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Method I did a 1h 30min session of kriya supreme fire once on every chakra, and then I alternated between the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th. After every breath hold of kriya supreme fire, as I was waiting to recover my breath, I did a chakra opening exercise on the same chakra. Kriya Supreme Fire The general Idea for this exercise is to focus on a chakra while holding breath and doing the 3 main bandhas. The area of focus for the 2nd chakra is over the hip bone on the stomach, the heart space for 4th chakra, third eye for the 6th chakra and top of head for the 7th. This fills the chakra with energy. For instructions read Kundalini Exposed by SantataGamana. The energetic increase from this exercise can saturate dysfunctions of your chakras and manifest in various ways, it could be dangerous, especially for people new to energy work. Do at your own risk. I'm not trying to avoid spelling out the technique here it just takes too much explaining to go into in a forum post, better read it directly from the source. Chakra Opening On every out-breath you gently relax the chakra, fill it with bliss and tap into its positive expression. This synergizes with kriya supreme fire as it gives more energy to work with. The positive expression of the 2nd chakra is pleasure, 4th is love, 6th is presence, 7th is energetically melting together with the kosmos. There are many ways to do this. Here is an example for the 2nd chakra. I recommend Enlightenment through the Path of Kundalini by Tara Springett for more general instructions and Wheels of Life to better understand the chakra system. It was very energetically intense. When I had finished and opened my eyes I saw the word in a way I never had before. It was a way of perceiving, cognizing, behaving and experiencing myself, a totally new way of being that I realized was turquoise. The Anatomy of Turquoise The 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th chakra make up the inner workings of turquoise. Everything I witnessed fell into an open heart(4th chakra). My open 6th chakra made the love indiscriminate, totally compassionate for even the darkest side of a being. That ability to see someone in their totality, without judging its ugly sides, is what gives turquoise it's famed holism. A 2nd chakra bond was then formed with being entered my awareness, could be a part of my subtle body, psyche or could be another living being. The indiscriminate love then worked through that bond to create the desire to heal the being. Healing means making happy, as happiness is the psyche's way of signaling health. It's then perceived that the being has bonds with other beings that in turn has more bonds. These bonds continue out to a whole network encompassing every being on this planet, aka, the web of life. The open 7th chakra made this cognition cosmic rather than personal, giving a 3rd person perspective required for the impersonal nature of the 2nd tier. Conclusions That state of mind requires a high degree of energy and purity. If I were to sustain that level, I would have to purify lower traumas and impurities that are keeping my energy down. Cleaning up is so important for vertical growth. I had never experienced yellow even close to this strongly before. It almost seemed like I had skipped that stage in many aspects. Just like rationality is the way of knowing for orange, intuition and empathy was a way of knowing for turquoise. Yellow systems thinking gave context for that intuition to give structure to the web of life. Turquoise is in essence a holistic healer. Leo has portrayed turquoise as spiritual in essence, which I now think is wrong. The ego transcendence achieved by spirituality is one aspect of turquoise, but turquoise is not complete without the involvement of the 2nd chakra in the way I described. I have ~2 years of energy work under my belt. I was meditating quite a lot around the time I had the experience. Normally I'm pretty orange but with a yellow worldview. But I also have a high amount of trauma and undeveloped sides of my psyche, so if my spiral development could skyrocket like that, then anyone could do it.

THE INORGANIC BEINGS ~ “THE OLD SHAMANS DISCOVERED THAT THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS COMPOSED OF TWIN FORCES, FORCES THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME OPPOSED AND COMPLEMENTARY TO EACH OTHER. IT IS INESCAPABLE THAT OUR WORLD IS A TWIN WORLD. ITS OPPOSITE AND COMPLEMENTARY WORLD IS ONE POPULATED BY BEINGS THAT HAVE AWARENESS, BUT NOT AN ORGANISM. FOR THIS REASON, THE OLD SHAMANS CALLED THEM INORGANIC BEINGS. I TOLD YOU THAT IT’S OUR TWIN WORLD, SO IT’S INTIMATELY RELATED TO US. THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO DIDN’T THINK LIKE MOST DO IN TERMS OF SPACE AND TIME. THEY THOUGHT EXCLUSIVELY IN TERMS OF AWARENESS. TWO TYPES OF AWARENESS COEXIST WITHOUT EVER IMPINGING ON EACH OTHER, BECAUSE EACH TYPE IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER. THE OLD SHAMANS FACED THIS PROBLEM OF COEXISTENCE WITHOUT CONCERNING THEMSELVES WITH TIME AND SPACE. THEY REASONED THAT THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS OF ORGANIC BEINGS AND THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS OF INORGANIC BEINGS WERE SO DIFFERENT THAT BOTH COULD COEXIST WITH THE MOST MINIMAL INTERFERENCE. “ “THE INORGANIC BEINGS WHO POPULATE OUR TWIN WORLD ARE CONSIDERED, BY THE SORCERERS OF OUR LINEAGE, TO BE OUR RELATIVES. THOSE SHAMANS BELIEVED THAT IT WAS FUTILE TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH OUR FAMILY MEMBERS BECAUSE THE DEMANDS LEVIED ON US FOR SUCH FRIENDSHIPS ARE ALWAYS EXORBITANT. THAT TYPE OF INORGANIC BEING, WHO ARE OUR FIRST COUSINS, COMMUNICATE WITH US INCESSANTLY, BUT THEIR COMMUNICATION WITH US IS NOT AT THE LEVEL OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS. IN OTHER WORDS, WE KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM IN A SUBLIMINAL WAY, WHILE THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT US IN A DELIBERATE, CONSCIOUS MANNER. THE ENERGY FROM OUR FIRST COUSINS IS A DRAG! THEY ARE AS MESSED UP AS WE ARE. LET’S SAY THAT THE ORGANIC AND INORGANIC BEINGS OF OUR TWIN WORLDS ARE THE CHILDREN OF TWO SISTERS WHO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER. THEY ARE EXACTLY ALIKE ALTHOUGH THEY LOOK DIFFERENT. THEY CANNOT HELP US, AND WE CANNOT HELP THEM. PERHAPS WE COULD JOIN TOGETHER, AND MAKE A FABULOUS FAMILY BUSINESS CORPORATION, BUT THAT HASN’T HAPPENED. BOTH BRANCHES OF THE FAMILY ARE EXTREMELY TOUCHY AND TAKE OFFENCE OVER NOTHING, A TYPICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOUCHY FIRST COUSINS. THE CRUX OF THE MATTER, THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO BELIEVED, IS THAT BOTH HUMAN BEINGS AND INORGANIC BEINGS FROM THE TWIN WORLDS ARE PROFOUND EGOMANIACS. ANOTHER CLASSIFICATION THAT THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO MADE OF THE INORGANIC BEINGS WAS THAT OF SCOUTS, OR EXPLORERS; THAT IS, THE INORGANIC BEINGS THAT COME FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE, AND WHICH ARE POSSESSORS OF AWARENESS INFINITELY SHARPER AND FASTER THAN THAT OF HUMAN BEINGS. THE OLD SORCERERS SPENT GENERATIONS POLISHING THEIR CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES, AND THEIR CONCLUSIONS WERE THAT CERTAIN TYPES OF INORGANIC BEINGS FROM THE CATEGORY OF SCOUTS OR EXPLORERS, BECAUSE OF THEIR VIVACIOUSNESS, WERE AKIN TO MAN. THEY COULD MAKE LIAISONS AND ESTABLISH A SYMBIOTIC RELATION WITH MEN. THE OLD SORCERERS CALLED THESE KINDS OF INORGANIC BEINGS THE ALLIES.” “THE CRUCIAL MISTAKE OF THOSE SHAMANS WITH REFERENCE TO THIS TYPE OF INORGANIC BEING WAS TO ATTRIBUTE HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS TO THAT IMPERSONAL ENERGY AND TO BELIEVE THAT THEY COULD HARNESS IT. THEY THOUGHT OF THOSE BLOCKS OF ENERGY AS THEIR HELPERS, AND THEY RELIED ON THEM WITHOUT COMPREHENDING THAT, BEING PURE ENERGY, THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE POWER TO SUSTAIN ANY EFFORT. I’VE TOLD YOU ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT INORGANIC BEINGS. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN PUT THIS TO THE TEST IS BY MEANS OF DIRECT EXPERIENCE.” EXTRACT FROM “THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY” BY CARLOS CASTANEDA

Gaslighting is a form of vague lying. Truth is power and the only reason anyone avoids it is in favor of lies is fear and insecurity which comes out of misunderstanding. The lie is a way of perpetuating misunderstanding. While it appears that the person telling the lie DOES know how things really are and that can be infuriating, misunderstanding is still the name of the game. Both parties are focusing on their own inadequacy. The difference is that in identification one looks like the abuser and one looks like the victim, but those judgements are very short sighted. People deny and reflect different behaviors out of fear. Some become aggressive, some become shy and passive in response. It's as impersonal as a color appearing as the color that it reflects or rejects, all colors are born out of and seen in white light, in all potential of the separate colors. One of the major issues that comes up in communities like this is that encouragement to drop what we know in order to let in a deeper Truth, Love or clarity often is first judged or passed off as a kind of gaslighting or avoidance. It's not. You, only YOU, know it for yourself by how it feels. The whole point is to connect YOU with your own inner power, which turns out to be quite impersonal and therefore... unlimited. We don't see clearly or allow this power unless we are in a relaxed, allowing states. You could say that sitting to meditate is gaslighting yourself, but if you've done it for very long you've seen it as an opportunity to let insight and new perspectives in that truly heal rather than perpetuate the feeling of inadequacy that brought the gaslighting. When you pay attention to how you feel, you go immediately for the healing you seek and you also allow the specific healing you seek to find you. Concepts of abuser and abused prevent this. Healing is wholeness, if you keep defining the separation, you don't allow the healing to occur on its own. That doesn't mean that we don't sometimes hold people accountable or call them out. We do. But your own inner view of the situation and your role in it is critical. Healing does not come from believing that your relief comes from the other's suffering. There's no eye for an eye in healing, just two lost eyes. You're thoughts are more powerful than you realize. You are more powerful than you realize.

"I act on what I feel and never deal with emotion", hearing this simple line hit an interesting chord in me when I was listening to this What's the difference between feeling and emotion? Feeling=sensation perhaps. Talking about things in terms of "sensations" sounds rather impersonal and cold. "Sensations", in a vacuum that sounds like an impersonal word but it needn't be. It has those cold associations due to it being a scientific/mathematical/logical description, but those associations of mine are a complete invention and story. Why should or would math/physics be inherently cold and impersonal? Ofc in the context of the song its a bit different. Phish is saying he just acts on what he feels like doing without thinking about it, but in a stage red greedy manner. Regardless of the song context, it's an interesting thing to investigate.

Your personality vanishes. Personality remains but it's impersonal and it only exists as a concept. You experience the paradox of an impersonal personality in the conceptual mind. You experience the extinguishment of base personality. This impersonal personality is no longer constrained by the limiting force of the ego. This allows it to evolve freely. The ego is what made you believe that your personality is somehow solid. You begin to realize that your personality is an act. Your mind creates the idea of a personality. You are an actor. An actor who never stops acting. An actor who has no base personality to fall back on. This is how Jim Carrey had an awakening into no self. He got so immersed in his characters that he realized he was a character to begin with. Of course you'll still be in the habit of playing a certain role, but once you realize that you've been acting, you allow yourself to be the actor of any role(s) you desire. Society gave you an audition that you both passed and failed. It's time to become the director and then the entire movie itself.

Storyteller (Minstrel, Narrator) The classic Storyteller/Minstrel archetype relays the wisdom or foolishness, mistakes and successes, facts and fiction, and tales of love and the impossible, on a plane that is often exaggerated beyond ordinary life. Love is greater, power is more daring, successes are more astonishing, foolishness is more obvious. We have an archetypal need to be spoken to through stories because they bring us into contact with our inner being. We are, in fact, storytellers by nature. Those who have this archetype find that the Storyteller’s voice and methods are essential to their way of communicating and perceiving the world. Some teachers are also connected with the Storyteller archetype, but not all Storytellers are teachers. Not all writers are Storytellers, but authors of fiction must be. A Storyteller communicates not just facts but also a metaphoric learning or experience. Storytellers abound in any walk of life, not just among professional writers. The tradition of the Minstrel reveals how essential the Storyteller’s role was in medieval culture, because Minstrels were expected to tell stories and sing stories as a way of entertaining a group as well as passing on the news of the day. The shadow Storyteller is, in the extreme, a liar, and, in moderation, an exaggerator. The temptation always exists to misuse the skill of storytelling to your own advantage when sharing information. The shadow aspect manifests when we can’t resist making up a story to conceal something we don’t want to be truthful about. But the universal appeal of storytelling throughout history suggests some deeper connection of this archetype with the human soul. The oldest written works we possess, from the Gilgamesh Epic to the Bible to the Odyssey, use storytelling to make their points. Maybe it’s simply a reflection of the sense that each of our lives is a story worth telling, or a desire to impose order on what sometimes seems like a chaotic and random universe. Student (Disciple, Devotee, Follower, Apprentice) The student archetype suggests a pattern of constant learning, an openness to absorbing new information as an essential part of one’s well-being. The Student archetype suggests an absence of mastery of any one subject but rather a continual pursuit of intellectual development. Within the spiritual aspect, the Student, Disciple, Devotee, and Follower imply that one has found a source of teaching, such as a Guru or Spiritual Master, who becomes the instructor and spiritual guide. The shadow Student usually manifests in tandem with the shadow Teacher or Mentor, avidly learning all the tools of the wrong trade or misusing the knowledge learned. This was graphically depicted in Walt Disney’s animated imagining of Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse portrays the Student Wizard who gets carried away with his own unperfected talent and causes havoc. The sahdow can also show up as the eternal Student who never embarks on the sea of life in earnest, but manages to find ever new reasons to continue being schooled without ever putting that knowledge to the test. People who continually use the excuse that they are not ready or have not yet learned enough to advance with their dreams should take special note of this archetype and whether they have a shadow bond with it. Teacher (Instructor, see also Mentor) Teaching is the art of communicating knowledge, experience, skill, and wisdom to another. Teaching, or offering instruction of any kind, can manifest through parental guidance, business apprenticeship, or by inspired instruction in ethics or kindness. To determine whether this archetype is part of your support team, ask yourself if others look to you as a teacher in any situation. Are you the one that others seek out for the richness of your experience, or to teach them the ropes? The shadow Teacher manifests as a desire to manipulate or abuse those you are instructing; to be more concerned with recognition than with imparting knowledge; or, like the shadow Mentor, to teach negative traits and destructive skills, like burglary or how to cheat on the job. Thief (Swindler, Con Artist, Pickpocket, Burglar, Robin Hood) The Thief is thought of as a nocturnal, hooded figure who slips silently into places and takes what he wants. In the hierarchy of thievery, the most respected is the Jewel Thief, associated with glamour, class, and sophistication. The Good Thief steals on behalf of others, as in the case of Robin Hood, and appears to be relieved of all wrongdoing because of his benevolent motive to be of service to others, but often that is just a rationalization. The Bank Thief maintains a degree of respect because the target is corporate and impersonal and the implication is that the thief has an intelligent and strategic mind. The Street Thief and Pickpocket, on the other hand, rank lowest because they rob ordinary individuals and their methods yield small gain. Symbolically, theft can take many forms, including plagiarism, stealing ideas and even affection. Taking what is not yours because you lack the ability to provide for yourself implies the need to learn self-respect. This archetype prods you to learn to generate power from within. As with so many archetypes that initially strike you as completely unrelated to who you are, this archetype should be evaluated from its symbolic meaning. You may never have stolen one thing at the physical level, but you also need to take into consideration your emotional and intellectual arenas.

This is an older writing of Deci's from daobums.com that was very helpful. If she wants it taken down, let me know: "So when I speak of appearances that do not confuse people in the midst of situations, it is just that there is no personalistic psychological locus existent to posit confusion because there is no habitual thought based on the facetious personality of the being that is going to die. This thing of no location is universal. The Center is the totality of reality with neither inside nor outside. Though its (transcendent) effect does not rely on the sudden—experientially, it's you: therefore, you are not it by virtue of its (your) selfless nature. There is nothing to maintain for appearances sake. I have been bouncing back and forth between the relative and the absolute in terms of appearances for a reason. THEY ARE SAMENESS. THERE IS NO TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN. THERE IS NO COIN. Just smile! It goes without saying that you do not constitute a point for confusion to accumulate. And by that, in terms of the relative, I mean there is really no self to maintain in terms of a psychological locus for confusion to accumulate. There is already nothing whatsoever to account for in terms of self and other relative to conditions. When Gautama buddha held up the flower, Mahakasyapa just smiled. Confusion? How can there be confusion where there is nothing to understand? Confusion is only possible by referencing the personality's construed psychological awareness in terms of its own relative not-self, whereas nonpsychological awareness' perspective is in terms of the present impersonal situation. The only reason the authentic teachings exist is to counter habit energy being YOUR habit. Conditioned energy is karmic— it just is, whether you see your nature or not. The provisional teaching of emptiness or the illusion of temporal existence is just so people will avoid losing themselves unawares long enough to develop an independent perspective based on nonpsychological awareness in order to forget the self-reifying thoughts and feelings that bind one to karmic existence. Reality and delusion appear the same because they are the same. Substantial stability of clarity functioning in the midst of appearances has no confusion because there is no psychological locus (location) for habitual self-reifying thoughts and feelings (confusion) to accumulate. What's left is impersonal characteristics. Just this is the basis of one's response. Effective response is the result of seeing through phenomena without denying their characteristics. Abiding here (enlightening being) is the incipient pivot of the creative arising undifferentiated radiating aware essence. The creative is itself potential, if one sees. If one doesn't see, it is creation/karmic evolution. If one sees, then one can use it. Arising undifferentiated is Complete Reality; this being the Center. Obviously, it is the self. Radiating aware essence is presence. This is one's function. Just smile.❤︎"

The voice is just the voice . I mean, it's not like the silence, or emptiness identifies with itself. I've had experiences when the mind was gone and the only thing that remains is that emptiness/silence. When experienced, it is bliss, pure love and everything I could ever dream of. At the same time, it is what remains when the mind is gone, so death is the best thing that will ever happen to me. Not that I seek death, on the contrary, I enjoy life and are enamored with it, I just know that when I'm gone, then I'm really not gone . Sorry if it makes no sense to you. I used to seek to create more space, but I no longer do. The space is only needed to observe the mind carefully, but not with the intent of fixing it, but rather to trust it. It is absolutely genius and wonderful. The second best thing after emptiness. Ever since I understood what love is, I want to simultaneously be both something and nothing. I know that it sounds stupid, but these are not mutually exclusive. The first step was just the unreflected voice talking as me, as in, there was no voice observed, not even thoughts being recognized, just me. When I woke up to the existence of the voice, I gradually became more interested in understanding what language is, etc, and started observing the voice as something that happens, as if it was something external (even though it exists in the private space). I began to learn to distinguish the moments when I'm thinking consciously/deliberately and when the voice talks by itself. At some point, after observation of the voice, I became interested more in it and asked myself, who talks as this voice? This is where I started to recognize that it's conditioned by interactions, something akin to a more sophisticated voice recorder that can model personalities. As I became more in touch with how my psyche works, it became apparent that there are more and less privileged voices that influence other voices. Not by talking to each other, but rather, some personalities that have been modeled by the voice, use voices of other people, "parrot" these people, to gain control over the will. The most dominant voice in there was my critical mother. "She" would use other people's voices to criticize "me" from within me. This had the effect of not actually living my life and having no actual center of my own, no heart, so to speak, recycling same stuff over and over again. Finding the real me within me, or rather, dropping falsehood, is the most significant accomplishment of my life. No, on the contrary! It is the voice that lies, always. Lying is not the correct word, really, at its core it's completely innocent. The voice is literally an infant. After language was learned, it never matured, it was just picking up on things and repeated them without knowing what it talks about. Some genuine insights were had, but they turned to knowledge through representation and lost its "spark". So the snowball of misunderstandings started to weave until it was too great to stop. Really, when it comes to "the other person", then it has to be said explicitly that the voice is the main culprit of all misunderstandings and not being able to see the other in a deep, meaningful, way. Most insights that were had during re-conditioning were actually gained by seeing the falsehoods that kept perpetuating the chatter. They were false/incomplete models that the voice recorder made, so to speak. Some of the insights were also about feeling myself more and prioritizing that over thoughts. This had the effect of deep compassion towards everyone because this condition is not really exclusive to me. My mother, for example, never went through the process I did, so she simply perpetuated the hurts that her parents inflicted. Even though it's the most personal thing, it's also completely impersonal at the same time. Only after seeing through the voice, I am able to experience others truly. There are very few people like that. When it comes to "re-conditioning" the voice, the only thing that was added was my therapists' presence that I modeled automatically. She is a wonderful, supportive, woman that is the mother that I always needed. Having a supportive presence that stops the inner turmoil is very, very helpful and I am very grateful to her. In part, thanks to this very conversation, I began to be more interested in interacting consciously with music and I noticed that there is a distinct kind of pain that I sometimes experience when I'm listening to it. I grasped that it is a warning and I recently stopped the music after feeling it. So far, no repeats . Consciousness and unconsciousness, as I call it, are not distinct entities, so to speak. They only seem that way because our conscious processes are based upon distinctions. The deeper I go into myself, the more in touch I am with the Unconscious, and I am very much convinced that it plays a significant, active, role in how we develop and grow. We seek experiences that mature us and this is what the Unconscious orchestrates. This is what I meant by the "double person" when I talked about observing and interpreting myself. It is not something that I can stop doing, this is how maturation progresses. This is how something and nothing are the same. When there's nothing left to crumble, I mean, literally nothing, the mind is completely gone, and you are love, then you can't help but to give birth to yourself . This is love - it is how reality is "made". Thank you! When I pondered my first awakening after coming down off it, I remember saying to someone that it felt as if reality was raping itself and it felt good. You are very inquisitive and open, I really enjoy reading your questions. Keep doing that and I'm sure that you will get your answers, eventually.

Hi Breakingthewall— excellent comments. Yes, the vision of the dance is in perpetual subsumption, where the symbolic mystical vortex of particulate light and even more glistening dark elements churn tacitly in what taoist mysticism calls the liquid pearl. "Out of the dim void, a point of illumination hovers auspiciously in stillness." Existence, illusion; just this is truly the mystery of mysteries. The Absolute is no mystery. The homeland of nothing whatsoever is just the seat of selfless nonoriginated wonder… miraculously aware. Who knows? The Absolute is as far as human awareness can go. It is not the person. Taoism calls this the true human with no status. But there is always that which is beyond the limit of the limitless. Such is the realm of unknowability even beyond our puny human inconceivable nature. Having returned from the voidless void, where absence has no precedent, just here in the presence of inherent open awareness, one sees through illusion and gathers its potential. By virtue of the realm of karma itself, one joins in true partnership with the creative by seeing Change and thereby transcends its rounds of birth and death throughout endless cycles of creative momentum— thus, by somehow standing aloof in the midst of delusion, one "gathers" its potential, grain by grain, while biding one's time in the highest good of receptivity to incipient potential by virtuous nonresistance. Who knows the essence of reality? Only those with the eyes of subtle spiritual accord in reality to do so. Authentic practice is a matter of perpetually clarifying and preserving the fundamental. It's not somewhere else, but you (the person) are not it. When it's you and yet you yourself have never been such a one, you're close. It's a matter of intimate knowledge beyond judgements and opinions. Real knowledge is immediate and impersonal, independent of the thinker, the knower and the liver of life, so there is no how involved. Why? Because reality truly has no pattern, action relative to psychological process is eons away. In seeing the essence of reality, in terms of ordinary situations, one does not partake of relative manipulations, only adapting to present conditions without seeking honor nor avoiding ignominy— all the while abiding in clear, open sincerity. ed note: tweak 2nd paragraph; add starting with "…but you (the person) are not it", ending with …eons away." in 3rd

Setting the Standard Rising above one's ingrained sarcasm, indifference, apathy, intellectual conceits, self-satisfaction, guilt-trips and dualistic attitudes attributable to a lifetime's accretions of learned and inherited ignorance is accomplished by setting the standard by which to wrap up one's personal history for all time. Just set the standard above the selfish reifications based on your limited view of your own life's perceived experiences and motivations. It isn't a matter of condescension or condemning one's personally perceived indemnities and vulnerabilities in order to punish oneself or otherwise surpass them somehow. In transcending ego, there is no value judgement employed~ one simply arrives at a point of failing to posit circumstantial identities altogether by a process of refusing to entertain self-reflecting notions of thought and feeling at a subtle level of unbroken concentration over a very long period of time. What happens is, the intellectualized rationalistic self-reifying habit-function defining one’s personality eventually craps out on its own. The personality doesn’t go away— but by self-refinement, just the apparatus seemingly needing to sustain it does. Ego has real jobs to do, and sustaining the false identity isn’t one of them. So instead of harboring destructively self-reifying anticipatory consciousness by waiting for this to happen, it’s like wearing out a shoe. The world already provides the abrasive means naturally. Self-refinement is just adapting to this all-pervasive abrasive quality of delusional conditionality to get the desired result, which is the elimination of habit-energy in one's life that continuously wastes pure energy potential on superfluous ego-antics. Eventually, over a long period of time, the habit-patterns perpetuating the delusional faculties drop off one by one by the enlightening process dealing with everyday ordinary situations effectively. It is by the authentic practice of enlightening activity adapting to conditions with selfless spiritual subtlety not relying on one's personal power that refinement of the human mentality comes about. This enlightening process is the natural subtle capacity of self-refinement carried out by first learning to forget feelings by spiritual clarification. The basic inability to free oneself and to keep oneself free of cloying emotional consciousness is why one must learn how to maintain open sincerity. One immediately knows what is what without having to posit self-reifying (selfish) emotional postures relative to self and other. Stopping at sufficiency is essential to the development of authentic practice. When one gains insight, habit energy must be cut off deliberately, at first, or its momentum will naturally destroy that insight. This must be done over and over and over again at the precise instant that habit-energy appears in the aftermath of insight. It is accomplished simply by subtle observation. In noting the flow of conditioned thought and not following its stream unawares, the flow evaporates on the spot. Second, on must learn to forget opinions. Opinions of self and other must be forgotten. An ancient saying is that it is easy to forget one’s body, but very difficult to forget one’s opinions. One day, after a long, long time, you just …forget to remember. (That sounds like the lyric of an old Country/Western tune~ heehee!!) "Empty the mind and fill the belly.” This ancient taoist phrase means to empty the human mentality and see real potential. The process of self-refinement is getting rid of delusional consciousness and beckoning the real by sustaining open sincerity where feelings and opinions once crowded out naturally arising enlightening potential. When one learns to rest in the highest good of open sincere clarity, the real will alight naturally day by day. The achievement of enlightening experience is none other than an instance of having forgotten your lifetime up to that point which has the beneficial result of severing the root of compulsive action. The compulsion to act is the tap-root of karmic existential identity (being bound to endless rounds of birth and death in this lifetime) from time immemorial and beyond. Having the will to sustain a subtle consistency of psychological clarity and stillness over a long period of time arrives at the world-honored result. One spontaneous burst of inconceivable velocity cultivated by virtue of the unbending extreme limit held in an impersonal love so hopeless, death so open, and sincerity so world-shattering in scope that a spontaneously selfless movement extending beyond the blinds and bounds of conditioned awareness altogether is witnessed. In its aftermath, after a long time of advanced practical application of self-refinement induced by re-orienting one's sustained psychological and intellectual fasting in the course of assessing objectively and responding impersonally to ordinary situations, one continues to forget to bring one's conditioned personal identity along for the ride. And in endless instances, endless transformations, one leaves it for all time with respect to the incremental exigencies of karmic evolutionary nature. Such is the life of buddhas and ignoramuses. All phenomenon and gradual practice leading to sudden realization of nonorigination and beyond unfathomable worlds are one singularity; a seamless continuum. In a moment of having forgotten one's facetious identity for the first time, one's karmic debt of lifetimes of personal histories— is altogether forgotten along with all creation; in a trice, one's true original aware potential sees itself as having always been aglow without beginning. Here one surpasses in discovering the great matter of birth and death once and for all in the dim splendor of inherent Bright Virtue. Experiencing the Unborn, one discovers living awareness as the heart of non-being on the verge of action in perpetuity. This is the limit of the limitless, neither stillness nor movement beyond conception. It is another universe within one's innermost true self. There is no thing. Selfless open aware potential in pervasive suffusion by beginningless readiness that has never moved …a quickened energy hovering in stillness above the primal organization and its sprouts of cyclic existential process. There is no knowledge. Awake selfless non-being, aware, miraculously aware. In rising above habitual selfish views of one's ingrained sarcasm, indifference, apathy, intellectual conceits, self-satisfaction, guilt-trips and dualistic attitudes, one makes enlightenment the standard to die by. In taoist spiritual alchemy, the basic sequence of developing and stabilizing the authentic unity of potential in terms of conditional evolution is a long process. In this post, I have established the first two stages of developmental practice as clarifying the body of awareness and reforming the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die. These two steps, carried out in one's life with unbending intent, establish the basis of fundamental accord in reality, wherein one arrives at seeing potential by nonpsychological awareness, which is the same mind previously (pre)occupied as the errant human mentality of psychological pattern-awareness. The false and the true arrive at Suchness; there is no other mind. Enlightenment and delusion have never been separate. Mind is one. The formal organizational overview of taoist spiritual alchemy is as follows: First, refine vitality into energy (the subject of this thread); second, refine energy into spirit; third, refine spirit into openness; fourth, shatter space and empty out openness; five, enter the Tao in reality. ed note: Split last sentence in fourth paragraph; add a bit at end of the 5th; add quip in 7th; change "binds" to "blinds" in 10th; add "I" and last two lines in penultimate paragraph

"The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory describing the loss of “paradise” through the arising of self-knowing. So, it seems, there is wholeness (paradise) and within that boundless, free-floating, causeless energy, something appears which experiences itself as being separate from that wholeness (paradise). Here is a metaphor pointing to what seems like “the story” of self-consciousness, out of which is apparently born the knowing and experience of free will, choice, time and space, purpose and direction. As “the story” unfolds, so the self learns to know “the world out there” and attempts to negotiate the best deal possible for itself . . . it apparently takes action to find pleasure and avoid pain. The greater the knowledge the more effective the action, the results and the apparent sense of personal control . . . or so it seems. All of these efforts bring varying results, and so the individual comes to know fluctuating states of gratification and disappointment. However, it can be noticed that there seems to be an underlying sense of dissatisfaction which drives the self to find a deeper meaning. Because the apparent self can only exist through its own knowing, its search for a deeper meaning will be limited to that which it can know and experience for itself. Within these limitations there are a multitude of doctrines, therapies, ideologies, spiritual teachings and belief systems that the seeker can come to know. There can also be the knowing and experiencing of states of silence, stillness, bliss, awareness and detachment, all of which seem to come and go like night and day. All of these teachings, recommendations and prescriptions are attempting to provide the seeker with answers to that which is unknowable, and ways to find that which has never been lost. So the self is the separate seeker that pursues everything that it thinks it can know and do, excepting the absence of itself. That absence is the emptiness which is unknowable, but paradoxically is also the very fullness, the wholeness (paradise) that is longed for. Should the apparent seeker meet with a perception which reveals in great depth the real nature of separation and also exposes, without compromise, the sublime futility of seeking, there can be a collapse of the construct of the separate self. That totally impersonal message carries with it a boundless energy into which the seemingly contracted energy of self unfolds. A resonance can arise which is beyond self awareness . . . something ineffable can be sensed . . . a fragrance and an opening to the wonder of unknowing can emerge. Suddenly, there seems to be a shift and an impersonal realisation that this is already wholeness. The boundless, naked, innocent, free-floating and wonderful simplicity of beingness is already all there is . . . it is extraordinary in its ordinariness and yet it cannot be described. -- Tony Parsons

@Batman Thank you for posting this take on the mind. Just for the sake of reference, did you write it? It gives a very nice synopsis of how mind is actually secondary to Intelligence, which actually informs mind from its impersonal, transcendental viewpoint. The sense of self, identity, world knowledge, and experience are of the mind. More often than not, peeps never actually awaken from that world of boundaries, concepts, and delusion, living a life cut off from and, seemingly, lacking Wholeness. Consciously be aware of when, as Intelligence, touching the mind takes place and the bifurcation into/as duality begins. The sum of such bifurcated "parts/distinctions" will never amount to Wholeness/Oneness.

First thought experiment - Self Referential Variable Personal Life Perspectivism Seeing my life from the perspective of any one being that’s ever existed or could exist, flexibly moving from the personal (someone I don’t like) to the impersonal (someone or something I’ve never met). Strategy - just invent imaginary profiles and see what novel insights I get from that perspective: 1) from the perspective of an old transsexual (just as a cultural mindfuck seeing I’ve never met one nor do I have any particular interest beyond say scientific exploration) with a bionic arm and sexual ornament (which changes shape and sexual orientation depending on preference at the time) that’s now the first human to have lived 200 years old 80 years from now, what do they think of my life, what I have done, where I plan to go. More to their profile: - they have a genius IQ - they are homophobes (I am not nor am I homosexual so don’t be reading too much 8nto just having fun with this) - they are high in conscientiousness, with strong perfectionistic tendencies - they have an originally Greek background, but because they have lived for decades in a number of varying cultures due to their high openness, they can no longer be easily classified outside of certainly now falling to the category of Global Citizen - they hold a position in the United Nations, and in this situation the UN now actually do something meaningful compared to today’s times and aren’t corrupt - they are enlightened, but they don’t need to believe in any so called absolutes - they are ambiverts have a social circle that is moderate and consists of mainly people that support their cultural causes they support in the UN - they are 9 feet tall so they needed their own plane built for themselves for their UN travels that taxpayers complain about 2) from the perspective of God. Build the profile of many variants of your perception of God so that you can see how foolish the endeavour actually is. One that is all benevolent and loving, notice the psychological effects of having them view your life. Now one that I’d indifferent, imagine how having them view your life produces different emotional effects. Now one that is like an authoritarian parent. Now correlate people’s perceptions of a God with either religious teachings, parental styles they were brought up with or the inverse of that sometimes. 3) from the perspective of a younger, older, wiser version of yourself. A clone of yourself and imagine how you might communicate with said clone to bring about an insight feedback loop between one another. A version of yourself that grew up on a farm instead, purely in the city or in a luxury environment in the mountains. Imagine the things they might say, insights they might draw, etc. 4) an extraterrestrial, again similar to the latter two create multiple kinds of personality, bodily and cognitive profiles and do so even far richer than the profile noted in the first example (9ft 200yr old transsexual). 5) Literally anything, a bird, plane, giraffe, something completely imaginary. It's all up to you. The Earth. The universe. So on and so fourth. Test what you're able to connect with. Explore. 6) Now discover the perspectives that are most meaningful to you. The people that have influenced you most in your life, what would they think about what I have done? What I am doing? Where I am going? What I will accomplish or not accomplish? Where I may fail? Maybe you imagine your life from the perspective of your parents, which I believe many people do and think these kinds of experiments have many real world observational subjective implications as it concerns understanding what motivates peoples sociocultural inner reality, the latter which can be described as containing these figures in their imagination that they commune with subconsciously to determine the rightness and wrongness of their lives. In understanding the deeper limits here, we can augment that process through discovering the imaginative heights that can help us entertain higher wisdom. Understanding the relationship between imagination, motivation, sociocultural inner landscape, model, reality.

For that, she needs to be aware first. How would he react if she were to interact with young guys? What if she acts in a child-like manner - would he get annoyed? Does he act in an authoritative manner around her, just because he is older to her? You can look at a lot of things - and believe me, it’s easier, too - given this age difference. There’s some well-defined territories here, that can be used as a means for assessment. Also, to truly get to know any individual- no matter what the age- takes time. There’s going to be an investment of time and energy, and we cannot deny that. The only thing I would advice is - stay close to her, talk to her about it, and do the impersonal assessment yourself. Your sister is going to be invested, and people in relationships overlook these things and give too many chances. To be very honest, you got to be her rock. @BornToBoil

In a prior thread, I used the ancient phrase "it has no location" in reference to the Center, which is the impersonal unity of the immaterial body of awareness. Another related alchemic phrase is to "float around in the center of the compass." That it has no location is not to mean that it is somewhere else. It is a teaching device to prevent misguided materialistic people from attempting to pander to the development and/or pursuit of derivative psychological spinoffs characteristic of habituation to pimping aesthetic naming and their values, indulging in self-reifying visualization practices, addiction to formal quietism or psychosomatic techniques (energetics) that only confuse the order of authentic practice by the mishandling of the terminology of alchemy only to fool themselves and others unfortunate enough to be misled by such calculated activity. The reason that [having] no location is emphasized, is because even though the effect of the Center is by virtue of having a physical body, and it is not beyond the body of the being that is going to die, there is nothing relative to personal aesthetic, mental or physical manipulation, deprivation or effort relative to the body, in private or in public situations, or is there any part of the body, physical, plasmic or subtle, that constitutes this Center of the immaterial Body of Awareness. Therefore consciousness itself cannot be construed to have any such personal attributes constituting it. Consciousness cannot have an appreciative or antagonistic perspective relative to itself or any thing. Consciousness has no point of reference such as sentient beings do. Why? Consciousness is simply the quality and capacity of one's selfless awake nature. It has no point of view. Consciousness doesn't see. It is seeing itself and is therefore selfless, uncreated; no different than true reality, nonoriginated. This is the inconceivable nature of ignoramuses and buddhas alike. Even in ordinary situations, they are hardly discernible to the awakened, but for tell-tale signs of karmic momentum, which cannot be stopped. In other words, this Center, being the body of immaterial awareness, is not relative to the physical body nor is it accessible in terms of any of the so-called "apertures" in the body used by the lowest of the low who employ perverted practices to "nurture essence", or else obscured by the attempts by some to posit identity values with respect to what it is. When people see this for themselves, they are liberated from the tyranny of psychological qualifications pertaining to self and other, including personalistic value judgements relative to self-reified projections identifying "creativity", "beauty", good and bad, right and wrong, and before and after. Liberation is liberation from having a self to posit as "self." This is realizing the nature of "awake" as itself, stripped bare, utterly naked with nothing to hide, nothing to show, and most importantly, nothing to know. To float around "in the center of the compass" is to be just this quality of awake in the very midst of delusional, situational, karmic existence. Applying the selfless intent of open sincerity liberated from habit energies relative to egoism hiding behind personal views and projections, and without dwelling on anything or clinging to anything is the highest practice of self-refining enlightening activity, in which vulnerability to what is, is the basis of carrying out subtle spiritual adaption in the midst of everyday ordinary affairs, neither courting perfection nor avoiding potential impurities in terms of peoples' habit-energy, or blind malpractice (agreeable or otherwise) constituting situationally karmic momentum.

Rupert Spira made a comment once which made sense to me. I forget the details, but the gist was that for most people, nondual experiences are beauty and love. Beauty is when you forget yourself in something impersonal, like some art, or nature like a beautiful sunset. Love is when your ego merges or expands into another person. Basically you realise the boundaries of self are relative, change according to the situation, not fixed to your individuality.

AWARENESS OF THOUGHTS MEDITATION By learning to watch your thoughts come and go during this practice, you can gain deeper insight into thinking altogether (such as it’s transience) and into specific relationships among your thoughts and your emotions, sensations, and desires. This practice can also help you take your thoughts less personally, and not automatically believe them. Additionally, this meditation can offer insight into any habitual patterns of thinking and related reactions. Observe your thoughts as they arise and pass. By “thoughts,” we mean self-talk and other verbal content, as well as images, memories, fantasies, and plans. Just thoughts may appear in awareness, or thoughts plus sensations, emotions, or desires. Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position. Become aware of the sensations of breathing. After a few minutes of following your breath, shift your attention to the various thoughts that are arising, persisting, and then passing away in your mind. Try to observe your thoughts instead of getting involved with their content or resisting them. Notice the content of your thoughts, any emotions accompanying them, and the strength or pull of the thought. Try to get curious about your thoughts. Investigate whether you think in mainly images or words, whether your thoughts are in color or black and white, and how your thoughts feel in your body. See if you notice any gaps or pauses between thoughts. Every time you become aware that you are lost in the content of your thoughts, simply note this and return to observing your thoughts and emotions. Remember that one of the brain’s major purposes is to think, and there is nothing wrong with thinking. You are simply practicing not automatically believing and grasping on to, or ‘clinging’ to your thoughts. When you are ready, return your attention to your breath for a few minutes and slowly open your eyes. Optional: There are various metaphors and images you can use to help observe your thoughts. These include: Imagining you are as vast and open as the sky, and thoughts are simply clouds, birds, or planes passing through the open space. Imagining you are sitting on the side of a river watching your thoughts float by like leaves or ripples in the stream. Imagine your thoughts are like cars, buses, or trains passing by. Every time you realize you are thinking, you can “get off the bus/train” and return to observing. Please be gentle with yourself if you notice that you are constantly caught up in your thoughts instead of observing them. This is both common and normal. When you realize that you are thinking, gently and compassionately return to observing your thoughts. If the content of your thoughts is too disturbing or distressing, gently shift your attention to your breathing, sounds, or discontinue the practice. Remember that you are not trying to stop thoughts or only allow certain ones to arise. Try to treat all thoughts equally and let them pass away without engaging in their content. This practice can initially be more challenging than other meditations. As you are learning, practice this meditation for only a few minutes at a time if that is easier. It can be helpful to treat thoughts the same way that you treat sounds or body sensations, and view them as impersonal events that arise and pass away. Some people like to assign numbers or nicknames to reoccurring thoughts in order to reduce their pull and effect.

I wanted to have my kids my whole life, and I have two kids now, but I had two miscarriages before I had them and no way of knowing that I'd ever have a baby. I remember what hearing pregnancy announcements or seeing babies would feel like during that time. It was joy for someone else, but I was NOT seeing it. I know this probably seems like it has nothing to do with your situation, but it has everything to do with it, because it's just the tendency of the mind to notice what is missing. Don't look at what is missing, look for what is there. A sunset is stunningly beautiful, but you don't get tempted to try to claim it, own it or get worried that you won't be able to have it or hold on to it. If you can train that sort of impersonal appreciation of little things, you can apply them to the things you really, really want. Then you can take intelligent or inspired action to experience those things too.

I decided to create a character for myself that will help me understand what I want better. I name this character Parsivales Ritter and the nickname is Ute Lyttle. I kinda felt odd referring to myself as Dear Preety in my personal letters in my journals. It felt too personal that way. So I decided that I had to have an impersonal way of reference and I was interested in this character that I created in my head. I was literally trying to grow into this character. So I will refer to myself as "Dear Ute" in letters addressed to me. I get a certain joy in talking to myself. I know it sounds odd. I also have an idea how Ute is going to look like.

Get curious about the mystery of the mind. . . It’s not personal. I’m pointing to something impersonal. At one cognitive level, it’s perceived as “a flaw in the individual”. At another cognitive level, it is seen as a mind dynamic, integrated between individual and collective. An interesting development. . . ? This is within the perspective of a mind identified and attached to “the social issue”. Notice the repetitive assumption of the social issue. That is a major assumption and the key to expansion. If that assumption is deconstructed, the mind can expand another cognitive level. Yet the assumption serves as the grounding for which the whole story is based. There are many ways to look at this “social issue”, yet doing so destablizies the story that “there is a serious problem and social issue here that needs to be addressed”. Story vs anti-story is a block to story transcendence. When there is a block from transcendent views, engaging within the block re-enforces the block. It increases construction. It makes it feel even more real and problematic.

Not every thread is about self-development. When someone points out an issue he observes within a given society, not always is it appropriate to point to the flaws of the individual who is pointing out the issue. It seems like there is an underlying assumption here that the issue I am describing is not real and that it is limited to my own projections. This is already very close-minded. This thread was not about the importance of curiosity, it was about the importance of a very particular curiosity, a unique kind of curiosity that I described in my first post. It seems to me that you could have dismissed any criticizism possible with the way you are looking at this. You do not seem to recognize the complete relativity of what you deem distracting. To you, this thread is a distraction from an opportunity of self-observation. To someone else, your persistent pointing out of this individual problem is a distraction of the pointing out of the societal issue. You yourself are actively engaged in creating a story of a problem, and you are quite persistent at doing this. You are here protecting your own story, your own problems, and it seems like that is your priority, rather than listening to what the student is saying. Everything can be a distraction. There is a time and place for everything. I am glad that you are trying to help, but as so many times before, your impersonal communication feels to me inappropriate in this setting. It is perceived primarily as a dismissal, rather than a genuine effort to help.

"Not separate from anything" is Love beyond any personal experience (object to object) love, it is a Divine Impersonal Love. 'I" alone Am, is Ultimate Freedom. Limitless,boundless Freedom not confined to the limitation and deep rooted belief of being just a physical body. The experience of being inside and simultaneously outside the body ( a metaphor would be like the empty space inside the cup, is also the empty space outside the cup). is not something that can really be articulated in words.

Yes abrakamowse, and summarizing enlightening activity in a word is an effective entry for those with enough accrued potential through long gradual practice of gathering it and by preserving the fundamental basis in the course of everyday ordinary situations. Then it is necessary to penetrate further into the mystery of selfless accord by virtue of ordinary delusional realms. This is because effortless action means that subtle spontaneous response is nonpsychological (spiritual) in terms of virtuous accord in reality. This is why it is properly not the person, nor by the person's effort. Wu-wei is the quality of perceptive practice not by the person but only through the auspices of the person. Why? Through a long process of impersonal intent, such is the natural result. One's unbending intent is an invocation by open sincerity beckoning the real by inner emptiness. We beckon spontaneous accord in reality by invoking the Virtue of the Receptive as our inmost being. The Way spontaneously alights where emptiness (selfless accord) is stabilized. Thus, resting in the highest good by sincere open intent, we watch over the incipient upwelling of the breath of awareness much like a cat watches the opening of a mouse-hole in total concentration, ever vigilant for the spontaneous arising of true potential. Clarifying the purpose of prior illuminates' intent by the use of the word wu-wei means the reality represented by the word is in terms of impersonal subtle adaption without relying on one's own power. Effortless action is what has to be evaluated in certain and precise terms based on real experience. Enlightening response not relying on one's own power requires that one see potential in the first place because potential is properly inherent in the situation itself, not the person. Subtle spiritual adaption based on reception of potential (by seeing alone) is what is "effortless." Spontaneous action based on such effortlessness is naturally without personal bias or inclination. Only this can be properly termed "selfless accord in reality." This is where "neither seeking honor nor avoiding ignominy" really comes to the fore. Not because of the ordinary convention of "selflessness", but because such concern is actually nonexistent in reality. It is in such attitudinal audacity that one's enlightening function awakens and rises to the occasion of actually intending open sincerity and virtuous receptivity of potential and actually seeing reality in terms of selfless response in the first place. We must always strive to move beyond the zero point of the transcendent meaning of the words of all prior illuminates and actually apply the power of wu-wei in terms of "taking the forward step and accepting your (enlightening) function with hands open, sharing yourself freely." ed note: spell "abrakamowse" correctly in 1st paragraph

Understood, Blackhawk. It's true and I apologize for the difficulty in reading my posts, especially for a non-native english speaker. The real problem (on my side) in talking about ineffable reality is that it is inconceivability itself. I was silent about it for 15 years; now I've been writing about it for 15 years. The nature of inconceivability in terms of Mind is that immediate knowledge without inside or outside is completely whole. Undifferentiated unity is utterly empty as well. The space of true emptiness has no space. The true void has no such void. Even absence is absent from reality. I'm not referring to sudden enlightenment, but, as abrakamowse implicated above, since the absolute and enlightening activity in terms of delusion cannot be separate, I am forced to elucidate wordless authentic teaching within the constraints of words. This means that I need to somehow express immediate all-at-once knowledge without leaving the ultimate freedom of no outside or inside. If I do, then the living expression of reality turns into dead words. That is the challenge for me. The problem on your side is that the natural affinity with ineffable reality isn't able to resonate within you to the degree that is necessary for you to recognize within yourself that you already know without a word. There is nothing either of us can do except to sincerely intend an open wonder in terms of one's inherent potential. Hope is unnecessary and counter-productive. That means it is an obstacle to realization. It is already your own mind right now. Enlightenment is already fully intact. The mystery isn't in the unseen Absolute. The mystery is in the scene before you. It's not that Creation is other than it is, it is just that our perspective in terms of personality-consciousness is evidence of habit-energy not only in ourselves, but in an ageless universal human consensus that is literally as old as sin. Self-referencing thought (much like hope and fear) obscures the point of illumination which is unborn awareness itself. Self-referencing thought sustains the illusion of self/other (the necessary element for functional being), to the exclusion of selfless awareness. Selfless awareness isn't some other mind, exclusive of ego-conscious habit energy. It's just that ego-function (psychological habit-energy) excludes one's enlightening function from its purveyance. Both functions are valid; yet ego-consciousness must be at the service of spiritual (nonpsychological) consciousness. Self-refinement is the long process of restoring the proper relationship between ego-function and enlightening function. Both functions must co-exist in real terms much like teeth and lips without harming each other. True practice is the practice of reversal, whereby the obscured (impersonal real knowledge) is eventually recognized in terms of non-differentiation, by the diminution of the recalcitrant (habitually self-referencing conscious knowledge). The work of self-refinement is a long and gradual path which is in seamless accord with the sudden all-at-once. They are a continuum. There are no two minds. Mind is one. Even those who practice lucid dreaming know that in transitioning between lucid and ordinary consciousness, there is no break. The transition between the two is seamless. Gradual and sudden are undifferentiated, just as reality has no differentiation between delusion and enlightenment. It is not a matter of the two being all mixed up— THEY ARE THE SAME …and empty as well. Don't stoop to believing such is the case. It is necessary to actually see it in real life. The buddhist teaching device of "sameness within difference" is a provisional teaching. Take the forward step in expressing the truth that undifferentiated reality IS you. It's not you seeing it. The seeing is itself who you are. Awareness is selfless. When seeing is impersonal, there are no personal distinctions: this is selfless accord in reality. It's just how it is, and no one knows why. ❤︎ ed note: change "reverting" to "restoring" in 5th paragraph; add "they are the same…" in penultimate paragraph

Yes, yes!! …and someone else wrote: Well, at least you now know how I feel when I try to read Dogen sometimes! Oh, dear… Self-reflection clouds natural impersonal awareness in terms of an objective realization of ordinary situations. It is possible to assess situations and respond spontaneously to the very conditions dictated by temporal affairs by cultivating the habit of non-interference. It is not a matter of imaginary separateness, but rather resting readily in the perspective of nonspeculative nonavoidance. Neither avoiding nor defining the inevitable nor speculating on outcomes is the closest one can come to a practical accord. A preliminary aspect is the ploy to gain detachment from internal and external bedevilments in order to save energy, but eventually it becomes the process of taking over creation and stealing its potential. Further still, it is the means by which enlightening beings carry out tasks and fulfill accomplishments in secret. It just comes back to using the world for self-refinement instead of using it in terms of pattern-based self-gratification. In terms of self-refinement, we develop the habit of not seeing situations as arenas for speculation. When we have nothing even potentially invested, we develop real autonomy— which is beyond the self-referencing sensual detachment of the lower vehicles of formative moralities of renunciatory provisional teaching. When we refuse to invest ourselves in terms of potential, we gain that potential— it is unsaid. The rule is in not using what is seen, and in using what is not seen. Not-using is not having attachment, however subtle, to objects, situations or outcomes; using is in not-using potential. It works as one, because temporal and absolute are one. As above, so below. We see potential by not speculating on inert temporal manifestations; we steal it simply in not-seeing it relative to the person. It is the way it is for no reason. No one knows why or how enlightenment and delusion are actually one in the same. Only those who see reality by a long process of simply forgetting to perpetuate self-reifying habit energies ever-cloying one's life eventually come to realize absorption in complete reality's potential instead of perpetuating karmic momentum when observing the same from the perspective of the personality. So by not speculating on temporal manifestations, and refusing to entertain intellectual ramifications relative to self and other, we realize absorption just by virtue of seeing— this how to use its potential. It is not in the sense-organ, nor in the object; it is mind alone. Now when we then relegate potential to nonpsychological awareness, we don't even say what could possibly be by discursive discriminatory thought relative to a self. Not doing so is what seals potential away from intellectualism after absorption (seeing). No one knows the strategy of not-knowing. What those who steal potential know, is that potential is not an inevitability (in that what could not be other than "all things are just as they are"), yet, in terms of inconceivability, to the degree we absorb potential in the course of ordinary everyday affairs, we enter the mystery. If inevitability is just responding to affairs without speculation on outcomes is selfless adaption, what else could possibly be construed as enlightening activity? The prior few paragraphs are an admission of the sequential aspect of acting in accord with the time in reality. There is before, and there is after: they must not be mixed up. Ok, so it's crazy; but that is the secret to taking over creation, stealing potential, and seeing through phenomena without negating appearances. It all depends on selfless awareness. Practice is what practice does, that is, our habitual perception is gradually influenced to have no habitual, reflexive connection to gratifying or avoiding sensually speculative concerns; "neither courting honor nor avoiding ignominy." By sensual, I mean anything perceivable by any avenue of perception— this isn't just a matter of sex, drugs, money, power, personal or professional influence or cravings of any sort. It is much more subtle, and pervasive. It is the means by which to transcend one's conditioned awareness of self-illusion and enter the inconceivable mystery of the Way by seeing your nature in action long before actually seeing its essence in terms of sudden realization. In fact, enlightening activity isn't dependent on the sudden at all. Rather, the sudden is the result of having turned the light of awareness around in terms of seeing independently of the person, and sustaining its influence in one's life for a long long time. This means turning the light of awareness around to shine on its source. This is direct activation of enlightening being in the midst of ordinary affairs unbeknownst to anyone. When we don't use ordinary conditioned awareness to follow ordinary conditioned affairs, then the light of awareness is turned around automatically with no effort involved at all. Its activation is in what you don't see and its arrival is in realizing what has been aglow all along. ed note: typo 2nd paragraph; change "reality" to "realization" in 3rd paragraph; typo 6th paragraph