Why Some Teachers Tells You Not To Seek

[Shin]

On 03/06/2017 at 7:39 AM, Principium Nexus said:

The funny thing is that there is nothing to gain reaching enlightenment. You're only losing 'things'

Happiness/Peace is more valuable than every things that we could gain anyway.

I would rather live in a cell all my life, in the dark, totally happy, rather than being totally free with all the money, girl, fame that is possible to experience (and obviously being inconscious).

@Real Eyes Except being aware of it, nothing.
As long as you keep observing your thoughts/habits patterns without judging them, you'll make progress.
It may seem that you will make a step back sometimes (and it will happen), but actually it's what you need to realize you have to do two step further (and you will too).

 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Shin

[Real Eyes]

On 6/2/2017 at 5:12 PM, cetus56 said:

@Real EyesYes it does  Use a thorn to remove a thorn and throw both away. 

That's an interesting way to put it.  How does one do something like that?  

[Real Eyes]

@Maxx Thanks for this write up!  This clarifies the non-seeking thing quite a bit.

Putting aside seekers for the moment, how about your typical person living in the world, oblivious to any sort of concepts about enlightenment or seeking.  Wouldn't one expect somebody fully engrossed in just living life to sometimes catch glimpses of this truth (perhaps during activities where they are fully immersed in, like a flow state)?  But that doesn't seem to be a common occurrence...flow-like states seem common enough in a variety of activities, but the kind of seeing Tony Parsons is talking about in that interview doesn't seem to be common at all.

[Shin]

@Maxx That's exactly how it feels to follow your intuition, there is no logic sometimes at all.

It's easy to understand why so many people can believe in god if they're highly intuitive, it really feels like there is something or someone else giving you these orders.

[Real Eyes]

I guess I could have phrased that more clearly...I just mean that this realization that "nobody exists" seems like it is rather earth shattering, the "collapsing of the dream".  But it's not really a phenomenon you hear about for a typical person, for instance I don't personally know anybody that has experienced this, spiritual seeker or not.  But I know plenty of people that have experienced the flow state or moments of bliss.

So it could be that there are other elements involved in the collapsing of the dream, that guys like Tony Parsons are unaware of.  From his vantage point now, it may seem like a spontaneous event that is not preceded by anything, but he may not be aware of everything that allowed him to finally awaken.  Paraphrasing Nisargadatta Maharaj, the fruit falls instantly from the tree, but the ripening took time.  Parsons may be unaware of the ripening process he himself went through.  And the fact remains that the majority of these neo-advaita people did indeed spend much time seeking and meditating prior to their awakening.  Perhaps that is the ripening process.

[Key Elements]

Some teachers may think you're skipping too many steps and feel you're going ahead of yourself. Sometimes, just joining a monestary, isn't for everyone. 

Edited June 10, 2017 by Key Elements

[Real Eyes]

@Maxx  Thanks for that detailed reply.  Assuming one can leave the ego out of it, which sort of techniques do you consider effective?  The meditation/self inquiry type techniques, or perhaps others?

[SOUL]

@Maxx  Both 'we are everything' and 'nobody exists' are concepts derived from value judgements made in the mind that form paradigms that are believed in. When we attune our awareness to being present in the moment there is no use for any of that so to teach it is just as useless and can even be worse than useless, it can be another distraction that becomes a dogma.

The belief that there is no individual or self is just as much of a belief as the one that there is, these are just poles of opposition in another duality that mind uses to define and identify. In absolute presence there is no judging or conceptualizing about what's real or an illusion, there's just an acceptance of what is in the now and the stillness is the peace of being.

Edited June 10, 2017 by SOUL

[Hsinav]

On 2017-06-07 at 11:48 PM, Maxx said:

For example when someone gets what he wants after many years of work, like the dream car, or the college degree and there are moments of just fully relaxing, then they think it is this achievement that caused the happiness and not that cessation of wanting to get something or somewhere else. Or when someone has a beautiful holiday after months and months of stressful work, and he just becomes still sitting at the beach watching the sunset. Then he might think it is the beautiful view that makes him happy and not the allowance to just be.

This is so common in our society, yet very few people recognise it.