Shanmugam

How is your well being?

@Sahil Pandit thats a good point.. .. Applies to everyone by the way, not just to those on the spiritual path..

"Does it matter if I disagree? It shouldn't and that is why I ask what if someone has a differing experience perspective, it shouldn't matter. Although, there are people who express that their experience perspective is the absolute truth by using absolute terms in how they speak about it." I already told you once; the bottom line is, end of seeking... If your seeking has really ended, then any disagreement that can arise between us can only be semantics or you are not carefully paying attention. That is why I mentioned about 'selective attention'... Because, I have already addressed a lot of things that you disagreed with. "I don't tell people they are already enlightened and that they don't have to do anything, that's you lying again since you already admit you lie but I am aware enough to recognize you building a false narrative straw man even without your admission." It looks like you are just reacting to the words based on the connotation. The word here is 'lie'. Are you even familiar with some teaching methods that have been used from time immemorial? For example, in Vedanta, there is a method called adhyaropa apavada. It means just this: They intentionally attribute certain qualities to the truth in order to give a little conceptual basis to the mind. Finally, they also negate the intentionally attributed qualities. In casual language usage, I will simply say that this is intentional attribution is 'lying'! .. I sometimes use the words so casually. Shankara in his atmashatkam says 'I am neither enlightened nor in bondage'... This is true. Because, Adhi Shankara saying 'I am enlightened' will be actually a lie.What is the meaning of the word 'lie' in the first place? You don't lie in your life at all? If you are telling a lie for some kind of selfish desire, that is different. But other than that, everyone lies for some practical reasons.. When a person asks another person 'How are you', does he always say the truth? "I say what I said to who I was speaking to, not to everyone I ever talk to so what I say to someone who has no understanding isn't what I say to the person who I made that post to. You are again building a false narrative straw man because you yourself say you change what you say for who you are speaking to, why can't I?" You can! When did I say you can't? Only now you are telling me this. But anyway, when I look at the nature of the posts you post in general, I don't see much other than 'bahahaaa'... So, probably after seeing some future posts of yours, I may see this. But based on what I have been saying for the past few days, I haven't witnessed even a friendly conversation that goes between you and another person. Your posts have a tone of 'fault finding' (as much as I have seen)... "It doesn't matter to be considered "enlightened" and isn't why I ask people if they exclude others based on experience perspective. I ask because if they genuinely are seeking unity they would recognize creating separation but if they want to be acknowledged as "enlightened" they will speak in exclusionary terms so expose their own intentions in answering." I don't really see how this applies to me when you say "if they genuinely are seeking unity they would recognize creating separation"... I have carefully studied the methods used in Vedanta, Buddhism and psychotherapy which went on for one year. There are things which have been already tried when it comes to guiding others to enlightenment. I am just combining all these methods in the best possible way. On the contrary, you just seem to have a belief about what works for people and what doesn't.. In fact, I explained this very clearly to you once. "If someone authentically has an experience perspective of unity they will recognize it in others and won't deny it others. Isn't that essentially what Namaste means? So, I prefer to focus on the already existing unity we share and seek to help others be aware of self created separation that may remain so awareness of our unity is increasing in clarity." If that is what you prefer, go ahead and do it. But why should I follow your preference? What I prefer to do is not only based on my experience, but also based on the year long research I did. You need to understand that it is you who first come up with some kind of disagreement. When you disagree with something, I just want to discuss and find out why. If someone says something which is really useful for guiding other people, I have no problem to take it. I have been discussing with couple of other established teachers. No one ever said 'you are teaching duality'. In fact, it was you who made this assumption in another thread, while I never even said 'I am teaching non-duality' in the first place.. I don't really like to use strong words such as 'teaching', 'teacher', 'guru' etc... As far as I am concerned, I only want to address myself as a friend who can give guidance to other people to end their own suffering. You are the one who is sounding like an authority here without even doing a research in some of the teaching methods that were used from time immemorial. And you are the one who is trying to push your preference of 'how to teach'... You should not forget another thing.. Almost every enlightened person guides another person based on what worked for him. I have seen this in many people. Ramakrishna insisted that Bhakthi was the best path because that is what worked for him; Ramana Maharshi taught self-inquiry because that worked for him and he woke up quite easily. Shankara insisted that one should read Vedas, scriptures etc and become a monk because that is what worked for him. On the other hand, Buddha rejected Vedas because he knew very well that studying Vedas didn't play any role in his enlightenment. So, some kind of bias tends to happen and you cannot avoid it. Are you looking for a perfect flawless world or what? I am doing what the best that I can do based on my experience and based on the guidance I got...That is all I know..

@SOUL You have been conveniently doing one thing over and over again.. You haven't addressed many things I said in the above post... I think it is very clear and written in simple English. What points do you have in disagreeing with me here?

Do you have any jokes for the 'enlightenment jokes' thread?

@Ether You already said that you are having fewer thoughts.. That is a good indication of the progress. Just abide as this witness.. As per my understanding, you already have a good clarity on what to do. Forget about all these concepts and words. They are not for you. As you abide as witness more and more without identifying with the contents of consciousness, there is really nothing that you have to do.

Without a witnessing awareness, is there anything else to be conscious of the body and the mind? When I say 'illusion', I am using it as a direct translation of the word 'Maya'... But just understanding this is sufficient for now to go ahead and abide as witness: Everything that is witnessed is changing and impermanent, but the witness doesn't change.

you really don't understand or you are pretending? Because you sound different today Don't worry about what I have posted here in this thread.. The communication was between @SOUL and me... You are on the right track by doing witnessing...

I know that I have no authority to silence you.. You can keep posting here in this forum. But you need to remember that whenever I feel like it, I will keep explaining what I want to explain to you. You have no authority to silence me on that either! You still haven't addressed many things I said.... ' you are the only one'..... Why only one? That is my point.

I am really not a fan of telling 'you don't exist' to people... I usually elaborate and I think you already know that... You as a body and mind is an illusion; you can witness your body and you can witness your mind. So, the witness is permanent and unchanging while everything that is witnessed changes... You can doubt the existence of anything that changes but you cannot doubt the existence of the witness that you are. And you as this witness definitely exists...

I am talking about the statements like 'Don't ego it', 'live in the unknown'....

You have already started telling me what to do... So, I assume that you don't need any more help...

'that's a belief' is a belief too! You know how to reply now... I will do it for you this time: ''that's a belief' is a belief too' is a belief too...

Do you really understand what is being discussed here?

I have a friend who is a Christian. She still believes that she may go to heaven after the final judgment is over. She is extremely neurotic and I know that she is suffering a lot. But she is not ready to let go of her Christian beliefs... I also know that she has a really good potential for enlightenment at some point in her life. Her suffering may take her. So, do you know the best thing that I can do to her? I will first have to convince her that Bible is really not infallible but just a collection of manually selected gospels from many different gospels.. Then I would convince her Jesus was a Gnostic teacher. If I just manage to even introduce the concept of enlightenment, that still will be tremendously helpful. She may explore many things on her own because I have given a starting point. I may even tell her that the purpose of life is enlightenment, which is actually the right thing to say to her. But in reality, life doesn't have any purpose. If I tell her there is no purpose in life and that she doesn't exist, that will sound totally negative to her, like some kind of nihilism. This is how I got the idea of writing a book about Jesus. Because there are probably many such people like her. Do you get my point?

There is one thing which you are not getting it, which I am going to repeat to you for the third time now: Getting liberated is one thing; guiding another person to liberation is another thing. If you want to guide others to liberation, you should not only be liberated and free in the first place, but you should also know how to communicate certain things, starting from a person who is a beginner on the path (whose conditioning is very deep) to someone who has progressed quite well. How many people will understand what you just said? How helpful will it be to a seeker who has already learned a lot of concepts about enlightenment? I already mentioned that speaking about absolute and relative is a teaching device! I already addressed this in my thread regarding neo-Advaita trap! Enlightenment itself is a lie! When I tell a person that he is not enlightened, I know that I am lying to him.. Because, saying 'you are already enlightened' to an absolute beginner will do nothing to him! Saying 'you don't have to do anything for enlightenment' will make no difference to him! How do you talk to a 3-year-old kid? If she doesn't eat food, you may first try telling him 'You will not grow up if you don't eat properly'. But she wouldn't listen. Then you may try telling her 'If you don't eat then I will ask Santa Claus to not give you any presents for Christmas' or something like that. Have you heard of the expression 'removing a thorn using another thorn'? A teaching is not the truth but a device! I had a Satori in 2002. If you had told me that enlightenment is like a process which happens with various awakening experiences, I would have agreed with you by that time.. Because, I indeed had a lot of such glimpses which allowed me to feel like I was getting 'more awakened' than before ...But I cannot agree with you now because what happened in July 2014 pretty much ended it. There is no more getting closer to anything because I am everything... Your problem might be this: Since you already said that this is not your experience, (which I myself would have said before July 2014), you have a problem in accepting what we say. Because, you also want to consider yourself as 'enlightened'... That's why you keep asking people 'If my experience is different than what you say, will you consider as enlightenment'... Why do you even care? Why do you expect such a validation? Because you want to put a label called 'enlightenment' on your experience of reality. You may say that this is a projection. But you are pretty much proving this is true, everytime you post a message on this forum. Of course, it is a belief, in the same way, saying that a tree exists is also a belief (according to how you are defining belief here)... Because I can doubt the existence of a tree but I can never doubt the existence of the consciousness which is aware of the tree.. In this sense, what I say about you is a belief too. But just like there is a consensus among people that the tree actually exists, there is also a consensus to what I am saying among people who are really liberated. When we interact with other people, we only communicate based on this consensus. I did not have any need to say that I am no longer living in duality until I decided to write about it on my blog. So, I was pretty much silent about it for about 2 years... Only after seeing that a lot of people are totally confused, I thought that putting everything down in writing can help them. And I know that it is helping them because they say that. Just day before yesterday, one guy who is in my friend list on Facebook was talking about the suffering he is going through. I offered him an assurance that suffering is not going to be permanent. He seemed to be really unhappy and finding his whole life meaningless. If I copy and paste what you have written above, it will not make any difference to him at all! They are just empty words... Note: Try to understand what I have written by paying full attention, not selective attention.. Do you know what that means?.. It is what you are doing. You only seem to scan for certain statements that you can possibly disagree with by semantics and selectively quote that statement alone... Once you pull out a statement from a passage, usually it loses its context.

@Saumaya @Shroomdoctor What is going on between you two here? You are talking in riddles..

Whenever I feel like it.. Mostly online reading...

"In October 2005, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, a journalist and an editor of a women's rights magazine, was sentenced by a tribunal to two years in prison for blasphemy because he questioned the harsh punishments imposed on women under Sharia, and because he said conversion from Islam should not be a crime. Nasab was released in December 2005 after his sentence was reduced on appeal" We are really fortunate, aren't we?

We can't say about it now.. I have no idea how the world is going to be if everyone is enlightened.. .. But this is too far away really.. Are you aware of what is happening in Syria in the last one week? There are countries where you can’t even speak about enlightenment in public. It will be considered as blasphemy and you may get killed. : Blasphemy law in Afghanistan - Wikipedia

you missed @Faceless

Yes... that is why stories, jokes, and analogies take main part in non-dual teachings..

@MarkusSweden Interesting... There is a story told in Indian traditions... A snake was killing everyone in a village. Many people died because of the snake bite. People were scared to go near the snake for any reason. One day, a saint passed by and asked the snake 'Don't you feel compassion for these people? You are killing them without any love. What do you get out of it? You are creating a lot of suffering for no reason'. The snake felt very bad. For this reason, it decided to remain calm. It stopped everything it was doing before. There was absolutely no reaction from it whenever people passed by. Soon, the young boys started teasing the snake by throwing stones at it. This routine continued every day but the snake never reacted. It bore everything with patience. Things got worse every day and finally one day it lost all the energy to even move. The saint passed by again. This time the snake's body was full of wounds. Saint asked the snake 'What happened'.. The snake told him the whole story. The saint told the snake 'I only said not to kill people.. But why didn't you scare them? I never said you should not scare people'.... .......................... I went through something similar but it happened after enlightenment. I made no efforts to impress people at work because It meant nothing to me.. The recognition such as 'best performer of the month' didn't motivate my behavior anymore.. I was simply enjoying talking to the customers... It was an inbound sales process. I would just describe the product to the customers after asking some probing questions. If customers say 'I want to think about this, I will call back, I would reply 'sure, I completely understand..call back whenever you want'... I used to talk to wrong numbers for 45 minutes, discuss totally unrelated topics with customers etc... It would be right to say that I completely forgot my responsibilities at work. Only after a few months, my team leader questioned me. That's when I realized that I should keep this job for the sake of my family. My wife doesn't work and she completely depends on me. So, I had to consciously create some intentions... I was able to do it right away and then everything as different..

No.. I have read online articles.. I don't have those links now. But when it comes to books, the books I read on psychology is the ones I mentioned..