an email, but some part of her picked up my thought and she absorbed the new cube immediately.

 

Next time I saw her, her spiritual authority was manifesting more clearly.

 

 

[stirling]

15 hours ago, Lairg said:

The other day I was remotely looking at a woman I know well who is struggling with her husband's severe dementia.   Her property backs on to a nature reserve and I could see a large cube of light just across from her place - that was probably there for her.

 

So I sent her an email to visualize it, test it for quality and take it if she wanted - with some in-out cycling to be sure it was actually good for her.  She had never done that stuff.

 

A couple of days later I noticed the cube was gone.

 

The next time I met her she said she felt much better having absorbed the light and wanted another cube.   I noticed that she was  bit brighter in her aura.

 

 So I asked her local tree spirits for another cube.  They took about a week to accumulate the substance:  higher emotional, mid-mental, mid-heart - all donations to help her function above her troubles.

 

When the cube was full, I thought of sending her an email, but some part of her picked up my thought and she absorbed the new cube immediately.

 

Next time I saw her, her spiritual authority was manifesting more clearly.

 

This is author and teacher Shinzen Young's take on the differences between the "powers" or Siddhis and enlightenment, or insight. This is also my experience, so it goes without saying that I absolutely agree with him:

 

Quote

>>Rick: Do you think that siddhis can be any kind of measure?

 

>>Shinzen: Of enlightenment?

 

>>Rick: Yeah, or are they a special case? Like you know, if you can levitate then you have achieved “x” level of realization, or do you think that those are just freaks of nature situations that have happened?

 

>>Shinzen: I think it’s highly contentious whether siddhis actually occur in the physical world. One can certainly have …

 

>>Rick: There are all sorts of historical accounts, but nothing contemporary that we can really see.

 

>>Shinzen: Well, so siddhis are like paranormal powers, etcetera, etcetera. So it is certainly the case that people can have a very compelling sensory experience of what seems to be paranormal powers. However, having a compelling sensory experience is not the same as something that exists in the objective world and can be verified by science. So the problem with the siddhis or paranormal powers is, firstly, it is highly contentious as to whether these actually do exist.

 

>>Rick: Yeah, unless somebody could demonstrate the objectively observable ones.

 

>>Shinzen: Right, and no one has been able to do that, not in any compelling way.

 

>>Rick: And even if they could, we’d have to really think about what it meant and what it signifies.

 

>>Shinzen: Right, so I would say that siddhis are not the first thing I would think of and they’re not even the hundredth thing I would think of, actually, to be honest. What the first thing I would think of is: has one experienced a paradigm shift, that is to say, a fundamental shift in one’s understanding of self? And that shift would be a paradigm shift meaning that it is permanent; there’s no going back.If you look at, let’s say, a lunar eclipse and you don’t have any knowledge of astronomy, what’s your sensory  experience? What does it seem is happening to the moon?

 

>>Rick: It seems like it’s disappearing.

 

>>Shinzen: Particularly if, let’s say, you’ve never seen a lunar eclipse. And so the first time you see it, well, first of all, you’re going to be very disturbed, and if it’s a solar eclipse even worse, maybe. So what does it look like? Well one thing it could look like is that there is a monster in the sky that is bite by bite eating up the moon, or the sun, which would be very disturbing, but once you know modern astronomy, you have a paradigm shift. You see the lunar eclipse, it looks the same to your senses but your understanding is different. No way do you believe that a monster is eating up the moon; you believe the earth is casting its shadow on the surface of the moon. There’s no way you could poetically think of it as a monster, and there’s no way you’re really going to believe there’s a monster, and there’s no way that you’re really going to be bent out of shape about what’s going on, because you know something about the eclipse, and you’re never the same again.

 

So the lowest level of enlightenment, the first step, if we’re even going to use that word, the first step is that something like that takes place with regards to the phenomenon of self. So the metaphor I’m making is: there’s an eclipse, and that’s a phenomenon – a sensory phenomenon – and we see it, but there’s our understanding of what that eclipse is, and that can change, and there’s no going back.

 

So everyone has the sense of their own limited identity, a sense of “I am this mind, I am this body, I am these thoughts, I am these feelings, I am these sensations, I am these memories, plans, fantasies, this will, this desire” – everyone has a sensory experience of self. The first step in enlightenment, the sort of watershed that shifts from being like most people to being fundamentally different, is that there’s a change in that paradigm.

 

And in Buddhism, a change is called a realization into the fact that there never was a “thing” inside there called ‘the self,’ but in other traditions it might be called something almost the opposite, like realizing that the true self, who you really are and what God is, are the same thing, or … there are a lot of other paradigms. But it’s not an idea, it’s not a belief; it’s a change in one’s relationship, 24-7, to the sensory experience of self. After that time and until the time you physically die, no matter what arises in your mind and body experience, some part of you knows, “My identity is not limited to this.” So you might say that it’s a shift from the mind-body being a prison where you’re confined, to the mind-body experience being a house that you live in and can leave anytime you want, so that your identity has now become flexible, it has become unfixated. You can be anything, everything, and the nothing that is the Source of everything and anything … all of the above.

 

So the siddhis, or "powers" exist in the relative sense (we experience them, and it is most likely that no-one else could verify what we apprehend) but are not indicators of any absolute understanding, though they are sometimes made available after that understanding. 

 

The absolute understanding or enlightenment is, at the very least, this fundamental paradigm shift about what the "I" is and what "we" are.