eputkonen

It is like tuning forks...you strike one and all the others of the same note in the area start resonating with it. It is possible to be pulled (so to speak) into deep stillness, silence of mind, peace, etc. when in the company of someone who is very still, silent in mind, at peace, etc. Just like if you enter a room in which someone is very angry...even if they are not trying to show it...you can tell and just being in the room with them agitates you a bit as well. This is why the company you keep is important.

You missed the part where he was so depressed he was almost suicidal...and he saw the thought, "I just can't live with myself anymore" and the question came to mind "what is this I and myself...there are not two?" Eckhart had a combination of intense suffering (which will sometimes awaken people) and self inquiry (of a sort). Besides, it does not take "so much work to achieve this". Some people just feel they need to work for it and pay for it, before they allow it to happen. Anyone besides Eckhart...I only know it was easy for me as well. I was on the spiritual search 13 years...an off and on meditator...and then I gave up the search and quit entirely. About a year later, while simply being truly present for the first time (no thought)...I woke up. I clearly saw awakening was not a culmination of the spiritual search and meditation...but happened in spite of it (so to speak).

Instead of the pen...I did a video.

On this New Year's Eve, my wish is for all to allow, accept, and appreciate the past...and let it go. Let what was no longer be a burden that is carried, but something to be appreciated as it brought us to here and now. In addition to a happy new year, I wish you a happy here and now. We then act today to create a slightly better tomorrow...and the future will take care of itself.

I have an uplifting playlist as follows: All You Need is Love - The Beatles Let It Be - The Beatles Imagine - John Lennon Give Peace a Change - The Plastic Ono Band Give Me Love - George Harrison Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

@Joseph Maynor , agreed. And some things are said more sloppily than others. But it is best to not get too caught up with the words. Mere pointers. Words (and phrases) are never the truth.

You are right...nonduality is not a container and it is important not to get trapped up in thoughts. Also, dualities are created by thoughts. No thoughts, no dualities. I would agree. Duality is a fiction of the mind. We are not living in duality...it has always been nonduality. The idea that nonduality includes duality, in a way, gives legitimacy and reality to duality. However, one sees duality because of ignorance and illusion. It never was real...just as a rabbit being pulled from a hat is not real...but it exists as an illusion. So duality, as an illusion, exists within nonduality. There is only the appearance of duality (apparent duality) which is included in nonduality. Much of the confusion comes from conventions of speech and thought. Let's take a mirage. You see water, but in reality it is light refracting off of hot air (on the desert, pavement, etc.). As nonduality has no "other" or exclusion...so in this spirit, you would have to say there is hot air, refracted light, and the appearance of water. It would be incorrect to say there is water...as a reality. The illusion of water exists, but it is not real..water is not what is there. This is not excluding or creating otherness. It is just accurately verbalizing what is.

No, sitting thoughtlessly is not enlightenment. But it does make it easier for enlightenment to happen. Sitting thoughtlessly is not even a test for enlightenment.

@OnceMore , what happens in the world could appear very different. The fear of death would be gone...as well as the taboo and stigma we assign to it (culturally conditioned). I will just speak of my experience and then extrapolate based on what is felt/understood now. Several years ago, my grandmother died...the grandparent I saw the most, knew the best...my favorite. I remember my mom calling. She was crying and sniffling and said she had to tell me something...and broke me the news. It really did not affect me negatively...there was no suffering. I didn't even cry. It was accepted...immediately. I remember my mom asking me what was going on...as my reaction was not fitting her expectations. So I told her something she would accept...that this is what grandma wanted (as her life revolved around grandpa...who died a couple years prior). Also, that I could feel her (grandma) even then and so she only lost her body. She seemed to accept it and seemed comforted by it. In all sincerity, I am ready to die today (if it came for me)...but I don't seek death. I have accepted the impermanence of all things...and the lack of control over when and how things leave. Everything and everyone will leave my life one day (inevitably)...or I will leave them (at my death). There is no reason to fear it...and no point in worrying about it. So, if my dad died tomorrow...I feel right now that I would not suffer and likely would not cry (in imagining he just died now). I already accepted his death as something that would happen within my lifetime. It was certain to occur at some point. Instead, I focus on appreciating him in my life while he is alive. When he dies, I would be grateful for the time I had with him...there would be joy in having known him as my father (without the desire/need for him to continue in my life in order for me to be happy). This would actually make me very useful to my family in making funeral arrangements, because I would be able to respond immediately to the task at hand. Others may procrastinate or find it too painful to work on yet. Among them, obviously I know I can't look too happy and must put on a stoic face at least...otherwise my non-resistance to his death so quickly might hurt them. They would not understand that I have already accepted his death while he is alive...and accepted my own death while I am alive. Death is only a problem or horrible for those who identify with the body/mind. Enlightenment happens, but it does not make you emotionless or inhuman. But at the same time, you can't compare and ask "which is even the more human reaction" because typical "human reactions" is insanity. Look at the world and its typical "human reactions". Accepting and surrendering to what-is unconditionally sounds inhuman to the ego and the mind/ego can't figure out how life would work because it is egoic...and the ego is sustained by not accepting and resisting the realities of life. There is great joy, love, hapiness, etc. in life...and joyful and loving relationships occur...so what I am not talking about is not cold or emotionless. Non-attachment is not cold and emotionless...it is simply non-resisting and non-denying what is. Fully embracing what is. Appreciating what is for as long as it is.

Nothing that is going on is personal.

Wisdom. An enlightened person still would look both ways before crossing the street.

They exist as much as you do. They are as real as you are. Regardless of "your" consciousness. It is rather egocentric really to go to funerals and see others die, but think the world and everything would disappear once you die. This is just another way to make the world revolve around you (so to speak). What ego!

The ego is a mirage. We take what is happening and assign some of it to the "ego" and some to a "truth self". Neither exists...they are figments of the imagination (i.e. thought). Things happen and there is identification with it - my thoughts, my words, my actions. That is ego. The ego is the doer. But that "my" and "doer" is a fiction. The ego like a mirage...what is perceived is taken for something it is not. In a mirage, refracted light off of hot air is mistaken to be water.

Thank you. I have no idea who Paul Hedderman is...so I will have to take your word for it.

@Nahm , meditation does ease some stress, suffering, etc. I don't deny that practices can be partially successful. Even the 30 year meditator I mentioned, he said he has seen many benefits from his meditation and has had amazing spiritual experiences. He says he is not even the same person he was compared to before he started. However, he still suffers and he tells me enlightenment is something he still seeks. He just is not content. We have spoken for many hours and I can see that he still has not delved into the "me"...instead he is trying to grasp enlightenment through the mind (thinking/logic) or through meditating longer or perhaps a new practice (other than just sitting with who you feel you are and looking at it). In all version, he is trying to do something to get over some invisible obstacle. I keep telling him, he has created the obstacle in his own mind...there is no obstacle...also there is no "me" to get over the obstacle...you need to look at the mind and who you think you are. It is somewhat amazing how resistant people are to looking at who they think they are and questioning what am I? They want to do anything but that. In so doing, they distract themselves from the root...the base upon which most of the other illusions of the mind are founded.

We agree that mental masturbation is a distraction and will not help.

Yes. Many meditators, Buddhists, Zen folk, followers of Ramana Maharshi, followers of Eckhart Tolle, followers of all sorts of teachers. They all practice various practices for years...and still suffer and seek (end of suffering, liberation, enlightenment, whatever). If you look, you will see there are many, many who seek and few that find (enlightenment and the permanent cessation of suffering). I had someone lament to me recently that he has been meditating for 30 years...for the past several he meditates several hours a day and on weekends he sometimes meditates all day. He is probably one of the most devoted meditators I know of, but he still suffers and seeks.

I had thirteen years of spiritual searching, but was not looking for enlightenment and I was not really suffering much so I wasn't trying to get out of deep suffering either. I just wanted to know the truth. I was taught past-life regression, various healing modalities, and I did meditate (sporadically - guided meditations, heart centered meditations, etc.). I did not really care for meditation, so I did not do it consistently and often months would pass between meditations. I never did self inquiry...I learned of that after awakening. My practices were all ego driven...self-improvement and human potential. I studied whatever seemed interesting...even magick (The Book of Abramelin, the Green Grimoire, etc.). You don't get much more egoic than wanting to control the world. I have a very wide band of general spiritual knowledge from this, but funny enough I did not study nonduality or enlightenment at all. Even the day prior to awakening, if you asked me what was nonduality...I would not have had a clue. After thirteen years of general studies, I hit a point where every new book seemed to just talk about things I have already read elsewhere. So I gave up the search. I quit reading, practicing, and meditating completely. I have been fairly intuitive since starting the spiritual journey, and so anything I bump into multiple times in a short period of time...I take notice of. I kept bumping into the name Eckhart Tolle. I had heard of the 'Power of Now' but hated the title so much that I never read it. I didn't want to read it, but would begrudgingly watch something - so I went to the library. They had a DVD called "Flowering of Human Consciousness". A talk Eckhart had given. As I watched it, it seemed it was more of the same. Be present...something I thought I was doing - even though I was very much in the head and thinking all of the time. But then he went through an exercise to inhabit the body - to be 100% devoted to the experience of now. I actually became present for the first time. Thinking stopped, and in that silence there was only feeling and experiencing what is here and now. In that moment of profound silence in November 2005, total stillness and presence seemed to come out of hiding from behind everything. There was no future and no past…just what is – that is sort of timeless. There was no “I” or identification with anything. The senses functioned and so I saw, but there was no seer…no “I”…just seeing. It was a direct, sudden realization into what is as it is. It was nondual...no separation. There was a clear and deep seeing through the false “I”. At the same time, as it is connected and not separate, there was a clear seeing of the nature of the world. I had spent years trying to let go of attachments, release myself from fears, self integrate, and basically become better. I saw in that moment that those very actions were in part keeping the illusory “I” alive. In that moment there were no attachments, fears, problems, sorrow, anxiety, suffering, seeking, etc. They never returned. I then read and studied nonduality to get some vocabulary regarding the realization and see how others talk about it. Why did it happen? I was ripe...and in being truly present (so there was no thought)...there were no distractions and a clarity occurred. In the end, there was nothing that I did that caused it. It just happened...of itself. Like surprise...you can't create a surprise for yourself. I clearly saw that is the problem with all practice is that an "I" is doing it and trying to get somewhere...without actually looking at the "I" itself. Upon awakening, I clearly realized that all of that time people spend in the process of freeing themselves from bondage was the delusion of bondage itself. We ask irrelevant questions and do a multitude of practices that only distract us from really looking at this "I". I love Ramana Maharshi's teachings...simple and straight to the point - who am I? He would never let people wiggle away from that point. They would ask him about reincarnation and he would reply - who are you now? I felt deep wisdom in this approach...not letting you look anywhere else. The direct path...a path with no steps. No where to go...just who am I? I recognize the limitations of practice and potential dangers of practice. So even when I suggest something that could be called a practice...self-inquiry for example...I point out that this should not be an efforting or doing. We have no choice but to be aware when we are conscious...so just look at yourself. Question - what am I...really? I try to minimize the egoic action involved. Also being present...this too is not a doing or effort. We are making efforts (thinking) that take us out of the present (experience) and into the head (thinking). So I talk about ceasing to do...again removing action and doership of the "I". If you did nothing (not even thinking), you would automatically be present. I try to be careful to not inflate the sense of "I" and doership...which is a danger of practices. As for your last question...I am currently working with someone who has panic attacks just about every day, in constant fear, and feels hopeless. I just keep pointing him back to this "I" he thinks he is. He keeps trying to distract himself...asking questions that have nothing to do with the "I". I point him back to "what am I?" He later tells me that he sometimes has revelations, but recently said he has spend many hours and days contemplating "who/what am I"...and he says he logically sees that he is not the body/mind...but he still worries and fears. I told him that he still believes he is the body/mind...that is why he fears. His fear of travel (one of many) would not be if he was not worried about something happening to the body/mind which he is so strongly identified with. All I can do is point him back to "who am I?" and tell him to be present (without referring to past or future or mental imagination...where can there be fear?). Cease doing...and as you have no choice but to be aware...look at who you feel yourself to be and delve deeper (keep looking).

If you look around, you also find many who practice many hours daily their whole lives (decades)...and still suffer...still seek. Obviously, something has been missed here and it is not just practice.

It is really not about practice at all. There is a permanent cessation of suffering when there is the realization of who/what you really are (deeply, profoundly, and undeniably)...however, you can not practice to become what you already are. We are fooled by the illusions of the mind and suffer because of ignorance. The only way out of ignorance is understanding. All you can "do" is honestly and seriously look at who you think/feel you are...and perhaps question, is it true? This is not a practice. A practice is a doing...efforting. I am just saying be aware. We have no choice but to be aware when we are conscious. So out of curiosity just be aware of who you think/feel you are...and question the belief. This is the way I point, because PRACTICING EVERYDAY can become its own trap. Practicing can be an ego driven activity that reinforces the illusion of the "I". Look at what "I" do..."I" meditate 8 hours a day. Great, but that has not helped in seeing through the "I". Practice can very well become a distraction...a way to keep looking away from the "I" and basic assumptions/beliefs of who/what you are.