After Self-realization, what else needs to be done?

[dwai]

It is very common to see people besotted with "methods" and "techniques" in the spiritual path. Learn x, y, or z methods/techniques and you will get enlightened/Self-realized, or you will gain power, etc.

 

But no method/technique has the ability to give anyone enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the realization of One's Self-nature/True Nature.  Very rare are those individuals who only practice methods/techniques and become Self-realized. Because of the way the world works, Self-realization requires someone pointing/telling us what our True Nature is. Without these pointers, it is very difficult indeed to get Self-realization.

 

But don't consider this post as knocking methods/techniques. They certainly play a big part -- but only towards the purification of the mind. Why is the mind so important? Because it is the primary organ of knowing (yes, I called it an organ, albeit it is a subtle organ). If the mind is cluttered, scattered, or dirty, the truth cannot be seen, no matter the words that point to it. Similarly, even if the mind is pure, clear, and focused, without the words, there is usually no impetus towards Self-realization.  

 

I think of the methods as the vehicle to allow the mind to become clear and transparent, so the Self is known as it is, without the employ of phenomenal objects of knowledge. 

 

One topic that seems to be a source of much contention is that of the "levels" of realization/enlightenment. Some worthies think that if you realize your "True Nature" it is not enough, because you have to TRANSFORM completely into that True Nature (or however else one chooses to articulate this graduation process). Therein lies the biggest drawback of not having direct experiential knowledge -- because if one realizes True Nature, then it becomes very clear that there is nothing else left to transform, because every "thing", every phenomenon, is made up of that True Nature through and through. It is akin to stating that "I realize the Table is made of Wood, but this realization won't become completely REAL until the Table is fully transformed into wood!"  

 

What a preposterous idea! How can the Table become any more wood than it already is? Similarly, how can something made of True Nature become more True-Nature or Completely True-Nature? There is nothing other than True Nature -- period.  

 

P.S. For the sake of sanity, please don't make statements like, "The wood needs to be transformed back into the tree, then the seed and so on". That raises questions (at least in my mind) about your intelligence  

 

That brings me to the topic of "Rainbow Body". When I ask someone, "what is the purpose of developing a rainbow body?", pat comes the answer, "to become immortal", or perhaps, "To completely transform into True Nature". Inquire for a while, what is it that needs to transform into "True Nature"? Is there anything that is "not True Nature"? If there is already the realization that this world of names and forms is merely an appearance within True Nature, then where is the need to become "immortal" and "transform completely into True Nature"? What purpose does transforming the physical body into a flash of light serve? Where will such a being go? What would they do? Isn't that just a misunderstanding of True Nature? Who wants to be 'immortal' in that way?

 

But that doesn't mean that transformation is not real. The transformation that is meaningful, is the dropping of behaviours and tendencies of the mind which keep veiling True Nature from the mind. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by dwai

[freeform]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

Some worthies think that if you realize your "True Nature" it is not enough, because you have to TRANSFORM completely into that True Nature

 

Ooooo my ears are burning Dwai!

Edited November 26, 2020 by freeform

[anshino23]

I like Percival's take on this...  

 

It's taken from a bigger chapter and context. But the essential point should be clear.

 

Re-exist = reincarnate. 

 

Quote

By failing in that test, the doers of mankind departed from that Eternal Order of Progression. Instead of continuing in everlasting physical bodies in the Realm of Permanence, they exiled themselves to exist and re-exist in human bodies on the earth crust, this human world. They now tread the path of birth and life and death in man and woman bodies, and periodically live and die and re-exist. By failing in their test they did not keep in balance the perfectly balanced units which composed their perfect bodies. And those unbalanced compositor units now compose the bodies in which they reexist in this world. They are now imperfect, human beings; that is, the feeling aspect and the desire aspect of the doers have fallen under the glamour of the sexes and are ruled by their senses and sensations and sexes; they are not self-controlled; they have forgotten their knowers; the Light of their Intelligences in them is obscured.

 

The doer will continue to re-exist until it regenerates the imperfect mortal body into a perfect and immortal physical body, such as it originally had; more precisely, until the doer restores the breath-form unit and the compositor units of the body to their original perfect state of balance. The regeneration and restoration of the perfect body is the duty of every doer; this duty must be and ultimately will be performed. 

 

But what to do with such a body? What's the "point" even if you have recognised consciousness - the True Nature?

 

Quote

You choose to take birth into the three worlds. During the course of your thinking the breath-form has been remaking the physical body to fit it for the embodiment of all the parts of you, the Triune Self. Your physical body is rehabilitated, made perfect, and is now a body suited for you. Your body has been made deathless and immortal by your thinking. No power in the Universe can destroy or corrupt it. You only, as the indwelling Triune Self, can change it by your thinking. It is a body built to gauge and mold and move and translate and guide nature units in being conscious as their functions, to serve the purpose of the Universe, which is, that all units will progress in being conscious in ever higher degrees.

Your immortal physical body is the model of beauty and strength for the Realm of Permanence, the world by which the Universe is operated and kept in balance. The organs of the four systems have been translated into four brains in their respective sections: in the head, in the thorax, in the abdomen, and in the pelvis. The brain in the head is for your operation of the light world, the brain in the thorax for the life world, the brain in the abdomen for the form world, and the brain in the pelvis for the physical world. The physical body has a front- or nature-column for your operation of nature by means of the four senses, and a back column from which you, the knower and thinker and doer, the Triune Self, operate. The four brains have parts for you and parts for nature, each related to its section and spine, and coordinated into a working organization. The breaths keep up a circular flow of the free and the transient units of the four worlds, through the four senses of the physical body. These units are not for the upbuilding of the physical body, which is immortal and not dependent on transient units, but for the on-going of the worlds.

 

Quote

[...]

Now that your service is accepted by your Intelligence and since love is awakened by the Great Triune Self of the worlds in you for every being, and your body is related and attuned to all states of matter on the planes of the physical world, you are ready to take your part in working for the plan and the purpose of the Universe.

You are a qualified and accepted officer in The Government of the Universe: you are knowledge and justice and love in relation to the world of men and in all the worlds.

In the light world you are the knower and knowledge: you know all other Triune Selves and you are known by the knower of every Triune Self to be the knower of yourself and of them. In the life world you are the law and justice: the thoughts of men are open to you and you adjudicate upon each in its relation to the thoughts of other men according to the law of thought and in agreement with the reason of any of the doers in bondage to nature.

In the form world you are beauty and power; you are the ideal form and character to which great thinkers and artists aspire, and you direct the administration of justice with love so that all who will may find their way through the wilderness of the world.

In the physical world you are knowledge and justice and love to all human beings of the doers among whom you move, and you are sense and power supreme to all elemental beings.

So you are the Triune Self complete, being and acting in each of the four worlds separately or simultaneously.

You choose the locality of the physical world in which your physical body is to be, on or between the crusts of the earth or beyond the crusts, alone, among others of your kind, or in relation to a people. You need not be limited to a locality, you may go, in your physical body, where you please: in any part of the solid earth, or its zones, or you may be and act on the physical plane of any of the other three worlds. You may appear to travel on surfaces, but you can go with the speed of light-matter of the world and plane and state of matter in which you will your body to be. You can be present anywhere. You are where you will to be.

By your sight you see, by your hearing you hear, by your taste you taste and by your smell you smell, and contact any matter or being or place in any of the four worlds or their planes or states. You do this by thinking and by feeling your body where you will it to be. Feeling through your senses contacts the matter of the place, desire gives moving power to the matter and thinking places the body where the desire with feeling wishes it to be. You can see through, hear or contact any state or zone or being of the four worlds, from the least progressed unit to the greatest God, and it must obey what you command.

But you will command only what it is right that you should command, and only what should be obeyed. You can cause the stars to move, to be bright or to be invisible in a clear sky; or the sun to focus heat or light; or you can cause these celestial masses to change their courses. But you will do these things only when the people for whom they are done have by their thoughts and acts made it necessary. You can bring the fire zone into the air, making the air a raging sea of fire or have it rain lightning on the earth, or bury the earth under deep layers of ice or you may cause the water zone to flood the earth, but only when the land and water areas are to be changed and when a people have determined destruction by what they have thought and done.

You can cause the earth crust to quake and open and pour forth fire and brimstone and jets of steam and to destroy vegetation and to heave like waves between rivers of molten masses, but only when the people of the crust have ceased to learn, and the earth must be prepared for a new course and effort by re-existing doers who are to inhabit it.

You can cause the seasons to recur in orderly succession over a long period or to be changeable and uncertain, or cause periods of drought or fertility, pests and panics, depression, peace and prosperity, all in response to what the people do to themselves and each other as individuals or as masses.

You need not appear on the outer earth crust to do these things; you can be within the chambers of the earth or in the inner or outer zones of water or air or fire, and you can be as distant or as present as you will. For you it is possible to do anything; the only thing impossible for you to do is to do wrong, inasmuch as you are knowledge and justice and love.

 

Hope that helps  

[Limahong]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

Self-realization

 

(1)

 

Maslow hierarchy of needs

 

 

 

1 hour ago, dwai said:

"Rainbow Body"

 

(2)

The seven chakras

 

 

 

(3) The above (1) and (2) make me want to whistle...

 

 

 

[freeform]

What I’m curious about, Dwai is according to you, where did all these other traditions that don’t subscribe to your views go wrong!?

 

Thousands of reportedly enlightened people - in multi-thousand year traditions within Daoism, Buddhism through to Hinduism and even esoteric lines within the judeochristian traditions - all seem to have overshot something pretty simple according to you.

 

If you’re right, then all this time and energy has been completely wasted by some of the greatest minds who ever lived.
 

how come?

 

what went wrong?

 

 

[Piyadasi]

18 minutes ago, freeform said:

What I’m curious about, Dwai is according to you, where did all these other traditions that don’t subscribe to your views go wrong!?

Dwai 1 millisecond after writing this post:
 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Piyadasi

[Limahong]

16 minutes ago, freeform said:

what went wrong?

 

 

    

 

 

[freeform]

3 minutes ago, Piyadasi said:

Dwai 1 millisecond after writing this post:
 

 

Well that’s certainly along the lines of what I’m wondering...

 

But Dwai is smarter than that, I’m sure he’ll have a well-reasoned response - I expect some sort of reframing of the question so as not to answer it directly 😬

 

The spiritual politician’s answer 

 

 

[Limahong]

2 minutes ago, freeform said:

Well that’s certainly along the lines of what I’m wondering...

 

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

reminds me of this excerpt of Tseng Lao-weng speaking to John Blofeld: 

 

Spoiler

Quote

Tseng Lao-weng:  'Your going to such trouble to visit me is flattering.  How may I best be of service to you?'

 

    'You mean, why have I come, Venerable?  I have been longing to meet you ever since I heard our mutual friend describe you as an illumined sage.'

 

    Tseng Lao-weng sighed and answered resignedly: 'Why to people talk so?  Such words are tedious.  You will find no sages here, just this old fellow and four or five other very ordinary men who are students of the Way.  It must be dissappointing for you.'

 

    'Do not blame Yang Tao-shih, Venerable.  He wished only to make me see for myself that Buddhists do not have a monopoly of wisdom.'

 

    'And does seeing an old man distinguished by nothing more than an unusually bushy beard convince you that they do not?'

 

 

 

    What could I say that would not sound like flattery, which he obviously disliked?  "Venerable, it is just that, as most of my teachers are Buddhist, I am ignorant about what Taoists mean by such terms as wisdom and illumination, and about their methods of approaching the Tao.'

 

    He laughed.  'How strange.  Can there be two kinds of wisdom, two kinds of illumination, Taoist and Buddhist?  Surely the experience of truth must be the same for all?  As to approaching the Tao, be sure that demons and executioners, let alone Buddhists, are as close to it as can be.  The one impossible thing is to get a finger's breadth away from it.  Do you suppose that some people -- this old fellow, for example -- are nearer to it than others?  Is a bird closer to the air than a tortoise or a cat?  The Tao is closer to you than the nose on your face; it is ony because you can tweak your nose that you think otherwise.  Asking about our approach to the Tao is like asking a deep-see fish how it approaches the water.  It is just a matter of recognizing what has been inside, outside and all around from the first.  Do you understand?'

 

    'Yes I believe I do.  Certainly my Buddhist teachers have taught me that there is no attaining liberation, but only attaining recognition of what has always been from the first.'

    'Excellent, excellent!  Your teachers, then, are true sages.  You are a worthy disciple, so why brave the bitter cold to visit an ordinary old fellow?  You would have learnt as much at your own fireside.'  (His harping so much on his being just an ordinary fellow was not due to exaggerated modesty, being a play on the words of which his title, Lao-weng, was composed.)

 

    'Venerable, please don't laugh at me!  I accept your teaching that true sages have but the one goal.  Still, here in China, there are Buddhists and there are also Taoists.  Manifestly they differ; since the goal is one, the distinction must lie in their methods of approach.'

 

    'So you are hungry not for wisdom but for knowledge!  What a pity!  Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel, whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured over old tea-leaves;  but if that is the fare you have come for, I can give you as much as your mistreated belly will hold.  What sort of old tea-leaves do Buddhists use, I wonder!  We Taoists use all sorts.  Some swallow medicine-balls as big as pigeon's eggs or drink tonics by the jugful, live upon unappetizing diets, take baths at intervals goverened by esoteric numbers, breathe in and out like asthmatic dragons, or jump about like Manchu bannermen hardening themselves for battle -- all this discomfort just for a few extra decades of life!  And why?  To gain more time to find what has never been lost! 

 

    And what of those pious recluses who rattle mattets against wooden-fish drums from dusk to dawn, groaning out liturgies like cholera-patients excreting watery dung?  They are penitents longing to rid themselves of a burden they never had.  These people do everything imaginable, including swallowing pills made from the vital fluids secreted by the opposide sex and lighting fires in their bellies to make the alchemic cauldrons boil -- everything, everything except -- sit still and look within.  I shall have to talk of such follies for hours, if you really want a full list of Taoist methods.  These method-users resemble mountain streams a thousand leagues from the sea.  Ah, how they chatter and gurgle, bubble and boil, rush and eddy, plunging over precipices in spectacular fashion!  How angrily they pound against the boulders and suck down their prey in treacherous whirl-pools!  But, as the streams broaden, they grow quieter and more purposeful.  They become rivers -- ah, how calm, how silent!  How majestically they sweep towards their goal, giving no impression of swiftness and, as they near the ocean, seeming not to move at all!  While noisy mountain streams are reminiscent of people chattering about the Tao and showing-off spectacular methods, rivers remind one of experienced men, taciturn, doing little, but doing it decisively; outwardly still, yet sweeping forward faster than you know.  Your teachers have offered you wisdom; then why waste time acquiring knowledge?  Methods!  Approaches!  Need the junk-master steering towards the sea, with the sails of his vessel billowing in the wind, bother his head about alternative modes of propulsion -- oars, paddles, punt-poles, tow-ropes, engines and all the rest?  Any sort of vessel, unless it founders or pitches you overboard, is good enough to take you to the one and only sea.  Now do you understand?'

    Indeed I did, though not with a direct understanding firmly rooted in intuitive experience that matched his own; but I pretended to be at a loss, hoping his voice, never far from laughter, would go on and on and on; for, just as his mind when lost in the bliss of meditation had communicated a measure of its joy (on my arrival), so now it was emanating a warmth, a jollity that made me want to laugh, to sing, to dance, to shout aloud that everything is forever as it should be, provided we now and then remember to rub our eyes.

...

Tseng Lao-weng's talk of rivers flowing into the ocean had put me in mind of Sir Edwin Arnold's lovely expression of the mystery of Nirvana, 'the dew-drop slips into the shining sea', which I had long accepted as a poetical description of that moment when the seeming-individual, at last free from the shackles of the ego, merges with the Tao -- the Void.  This I knew to be an intensely blissful experience, but it was Tseng Lao-weng who now revealed its shining splendour in terms that made my heart leap.  Afterwords I wondered whether Sir Edwin Arnold himself had realized the full purport of his words.  At a certain moment in our conversation when Tseng Lao-weng paused expectantly, I translated the beautiful line for him and was rewarded by a smile of pleasure and surprise.  Eyes glowing, he replied:

 

    'My countrymen are wrong to speak of the Western Ocean People as barbarians.  Your poet's simile is penetrating -- exalted!  And yet it does not capture the whole; for, when a lesser body of water enters a greater, though the two are henceforth inseperable, the smaller constitutes but a fragment of the whole.  But consider the Tao, which transcends both finite and infinite.  Since the Tao is All and nothing lies outside it, since its multiplicity and unity are identical, when a finite being sheds the illusion of separate existence, he is not lost in the Tao like a dew-drop merging with the sea; by casting off his imaginary limitations, he becomes immeasurable.  No longer bound by the worldly categories, 'part' and 'whole', he discoveres that he is coextensive with the Tao.  Plunge the finite into the infinite and, though only one remains, the finite, far from being diminished, takes on the stature of infinity.  Mere logicians would find fault with this, but if you perceive the hidden meaning you will laugh at their childish cavils.  Such perception will bring you face to face with the true secret cherished by all accomplished sages -- glorious, dazzling, vast, hardly conceivable!  The mind of one who Returns to the Source thereby becomes the Source.  Your own mind, for example, is destined to become the universe itself!'

 

 

[Limahong]

2 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Your own mind, for example, is destined to become the universe itself!'

 

Hi Creighton,

 

You also...

 

 

 

- Anand

 

[liminal_luke]

23 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

 I expect some sort of reframing of the question so as not to answer it directly 😬

 

 

I expect sagely silence.

[anshino23]

6 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

I expect sagely silence.

 

If meant seriously, why then start a thread? It's a discussion board for all I know. 

 

 

[Limahong]

13 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

I expect sagely silence.

 

Hi Jesse,

 

 

 

- Anand

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Limahong
Enhancement

[dwai]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

What I’m curious about, Dwai is according to you, where did all these other traditions that don’t subscribe to your views go wrong!?

 

Thousands of reportedly enlightened people - in multi-thousand year traditions within Daoism, Buddhism through to Hinduism and even esoteric lines within the judeochristian traditions - all seem to have overshot something pretty simple according to you.

 

If you’re right, then all this time and energy has been completely wasted by some of the greatest minds who ever lived.
 

how come?

 

what went wrong?

 

 

There are realizations, and then there are narration of realization tales.
 

The view limits the truth. 

 

The truth is only veiled.

 

Veil dropped, all is One.

[old3bob]

Self does not evolve,  but soul continues to evolve until there is no more coming or going. Thus that is what there is to do.

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, anshino23 said:

 

If meant seriously, why then start a thread? It's a discussion board for all I know. 

 

 

 

42 minutes ago, dwai said:

There are realizations, and then there are narration of realization tales.
 

The view limits the truth. 

 

The truth is only veiled.

 

Veil dropped, all is One.

 

Chalk one up for anshino23!  You were right and I was wrong: dwai did respond, continuing the discussion.  My prediction that he would give us "sagely silence" was meant as a gently wry counterpoint to Freeform´s less optimistic expectation.

 

As an unawakened one, I will now bow out and return to the part of board that deals with before realization activities. 

Edited November 26, 2020 by liminal_luke

[Nungali]

Go do some work in the veggie garden .  Tile the bath house.  Go and get wood to make decking out  from the back door , prepare lunch, do some laundry , chop wood , carry water .

 

Thats the answer to your title .

 

 

 

 

' "what is the purpose of developing a rainbow body?"

 

 

-    it seems to be about fun and enjoyment

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by Nungali
had to change typo from lynch to lunch :D

[freeform]

38 minutes ago, dwai said:

There are realizations, and then there are narration of realization tales.
 

The view limits the truth. 

 

The truth is only veiled.

 

Veil dropped, all is One.

You’re gonna need to be a bit more direct Dwai. I’m not good a deciphering wise talk.

 

Sounds to me like you’re saying that many of the spiritual disciplines are based on confusion. And their ascended masters became confused in the passing on of their teachings?

 

All these immortals and rainbow body ascensions are all a mistake because of a simple misunderstanding.

 

But luckily we have you because you’ve managed to unveil the truth of their mistake?

[freeform]

1 hour ago, silent thunder said:

reminds me of this excerpt of Tseng Lao-weng speaking to John Blofeld: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I enjoyed that passage, thanks.
 

But my guess is we took slightly different understandings of it...

[silent thunder]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

I enjoyed that passage, thanks.
 

But my guess is we took slightly different understandings of it...

Yup. 

 

Tao.

[doc benway]

“After Self-realization, what else needs to be done?”

 

Everything

[Bindi]

 

6 hours ago, dwai said:

It is very common to see people besotted with "methods" and "techniques" in the spiritual path. Learn x, y, or z methods/techniques and you will get enlightened/Self-realized, or you will gain power, etc.

 

But no method/technique has the ability to give anyone enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the realization of One's Self-nature/True Nature.  Very rare are those individuals who only practice methods/techniques and become Self-realized. Because of the way the world works, Self-realization requires someone pointing/telling us what our True Nature is. Without these pointers, it is very difficult indeed to get Self-realization.

 

But don't consider this post as knocking methods/techniques. They certainly play a big part -- but only towards the purification of the mind. Why is the mind so important? Because it is the primary organ of knowing (yes, I called it an organ, albeit it is a subtle organ). If the mind is cluttered, scattered, or dirty, the truth cannot be seen, no matter the words that point to it. Similarly, even if the mind is pure, clear, and focused, without the words, there is usually no impetus towards Self-realization.  

 

I think of the methods as the vehicle to allow the mind to become clear and transparent, so the Self is known as it is, without the employ of phenomenal objects of knowledge. 

 

One topic that seems to be a source of much contention is that of the "levels" of realization/enlightenment. Some worthies think that if you realize your "True Nature" it is not enough, because you have to TRANSFORM completely into that True Nature (or however else one chooses to articulate this graduation process). Therein lies the biggest drawback of not having direct experiential knowledge -- because if one realizes True Nature, then it becomes very clear that there is nothing else left to transform, because every "thing", every phenomenon, is made up of that True Nature through and through. It is akin to stating that "I realize the Table is made of Wood, but this realization won't become completely REAL until the Table is fully transformed into wood!"  

 

What a preposterous idea! How can the Table become any more wood than it already is? Similarly, how can something made of True Nature become more True-Nature or Completely True-Nature? There is nothing other than True Nature -- period.  

 

P.S. For the sake of sanity, please don't make statements like, "The wood needs to be transformed back into the tree, then the seed and so on". That raises questions (at least in my mind) about your intelligence  

 

 

Unfortunately I do believe that metaphorically the deadwood does need to be removed for the Self to have room to flourish. IME wood is the barrier substance in the central channel, akin perhaps to karma. Removing this is the only way a metaphorical tree of life can be given room to grow. 

 

Quote

 

That brings me to the topic of "Rainbow Body". When I ask someone, "what is the purpose of developing a rainbow body?", pat comes the answer, "to become immortal", or perhaps, "To completely transform into True Nature". Inquire for a while, what is it that needs to transform into "True Nature"? Is there anything that is "not True Nature"? If there is already the realization that this world of names and forms is merely an appearance within True Nature, then where is the need to become "immortal" and "transform completely into True Nature"? What purpose does transforming the physical body into a flash of light serve? Where will such a being go? What would they do? Isn't that just a misunderstanding of True Nature? Who wants to be 'immortal' in that way?

 

But that doesn't mean that transformation is not real. The transformation that is meaningful, is the dropping of behaviours and tendencies of the mind which keep veiling True Nature from the mind. 

 

[idiot_stimpy]

If you are not free and still suffer, then you are not finished.

[Maddie]

I think a very helpful thing in this case would to be to define terms more precisely. What is meant by ones definition of enlightenment?

 

From a Classic Buddhist point of view it's rather straight forward it seems. Gain wisdom to see through delusion to let go of attachment to free one's self from rebirth in Samsara.

 

As to other definitions I can not say much as I mainly know Buddhism.