tony
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Post by tony on Feb 20, 2016 5:33:30 GMT
Arlene (and everyone)
it seems to me you are seeing and describing 'Non-duality' primarily from an evolutionary/historical perspective. That is certainly on way to see it. It is comparable to 'how many people understand the General Theory of Relativity and live their everyday life by it?' e.g. why don't we all mention it and factor it in how we go about our day? Those scientific discoveries were also movements in mankind's consciousness. It takes one instance of clear seeing and eventually every other person gets to see it, a phenomenon known as Morphic resonance or the Roger Bannister effect (within a few months of breaking the 'impossible' sub-4 minute 1 mile record, several other athletes did it).
The other way of 'understanding' Non-duality is as a discovery in/through an individual's consciousness. Seeing that What I Am is both formless and form, No-thing and a thing, Transcendent and Immanent, Timeless/Boundless and existing in time/space, is a phenomenon that happens through an individual, so that one's Identity embraces both. Historically it might have occurred to the odd 'Seer' (e.g. the Hindu Rishis), nowadays it would happen to hundreds (still a statistically insignificant number). Once a Seer has seen it, it's open to all to see eventually. Like birds carrying seeds all over the land, spiritual teachers spread and transmit that seeing. In practice, if they land on fertile ground (there are ears to hear and eyes to see) they flourish, if on barren ground they don't. It's the Self (God Immanent) that gets the person to hear the Good News at the satsang (meeting with the sage).
Non-duality is not about the self (you or me) understanding it or not, it is the Self, our original state. It cannot be gained or attained. It is Now, Always, Already the case: "I" prior to the Fall.
Paradoxically, it is seen and experienced when one gives up searching for it. It happens when our choices are choice-less, when we become self-less, when we seek nothing, when we no longer expect things to turn out as we like them. When we Accept every thing we are (the good and the bad, pleasure and pain, likes and dislikes) as being an expression of That, we get closer to what the Zen people call 'dropping body and mind' or the Christians call dying to the self.
Then, how many people have heard of non-duality is no longer a central issue to be resolved or even explained.
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Feb 21, 2016 16:46:07 GMT
Yes Tony I see what you are saying. The whole question of non duality taking holds or not is merely one from a dualistic, historical perspective. As far as I can tell, it is not an experience or state of being. There is nothing to realize for there is no one to realize anything and, as such, there is nothing that could be propagated. As Wei Wu Wei said, ‘there is no one free, no one in bondage’. There is no thing or person that is separate from what it already is. As Ramana said, ‘you cannot realize the Self. How can you realize what is already real? You already are what you seek. Even thinking that you have not realized or attained is exactly It. I know it sounds like a bunch of double talk but that is also It.
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Post by forum22015 on Mar 16, 2016 0:59:39 GMT
I can't find my last post but this is what's happening. I have moved out of the Marketing project I was doing for the studio I'm involved in and now working with a group as an assistant teacher to a virtual one. I have five members in the group.
My dearest beloved cat Buster had to be euthanized February 23 at 4PM. The grief is odd here then gone then here again. I hoping to experience him more in the dream world. One of the nice touches that happened is my mother (Formless) heard my call to her to pick up Buster. She sent a sad love song in my hear, "Please release me let me go" and my brother (Formless also) also sent me a msg. through my friend Marcia. I'm basically bouncing around emotionally.
The next time I come buy I'll post his picture. His sister Mara survives him. They are/were both 17 years old.
Oh, I'm doing SKYPE spiritual mentoring with Nirmala. Two so far. He went to meet SatShree. |
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tony
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Post by tony on Mar 16, 2016 7:11:10 GMT
Hi Arlene, glad you are still dropping in. I had a short Nirmala period a few years ago, coinciding with my involvement with Fred Davis, when I was also listening to Rupert Spira. All are capable of amazing clarity in expressing the inexpressible. I found Nirmala's approach very easy on a personal level, with an emphasis on the human to human contact (very similar to Jeff Foster's); while Rupert is equally gentle but somewhat more intellectual. Fred, in my view, excelled at bringing the whole 'spiritual' thing down to earth. Let what he says come in through the 'heart' rather than the mind.
A comment on the words you used above. I assume that by 'Formless' you mean that both your mother and brother died sometime ago, i.e. they are now 'form-less'. Non-Duality in my understanding and experience means that everything is always both Formless and form. Even when we have form (alive in a body/mind), in any given instant we are also, already, Formless. That is also the understanding of our Real Nature, of Christ (Buddha, Krishna) Consciousness, of the Spiritual dimension. Right Now, whether you have realized it or not You are already That.
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Post by forum22015 on Apr 7, 2016 21:22:25 GMT
Hi Tony and all,
Yes, most of my family is formless, no current form. I used to say dead but i don't experience or believe that anymore. I have two remaining sisters from my family of origin and I sense this is their last decade. Tons of nieces, great nieces, great grands but I only see them once a year usually.
I actually wanted to bring up a topic: the loss of seeking. That burning seeking feeling is gone and the effort to seek seems useless. It's not a happy place but hope that it will lead to a further form of loss, death and into the next step.
Also, I began to get the spooks lately like looking around in my apartment sensing something. I wonder if the spooky feeling preceeds the fall into the infinite void. Anybody know if its a symptom? Need I explain it more: pulled backwards, falling into this infinite black space, you know that experience. Bee had it awhile ago.
Meanwhile I'm still working with the group and we are half way through the class. Looking forward to the end of it.
Dealing with my remaining cat: Mara who cries all the time when she is not sleeping. What a howleer! This is relatively new behavior this year and howling has increased since her brother died but it is hard to tell if it's about him.
She was very jealous of my relationship with Buster.
I guess I'm in a null place which suddenly becomes interesting then falls into the null space again.
Love,
Arlene
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bee
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Post by bee on Apr 9, 2016 22:50:39 GMT
"I actually wanted to bring up a topic: the loss of seeking. That burning seeking feeling is gone and the effort to seek seems useless. It's not a happy place but hope that it will lead to a further form of loss, death and into the next step"
Arlene that is a really good topic, "the loss of seeking."
As with every other state this one is, in reality, no different. So the calmness that's sought always begins when we make friends with whatever it is we are experiencing. The non-seeking of anything in particular is actually the acceptance of what is in this moment, and that's the only place where we can find ourself.
Once anyone senses this, which is, we are and can be nothing else than this moment, we wonder and also smile at how could something so close elude us for so long.
For we not only reside in this moment, we are this moment, we are the present.
If you like to view it this way, we are the present we give to ourselves and with the awareness of this, the present then is always a wanted and enjoyable one, we have no need to be ungrateful or re-gift it.
This is why welcoming everything contains such a feeling of ease, for regardless what is presented to us there is always beauty in this present.
Whenever we regard that this which I am experiencing as not good, which ends usually with something like I don't want this particular part of life, all we have inadvertantly done is step out of ourself, we have left this precise moment and are experiencing a fictitional reality.
However, if it isn't what is contained in the present it is still our reality, albeit a pseudo one.
It is the reality of our avatar, of our egoic mind, of our earthly life's vehicle, and we as the present become so identified with it that the total beingness we are firmly believes it as ourself, and consequently so we then believe the inherent joy and suffering are also what we are.
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Apr 10, 2016 18:05:14 GMT
"make friends with whatever it is we are experiencing" - I like that
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tony
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Post by tony on Apr 12, 2016 4:11:48 GMT
Bee- a wonderful description of how to live and be in any given moment. No need to bring up or mention God, scriptures or teachers. However, there is much gratitude for all teachers past, present (and in the future) who have been pointing precisely to that condition of Acceptance of everything that arises. That's what surrendering to God's Will means. Therefore one can then say "Gloria in Excelsis Deo!"
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Post by clouddust on Apr 18, 2016 13:34:07 GMT
Hi again,
...Perhaps a typo but I need clarity;
I agree that acceptance of everything that arises is in part, a surrendering to God's will, but "Gloria in excelsis Deo" means Glory to God in the highest and yet you say, there's no need to mention God. Who are you glorifying? Who's will are you surrendering too?
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tony
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Post by tony on Apr 19, 2016 0:24:39 GMT
The 'logic' of those expressions:
- 'God' (and all other names used by mankind) is the Only Reality There Is. It is the No-thing from which all things come from. There is nothing else but 'God'; all is made of 'God' stuff (All there is is Consciousness; Consciousness is all there is).
- We human beings are made of God stuff, like the rest of the Manifest (God visible/perceivable through the consciousness of sentient beings)
- to Accept [neither accept nor reject, i.e. Love] the 'least' (what arises in every moment) is to Accept God, which comes as and is manifest in all forms [hence the Zen anecdote: 'What is enlightenment?', 'pour me a cup of tea!']
- to Accept everything that arises is to acknowledge the Living Presence of 'God' or God's Will. So by simply Accepting this moment there is an acknowledgement of God's Presence. It is God acknowledging Itself through its Creation. (Creator and Creation are the same thing)Creation stands on its own, it is as it is, therefore, no need to mention the idea of God or God as a separate Creator.
- Once there is clarity about that, a clarity that comes from the direct experience of this Non-duality, then the only disposition one has is to glorify THAT which is both the Source and the Manifestation. THAT is not a 'who', an entity: it's You!
- It's important to point out that: 'God is everything' means that all forms, inanimate (rocks), vegetative (plants), sentient (animals), self-aware (human beings) are Its expressions in space and time. As the Hindus say, it's Maya, the Divine Play. Human beings are a form of God with the capacity to know the Source (their true nature) and in that process of knowing (the spiritual path) they move closer or further away from the Source, according to their level of consciousness.
- none of this needs to 'make sense' or be believed. It's all metaphorical, as words and concepts can go so far in pointing to That which is beyond words.
- Our very existence (and that of everything), the experience of just Being Right Now, is proof enough of That because it is immediate, not subject to opinion, speculation or imagination. That experience does not come from outside of us, it is inherent in what we are.
- Another word for that experience is Meditation.
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Post by clouddust on Apr 19, 2016 12:49:58 GMT
Yes, I see the mention of God is in relation to the god of who we are.
I see it as, or likened to, an umbilical cord: We are part of, made from similar stuff, attached to, dependent on, life giving,....but we are not it!
There is another being.
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tony
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Post by tony on Apr 20, 2016 12:30:29 GMT
Clouddust, if "There is another being", meaning some thing that exists independently and separate from your existence, your model of Reality implies that there are 'two' realities: 'God' and 'you'. You confirm this view by saying "...made from similar stuff...". The analogy for that model may be that of mother and child, where the child comes from the mother but is separate and therefore can never be identical to her. It implyes that there can never be Identity with God.
The Non-dual perspective says that there is only One Reality. The analogy may be that of: gold ornaments- different in form but made of exactly the same stuff; the ocean and the waves- no matter how they move and behave, waves are nothing other than ocean; colours of the spectrum- an infinite variety of hues or vibrations but they are all made of the same substance. This perspective says that no matter where we look or what we experience, i.e. the ever changing arising of objects (via our sense and mind consciousness) all we see are forms/aspects/reflections of that One Reality. We being an aspect of Reality.
It goes even further by saying that it is Reality that is experiencing Reality and also that Reality is beyond the capacity of the mind (the faculty of reason, logic, imagination, etc.) to know (as IT is not an object) but can be known by virtue of Identity (because everything is IT). We humans have the capacity to realize, re-cognize that Identity and many (the Great Teachers, Saints and Sages, those who have awakened to their true nature), have openly declared that Identity, which is the basis of the great religions ("I am That" in Hinduism; "I and my Father are One" in Christianity; "Emptiness is Form" in Buddhism; "Nameless, is the origin of Heaven and Earth...As profound the mystery as It can be, It is the Gate to the essence of all life." Taoism).
The meaning of the title of this Forum " We are all IT" reflects that understanding.
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