robdl

I saw videos of Peter Ralston doing some fake martial arts fighting on youtube, now he seems like a bit of a charlatan. lol. His consciousness videos he comes across as 100% authentic, however.

Have you heard the story about Ram Dass giving his guru in India multiple excess doses of LSD to test how he'd react?

Adyashanti Alan Watts Ramana Maharshi Papaji (disciple of Maharshi) Nisargadatta Rupert Spira Mooji (disciple of Papaji)

Your self-analysis is based on an "I"-entity that has various attributes -- logical, analytical, cold, etc. Your goals are also based on an "I"-entity that desires various skills -- loving compassion, equanimity, etc. So there is a seemingly permanent, continuous entity that you're referring to as "I," right? Through meditation, this sense of "I" can drop off, and at that point, who is there to actually self-analyze or self-improve?

What if the "I" to which you're referring doesn't actually exist? I'd say, just be open to that possibility as you think about the desires you want fulfilled/skills you want to develop. Ego mind can take you down an endless road of self-improvement goals, all based on a falsely assumed sense of "I," which may only serve to propagate and reinforce ego mind.

Some famous atheists like Sam Harris and Hitchens have a laser-sharp skepticism toward religious belief, but then had a naive credulity toward U.S. government military action during the Afghanistan/Iraq wars. That's when you see that in their own lives they've substituted faith in the authority of religion for faith in the authority of the political establishment. If you want to be an atheistic skeptic, you kind of undermine your cause when secular western state power becomes your religion. They were on the right track in terms of questioning religious ideology and belief, but didn't take it far enough.

Sufism looks like a good time. Come, my friends, and celebrate My beloved is coming home today Forget about time My love is here with me My beloved is home at last

I think you guys may be using "consciousness" to mean different things. Is the original poster talking about Absolute Consciousness/Being? Or relative consciousness? When Nisargadatta talks about consciousness, and a state prior to the arising of consciousness, he's talking about relative consciousness -- consciousness of thought and sense objects. These discussions are pretty confusing and cumbersome without being on the same page about the terminology used.

Interesting to note Papaji's perspective on vipassana/insight meditation from a self-inquiry perspective: Q: What is your comment on insight meditation? Papaji: The observer has to observe something, such as the breath. What you observe is through the mind. So whatever is gained through the observation is only mental. Who is the observer? The observer is not tackled, only the observed, the object of the senses. Q: For insight meditation there are four objects of the mind: body, feelings, thought, and sense world objects. As you point out, there is no inquiry into the observer who seems to stand outside of all of this. Where does the person go from here? Papaji:To whom does the body belong? To whom do the feelings belong? To whom to the thoughts belong? To whom do the objects belong? The body has no capacity to be enlightened because it is nothing but earth, air, fire, water. To arrive at freedom we reject the body. We also reject the feelings, thoughts, and objects. What happens if we reject all this? Who is capable of rejecting all these things? One is neither body, feelings, thoughts, nor objects. All this is due to Self. You can reject everything, but can you reject 'I'?

The ego mind is a shape-shifting bastard who will, under threat of being exposed as illusory, assume the subtle identity of thought "observer" to perpetuate itself. Avoid this trap. In the process of thought observation, there's a tendency to strengthen and reinforce I-ness in the form of observer.

So, there are different levels of mystical experience from the perspective of ego, but there aren't levels to nondual enlightenment from the place of nonduality. Is that what is being argued, essentially?

I don't think of "who is letting go?"/"who am I?"/"To whom do these thoughts occur?" as questions, per se. I think of them as practical tools or instruments for the inversion of attention away from objects. A sword or shield to ward off body-mind identification, or a lantern that allows seeing body-mind identification take place, to create the conditions for a quiet mind/dis-identification and object-less experience. Someone could write 5000 pages answering that question, and without having used it as an actual instrument in practice, they've missed the point of the question. The answer to the question "who is letting go?" is the real-life action of the mind turning inward. Nothing else. And it's not so much an answer as it is a responsive action. Conventional questions just need to be correctly answered once. But in the case of self-inquiry, it's a question that may get "answered," but then has to get posed again two minutes later. So is it really a question if it needs to be repeatedly posed, or just a tool?

Interestingly, recently during self-inquiry I mistook my self-identity. I had the perception that I had two older brothers and a younger sister and I was thoroughly convinced of this for a brief moment of time. Until the realization came 15-20 seconds later that I actually have two older sisters in real life.

A thought-belief arises. Awareness reaches out to this thought-belief object, identifies/attaches to it, and produces the feeling or sense of "I believe." Asking "who believes this thought?" will assist in withdrawing attention away from the thought-object and starve thought-objects of having an identifier, which quiets the mind and allows self-identity to dissolve.

Would you describe self-inquiry as a form of meditation? You described meditation as “concentrated thought”, which isn’t really how I’d consider self-inquiry.

You seem to be parroting Krishnamurti with every post you make, without actually grocking him. Perhaps you do, but since you use his language verbatim, it's hard to tell.

I like the analogy Leo gave. You can't control the lightning, but you can go stand on high ground with a lightning rod, and create the best conditions you can for the lightning to strike. Such is meditation. Individual effort takes you only so far, and the rest is handled by the absolute. What does standing on a hill with a lightning rod signify? It signifies dis-identification/silencing of the mind.

If the subtle identity of "meditator" is bolstered, yes, you're correct --- service of ego. If the identity of "meditator" is dissolved, you are incorrect.

I'd also use the analogy of asking a million questions about how to ride a bike, expecting that an intellectual framework of theory for how to ride a bike will allow you to understand what/how it's like to ride a bike. No answer to any question would actually satisfy or help. The only way you truly can grock it is to actually get on a bike and practice and get a "feel" for it. Spending 10 years in a classroom learning about bike riding theory won't get you there.

The intellect/ego mind will happily spend the entirety of a human life mentally masturbating over nondual philosophy --- meanwhile, the "questioner" is taken for granted as continuous and real, and never investigated.

ego mind posing conceptual spiritual questions, to receive answers to only perpetuate ego mind, to distract from/postpone the dissolution of ego mind. 95% of all spiritual questions in a nutshell. Questions sustaining and reinforcing the assumed existence of the "questioner."

waking reality, dreaming in sleep, and deep dreamless sleep all occur within awareness. deep sleep isn't an absence of awareness, it's the awareness of total absence.

For the sake of argument -- if the awareness that arises is "finite and localised," wouldn't that suggest a very subtle level of mind-body identification taking place? Who/what is noticing these limiting conditions on awareness? Is awareness being finite and localised a fact deduced by mind, or is it directly experienced as such?

I hear you --- I've had the same thoughts. But in the interim, you can doggedly pursue enlightenment now, with the idle time you have when you're not at work, in social situations, etc. --- if you're not doing so already.