An account of enlightenment by Gary Weber...

[Ajay0]

Gary Weber recounts on how the teachings of Ramana Maharshi influenced him to shed the excitement seeking ego, resulting in enlightenment ...

https://happiness-beyond-thought.com/legacy/theauthor.html

Quote

 

Somehow, I happened upon the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. I began looking in the other direction, back inside at what it was that was doing all of these practices and causing all of this confusion. One day, realizing that enlightenment was impossible as long as there was an “I” insisting on being present for the exciting conclusion as well as keeping all of its attachments, I surrendered completely. Everything was surrendered, everything; my “self”, possessions, job, corner office, parking space, options, house, attachments, everything. I said deeply and sincerely from the bottom of my being, that I had to know the Truth, even if it cost my life. With that surrender, I could feel something shift.

Shortly afterwards, doing an asana that I had done thousands of times before, the “I” blew out like a candle in the wind, and a page turned. I went into the asana one way and came out transformed. Consciousness shifted completely and irrevocably. Thought stopped as a continuous activity and stillness and presence were there at a level I could never have imagined. I realized that I was not this body, nor these thoughts, but the undying consciousness behind them. I saw that everything was perfect just as it was and that everything was somehow inside me and was in fact, all One. Surprisingly, I also realized that everything was God. ~ Gary Weber

 

 

[Raze]

I prefer this one 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/rkxifs/how_bhagavan_ramana_maharshi_changed_my_life_gary/

[Carl-Richard]

Gary's experiences resonates very much with my own path. It's really about the attachments.

[Nilsi]

40 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Gary's experiences resonates very much with my own path. It's really about the attachments.

I'll now use your own trick against you and ask: what do you mean by attachments?

Isn't it the case that the real attachment is unconscious and therefore exists in the realm of the symbolic?

I always suspect there's some implicit anti-materialist ideology in this kind of argument, which I absolutely reject.

[Carl-Richard]

23 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I'll now use your own trick against you and ask: what do you mean by attachments?

Isn't it the case that the real attachment is unconscious and therefore exists in the realm of the symbolic?

If there is a thought that enters your mind and you can say "I'm fine without this thing" or "whatever happens is OK" and you exist in the same unmoving sense of tranquility, then you're likely not attached to that thing. Of course, the real test is to actually experience being without that thing.

Now, the problem is that some attachments are particularly sticky, and some might not even be consciously available to you, like some attachments around traumatic experiences, repressed desires and insecurities. So those can require some work to identify and work through.

But honestly, the process of letting go is quite simple. It's just that, again, some attachments are stickier than others. Some of the big ones are the sense of being in control of your bodily movements, thoughts and decisions, or being a sane individual who can operate in the world, or being alive rather than dead. These are attachments you will have to face when enlightenment knocks on the door.

Edited August 11 by Carl-Richard

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

But honestly, the process of letting go is quite simple. It's just that, again, some attachments are stickier than others. Some of the big ones are the sense of being in control of your bodily movements, thoughts and decisions, or being a sane individual who can operate in the world, or being alive rather than dead. These are attachments you will have to face when enlightenment knocks on the door.

Yes, but what I’m saying is that you’re not actually conceding anything “real.” You’re conceding some particularly neurotic structures of subjectivity - structures that were never objective in the first place. This is just a shift in the symbolic structure, not any kind of material change.

And seriously, what the fuck is this lingo? “Unmoving sense of tranquility?” If that doesn’t scream “ATTACHMENT” (or ideology, which I’d prefer to call it), then I don’t know what does.

This is my fundamental critique of idealism: there’s nothing objective about it - which, I guess, is the whole point. But it’s just as ridiculous to elevate it subjectively over materialism. If you think idealism is somehow metaphysically more accurate, then congratulations, you’ve fallen prey to ideology again. I’m sorry, but this is a fantasy, and it seems to be a collective one, since everyone here, along with their mom, is doubling down on their idealist biases.

Maybe it’s the fate of chronically online introverts to confuse their obsessive interoception with reality, but I have to disappoint you: the material conditions out there - including all the nasty stuff like capitalism - are just as real as your “unmoving peace and tranquility.” But of course, it takes an adult to actually accept that fact.

Edited August 11 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

If there is a thought that enters your mind and you can say "I'm fine without this thing" or "whatever happens is OK" and you exist in the same unmoving sense of tranquility, then you're likely not attached to that thing. Of course, the real test is to actually experience being without that thing.

Now, the problem is that some attachments are particularly sticky, and some might not even be consciously available to you, like some attachments around traumatic experiences, repressed desires and insecurities. So those can require some work to identify and work through.

But honestly, the process of letting go is quite simple. It's just that, again, some attachments are stickier than others. Some of the big ones are the sense of being in control of your bodily movements, thoughts and decisions, or being a sane individual who can operate in the world, or being alive rather than dead. These are attachments you will have to face when enlightenment knocks on the door.

If I didn’t like you as much, I’d refuse to take you seriously based solely on you using the word “enlightenment.” If I’ve ever seen a red flag, it’s that one.

[Carl-Richard]

32 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Yes, but what I’m saying is that you’re not actually conceding anything “real.” You’re conceding some particularly neurotic structures of subjectivity - structures that were never objective in the first place. This is just a shift in the symbolic structure, not any kind of material change.

Reacting to the death of yourself with unperturbed peace vs. inconsolable terror is a level of palpable change that could qualify as material.

 

36 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

And seriously, what the fuck is this lingo? “Unmoving sense of tranquility?” If that doesn’t scream “ATTACHMENT” (or ideology, which I’d prefer to call it), then I don’t know what does.

I thought you liked flowery language . Here is the drier version which I tried to find but which my mind didn't let me: "lack of emotional reaction".

 

40 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

This is my fundamental critique of idealism: there’s nothing objective about it - which, I guess, is the whole point. But it’s just as ridiculous to elevate it subjectively over materialism. If you think idealism is somehow metaphysically more accurate, then congratulations, you’ve fallen prey to ideology again. I’m sorry, but this is a fantasy, and it seems to be a collective one, since everyone here, along with their mom, is doubling down on their idealist biases.

Maybe it’s the fate of chronically online introverts to confuse their obsessive interoception with reality, but I have to disappoint you: the material conditions out there - including all the nasty stuff like capitalism - are just as real as your “unmoving peace and tranquility.” But of course, it takes an adult to actually accept that fact.

You can experience yourself peeling back the layers of "material reality" and have the intuition that whatever sits behind all of it (the Void) indeed is the source of material reality and comes prior to it, which is good enough for me to conclude that consciousness comes prior to material things. But I concede that it's based on an intuition and that it's possible that, no, in fact there is a hidden material world generating that entire experience (which is ironically also based on an intuition), but it seems highly unparsimonious and backwards.

Does it seem logical at all, that you can go from being an embodied human and step-by-step strip away the components of that experience; having a butt, having a torso, arms and legs, having a head, having thoughts and emotions, being located in space and time; a process which leaves you with essentially nothing but pure experience; but somehow it's the things that you've experienced and thought out while being an embodied human that truly informs you about the primal ground of reality? Meh.

 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

If I didn’t like you as much, I’d refuse to take you seriously based solely on you using the word “enlightenment.” If I’ve ever seen a red flag, it’s that one.

I've integrated that shadow red flag. I know how unappealing it sounds but I know no better word for it.

[Nilsi]

12 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I thought you liked flowery language . Here is the drier version which I tried to find but which my mind didn't let me: "lack of emotional reaction".

12 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

You can experience yourself peeling back the layers of "material reality" and have the intuition that whatever sits behind all of it (the Void) indeed is the source of material reality and comes prior to it, which is good enough for me to conclude that consciousness comes prior to material things.

Why are you even fixated on these ideas? That’s what I want to know. Why is a "lack of emotional reaction" somehow more real to you? And why do you assume that "peeling back layers" will get you closer to some "truth"?

12 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

But I concede that it's based on an intuition and that it's possible that, no, in fact there is a hidden material world generating that entire experience (which is ironically also based on an intuition), but it seems highly unparsimonious and backwards.

I’m not trying to argue either way here. My point is that you're lost in ideology, and that’s the real attachment.

The core ideology - this rational conception of metaphysics - still clings to your idea of idealism being more "true" than materialism. So, the attachment hasn’t really "died" at all. It’s like the creature in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979):

“The ultimate horror of the alien is not just that it is an indestructible, horrific being, but that even when you kill it, it somehow persists. It is the pure embodiment of drive, the Lacanian lamella - an entity that cannot be eradicated because it embodies a life that is beyond life and death, a ‘living dead’ that continues to haunt even after its apparent destruction.” - Slavoj Zizek

Edited August 12 by Nilsi