FirstglimpseOMG

My understanding is that there is no causality in the universe. Also, I'm not sure there's anything static or not about the absolute. My understanding is that the absolute has no 'qualities' or quantities, therefore we miss the mark when attributing any qualities to the absolute other than infinite, loving, potential. As far as I can tell, the Absolute, Infinity, Source, God, The Unified Field, whatever the label, is the pure potential of life, unlimited, unbounded, uncoloured and unaffected by whatever 'objects' are manifested; you, your car, your house, the tree, your 'mind'... I really don't claim to 'know' anything. It's early in this new search, experiment, practise, path, for me. I may just be having trouble relating to what appears to be your strong identification and attachment to the feats and deeds of 'mind', while I struggle to understand what's going on, let alone transcend it. I may also be misunderstanding your larger context. Is there a larger context? Are most spiritual or non-dual seekers not tryng to understand, then transcend the body-mind? In identifying strongly, or at all I guess, with mind, does the quest for truth, spirituality, non-duality subside for you? Also, are you sure you're not suffering.. until you do some suffering? I don't want to project my experience of suffering onto you, your blanket statements just throw me off. I may be missing the point, isn't the human condition what we're trying to transcend? Isn't the mind what ultimately messes with the natural radiant beauty of life itself, despite the mind performing brilliantly most of the time, (until it comes to existence and reality)?

@Salaam In my opinion and understanding, The Holographic Principle very effectively and convincingly explains how we interact with others in a world of no 'objects'. Leonard Susskind et al have it down. It baffled me for a while too, as to how something physical, but brand new & never seen before outside of my home by anyone, ever (like an original painting or sculpture.), could be seen and enjoyed by another entity in a world of no real objects. How can a new object be recognized and interacted with when prior to it's creation (from no-thing), it did not exist in any perceivable manner? Like if I painted a picture and left it on your doorstep and you stumbled over it upon leaving for work and said, "Oh a painting, very nice."... how do you perceive matter within consensus reality when there is none, and how is any self-consistency maintained when the individual seemingly evokes his world from Nothing AS he moves through it?!! The Holographic principle explains that there is self-consistency in evidence when two observer's worlds overlap, as in a Venn diagram. The two Holographic regions, defined by the light-speed and dark energy-couched boundaries for the observers, overlap due to the (consistent) information encoded in and projected to each observer from those boundaries. It takes a quantum leap of insight to get there. Speaking of quantum mechanics and insights, I honestly wonder how it is that you base your hypothesis on one set of current quantum theories, mis-understanding, and subverting those even, then further the misguided play of ignoring and/or not researching and considering other major quantum theories. If you're going to quote and hypothesize from a quantum mechanics perspective, why not include and understand the bigger quantum picture and not just cherry-pick the aspects that work into your story? I may be totally wrong in my explanation and understanding of what the craziness of quantum theories points to, and I may even be completely (okay, not completely) deluded considering the reality that science really does go out the window in the LARGER CONTEXT of no-self, but if I'm basing my reality on quantum mechanics, accurate or flimsy, I'm sure as hell including the whole thing.

In response to the claim "But I decided to skip work today and attend this seminar!", many teachers say; "Oh yes, a decision was certainly made, it just wasn't you who made it."

@Loreena and all.. What if you did experience true joy often in your life, but didn't recognize it because it was such a short instance of it before mind kicked in to analyze just how joyful it was or wasn't? Have you been getting any of Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power Of Now' into you, or 'A New Earth'? Have you ever walked out of the mall or plaza with 3 things on your mind and realized in an instant that you had made it halfway across the parking lot underneath the most gorgeous, fiery complete-sky sunset everrrr, and not even been seeing it? Suddenly your thoughts stop, because there is an instant there, when you see the sky and you gasp involuntarily at the beauty. Before mind kicks in to narrate for you, for that instant before mind decides you needed a quick description; "Ooh what a breathtaking sunset!"... for the fleeting instant before that automatically (*sigh*) happens - that's true joy. Mind kills it real quick. But it does arise! Look for it! Find it! Recognize it! Make it! Share it and increase it ten-fold! Joy's the natural part, the rest of the downer crap is the mask, the fakery, the faker.

Every so often last summer I'd forget that the sun was that bright ball in the sky that I'm used to ignoring and remember that it was a frikin' star, 93 million miles away, and then I'd feel it's light warm on my face and arms and be absolutely in awe.

@cetus56 Thanks, I just got that video into me. How beautiful and simple eh?

@Leo Gura I'm just sort of floundering around. Trying not to get caught up in semantics but still easily confused... is the ultimate goal not to 'know thyself', to come to the fullest realization of our divinity, and thus then acting as such here and now, more and more, in the meantime? Pushing the evolution of this whole existence in the truer direction, towards peace and love and conservation and all that? Sure I want to somehow break reality very badly, but I'm pretty sure that in the meantime, while I strive and suffer, any little things that keep me on the path without being misguided, including the half-baked 'nowhere near knowing the absolute, but got 3 inches closer' experiences, have the power of accumulation. I'm sort of slow at this, and a pretty lazy ego, which I strive to transcend a little here and there, so anything that gets me or keeps me meditating and contemplating and allowing and being more present with love, I do grasp at. I know conceptualizing, contemplating and looking for experiences won't get me there, but surely the heavy contemplation, spurring the 'aha' stuff, which enables the 'aw shit, here comes the love again, hold on to something' stuff, must have big value. I'm not only 'getting' that essentially I'm not an illusive ego & body/mind, I'm able to occasionally feel it too, and it comes through as big, unprecedented love and peace and recognition. It is very fleeting, but it sure feels like unconditional love in action for the moments of it. The more I know what that is/I Am, even if it's on a sliding scale of waking up and becoming 'Enlightened', and that experience/knowledge is manifesting as right action rather than egoic interference and backfiring.. well, don't we recognize, once we begin to wake up a little, that we have been momentarily Enlightened thousands and thousands of times up to this point in our lives? Mind tries hard to grasp with less ego and less chatter.. too hard? Should I just shut up and meditate/concentrate/contemplate deeper & more consistently?

Geez, can you reverse it too, and be closer to Truth maybe; Existence only via experience... Co-creation?

I managed to notice something wild about reality the other day while contemplating lots and doing this; Sitting in my comfy chair, while absent-mindedly lightly rubbing my chest through my t-shirt, I looked up at my stationary ceiling fan. Suddenly I realized, and managed to feel, once I worked it, that the sensation of my body, both from the fingertip side and the chest side, and the sensation of seeing the ceiling fan simultaneously, were both perceptions (sensations?) ONLY. One and the same thing. So on one level, The I that I Am cannot essentially be the body-mind, as the body-mind is the same damn thing as the perception of the fan.. a perception. On another level, both the perception of the body-mind, or rather, the perceptions of the body mind, including that perception of itself, is creation in action. Experience by existence. But practise noticing, and making your distinctions.

@egoeimai agreed.. we will create it, 'good' or 'bad'.

I'm thinking that if I look back with regret or trepidation at something I did, said, or thought two minutes ago, and decide to notice that I was for some goof reason revisiting a past that did not exist, and that I can only create, moment by moment, as I go, and that that creative mode is only possible, period, within the present moment... I manage to tangibly diminish that 'apparently negative past' shit. I say diminish, because before I know it, that 'two minutes ago' thing is being revisited, only now it's eight minutes ago. If I don't diminish the reality of it's ass then and there, when I revisit that shit again, twenty minutes ago, it will be just as illusively strong.

Speaking of 'Higher', this is good stuff; "And you, broken. There's your legacy, locks you in. Doesn't matter, I'll stay. I'm not ready, I'm quite low. ...So are we gonna go? Higher. So we'll need a moment far from peaceful to know We've no reason to be frightened all the time Higher Sewing pieces of a broken threadbare family Now the world is dying, How the mind must try Higher Craft your life in ways you will be shown Craft your life in ways that will be known Craft your life in ways you will be shown Craft your life in ways that will bring your darkness I, the destroyer, shall not be contained. But, ah, keep strong... don't let the bastards grind you down. Change direction I, I am I I am war by creation Higher, now go. So you have grown ...all ways! I know! And you, broken. And there's your legacy It locked you in I won't be a martyr For love or the father So are we gonna go? Take me higher!"

Then I remember that I'm always, always creating, might as well make it pleasant and helpful and awesome and an expression of 'higher'... Sorry, not trying to boost my post count haa. ..uh, just thinking sort of out loud as I go. Kind of like public journaling. It works..

I don't seem to create much of anything of beauty or grace while thinking too much. It just leads to more thinking & less being. When my thinking zips back and forth between the past and the future, I really can't create much beauty or grace.. ...I can manage mud. ...& muddle. But the artist and creator remains more in the background, waiting to be rediscovered. Then life gets all glorious again when I remember to remember to forget and keep creating.

...which becomes two months, two years, or two decades ago. Ffs.

@LRyan Yeah! I find that when I really manage to drop the egoic tendencies for a bit, the love and presence just shines through like crazy, you don't need to 'bring' anything. Who woudn't want to be around you?

Wow, thanks... you have a way of expression that resonates loudly. Doubt cannot touch who I am, but my conditioning forces a need to 'remember to remember', so that that untouchable, deep, sweet realization, and that beautiful 'marination' can have more and more of a chance, more and more often, to shine through. It shines always, it's simply what we are, but I find it so easy to forget. At the same time it's getting easier to remember, and the remembering is glorious my friend, marinate on!

I love you too man.. The ups and downs of it, the the unstoppable welling up, the jaw-dropping recognitions, the beauty and unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable, unimaginable, beyond-mind presence of infinity in action, and then the crash back into self is torturous, and I feel like a lifetime of suffering coalesces into only the current bout of suffering, but with the intensity of the entire lifetime. Ever been on the cusp of something, and realized that's why all the pain is intensified? Like not realizing you had to pee THAT bad until you're fumbling the key into the lock? Tears of joy to the nth degree one day & I feel so snarled up and angry if 'I' allow the next day to be full of 'lack'. And I do. Wouldn't have it any other way. This is ridiculous. This is the best journey ever. I know this path is different for everybody. For me it's been intense, intense curiosity, all the fumbly research, finding Leo among others and actually getting a glimpse of infinity, then slowly falling asleep more and more and more while trying to stay on the path. Then the waking is so so slow for me. Up & down. Being then being monkey mind. Lately though, within the ups and downs, the gains and 'losses' (lessons), the intensified and somehow cumulative-feeling suffering... is another opportunity to look inward, so intimately and... maybe friggin' learn and stop sucking the life out of life, and move forward a little more than the steps back for once, or twice.. or more. And more. Every little epiphany is huge. Even if you think you've destroyed it with ego the next day, doesn't matter. Same with when a fairly big epiphany occurs and turns out to be not quite right, doesn't matter - realizing the mistake or overlooked nuance is the replacement epiphany, more valuable. When the epiphanies start coming closer and closer together, and you'll know, then there's possibilties for opening up a bit, uncontracting.. but uncontracting out a little further than yourself. Those openings are pour-throughs for divinity and love, and when they start happening closer and closer together, there's some momentum now, straight upwards and into higher frequences I guess. It's all harder to mistake, and easier to evoke, and more recognizable as infinite love and creation. Uh, so that helps. Yesterday I suffered like a little bitch all day. Reluctantly learning along the way. Today, if 'I' allow it, and pay attention to it, and recognize it, and get the hell out of my own way by quieting down & just being here.. I will likely, through contemplation and then getting out of the way real quick, let Love rule. But about getting somewhere by waking up again, a little bit more.... all those little epiphanies and hours of practice, research, all the mistakes, every backslide, every contradiction, every Leo video, or all the other teachers on Youtube, all the books by so many authors, all the contemplation, the rising of joy and subsiding of mental pain, the reverse of that, the whole roller coaster ride, all the horrible thoughts that you may not be getting anywhere - that's you getting somewhere. I'm a long way from breaking reality, I am mostly so full of indoctrinated assumptions that need busting up again and again, that I'm gonna be half-a-step forward and two steps back guy for a good while, but it's getting better and better, But just all the everything of all the little things are adding up to kick my ass just enough for contemplation to unleash love, more frequently, and more forcefully. ..even if it's stretched out as a loooong slow curve on the graph. Just recognize that love in you, and no matter how, start letting it out ...& it'll be easier for all the practice to rush along with you, rather than you dragging it along behind you. I want to become a 10,000 hour meditator, as I want the 'Now, Now, Now, and not the 'blah blah' ( watch as much Gary Weber as you can), but Ruperr Spira's 'direct path' of teaching and practice is so valid in my experience. Also, I noticed that when I started feeling stuck becuse I was sseemingly only understanding Universal Consciousness, The Void, Source, God... intellectually (if not very beautifully), and pretty much intellectualizing no-self quite well but not, 'feeling it'.. I got a big re-boost and some nice epiphanies while watching any Spira stuff on 'do we choose our thoughts?', same theme with Francis Lucille, check out a bunch of Gary Weber Vids, particularly all those shorter interview segments with Rich Doyle , and definitely the Bhudda At The Gas Pump interview where Rick Archer and Gary just rock it. I know I sound a little haughty on here lately, it's not on purpose - I just get excited and want to try and share. You are Love, just let it be. Jesus Christ, now I'm John Lennon.

You CANNOT be any closer to your true Self. There is absolutely no way you can be any closer to your true nature than you are this very second. Oh my God you/we are all so much God every nanosecond that we search and struggle and strive Looking for ourselves The recognition Even every terrible thing, every reaction, every failure, every hate, every time anything is learnt, every time anything is forgotten, every time anything is. All me, all you, all of everything, all the time, to whatever degree we recognize it. Evolving every second, more and more are transcending and waking Keep going past mind. Use it and transcend it, use it and transcend it. Every second is ultimately love and could be no other way.. I am so in love. I am so done in and I am so just getting started.

..within the universe. Within those rules, I am completely free Completely Within these rules I impose all limits, where there need be none I made the rules Of the universe

@Arkandeus Nicely said, thanks for sharing. It sounds like you're onto something.. possibly I can contribute to your train of thought? Next time you're following your passion, whatever it may be, and you get into the flow, after you've been immersed for that period of time that just seems to disappear, try and notice what happened. It'll likely momentarily take you out of that state if you notice during the immersion, but.. afterwords, try to put your finger on why that felt so good. What happened during that blissful stoppage of time, that absence of analytical, neurotic, incessant, scattered ''thinking?" I mean besides the creative flow, enhanced ability, naturally present sense of peace and fulfilment. What else was part of that 'good' feeling, what was it that brought that state about and sustained it. It WAS heavenly wasn't it? Could you simply have forgotten something during that period of awesomeness? Might that something you forgot, or neglected to maintain, be your 'self'. Your separate sense of self?

Once your monkey mind gets over itself a little, each time that it does, do you not begin to become more and more intensely curious? Don't be afraid. Be interested.

When you really have the chance to listen to to this audio meditation with Rupert Spira, I highly, highly recommend it. Lots of pauses for reflection stretch it out.. but the clarity and truth conveyed is worth.. ...it's pure gold! I'm quite familiar with Rupert Spira's teachings through many many many videos, just got this one into me & it's gotta be top 3. I'm always thankful I chose to watch a Spira video, and always a little more lovingly awake.

@Gopackgo I hear ya on it being hard to put this stuff into words. I know where you're going with the thoughts that you don't want to skew raw reality by looking at objects through any sort of distortion (webs of beliefs and concepts), and that you just want to be able to experience reality just as it is. I'm saying that despite how impossible, goofy, counter-intuitive or downright wrong it seems, there's no 'out there'. There are no objects. There's no you. No body, no mind, and whatever the supposed 'you' is perceiving.. is being created as it's being perceived... as perception only. As perception itself. By awareness, from awareness, AS awareness. (To paraphrase Rupert Spira) Awareness only. Awareness dreams up a universe so it can experience some-thing as well as no-thing. Awareness is no-thing and knows itself as awareness, infinity, an empty void. Eternal. It does not begin and does not end. It simply is existence. Being infinite, it cannot have any form or dimension. That would be a limit and there are simply no limits involved here. No boundaries. No beginning, no end. Awareness cannot simply evoke objects to experience because it is not possible for there to be a break, or a space within, or a place in which any-THING might appear.. in unlimited boundless infinity... as a limited object. Even the space the object would need to appear in so the object could exist, would have certain qualities, certain elements of constant change. This cannot happen in infinity. I guess that's infinity's only limit - it, as infinity, can only know itself. Can only 'know'... of itself. So infinity gets all creative and falls asleep to itself. Infinity forgets itself as infinity by falling asleep as infinity and a dream emerges now, that can be known by infinity, the void, God, Source, whatever your label. Billions of finite minds emerge within this dream as differentiated, individuated beings, all literally, with a different point of view. A different vantage point within this dream-world, from which sleeping infinity has a chance for experiences other than the experience only of itself. THAT is life. THAT is existence. THAT is us. This is what Leo means when he says you don't exist. He doesn't just mean the ego that emerges as a personality for each 'person', he means literally; You don't actually exist. You're an object in a dream as long as you don't realize that 'you' and what 'you' experience is only infinity, using 'your' finite 'mind' to experience the life (dream) it created. When 'you' become lucid within the dream, 'reality' breaks, and the journey back home begins. The journey back home is not just ego dissolution for the objects (us) within the dream.. by becoming more and more lucid that we are a dream only and all that 'we' perceive is within this dream too, we are infinity, or Awareness, or the void, or Source, waking up within it's dream, realizing it's a dream, and by virtue of this happening, beginning to experience itself from yet another perspective, the perspectives of it's 'selves', within it's dream. It's existence waking up to itself from that different angle. It all (we, our thoughts, our sensations, our feelings and perceptions, and the sure feeling that we are separate and diverse objects in a world of diverse and separate objects) are all appearances, within an infinite dream. We don't bloody exist. We're characters in the most convincing play there ever was. THAT'S the 'one universal consciousness' thang. THAT'S the 'why are we fighting, there's no us and them, we're all one' thang. THAT'S why most folks are really naive realists that think that this 'consensus reality' is the shit. I hope I didn't screw this up. Lemme know if I screwed this up. It's still very 'surfacy' isn't it, my explanation. I think the coolest thing about existing only as a character in a dreamt reality is that if you are in a magic world and know it, you get to play with the magic a little differently than the folks that have not busted 'consensus' reality. If you're an utterly convincing character in a play, and you remember that it's only a play after initially forgetting that and feeling stuck as the one character, well now, you get to direct the play as never before if you like, and even do that as different characters within the play. More and more you are quite content to opt out of the seriousness and intensity of playing a character in such a convincing, all consuming production, and you just go sit in the stands, watching the whole thing unfold and loving the shit out of it even more because you are not distracted by being required to participate in this dramatic production.

I have come to understand that 'perception IS reality'. Not a physical object experiencing other physical objects 'out there'. Not us perceiving all that's around us, but awareness itself, creating, manifesting and popping 'reality' into existence, nano-second by nano-second. If you can perceive it, you are creating it BY perceiving it. There is nothing past your perception. It doesn't go 'out one level' from the perceiver in order to be experienced. The perception IS the 'reality' that 'you' are perceiving.