On Having No Head

[Eastbranch]

 

5 hours ago, Guczo said:

But from strictly materialistic point of view, this is solipsism/escapism/reality denying. On rational and critical level, we can't just say that consciousness/awareness is independent of physical body. In fact, every single conscious experience that happened in my lifetime was actually in awareness. But I can't simply disregard and neglect the consequences of tight relation between awareness and physical body (classically, subjective/objective, two sides of the same coin).

I really have to agree here. I've experienced no-self, no-freewill, utter bliss, and emptiness. However, I keep coming back "here" (physical). No matter how much I'd like to get back to "there" (consciousness) I realize that "there" is not going to be a permanent state, at least not in this lifetime for me. Even the gurus live "here." So the concept of non-duality doesn't get me closer to transcendence. Understanding that no-self (consciousness) exists is essential, but the existence of no-self does not preclude the existence of self (physical). Self and no-self both exist and both are a part of this insane universe. Determinism and freewill also both exist, at the same time. Nothing and Something both exist together too. This is the real mind fuck. And it makes total sense, based on our every day experience and our experiences toward enlightenment. I don't think there's a grand conspiracy in the universe to trick us into believing in a self that doesn't really exist. Who would be playing this trick? The self both exists and doesn't exist and both states are equally valid. This concept is so simple and empirical to me. I don't understand why very few others view it this way. Is anybody else on the same track with me here? If we could just get past this simple idea about self vs. no-self and something vs. nothing and just accept that they both exist together, we could get to the really interesting questions, like what the hell is all this for? That's the really big leap, IMHO.

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Eastbranch
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[Guczo]

First of all, please understand - I started out this spiritual journey with basic assumption that materialistic science give us very precise answers on, generally-speaking, questions: how?  

I just thought that it failed to give answers when we ask: why?  In fact, also philosophy and all faith-based religions that I've been exposed to failed in it. So then I took the attitude of agnostic towards mystery of existence.

How does it work - mechanical laws, electromagnetic, chemical reactions and so on, all this fields of science.

Then, you have BIOLOGY. In terms of biology, each of us is just "carnal machine" (so to speak), programmed by DNA code for survival and reproduction.

Then we got medical sciences based on biology, that gives us in very real way answers on question: how does works organism? how we can heal it when it's sick?

Also technical sciences on which based is our whole technology and civilization. 

What is common feature of all this fields of knowledge? Each one of them is objectively real. Phenomenon explained by it doesn't need awareness at all to exist. 

What about existing Cosmos and Earth before any organic forms of life emerged? 

According to scientific explanation of history of Earth - There was for long period of no organic beings. But there existed mass of matter and there also existed natural laws of physics.

"However we propose to explain the emergence of consciousness—be it in biological, functional, computational, or any other terms—we have committed ourselves to this much: First there is a physical world, unconscious and seething with unperceived events; then, by virtue of some physical property or process, consciousness itself springs, or staggers, into being. This idea seems to me not merely strange but perfectly mysterious. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. When we linger over the details, however, this notion of emergence seems merely a placeholder for a miracle. Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. To simply assert that consciousness arose at some point in the evolution of life, and that it results from a specific arrangement of neurons firing in concert within an individual brain, doesn’t give us any inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle."

This physical principles is universal - you can make now the same experience as they did 200 or 2000 years ago and receive the same results as they did. Moreover, there is no need for conscious being to perceive results, because the same physical cause-effect phenomena was in game before even consciousness occurred. Of course, still, one could say that "Everything is awareness." or "Everything appeared from one single idea. (This echoes Plato's concept of Forms or First Principles)". It may be so. But does it deny existence of objective, physical realm of being?

Sometimes I explain it to myself this way: Our basic realm of existence is biological, animal.

But beyond that exist also possibility of attaining higher meaning - becoming aware of itself and then reach out towards the
limitlessness of its conscious existence.

I'm still carefully agnostic in case of our polemics.

Does, as you say, physical objects are just "game" or Maya, that is secondary to awareness?

Or maybe consciousness Is simply a freakish by-product of the brain’s natural functioning - an
illusion or delusion incidentally caused by interactions of electrochemical energy?

Is awareness prior to the physical realm or vice versa?

Or maybe it's something like in-between: self-awareness is the most powerful tool in the game titled: Survival of the fittest. 

I don't know.

I know that all these assumptions and concepts I wrote about counts for nothing in terms of non-dual practices. I've seen most of your videos on the subject of spiritual enlightenment and I agree that penetrating illusion of self demands stripping away all this layers of concepts.

Let's face it - Thinking is indispensable. I won't abandon my rational mind. I need critical thinking (reasoning) as a tool.

But our habitual identification with thought—that is, our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts, as appearances in consciousness—is a primary source of human suffering. It also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one’s head.

And certainly I can't agree with you on the subject of non-realness of physical objects. 

 

 

But thank God that at the very end of my exploration, I found meditation - the non-conceptual way of knowing. Non-dual, experiential awareness is like oracle that never speaks. It doesn't seem to have need to know all the right answers. Indeed, it doesn't need any answers to know.

 

 

 

[Naviy]

@Guczo This thread might interest you

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@Guczo You should study epistemology to get a very clear understanding of the limits of science. Science does not make any objective assertions about external reality. Science is just a set of diagrams for how to manipulate reality. What that reality actually is, science has no clue and never says. And all the diagrams are ultimately false because the diagram is not the thing itself.

Science does not tell you what anything actually is. It only gives you as diagram of it.

Classic trap of mistaking the map for the territory.

Most scientists haven't studied epistemology and aren't aware of the assumptions and limits of their own field.

 

7 minutes ago, Guczo said:

Let's face it - Thinking is indispensable. I won't abandon my rational mind. I need critical thinking (reasoning) as a tool.

Don't be so sure about that. Be open to the possibility that all your thinking and all your knowledge is ultimately groundless speculation.

[Pierre]

Funny the amount of talk that Headlessness can raise. It's so simple and direct and clear that almost everybody miss the point.

Of course it's childish !!! It has to be.  Little children live in Reality, they've not yet built this damn solid entity in the middle of their universe.

Please, give this Vision a chance, you won't regret it. Don't theorize about it, just LOOK.

See my topic on the subject : "Blow Your Head Off !"

[Pierre]

Anyone interested in seeing the Self right now ? It's here.

[Guczo]

@Leo Gura  I'm aware of that - we could say materialistic science is cognitive tool - pretty reliable - but it's only dead conceptualization and pale,  reflection of the thing itself.  We can never get to know things itself  (like Kant defined it) through concepts or senses.

For example we can never realize how "God" figured out Golden ratio, which appears in some forms of life. But we can very precisely define it through mathematics . Of course, this is only our primitive, intellectual reflection of "God's Mind". We actually can't get to know about how big and powerful this actual phenomenon of Golden ratio is. We can only perceive it and describe it with mathematical language.

 

[Guczo]

30 minutes ago, Pierre said:

Funny the amount of talk that Headlessness can raise. It's so simple and direct and clear that almost everybody miss the point.

When I first time read about this Harding's experience of having no head, I started laughing.

Somehow I thought it was funny self-denial - but that's the perspective from ego point of view.

Of course, he actually was experiencing no self, so logically he had no self to deny.

 

[Neo]

I'm trying once or twice a day Pierre but I have time constraints and I've also just gone down with a bad cold. I am getting as far as knowing there's something amusing coming up but then I stop. Is this "surrendering" important to these exercises?

Edited February 23, 2016 by Neo

[Guczo]

 

And what I found was khaki trouserlegs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in—absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not in a head.

haha it's genius. simple and plain as a experience.

But factual state is this - my physical brain does exist. But that's not matter of this experience of having no head.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Guczo

[Pierre]

27 minutes ago, Neo said:

I'm trying once or twice a day Pierre but I have time constraints and I've also just gone down with a bad cold. I am getting as far as knowing there's something amusing coming up but then I stop. Is this "surrendering" important to these exercises?

@Neo Hi Neo, well the cool thing is that it takes no time at all. And it doesn't depend on your mood or state of mind or energy or whatever.

Just state that whatever you do, you carry an absence of head at the top of the body. You're looking out from this absence.

Go on with all the stuff you do, meditation, etc. Just add this funny vision, without effort. Enjoy it without thinking about it.

[Leo Gura]

One good exercise you guys could try is the following:

Select any object off in the distance in your visual field. Now, take your finger and VERY SLOWLY draw a line in the air from it to you. Stop at the point where the line terminates at YOU.

Does it ever terminate at YOU?

Then who in the hell is seeing that object?!

[jimboJones]

I came across Harding a year or so ago, pretty cool seeing as it's so logical and westernized. I feel like I get a split second of 'seeing' and the feeling of my head being replaced by the world. But it doesn't exactly feel like I am everything. I wonder if its a matter of practice. I always, always come up with some objection extremely quickly, so it probably a good idea to incorporate these tricks when you're 15mins into mindfulness meditation.

[Cookiesliyr]

hmmm, interesting exercise\experiment Leo, i found the line stop at around a point near the back of my brain, top left for some reason, i tried it with different objects and distance and found the point stop the same point, but does that mean that my left eye is just stronger than my right eye or something (which matter of fact when i think about it is the case)?

not trying to trash the true meaning of the training or anything by trying to justify the result, just wondering.

[Ramu]

On 2/19/2016 at 3:36 PM, step1 said:

ok I understand.  Are you at this solidifying stage  yet?  If so did you find it hard/scary?  I've had the realization/awakening a few days ago...  Whilst I know this will benefit me in terms of finally being happy, im also scared shitless of not being able to relate to people anymore...  The last few days has been the weirdest of my entire life 

Its the realization that you are something coming out of nothing that takes getting used to.  However, its been there your entire life, but now it makes sense.  You ARE consciousness.