Enlightenment And Experience

[Ananta]

Btw, when I have the time, I try to use analysis and/or logical reasoning when I post replies. That is the Vedantic way. If it's too many words for anyone (?), then please don't read my posts. Saying something is too many words on a forum is kinda funny.

[actualized3434]

@Anna1 I don't think it was about you.. I think he said that about this whole thread

[Ananta]

I think the thread is great. Self inquiry is the name of the game! Without it you dead in the water, imo.

[Nahm]

@Anna1 You are right. What I said was from what I am now. When I think for a second back to being younger, your sentiment and logic ring true. It's an interesting phenomenon, how anyone, especially Leo, holds no punches and basically is saying do the fucking practices, but as said in Lazy Eye, "So clear but so unheard".  Why is that? Why is it so hard to hear? Best I can make of it, is that it's because the objective reality is so overwhelmingly convincing. Like watching / playing  a virtual reality game in the year 3000. So good, we'd argue it's real. 

Edited June 28, 2017 by Nahm

[Ananta]

2 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Anna1 You are right. What I said was from what I am now. When I think for a second back to being younger, your sentiment and logic true. It's an interesting phenomenon, how anyone, especially Leo, holds no punches and basically is saying do the fucking practices, but as said in Lazy Eye, "So clear but so unheard".  Why is that? Why is it so hard to hear? Best I can make of it, is that it's because the objective reality is so overwhelmingly convincing. Like watching / playing  a virtual reality game in the year 3000. So good, we'd argue it's real. 

Yes, so no matter your personal realization or mine, for that matter. If you are going to converse with others about it. You must remember where you came from. Wink!

[Nahm]

@Anna1 I'm feeling so transparent! You are intuitive, and so right. I struggle with this big time lately. My oldest son is 23. A hard age imo. He puts me on a pedestal, and I tell him he shouldn't. It's not a be like me thing, it's a be less of you, and you will become so much more of you thing. I am becoming more aware and mindful of it, but I too often forget to meet him where he's at. Once in a while though, I love that look on his face when I touch on something close enough that he hears it, and far enough that he wants it. Life is so fucking sweet & precious. 

Edited June 28, 2017 by Nahm

[Ananta]

Ah, we have something in common my son is 24. I try to remember where he is at, because I didn't have that at his age. People expected too much of me, which sets up a desire to be a perfectionist, which is never good and doom to fail. Which it did..lol

[Ananta]

 

6 min, 30 secs.

Blink "on" as awareness (The Self)...blink "off" back as the ego...the classic fire-fly state. This happens when Self realization, is not "firm".

 

[Prabhaker]

6 hours ago, actualized3434 said:

what is the significance of Yoga

If you are disillusioned, if you are hopeless, if you have completely become aware of the futility of all desires, if you see your life as meaningless – whatsoever you have been doing up to now has simply fallen dead nothing remains in the future, you are in absolute despair.

If you are in anguish, suffering, not knowing what to do, not knowing where to go, not knowing to whom to look, just on the verge of madness or suicide or death, your whole pattern of life suddenly has become futile.

If the moment has come where you feel that all directions have become confused, all roads have disappeared; the future is dark, and every desire has become bitter, and through every desire you have known only disappointment; all movement into hopes and dreams has ceased. 

Sometimes you feel hopeless, but that hopelessness is not true. You feel hopeless because certain hopes have not been achieved, certain hopes have fallen. But hoping is still there: hoping has not fallen. You will still hope. You are dissatisfied with this hope, that hope, but you are not dissatisfied with hope as such. If with hope as such you are disappointed, the moment has come and then you can enter 'path of a Yoga'.

Unless this moment comes to you... You can go on doing asanas, postures; that is not yoga. Yoga is an inward turning. It is a total about-turn.

Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1 ~ Osho

Physiological part of yoga offers devices to maintain good physical health and longevity. The second part,the psychological part , is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers. 

[Prabhaker]

7 hours ago, actualized3434 said:

what is the significance eight fold path in Buddhism

Buddha says: There are many types of people: a few are cowards who never go on the Way; a few go fully armored but come back as they start feeling difficulties arising; a few go half the way half-heartedly, then return back; a few go a little further but are killed. Because they could never gather their energy, they could never become integrated, they can be easily destroyed. They were not ready enough to go into the battle - maybe outwardly they were full of armor, maybe outwardly looking very strong, but inwardly hollow, empty. There are only very few who go into the battle, win the battle, and come back home.

That coming back home is what SAMADHI IS, and these seven steps before SAMADHI are the battle, the Way. Move slowly, otherwise you may be killed.

For example: if a person of false morality goes into the battle he will be killed.

You have to be authentically moral. 'Authentically moral' means that you have to be moral from within. Those false faces learned from the outside won't help. You will remain hollow inside. And you have to move step by step. You cannot jump steps. otherwise those missing gaps will become dangerous.

That's why I talk about these eight steps, this eightfold path.

  Osho The Discipline of Transcendence Volume 4

[Prabhaker]

6 hours ago, actualized3434 said:

I suggest to stop doing things and just see/be aware

Most of the people can't stop doing things and just see/be aware, right now, as they are. 

[Ananta]

26 minutes ago, jimrich said:

I've heard it's like realizing that Santa Claus is NOT REAL!   Sometimes I see my ego like Santa Claus - it's NOT REAL!

lol, I love this!

Ok, so see how this is knowledge, you will forever more know without a doubt Santa is not real. Can you ever forget that Santa isnt real? Meaning, could anyone/anything convince you that Santa is real from here on out? 

That's why I say enlightenment is Self knowledge (it removes ignorance), in this case, that santa was "real".

But, if you weren't "sure" that Santa wasn't real and you had lingering doubts, then that knowledge wouldn't be "firm" and you may sometimes think Santa's real and other times not. This is the fire-fly state.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Anna1

[Ananta]

@jimrich excellent post! Again, love it!

So, yeah, the "association" of you, awareness, with the body/mind will continue until the death of the body.

So, there is an "I-sense" that stays, because thoughts, sensations, feelings, ect don't end just because you know who/what you are, some people think that ends, that fantasy. You still play your role. No choice in that. So, although the body/mind exists, it "ultimately" not real, therefore the pains will still be painful, but the suffering ends.

Also, playing your role means getting engrossed in that role, at times, but knowing always your true idenitty when needed.

1 hour ago, jimrich said:

It may seem like a mental trick or stunt but it can work if it is accepted that what is real and always was real is YOU - the ineffable Isness or nameless Reality in and as all apparent phenomena.  In some ways, it's a semantic gimmick or trick. 

YES! The pointing at the ego, was to point back at/as the Self!

Also, this whole game is the Self playing hide and seek with it Self.

[Ananta]

@jimrich It's traditional Vedanta and my experience. My lingo is consistent with Vedanta, because I find it is clear and straight forward.

When the "Self" has a capital "S" it's referring to -Brahman/awareness/consciousness. 

22 minutes ago, jimrich said:

I haves seen that the individual continues, intact, after their body perished but they were a much happier individual WITHOUT a body. 

I don't understand this? Is this a theory or your own experience? 

Edited June 29, 2017 by Anna1

[Ananta]

Pain=pain, suffering is feeling like your "identity" is in some way diminished.

[actualized3434]

50 minutes ago, Anna1 said:

@jimrich excellent post! Again, love it!

So, yeah, the "association" of you, awareness, with the body/mind will continue until the death of the body.

So, there is an "I-sense" that stays, because thoughts, sensations, feelings, ect don't end just because you know who/what you are, some people think that ends, that fantasy. You still play your role. No choice in that. So, although the body/mind exists, it "ultimately" not real, therefore the pains will still be painful, but the suffering ends.

Also, playing your role means getting engrossed in that role, at times, but knowing always your true idenitty when needed.

YES! The pointing at the ego, was to point back at/as the Self!

Also, this whole game is the Self playing hide and seek with it Self.

@Anna1 After enlightenment, do the flow of thoughts get tremendously reduced or no?

[Ananta]

4 minutes ago, actualized3434 said:

@Anna1 After enlightenment, do the flow of thoughts get tremendously reduced or no?

Ok, so here's the deal. There is no enlightenment or unenlightenment. I would never say I'm enlightened.

Once you know you are pure awareness. Pure awareness is neither enlightened or unenlighted. It is beyond both, so the question doesn't apply. 

But, since I do understand what you mean... Self referential thoughts reduce significantly over time. Like when you turn a fan off, it takes time for the blades of the fan to stop. It's like that, but thoughts continue. They don't come from you, they come from Isvara.

Anyways, I acknowledge Moksha, not enlightenment. Moksha means free from experience (not that you don't experience, but you aren't affected like you once were), free from the Jiva/person, whilst simultaneously being associated with the apparent person. It a subtle understanding.

My teacher says, you then accept the Jiva warts and all, meaning the person will not become "perfect" or a saint.

[actualized3434]

@Anna1 

Q. “Do you have thoughts?”

Sri Ramana: “I usually have no thoughts.”

Q.  “But when you are reading?”

Sri Ramana: “Then I have thoughts.”

Q.  “And when someone asks you a question?”

Sri Ramana:  “Then, too, I have thoughts when replying, not otherwise.”

Q.  “How can I keep the idea of that real state always before me?”

Sri Ramana: “Because you think you are a body you are not able to keep that single idea, you are not firm! The idea that you must go to Tiruvannamalai and see Maharshi is only a function of the intellect. Really no help is required. You are already in your original state; how can anyone help you to arrive where you already are? The help given is only to clear out your wrong notions. The great men, the gurus can help only by removing the obstacles in your way. A child and Jnaniare in some ways similar*. The child ceases to think of incidents after they have passed off. Thus it shows that they do not leave deep impressions on the child’s mind. So too with a Jnani.”

From the section: "GURU" (page 19-20) in the book, "MORE DOUBTS AND 100
MORE ANSWERS 

[Ananta]

2 minutes ago, actualized3434 said:

@Anna1 

Q. “Do you have thoughts?”

Sri Ramana: “I usually have no thoughts.”

Q.  “But when you are reading?”

Sri Ramana: “Then I have thoughts.”

Q.  “And when someone asks you a question?”

Sri Ramana:  “Then, too, I have thoughts when replying, not otherwise.”

Q.  “How can I keep the idea of that real state always before me?”

Sri Ramana: “Because you think you are a body you are not able to keep that single idea, you are not firm! The idea that you must go to Tiruvannamalai and see Maharshi is only a function of the intellect. Really no help is required. You are already in your original state; how can anyone help you to arrive where you already are? The help given is only to clear out your wrong notions. The great men, the gurus can help only by removing the obstacles in your way. A child and Jnaniare in some ways similar*. The child ceases to think of incidents after they have passed off. Thus it shows that they do not leave deep impressions on the child’s mind. So too with a Jnani.”

From the section: "GURU" (page 19-20) in the book, "MORE DOUBTS AND 100
MORE ANSWERS 

Ramana bless his heart...he had an ashram, no job, no family to care for, no bills to pay, ect, ect, ect. 

Isvara didn't have to bring many thoughts his way. Plus, he found his true Self at 17! Not many mental tendencies to deal with...get my point?

[Ananta]

Oh, and how many years did he sit in that cave? He trained his mind to be quiet. Most don't have that luxury.