@Kirtanman: I agree with everything you said (and boy, do you saaaaaay it). 
@amoux: Glad the blog, mp3s, and experiences have helped.
@amoux & CarsonZi:
I’m a big believer that the mind needs to grasp it, but eventually, your heart has to feel it. For example, when you read that my girlfriend just broke up with me, that is a hell of a lot different than when YOUR girlfriend breaks up with YOU.
I’ve been stressing this for awhile on my blog, my issue with many nondual teachers either discounting the felt sense of oneness, or ignoring it all together: “Oh, that is just an experience and thus isn’t real.” They are only half right. Feeling Life living/moving (without attachment to it or the personal self) is the other half. Maybe if I go sleep with THEIR girlfriend, they’ll understand that it’s more than just a dream. 
Hi Wayne…nice to read you here again (as I talk about not reading anymore, hahahaha 
)… I always enjoy your perspective and the way you express your experience. Thank you for sharing of yourself with us.
I don’t know that the mind can EVER grasp “it”. Trying to grasp “it” with the mind is like trying to hold water in your hand…an exercise in futility (this is just my experience though…your milage may vary 
…perhaps you have webbed fingers 
).
Exactly. It’s one thing to “think you know how ‘it’ feels”, it is quite another to actually FEEL ‘it’ yourself.
I don’t take issue with anyone’s teachings as everyone’s perspective is at least a bit different, and everyone will explain their perspective a little differently. Some people are better with words then others. “Enlightenment” doesn’t necessarily change that. And certain types of people resonate with different types of teachings too. The words that may push one person over the edge into the endless abyss of Wholeness, may just annoy another. Everyone is different and will require at least a slightly different approach to “Self (no-self) Realization.” What works for one will not always work for another. No point in “taking issue” with someone just because you don’t resonate with their teaching style.
But in regards to what you are actually saying in the above quote:
Experience is both real and unreal. It is real when it is happening in “real-time”, and then it is unreal once it is over (in the past). Only when the experience is “abiding” is it truly “real”. At least that is the perspective here
Hahaha…sounds like a plan…just stay away from my wife
Love!
Hi Amoux,
Another fave Jed quote of mine, which I don’t have handy, so I’ll paraphrase:
“Truth is completely simple. Illusion is infinitely complex.”
It’s true.
There’s actually nothing complex about it (the “journey without distance” as A Course In Miracles terms it; from the “unreal to the real”, as the famous Sanskrit blessing states), and we’re getting “right down to it” in this thread:
Releasing the illusion of being our personal story is the whole game.
“Per Jed” …
“It’s not about becoming true. It’s about unbecoming false.”
This means releasing all concepts, and living in from and as the actual.
The discipline and dynamics of daily practices help a lot, as does ongoing observation, but the very root of it all is:
The sense-of-self we were all conditioned with as small children, and which is reinforced every moment of our lives is fictitious; a concept; not real.
A lot of related teachings (“the world is illusion”, etc. etc.) are largely misunderstood.
Whether “the world” (a concept) is real or not is rather pointless; the important part is: our conceptual evaluation of everything, including our sense of self is utterly made up. That’s what “the world is illusion” means – experiencing life via the distortions of conditioned conceptual evaluation is illusion. Drop the concepts, and voila! … reality, enlightenment, peace and liberation.
And, as I said in another post, yesterday, in another thread: this doesn’t mean simply releasing attachment to conceptual belief in surface consciousness; a lifetime of memory layers must also be eradicated, and inner silence / witness state / pure awareness {<- increasing amounts of experience of pure awareness} are the light which literally and actually dissolves those shadows.
There are other ways to get to the shining of the light of our pure awareness which dissolves the shadows of conceptual delusion, but every efficacious spiritual practice is either a means to pure awareness, a support for pure awareness, or a step toward pure awareness – aka this that we each and all ever are now, actually.
When this (lifelong confusion of the conceptual with the actual) is recognized and released, everything including sense-of-self, is simply restored to its natural place and function.
Basically, we’ve all been disproportionately leaning into the objective (the forms of life and mind), all our lives.
“Mind” (another concept), is simply a conceptual cutting instrument, designed to separate the good (the which I believe benefits Me & Mine) from the bad (that which I believe might harm Me & Mine).
Let Go.
“Release the tiller” as Jed says.
Let life drive.
As enlightened Jesuit Priest Anthony de Mello points out:
“Suffering points out that there is falsehood somewhere. Suffering occurs when you clash with reality. When your illusions clash with reality when your falsehoods clash with the truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering.”
I hope this is useful.
Wholeheartedly,
Kirtanman
Hahaha…sounds like a plan…just stay away from my wife
Love!
I'm not quite sure I get what you guys are saying, here. The concepts related to "my wife", "their girlfriend", sexual jealousy, etc., relate to reality ...... how exactly? And yes, kinda-sorta rhetorical question, but I still wonder about that particular set of examples (talk about the "grand-daddy of all concepts"; that one's almost up there with "I am who I think I am"! :grin: ). I'll be nice and give you a bit of an "out", though: Someone once asked Adyashanti (and his wife, Mukti, who were giving a satsang together) ... directing the question to Adya: "Well, if you love everyone, why don't you have an open marriage?" Adya shrugged, and said, "I dunno; conditioning probably." :slight_smile: Wholeheartedly, Kirtanman
Hey Kirtanman 
Hahaha…sounds like a plan…just stay away from my wife
Love!
I'm not quite sure I get what you guys are saying, here. The concepts related to "my wife", "their girlfriend", sexual jealousy, etc., relate to reality ...... how exactly?
I can't speak for Wayne, but I can tell you that I was ENTIRELY joking here..... I do not think of Deanna as "my" wife nor do I get many "jealous feelings" happening here anymore. None that are identidied with for long anyways :wink: She is free to do as she pleases (like I had any say anyways right? :wink: )....which makes Life all the sweeter as she chooses to be with me (imagine that! :grin: Hahaha). How lucky am I!?!?! :grin: [quote="Kirtanman"] And yes, kinda-sorta rhetorical question, but I still wonder about that particular set of examples (talk about the "grand-daddy of all concepts"; that one's almost up there with "I am who I think I am"! :grin: ). I'll be nice and give you a bit of an "out", though: Someone once asked Adyashanti (and his wife, Mukti, who were giving a satsang together) ... directing the question to Adya: "Well, if you love everyone, why don't you have an open marriage?" Adya shrugged, and said, "I dunno; conditioning probably." :slight_smile: [/quote] :grin: Indeed. :grin: Love! :+1:
More than useful Dhanyavad /
Hi Kirtanman,
So using your definition of enlightenment being the awareness that the reference point of “I” does not exist, no me, just unbound awareness, from my perspective this is just one shift that can occur along the way.
Unity experience is a massive shift in perspective as well and comes later in the AYP enlightenment milestones until it is a 24/7 experience along with divine outpouring of love/bliss 24/7. Not 24/7 until an emotional reaction comes along and that is experienced as hate, anger, sadness etc. but actually 24/7 without interruption.
This certainly creates a different perspective of the world where no experience can be perceived as negative, total acceptance leading towards total bliss/ love. I think very few reach this point but it would come later on after seeing our selves as unbounded awareness.
Anthem wrote:
Sure happy to elaborate, apologies for not being clear.
So let’s use Jed’s description from his 2rd book “Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment” since you were asking earlier for examples and I will take his writing literally not being able to know for certain how it was meant. He may very well be joking and love Californians but it serves as a useful example.
So he talks about hating LA and California and Californians in general throughout the first chapter. This is an example of a fixed view on one end of something. In other words, he is seeing LA and Californians from a negative perspective and experiencing the emotional reaction of “hate” that goes with having a fixed (opposite of open minded) perspective.
Hating Californians is equivalent to hating something within the Self, within myself, since it is all Self. Outside, from my perspective, is just a reflection of something within. This view can be corrected and once I see the positive side of LA and Californians, I will no longer suffer, it feels “good” again. My true nature is no longer clouded over with an emotional reaction of hate, anger, sadness etc., and love/ bliss continues uninterrupted. I no longer hate (contract) on something within myself, all is me, all is One, loving all aspects of creation is loving all aspects of myself within and without.
From my perspective, it is possible to perceive any object/ experience in duality in a positive or negative way (not to mention everything in between). If I have a fixed perspective on anything either exclusively positive or exclusively negative, I will suffer at some point until I see both the positive and negative and hence have a balanced perspective.
Reactions like hate, anger, sadness etc. indicate that there is a viewpoint that can be corrected, the reward being more bliss/love experience until it is 24/7.
Unity perspective, the way I perceive it, is the ability to no longer fixate on one viewpoint (either positive or negative) and see both sides (union). When a person brings true unity perspective to all experiences and objects, the body does not feel and live an emotional reaction such as hate, sadness, jealousy etc., there is no physiological response of hormones etc., no contraction, and the perceiver remains in a state of peace/ bliss 24/7.
From my perspective I see this too. I see all experiences and objects in creation as reflections of the Self. Until I love it all (all objects & experiences) I deny something within and there is not complete union. In Don Miguel Ruiz’s words, “until the final judgment”, a judgment being synonymous with having a fixed negative or positive perspective on something, we won’t know 24/7 bliss/ love.
All objects and experiences must be perceived as the One, joined in union. A negative emotional reaction with someone/ something is a sign that this hasn’t happened, a sign of a perspective that hasn’t been joined in union, a perspective that still holds a fixed view on one side of the equation of duality.
I hope this makes sense.
Anthem, I don’t know where you’ve gotten your view from… I don’t recognize it from all our discussions earlier here in forum?
What I’ve heard from most teachers we’ve mentioned through the years (Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle etc etc) is rather that enlightenment is to be fully human - with all expressions humans have! Emotions doesn’t disappear - we just don’t attach to them anylonger. They can come and go as they wish - which they probably will do, just as thoughts will continue to come and go, it’s not a totally quiet mind after enlightenment - and WHILE emotions and thoughts are showing up, there’s a 24/7 joy, peace, outpouring divine love etc etc. It’s both - as long as we’re having the human body vehicle to travel in.
Can you absolutely know it’s true that “A negative emotional reaction with someone/ something is a sign that this hasn’t happened”?
Hi emc,
Where did I write that enlightenment isn’t being fully human?
I see enlightenment as an infinite evolution towards total acceptance of the Self on a universal level. There will still be preferences, once emotional reactions come and go in a short periods of time (like minutes or less as opposed to hours days) they are no longer a concern, bliss remains uninterrupted. If however an emotional reaction causes a 3 week disruption in life, and you are living that emotional state, it is worthwhile to inquire into it in order to let go of the fixed view.
If there is no attachment there is no concern.
How can you tell? You can’t, only the experiencer can know if there is a reaction from a fixed view or not. A fixed view is a form of attachment in itself. If I am attached to a concept about how my hair should look, I will suffer when it doesn’t match my concept until I see it in a more balanced way. If an emotional reaction comes in a flash and then leaves just as quickly, no concern. You may still prefer to fix your hair at some point but if it doesn’t happen you are ok either way.
Hi Anthem,
[quote=“Anthem11”]
Hi Kirtanman,
Okay.
Just to be clear, though, that condition (abiding non-dual awareness) is referred to as the ultimate, the supreme, the ground of being, etc., by many traditions.
It has been, and is confirmed as such, in the experience of many, including myself (“myself quote-unquote”, of course. ).
I am, and am referring to the unbound awareness which precedes and supersedes all change and all form; it is the ultimate, supreme (Anuttara, in Sanskrit) condition of unbound awareness. It is everyone’s true nature; unenlightenment involves projecting a screen of illusory thought-forms and memories, per conditioning, which obscure it. However, it’s no less “here” for any of us; every experience, every object requires it.
It (the unbound awareness I’m referring to) is primary. Literally. Actually. It is the subject, the self which can never be an object. It is the source of all (as Nisargadatta mentions repeatedly in I Am That).
And please note: I’m not going back into a discussion of defining enlightenment, or disagreeing with how you feel best about defining it (Anthem).
I’m simply emphasizing the point, as strongly as I can: I am referring to changeless unbound awareness. Our true nature really is changeless, unbound (limitless) awareness. This is one thing that the mystical (direct experience based) systems of all traditions agree about, and one thing that all mystical sages and teachers testify is the case. I’m adding my voice to theirs as well: changeless unbound awareness is our true nature.
Knowing this in experience is what I’m calling enlightenment, because it’s true and real (far more so than anything which changes), and knowing our true nature in ongoing experience is, if nothing else, the most common definition for enlightenment.
I agree with you that there are essentially limitless shifts that can occur along the way. I’m just saying that as far as I know, and as far as I’ve experienced so far, this condition (knowing self as changeless unbound awareness) isn’t one of them. Might it change? Sure, anything’s possible, I suppose; it just seems very, very unlikely. As in: you might wake up no longer sure that you’re a male (Anthem) … but it’s pretty unlikely.
As discussed, change, integration, whatever you want to call it, continues at the levels of form, all form … and, as I’ve said, this all even accelerates, because, in enlightenment, all that life energy that went into preserving the dream-world of ego and its errors is freed for the natural, creative expansion of awakened humanity.
It’s really very simple at essence:
“I’m not who I thought I was, who I’ve been conditioned all my life, I was. I’m actually just awareness. I have a body-mind, but am not the body-mind. What I actually am is inherently, utterly free. Wonderful. Let’s continue.”
And so, when we really shift into unbound awareness to the point the fundamental switch flips and we know I Am That … it doesn’t seem to be unknowable. For that to happen, I, or any one else who experiences this as ongoing reality, would have to literally re-identify with form in some way; to feel as though “I am my thoughts, feelings, memories, etc.”
I went through that for quite a while; as discussed in this thread, this seems to be part of the process for everyone. However, the shift of sense of self into the no-self-reference of knowing unbound awareness is not only quantitatively different, but qualitatively different.
And so, no, it’s not just one shift among many; it’s the last shift, from the standpoint of not-knowing our true nature. Shift and change continue, but are experienced as occurring within, and being subsidiary to, our true nature of unbound awareness.
With a bit of allowance for definitions, the Unity Consciousness I’ve referred to precedes the shift into knowing self as unbound awareness, which I’m not entirely sure is covered in the AYP Enlightenment Milestones (I’d have to review them; I don’t remember, offhand).
Per the terminology and experiences I’m referring to, Unity Consciousness is the “meta” or cosmic (universal) version of savikalpa samadhi (with thought-forms), Non-Dual Awareness is the cosmic (universal) version of nirvikalpa (without thought-forms) samadhi. Abiding Non-Dual Awareness (what I’m calling enlightenment) is the cosmic (universal) version of sahaja (innate, spontaneous, ongoing) samadhi.
One of the reasons I resonate so strongly with Kashmir Shaivism, is that it articulates what I’m talking about simply and clearly, and its articulation fits exactly with my experience.
In Kashmir Shaivism, and Living Unbound, universal unity consciousness is at the very upper end of the second (middle) level, where mind-consciousness “tops out” (reaches its ultimate expansion) … it is the upper limit of Shakti (consciousness; the energy-forms emanating from original awareness).
Abiding Non-Dual Awareness is the highest level; the actual experiencer of all, ever-now. Knowing our true nature as this original formless awareness - Shiva; and thereby, being able to say in ongoing experience: Shivo’ham (I Am Shiva) - Awareness; the ground of being; limitless, One.
However, “highest” is of course a relative term. In actuality, unbound awareness, abiding non-dual awareness is simply what is, and is what is experienced as self consciously, when the obscurations which arise from identifying with the idea of limitation and mind called ego have dissolved.
What I’m calling enlightenment is simply the complete relaxation of unbound awareness back into our natural state, rather than maintaining the tension of artificially creating and re-creating a self-universe of perceived limitation (what I would call unenlightenment), by focus solely on forms (thoughts, feelings, energies, memories, circumstances, ideas, imagination, evaluation, and so on).
After this restoration of the natural state, the experiences of body-mind of course continue, but they occur within unbound awareness. Body-mind, and its experiences, and all change, are the realm of Shakti, the power and ability of Shiva. Original unbound awareness is Shiva.
And so are each and all of us, ever-now.
That’s a very interesting hypothesis.
If there’s any living human who has ever experienced such a thing, I hope they will read this, and tell us about it.
Respectfully disagreed, “per above”.
Bliss isn’t what most people think it is. Notice the similarity between the words “Bliss” and “Blessing”.
Bliss, in enlightenment, is the blessing we give by being enlightened; by knowing ourselves as wholeness. There’s an inherent resonance with this for those who are both sensitive and willing.
Shiva (the name, the word) means “The One Who Blesses”.
Not because it’s a nice godly sounding name, but because it’s how awareness actually operates.
Form receives; Awareness gives. Inherently, naturally.
Trying to understand any of this with mind is like trying to fill a brick with a brick, or cut a sword with a sword; it doesn’t work too well.
Awareness fills; all else is the receptacle which contains awareness.
That’s why and how awareness is primary.
All dividing lines are both artificial and conceptual.
Awareness is wholeness.
Anthem wrote:
Well, okay. But we might also look at it as follows: if someone is enlightened, they’re free, yes? Free enough to enjoy the dream-state however it flows to do. Saying “I hate L.A.” does not imply suffering, necessarily. It implies that the body-mind in question is expressing an aspect of its conditioning, I would say.
I actually took the “California scenes” of that book as Jed A. Having a great time, and B. Telling a great story.
Example, from the L.A. dinner party chapter{s}; Jed says:
“I’m going to strangle the next one who swirls and sniffs their wine. Not really of course. But a larger part of me than I care to admit has a hard time believing I’d get in trouble for it.”
Anyone who would call that unenlightened has:
A. Never been to an L.A. dinner party
B. Not even trying to get why Jed McKenna might be including clearly controversial content like that (hint: please note book title - “Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment”).
C. Has not read, or has disregarded, the interview in the back of the book:
Q. So you were intentionally offensive?
Jed: Part of the intent might have been to start out with a challenge: Suicide, Nazis, catshit, teen angst. Is it funny or offensive? Good-spirited, or mean? Is Jed arrogant, or something else? Do I like him? What does it mean if I don’t? Upon whom would that really reflect?
Q. Can an enlightened person behave that way?
Jed: Right, can this guy be enlightened if he acts this way? Talks this way? Sticks this semi-belligerent stuff in the front of his book? Where’s the unconditional love? The compassionate heart? Or, wait, maybe it’s my preconditioned notions about enlightenment and spirituality that are screwy. Maybe I have to go back and really think about what it would be like to be an enlightened person in an unenlightened world. Maybe I’ve been sold a bill of goods. Maybe it’s the sweetness and light version that doesn’t make sense.
**
Good luck with that (seriously).
It sounds like a lot of work, though. And likely impossible, I’d say.
Why?
Because the sense-of-self who would care to do that doesn’t just have conditioning; it is conditioning.
Better, I would say, to simply unravel the knot that keeps mind stuck in doing stuff like that … which is the essence of the teachings of Nisargadatta, Ramana & Adyashanti, as well as the end result of all spiritual paths (the inherent liberation that is experienced when the knot of the conceptual separate self is dissolved).
All illusions, all suffering arise from the illusory concept of being a separate self.
I truly wish I had words to convey the magnitude of both my respect and my disagreement.
Reactions like hate, anger, sadness, etc., indicate that, as the Bhagavad-Gita says “the gunas act upon the gunas”. (Gunas are the three qualities of nature: Tamas, Rajas, Sattva; Inertia, Activity; Balance).
Nothing needs to be corrected.
Everything is already perfect.
To quote Jed McKenna (fitting, per the title of the thread )
“There is not so much a hair out of place in the entire Universe.”
Reactions don’t need to be changed; the illusion of being a self who has reactions just needs to be seen through; this resolves everything, quite literally.
Body-minds do what body-minds do. After enlightenment, they mellow out quite a bit, but what they do doesn’t matter a lot; heck, they’ll be dissolved back into constituent energies within a few dream decades anyway, and the only actuality is right now. What’s all the fuss about?
Body-minds kick up momentary conditioned reactions exactly like body-minds kick up itches and the need for bathroom breaks. They don’t matter.
Actual hate probably requires time; I don’t know that too many enlightened people hate; doubtful, at best, I’d say. When Jed McKenna says he “hates Californians”, I take that to mean that he finds some aspects of California to be irritating, not that’s he’s filled with an actual, rage-fueled hate. Plus, Jed mentions in the interview that he lived in Montecito (near Santa Barbara) for a while, and doesn’t really hate L.A. or Californians, but rather:
“When I’m in Southern California, all I can think about is getting out, but it’s only a personal preference. I still have preferences and I wanted to accentuate that apparent paradox.”
You’ve experienced this? Or heard of someone who has, in any sort of reliable way?
In my experience, and awareness (i.e. in terms of both myself, and anyone I know about who indicates they have experienced enlightenment) … if that’s the standard … I’m pretty sure there’s never been an enlightened person, or enlightenment.
That model seems to require body-minds to do something they’ve never, ever been seen to do: evaluate certain aspects of duality as “good”, and somehow experience only those aspects, in a state of unity, when they themselves are a creature of partiality/disunity on many levels.
Easier, and more in harmony with reality, I would say, to simply release the illusion of the separate self, and let actuality be experienced as it actually is: non-dual.
A flash of anger and a flash of joy are both flashes of form energy. They happen. So what? Unless they’re happening right this instant, they can only be experienced as dream-concepts, anyway. What’s the trouble with dream-concepts? They happen too; they’re nothing; they’re gone in an instant, every instant, just like every thing-display ever is, unless they’re artificially perpetuated by ego.
Artificial perpetuation and appropriation of life energies by the artifice known as ego is the source of all ignorance and suffering.
Let ego dissolve and be free.
I agree with this: all objects in creation are reflections of the Self.
All I’m saying is:
Knowing our self as Self, all the apparent conflicts in duality are inherently resolved.
The union of subject, object and perception/cognition exists for the sole purpose of experience that since the perceived object is known in perception, and since perception emanates from the perceiver we actually are … that there is no inherent division, anywhere. Awareness is a single field; perceiver, perception and perceived arise, display and subside, together, within it, ever-now.
Conceptual unity, such as you describe, doesn’t sound possible. Or, if it is, it would require so much over-riding of the body-mind’s conditioning, that the root of the conditioning known as ego might well dissolve, too, and then there wouldn’t be any more concerns about, or evaluations regarding unity, anyway.
However, that seems like a really hard way to go about it.
Like saying you must untie the Gordian Knot, rather than just slicing through it.
I’m not sure what he means by that, but I can tell you in and from experience:
Unbound awareness is beyond-before any such considerations - “past the final judgment”, so to speak.
Saying things must be “until this” or “until that” is to stay mired in the realms of conceptual form.
The only must is seeing that ego is fiction. Everything else is just details.
Ah, got it (where I see the issue) … it’s quite possibly not where you’d expect it.
It’s in the word perceived.
When ego is dropped, all objects and experiences are known to arise from the One we each and all ever are now.
Knowing supersedes perception.
Duality happens within the non-duality we are now.
Hating Californians, 24/7 Love Bliss “same same” … that’s the biggest challenge of all, summarized in a simple, ultra-profound statement by Jed:
“You’re not there yet. You’re still seeing two where there’s only One.”
The concepts and judgments and evaluation are seen as the creative palette of Maya; of the delusions that create the dream-state of partiality and separation.
Drop ego and judgment isn’t possible.
Hating Californians isn’t a judgment, it’s an unconscious reaction; a preference of the body-mind, much like a dog chasing cars. Jed McKenna knows this as well as I do. Exactly as well. No biggie. Some dogs chase cars. An enlightened dog knows it’s the dog, the chasing and the car. So what?
[quote]
A negative emotional reaction with someone/ something is a sign that this hasn’t happened, a sign of a perspective that hasn’t been joined in union, a perspective that still holds a fixed view on one side of the equation of duality.
I would say that a negative emotional reaction is ....... an evaluation. Presuming you're referring to anger and such, I would say that a reaction of anger is, actually, a reaction of anger. Body-minds do stuff like that. Body-minds have nothing to do with enlightenment. Body-minds do tend to mellow out a bit, when enlightenment emanates through them, but reactions still happen. Prior to enlightenment, form is a reaction. It's a snapshot. An after-image. By the time it happens, it's happened. Trying to control any of it in any way is the epitome of dreaming. After enlightenment, form is the body; all form contains, and is an expression of awareness, including the reflected actions of the body-minds. Some waves make a splash on some other waves, and then they're gone. Enlightenment is knowing we're the ocean, and that the body-minds we seem to be are processes, not things. Waves are momentary, body-minds are essentially so. All these teachings, definitions, enlightenment is this or that type of discussion is waves discussing how they can know and become the ocean. I'm saying: I'm the ocean; I know it; we all can know it because we all are it, and all we have to do, really, is drop the idea that we're not. And, I genuinely appreciate the overview, Anthem; disagreement doesn't mean that I don't respect both you and your views. Wholeheartedly, Kirtanman :slight_smile:
To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one’s self and others. Then there is no trace of enlightenment, though enlightenment itself continues into one’s daily life endlessly.
The first time we seek the law, we are far away from the border of it. But soon after the law has been correctly transmitted to us, we are enlightened persons. - Master Dogen
The moment a transparent Glass takes form of a Mirror, it starts reflecting. Samadhi is becoming like a transparent glass again, invisible. Without any reflections. Pure.
This teaching is the school of the enlightened mind. The enlightened mind itself basically has no delusion or enlightenment. This is actually the subtle art of those who realize thusness. Even if you don’t become enlightened, when you sit once in meditation, you are a buddha for that sitting; when you sit for a day in meditation, you are a buddha for a day; when you sit in meditation all your life, you are a buddha all your life. The same is true of the future; one who can have faith in this is someone with great potential.
Practicing everything without any sense of attainment is called the exceedingly profound transcendent wisdom. This wisdom can cut off the source of birth and death, like a sharp sword.
Enlightenment is the way to extinction. If you take peace and quiet to be bliss, all things are afflictions; but when you are enlightened, all things are enlightenment. - Master Daikaku
To think, to express, to let the thoughts take form of words, and the words to take form of speech, one has to come below chitta, below ego, below intellect, below mind, below body… then you can speak but you will also reflect. This is the law!
And when you return the same way, you become like a non reflective glass again. The state without divisions. Your natural state.
This is what Krishna meant when he said:
“Mein tum sab me hu par phir bhi tumse alag.”
“I am in all of you but yet I am standing here apart from you”
This is the beauty, this is the power of That!
He is absolutely free, to be in Samadhi or without Samadhi.
And so are you! Because you are That!
But there are laws. If you wish to become a mirror, you have to follow the law in which the mirror exists. But once you know you are That, you will also know that you are not the mirror. This is the beauty.
Then all becomes a game. A leela. And you just play / act as long as the body remains. Knowing that you are not the body, not the mind, not intellect, not ego, not chitta but That!
Kirtanman:
Agreed, body-minds have everything to do with enlightenment.
Agreed, body-minds have everything to do with enlightenment.
LOL! Exactly. :slight_smile:
Yes Kirtanman, the above is a given, the distinction I am making is that the experience of this will continue to expand infinitely while in form forever. There is no top of the mountain, there is no making it to enlightenment, they are all concepts that don’t exist. It is like trying to define a river by holding up some water from the middle of it and calling it the river.
and what I am saying is that the knowing of self as changeless unbound awareness will continue to deepen and expand as it is experienced through form.
Then we agree
As much as we are none of it, we are also body/ mind, we are all of it and none of it, it is a paradox. It is all One and only One. As I look at the wall, "this essence looks back, where ever “I” look, “me”, “me”, “me”.
From my perspective, there is no “last shift”, the true self is seen/ known and the experience of it will continue to expand and deepen forever. There is continuous learning and expansion and releasing of fixed views. That’s the beauty of existence.
Everyone experiences this to some degree. If you are very attached to the concept of needing two arms in order to be happy and you lose one, the result is a not so enjoyable life experience. If you un-attach from the concept of needing two arms, the natural state of peace/ bliss is known again. If the time in-between these two events is 5 years, then the knowing of natural state peace/bliss is interrupted in a very noticeable way. If it is 3 seconds between attached point of view and unattached point of view, natural state peace/ bliss is uninterrupted.
All I can say to this is bliss/ happiness and the deepest peace is felt more and more through the day as practices continue.
Why would luck be needed here? It isn’t something that you go out and try to achieve. It is the way perspective works, it can see experiences/ objects in a positive light, negative light, or it can see both or it can see neither. As I mentioned once attachment is short enough to no longer interrupt the knowing of true nature/ peace bliss state for any significant period of time, then no concern.
As experience continues there will always be plenty of experiences where the mind/ body lets go of fixed points of view. I have observed this in so called “enlightened people”. It will happen forever, there will always be learning, this doesn’t stop with knowing our true nature. There is no “I” doing it, it happens automatically as awareness expands and it is continual expansion.
Don’t get hung up on the word corrected, it is just to convey the idea. Yes, there is nothing wrong, everything is perfect as it is. All things so called “negative” and “positive” work beautifully in perfect synchronization to show us our true Self. However I am not sure how it can be denied that our emotional reactions show that an underlying fixed or attached perspective is present. This is the point.
Just take any big/ significant emotional reaction you have ever had in your life and trace it back to its root. It will be shown that there was a perspective in there that it was somehow “not good” in some way usually for the “me”. Once this perspective was unattached from, or the fact that there may in fact have been some “good” in said situation for the “me”, then it is obvious there was no problem in the first place and no need for that initial emotional reaction.
How does Jed know he hates California? He feels it. For how long? If it is for days/ or every time he thinks of California, then ouch suffering. If it is a blip and he realizes Californians aren’t that bad or that it is silly to attach to such a perspective, then no problem. If he enjoys hating Californians, then again no problem.
Body-minds do matter very much. In Jed’s words, “they are all we’ve got”. There is no experience of “enlightenment” or anything else without them. Without that there is simply unbound awareness without opposite. We can’t know the differing degrees of consciousness without them.
Right there has never been an enlightened person now we agree! All joking aside, Byron Katie, Yogani, Ramana all speak of this 24/7 uninterrupted state. It doesn’t mean emotional reactions don’t arise, they do but are blips, are not believed, seen to be not true and aren’t attached to.
Not sure where you are getting this, I’m actually saying the opposite. All aspects of duality, so called “positive” and so called “negative” are ultimately “love” for lack of a better word. It is all “good”.
On the contrary, body/ minds have everything to do with enlightenment because without them there could never be life “unenlightenment”. It is the creation of the body/ mind and the experience of it that gives unbounded awareness the opportunity to know itself as limited “me”, “i”. It is through the body/ mind that perspective can change revealing more and more of THAT (unbounded awareness).
Of course and likewise.
A
Hi Anthem,
[quote=“Anthem11”]
Yes, agreed, but it seems we’re comparing apples and … apple seeds, here.
My statements about unbound awareness have nothing to do with form or experience; form and experience arise from, display within, and subside back into unbound awareness … aka the absolute, the supreme, the ultimate, the source of all, etc.
Of course experience continues in the realms of form; that’s where experience occurs.
And so, it seems we agree, here, at least.
Many who have realized the truth, and call it enlightenment, and presumably entire traditions who look at reality via such a model, would disagree.
I’m not concerned with the terms of preference, but rather the actuality to which the terms point.
Terms like enlightenment and liberation are relative; after the actuality to which these terms point is realized, these terms essentially become non-applicable anyway.
However, as relative indicators, I feel they can still be useful.
There’s no top of the mountain, because there’s no mountain.
It’s more like we’re one river, dreaming we’re billions of ice cubes; all that’s really needed is melting into actual awakening, regardless of what it’s called.
I feel that there’s a greater risk in never calling anything “enlightenment”, than there is in saying “the realization of, and living from, our true nature is enlightenment, and it’s available for all of us.”
Essentially all realized teachers say something similar.
Why so much resistance to this way of stating things?
What’s the perceived gain you see from steering clear of the term enlightenment?
I agree with this – they are concepts that don’t exist, in the exact same way that a dot on a map, with a word or two by it can indicate a physical location with buildings and people, or like some words on a piece of paper indicate some food that can be purchased.
These non-existent concepts can still help people find their way to the physical location, or can result in eating the food that one wishes to eat … but the map is not the location, and the menu is not the meal.
In the same way, the word “enlightenment” attempts to describe the indescribable, and relatively indicate the absolute (“challenging at best” ).
However, if someone is trying to decide if it’s worth making a journey based on a dot on a piece of paper with some words next to it, and multiple people can say “Very ‘worth it’; I’ve been there; in fact, I’m speaking to you from t/here; it’s great … come see for yourself!”
… this may encourage the traveler to make the journey.
As opposed to saying “Well, you can never really say, for sure, that you’ve reached that city, and there are a lot of cities …”
(Etc. Etc.)
When Adi Shankaracharya (founder of Advaita Vedanta) wrote the following, in the 8th Century …
I am beyond all things.
I am everlasting, self-luminous,
taintless, and completely pure.
I am immovable, blissful, and imperishable.
I am without thought, without form.
I am all pervasive, I am everywhere, yet I am beyond all senses.
I am neither detachment nor salvation nor anything that could be
measured.
I am consciousness and bliss. I am Shiva, I am Shiva.
… he didn’t seem to feel the need to add “and I’ll keep changing and expanding forever in the realms of form, of course.”
I wonder why?
I’d say it’s more like saying “Hey, fellow droplets … you know all those teachings about actually being the river? They’re right … we’re actually the river!! That’s All; carry on …!!”
Now, this is just a guess … but there’s likely not a river anywhere that gives a flying … splash … about the word “river”. But it’s still what it is, and if droplets had been burdened with language to the point of believing conceptual distinctions were real … and they were open … watered … enough … to accept that they are not … it would seem that this awareness of being wholeness could be received as very good news, indeed.
And what I am saying is:
The experiencing will change, yes; the knowing does not. The knowing is; it’s not “form knowing” in any way; it can’t be understood or experienced with mind … understanding, experiencing and mind are all ways of artificially chopping up the wholeness we are; unbound awareness is the wholeness we are now.
Various schools and systems call it by names such as the Self, or the Absolute, or the Supreme, or the Ultimate or the Ground of Being.
As Meister Eckhart, the famous Christian Mystic wrote, it is the place “where distinction never gazed”.
Words are distinction-making tools, utilized by distinctions made by the words … hence all the difficulty in discussing the distinction-free wholeness we actually are.
That’s why the increasing refrain from most authentically enlightened- or-whatever-you-want-to-call-them people/teachers (understanding, yet again, that there are of course no enlightened people or teachers) is:
Come see for yourself.
On one level I agree, and on another not; words so easily get in the way.
On the one hand, there’s nothing that’s not it (non-dual means non-dual).
On the other hand, to say that we “are” “our” body-mind is much like saying we “are” our eyes; somewhat accurate, but potentially misleading, I’d say.
A good way to look at it (pun fully intended ) might be:
If someone loses their eyes/sight … they still exist, yes?
Their existence is not dependent upon their eyes, their sight, or the objects appearing via their sense of sight.
However, if that person, that body-mind “dies”, their eyes and their sense of sight die, too.
That’s because eyes and sight are subsidiary to the overall body-mind.
The body-mind is subsidiary to unbound awareness, and occurs within it.
Please don’t get stuck on the word “shift”; in retrospect, it may not have been the best word to use.
Form and experience require unbound awareness; unbound awareness does not require form or experience.
I’m just saying that that’s the really long, arduous and not guaranteed-to-succeed way of going about it.
Better, easier (and guaranteed) to see through the illusion of the limited perceiver.
When that is completed, there’s no concern about fixed views, no evaluation of positive and negative; simply reality.
They show fixed attachment on the part of the conditioned personality.
We are not the conditioned personality.
We are unbound awareness.
Example:
The actress Julia Roberts played a prostitute in the movie Pretty Woman, quite a few years ago. She went through some emotional turmoil then, in her relationship with Richard Gere’s character.
Do you think she still remembers her time as a prostitute in that movie, or that she is bothered by the turmoil that she and Richard Gere’s character went through?
If not, why not?
How about Richard Gere? He played a successful business mogul who fell in love with a prostitute. Do you think Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are still together?
Or … might the prostitute and the business mogul might be remembered, if at all … as roles … they were playing?
“Just sayin’ …”
Sure, in the form-realms, this happens.
That’s part of what the form-realms are for, it seems.
I’m just saying that what I’m terming unbound awareness is not connected with this at all.
Jed McKenna says it well in the first book (paraphrasing, here –>)
“The one doing the speaking and teaching and writing is not the one that’s enlightened.”
Body-mind is a sense and its content; not a self.
Mind can’t understand this any more than an eye can see itself; the unbound awareness we are is this, and we can all know-be this consciously, by dropping all artificial ideas of limitation.
The result of that process is what I’m calling enlightenment, because it allows us to live from the actual awareness of what we are, as opposed to any longer confusing the vacillations of form with the whole of reality, or with what we are, now.
Suffering? Who said anything about suffering?
The body-mind just plays what’s cued up when someone/something hits “play”.
It’s not like they’re conscious or anything.
Per what I wrote above about Julia Roberts … Jed McKenna has as much issue with hating California as Julia Roberts did with wondering whether a successful business mogul could ever love her … a prostitute.
The body-mind is our character; it’s not who we are.
How apt is this analogy?
I don’t know for sure … but I do know the Shiva Sutras give it, as well (and no, for any wise-acres reading this post … Julia Roberts is not mentioned in the Shiva Sutras … ).
“The Self is the actor.”
~Shiva Sutras 3.9
Better yet; if he’s not even remotely attached to the one who “hates California”, he can just enjoy that abiding non-dual awareness includes everything equally.
“Nothing is so grotesquely horrible, or so heart-wrenchingly beautiful that it transcends my transcendence.”
~Jed McKenna
Body-minds do matter very much. In Jed’s words, “they are all we’ve got”. There is no experience of “enlightenment” or anything else without them. Without that there is simply unbound awareness without opposite.
Agreed; that probably wasn't the best way to say what I intended to say. To indicate how much I genuinely agree, I'm fond of saying "without form, all there'd be is an infinite puddle of awareness." Body-minds are the platform for our truth-realization, and after, the embodiment of the unbound awareness we actually are. Prior to (what I'm calling) enlightenment, body is the body for mind. "After", body-mind is the body for unbound awareness, though more accurately and completely, as the Shiva Sutras state: "The body is the perceptible." ~Shiva Sutras 1.14 And so, "I get it." :slight_smile: What I meant to convey is: Body-minds are not what get enlightened ........ that's *why* "there's no such thing as an enlightened person". Confusing individual body-minds with selves and the planes of form-consciousness with the whole of reality are what dissolve in (what I'm calling enlightenment), and the unbound awareness which contains them is known as our true nature. It's not individual. The fluctuations that go on in personality-ego-mind are relegated to their natural place, an infinitely more enjoyable and relaxed place, very similar to what the eyes see. If you ride public transportation through a not particularly beautiful part of your city, does it bother you much? Do you try to figure out a way to see it differently, in case you pass through it, or a similar city-section again? Or does it not even occur to you to do something like that? "Same." That's why "hating Californians" is no big deal; it's a personality-ego-mind thing; they do all kindsa weird stuff. It can actually be part of the fun, if we let it. :slight_smile: (And lest anyone forget: I'm Californian. How bothered do I seem, about Jed McKenna's hatred of Californians? How unenlightened do I seem to think this makes him?) [quote] All joking aside, Byron Katie, Yogani, Ramana all speak of this 24/7 uninterrupted state. It doesn't mean emotional reactions don't arise, they do but are blips, are not believed, seen to be not true and aren't attached to. [/quote] Exactly. Likewise Jed McKenna. I thought you were saying 24/7 literally, as in: "no blips allowed", and that that was your issue with Jed (that "blips" seem to be experienced). As Jed explains in the interview, the "California chapters" stayed in the book *on purpose*, as a mirror, to challenge people's pre-conceptions about enlightenment. From the interview, re: those chapters ---
Jed: I was a little surprised they stayed in.
Q. But it’s you that left them in.
Jed: Yes and no. I’m a participant in the creation of these books, but I’m also very much an observer. I receive clear direction and I follow it, whether it’s writing books or anything else. I move with the tides on an ocean where the difference between self and other becomes merely theoretical.
Okay, cool; I misunderstood you; “all cleared up” … thanks.
Okay, agreed.
This is where words get in the way (some more … ).
For me, the terms “unbound awareness” and “enlightenment” are effectively synonymous, but the former is absolute, and per what you wrote (and I agree) the latter is relative.
I should have written something like:
Body-minds have nothing to do with unbound awareness.
However, even that’s not entirely accurate, because, of course, there wouldn’t be any “bound” to be “unbound” from, without body-minds (I really agree with your point here! … and thanks for helping me work on “phrasing precision” a bit, here!)
Okay … how about:
Inherently limitless original awareness (aka our true nature) is utterly independent; all form is dependent upon inherently limitless original awareness.
It’s not that body-minds don’t matter (heck, they are matter … for that matter! ) … it’s just that they’re not what gets enlightened; confusing them with self is the dream we wake up from.
And so, if they react a bit to stuff here and there, and exert preferences, or whatever … that doesn’t mean the inherently limitless awareness living through them is unconscious of itself (though it can, it’s just not any kind of an accurate benchmark, is all); that’s an evaluation-supposition that’s only of interest to form-mind.
That’s how and why Nisargadatta could smoke, or get upset when his lunch was late, or Adyashanti can get frustrated with his computer, or Jed McKenna can hate California; body-minds are objects bouncing around the realms of objectivity, just like all other objects; that’s where Buddhism gets its doctrine of “dependent origin” … “everything causes everything else”, as Adyashanti says.
Singular, inherently limitless original awareness; this that we each and all ever actually are now – is the solvent, the field; form/objectivity is the set of solutes.
Knowing this — our Self as the solvent, all form as the solutes … is, of course … the solution.
Limitless awareness includes everything.
Ah, yes … and my primary point, which, per some of the phrasing discussion above, I didn’t make all that well, is:
At the levels of form, what you wrote above is true.
All I was trying to say is that (what I’ve been calling) enlightenment is, exactly, the knowing of our true nature, in ongoing experience, as abiding non-dual awareness (which, being non-dual, utterly supersedes all aspects of distinction, designation and form, which happen within it).
Original Awareness is not part of duality; duality is part of, the movement of, Original Awareness (<— which may be a better, more accurate term than “unbound awareness”, which can be confusing, per its relative nature).
Thanks again for the very interesting discussion; I hope it’s interesting and helpful for others reading, too.
Wholeheartedly,
Kirtanman
Hey K-man,
Us Californians are part of the play. You already know this.
Jed’s hatred of us is his own projection, which he may or may not be attached to. Which is none of our concern.
There is only the play, and the one watching the play. Which you know already.
Go Lakers!
Love
cosmic
More Jed McKenna Quotes
Source: “Another Level – Jed McKenna Tribute 3 of 6”
When I speak or write, I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, or sell anything. My whole gig is telling people to look for themselves, to simply see what’s right in front of them.
**
I look upon children’s burn wards and civil war hospitals and Nazi death camps, with the same eye with which I look upon bursting gardens and stars-swept nights and laughing babies. They’re just the opposite poles of the film’s emotional spectrum. They don’t make me forget my reality.
**
Nothing is so grotesquely horrible, or so heart-wrenchingly beautiful that it transcends my transcendence.
**
Nothing trumps truth. I know what man is, and I know what life is. If you look at these statements and decide I’m a bad guy, then you’re short-changing yourself.
**
The prize to be won in this battle is not wealth or fame or power, but the transition from untrue to true, from dream to awake, from illusion to reality.
**
Truth is beyond opposites. Duality is a dream. It’s not a yin-yang relationship. It’s one or the other.
**
The truth contains no element of the false and the false contains no truth. There is only truth and illusion, and within illusion there is only fear and denial.
**
Denial of fear is the motivation underlying all activities in which humans engage. This is vanity in the biblical sense: ‘I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chasing after wind’.
**
I’m asking you, now: it it possible that everything’s going to be alright? This is a harsh piece of business we’re discussing; you won’t solve it on this level. You have to step up to the next one.
**
We must constantly project the illusion of self, because if we don’t, we aren’t.
**
Fear. It’s all about fear. Don’t you ever get tired of being afraid? Of struggling? The answer is to stop struggling.
**
The cause of the unhappiness isn’t the situation, but the resistance. You’re making disease and decay and death evil, but they’re not evil. They just are.
**
The clinging is the cause of the unhappiness. Release is the answer.
**
We might equate surrender with abdication of self-responsibility, but it’s really just the opposite. It’s where we dispense with intermediaries like priests and doctors and government, and take our own lives into our own hands.
**
New Jed McKenna Quotes Video
Enjoy!
Wholeheartedly,
Kirtanman
Great discussion everyone!
To me, this has all become very simple. Not necessarily simple to use words to describe, but simple in experienced essence.
The “body/mind preferences” will never cease. It’s like trying to stop the “I-Thought” from ever arising again. Totally impossible IMO. What we CAN stop, is the identification with the I-Thought. The thought “I hate Californians” can and will arise even after coming to know the Self as Unbound Awareness. But the belief in the thought that “I” actually hate Californians, does end. So, Jed may say “I hate Californians”, but the REAL “I” that Jed knows himself to be, does not believe this (hence no suffering). But that will not stop the thought of “I hate Californians” from arising and I guess even being said. Not sure if that is very clearly stated. I would like to try again using a personal example.
For me, I like a lot of different styles of music. I can appreciate and enjoy everything from the heaviest of heavy, to the mellowist of mellow, and everything in-between. But, that said, when I am in a place where there is “Top 40” being played, well, the body/mind cringes. 
The “I” (the “I” that I know myself to be underneath my musical preferences) does not suffer over this. But I certainly do have a preference for something else to be on the radio! I may even say out loud “I wish there was some better music playing right now,” and this may sound to another like I am suffering, but in reality, there is no suffering…only preference. Preferences don’t end when coming to know the Self as Self…what ends is the suffering over not having your preferences met.
Just my way of stating the unstateable
Love!
P.S. I think an important point to make here is that different emotions will always continue to arise, even in “liberation”. When the identification with emotion is dropped, specific emotions don’t tend to stay very long. For example…say my wife does something that causes an angry emotion to arise in the body/mind called “me” … If I identify with that emotion, if I choose to believe that “I” am angry, that emotion will stick around until I lose that identification. If an angry emotion arises and I choose NOT to identify with that emotion, it leaves pretty quickly and is replaced with some other emotion. The emotions still arise, they just aren’t identified with and hence pass quickly…no suffering involved. The suffering comes when I actually believe that “I” am angry.
Perfect!
Thanks Carson … and I agree … wholeheartedly!
You managed to say in a couple of paragraphs what took me … um … “a few more” … to get anywhere close to conveying what you wrote above … and I’m not too sure I even really managed!
And so, again, thanks; very sincerely.
I was going to use the example of liking tomatoes; I don’t, and don’t expect I ever will; body-minds are conditioning machines.
When the light of awareness is known to be Self consciously, and it thus can shine its light through mind and into manifestation, all kinds of cool stuff happens … but certain tendencies, like music, food and people preferences … are just finite expressings of the One, like everything else in form … and so, allowed to be what they are … just like everything else.
Seemingly paradoxically, but not really … this resolves 100% of any “issue” with such things, and automatically erases probably 98% of any evaluation-related consciousness of them (things like food, music and people preferences), if not 100%.
We’re all familiar with the idea of treating symptoms as opposed to underlying causes. Knowing our true nature (unbound/original awareness) results in removing the underlying cause of all suffering: the dream-error of thinking we are “me” (aka our ego-idea).
Attachment is attachment, whether it’s liking or hating, clinging to or fleeing from; feeling affinity with, or fleeing from.
From unbound (aka original) awareness … it’s all just experienced as perfectly okay.
Wholeheartedly,
Kirtanman
Hey K-Man
I think you made your point just fine
Preferences are a beautiful thing IMO. If it weren’t for preferences every enlightened human being would be exactly the same! It is the way we each personally express the same fundamental Truth that adds flavor to this experience of Life. This is also why so many people who come to know the All as Self expressed it so completely differently. Granted, this can be a source of confusion for many, but it also gives opportunity for those with simliar persuations to a particular person who lives Unbound to find teachings they resonate with. Personally, I resonate with Jed a fair bit. Our preferences are pretty similar. Others (who know themselves as Unbound just the same as Jed) I do not resonate so well with. Doesn’t make one more realized then the other. Just preferences, and “we” aren’t our preferences.
Love!
P.S> I don’t like tomatoes either! 
hahaha