PureExp

@710thz Great The art is to convert experiences of all kinds into learning. To benefit from them and progress. Experiences, ordinary life experiences or extraordinary "spiritual" ones, serve only one purpose - they make us grow. Some people utilize them to the fullest and take big leaps on their path, others just enjoy them and move on. The former types are seekers. This may sound like preaching lol, and even unromantic and dry, but remember that we are free to assign a meaning to it all, even if we see no meaning. This is the game here.

I don't It slips often, but its ok. We are here to have this "forgetting", this human experience. So let it flow. I can go there whenever I want, that's all. Don't have any techniques. Some people use reminders, like a ring on the finger with some sacred text, or an image of some deity. Some people wear clothes of a special color, with mantras written on them. Some people hang posters/pictures on walls that remind them. So on and so forth. I do not use anything external at all. Why depend on stuff? It promotes ignorance, it becomes a mindless ritual. Some people mechanically do that, the religious people, they do not know what they are doing. The "spiritual" types, meditate. They sit for long hours and focus on nothing but being aware. It works, its the real training. However, if you don't carry that state into everyday activities, it becomes yet another magical ritual. One hour of bliss, and 23 hours of Ego worship. The important thing is, when I see in the mirror, or eat or talk to people, I do not automatically assume that I'm a body with a bunch of thoughts/likes/dislikes etc. I was like that long ago. Now "I am that" !

This is perfectly normal, you will get used to it soon lol. A good post and nice experience. This reminds me of a quote - You are not alone, you alone are. Beautiful words! I'd use such experiences as opportunities for introspection. So one can ask - Who is alone? What part of me is lonely? Who is aware of loneliness? I guess, you can directly see the answers. I'll share what I see, which is - Loneliness is as illusory and meaningless as everything else. Its the ego/mind that creates that feeling or thought out of its prior conditioning. Thats all.

You are making the common mistake of confusing awareness with contents of awareness. What you are looking for is to bring yet unseen content into your experience. New sensory contents (coming from places external to mind via senses or other means, just like your examples), or new non-sensory contents arising in the mind itself (e.g. dreams, hallucinations, oobes). Note that whatever the contents are, whatever their channel is, the awareness which is aware of those content is always the same. So in essence, if you succeed, you will end up expanding the range of your experiences, variety of the contents, not your awareness. Awareness cannot expand, cannot contract, cannot go away and cannot come back. It cannot change, what changes is just contents. Well, that is the first realization, which is easy to have. Just check Leo's exercises first and master them, it is very important to experience it directly, else you will remain confused forever. The second step is to see, that the contents are awareness too. What changes is awareness too. Confused? I bet you are

I'm looking for a way to directly experience this. Any hints? How did you come to this conclusion, what convinced you?

@Barna Thanks for sharing. I sampled a few chapters, it is the usual non-dualism teachings. (not the empowerment stuff, which seems to be a new-agey thing) Not bad, very polished and in a simple language. Much better than wasting your time watching TV

@Marinus As you must be already knowing, an animal (or human) when faced with danger (any threat to survival) has two choices - fight with whatever is threatening it or run away. It puts heavy demand on the body, it prepares for the danger, all system go on red. Its not a pleasant state for the body obviously. When the danger is over, it returns back to a more relaxed and happy state. Something similar happens to the mind. People in so called "modern societies" are constantly under this mode, because of survival pressures. Race to earn more money, competition, crime, negative people, abusive relatives, wars......the list is long. Their mind and bodies rarely relax. Eventually it becomes a habit, and the negative impressions become permanent in the mind. Mental chatter is mostly negative, it is trying to cope. Bodies are under stress. All you need to do is relax and heal, and it returns to natural state producing the blissful feelings. Initially its a big contrast, so feels ecstatic, but more you meditate, more habitual it gets and bliss becomes just peace.

Nine Levels of Monkey Mind Escalation http://presidelife.com/nine-levels-of-monkey-mind-escalation/ Real knowledge, very useful, no BS.

@Natasha Most welcome @FirstglimpseOMG Yes, amazing that our minds can go to such length to avoid ego-death (or cessation of the mind). And moreover, its strange and these distractions and tactics are universal, meaning a majority of people experience the same stuff, more or less. Anyone who has meditated will immediately relate to that video. Brilliant insights can be just fruits of meditation. A calm and quiet mind thinks more efficiently and creatively. I can see how it could happen.

I agree. When I am experiencing pure awareness, there is no "I" there. However there is this connection, as if whatever that is called I is identical to this awareness. The words, I, me, my, mine are slapped on by the mind later on to convey that connection. Perhaps its a language thing, there is no better way to express it.

Happy to hear that. I have an intuition that such realizations are completely natural, a part of evolution. When the fruit is ripe, it drops. May be it is me, but perhaps many people are having such realization in recent years. Internet, youtube and forums such as this are catalyzing the "Ripening". The speed and spread is increasing day by day. But then it can be just an illusion I'm having. May be it was always like this, and these days we simply come to know of it more.

@kuwaynej I forgot to ask - did you use the drug Leo is recommending to experience that or was it something else?

@Leo Gura you are absolutely right, but let me report from the east - well.... its exactly the same situation here. Materialism is rampant, simply because people know nothing better, it appeals to the ego, and since a majority operate from the ego level, that's what you see everywhere. The so called "spirituality" was turned into materialism in east long ago. People go to a guru to ask for advice on which job to take, which business to do and women go there to learn some magical tricks to find a good husband Religions are just money making schemes, its not surprising that the biggest festival here, Diwali, is primarily about worship of goddess Laxmi, the goddess of wealth !! And it is celebrated via, you guessed it - shopping like mad, consuming more, eating more and just showing off... A guru offers them an ocean, and they approach him with a spoon, not even a bowl, not a bucket certainly. I was myself like this (well what else did you expect?), I approached spirituality to gain stuff, gain "powers", but fortunately I was set straight and very quickly jumped out of the pit of "spiritual materialism". The pain of it is too much.

There you go ! Fascinating, isn't it? I guess, you can directly see it, there is no need to form a belief. But then may be you are just using the word "believe" in a loose sense. Anyway, about your questions, IMO, awareness has no quantity (or quality), its not more nor less, it just is. What happens is that it gets covered by the activities of the mind - thoughts, perceptions, sensations, emotions and lower mental functions related to survival (Ego part of the mind). When the activities cease, what remains is pure awareness. Its like when the clouds disperse, the blue sky, the background reappears. It never goes away actually, it only gets hidden for a while. Its another matter that a majority of people spend their whole life in "hidden mode", not knowing what they are, and thinking that a jumble of thoughts and concepts is their "I". You are lucky that you could see through it. Initially it won't last long, perhaps from a few seconds to few days. It takes practice to remain as pure awareness. Different people call this practice by different names, pick any. Me too struggle a lot to maintain the "awareness mode", mind snatches it back often But I guess its improving everyday. One advantage of hanging out in forums such as this one, is that you will be reminded more often to remain aware. So welcome and keep sharing.

@Marinus What you call "energy" is not an energy, IMHO. It is simply the response of the body-mind to your meditation. I can surely say that your meditation is working ! When the usual negativity of the mind, which contracts the body, puts it in fight-flight mode, a stressful mode, is removed by either silencing the mind or simply witnessing its stupid activities, that negativity evaporates. Like the sunlight evaporates dew. This means the body is freed from the artificial stress, from the claws of ego, and it returns to its normal blissful state. The ecstasy you are experiencing is the natural state of the body, it was suppressed by years of conditioning and negativity of the ego, it rises up as soon as you heal it.

@Anton Rogachevski I totally agree, nice post. I'd like to add something... A "rational" mind which simply accepts the so called "spiritual facts" without first experiencing them intimately and proceeds to an action plan is not exactly rational. Is it? I'd rather call it an ignorant mind. In other words, mind of a believer, not of a seeker. A truly rational person will see the claims (say of non-dualism for example) and say - "well, interesting.. but I don't know". And when he does the actual exercises/mental experiments on the self, he may reach a stage where he says - "wonderful, so that's what it means, I can see it, but I still don't know". You see, something that is above mind, namely a direct experience where the mind is not very much involved, will remain a mystery for the mind, and a rational person will accept it. It will look like a paradox. He will remain an agnostic. "It is the way it is". Therefore the wisest people on earth are mystics, those who say - I don't know. Knowing is a function of the mind, experiencing is a function of the consciousness, its the witness. Experiences includes the experience of knowing. So why do some people rationalize it? Its merely conditioning. They are taught since childhood to put all experiences through the mill of mind, and take what comes out. They do the same for spiritual stuff, they call it rational for some reason. So many scientists, philosophers and so called "educated" people suffer from this affliction. Reason is helpful in domain where mind functions, beyond it, reason is simply an experience among a billion other experiences that the consciousness can have.

This is my post # 42 There are no coincidences guys !

baby steps for psychology lol. By extension, would it mean that two separate brains (of two guys, say) also result in just one consciousness? that's a hint there.

This paradox can be easily resolved. The present moment, situations and us are perfect as they are, and the desires and actions to turn them into something else are perfect too. Perfection is by necessity, I never found anything that is imperfect. Imperfection is a concept (a made up thing) arising out of dual nature of the mind, which creates divisions out of oneness.

@Leo Gura It is done. I know ! I try to be in that state as much as possible. Now waiting for the next step (if there is any). Now this human experience suddenly seems very limited. Why else would I ask that question?

Thanks I feel I (the ego I) hit a wall, no idea where the journey will take me from here. Hopefully something will reveal itself. I will keep trying to find a practical way to "exit", perhaps it will happen naturally. If I find it I will share it as usual. Hunt for a truly advanced yogi begins anyone knows where to start?

I agree with @Danielle, try any comfortable pose, just don't sit too high, just in case your body loses all sense and falls down In ancient days, seekers sat in a cave or dense jungles. Obviously, no question of getting a chair there. So learning to sit without support was a necessary prerequisite in yoga. In India, people naturally sit down cross legged (not anymore actually). If you do it regularly since childhood, its easy and natural, but if you force it on a body for which this pose is unnatural, there will be pain and more importantly no progress in meditation. The emphasis should be on spine, not legs. Since if the spine is straight, you are more alert and attentive, you do not wander off in thoughts and imaginations, it naturally puts the body in a receptive state. A loose spine means laziness, body is tired and trying to rest, not a good time to meditate.

When dreams become as real as waking experience, it ceases to be a dream, its called Astral Projection. I guess everyone here knows what it is. You start receiving data from different areas of "creation" instead of our habitual connection to just one area. It all shows that the consciousness has infinite capacity for creation.

Yes You will never see the so called "real" world the same old way again. Be careful, it may fade into a dream lol.

@jse Sure we can. And the sea/wave metaphor is often used by many masters. You are right, when something is beyond time, causality ceases to be meaningful.