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adamadaman
USA
12 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 08 2012 : 7:29:55 PM
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Hello All,
Reading many of these stories are so inspiring and it is interesting to read how others are progressing along the path. My path has not always been as clear as I has been the last year or so. I came to Yoga out of a near state of insanity, or at least desperation. It's been a long time since that happened so I have some trouble recalling what I felt before I began establishing myself in bliss. It seems like most of my practice has been spent clawing myself out of some self inflicted hole, only to jump right back in once I get out. Yes, I one of those people that has a tendency to sabotage himself, thinking himself smarter then he really is, only to be humbled a lot in the process. Honestly, I don't really know what enlightenment is and when I think I do, the concept gets turned around on me time and time again. The most fascinating aspect that I found is that, no matter how much knowledge I have accumulated trying to find an intellectual solution to spiritual questions, the answer was right in front of my face the whole time. For instance, I have studied astrology for many years, digging insistently into my own birth chart, trying to find the answers that I wanted to find, and at the same time, trying to find validation for how I thought it should be. Now, moving forward, I really don't know where I am going, and I'm liking it very much. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2012 : 03:04:59 AM
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 you are at that stage of surrendering by the sounds of it?
That can come and go. Sometimes we get our belief back and start thinking we are holding the reins again, only to have some experience that shows just how little control we actually have. You mention the sabotage and climbing out, although often the climbing out comes with a sense of personal success. I have climbed out many times, only to find myself right back in the pit.
This repetition of humbling, surrender and practices eventually brings us to a place where we don't need to know where we are going but we can know when we are separated from unity. It's a kind of centring that's more intuitive than intellectual.
Thanks for sharing your inspiring story. |
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lufa1212
India
45 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2012 : 06:20:28 AM
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| I concur with you, karl....i found myself back in the pit a little while back :( |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2012 : 06:42:24 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lufa1212
I concur with you, karl....i found myself back in the pit a little while back :(
It's good, accept it because it shapes you. You are like a rough rock that gets polished in the maelstrom of the tide. If you always lie in the sun you will stay as a rough rock. Give praise for the pit and you will find that you can use it, as you use it more and more it no longer feels as abrasive or as dark and you polish without effort.
When you are in the pit, then you always wish to be free of it. It's that which causes the suffering. You wish to lie inert in the Sun, but you should be without attachment to the Sun.
Remember that all is perception. Perception of thought, perception of circumstances are all perception of objects. No object contains pleasure or goodness, all these are perceptions only. |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2012 : 08:50:47 AM
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Thank you for sharing Adamadaman, and welcome to the AYP forums!
quote:
The most fascinating aspect that I found is that, no matter how much knowledge I have accumulated trying to find an intellectual solution to spiritual questions, the answer was right in front of my face the whole time.
As they say in Kashmiri Shaivism (Shiva Sutras) "Jnanam Bandhah"... "knowledge is bondage"... inner knowing, liberation!
quote:
For instance, I have studied astrology for many years, digging insistently into my own birth chart, trying to find the answers that I wanted to find, and at the same time, trying to find validation for how I thought it should be.
This happens to many... that is one reason a healer (like a Reiki healer) generally cannot heal themselves (or even people they are very close to). When we work from a level of the mind (attachment to the outcome), we imagine a lot of things that it should be or could be, but when we work with others, the degree of attachment to imagination is much less, it's hard to make up stories about others we don't know... so we surrender to intuition and the healing (or reading) comes from inner silence, somewhere beyond the mind. As we get better at letting go, our ability to heal or "see" what the charts are telling us increases... the main reason for that, we let go imagination of the form and allow life (inner silence) to unfold and show us.
Wish you all the best!!! |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Oct 10 2012 : 1:36:55 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by adamadaman
It seems like most of my practice has been spent clawing myself out of some self inflicted hole, only to jump right back in once I get out. Yes, I one of those people that has a tendency to sabotage himself, thinking himself smarter then he really is, only to be humbled a lot in the process.
Hi adamadaman,
Welcome to the forums, and thank you for sharing.
Actually, the above is true for every single one of us All of the ego is a "self inflicted hole", and there are strong tendencies in us that make us want to jump right back in every time. And why ongoing practices are necessary.. This whole process, for me, has been like this. Also, we tend to over-intellectualize everything, slicing and dicing in every which way, instead of simply surrendering to the humbling that is continuously happening.. There have been many occasions where I've wished I had not read/discussed the awakening process so much; the mind has a way of trying to conform the actual experience in the moment to something read/heard of in the past.. Which is how I'm learning that this is a journey of unlearning and undoing, a journey back to innocence..
Perhaps we are just way too smart, and that is the problem 
Love,
kami |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 10 2012 : 9:32:37 PM
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I have found that i enjoy the process of clawing my way out of holes! That's what I like doing, and i feel like i
was built for that. Call me weird. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2012 : 02:36:30 AM
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| Me too Etherfish. I think I was a raccoon in a past life. Fierce claws. |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 12 2012 : 07:51:34 AM
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Put me in a situation where everything is taken care of, and I have to make no effort to live, and I hate it (except for a few days vacation). I think I may be built to work.
Is that just a personal preference, or is there something built into me that causes it?
Look at the book and youtube video by Lloyd Pye "Everything You Know is Wrong", about human origins. He shows that humans and primates are radically different and there has never been found a convincing "missing link" that bridges between the two. While mainstream scientists postulate that they only need one missing link, Pye shows that what is missing to prove we evolved from primates would have to be a series of links, like thirty, none of which have been found. If it was all evolution, what caused us to depart from "survive and reproduce", start thinking abstract thoughts, and wonder "what's it all about?"
Zacharia Sitchin spent a lifetime translating Sumerian cuneiform texts, the oldest writings known. Mainstream science says it is all myths, but he says the ancient writings say aliens came down from the sky and altered our DNA and made us into slaves.
Maybe that accounts for why I like work, and feel it is my calling.
Now DNA experts say our DNA is only 150,000 years old and we all have a common ancestor in Africa.
That is way younger than primate DNA. So if we evolved from primates, there was a point 150,000 years ago where we radically departed from their evolution.
Our DNA has a fused spot that primates don't have, where two strands are fused into one.
Mainstream science rejects any outside intervention in our makeup, either alien or divine, but I wonder. They also reject any idea that earlier civilizations may have been more advanced than us.
We do have the built-in ability to become enlightened, which I postulate has nothing to do with DNA, and was there before any DNA alterations or evolutions.
You can't believe all of what anyone says, both in mainstream science and fringe science. That doesn't discredit what they say. It leaves it to us to put the
pieces together in a puzzle that may never be finished. It's a very interesting story developing right before our eyes....
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 12 2012 : 09:20:37 AM
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All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced.
It is natural to want to understand where the unease comes from, but it will never be found because it lies in the complexity of the universe. We are tiny chunks of rationality created by the Universe like lumps in custard. Trying to make sense of the custard by using a different form of custard just isn't going to work.
It is this seeing of oneself as apart that creates this confusion. Trying to understand why as a lump in the custard we feel uneasy isn't hard to understand. The lump does not understand it is the custard and the rational sense of separation will keep the quest going for as long as the lump remains.
Even when the lump acquires the sense to see itself as a lump and part of the greater whole then this does not stop the unease, instead it simply changes one action for another. In air we fly, in water we swim. The sense of unity only creates more diverse actions.
Realising this fallibility is what is important, the rationality turned inwards learns at last the truth. It is acceptance of the unease, the fear, the pain, the loneliness. We learn the subtle trick we have been playing on ourselves. It is not the knowledge of the 'greater all' that brings peace, its the rational conclusion that there is no avoidance or separation. The peace though is not a defined state or fixed, instead it moves, if we move with it then we can stay at peace while still performing all the actions that are sparked by the unease. We flow with the Universe even as a lumpy chunk of custard. We accept our lumpiness and stop getting confused by it.
I'm going to have to have some apple crumble to go with this custard now.  |
Edited by - karl on Oct 12 2012 09:23:01 AM |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 12 2012 : 9:03:51 PM
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Karl wrote:
"All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced."
It's a crisp fall morning and friends dressed in white all stretch, quietly talk and chuckle as they meet on a golf course, surrounded by acres of beautiful green turf and trees, the sun beginning to sparkle on leaves in intricate constantly changing patterns in the breeze.
Karl feels uneasy about the present position of the golf ball sitting on the tee...he chooses which club might be used to remove that unease and swat one thing for another... |
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maheswari
Lebanon
2520 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 03:05:57 AM
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quote:
All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced
thumbs up |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 03:23:55 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
Karl wrote:
"All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced."
It's a crisp fall morning and friends dressed in white all stretch, quietly talk and chuckle as they meet on a golf course, surrounded by acres of beautiful green turf and trees, the sun beginning to sparkle on leaves in intricate constantly changing patterns in the breeze.
Karl feels uneasy about the present position of the golf ball sitting on the tee...he chooses which club might be used to remove that unease and swat one thing for another...
I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course. |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 11:45:19 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course.
Because there is another reason for action that is not unease: play! |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 12:25:12 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
quote:
Originally posted by karl
I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course.
Because there is another reason for action that is not unease: play!
Oh I see you were contradicting.
You may have misunderstood what I meant by unease. Unease is just dis-satisfaction with the current situation. Why not just leave he ball on the Tee ? Why not just carry on gardening instead of playing Golf ? Unease is what spurs that action, by unease I don't mean discomfort. It is only the preference to swap one action for another, even one thought for another. |
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 1:32:32 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced.
Forgive me for jumping in here, especially as I haven't been following this thread, but I just had to say that the above statement is not true from every perspective. Uneasiness is *not* the only motivator for action. If this was the case, then those who are truly "at ease" (in any given moment) would never do anything. Literally. This is not the case. I'm not sure that there is anyone on the planet that is ever totally at ease at all times, but there are many who are at ease much of the time (or even just some of the time), and these people are involved in all kinds of action that is not the result of being uneasy with the current situation. The motivation for action changes as we become more and more comfortable with whatever is happening in the moment (no matter how challenging it is), but the motivation is not always to "change" things. In my experience, as the "personal will" begins to melt more and more, the motivation for action becomes impossible to locate... simply because the motivation isn't "ours" anymore. But the action still happens and it is not the result of uneasiness. Just thought it was worth mentioning that the above statement is not true for everyone.
Love!
Carson  |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 2:40:09 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by CarsonZi
quote:
Originally posted by karl
All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced.
Forgive me for jumping in here, especially as I haven't been following this thread, but I just had to say that the above statement is not true from every perspective. Uneasiness is *not* the only motivator for action. If this was the case, then those who are truly "at ease" (in any given moment) would never do anything. Literally. This is not the case. I'm not sure that there is anyone on the planet that is ever totally at ease at all times, but there are many who are at ease much of the time (or even just some of the time), and these people are involved in all kinds of action that is not the result of being uneasy with the current situation. The motivation for action changes as we become more and more comfortable with whatever is happening in the moment (no matter how challenging it is), but the motivation is not always to "change" things. In my experience, as the "personal will" begins to melt more and more, the motivation for action becomes impossible to locate... simply because the motivation isn't "ours" anymore. But the action still happens and it is not the result of uneasiness. Just thought it was worth mentioning that the above statement is not true for everyone.
Love!
Carson
Ah yes, but then you have moved it into stillness in action. The inability to locate the source of uneasiness does not preclude its presence. Get hungry and you will want to eat, drink and you will want to go to the toilet, get an itch and the urge to scratch is compulsive. No one is immune except for the dead. |
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 5:07:19 PM
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Uneasiness is just a word. You could just as easily say that the only motivation for action is love. Whether it is love for survival, love for comfort, love to be seen in a specific way, and on and on. It all depends on your personal perspective as to how you will verbalize it. One thing we can agree on, I think, is that action happens. Beyond that, we are getting into the realm of the subjective and making absolute statements is, well, you know. 
Love,
Carson
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 5:16:29 PM
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| Play isn't caused by unease. It is an expression of joy. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 10:23:04 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by CarsonZi
Uneasiness is just a word. You could just as easily say that the only motivation for action is love. Whether it is love for survival, love for comfort, love to be seen in a specific way, and on and on. It all depends on your personal perspective as to how you will verbalize it. One thing we can agree on, I think, is that action happens. Beyond that, we are getting into the realm of the subjective and making absolute statements is, well, you know.
Love,
Carson
Well we can make the leap from the frying pan to the fire, we can't definitely know that we will prefer the fire, but we can definitely know that we are leaving the frying pan because we don't wish to remain there any longer. Otherwise why would we want to leave ?
Why don't we stay in one perfect moment forever ?
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 10:28:20 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
Play isn't caused by unease. It is an expression of joy.
No doubt, but you don't stay in play, or stay in work. You never know if your play will be fruitful, but the reason you do it is that it holds the promise of being superior to your present position. This is what I mean by unease. It doesn't mean that the present position is unpleasant, it simply means you are prepared to swap that position for something presumably better.
You can't stay on the golf course 24/7 uneasiness with that position by tiredness, weather, something else will rear its head and you will decide that some other thing is more beneficial. What is the root cause ? I chose unease, just because it describes my personal state change better than anything else and seems less ambiguous.
All action being predicated on prevailing circumstances which are beyond our control of course. |
Edited by - karl on Oct 13 2012 10:34:52 PM |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Oct 13 2012 : 11:03:30 PM
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| Are you boys running around in circles in this here post? If so, how do I get involved? I know Carson likes him a mosh pit now and again, and I'm happy to oblige with my own stompin'. I say we have a knock-down, drag-out fight over which is the realest: existence or non-existence. I'll take the side of existence; Karl, you take the side of non-existence; and Carson can run back and forth between the two...GO!! |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2012 : 05:53:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bodhi Tree
Are you boys running around in circles in this here post? If so, how do I get involved? I know Carson likes him a mosh pit now and again, and I'm happy to oblige with my own stompin'. I say we have a knock-down, drag-out fight over which is the realest: existence or non-existence. I'll take the side of existence; Karl, you take the side of non-existence; and Carson can run back and forth between the two...GO!!
What if I'm not on a side at all ? I'm simply moving between the different ends of a process. At the beginning there is nothing to be found. We cannot go further than that because we are directly limited by the apparatus we use to enquire.
Do we operate directly from that point without intermediate steps ? Then it would mean that the divine has a purpose laid out for us and the course is set by something beyond our enquiry. It is beyond my knowledge to know.
Yet my personal experience is of both. Acceptance that I am unable to go beyond myself for answers, yet able to define choice however much of an illusion it might seem to be. I accept that this is also how it is because that is the experience however flawed.
We can argue if we move away or toward something, but we are always in transition. We are only ever at 'now' so we can only ever seem to move away from that point even if that is but a relative creation. What is left to know as moment slips seamlessly to moment ? Only that which is manifestly human, otherwise we have to deny ourselves totally and that seems pretty pointless.
All that's needed is frictionless apparent decision making. How can we make the decision with pure integrity ? The answer is that we cannot know if its pure integrity so its far easier to simply accept everything for what it is or seems to be. Then there is no friction, regardless if its the divine or unease that drives the action. It is that acceptance that has removed the sense of fear from me, this does not mean I cannot feel fear, just that I no longer reject or attach to it. It simply is and then there is no friction.
Say that we get tooth ache. Then if it were true that we were at ease then we would do nothing and simply live with the tooth ache. We are not moving towards a dentist until we decide that we are at unease with our present position. Does anyone really believe that we go to the dentist before the feeling of unease ?
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Edited by - karl on Oct 14 2012 06:27:25 AM |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2012 : 07:47:14 AM
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| Well I do, but not for a toothache. I would say unease is one of many causes of action. |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2012 : 10:45:44 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
Well I do, but not for a toothache. I would say unease is one of many causes of action.
Try and define any others. It is always unease with the present position. I'm struggling to come up with another word that is as succinct as unease, anything else adds construction errors to the concept.
In your previous example you mentioned a ball on a tee. If you just left it there then the game could not continue, but what If the game doesn't continue ? What is lost or gained ? So the unease isn't about the ball and the tee, instead it is about the position of stasis. What happens next after you, or someone else hits the ball ? You don't know, you can only posit that the enjoyment will be an improvement on the previous position.
Even if you decide not to hit the ball then this is also action, it does not mean you have remained in stasis. Instead you have made an active choice that not hitting the ball will achieve a better result than hitting it.
We make millions of these decisions everyday, some are obvious and some hardly register. |
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Oct 14 2012 : 11:35:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by karl
Try and define any others. It is always unease with the present position.
As I mentioned in my previous post, Love can also be a "prime mover."
Love,
Carson |
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I'm never as smart as I think I am
