Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Feb 22, 2015 13:02:46 GMT
Another not-so-arrogant re-edit
The reason I deleted my previous post (the one before this one) was because I was thinking it might be better just to talk from my experience instead of always referring to quotes that I have read. The bottom line, I guess, is that no belief could possibly be true. I know when I’m humble the world is easy but getting free of all the beliefs I have of myself is not always easy. Perhaps, there is really no mystery to any of this ‘spiritual’ stuff; just releasing your beliefs. That is true humility
Last night, I unfortunately watched a movie, which is popular now, about the woman developing early onset Alzheimer’s. This is something my dad had as well. According to the movie I have a 50-50 shot of getting it. Easy to see that she is really just losing her illusionary identity but that certainly is NOT the way I want to do it. Then, to top it off, I had a dream that I had Alzheimer’s. I felt quite depressed during the dream. I ended up forgetting how to drive my car and drove it straight into a lake. I was really glad to wake up. I think you all know where I’m going with this now. I have had periods especially during last summer’s vacation where it was clear to me that all this that we call reality is in fact a dream. During the times that really sunk in, things flowed with a great sense of ease. I remember saying to myself that this is what it is like to have no ego. One thing that became very apparent was that the ease comes to you, you don’t go to it. And all these pointers that we talk about seem absolutely ridiculous. They have no reality at all. In fact, they are just part of the dream. I laughed at their absurdity. So in this path or lifestyle that I follow, really by no choice of my own, the only thing I can really do is continually drop beliefs about myself and everything else. It seems simple and it probably is simple but it covers a wide range of conditioned habits. For example, every time I feel aversion, I know that it is part of the dreamed identity. It reminds me of a Zen saying, "The obstacle is the path."
On top of re editing the whole thing I caught a slew of skipped words or typos, I got some type of disability going on-- hopefully its not the early onset.(in my case I should probably call it not-so-early onset)
Perhaps, maybe, if you’re into it, we could each have a thread that talks about our inner lifestyle, only if you want to.
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tony
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Post by tony on Feb 22, 2015 21:12:49 GMT
We need to be cautious about expressions such as 'the world is not really real' as they can be taken as a belief. I think I posted this on the old Forum:
"Brahman alone is Real; the world is an illusion; Brahman is the world". It's a statement made by Ramana Maharshi. To get around the paradox, I would put it as: There is only one Reality; the world is not self-existing (it's an illusion to believe that objects and forms exist in their own right); the One Reality is the world or the world is made up of that One Reality. All of that is also expressed as "All is Consciousness".
In discussions such as these, some conventions can be useful. As an example, Consciousness points to a different 'place' than consciousness. The first refers to a total dimension of experience (similar to God, Awakeness, Awareness, Kosmos, etc.) and the latter to a state of mind, the empirical fact whether one is awake, aware of forms, or asleep. One is Reality, the No-thing beyond concepts and rationalization, the other is Reality in its manifestation as the world of impermanence, relativity, understanding, subject and object,'me and you'. They are the same: Brahman is the world. No duality.
_()_
Tony
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Feb 22, 2015 22:21:37 GMT
Thank you for your comments. I will need to read them a few more times but see there is truth in them.
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bee
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Post by bee on Feb 24, 2015 14:53:49 GMT
Kolomo none of these units we call ourself here right in this moment are in the process of being no more. So if this one I usually call me was being taken to the recycle bin I can imagine there are a few ways I can decide (usually unconsciously though) to react.
* Let it be and enjoy the transitional journey.
* Bummer there are things I wanted to do that I haven't done.
* This isn't what I want at all, I don't want to die, this is horribly unfair.
A bit of an extreme example though accurate in the way most would be reacting upon the realization of death.
The reason I used this is it applies to life in all circumstances. We can choose to enjoy if we really want to even situations that we may also view as the unwanted parts of life.
Dreams as mysterious as they are, when totally accepted and not rejected, open us up to a vista we may never experience in the awake state. But we can not know if we are more awake in the dream than we are when we are awake.
If we are forced to exit this life with ill health we have no choice but to allow that. So why do so many fight?
Identification that we are the ego maybe.
So again I sense faith in that 'I AM' far more than ego but often am not aware.
Now enter into trust which is the doing part of faith. Whatever happens will happen so trust enables the awareness that 'I AM', and that the I am is far more than the dream (awake or asleep) that I happen to be in.
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tony
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Post by tony on Feb 25, 2015 6:41:48 GMT
As soon as I say "I am dropping my beliefs", I am coming from the perspective that I am 'one' with the capacity to 'author' some action. I am then divided: 'me' and 'my beliefs'. Beliefs are thoughts that arise if and when they do. Wanting to act on them comes from a sense of separateness. This sense of separateness (ego, self, small mind, etc.) also arises (a psychic phenomenon since around 2 years of age). Nothing of substance (self-existing) to get rid of. The 'self' needs to be Accepted as part of what happens to a human being.
Therefore wu wei, non-doing, non-thinking, non-duality, choice-less choice: just eat, breathe, do the dishes, drive the car, think, look, feel because all of those actions are 'You-doing-experiencing'. There is no fixed self (a permanent entity) that causes them to happen.
'Just doing' shifts the center of attention from small self to Big Self (a pointer to what has no boundary, it includes everything that arises). Therefore, the proven method of Meditation: just sit/do and let all the world come and go as it does, responding as the need arises.
Self-less-ness is the state where there is no discrimination about what arises, no active choice according to likes and dislikes, no good and bad. Then 'self' as body/mind, keeps on doing its thing (as it must after years of conditioning), and keeps on changing according to circumstances, but it is no longer the primary point of reference. Then "I am Tony..." is a description not a statement of identity.
_()_
Tony
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Feb 25, 2015 16:05:33 GMT
A lot of great comments! unfortunately i don't have the proper time now to digest and elaborate, but i will later - thanks
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Feb 28, 2015 16:15:58 GMT
I continue to reread the past posts. Both of them are very insightful. And now to move on to a relate issue.
This week I felt thrown off course (or at least further in the dreamed world than usual). In short, I may have to change jobs. To be honest, I feel anxious about having to go out and make a change, all the extra work that is going to be, and a sense of injustice. I thought of something I read in a Jed McKenna book. He was talking about Stefan Hawkins ‘theory of everything’. His comments were quite entertaining and funny. He mentioned that the scientific explanation of the ‘theory of everything’ was like knowing what the bricks of a house were made of but having no idea of what’s really going on inside the house. It seems that most of us go about a dreamed existence without not knowing really what’s going on. I probably misused this quote to justify my sense of injustice. Each morning, I get up early to contemplate or meditate or whatever you want to call it. I tried to accept these less than desirable feelings. I tried contemplating who is the one who feels this? (and, yes, as Ramana says ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner). Whether I was trying to see the underling truth or just fully accepting the ego’s feelings , things did not pass or dissipate much until I hit upon forgiveness and things started to clear up. So maybe what I am saying is that forgiveness and understanding is an important component in just being present. “What wrong with the present moment if you don’t think about it?” Well, as Bee says, you have to love this experience of life and all those other ‘dreamed’ entities. Back to that Zen statement ‘The obstacle is to path’.
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bee
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Post by bee on Feb 28, 2015 19:44:45 GMT
Forgiveness.
Does it actually allow ourself to love the present?
If so, then forgiveness is BIG.
It's big because it allows one to be 'ALL' inclusive, or living oneness. This is far more than an acceptance of all as it completely embraces all.
So the word love used with this meaning to describe the all inclusiveness of the 'IS'-ness we all are, is the doing of faith, which is faith in action or trust.
So one could say, to fully live which is to experience the whole, a pointer to the way is in 'Trusting Life'.
I see trusting life is synonomous with loving life.
But the life we all are presented with has parts in it that the egoic self feels, for whatever reasons, it would rather reject and not experience.
When the unit (egoic self, small self) does this it moves into a kind of separateness of experiencing this life and in so doing actually moves away from enlightenment as enlightened living can only be living the WHOLE of what life presents.
Then what I see is the unit therefore experiences the results of this and Fred Davis had a good term for it, namely "unskillful".
I have found that living what the unit sees as 'the bad or the unwanted bits' of life with absolutely total acceptance and appreciation (which is what I term loving as it is unconditional) somehow allows enlightenment to be present and it seems then a more skillful living experience occurs.
Is it then allowing the ALL of life, the oneness of any experience, that provides a more enlightened path?
If so, then is this the same as the doing of faith that many of the past enlightened beings spoke about?
Now whether we term it faith in God, or faith in life, or in the whole, is this the same as simply trusting life itself?
Love your life
bee
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tony
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Post by tony on Mar 1, 2015 5:18:36 GMT
Kolomo, the following advice by Bodhidharma (First Zen Patriarch in China) may be relevant to your experience:
"To enter [the Path] by practice refers to four all-inclusive practices: suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, and practicing the Dharma. First, suffering injustice. When those who search for the Path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves, "In countless ages gone by, I've turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existence, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions. Now, though I do no wrong, I’m punished by my past. Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit. I accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice. The sutras say "when you meet with adversity don’t be upset because it makes sense." With such understanding you’re in harmony with reason. And by suffering injustice you enter the Path."
Much the same meaning as the saying "the obstacle is the path". Staying with the Zen view of the world, Great Faith comes when one 'just does' for the sake of doing it, without expectation of results. Therefore, moving on, e.g. to the next job, happens as and when it does (like all of your life so far). It is Trusting Life Itself, including and in spite of all the fear and anxiety that change brings (which is part of being human).
_()_
Tony
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Mar 1, 2015 5:23:51 GMT
Bee, forgive me for not directly addressing your last thoughtful post. But I am still thinking about the dilemmas I had last week. So if I can, I will continue on my train of thought and later I will reread your comments again and think about them. As I was just about to post this I noticed a post from Tony. Once again, allow me to read it carefully and think and respond to it later. I will probably reedit this tomorrow morning.
Also , if you don't mind, I am going to enlarge the font of your post so I can read it easier.
As I expressed in my last post, forgiveness itself is a spiritual path. I googled it and saw there are actually many books about it. We could probably even start a new thread about forgiveness. But I like to think about this in my own context, specifically, as it relates to this thread; the first step - is the world real. I am sensitive to Tony’s point about the pitfalls of holding onto a belief that the world is not real. But, as I said before, my position is of no position; to say it is neither real nor unreal. But if you feel an injustice, or your holding onto and aversion, or some other fear-based anxiety-riddled thought, then the dream world does indeed seem very real. Yet, when you can see that others who you feel may have wronged you are doing exactly as they are ordained, that they are bound in their own fear based thoughts and they are merely trying to create some type of meaning out of nothingness, then it is easy to have compassion and forgive them. Forgiveness is a gift, not to them but to yourself. It opens up the ease of not trying to control, or not even caring to control to just let things flow unaffected. With forgiveness you are able to let go of the ego defined world and feel unconditional ease and love. I guess forgiveness is really a deep level of understanding and acceptance of your nothingness or unconditioned awareness. The only reason we cannot forgive is because we want to hold on to the unreal self, we want to protect and save it from nothingness. In another McKenna quote he says that you have to hate the unreal self more than you fear the real self.
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tony
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Post by tony on Mar 1, 2015 10:31:42 GMT
No need to 'hate' the unreal self, but just see that it is not a substantial, permanent entity. This can be seen in Meditation (in which there is no meditator). The self is 'real' to the extent that there is someone who answers when called (Tony, Kevin, Barry, etc.) and gets up in the morning to have breakfast. What is imagined to be real is its substantial nature, like the mirage, or the snake on the road (happens to be a rope...). Once the unreal, not self-existing, nature of the self is seen then it goes on doing its thing according to its karma, and it's no longer a problem.
This inquiry into 'who am I' is strongly supported by practicing the 'virtues', such as an inclination to have 'good will' towards all (love thy neighbour as thyself; forgive them because they know not; offer the other cheek).
_()_
Tony
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tony
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Post by tony on Mar 2, 2015 7:49:53 GMT
A comment on the thread title 'how do you make It a living reality'.
The question seems to imply that 'I', the person, can do something about making IT a living reality for 'me' or it could imply that It is not quite real yet until I somehow intervene to make it so. If we see that the question is just a thought (does it have real substance?), then it can be seen that It Is Already Always Living Reality. In the same way that 'I am' is a only thought about my existence, it doesn't prove that I exist: existence is there in order for me to have the thought. My existence in each instance of time is It, Living Reality.
_()_
Tony
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Kolomo
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Post by Kolomo on Mar 2, 2015 16:16:41 GMT
Yes, Tony I see what you were saying. In other words, the answer can never be found in mind. I was thinking this morning that what I am is just a thought out of nothingness but even that is a thought.
"There is no such thing as the experience of the real. The real is beyond experience. All experience is in the mind. You know the real by being the real." Nisargadatta Maharaj
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tony
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Post by tony on Mar 2, 2015 22:43:49 GMT
As always, Nisargadatta Maharaji nails It!
In regard to the convention I suggested with the use of words, I would capitalize the word real. It makes a world of difference in intellectual understanding (a useful phase in the process) to distinguish between God and god, You/Me and you/me, Reality and reality. They are all symbols, of course, but point to different aspects of What Is: the Absolute, One and the relative, many. Non-duality is the perspective that points to their equivalence: one and the same thing. Not one, not two.
It is a discovery in its own right to see that thoughts simply arise (e.g. 'I am', 'I think') and not to associate one's Identity with them. They are impersonal, but appear personal. They exist, but are 'empty' of self-existence. Same for the 'self'.
_()_
Tony
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