Is a full logical understanding of no-self useful?

[Anton Rogachevski]

Being a pretty diligent practitioner of spirituality, meditation, contemplation,
studying non-duality, for more than 5 years, I can understand intellectually the
idea and logic of no-self. The real question is whether It's even possible to let go of
self control without ever experiencing a full no-self vision. 

[SoonHei]

@Anton Rogachevski do you understand, intellectually, that there is no particular moment in which you "let go" of self control vs not "let go" of it?

 

All of your doing since your "birth" has been out of "your" control. The "your" is referring to your ego self. The same ego self who has many times "chosen" what to order from a menu.

[ground]

A general answer is not possible because there are people that are more biased towards faith and people more biased towards rational thinking and logic.

However for both types of people a kind of "direct experience" is necessary. This "direct experience" actually is a non-experience since it is an emptiness of any kind of experience, an emptiness which is clear and aware simultaneously. It is kind of a "breakdown" of what is commonly known as "experience". Such a "direct experience" can certainly be evoked by rational analysis but it is not necessarily evoked by rational analysis. So there is always the possibility that one is stuck in mere conceptual understanding. Maybe such an experience may also be evoked by mere faith depending on further conditions.
On the other hand when having done rational analysis before and/or cultivated conducive faith such an "experience" may happen "out of the blue" when being involved in any kind of activity.

So in summary I would say: a rational/logical understanding is useful and it is better to have one than to have no conceptual understanding at all. But it is not sufficient.

[Anton Rogachevski]

@SoonHei @ground

Thank you for your replies.

In my experience it does seem to be useful. 

The way to utilize it practically is acceptance and letting go of desire for anything other than what is now. I see it work all the time even in people who are miles away from ever understanding non duality.

[Leo Gura]

The moment of awakening IS the letting go of the self.

Obviously you can't truly let go of the self until you've let go of the self.

You can't awaken before you awaken.

Again, this is where psychedelics are extremely useful. It's like lube for the self to surrender.

Why wait 5 years when you can get it in 50 minutes? Be smart about how you go about spirituality. Don't waste time doing things that don't work.

[Strikr]

16 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

Being a pretty diligent practitioner of spirituality, meditation, contemplation,
studying non-duality, for more than 5 years, I can understand intellectually the
idea and logic of no-self. The real question is whether It's even possible to let go of
self control without ever experiencing a full no-self vision. 

yes it is. But .. I never experienced it myself ( this path ). Monk get it, after years of doing nothing !

want a proof ? take some L

seriously people, I would be "mad" ( not seriously, all ways are good ways, and I didn't take LSD for "spirituality" really, just to "unbug my mind" ) in a way, to meditate 5 years and having "no result", I had all the result in an afternoon.

then I didn't take more drug, I had the "idea" of the path I should contemplate.

unlock something in my mind, but I turned  even more crazy the whole month after  

after 2 months I started meditating for the first time, ( ok I smoked 1g of weed laying down on a bed while trying to define music in my head ( full focus ) for like 4 years prior to this ) and could completely silence my mind. Something most people can't after years of meditation ( damn haha )

had to put all the dirty shit out of me ! 

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Strikr

[Nahm]

@Anton Rogachevski

18 hours ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

Being a pretty diligent practitioner of spirituality, meditation, contemplation,
studying non-duality, for more than 5 years, I can understand intellectually the
idea and logic of no-self. The real question is whether It's even possible to let go of
self control without ever experiencing a full no-self vision. 

What is meant by self control? Who’s controlling, who is being controlled? What processes are directly experienced to support this “division”?

Are you one Anton or two Anton?

What about avenues of opening up the mind as to what the reality all around you is (to step away from concept), such as quantum mechanics, and or teachers like Bashar, Abaraham Hicks, Jane Roberts, The Law of One, etc? Their teaching’s are nonduality, or, that each is their own reality - keep in mind, only you are hearing what is said. About 1 in 100 people actually comprehend what they are saying, and I have a hunch it might pair with where you’re at quite well. If they sound foreign to you, or “out there”, that might be an indication they’re exactly what is needed at this point in opening the mind up. 

 

[tecladocasio]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Why wait 5 years when you can get it in 50 minutes? Be smart about how you go about spirituality. Don't waste time doing things that don't work.

@Leo Gura  How he knows what don't work ? You never know what works , until it works... the ''time wasted'' is not so much wasted , because without ''wasting'' this time , he would never know

Edited November 25, 2018 by tecladocasio

[Jack River]

Can we let go of the experience because even after we have some experience your will record that experience and project a fragment of it as a “new” experience. But that fragment will never be what was. Then you will be chasing ashes and back again in the time/self loop.

Is the search for an experience necessary? Or is the end of searching for an experience and recording an experience something to look into? 

The extent we resist determines the amount of time it takes. We’re always looking for a way out, to be guided. This is resistance. Why not stay with what is dude? 

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Jack River

[ajasatya]

@Anton Rogachevski it's useful if it motivates you to transcend it. otherwise it's just a waste of energy.

[Anton Rogachevski]

6 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Anton Rogachevski

What is meant by self control? Who’s controlling, who is being controlled? What processes are directly experienced to support this “division”?

Are you one Anton or two Anton?

What about avenues of opening up the mind as to what the reality all around you is (to step away from concept), such as quantum mechanics, and or teachers like Bashar, Abaraham Hicks, Jane Roberts, The Law of One, etc? Their teaching’s are nonduality, or, that each is their own reality - keep in mind, only you are hearing what is said. About 1 in 100 people actually comprehend what they are saying, and I have a hunch it might pair with where you’re at quite well. If they sound foreign to you, or “out there”, that might be an indication they’re exactly what is needed at this point in opening the mind up. 

 

"Self control" - Resistance to what is, a tension without any consequence. No subject or object present in this relationship.

By now I can't bear looking at more non-dual teachings without a feeling of "Stop saying the same thing over and over.", I've exceeded the rational limit and now seek in the post rational realm. (direct method)

i asked this because I thought if there's even a use of explaining non-dual concepts to people who very very far from "getting" these kind of things.
(Basically that's how I got here. By just being shocked at the radical shift in describing reality that way.)   

 

2 hours ago, Jack River said:

Can we let go of the experience because even after we have some experience your will record that experience and project a fragment of it as a “new” experience. But that fragment will never be what was. Then you will be chasing ashes and back again in the time/self loop.

Is the search for an experience necessary? Or is the end of searching for an experience and recording an experience something to look into? 

The extent we resist determines the amount of time it takes. We’re always looking for a way out, to be guided. This is resistance. Why not stay with what is dude? 

 

Is the method you are suggesting useful without even knowing what it's pointing at? 

Let me rephrase - Is a conceptual understanding sufficient to actually letting go. Because how can one let go of what he hasn't seen? How do I know that my understating is even pointing in the right way? 

 

 

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The moment of awakening IS the letting go of the self.

Obviously you can't truly let go of the self until you've let go of the self.

You can't awaken before you awaken.

Again, this is where psychedelics are extremely useful. It's like lube for the self to surrender.

Why wait 5 years when you can get it in 50 minutes? Be smart about how you go about spirituality. Don't waste time doing things that don't work.

I totally get it (intellectually). My question was different: Is just knowing non-dual truths, and their consequence useful in implementing new patterns of behavior based on this knowledge.

[Jack River]

25 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

Is the method you are suggesting useful without even knowing what it's pointing at? 

The method presupposes its destination. A method (way/means) is to fix the end/goal and a projection of thought(what is known already/the old).  

25 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

a conceptual understanding sufficient to actually letting go.

How does a self come about a conceptual/intellectual understanding? Is it by  the self accumulating knowledge/experience and that of memory responding as thought? 

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Jack River

[Strikr]

26 minutes ago, Anton Rogachevski said:

"Self control" - Resistance to what is, a tension without any consequence. No subject or object present in this relationship.

By now I can't bear looking at more non-dual teachings without a feeling of "Stop saying the same thing over and over.", I've exceeded the rational limit and now seek in the post rational realm. (direct method)

i asked this because I thought if there's even a use of explaining non-dual concepts to people who very very far from "getting" these kind of things.
(Basically that's how I got here. By just being shocked at the radical shift in describing reality that way.)   

 

Is the method you are suggesting useful without even knowing what it's pointing at? 

Let me rephrase - Is a conceptual understanding sufficient to actually letting go. Because how can one let go of what he hasn't seen? How do I know that my understating is even pointing in the right way? 

 

 

I totally get it (intellectually). My question was different: Is just knowing non-dual truths, and their consequence useful in implementing new patterns of behavior based on this knowledge.

seriously, yes and no, it depend, but you'll be sure to move in the right direction

[Nahm]

@Anton Rogachevski Ok, I hear you. After around 20 years of meditation, one misc day, sat down to meditate and boom, no self happened in an instant - I was a blubbering blissful fool for a week, and was never that previous ‘guy’ again.   My eyes were opened, I was all ears - spirituality was real. Reality, life, was so much different, so clear, so connected - I had to know and experience everything there was to this spirituality once that happened. 

So I researched quantum physics, religions, etc, etc..then I came accross Leo on Youtube.  Then this forum. I read about psychedelics.  I had no idea man. Hugely eye opening for me. I had tried a little shrooms 20 years prior, basically as a kid, I had no idea there was a connection to spirituality. I had thought of them as just another ‘drug’.      But I listened, and I got it though, and started the adventure. About 15 - 20 incrementally wise, diligently prepared trips later - BOOOOOM - first nondual seeing. Saw what I am. The actual Self, The One. Actual Reality. Infinity. 

No one could have told me what psychedelics really were. No one could have told me what I really am. Never would I have had any understanding of what the word “enlightenment” was actually pointing to. Never. No chance whatsoever. I thought it was ‘something about the buddha’, cause he was wise & giving. Lol. 

 

TLDR:

Psychedelics. asap. Responsibly. 

Do not spend 20 years only meditating like I did. Why,  is not communicable. You’ll only know “why”, after. You are more than ready.

Fear, self doubt, any sense of lack, over thinking, anxiety, depresssion - suffering:  gone. I don’t remember them. 

 

[Anton Rogachevski]

@Nahm

Amazing! Thank you for your insights. The only problem is the illegality and finding a good source I could trust.

[Sahil Pandit]

On 11/24/2018 at 11:36 PM, Leo Gura said:

Why wait 5 years when you can get it in 50 minutes? Be smart about how you go about spirituality. Don't waste time doing things that don't work.

@Rinne