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@Nahm Thanks for the recommendation brotha, appreciate it. @Alex bAlex I feel ya man, we all need some sort of mentorship in lives. I currently have someone I see myself. You can obviously pay to get a mentor like Nahm said. That’s usually the most direct way. But you could also find someone you admire and offer to work for free. Tell them you have XYZ skill they might need and that you’ll do whatever they want. Don’t even mention mentoring. Books and courses can also be a more impersonal sort of mentorship. So yeah, mentorship comes in all forms. It doesn’t have to look a certain way. Hope that helped. By the way, if you decide to go with a coach and you pick @Emerald over me, we are going to have to have a very serious discussion via DMs

Mi take on this is that everything has to come from nothingness. There must be a point where nothing was there, and matter manifested from that nothing... our mind can't not comprehend it, because we have an "idea" of what nothing is. Let's say that nothing is a state where there's all the possibilities for everything to manifest. It contradicts our logic. In that nothingness everything is manifested. The only thing that exist is nothing, or you can call it silence, the void. Our mind try to separate things to understand. It says, here there's a person, a tree, an animal, etc... but everything is made of the same substance. Awareness. Some people call it God, others the source, others nothingness, and so on... God has thousands of names. It is personal and impersonal at the same time... and I won't continue writing because everything I write is not even near of what reality is. God is the ultimate reality. Think of nothingness as the ultimate truth. Truth shall make you free!

From a Gurdjieffian perspective. For whatever it's worth,,,, In Talks on Beelzebub's Tales, J. G. Bennett distinguishes four types of suffering - Unnecessary Suffering, Unavoidable Suffering, Voluntary Suffering and Intentional Suffering: The first is Unnecessary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we incur because of our unreasonable attitudes and expectations towards others, from our ill-will, hatred and rejection of others, from doubt, possessiveness, arrogance and self pity. In other words, suffering arising from our self-importance. The second is Unavoidable Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that comes to us by accident or from events beyond our control, such as interpersonal conflicts, war, disaster, disease or death. Third, we have Voluntary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish a personal aim, such as an athlete who disciplines himself to win a race, or a student who labours to get good grades. And finally we have Intentional Suffering. According to Bennett, this would be the kind of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish an impersonal or altruistic goal, one that is directed more towards service to others or to the Work, and not for any personal gain. Bennett assumes that this is what Gurdjieff meant by Intentional Suffering.

Carl Jung, Kundalini Yoga, Lecture 2, Pages 39 – 40. Yes. It is the withdrawal from the emotions; you are no longer identical with them. If you succeed in remembering yourself, if you succeed in making a difference between yourself and that outburst of passion, then you discover the self; you begin to individuate. So in anahata individuation begins. But here again you are likely to get an inflation. Individuation is not that you become an ego—you would then become an individualist.You know, an individualist is a man who did not succeed in individuating; he is a philosophically distilled egotist. Individuation is becoming that thing which is not the ego, and that is very strange. Therefore nobody understands what the self is, because the self is just the thing which you are not, which is not the ego. The ego discovers itself as being a mere appendix of the self in a sort of loose connection. For the ego is always far down in muladhara and suddenly becomes aware of something up above in the fourth story, in anahata, and that is the self. Now, if anybody makes the mistake of thinking that he lives at the same time in the basement and on the fourth story, that he is the purusha himself, he is crazy. He is what the German very aptly call verrückt, carried off his feet up to somewhere else. He just sits up there and spins. We are allowed to behold only the purusha, to behold his feet up there. But we are not the purusha; that is a symbol that expresses the impersonal process. The self is something exceedingly impersonal, exceedingly objective. If you function in your self you are not yourself—that is what you feel. You have to do it as if you were a stranger: you will buy as if you did not buy; you will sell as if you did not sell.Or, as St. Paul expresses it, “But it is not I that lives, it is Christ that liveth in me,” meaning that his life had become an objective life, not his own life but the life of a greater one, the purusha. ~ --------------------------------------------- So as a crude model? A distilled Ego, Individualist, would be something like the dot in the middle with arrows pointing towards. The individuated person would be the dot in the middle with the arrows pointing outwards. In which case I could see why people, may become psychotic, from perhaps doing kundalini. --------------------------------------------- My question is, can anyone recommend any Kriya Yoga videos on Youtube, or perhaps a site dedicated to such a thing? I found this site http://www.kriyayogainfo.net/ videos of the guy clucking his tongue was a bit bizarre, the only thing I can think of is, I don't know, mimicking some kind of frequency the various parts of the body may respond to. Bit like how parents sometimes talk to the child in the womb. A lack of contact also kills a new born, heard something about that happening in Romanian orphanages. Overloads their opiate system or something. I came across a Book called "The Serpent Power." by Sir John Woodroofe alias Arthur Avalon. It's not on the Booklist, what I'm looking for is the most refined I can get, looking more at the past, to try and avoid any fads or corruption in the present. EDIT: Thought the following video was interesting with Carl Jung talking about a patient and finally Kundalini briefly.

Surprisingly, none of the career quiet-sitters have sought to help you (yet), kobe. Most people consider meditating with eyes open much more difficult than with eyes closed. I would recommend having the eyes open just a bit. I would not recommend that you use your eyes to do anything. Relax everything inside and outside; forget inside and outside, and just observe mind without deliberation. Completely dispense with rambling mental commentary without trying to stop it by force of will. Just intend to notice it along with everything else that occurs (or not). The ancient admonition is to not be afraid of thoughts, just be afraid of not noticing thoughts unawares. That's what rudimentary reformative meditation practice is. It's PRACTICE. It's practicing a subtle awareness of the mind that moves by the mind that shines. Don't make the mistake and think that there are two minds. The scattered mind IS the shining mind. It's an inconceivability. After a long long time, you'll find out less and less as the mind-ground clarifies. Whether your eyes are open or closed or somewhere in-between isn't as important as noticing thoughts as they occur without entertaining further commentary relative to habitual ingrained psychological activity. There are many ways to approach subtle observation of mind. Sitting meditation is effective practice for some people. I've never practiced "just sitting" myself. The point of reformative practice is to discover the means to see what underlies conditioned awareness and then endeavor to apply that potential in the midst of everyday ordinary situation by using impersonal subtle observation to fluidly meet the requirements of the moment without following habitual ego-reflective psychological patterns. In doing so, self-refinement is accelerated.

@saffron The best thing to do would be to work on releasing resistance to the feminine and integrate your feminine side in the form of the Anima (aka the inner woman in every man as an archetypal aspect of the psyche). When a society has really strong resistance to the feminine principle and women by extension (as has been the case in almost all cultures for the vast majority of written history up until present day), the men in that society will usually have issues with Anima integration that will have debilitating effects on their psychological health, which brandishes itself most in the form of sexual obsession issues and misogyny. Because the Anima is literally the aspect of you that is a woman, it has needs and feeling and desires and strengths, just like the conscious aspect. So, if you learned a resistance to the feminine from a young age, and an extreme one at that, it will manifest in the form of Anima repression and Anima possession. And it is always the Anima's desire to reintegrate and become known and accepted by your conscious awareness. It wants to reunite with you and be accepted. So, it projects itself out onto reality in form of an acute sexual obsession (or obsession in general) with women. This is especially strong, since the man sees this as the only acceptable outlet for connection to the feminine... as he has a strong desire to reunite with his own feminine side but society disapproves... and he has learned to disapprove in the same way. So, sex with a woman is like a metaphor for the connection with himself that he unconsciously desires, so he craves sex with women in a stronger way than normal. But despite the desire to reintegrate, the Anima also gets jealous and spiteful. She doesn't like to be rejected. So, she seeks revenge upon the man that rejected her by projecting onto women an image of power over the man who rejected her. And that power that she projects is that women have the power to validate and invalidate the man's very existence just through forming an opinion about a man's sexual desirability. And the Anima will project the image of the cold and impersonal woman who is up on a pedestal and all powerful and holds a man's worth in her hands. So, the man who is Anima possessed will have deep feelings of misogyny and a strong desire to drag women down from the pedestaled position of power that he projects onto reality. And when he sees images of men dominating women physically, sexually, and otherwise, it will be very satisfying because to him it is the story of the underdog male taking down the all-powerful female tyrant and putting her in her place. And archetypally, it will be the false story of how he overcomes the issue of Anima possession by beating his feminine side away and keeping it in a state of submission. But this beating away is just adding fuel to the fire of his Anima possession, as this is the very pattern that causes Anima possession in the first place. So, it becomes a self-feeding cycle and the Anima possesses the man more and more and the shadow feminine consumes him. So, the only way to actually overcome Anima possession is to integrate the Anima and accept the feminine side as an integral part of yourself. Also, with the integration of the Anima, you will gain access to divine wisdom hidden in the unconscious mind.

The Secret of the Golden Flower is an ancient transmission directing people towards a subtle recognition of inherent capacities underlying habitual patterns of self-reifying psychological activity. The general mind-ground constituting these inherent capacities can be termed nonpsychological awareness. There have been attempts at giving this transmission a cultural attribution, but, to quote the Avatsakam Sutra (Hua Yin or Flower Ornament Scripture), "Civilization is by virtue of Universal Good, not a country." Ultimately, the true teacher is in one's heart of hearts. I am quoting directly from some of the 16 paragraphs comprising the tenth chapter of the volume translated by Thomas Cleary to serve as an introduction to the book, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Harper San Francisco ISBN 0-06-250193-3, as well as to help point out basic tenets of 24/7 subtle observation which is beyond the scope of rote reformative meditation practice done in private or in cloistered settings by beginners and those habituated to such methods of comfort. I have already introduced the elements of general practice in differentiating the psychological and nonpsychological capacities comprising human awareness. The title of chapter X makes this differentiation obvious in terms that should be recognized as having the same source, that is, the light of awareness. Chapter X is titled, The Light of Essence and the Light of Consciousness. The opening of potential is a very slippery term. By the end of the chapter, what comprises potential may become clearer. The point is that "turning the light around" is not a matter of time, place, activity or conditions. What matters is finding the opening of potential. The key to recognizing the opening of potential is in spontaneous activation of mind without falling into the habitual patterns of discriminatory consciousness. Spontaneous activation of mind is up to conditions. When it arises, subtle observation comes into play. Just see without entertaining views relative to self and other, right, wrong, good or bad and the opening of potential is ephemerally present …before the first thought, it's your own mind right now. When the light turns into ideational consciousness relative to self and other, the opening of potential is once again obscured, in that it cannot be seen by seeing. One must then concentrate subtle awareness and await the arising of the light of potential in the midst of situations unbeknownst to anyone. The real (potential) is found only by virtue of the false (delusional karmic evolution). One must await conditions to see reality. The taoist phrase, "Water produces metal", symbolizes an alchemic formula referencing the refinement of the body or vitality, (sensory awareness) into real knowledge. Answer~ not you. Your own mind before the first thought is not you. The special use of the term "not you" is just the selflessly aware potential essence not attributable to the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die (the being that is going to die is you). Therefore, potential is termed "other", as in the saying, "Essence is the self, use it to call back sense", that is, use essence to recognize the real knowledge of the impersonal sense of potential. That's "not you." Calling it back is seeing potential. Seeing potential is itself absorption. "Mistaking the thieving human mentality (the light of consciousness) for the light of essence is the number one error of students.", is a very ancient warning for those whose introspective practices are not producing evidences of efficacy after even 5, 10, 20, or more years spent on the meditation cushion. Therefore the opening of potential is recognized in the quality of awareness which is not thought. Specifically, this is the mind which underlies the thinking, self-referencing function of the personality. When the thinking human mentality is forgotten, this is the true arising of essence. Therefore, this mind is not some other mind; there are no two minds: Mind is one. This is why it is said that all beings are already this enlightenment, but they are simply unable to recognize and permanently stabilize selfless potential in the midst of conditions due to habit energy (karmic psychological momentum). This is the alchemic correlate of the refinement of body/sense/water/vitality mentioned in section 4. This section refers to mind/essence/fire/energy, where energy refines into essence. This is the heart of the meaning of the Golden Flower transmission. Objects and sense organs are not the issue. There is no need to deny, restrict, or renounce anything in the Golden Flower method. The Secret of the Golden Flower is just recognizing, activating and using essence directly without intermediary (being the working definition of enlightening activity) in the midst of ordinary situations simply as a matter of effective use of mind which does not employ self-reifying consciousness habitually or unawares. It is fluid and impersonal communion with inconceivable reality as the totality of being within Suchness, that is, emptiness which has no such emptiness. This is one's spontaneously adapted expression of selfless unity neither conditional nor absolute. This is innate enlightening function which is not dependent on sudden enlightenment. The sudden is one such result of accrued virtuous activity carried out secretly in public over a long period of time. These are terms denoting advance practice. If one cannot forget the self that thinks, consciousness will not be stopped and the medicines will not become accessible for further refinement. Seeing potential is seeing unrefined potential. After a period of maturation, refined potential is released from the matrix of karmic evolution, that is, Creation (which is "crystallization of the elixir"). This is the meaning of the saying, "planting lotuses in fire, transcending endless transformations and entering the Way in Reality." ed note: typo 3rd; add "vitality" in 4th section's commentary; add to commentary of 6th section; change "enlightened" to "this enlightenment" in the commentary after 11th section; add commentary after 15th section

hi ShugendoRa~ I've added to the commentaries of several sections since you responded to this thread. This teaching is as ancient as it gets, yet the most recent historical account of its re-transmission occurred during the British rape of China during the 18th century. A corrupted version of this book was first translated into the German language by Richard Wilhelm in 1929 that subsequently became fashionably popular with the intelligentsia in Europe by its association with C. G. Jung's commentary. It is essentially a taoist/buddhist lay manual for the benefit of ordinary people, without regard to religious affiliation, being a concentrated revival of an ancient universalist teaching, according to Thomas Cleary 's translation, copyright 1991. I believe that I became aware of this current and correct version of the Golden Flower teaching's translation of the T'ai i chin hua tsung chih, sometime around the turn of the century and found that it fully corroborates my direct experience in inherent enlightening function pertaining to the means relative to recognizing potential and furthermore carrying out the operation of impersonal adaption to situations which is properly termed the absorption of potential. This current volume's version is associated with the great taoist alchemic teacher, Lü Tung-pin, who, by some accounts. is believed to have been born in 798 CE. He is purported to have appeared at various times during the last millennium. ed note: typo 1st sentence; add "by some accounts" in penultimate sentence

I didn't compare anyone to a disease. I compared an impersonal social system to a disease (as an example of another impersonal system). So, I was using one system that's more familiar and tangible to explain a pattern in another system that is still intangible and hard to understand for most people. And I use this metaphor to explain how a lot of problems work, as there is no more familiar example of 'problem/symptoms/root dynamic' that the vast majority of people can understand and relate to. So, understand that I'm not moralizing or shaming people who are unconscious one bit by using this metaphor. It is literally just the most effective metaphor. I also sometimes use the "if tree=problem; then problem lies in the roots rather than the leaves or fruit on the tree." But even this metaphor is kind of a stretch because it requires people to envision a tree as a problem first. But again, if you have a better analogy to explain this dynamic to get people focused toward root causes instead of symptoms and individual intent, be my guest.

This is why I make a point to state that the system of racism is mostly an invisible hand issue, that stems from the workings of the system as opposed to direct malicious intent. So, unconsciousness itself is the primary enemy, not individuals. But I do believe in being as frank and direct as possible for the sake of understanding and optimization of nuance in that understanding. And I don't like to sugar coat anything, as it is not necessary and tends to coddle and muddy the waters. The social system is very impersonal anyway, so just being accurate won't make anyone feel implicated or demonized... unless they were going to project that anyway no matter what anyone has to say on the matter that they disagree with. The way I see it is that if I am as perceptive, thorough, and honest as possible then the people who are the least emotionally attached to their current paradigm will be able to have an "aha!" moment and be able to have more clarity around this situation. People who are very emotionally attached to their perspective are unlikely to change no matter what, unless they share the value of becoming more conscious. So, the way I see it is that I'm very unlikely to make those that are triggered emotionally by this topic budge at all. But there are a ton of people who aren't triggered emotionally who will be able to recognize these patterns if I lay them out accurately and thoroughly, as their emotional attachments won't stand in the way of their perception.

@Mikael89 How can the body be an ego? It does not feel physical pain - when somebody hits you, then there is a sensation of pain which even the word 'pain' does not accurately describe as it is merely a part of the infinite flux of sensations = reality. So 'pain' is just a label you constructed for a specific sensation and 'body' is another label referring to a set of other sensations. In reality there is simply an impersonal occurrence of what you describe as 'pain'.

Contemplate on doing/actions. Can be a good way to see there is no such thing in direct experience, merely feedback from reality (an endless flux of impersonal occurrences). So what you are left with is sensations/perceptions/thoughts. Looking at those, 'you' do not really DO anything to think or to perceive - it all comes naturally even if you are resisting it. Thus, where is the doer/thinker? Just adding this exercise which might be useful before somebody gets offended that I am refuting his point

I wrote this quite a while back on one of the Dharma Overground forums in response to one of the thoughtful contributors to the thread and someone recently quoted my post and left a nice comment last month. Formal meditation is a temporary expedient. Initially, its purpose is to create a habit of overarching, then subtle observation of mind at all times. There is a reason for this, but it is provisional, and I don't do that. Formal meditation is not "good", per se. Unless it is serving the purpose of consciously cultivated temporary expediency, its relevance to the self which thinks good or bad, right or wrong and before or after in terms of self and other is a significant error in which effective authentic self-refinement is obstructed. Since the initial "high" produced by the kind of "artificial meditation" practiced by some beginners habituated to identification by their "achievements" in contemplative arts wears off anyway and is essentially ineffective, for the most part, in dealing face to face with ordinary situations to any great extent, it is best to do whatever is necessary to hit the ground running, so to speak, in terms of turning the light around in order to effect seeing reality, as is, cold turkey— and wean oneself of self-reifying identity issues with practice done in private, as soon as reasonably possible. I'm not saying one shouldn't pursue "just sitting" in private meditation venues— the point is that formal meditation is a TEMPORARY expedient. The point of effective self-refinement is to see reality, as is, without any filters perpetuated by the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die by activating the inherent potential of nonpsychological awareness. Seeing the essence of complete reality is seeing reality with the Dharma eye of nonpsychological awareness— it's your own mind right now. What is reality? Unity of absolute and relative is the working definition of reality. Nondual nature is your nature. Consequently, Nirvana and Karmic evolution are not only equal, they are identical. This is the basis of the saying "sameness within difference", though there are several aspects in terms of dealing with the conceptual device relative to the various provisional teachings within buddhism. Arriving at nonduality in terms of everyday ordinary affairs is essential to buddhist practice. Actually, it is the working definition of enlightening being. Enlightening being is the function of awareness. Awareness is your nature. Awareness, your own mind right now, is not created. Seeing reality is activating the mind without dwelling on anything. The only reason this is possible is because your own mind right now is unborn. Mind is one, undifferentiated, selfless, void of identity. It's you. People aren't just already enlightened— they're enlightened mind incarnate. I need to remind people that it's not the person …but it's not somewhere or something else either. Real 24/7 meditation practice is seeing through phenomena without denying their characteristics. Taoist alchemy calls this refining the medicines. Buddhism calls this using the sickness to cure the disease. It's not about meditation, after all. You can take all the provisional entry-level teachings and use them as applications of the real in the midst of the false in broad daylight unbeknownst to anyone. This is having the gumption to move beyond the zero-point of the intent of all provisional teachings and thereby gain entry into the inconceivable. It's about using the world to refine the self; using conditions to arrive at essential nature. This cannot be accomplished by quiet sitting alone. That's because, reality is already Mind— your mind, right now. Perhaps you are not ready to hear this. Reality is relative to your mind in terms of the degree of one's clarified enlightening potential. As long as your mind is habituated to the view of its separate nature, you will not see essence in everyday affairs. After a long process of self-refinement carried out correctly and effectively in everyday ordiary situations, the self-reifying mental habits that perpetuate the illusion of the separate self-identity as ultimately existent will die off, bit by bit, and that much of your primordial potential will be activted as the selfless function of awareness. Actually using this is selfless adaption; activating the subtle operation of spiritual transformations in the midst of worldly situations. Nonduality realized all the time is seeing the physical, psychological, psychic, emotional, causal matrix of karmic evolution (Creation) as void of self— because that's what it is (no different than you, that is, void of self). Going along with this, just as it is, knowing it as utter illusion— how could you possibly bring yourself to act on behalf of situations arising from this insane chaos, good, bad or indifferent? Acceptance of conditions is "going along— not denying characteristics". Not acting on conditions is "seeing through phenomena". The sense of nonattachment to outcomes aids in adapting to the inevitable where unavoidable— the ups and downs look just like reality: therefore "perfection is easy for those with no preferences." Soon enough, you may come to the working strategy that this entire malestrom of karmic momentum is just your perception of it. Otherwise, it just doesn't make ANY sense …to leave it up to the world, and fortunately, you don't have to. YOU take total responsibility for your sensory perception and mental postures. It doesn't require doing— just meeting and accepting conditions for what they are— illusion. If you can come to the temporary working realization that phenomena is what reality looks like without having the slightest shred of belief it its ultimate nature, then it might be possible to endeavor to work at adapting to conditions as they present themselves out of a sense of inevitability without clinging to good or bad outcomes. It's not a thing. There is no moral implication in terms of selflessness— it's impersonal. That's mind. This is actually an entry to the buddha's teaching of Suchness and thus carrying out the activation of enlightening potential and partaking of the Great Vehicle of Tathagatas. This is penetrating reality, in fact. Right in front of your nose is this nondual reality 24/7. As such, it is so whether you are aware of it or not. In terms of the point of meditation in the first place, and the fact of reality, it is Mind alone. The lesser vehicle of personal liberation is a temporary expedient as well …why is this? It's another lie to trick you into the path, that's all. That Suchness is reality is nominally due to the fact that it is neither absolute nor conditional. Both Nirvana and Creation are the same illusion. One is your mind before creation and the other is after. Clinging to one or the other is delusion. Neither absolute stillness nor karmic momentum is the essence of reality unified, present and naturally so, without ever entering creation, which is your nature already. Even those who experience sudden enlightenment must learn to realize this truth by APPLYING it in the midst of situations seamlessly according to its potential. You can begin to see this if you can dismiss your dependent relationships on circumstantial interpretations. Reality doesn't look any different than delusion when your relationships to circumstances are not dependent on outcomes, good or bad. Perpetual unity with reality is just subtly activated nonpsychological awareness of the essential underlying nature of impersonal circumstantial process as your own potential void of attributabilty in terms of an absolute personal identity. When you act based on karmic dependence, you change inherent selfless enlightening potential into karmic debt. Ouch! ed note: add to the 2nd line, 3rd paragraph; add "of" in first line of 15th paragraph

Nothing of this intensity in my direct experience, but something that might be tangential - I would often try to let go of control and be like 'do whatever you want' to the body. In such cases my hands would start doing random movements and everything would seem to be happening of itself. I recently had the realization that there is no such thing as 'action', but simply perceptions and sensations of impersonal occurrences (reality itself). Thus, any control is just an illusion - the ego is trying to predict what is going to happen as it has no idea/control. So it might be that this occurrences were there to show 'you' something similar to this. Using the guy sitting next to the road analogy - he can only guess which way the cars are headed, but has no real control over it. However, he believes that he is orchestrating the entire event. This is in a way the ego. Interesting post.

I read this in the internet, now I am sharing with you all. Read it carefully The first principle is becoming aware of our thoughts and the nature of thought. By taking the position of just being an observer of the thoughts and images that come and go we recognize all thoughts are the same: they are temporary appearances that come and go like clouds in the sky. Give no importance to one thought over another. If we pay no attention to any thought but remain in the “observer” role, it seems the space of awareness becomes more open and thoughts less demanding of attention. We discover all thoughts are without substance and importance. We could say our thoughts are “empty”, like clouds: appearances without any core or entity. The second principle is recognizing our stories and emotional dramas are structured only from thought, our “empty” thoughts. In continuing to observe our thoughts we should notice how they tend to link together in chains of meaning and particular significance. It is this linking together of thoughts that creates our stories, beliefs and emotional drama in a convincing and powerful way. As a result we may spend most of our time going from one mini-daydream to another. It is this trance-like state of mind that we need to break up again and again as often as possible. We do that by shifting our attention from thought to the presence of the five senses in immediate now-ness. Just notice your physical environment and the direct sensory experience free of analysis. Practice this shifting away from mental engagement in thought to noticing your physical environs as often as possible. The third principle is recognizing that one’s sense of self is also only an empty story made of thought; a mental construction without an actual identity as an entity that exists independently and with self-determinism.. There is no personal self present other than this make-believe “me” story. Even science makes clear there is just one unified field of energy as the universe without separate parts. The entire field is inter-dependent without any breaks or splits in the unity. The sense of being an independent entity like a “personal self”, is just an illusion and has never existed in fact. By observing the “me” thoughts that arise from moment to moment we can notice the “personal me” is nothing more than a chain of linked thoughts about identity that are supported by memories and imagination. Seeing this directly and clearly, not just intellectually, the emptiness of personal identity becomes obvious to the mind at which point the illusion ceases… The fourth principle is recognizing what exactly is the nature of that which is observing and experiencing the empty nature of thoughts, stories and personal selfhood. What is doing the “recognizing”? What is this impersonal aware consciousness that perceives and knows? In these recognitions there seems to be an ever increasing evolution or revelation of wisdom. As a result one’s cognitive space seems expansive, open and vividly transparent without a center… The fifth principle is recognizing the inseparable relationship between one’s empty, aware “seeing” and the five senses. One can’t find awareness separate from one’s sensory perceptions. There isn’t first a sensory perception and then an awareness of it. The five senses are this “knowing awareness” seeming to be split up into five separate sensory components. These sensory capacities are not limited to the physical five senses. “Knowing awareness” can perceive independently of the five physical senses with no limitations regarding time and space. Merging our attention fully with the five senses instead of with the mental phenomena of thoughts, stories and beliefs in personal identity, reveals a state of total “nowness” beyond thought and mind. A limitless vista of knowing transparency and Clear Light reveals itself to be our true nature beyond any descriptions or assumptions of mind. In merging our attention totally with the five senses, the luminous nature of appearances reveals the empty vividness of our Aware and Knowing Space. If one incorporates and integrates these five principles into one’s daily practice, in my opinion no other methods or practices should be considered necessary…

@Jack River I would assume so - the lack of identification with the self/thought breaks its own cycle of feeding itself with more thoughts. Then there is no self which also means no movement of reaction/action. What is left is just impersonal occurrences, not thought-driven actions.

@Jack River More like there is identification with that reaction/action? Who is the one that can act in regards to that incomplete sense of thought? Lack of identification with reaction/thought allows everything to become impersonal and then reality/actions start becoming more coherent/aligned with Truth.

This totally makes sense! I remember Stephen Wolinsky (Maharaj's direct student) saying in a video that Maharaj told Mulapatan(the usual translator in satsangs) that he didn't actually like the book ''I AM THAT'' as it was published. Why? Because all his answers in that book were exclusively tailored and provided to that exact questioner at his/her place at their present spiritual understanding then. But almost all readers misunderstood and took all the answers as the unchanging biblical quotes. That's why all this confusion and intellectual nit picking started . The same I AM is defined in like 100 fashions in 100 different answers. We must not forget that these answers were for that specific questioner only. They are not meant to be taken as blind faith. 1) When a spiritual newbie came to him whose mind is all the place, Maharaj would tell him to FOCUS on the thought/feeling I AM. Instead of running after thousands of objects outside, the devotee would then actively think about one object I AM and turn inwards. This is the very definition of Concentration meditation. Here you've deliberately objectified the I AM and focusing on it to still the money mind. 2) When a sufficiently matured devotee would ask him a question, he would point to the formless I AM as the pure witness that can't be objectified. He would say, stay as the I AM and let go of all things. 3) In the final stages, he would give pointers to show that this very I AM really is not personal. That personhood was an illusion from the first place! Right there, that same knowing-being is discovered as the impersonal God's Being. @Blissout Hope you see what I'm trying to convey

Let's not see it from a narrow perspective my friend. Let's sort this out experientially! If I AM is an object you can 'focus' on, tell me from your own experience what are objective qualities of this I AM? Is it a color, a sound, a subtle sensation? Does it have a specific pinpoint location? Tell me. If you can't find any of these qualities, then why are you declaring I AM as another object? Notice that whatever you point to as I AM is not the I AM but I AM THIS. If I AM was purely an object like lets say the sensations in the head, then Maharaj would advice to firmly focus on the sensations in the head. That would be a concentration meditation. But he repeatedly said that, Subtract the THIS and THAT and only stay as the I AM. From my experience, I AM is a pure witnessing state. This I AM cannot be objectified in any way. When Maharaj says that the I AM needs to be transcended or ''In the Absolute state I don't even know that I AM'', he means that by staying as that pure subject I AM in an unbroken fashion, at one point you realize in a flash that this very 'knowiness' or I AM is not something you personally own. Right at that moment, You discover the I AM as the impersonal Universal Consciousness, the Only Consciousness there ever was and ever will be. That is the absolute state where the last vestiges of personhood is given up. That's why I AM or pure witnessing is the direct doorway to Absolute. By staying with the I AM unbrokenly, you discover it's Truth. I am elaborating all this over and over again because I find from my personal experience that creating more and more layers in the Subject or I AM just makes the witnessing process more complex and inefficient. The mind runs into intellectual land to make sense of things by objectifying the subject, witness behind witness behind witness....I hope you get my point. Why not just take only one pure subject, the formless I AM and just watch...carefully eliminating everything the I AM is not...until the I AM reveals itself as the Absolute?

Whew~ and that, folks, was a situation — too bad for mr "prior to that". The situation, being bound by karmic evolution, is a mass of fire with nothing for one's nonpsychological awareness to discriminate outside the inherent potential of the aware energy constituting the formal. This is a way to describe the operation of turning the light around. The basis of situations is itself the means to develop one's ability to transcend situations; one by one. It's kinda like feeling lucky— lucky to be alive, in that it just turns out that way, again. There is just no knowing beforehand. So "full-blown clairvoyance" is like a fascination with clouds. It is simply more ephemeral phenomena. Big whoop (if one's intent is being through with the world). The world is all there is. For one to entertain such notions of separateness, hell is the world such a one is already living in. What other world could there be? Since there is nothing to know anyway, one simply has to find the gumption to arrive at the heart of immediacy by a constant mindfulness of perpetual clarification of personal and impersonal views. Arising is accompanied by observation, and keeping a constant unbroken subtle continuity of attention to the coming and going of potential in terms of the situation, is turning the light around and following it back to its source to rest in the highest good. The only difference between watching over the aperture of the Mysterious Female and not watching is …watching. Obviously, seeing is the critical aspect of enlightening response. So subtle observation of the incipience of movement (or not) of mind is paramount in developing the capacity for transcending the movement of time(s). The mechanism is in the eyes. Again, it is simply a matter of seeing. Seeing is itself reality; the contents of perception is literally immaterial. Coming and going isn't in things: it's Mind. Yet Mind is that which has no coming and going. Sensing potential is the nature of seeing brought to bear in terms of the effective clarification of Mind, which is said to be the culmination of stillness, which has no such stillness. This is said in the same sense as any illuminate who says that true emptiness isn't empty. Seeing's correlate is potential. Being the same, these are the substance and function of taoist Complete Reality and buddhist Suchness, which is neither created nor uncreated; temporal nor absolute. It is your own mind right now. In terms of the unattributable, these are its knowledge; formlessly, selflessly without beginning or remainder. This is the heart of subtle operation. It takes situations to illustrate the course of adaption which is simply a matter of seeing knowledge. In seeing knowledge, there is nothing else to do except take the bumps and spills of sensory and psychological awareness by virtue of having a body. Jesus wasn't any different (ouch!!). Yet such a one as he ascended into heaven in broad daylight— that's a taoist term that long ago passed into the folk vernacular of ancient China. Do you suppose so many people of yore have ascended into heaven in broad daylight? Who would suppose to doubt it? There is a term used in alchemy: the body outside the body. First of all, the body outside the body is a function, not a thing. Yet there is a body outside the body for those who, having seen their nature, are availed of by further advanced self-refinement. Secondly, it is more of one not having a body at all than it is of having another body outside of one's material body (not that the double isn't able to be conjured). It is. There have been all kinds of occult cultivation throughout the ages conjuring up this body outside the body. The highest teachings are pure simplicity itself. Whether the situation is in terms of the microcosmic, macrocosmic, or cosmic, there is no thing. Arrive at this no thing in all situations, times, places, events and people, and the homeland of nothing whatsoever is yours forever. Do you suppose there would be so much to do there? What is there to do here? ed note: add "is turning the light around and following it back to its source to rest in the highest good" to 5th paragraph; add colon in 10th paragraph; fix last quote

At least you know how to argue❤︎ As for "getting it", not so much. Selflessness is being absorbed into the situation of other— even as other. Selflessness is not being a Mother Teresa, and it's not a matter of getting into someone else's shoes, rather, it's being no one other than what is dictated by the situation according to the time. It's being selfless. It's not "the person", as oppose to "a person" and identifying as such. Selflessness is appropriating the nature of awareness, of reality, as one's actual impersonal identity in order to adapt effectively, transcendentally, in the course of actual affairs without anyone knowing, or caring— including oneself. One's selflessness is totally natural— supremely natural. This is resting in the highest good, beyond convention. No buddha can approach one here.

Ok~ The statement is relative to people who spontaneously recognize real knowledge and dismiss it out of hand due to the fact that they are not able to deal with anything beyond an habitual reliance on self-referencing psychologically patterned habit energy. Conventional self-reifying patterns of conscious awareness would be relative to a concept of "personal agency" I suppose. But seeing reality is not relative to the person. This means that spontaneous recognition of real knowledge without being able to act on that knowledge is akin to being ignorant of real knowledge in spite of seeing it~ that's all. The point is that real knowledge is accessible to all people all the time— not just for those who have already experienced evidences of efficacy demonstrating an awakening spiritual potential. It's just that ordinary people can't recognize it, and when they do, all they can do is go, "So what." That is, when they spontaneously "get it", they don't know how to apply it in everyday ordinary situations. I think you "get it", non? haha! To clarify: there is nothing "personal" nor is there anything relative to the person involved, (outside of inherent impersonal awareness) in terms of seeing— that is the whole point of enlightening activity. It's selfless, due to the nature of reality and hence, our enlightened nature. In taoist terms, it is none other than the "true human with no status" floating around in the center of the compass of the immaterial body of awareness which has no location. That means that real knowledge doesn't "come from somewhere" (else), nor does it have a pointed perspective relative to anything other than the situation itself. The focal point of real knowledge is a pointless 360˚ horizon keyed to the situation's potential of inevitability. Enlightening activity is ultimately just "finding out what happened", from the perspective of the situation itself. It's just your enlightened mind void of self-reifying psychological patterns right now, therefore recognizing real knowledge is completely natural, yet somehow foreign to the psychological apparatus of the conditioned personalities of those who are not sufficiently adapted to effective methods of authentic self-refinement.

Hi Jack~ I call "intelligence" the conditionally relative aspect of conscious knowledge overlying the nonpsychological nature of real knowledge. But if you mean to employ the word "intelligence" as a reference to one's [spontaneously effective] use of immediate nondiscursive knowledge, then I would make a slight modification to the wording: Seeing is objectively sensing what is, as is, in terms of selfless nonpsychological awareness, no different than your own mind right now— yet in terms of spiritual subtle adaption, there is no energy employed as an act of affirmation or denial as knowledge is immediate. It seems I am splitting hairs, but the reason I am making the distinction is that acceptance/denial is relative to created energy, whereas enlightening activity as defined by "turning the light around" is already keyed to potential, so my modification to the quote is: People must be careful to keep in mind that such "intelligence" is not found beyond one's own mind right now. Real knowledge arises spontaneously as a matter of course (not just for those awakened to their selfless nature) and those who practice subtle observation of mind are eventually able to recognize its appearance in the midst of habitual thought-streams. This is why 24/7 subtle observation of mind is such a critical aspect of authentic self-refinement. There are other reasons as well that I won't go into at this time. The critical aspect of spiritual adaption to situations is borne by the inherent pattern of the situation itself, so I am being hyper-sensitive to the use of the word "accept" in the context of your statement because virtuous nonresistance would seem to imply just what you wrote, yet I am making the distinction between "accept" (so as not to imply that it means "affirm"), as opposed to "deny", for the benefit of others who may read this and mistakenly assume that "accept" is relative to the person— which it isn't. Since seeing is relative to selfless nonpsychological awareness, there is no superfluous affirmation or denial to speak of in the context of enlightening perception. Inevitability as a watchword for enlightening activity means that the karmic nature of all created things (including situations) are destined, in that every created cycle is embedded in its own matrix of potential or "situational DNA". Enlightening activity is just the practical knowledge of karmic patterning and furthermore watching for its critical junctures. All situations are cyclical. This is what make their study (in terms of taoism) a science. The Art of War states that "victory depends on the enemy" in that conditions conducive to apropriate action in response to developments cannot be manufactured beforehand. One must await their inexorable inevitable development. One must know what is being awaited. One must know the ground of life and death and be situated advantageously unbeknownst to anyone. The word "enemy" signifies the nature of the situation itself in that one's impersonal adaption depends on its (the situation's) parameters exclusively. This is why victory depends on the enemy. The Art of War is an ancient classic long included the taoist spiritual canon. This is why I say that one must, in fact, be ultimately vulnerable in order to carry out the subtle operation of the Great Vehicle as a Tathagata in terms of Complete Reality neither ordinary nor holy. The critical junctures of Change that I speak of are the ground of life and death. The alchemical term is the Aperture of the Mysterious Female: Chapter 16 of the Tao te Ching Return is the critical juncture(s) of all situations, material and immaterial. As in all things, the celestial pattern is expressed as the function of its process. Ego is a valid function, therein lies its value to the organism. It is not a thing. It is empty, utterly attributable to conditions. All created cycles have these critical junctures: the times when the gate and door defining the aperture of the Mysterious Female occur. Chapter 6 Therefore, it is to be understood that it is, in fact, used. It is also to be understood that its function is the unchanging unified fabric of inconceivability (referred to as gossamer silk in some volumes of the TTC) which is subtly operated in the context of ordinary situations according to the time by those with the power to comprehend its function in order to influence events. These two chapters from the Tao Te Ching do not just refer to mystical experience, as the celestial pattern permeates reality. Adepts arrive at partnership with creation, and are therefore not subject to its karmic cycles. There is no escape, yet liberation in the buddhist sense means that in the midst of delusional process, one does not go along with creation in that conformity with essence is preternaturally outside the primal organization of created incremental time and space. As I have mentioned many time before, it's an utter inconceivability, which is our nature in terms of human being. There is a chapter in the Kuei ku-Tzu called Opening and Closing. Let me clarify a few terms: heaven refers to the inner mind; earth refers to nature, the essential ground of reality; society, man, the sage, refers to a function of human potential. Assessing objectively and adapting impersonally is sage activity, whether it is accomplished by generals, buddhas, or enlightening beings. In every case, it is accomplished by those whose hearts have the power to take hearts. "Sages are not humane; they see all people as straw dogs." The Mysterious Female is not a place; it has no location. It arises naturally in the course of created karmic cycles. It is indicative of the celestial design. Those who see the opening and closing of the gate and door of the Mysterious Female are able to transcend Change while abiding in the midst of its changes. This is enlightening activity. Grain by grain, one gathers the elixir. Occasionally, a person will spontaneously comprehend an aspect of the phenomena of the secret of the celestial mechanism and conclude, "so what". This is what is referred to as knowing without the ability to act on knowledge. If one knows but is unable to act on that knowledge, it is the same as not knowing. It is simply not having the requisite personal power to act on knowledge. Authentic self-refinement is the means to gather and amass the potential (personal power) to see reality and act on knowledge by non-doing. Ordinary ignorant people whose personal power is inadequate to use energy aren't thus. Using it is a matter of amassing the energy to partake of energy. This energy is the nature of the Way and its Power. The power of the Way is another name for Virtue. Virtue is the inherent quality of enlightening being. Awakening to enlightening qualities is the result of self-refinement. What is refined? The human mentality. ed note: parenthesize "enemy" in 8th paragraph

The Buddha said to refer everything to the self. Most people consider this to mean conceptual consideration by intellectualism, holding the self mentioned in the Buddha's powerful statement as the self propped up and perpetuated by this same intellectual reasoning which is the seat of karmic bondage. If it were what the Buddha meant, how could that have any power? Any ignoramus refers everything to himself from birth to death. Who has ventured to ponder what the Buddha meant by this revelatory pronouncement into the nature of one's true being in terms of correct study of the self? Taoism states that it is necessary to work with what is the same. Sameness is essence. Essence is the self. Life is other. One already has this immaterial essence. That is why buddhism says to see essence on your own, then see a teacher. Taoism says to use essence to call life back from another's house. Essence is one's own aware nature. Life is real potential, real knowledge. This is why it is necessary to deal effectively with ordinary situations impersonally by activating impersonal nonpsychological essential awareness to see through situations and gather the unrefined potential inherent in situations by unminding, forgetting one's intellectual and emotional consciousness in the midst of ordinary affairs. "To study the Buddha way is to study oneself" means that activating one's own unborn awareness, empty of relative cause, is the basis to conduct oneself in the midst of affairs by subtle observation, subtle concentration that does not use intellectual interpretations to rationalize self and other. This is true study resulting in forgetting oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself does not refer to an instance of sudden enlightenment. Forgetting oneself is activation of the unborn mind that sees without calling habitual perspectives relative to the personality of the false conditioned karmic identity. True study of the real self is activation of the selfless self. This is the authentic practice of forgetting oneself. The effect of authentic practice in the midst of ordinary affairs is studying the real self without removing the world. This is enlightening activity. When Dogen says, "To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad dharmas.", it means effective practice is carried out by seeing the world as oneself. In one heightened experience during a preliminary 1000 day cycle, I awoke to the awareness being such that the overwhelming perspective was one of "it (the entire worldly situation) is just me". In other words, there was no me to speak of constituting an existence separate from all the elements and timing aggregating to define the evolution of a great cycle. The situational evolution was such that its pressure-cooker reality was just what it was with no reflective perspective on others struggling as others separate from myself. Its inconceivably psychological and emotional brutality was simply the conditions under which I found myself, and each cycle within this cycle resulted in the same open-ended basis of times alternating successively without a break. The myriad dharmas are simply conditional phenomenal unreality, but they are all there is to work with. It is by virtue of the karmic matrix that there is the context for self-refining enlightening activity. One's sense, being real knowledge of true reality, nurtured by essential aware purity of impersonal open sincerity permeates myriad dharmas. Though it is oneself, it is not one's own. This is because the nature of the universal is itself aware nonbeing. The totality of reality is thus. This is how enlightenment by the myriad dharmas is forgetting oneself. In forgetting, the myriad dharmas become oneself. "To be enlightened by the myriad dharmas is to bring about the dropping away of body and mind of both oneself and others", is arrival of cessation, the absolute, seeing one's naturre, seeing one's original face. Upon culmination of the great cycle, experience of nonorigination, the empty kalpa, where no buddha can reach you is attained. Nothing further can be said. This is where the matter of life and death is finally finished, and one has completely thrown away all knowledge: this is the absolute of the homeland of nothing whatsoever. In his last line Dogen states that, "The traces of enlightenment come to an end, and this traceless enlightenment is continued endlessly." In the aftermath of the sudden, one reeks of enlightenment. This must be worn off, washed off, rinsed completely away. This is why I say that the "vertical must be dissolved before one can make use of it". Alchemic manuals say that once one has used the true lead (real knowledge), one must then get rid of it. "Having used lead to refine mercury into the gold pill of immortality, one then gets rid of the lead". Dogen's "Traces of enlightenment" is identification with the experience of the foregoing achievement clinging to essential aware nature in the aftermath of complete perfect enlightenment. Taoist alchemical manuals state that "openness must then be emptied". "One overturns the polar mountain, shatters space, sublimates oneself physically and spiritually and enters the tao in reality, planting lotuses in fire, going through endless transformations". This is the meaning of "and this traceless enlightenment is continued endlessly." Hakuun Yasutani states in his commentary of Dogen's Genjokoan on this section, "…that since one has with great effort become the original buddha [in selfless sudden illumination], from here the work of the buddha begins." Attaining further enlightenment upon enlightenment in terms of endless transformations of subtle operation within Suchness, one becomes a person deluded within delusion: enlightenment being no different than delusion. This is the expression of the activation of one's selfless enlightening being where there is a body outside the body. It is just nonbeing within being. This is the significance of the taoist term, Complete Reality, and also the source of the ancient taoist teaching tradition that has endeavored to keep this knowledge alive.

It is a pedantic formality to refer to "dependent origination" which is ordinary consciousness in the throes of appearing to justify Cause. This is pure intellectualism on the part of a recreational philosopher. What would be the point in pinching pebbles of which anyone can discern the source? Who can refer to one's inherent causeless nonoriginated essence, hmmmm? Furthermore, what might be your part in its application, sir? You are stuck in borrowed words… but carry on as you will, dear. Moving right along for the benefit of those with the will to enlightenment. But though it is possible for those having penetrated a practical experiential basis in the real can see how it is possible to apply Dogen's elevated living words on multiple levels of understanding, there is only one mind which all levels of experience have in reference to recognition of one's being that is nonoriginated. Therefore, in terms of this mind, and in terms of effective and immediate wordless insight by those whose practical work of self-refinement is real, there are no levels. What is the mind of the nonoriginated self the Buddha says to refer everything to? It is the mind that does not think. One's own awareness not construed by the thinking mentality is immediate wordless insight. Just this mind is the Unborn. When wordless insight is present, don't think about it— in developing a subtle continuity of unminding concentration in the midst of everyday ordinary situations by open-minded wordless stable insight one enters into the only kind of practice worthy of the name. The Unborn is truly all there is. When you get this, just don't let it turn into other states. After a long, long time of stability in resting in the Unborn, eventually there is awakening to reality as is which finally obliterates one's uncertainty and doubt. This mind is the same in all sentient beings be they buddhas or ordinary deluded people. But "only those who cultivate themselves to conform to essence can direct the course of nature and not be caused to wax and wane by nature". It is all well and good that all sentient beings have this and are this enlightenment already, but even for those who have seen essence, their original face, if they cannot avail themselves of this knowledge, it is the same as if they had no knowledge. Bankei never wore out his unborn mind. He just told ordinary folk the same thing over and over without ever changing his story until the day he died that one simply must apply one's own everyday ordinary unborn mind by not turning it into anything else by compulsions following thoughts based on selfish perspectives relative to the personality that thinks. The galloping mind is the scourge of human being. Just don't let the unborn awareness perpetually present without beginning turn into other states by thinking unawares. It is thinking unawares that carries one away from the perpetually pristine unborn mind. Don't stop this thinking mind— just don't follow it unawares. When you let the human mentality go on without you, the unborn is already just your true self activated in terms of the capacity of impersonal objective observation. That's your mind. As for those who cultivate themselves to conform to essence— it is just resting in the Unborn as all things act in concert. This is the place where one sees Return. Return is just the celestial arising from within the mundane. Those who see the spontaneous arising of the celestial see the source of Change, and therefore do not go along with change. It is not a matter of mundane or elevated aspects differentiating people. Those who can rest in the Unborn for an instant are buddhas for an instant. Those who rest in the Unborn for a lifetime are buddhas for a lifetime. It's only just now. This mind is the same in all sentient beings be they buddhas or ordinary deluded people. But "only those who cultivate themselves to conform to essence can direct the course of nature and not be caused to wax and wane by nature". This may help those who truly wonder why understanding reality matters.