Will Visualization work for Enlightenment?

[egoless]

Will law of attraction and visualization technique work for Enlightenment? Let’s say if I visualize my change after Enlightenment and I visualize how powerful my meditation and profound understanding is. I visualize what will it change in my life. Etc.

[cirkussmile]

You become what you think. Choose your thoughts wisely.

Did you ever tried the most important thought?

"Who am I?"

Enlightenment is not about becoming

[Telepresent]

@egoless problem is, how do you know what to visualise? How many times have people said "the mind / ego / words cannot grasp this; it cannot be made into a concept or idea".  So what does one visualise? 

If you're thinking about visualising particular outcomes (deep meditation, for example), you're not visualising enlightenment, you're visualising what you think an enlightened person does. Which is a very different thing. Not necessarily bad or wrong, of course, but still a different thing

[snowleopard]

@egoless Yeah, it's a good question, how to visualize what can't be imagined ... Maybe that's where psychedelics come into play ... intriguing idea.

[egoless]

Visualization and law of attraction while tripping might be interesting.

[Nahm]

@egoless if we’re loosely defining enlightenment as permanent nonduality - experiencing life, without a central ‘you’ - body / brain identity, only the practices will do, short of a one in a million Tolle happening. (IMO) The practices free us of “me me me” perspective. Loa takes you from there and can reveal you are, indeed, the One. It also helps with the next question that arises....if I’m the one, what about all these other ‘people’? ?❤️

[snowleopard]

@egoless  @Nahm It's a fascinating topic ... Clearly, duality is imaginable, as it is nothing but imagined ... but is nonduality? Leo's insightful 'strange loop' pointer seems like a way to visualize this apparent paradox? It's like a kind of visual koan ... he may well have pulled it off  

Edited December 11, 2017 by snowleopard

[Nahm]

@snowleopard I think I understand what you’re saying, maybe not.  nonduality is perception without paradox. Often, ime, the big picture duality is the last paradox before nonduality. Not as a rule or anything. Just seems that way.  As in, without something to do, there could be no doer - and without a doer, there could be nothing to do (duality). Without the duality, it is seen that there is no actual doer, and there is actually nothing to do. Yet, here we are, in a loop of creator and creating, as the One. 

[snowleopard]

@Nahm  I think I see what you're getting at too ... That the nondual state reveals the seeming paradox as only apparent. Paradoxically, the only 'doing' that need be done is the undoing of the apparent paradox -- which makes for a good 'who done it' story

[Leo Gura]

@egoless Congratulations! You have unwittingly re-invented Vajrayana Buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Yidam visualization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yidam

Diety yoga:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana#Deity_yoga

[egoless]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@egoless Congratulations! You have unwittingly re-invented Vajrayana Buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Yidam visualization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yidam

Diety yoga:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana#Deity_yoga

Everything was planned Leo... everything was planned my friend  

 

[Pallero]

I have visualized all the sensory phenomena falling in on itself like a strange loop. But it's not really a visual visualization. More like a different way to look at the sensory phenomena. Maybe it's just being really present in the now, I don't know. But I'm definitely intrigued by the idea of visualizing or imagining enlightenment or some parts of it.

[Shanmugam]

On 12/12/2017 at 5:18 AM, Leo Gura said:

@egoless Congratulations! You have unwittingly re-invented Vajrayana Buddhism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Yidam visualization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yidam

Diety yoga:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana#Deity_yoga

@egoless @Leo Gura

Vajrayana Buddhism, Tantra and Kundalini yoga are all pretty much based on the same concept.. They visualize and concentrate on either one or all of the following:

A centre in the body, a deity associated with the centre, a geometrical shape and a mantra...

Usually they combine all of this. It is a kind of focused meditation and works similar to other concentration practices like shamatha etc...

But this is not the same as what egoless is talking about.

It is certainly not this: if I visualize my change after Enlightenment and I visualize how powerful my meditation and profound understanding

is

 

@egoless  I am telling you again.. You seem to have misunderstood the whole thing.. You want to 'become' enlightened.. It seems to me that you are seeing enlightenment as something you get, at least unconciously... That is NEVER going to happen and it has not happened to anyone... You will lose yourself in enlightenment...

[egoless]

@Shanmugam I see Enlightenment as huge aha moment that’s it. Am I right? Like it suddenly strikes you. You realize your existence as absolute. I’ve had those glimpses many times. 

Like it doesn’t change anything in you other than you know it. What you do with that knowledge is up to you then.

Edited December 24, 2017 by egoless

[Dodo]

On 11/12/2017 at 11:00 AM, egoless said:

Will law of attraction and visualization technique work for Enlightenment? Let’s say if I visualize my change after Enlightenment and I visualize how powerful my meditation and profound understanding is. I visualize what will it change in my life. Etc.

Recently I've been having visuals, but I never try to actually make them. 

What I do is I defocus attention so as to rest as awareness and then just look and see what appears. Try it.

But I believe the resting as awareness is actually the way to enlightenment,  not the visuals once the attention is again on objects. 

Edited December 24, 2017 by Dodo

[Shanmugam]

@egoless  I used to think the same way for years.. But actually, enlightenment can be either gradual or sudden.. There is a historical debate about this in Zen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitism. 

Each school argues that their version is correct. But it has happened in both ways... For me, the destruction of my sense of self and merging in non-duality was gradual.. It went on for two months. But a clear recognition and a clarity of what happened was instant. It was a sudden clarity that happened when I was lying on my bed. It was clear, evident and obvious by that moment that my search was over and what I was always looking for had happened.

Most importantly, enlightenment is like a rebirth. You can't really have the cake and eat it at the same time.. I think you may be missing something here.  It is like passing through a fire, putting everything at stake... At one point, you have to even sacrifice the desire for enlightenment. There has to be a complete surrender to the existence..

 

[egoless]

@Shanmugam I did it. I died. I’m not even sure if I am “Enlightened” or no tbh. I dropped the desire for it. Because after some gradual destruction of false self I amfeeling non duality. I have no more depression, no worroies I have never been so calm in my life. I control my emotions unbelievably well. So I don’t know yet what fully happened to me at this point. 

[Shanmugam]

@egoless  Good.. but enlightenment ends any kind of seeking to reach anywhere... There will be absolutely no need to look forward to tomorrow, next month, next year etc.. It is the ultimate fulfillment and the real death of 'me' as a person..

There will not be two versions of the 'me' anymore: 'how I am' vs 'how I want to be'...

But you can still function in the relative reality just like anyone else. The difference between the two will be pretty much the same as 'a real man suffering from the loss of his wealth' and 'an actor in a movie who acts in a similar scene''...You may have to put a face in the society. This happens to everyone.. 

It is better not to imagine how it is going to be after enlightenment or think 'what I will do after enlightenment', because it is always misunderstood..

Even the glimpse doesn't give a complete idea, because once the glimpse is over, it is pretty much the remembrance while the life is still in duality. And, mind is pretty good in distorting memories.

[egoless]

@Shanmugam If you could. Would you “go back”? What’s the greatest drawback of Enlightenment?

[Shanmugam]

@egoless ha ha... The question here will be 'who is going to go back?' 

But if there is a choice to raise that old 'me' from the dead, which is what you are talking about, then absolutely no... Will certainly not go back no matter what... This is priceless.. There is a period of integration which is challenging but it is not a draw back... It is similar to a culture shock.