kurt

@Heart of Space life is the teacher, I'm glad you didn't take the victim stance and blame whats going on in your head on the external world or the people in it. I find most do-gooders are victims and feel responsible for others apparent suffering.

You said you felt stressed after an exam? For stress I dont use meditation, meditation is not really suitable for stress management IMHO. I do things like visualisation, for example I close my eyes and imagine an open shopping bag in front of me where I continue to put all my thoughts, stresses and most importantly the results I hope to get into the bag, close it when I'm done and give it to the situation I'm stressed about. A simple analysis of circumstances will reveal that stress doesn't actually do anything, it can't affect the result, therefore it's pointless and can be let go of as a non value of mine. Replace it with a positive value (thought) and just keep assimilating this process until you no longer worry and the positive reaction has replaced it fully.

@Tanuj Meditation seems like its working for you, it does not work for everybody, so you are lucky. I would just leave the meditation for another time (early evening?) for when you dont need that aggressive energy at your disposal. You can manage these two different energies consciously if you understand them and know what activities augment them. also, I would not worry about little things like this after one day. Maybe if it was actually disrupting your life on a consistent basis then you might have grounds to worry. But one day after feeling a little different from meditation is nothing to worry about.

My best guess would be is I reckon a person has to have a healthy, happy ego which is willing to take a bit of flack. If someone is unhappy or has a weak identity or trying this to get out of building their ego up, doing the work on the personal side, it might be a hard experience because the fear and mistrust is going to be exacerbated.

I agree with this, and would like to co-elaborate a little further. The ego is the True Self under the spell of ignorance (apparent mythia) that is manifest ignorance (thought projections of tendencies) from the causal body being continually dumped into the subtle body which in turn causes agitation and appears as either a fear or desire to end the agitation. So off the ego goes on its quest to chase some apparent object to temporarily quell its feeling of lack. Its also very sneaky game, like a dog chasing its own tail because it cannot see that what it is chasing is nothing but it's own rear end lol while liberation is waiting there all the time in the form of the Self, if only it rested in awareness! Enlightenment does not mean the end of the ego, the ego is still there as an enjoyer, but it is not doing anymore to enjoy the fruits of its ultimately pointless activity, it still acts but remains unfooled by mythia. All of this can be verified in your own experience

There is no need to let go of this desire. Just a little bit of analysis and understanding will break it. Ask yourself if this desire is working for you? You will probably no doubt be in agreement that really, at the end of the day, all said and done this is an irrational idea and it is really not conducive to happiness. Really think about it. I know this sounds obvious right now, and you will probably get mad at me thinking whats this guy talking about here? I've tried everything under the sun to let this go!! Bur before you get the rotten tomatoes out consider this. What is it that you are really looking for when you continue to act out this desire? Are you looking for happiness? Or, are you looking for freedom from the feeling of limitation that the desire causes you? Think about it carefully. If you can become conscious of your actual motive, then the habit will break. So, what is it you are really wanting from the desire to look good? You know that looking good in itself doesn't contain the actual happiness itself. If looking good DID contain the happiness, then everyone who looked amazing would be happy. But they are not. The happiness is not in the looks, is it? On close inspection this will reveal itself to be the truth..100% guaranteed! So, moving on. If the happiness and freedom is not in the looks, then where is it? Where is happiness and the feeling of freedom from the desire that you are really looking for located? If you can answer that question (and it is the same answer for every single person that ever existed) and ponder on the discovery you make, all you need to "do" is just resist acting on the desire or thought or feeling that comes up next time you get anxious about it. See it for what it is, a trick the mind plays on you, and just STOP entertaining it. Once you stop entertaining the idea it will sooner or later just stop disturbing you. The best bit is yet to come. As soon as the disturbance fades and leaves your life for good, you will experience something very special. Good luck

@Nothing really There is not much point knowing anything in mythia because it changes and if you chase it you might win, but you lose the equal amount. This means life in samsara is a "zero-sum game". You cannot win, but you are forced to chase the object of your desires and avoid the objects of your fears. Something compels you, drives you to keep performing actions in samsara for the sake of results. What is happening with your thoughts is that the causal body (the "unmanifest" from where maya projects its apparent delights) is a conditioned stimulus/response mechanism . For example, when you drink a beer and enjoy the experience, that experience gets stored in the causal body as an impression, and lies dormant until the next time you have a desire and thought pops into your head to have that beer again you will automatically reach out for the beer, of course the ego residing in the subtle body (your direct internal experience) will lay claim to "wanting" a beer and create this story about you having control over your beer drinking habit. If this habit gets ingrained enough it can turn into an addiction and then when the ego tries to take over it can't, because the tendency is too strong! This is how thoughts work too. Thoughts just keep coming from the causal body and are getting presented to you in your experience whether you agree with it or not. To understand the Truth, you need to get a little bit of remote control over the causal body. You can do this by sorting out your values, ditching conflicting values that disturb your mind in the subtle body experience. Eat better foods, consider going to the jym on a regular basis, hang around with more spiritual calm types so that you can just get some control. This way you can inquire into the thoughts on a moment to moment basis using the netti netti process, I have these thoughts but these thoughts to dont relate to me, "I" am non-dual, actionless, imperceptible, unaffected awareness. The thoughts wont go away, but eventually you will break the identification that you are the activity of the mind, the causal body, and the physical body. This way you will be able to discriminate between what is real and what is apparent. Direct understanding despite the continued appearance of Maya

The Self is non dual consciousness, the unchanging, independently existent, eternal, infinite, imperceptible essence of everything, ever free of all action and experience. Can you find an object that is separate from you? All objects appear as thoughts in your mind. Has anybody ever managed to find an objective reality beyond what is appearing as thoughts in the mind? No. Therefore, can you find a thought that is separate from your mind? Can you find and difference between the mind and the knowing of the mind? At any time, the only thing that IS is you, the Self, despite appearances. In the ring example when the silver changes shape, all we do is assign a name to that particular form (shape). Even though the silver, the ring shape (form) and the corresponding name "ring" are "ONE" they are not the "same". Non duality= Consciousness (YOU) can appear to be different names and forms appearing IN/AS consciousness can change, come into existence, stay a while and disappear etc. etc, but the ESSENCE of the forms (consciousness) remains the same. The consciousness is always there (obviously) but the names and forms always change. If consciousness was dependent on the names and forms then there would not be a continual stream of knowing. The knowing is always there no matter what name and form is appearing. All the forms are consciousness (no separation), but consciousness is not any of the forms. The only thing that is constant is consciousness. However, even though everything is "One" this does not mean that everything is the same. To make room for the obvious experiential aspect of subject / object duality (which is always experience of the enlightened person anyway, just as the experience of the sun rising and setting is not altered by the knowledge through the empirical understanding that the sun in fact does not "set" but that the Earth in fact orbits around the sun but only gives the appearance of a sunset) we need to take this apparent appearance seriously as it is our direct experience. If the objects are me that is fine, there is no conflict with the objects. But if I AM the objects then I am subject to the limitations of the objects. I die, I grow old, I suffer etc. etc. TBC

Don't worry, I'm not interpreting aggression , I'm long past ego battles (I think) but do still have some desire to chip in a comment or two. Not attempting to question your experience outright like I'm putting you on trial, but more to suggest that God realization is a little bit more complex than a momentary experience. That is not to say that understanding can't happen instantly under the right conditions, reality is non dual and is always that way for eternity, it's just out illusion that needs undoing, and that is the bit that is tricky and takes some work. But you are always non dual consciousness, always have been, always will be. An analogy would be like the pathless path concept, you are always already God, but we need to generally walk some distance and gain some understanding before we really know. You mentioned your death, which is another small indicator that your experience was not quite non dual. Little bits of info reveal a lot, but that is not a bad thing, its a tell tale sign there is some work to do because there might be a block. But I think you are on the right path in accessing a greater conscience and have a desire to be a "better person". Again, a God realization would not lead to that kind of statement, because non-dual means that there is nothing left to do. Knowledge of that kind is the end of seeking all these questions all of us have, like who am I? What am I doing here? Who is my creator? Am I a slave of the creator? Those kind of universal questions that all people are asking whether they know it or not Haha! Degrade not registering, relax! Youre right, spiritual paths can be an egoic pursuit. But in this case I really mean that it is a lot of work, because even though you and I are already non dual awareness, we don't know this, we identify instead with a body, and a mind and a bunch of desires and fears that keep us locked into illusion. And along with everyone else reinforcing the illusion its very hard to get out of easily. It takes a while to understand our psychology, the "things" that we identify with, and some degree of work to get our minds prepared and still enough to make a moment to moment inquiry of negation. Negation is netti netti, not this, not that. You have been meditating a while, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are aware of how many times the ego takes credit or identifies with all of these "things". It's constant ins't it? Then there is the time it takes for the negation to become permanent, when you dont identify with any of it even though the thoughts keep coming up, you see them as pure illusion. Nothing changes in experience, only understanding. To get a solid understanding that you are conscious existence while your mind is still presenting thoughts of body and mind identification takes time and work and commitment to the goal. Enlightenment is a goal, for the person, not for consciousness, but all the while were in a human body we're going to be bombarded with this stuff night and day. There is not just the physical body to disidentify with, but the mind to understand, then the unmanifest mind (causal body) where the thoughts and desires and behaviours are manifesting from. Then the apparent outside world is "you" too. So you have to own that and then negate that also. Only when that work is complete do you understand what consciousness is. If you dont negate the objects you will never know what the subject is, and if you dont know what the subject is you will mistake the material objects for matter (which is still duality, because there cannot be "matter" in a non dual reality, can there?) So, if all that is an ego pursuit, then I guess it is. But the desire is now one for liberation rather than a desire for pussy and fast cars. So it works it works out a pretty good deal in the end lol. This sounds promising and valid and inspiring. But it's still a subtle duality, because it's all one sided. The good the bad and the ugly (including yourself and your own character) are seen as ok, nothing special. The difference is in the internal confidence in the mundane and ordinary. Again, I think your experience was cool, but it was not non duality, it was experience based and experiences are still situated in apparent reality (subject to change).

The ego is a tricky thing. It's best not to get rid of it, but to educate it. The fact is, you can only become enlightened if you do have an ego, so the idea is to neutralise it's suffering by giving it non dual understanding. The ego is the True Self under the spell of illusion (seeing itself as an object entity that is driven by desire and fears that it believes will bring it happiness while claiming possession of phenomena - so as far as interests go these are very poor interests compared to the natural and confident True Self's interests). So the ego is not the real problem, the illusion it is under is the problem. Working on removing the ignorance is all that is needed.

@Koji Nice! This is encouraging stuff. One tip from Moi is remember not to identify with the stuff that is coming out. It belongs to the causal body (unmanifest) where all the remnants from your past actions are stored and then come up as Motivations that entice you to act out the feelings and reinforce the whole loop. Don't buy into it! Don't personalise it! See it for what it rightly is (humanness) you are not the emotions, you are the awareness, the emotions are KNOWN to you, therefore you cannot be them. Don't sweat them! Just make the connection between how you feel and your actions. This way you will quickly burn out the desire to continue to act out the programme and this will be replaced by a nice mellow sweet glow of confidence and internally derived satisfaction. Keep it up! Also, want to mention, a lot of that stuff will also be caused by lifestyle, things like diet, living arrangements, the people you are around, type of excerises you do. These things all actually make a difference in agitating the mind and keeping it locked in negativity. Just FYI

Yes. To understand God takes a fair amount of work using a process called superimposition and negation. God is non dual understanding, we would never get it unless we do the negation process (takes years) and then be able to recognise consciousness in place of the "matter" that normal people see. You're right, I cannot experience your exact same experience at the time you are experiencing it. But we can make an educated guess, us humans are all blessed with the same instruments in the gross, subtle and causal bodies. In the gross body we all have hands and feet, in the causal we all have feelings: sadness, happiness, relief, or the assumption of specialness are universal qualities in all people. Empathy is used to make an educated guess at what others are experiencing. After all, you just confirmed the phenomena of empathy yourself when your friend said he suspects he resonates with your experience!? But, your friend and I may also both be wrong and deluding ourselves. But I know myself pretty darn well and have also understand non dual knowledge, so I can hasten a bet my guess is slightly more accurate. Sorry about that, this isn't personal to me, expertise is yet another impersonal shared phenomena. I'm sure you have special talents of your own in your own field? Anyway, no issues here on my part. I have learned from this

Well, your defensive reaction says you dont even understand the ego that's looking for something outside itself (respect, understanding). You are also not aware that you are projecting thoughts from the causal body onto your own self. So you dont even own your own mind yet. The reason I know this is because there is only one God, and one person here, and it functions in exact same way in everyone. When I know and negate myself, I can know and negate you too. Without projecting! lol Sorry to burst your bubble, but youre far from knowing about God, you don't even know how you function yet

God is not an experience. You are God, but unless you first know what you are not, then you wont become conscious of what you are, yet. I can see that you still believe you are the content of your mind, do you think you have negated the person? There's more to negate after the person by the way. But lets start with the person first.

Consciousness and awareness are the same thing. But they are not functions of the human mind like we think (so they don't grow in the conventional sense). Self awareness is being conscious of your True Nature, which is beyond names and forms. Consciousness is existence itself. Growth is a form, consciousness is prior to form, the form of growth depends on consciousness (existence), so we dont grow in awareness or consciousness, because awareness and consciousness is all that exists. Another way to say it is growth is something that happens IN consciousness because growth cannot BE without existence. Your true nature is not something that you can grasp or experience, it must be pointed out to you from the outside because you are not able to understand what it means with the instruments you have at your disposal, your mind and intellect. You won't be able to experience your True Nature, because experience is dependent on your True Nature. That would be like trying to see your own eyeball. Experience depends on existence, so the only way you are going to know your True Nature (Self-awareness) is through understanding your True Nature.

Yeah, you do sound confused. If you like I can coach you on what it means to be enlightened. But its tricky and requires a bit of commitment. Up for it?

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you did not experience God. And I'll tell you why if you want to know. What it looks like you had an epiphany of is your conscience bitch slapping you on the forehead because of the company you are keeping on places like this where more spiritual types hang out. But a God realization? Judging by your description you did not have a experience of God