Preetom

exactly! It's like when we watch a movie, we are looking at nothing but the screen. When we are told to notice the screen, no extraordinary event takes place. We were always looking at the screen, yet it seems so elusive

Well said. Amen It is! No wonder it is called the direct path and not many people can stomach this

I understand. I can summarize Shankara's instruction like this. Before Self-Realization: Discrimination and Dispassion (plus some other virtues) to see through ignorance and realize the Self. After Self-Realization: Constant abidance as the Self (no other means or action involved)

The basic theme of Jnana yoga(or the direct path) is once you realize the Self, you're only 'job' is to constantly abide there. Everything that needs to happen, all modifications and further insight will happen by itself. Through this self abidance, all delusion and constriction evaporates, leaving Reality as it is. There are no 'levels' in that self-realization but the body, mind, world do take time to readjust through layers and levels. But the one thing to be clear is, there is no ego that is making those body-mind-world shifting. So it seems from the outside that you are 'developing' but to you yourself, you remain as nothing but the Self. This also reminds me something I read by Eckhark Tolle. He talked about how the ego-mind clings to ideas like 'growth' or development and can't give them up. He gives examples of economists who can't help but calling periods of regression as 'negative growth'. He basically tries to show how cancerous ego can be haha So basically, I generally conclude that there IS growth and development from the on-lookers and they can make development models etc. But the self-realized one who abides in the Self, in his own experience, he doesn't recognize or experience any such thing. Hope that makes sense.

Whatever that line of development is, see that if it is in 'time', then that means it is ego and delusion all over again. To call things after Enlightenment as 'development' can be misleading. The basic premise is Reality is already perfect as it is. It is our delusion, clinging and unclear seeing that makes up all this friction and suffering. When one relinquishes all that, Reality flows like always. It is not like an 'entity' somewhere making plans and vision and working towards making Reality perfect; toiling towards making Reality as infinite love, bliss, wisdom etc..this just sounds absurd. Also if you wanna bring in the ox herding analogy, see that after the 5th stage (Taming the bull aka real unbroken abidance aka Enlightenment), there is no place for effort, doing, plans etc as we normally understand these terms. There is no ox herder working his butt off and reaching to 10th stage after stage 5. His days are long gone after stage 5 lol

@SoonHei It's so easy to fantasize about 'Infinity'. Have a look at it this way. With the word 'Infinity', the mind immediately conjures up the idea of something extended forever infinitely. But thats not really infinite. If you say infinite love, then that automatically conjures up it's counter part infinite hatred. True 'Infinity' means not having ANY objective quality whatsoever aka Absolute NO-THINGNESS. It is this no-thingness that enables the Self to appear as any shape or form and YET not become exclusively that form once and for all. If you think about an infinite red carpet, that is inherently limiting because that carpet can't be blue anymore. The truly 'infinite' carpet would be colorless and without objective qualities aka no-thing aka the Self! Do you see how that truly infinite 'no-thing' can't have any part or facet..?

You can read 'Vivekchudamani' by Shankara that expands on these topics. I'm reading it now. You can find free PDFs in Google. See past some cultural baggage(like male body is superior than females etc) and take away what helps. Regarding the endpoint, the most hallmark sign of the Enlightened one is his/her unbroken identification with Brahman(which is Reality itself) and NEVER any exclusive identification with limited body-mind or other objects. In the final analysis, the self-realized sees this very universe as pure Consciousness and thus doesn't acknowledge any 2nd element in Reality. Even the concepts of Brahman and non-brahman are given up, which were helpful in the path. About post Enlightenment characteristics, there aren't any action or particular doing that verify it. It's more like complete absence of clinging, delusion, neurotic passion, doubt, fear, suffering, hatred etc... Self-realization makes one progressively lose these things. It's not really about making a goal and work to develop something, that's what egos do best. You can see why the most advanced teachings are expressed in negation and deconstruction. If you tell me to develop something like 'compassion', I'll immediately make an idea out of it and chase that idea like a silly dog for decades. You see what I mean?

@seeking_brilliance No point in beating yourself up. During mind attacks, you can deliberately try neti neti which I found helpful. Consciously watch your thoughts and label them as 'known', while 'you' remain aware of both that thought and labeling. No need to suppress the thoughts, just see the relationship of yourself with thoughts, which is You Awareness is untouched and unaffected by thoughts. That is dis-identicafcation developing... @SoonHei Exactly! Actually that 'knowing' part of any experience IS the infinite Self This right here is the very heart of ignorance. Why do you automatically superimpose body-mind's limitations on Awareness? It's a thought that is conceptualizing changing mental states as the changing of Awareness.

Glad you found it helpful.

Can't you just send him some blessings to make the fear go away?

Adi Shankara pointed to some methods to quantify someone's spiritual maturity. The most vital one is the ability to discriminate between the real and unreal; between the changing and the changeless; between the contents and that which knows all contents...these are basically the same discrimination that one develops during witnessing/self-inquiry. Many people just can't stop sucking on the contents of their thoughts and beliefs. They just haven't refined the intellect to make this necessary discrimination. Maybe they suffer few more decades and finally relaxes a bit on their ideas and beliefs; finally they open up some space between themselves and the contents of their lives and that is the beginning of spirituality. That is the role of suffering in spirituality. It makes people wanna voluntarily give up their miserable life and opinions and ideas. Other important aspects are an intense desire for liberation or Truth. Also some qualities like detachment, openmindedness, calmness of mind, disciplined life etc that pretty much all traditions set as the general rules. The more these qualities someone develops, the more ripe he/she is for Enlightenment as fast as possible.

This trend mostly prevailed in the hardcore monastic traditions of the past. A student monk would train 20 years or more under the supervision of a guru; preparing and purifying his body-mind-intellect; refining things like detachment, openmindedness, courage, calmness etc without fantasizing and conceptualizing about some 'Ultimate Truth or Reality' hiding somewhere. Then one day the guru would a give a powerful pointer like ''You are THAT'' or just go on with a private discourse to shift the attention of the student and very quickly his attention would lock on this realization. This is how Advaita Vedanta was developed and transmitted over the ages traditionally. If you read texts like Ashtavakra Gita or Bhagavad Gita, you can see how the guru 'transmits' this wisdom over to a prepared student in a very short time. That's why it is called Jnana Yoga or the yoga of wisdom. On lookers might say, the student got enlightened in 1 hour but they don't see the 20 years of brutal monastic training he underwent to stomach this self-realization.

@winterknight 1) Did you particularly do any form of concentration practice or meditation along in your journey of 20 years? 2) Any other spiritual practices that particularly helped you other than science of desire and self-inquiry? 3) Did you start self-inquiry as a formal sitting meditation at first or did you go for all the time from beginning?

@Edward95

@winterknight I have questions regarding science of desire. 1) Is there some 'objective' destiny waiting for me to work things out and find out? Or is it ultimately what I just land on in a more aligned way? if that's the case, so is it the looking and honestly exploring part that is actually the important thing and not what I finally land on? 2) Is it possible to be 100% happy and frictionless by coming into complete alignment between my desires and behaviors or rather is it possible to actually align these two facets COMPLETELY? Or is it that only Enlightenment can provide a completely frictionless life?

It's the content of thoughts that make them sticky. Notice how thought superimposes it's own limitations on Reality/Awareness. Let's take a thought like, ''Awareness comes and goes''. Like every thought, it has 2 sides. One side is the raw, neutral phenomenal part which in this case is a mental sound that you hear. This phenomenal aspect is not harmful just like chirping of birds or any other sound. The second aspect is the meaning or the content you make out of this sentence and thus believe. This second aspect has the capability to bind you. Notice that the thought ''Awareness comes and goes'' itself comes, lasts for a second or two, then vanishes; while You Awareness remain as you are to witness this coming and going. Notice how this ephemeral thought superimposes it's own limitation of being transient on Awareness! Awareness knows no resistance whatsoever and allows EVERYTHING. That's why Awareness never argues or speaks back. In this way, all of our limiting notions about us and reality are thought's superimposition on what is. If you train yourself to see this very clearly and never get fooled by it again, then you're moving in the right direction. This is where dis-identifying and watching thoughts non-judgmentally comes in. You are basically de-fanging the binding nature of thoughts, making them meaningless chirping of birds and ultimately more and more quiet. What we see is our mind's refracted version of Reality, and thus it appears like an illusion, time, space, matter to us. With Enlightenment, you see the essence or the Reality of this reality. Just like when you start lucid dreaming, the dream continues but you now know the Reality of that dream. Complete surrender is what we get at the end of the road. Meantime what we can do is self-inquiry or voluntary surrender. They merge and complement each other until the Release spontaneously happens as Ramana Maharshi called it.

Same shit spinning in different names and forms through millennia, yet hardly anyone gets it..

You won'r realize that truth as long as you are fooled by the contents of thought. That's why it is emphasized to dis-identify from thoughts and see through their inherent hollow nature. Only a thought says that a thought is believable, true and real. Out of this illusory and adamant and sneaky process, thought creates a false sense of separate self that suffers and needs to attain enlightenment along with an outside world made out of matter. See a dream as dream(modulation of awareness) and you are free from it. Nothing wrong with dreams but wouldn't it be a precarious situation if we were believing that every single of our dreams were real and true and tried to conform our lives to the dream scenarios?

Self Abidance

You can also try another alternative line of inquiry where you question about the limitations you possess on Awareness. Here are few examples: 1) Unlocatedness: Have you been successful at locating yourself(awareness)? No! You can locate any thought or sensation but you yourself don't have any particular location. So pose a question like ''why do I believe that awareness can be located like an object?'' to yourself. 2) Undisturbed: Have you ever found Awareness being disturbed? No! A thought, the body get disturbed; but 'you' Awareness remain present knowing that disturbance. So why you believe that Awareness is vulnerable to disturbance? 3) Immovable: Have you seen Awareness moving from place to place? No! Same line of questioning.. 4) Ever-Present: Have you actually found Awareness making an entrance and then leaving after some time in your own experience? Ever? why do you believe that You Awareness is intermittent that comes and goes? There is not one justification to believe in these limitations. 5) Devoid of lack and thus fulfilled completely in itself: Have you ever found Awareness lacking anything? It is thought and body that craves and lacks stuff. But don't You Awareness know such conditions of body-mind? Why do you believe Awareness might lack something? 6) Love and being the ground of reality: Is there any experience however good or bad, that is not 'known'? No! All experience are intimately pervaded with Awareness. In fact, all there is to an experience IS the knowing of it. So the bottomline is, you have to dismantle any such limiting belief that the mind superimposes on Awareness. See that you are NOT brainwashing yourself or Trying to make Awareness this perfect thing. Awareness is already what it is, we just gotta breakdown the limitations we put on Awareness by oversight.

These are actually big signs of progress. That more you can non-judgmentally 'watch' these body-mind reactions without identifying with them, the more your wisdom-discernment grows and your body-mind keeps getting purified from all the tensions and contractions resulted from the belief in a separate self for decades. These are samskaras or latent mental tendencies (desires and fears) that must come up into your Awareness to be purified. In this sense, self-inquiry is also a super cleansing technique for the sub-conscious mind. You'll notice that the more you dis-identify and lower your defenses and completely open up and surrender to your present experience, all these uncomfortable feelings that were trapped for ages due to egoic defense mechanism come up to get released. If you can keep your cool and stay as that 'I AM' while body-mind rearranges itself, this is tremendous spiritual progress and leads you more and more towards a quiet mind and a relaxed body which do not house an ego anymore. Such abidance will inevitably result in irreversible self-realization. That's why this is a very crucial and culminating phase where you need to relinquish all your attachments to your thoughts, doubts, emotions and simply rest as the knowledge 'I AM' which is untouched, unaffected, immovable, present, without any objective quality... Make sure not to make a sad story out of this process. Just rest as you are in that formless 'I AM' and let all thoughts, doubts and contradicting emotions work and exhaust themselves out naturally.

@FoxFoxFox I first heard it from Rupert Spira. See if it resonates with you or not. Atma-Vichara or Self-inquiry really has 2 faces which complement one another. 1) the 1st part is actually the philosophical and experiential inquiry and seeing what you are not (neti neti). In this step, you see that everything you are aware of cannot be you. Thus you come to the conclusion that you wrote where you don't identify with anything but yet still 'I AM' is undoubtedly present. This is what Rupert calls establishing the Presence of dis-identified, formless Awareness. We all have glimpses of it through self-inquiry. In the modern advaita scene, this is what is regarded as Enlightenment but actual Advaita Vedanta doesn't acknowledge that. There is another step to go. 2) the 2nd step is where your understanding permeates completely with the 'Nature' of this Awareness. At this step Atma-vichara becomes self-abidance, not repeated questioning and dis-identifying as you've already done that. Now you can just go to that dis-identified Awareness in less than a second. This step involves just this: As this abidance deepens continuously, the inherent nature of Awareness like unlocatedness, undisturbed, having no lack, fulfilled in itself, utterly one with experience aka love etc. are recognized and these qualities permeate the entirety of your experience, leaving no possibility of doubts whatsoever. This right here, the exploration and abidance in the nature of Awareness is regarded as Enlightenment according to the scriptures. You are not intellectually brainwashing yourself or trying to find the promised bliss. It all results spontaneously from being with this dis-identified 'I AM' knowledge. So as you can see, anyone can question openmindedly and have a glimpse of the 1st step. But that's not Enlightenment yet. It's the abidance and marinating on this knowing that results in Enlightenment. And that usually takes time (1-3 years depending on how serious and how constantly you're doing it without re-identifying with new objects)

@winterknight Are you basically saying that the search must exhaust itself completely?

I was referring to 'God's will' as a fancy way of expressing randomness without explanation. It's not like I believe in a personal God or something rigorously..