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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 15 2012 : 4:30:41 PM
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Like to check in every so often to update on the evolution of practice and results. The practices have resulted in an infinitely evolving expression of bliss-consciousness (to use Yogani’s term) manifested via an individual body mind. I like this story because it's a demonstration that diligent spiritual practice produces commensurate results, and AYP did what is was supposed to.
Practices: Twice daily 5 min SBP, 12 min DM. “Just sitting” in the Zen style. Non-dual Self-inquiry-around 5 months of self-inquiry where it became so fascinating that I shut-off all social activity and would just spend all day exploring self-inquiry on the weekends, rush home from work early to do it etc, pretty fanatical. The primary force-Bhakti, very, very intense Bhakti. For a long time when I was younger I considered two options: Terminate my body-mind (suicide) and return to my home in formless Spirit, or relentlessly pursue enlightenment. Nothing could be more important to me than this search has been. As the awakening deepens however, it expands to include a loving, gracious and grateful embrace of material existence, with all its blessed sorrows and difficulties. Also went to Gnan Vidhi, you can look it up. I feel that it erased some karma.
Non-dual:
There's been on/off non-dual awareness for a month or two now. 50% of the time non-dual I guess.
At some point in July/August there was a fairly dramatic “Realization experience” in which I experienced that I absolutely was not the Body/Mind known as Josh Anderson. I experienced that in fact, that body mind is just a constant, impermanent flux of sensations and visual images, arising within timeless, formless awareness. The mind conceived a permanent self out of this constant impermanent flux, but in fact, that conception was erroneous. It was blissful, but the clarity soon became occluded. At this point, self-inquiry intensified to the point of me rarely wanting to leave home except to purchase food and bottled water. I also went on retreat with Rupert Spira which caused a kundalini awakening type experience and non-dual/unity experience. Since then, the clarity of this knowing has continually increased, it’s like a concentric series of waves, much like waves caused by a pebble dropped in a pond, flowing through the body-mind and into its habitual ways of perceiving and thinking and feeling and acting.
So abiding effects are as follows:
Non-dual perceiving: Historically, there has been the sense that an I/ME (the subject, the body-mind) is perceiving a world (the object, other people, things, places). There exists the sense that there is a “Me” who is the perceiver, and a “Not-Me” which is the perceived. Via the increasing clarity of realization, the process of perceiving has gradually been alleviated of this subject/object division. As the sense of there being a Me / Body-mind subject of experience dissolves, everything experienced (from sense perceptions to thoughts to emotions) is just perceived as a constantly changing, impermanent flux of experiencing playing out on the only permanent aspect of experience, the unchanging screen of Awareness. So life itself is just a flow of sensing, seeing and hearing occurring without a separate perceiver or a personal context/self. Caveat – this non-dual perceiving is felt and seen as clearly the case 50 to 60% of the waking hours. The window is not totally clear so to speak, so I continue with practices.
Dissolution of fear and anxiety in all shades and forms: Fear and anxiety arises from the sense of being a personal self, because “bad” things can happen to a personal self. It can be judged negatively, it can lose stuff including its life, it can fail, it can suffer etc. When one no longer feels oneself to be this object and psychology - a physical body and mind, but instead a timeless, formless, awareness within which all forms, including this psychology and object body arise and disappear, that fear gradually becomes unhooked.
Dissolution of judgment/anger: I used to cultivate being non-judgmental as a perceived virtue, which was good. However when in the state where perception is alleviated from the dualistic mis-perception of self/other, it’s actually impossible to judge other people, because there’s no sense of being separate from your perception of them. Therefore life is just lovingly free of even the slightest judgments about other people.
Dissolution of sense of separation: Life being lovingly free of the sense of self/other. This isn't the same as Unity (I'd describe Unity as a heightened state of oneness), it's just an absence of feeling separation.
Dissolution of time and space: This one has been interesting, only started to be clear this weekend. So far the dissolution of time and space is clear maybe 3% of the time. There’s normally the sense that I, a physical object (a body), am moving through a physical space, through a linear progression of time. Instead of this, one feels that I, timeless, formless, non-local yet omnipresent awareness am experiencing an ever-changing impermanent flux of experiencing flowing through me. I am intimately one with this experiencing, that seems to be a world of time, space and form, yet I myself am timeless, formless, non-local.
I’ve felt some love and gratitude, but I think mainly this awakening has affected the chakras around the head. I’m not talking about an intellectual understanding, this has been very, startlingly experiential, an awesome, joyful experience of grace. But I don’t think it’s completely penetrated the entire body mind. There is some outpouring of love to all-beings, and there’s a great letting go of grasping and fear. But intuitively I feel this awakening has only touched the tip of the iceberg, and so am more diligent than ever in commitment to practices, retreats, self-inquiry and spiritual study. For example, the old conditioning still arises and I still act from the fear-based, judgmental separate self sometimes/often.
Conclusion: Thank you and much love to Yogani and everyone, and my non-dual teachers, Rupert Spira, Greg Goode etc. who have helped me a lot. I feel blessed to have had close personal interaction with Rupert, and by e-mail with Greg, before either of them turns into the next Adyashanti and has thousands of followers. People talk about mystery, grace and luck with awakening, maybe it’s so, but I'm not so sure, if you're prepared to die for it, nothing is going to stop you. It can be made to seem by neo-advaitans like there’s no action that can be taken to initiate realization, and in fact, there isn't any such thing as realization, because there's nobody to realize anything. As far as I’m concerned, this is complete nonsense. I took a prescribed, systematic route, and did exactly what I was told, in a formulaic manner. Yogani told me to do spinal breathing and deep meditation twice a day, so I did so unfailingly. I engaged in obsessive self-inquiry at the point where inner silence was deep enough for it to have an effect in my direct experience, rather than be just an intellectual exercise. And it worked. There’s no mystery there and I'm certainly not some special spiritual person who was gifted, just a confused and unhappy soul who used to suffer a lot, and who now is hardly suffering at all. There was just a perfect sequence of cause (diligent spiritual practice & inquiry) and effect (results).
I actually wrote a 6-page PDF to clarify this method of investigation and if you feel like it, it's share on my 4shared account at http://www.4shared.com/folder/OOlrP..._online.html |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 19 2012 2:30:06 PM |
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Yonatan
Israel
849 Posts |
Posted - Oct 15 2012 : 7:01:24 PM
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Nice 
Thank you for sharing Josh
Very interesting progression, and it gives a lot of inspiration, since some other people, and now you, report a deep awakening using AYP, it really shows the cause-->effect of this path, and that AYP works!! (to be honest there are times where I fall into the thinking that there must be luck or lots of very good karma, to be awakened, so I have to emphasize this point)
Thank you very much. |
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nearoanoke
USA
525 Posts |
Posted - Oct 15 2012 : 8:00:31 PM
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Thanks for sharing this Josh. This is very useful and interesting. As Adyashanti says, the awakening occurs at head, heart and finally at the gut level. May be the feeling of love and compassion happens when the heart awakens. The awakening at the gut level is when all the "clenching" and holding on will dissipate.
Yonatan,
quote:
to be honest there are times where I fall into the thinking that there must be luck or lots of very good karma, to be awakened, so I have to emphasize this point
The path is definitely quicker for some and karma does have a role to play in this. There are others (probably most of us) for who the journey takes longer. Stories like these are good to read and are further proof that AYP works but our journey takes however long it takes.
- Near
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Yonatan
Israel
849 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2012 : 12:29:30 AM
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| yes, thanks Near |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2012 : 4:56:13 PM
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| Josh, thanks for sharing |
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cosmic
USA
821 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2012 : 10:46:48 PM
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Very awesome report, Josh! Thanks for the inspiration and hope  |
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k123
118 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2012 : 11:40:47 AM
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Hi Josh
That is really inspiring, especially as I identify with a lot of what you say and am very over-sensitive with the practices. Oh yes and I have also been on a Rupert Spira retreat, he is wonderful!
K123 |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2012 : 2:26:15 PM
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Glad if this has been of some inspiration.
As a final note, I neglected to mention one part of practice that was of key importance here.
Firstly, I began to inquire "Is it possible that I am something I am aware of?". Typically the thought is "I, the body, experience a world." However this does not stand up to examination. The body is experienced, the body itself does not experience. So we might then say, well then, maybe I, the mind, experience the body. Neither is the case, for all thoughts are experienced/witnessed, they themselves do not experience. The case is similar for emotions. It was quite clear that I'm not a sensation, I'm not an emotion, I'm not a thought, I'm not a visual image, I'm not even a thought that claims I'm an aggregate of all these things. I am not, therefore, something that I am aware of. This inquiry, pursued over the course of several weeks, led to the realization of no-self. The first eureka.
In reality there are no persons, only threads of memories and habits. - Nisargadatta Maharaj
Secondly, I then began to inquire, if I'm not something that I'm aware of, what is aware? I pursued a similar process. Is a visual image called 'body' aware? The same applied to sensations, thoughts, emotions. People (referring to collections of thoughts, emotions, sensations and images, the aggregate of which we call 'a person') are not aware, people are objects arising to awareness. At this point, the sense of being localized in a body was eliminated, and it was seen the visual image/sensations called body, and its sense of localization, are just objects arising to awareness, along with all the other aspects of the person named 'Josh Anderson' (thoughts, emotions and so on) and in fact, I, awareness, am non-local as I am not an object, simply the subject to which all objects, including those that comprise the imaginary person, arise.
"If you observe awareness steadily, this awareness itself as Guru will reveal the truth" - Ramana Maharshi
What you need is to be aware of being aware - Nisargadatta Maharaj
Thirdly, having determined that non-local awareness was the true subject of experience, I began to familiarize myself with this subject and root my attention upon it. Awareness itself cannot, by definition be an object. As an experiment, try to look for awareness. Close your eyes and search for it. That search will simply be another impression arising to awareness, since awareness is not an object, you cannot turn your attention to (since any attempt to turn attention to it will just appear as another object arising to awareness). But you can become aware of awareness via a series of techniques. For example, get up and walk around, notice that sensations move and change, images move and change, but ask, does awareness itself move or change? There are plenty of good books to familiarize with the true subject of experience, from Peter Dziuban's Consciousness is All, to Greg Goode's Standing as Awareness, to Rupert Spira's The Art of Peace and Happiness.
They all espouse methods of discrimination whereby we may separate awareness from the objects which arise to it, thereby withdrawing our interest and identification from percepts. Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon also spoke of this method.
"You are that which is aware of the seeking"
Fourth, I began to stop seeking objects, as seeking objects reinforces the false impression of duality, and therefore suffering. Awareness is the true subject, your true nature. I realized much of my spiritual seeking was an attempt to get subtle objects, such as feelings in the body of bliss or happiness. However, Rupert Spira said to me, that happiness is a byproduct of resting as your true nature. By seeking happiness, you identify yourself as the seeker, creating a dualistic division in your experience of the seeker and that which is sought. Simply realize you are the perfect, free, undivided awareness to which this erroneous impulse to seek is arising. Finally seeking stopped, and two things happened, I was able to completely embrace the humanity of the relative self (the body/mind) in all its failure and imperfection, whilst simultaneously realizing the perfect freedom of true nature, the ground of being, awareness.
This fundamentally changes how things are experienced: when identified as human beings, we always feel incomplete and imperfect, and are therefore continually reaching for the next thing - distraction, entertainment, spiritual practice and so forth. We feel we are always moving, changing, doing, getting etc. When one ceases to identify as this collects of percepts, one realizes ones own nature is changeless, unmoving, non-local etc and all this impression of a human is simply arising to it.
This is the dissolution of time and space. Also, as identification with body/mind ceases, and identification as awareness begins, ego dissolves, and it is gradually, increasingly felt that there are no others, it's all not-two. And here's where the first leg of realization has ended, and the second leg: clearing up all interest and attachment to objects, and instead simply resting as my true nature, and thereby realizing the full depth of the undivided, non-dual state begins.
I wrote a 6-page e-book to clarify this method of self-inquiry, it's called, the end of suffering, and I shared it on my 4shared account if you feel any interest: http://www.4shared.com/folder/OOlrP..._online.html |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 19 2012 5:05:57 PM |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2012 : 09:11:16 AM
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Hi Josh,
I read your post and the 4share article last night. Something new is happening as a result.
Thanks for sharing!
Be |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2012 : 11:52:11 AM
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I'm very pleased to hear this.
To explore further, the best writers on the true subject of experience are:
Colin Drake - Beyond the 'Separate Self' - The End of Anxiety and Mental Suffering
Greg Goode - Standing As Awareness, and The Direct Path : A User Guide
Rupert Spira - I like Rupert's books, but he is at his best when you can see him or hear him, so his website or youtube are best for this. Here is my favorite guided meditation with Rupert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAEwC4VjvyE
Bentinho has a great video which makes it so simple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KpyQc5kvM
The Seven Steps to Awakening, collected quotes from Ramana, Nisargadatta etc on this subject is quite good, but much of it is unneccessary IMO.
Colin Drake's book is the most easy and simple, and experiential, so I like it the most. Direct Path, A User Guide is good for deeper exploration of learning to discriminate what you are from what you're not.
Peter Dziuban is good, but a little intellectual and I get completely lost by the 5th chapter.
Something is happening for you, and it will become increasingly clear. You simply need to explore with the clear to motivate to see what is true. The beautiful aspect of this insight is its always true, Now. And one word of caution - many states of peace and bliss may arise during this process, awakening experiences and so forth. Always remember nothing that you can experience is it, the Self is simply the awareness which is aware of the experiences. The natural happiness, joy and peace are a consequence of identifying as awareness itself, but all experiences pass and fluctuate, therefore favor attention and identification on that which is aware of experiences, instead of the experiences themselves. Happiness and peace are simply the natural consequence of ceasing to identify with objects and percepts, and instead, identifying only as the unchanging background of awareness to which objects and percepts arise and dissipate. |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 20 2012 11:58:10 AM |
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bewell
1275 Posts |
Posted - Oct 24 2012 : 3:02:13 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_anderson
Rupert Spira - I like Rupert's books, but he is at his best when you can see him or hear him, so his website or youtube are best for this. Here is my favorite guided meditation with Rupert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAEwC4VjvyE
Hi Josh,
I listened to the Spira interview and did the meditative exercise at the end. Sweet.
Thanks,
Greg |
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Will Power
Spain
415 Posts |
Posted - Oct 24 2012 : 5:27:03 PM
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very inspiring,
Thank you Josh |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 24 2012 : 6:37:34 PM
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glad you guys are enjoying this stuff. yes greg, I love that guided meditation! and so pleased to hear you find it inspiring will power.
I'm finding more and more I'm just not identified with the thoughts, feelings, sense perceptions and so forth that arise. The effect seems to be growing more and more. It's like a complete end of stress and fear. I find myself as the silent, formless, background of awareness over which all this stuff is flowing.
It's great! If anyone would like a copy of Sri Krishna Atmananda Menon's Atma Darshan and Atma Nirvriti in PDF, please send me a PM with your e-mail address. He was one of the greats, a contemporary of Ramana or Nisargadatta, however after his death his family wouldn't allow his work to be published or distributed because they believed nobody could understand it without the presence of him as a guru.
It's simply not true, and the teachers who have sprung from his lineage: Jean Klein -> Francis Lucille -> Rupert Spira/Greg Goode have shined a great light onto his forgotten work.
Atmananda's taught what he called 'the direct path' - to become conscious of awareness, and then make a consistent effort to only identify as that, until you are unceasingly rooted in your true nature as formless awareness, during sleep and all experiences that may take place during the waking hours.
Some nice quotes from Atma Nirvriti:
20. The Natural State
Variety is in the objects (of consciousness). The perceiving consciousness is one and the same throughout. But because consciousness is commonly seen connected with the objects, change is attributed to that also by delusion.
Objects can never cause any change in consciousness. If consciousness changed, how could it perceive the variety of objects?
Objects undergo that change called destruction. Consciousness alone is changeless. Body, sense-#8208;organs, mind, will and intellect come under the category of objects.
On account of the inability to see them simply as objects, one supposes them to be changeless through delusion.
Being always the knower, one can never come under the category of the known. Even the word knower is wrong, because the changeless knower is knowledge (consciousness) itself; not an embodied being.
Nothing hides consciousness. It is present in all mental activities such as thought, grief, pleasure, pain, etc. It is in it (consciousness) that all men are carrying on their life's activities.
A man believes he is bound, becomes miserable, seeks liberation and for that purpose approaches a Guru and listens to His teachings. But all this time he was unknowingly standing in pure consciousness alone which is itself the truth he was seeking.
When once he becomes fully aware of this stand he is freed and thenceforward, all thoughts, feelings and objects of perception will be pointing to himself. |
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kami
USA
920 Posts |
Posted - Oct 25 2012 : 12:59:31 PM
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Beautiful posts Josh! Thanks for sharing. For one reason or other, I was unable to download the pdf of your e-book 
I stumbled upon Greg Goode's work a couple months ago, and really enjoyed his books, particularly the Direct Path. And based on that, I recently ordered Atmananda's book and yet to start reading it. Along with it, I also got the Ashtavakara Gita/Samhita, which is absolutely fantastic! Was sharing a bit of that book at my Vedanta study group, and was told that the guru that established this Vedanta mission insisted that there were two pieces of work he did not recommend until he was sure the student was ready - the Ashtavakara Gita and the Mandukya Upanishad..
On one hand, I do agree that not everyone maybe "ripe" enough to appreciate these works (hence Atmananda's family's hesitation about publishing his works).. On the other hand, I do think they could lead to profound openings with enough inner silence. For sure, I would not have appreciated Spira, Lucille, Adya, McKenna, Goode, etc until a few months ago.
Have you read any of Douglas Harding's works?
Love,
kami |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 25 2012 : 3:46:30 PM
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thanks Kami. I shot you an e-mail with the ebook. I love the Ashtavakra Gita. It's basically all you need to know! I read a translation by Bart Marshall again and again.
I haven't read the Mandukya Upanishad so I'll have to check that out. Yes you're right about the need for inner silence, even more important is having user-friendly advaita teachings.
The way the teachings of Ramana and Nisargadatta are presented is not particularly user friendly, because of the dialogue format, with people speaking about their personal issues. It's grace that the American "How To" / "D.I.Y.", and easy, accessible mentality has spread into the presentation of advaitic truths, via teachers like Greg.
I have read Douglas Harding, didn't vibe with it at the time, but I'll revisit, it's on my shelf.
love
josh |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 25 2012 5:58:38 PM |
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DAPA
Sweden
30 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2012 : 10:44:35 PM
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I read your PDF and found it to be very good and precise. But there is something that I would like explained or elaborated on.
This is how I understand it intellectually:
Everything that arises, arises and subsides in awareness, awareness does not arise nor subside, it is the only thing that is constant and it is the true self.
I believe I can be able to be aware of awareness,,, but I can't, it would just be another object within awareness ? Awareness isn't an object so it can not be experienced, it is what is experiencing ? As long as I am looking for some sort of experience (a deep seated habit) I will overlook this most obvious thing.
How then is it possible that you and others experience yourselves to be pure awareness ?
"What you need is to be aware of being aware" - Nisargadatta Maharaj
seems contradictory to me. Can attention rest upon awareness and make that which is experiencing experienced ?
Thanks |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Dec 06 2012 : 8:27:22 PM
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Hi DAPA,
Sorry for my late reply, I only just saw your comments. Thanks, I'm pleased you enjoyed the writing.
quote:
Everything that arises, arises and subsides in awareness, awareness does not arise nor subside, it is the only thing that is constant and it is the true self.
I believe I can be able to be aware of awareness,,, but I can't, it would just be another object within awareness ? Awareness isn't an object so it can not be experienced, it is what is experiencing ? As long as I am looking for some sort of experience (a deep seated habit) I will overlook this most obvious thing.
Exactly, you are absolutely clear here.
quote:
How then is it possible that you and others experience yourselves to be pure awareness ?
The answer here is, this is where practices that cultivate inner silence and practices that utilize inner silence for the purpose of self-inquiry come in.
Here are descriptions of three states:
1. Duality, Identification: I, a physical body, experience an external world. There is me (inside), and world (outside).
Characteristic: There's identification with the body/mind, which is taken to be one's self.
2. The Witness: I, awareness, or pure consciousness, Always Present, Always Now, Timeless, stand unaffected, as sense perceptions, thoughts (including memories) and emotions seemingly create an experience of a person, moving through time and space.
Characteristic: The sense of a 'me' has dissolved. Identification is instead with the pure consciousness itself. Reality is seen as an arising within consciousness.
3. Non-dual: It's hard to speak too much of this, particularly as I only really glimpse the non-dual. But the subtle duality of witnessed/witness goes.
quote:
How then is it possible that you and others experience yourselves to be pure awareness ?
So the clear answer is thus.
First inner silence is cultivated.
It is cultivated through meditation. Have you had the experience where in the midst of a thought stream, perhaps one that's not entirely pleasant, you suddenly 'wake up' out of being lost in it, realizing you are simply witnessing that thought stream? Identification with it suddenly ceases. Maybe a pleasant sense of freedom arises. You come back into the Now. I expect you almost certainly have. This is in fact, a mini-awakening, a mini-dropping away of the identification with form, and a direct product of inner silence.
Inner silence is like an acidic rain, washing away the bonds of identification with form, and the related suffering. But Self-Inquiry can be like a pick axe, where a few hard strikes lead to a collapse of the entire structure (if inner silence has weakened the structure enough to precipitate a collapse).
So secondly, meditative self-inquiry may be deployed. This is where an investigation, undergone with genuine curiosity (instead of result-seeking), such as What Am I? May be useful. Am I a thought? Am I thought that says I'm the thinker of thoughts? Am I sensation? Am I an emotion? Am I the concept of a person held in the mind? Am I this sense of being a "me"? Am I this emotionally charged belief which insists I am this or that object?
There tends to occur a point, where suddenly one realizes, ah-ha! Even this sense of a 'me' is simply another object, arising to the Self, Awareness. Then one is no longer caught up in identification with this sense of 'me', realizing it to be simply another object. Then the sense of me can tend to go away, it's been seen as illusory. A lot of good stuff can happen here, particularly a dramatic decrease of fear and suffering. I'm no longer an object, which lives and inevitably dies, I no longer have to take life personally.
There is also a third technique: Becoming aware of being aware.
quote:
"What you need is to be aware of being aware" - Nisargadatta Maharaj
seems contradictory to me. Can attention rest upon awareness and make that which is experiencing experienced ?
"Can attention rest upon awareness?" It's a good question. Can it? Try to direct your attention to awareness.
The whole process: Conceiving of this thing called awareness, trying to direct attention towards it - this is just another experience which arises to awareness, is it not?
So technically, no. Attention can only go towards objects. The experience of attention going towards objects, is itself an object of experience, of which the experiencer is awareness.
But there's something beautiful about this realization, because in realizing the un-graspability of awareness, we are causing ourselves to remember and become aware of its presence. We are observing it, in a manner of speaking, or it is observing our attempt to observe it, and our knowing of this is increasing our awareness of awareness's presence. Here's another way to recognize the present of awareness.
Slowly, meditatively, walk up and down with your eyes closed. Notice how physical/body sensations seem to move and change. Notice how sounds seem to move and change. Ask yourself: Does awareness, to which these sensations/sounds/thoughts arise move or change?
In this way, we don't exactly come to rest attention on awareness as an object (for this isn't exactly possible), but instead we continually come into the remembrance of the presence of a witnessing subject, noticing that even that remembrance is an object witnessed by the witnessing subject. Awareness becoming aware that it's aware.
As we increasingly come into the remembrance of the presence of a witnessing subject, identification retracts and dissolves, and the suffering and heaviness that came with it.
In this way we become aware of being aware, and the nature of experience changes from 1. Regular Duality to 2. Self-realization/freedom from identification with form. Now this is not to be done forcefully or mechanically. It's a very subtle meditative process, requiring sensitivity. The kind of sensitivity that only comes from inner silence.
What happens is we fall in love with awareness. We love to know to it's always there, effortlessly witnessing experience. We love to simply rest in that witnessing. We become less inclined to engage in identifying with the mind and all its worries and stories, they don't really concern us anymore. It becomes an absolute joy to remember the presence of a witnessing subject, no longer seemingly having an attention which is always drawn outwards towards objects, promoting a sense of separation.
This remembrance of the presence of a witnessing subject becomes stronger and stronger, until it becomes almost constant. It becomes very hard to get identified with thoughts, like the types of thought that make us feel worry and stress. Sometimes the sense of me, as a physical object, dissolves altogether. And so on, it just gets deeper. Remembering the presence of the impersonal, witnessing subject, in a ripe practitioner, tends to provoke some deep states of samadhi. Yet at the same time, our attention isn't caught up in attachment to these states, because they are objects of experience, and we are too caught up in a flow of love and remembrance of the witnessing subject, to be too concerned about or interested in temporary experiences.
The whole process of self-inquiry and recognizing the presence of awareness should be like a love affair.
If life draws you towards this love affair, I suggest some teachers like Bentinho, Rupert Spira and Greg Goode. Anything which brings you back to this remembrance of a witnessing subject.
This bentinho video is a good place to start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KpyQc5kvM
The most beautiful thing about this: Awareness is the concept which ends concepts. It's almost a sort of self-destruct program for the mind. The guides to meditation ranging from the "Be still and know that I AM God" to "get in touch with your inner self", "be present", "cultivate stillness" and such expressions are rather ineffable.
They are useful when you start out. Something in your intuition says "there's something in this!". The problem is, the mind conceives of some object - a state of presence, a feeling of inner stillness, ecstatic bliss (etc) and says "Ah! This is what I need!" And reaches out towards it. Or it can say, I haven't got this! I'm not present/I don't have inner stillness etc. Now all objects/experiences, like feeling stillness, joy or bliss, are temporary.
Desiring subtle objects such as greater inner stillness or ecstatic bliss can be quite good. If it leads to regular practice, it's probably quite helpful! That's why Yogani's encouragement to practice because it naturally improves life is a true and good encouragement. Practice does free you! It works!
But it can be an imbalance: as we keep desiring these objects, we become a spiritual seeker or spiritual control freak. Always trying to cultivate and maintain states, which by their very nature, are impermanent.
Anything which can be experienced is impermanent. So instead, desire inverts, and failing to be satisfied with temporary spiritual experiences, we start loving and constantly remembering the only permanent aspect of experience: the witnessing subject, which itself is not an experience or an object. Rather it is the knower of experiences and objects.
"That which the mind cannot know, but by which the mind knows, know that alone to be Brahman. Brahman is not that being which is worshipped of men.
That which the eye cannot see, but by which the eye sees, know that alone to be Brahman. Brahman is not that being which is worshipped of men.
That which the ear cannot hear, but by which ear hears, know that alone to be Brahman. Brahman is not the being which is worshipped of men. "
CONSCIOUSNESS!
And then the mind ceases conceiving of spiritual objects it needs to be satisfied, and instead wakes up to the remembrance of what is already, always here, the witness of the search.
Love,
Josh |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Dec 07 2012 07:35:09 AM |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Dec 07 2012 : 03:36:10 AM
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You forgot to say how much pure fun it is to engage in everyday life without the need for judgement or fear. Kind of like deciding what film to watch and immersing in the experience without being attached to it.
There is still a lot more, more tests, much harder, but once the basics are known they tend to melt away faster. It just keeps refining. Chop wood, carry water
When the universe reaches out and gives a hard slap you can still smart and wobble, but being made of more flexible stuff you can accept the blow and bend, until a time when you are already bending before the blow, because of unity. You are the blow and the recipient of he blow. Bit like fight club
Nice write up Josh, I resonate with all of it. 
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DAPA
Sweden
30 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2012 : 08:05:13 AM
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| Thank you so much for this very elaborate and thorough response. It is very encouraging for me that others such as yourself has reached certain milestones I very much enjoy reading about it, so thank you. Lately I find myself interrupting my own thoughts by thinking, I am only witnessing these thoughts, I then contemplate this for a while each time. Often I do my best to allow the current experience to be as it is thinking that the real me as I have been told already has allowed it and can not do otherwise. |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2012 : 12:59:03 PM
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I'm very grateful to be of service. The cultivation of witness consciousness via regular deep meditation will slowly dissolve the identification with the thought streams, gradually bringing you into experiential recognition of the 'witness' aspect of experience, to which all thoughts, emotions and sense perceptions arise. The rise of the witness disentangles us from the sense of separation that causes all conflict and anger in relationships, and the sticky packages of thoughts and emotion that get us caught up in worries, griefs, troubles and other forms of suffering.
And thanks Karl [img]icon_heart.gif[/img] |
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2 years & 1 quarter of AYP
