UnbornTao

Only bald people can.

If you try hard enough, even if unknowingly, you can create an experience consistent with whatever input your mind receives and thus perceive it as 'true' and real. And this can be fervently claimed and died for, like a religion - but it doesn't make it true, even though it can be convincing. Your entire experience is dominated by this kind of thinking right now.

How fitting. I don't mind teachers. You think I'm just believing someone. I was talking about Adi Da, in fact. If you got out of your paradigm and were as open as you like to think of yourself, you'd be able to listen to him. I'm not betting my money on that, though. The beliefs and fantasy are really what the followers find appealing here. It's all connected, really. How do people relate to your teaching? They love the fantasy of it.

Exactly, it's an essential component.

The only thing you have is your experience. Listening requires a shift in how you experience reality, such that you grasp another's experience rather than your own - and from their point of view, not yours. "Listening" to yourself leaves you alone with your viewpoint - perhaps clarifying it or something like that. It's still about you.

Sounds good.

Right. When are you going to set aside your arrogance and actually listen to Adi Da, for example? Notice how, behind what you "say", there really is a demand for belief, even if implicit, and despite what you claim to the contrary.

The notion of Infinity is extremely convenient, actually. You can literally say anything about it, and it wouldn't have any significance either way. That doesn't mean there's a real breakthrough behind it, though. There likely isn't. More often than not, it sounds like a convincing and powerful conceptual fabrication that is being forced onto some sort of experience.

I'm not sure you're as enlightened as you think, to be clear. You tend to disseminate a particular cosmology. And come on, you are quite arrogant too. States are great - and are not awakening.

@PolyPeter @Leo Gura 'Lots and lots' is still relative. Notice how the matter is being held essentially in that manner.

When you say something like "beyond absolute", what are you talking about? You're not hearing what I said. And if we combined our arrogance... Jesus. I always forget that you're likely talking about psychedelic states and not enlightenments.

It isn't "Infinity" when something is said to be beyond it. There has to be one thing that is not another for the distinction of 'beyond' to be made. This is to point out that when you talk of things in this way, it might not be enlightenment. And voilà - bullshit uncovered.

It's funny how infinity is actually held relatively. You understand that infinit-ies is referring to something relative, no? To Infinity and beyond.

Spitting facts!

The point is that you already "listen" to yourself. There's no one else you "listen" to except yourself, since your experience of reality is all that you have. I'm not saying this as a fantasy of spiritualism. The possibility being presented here is hearing something different from the way it is for you now. Otherwise, it could be regarded as metaphorical listening, introspection, or noticing - perhaps. However, this matter is within the context of communication. Communication requires two people. (I can see how your mind might react with its so-called knowledge in response to that). Since this topic is about listening, you have to get out of the way.

And what's really going on beyond the surface for you? What do you "do" with "it"? Performing a ritual isn't necessarily the same as listening. It goes beyond hearing the words coming from their mouth, and even understanding them - once again.

There does seem to be a connection between those, definitely. It's called an art, after all.

There is the possibility of two people creating the same experience as a result of interacting with each other in this way. It just isn't rational. This is what K is talking about in his quote.

It's an inquiry that you can take up.

Listening is actually aimed at having another's experience as it is for them. This means it is by definition not about you. If, after the ritual has been performed, there isn't a shift in how you experience reality, even if just a little, listening hasn't occurred. We might say that it requires a willingness to step out of one's world, to put it metaphorically. Not-knowing is the base of this act. What's funny is that the quote is precisely describing the very process taking place here: listening for answers, for validation, for information, to confirm what's already believed, to reject or accept, as a form of intellectual understanding, etc. This is different from the act being alluded to in the quote. The quote is from a talk in 1966. He'd been teaching for almost four decades by that point. I'm just saying - maybe he had something to say that we have a hard time coming to grips with. Not that listening is mysterious or inaccessible; it just doesn't seem to be common in this context. The only one who seems to have understood the assignment is @Davino, if his word is to be trusted. Notice everything that's come up for us as we stumble along the topic - our minds immediately bringing up "what we know" and inserting it into the conversation, and the difficulty of creating some space around the topic, even if only for a few days.

Yeah, but this is in the context of listening to another. The risk of interacting within your own bubble is that it can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy with no real feedback.

"What is purpose?" is your question.

Sounds good. For some reason I get the feeling it might not be quite landing, though. I might elaborate in a new post, as I struggle with this. Thank you. I'm going to take a shower.

Think what you want, but do the exercise (if you want).