In which way do Jim Newman/Tony Parsons and Rupert Spira talk about the same thing?

[Mu_]

6 hours ago, Ellenier said:

Hey guys,

again, I am in doubt of what the hack I'm actually doing and as usual, this is the perfect moment to seek confirmation on this forum  

So my question is: In which way do Jim Newman/Tony Parsons/Andreas Müller vs. "conventional teachers" such as Rupert Spira even talk about the same thing? Personally, I resonate more with the neo-advaita claims, since I feel sooooo sick of this "progression towards enlightenment thing" that always makes me feel like getting better and better but never reaching an end of the search. As a daily practice, I do self-inquiry. And these neo-advaita people confirm my doubts, like Tony Parsons makes fun of "conventional" teachers: "If you haven't found it yet, try harder/meditate even more/etc.) or Jim Newman laughing about even doing self-inquiry. Of course, these critique points have come to my mind, too and it is always like the neo-advaita people take the words right out of my mouth, when they criticize "conventional teachings" or trying to do anything to one day attain enlightenment. And because both parties seem to have so many problems with each other, I am again confused. Do they actually talk about the same thing? I mean, I miss kind of an acknowledgement for the other point of view on both sides. If they talked about the same thing, wouldn't they say "Yes, you can look at it, as if you can do nothing to bring about enlightenment OR you can somehow use your resources and if an apparent 'I' with free will appears, then talk to it, as if it could do anything about it. Both points are equally valid." But they don't do that. They rather criticize each other, as if the other approach didn't work out.  Has one party had a specific realization that the other didn't?

 

Hope you can clarify that for me

Thanks very much

Here's my take on the two positions.  Neither one is correct or total so to say.  Each position is useful for the right one hearing it at the right time.  For some hearing the message of Neo-Adviata will help drop contraction/mind beliefs that separate them from their original memory who and what they are, and for others it will reinforce a laziness inside them to do nothing and remain attached to the memories of the current life.

And on the otherside of the coin, the do something approach can help a person break free of consistent patterns to regain the original memory that some claim comes about when you drop the activity that your so closely attached to/believing in this life.  This takes forms in future/past worries, anger attachments, fear attachments/beliefs, gluttony, money obsessions, etc......  But the again the downside of this could be it reinforces a person to get lost in the doing of activities to accomplish something particular forever clouding the original memory of who and what they are.

One little thing neo-advita even though its my favorite message atm I don't think I've met or heard a neo-advita teacher or someone claiming do nothing that didn't at one point dedicate YEARS of meditation and practice of various sorts before they had their do nothing awakening.

[mandyjw]

1 hour ago, Nahm said:

You can realize God, for you are. 

You can not realize God, for you are. 

There is know God?

[Ellenier]

51 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

One little thing neo-advita even though its my favorite message atm I don't think I've met or heard a neo-advita teacher or someone claiming do nothing that didn't at one point dedicate YEARS of meditation and practice of various sorts before they had their do nothing awakening

@Mu_ Thats also my biggest question. People like Tony Parsons, Jim Newman and Andreas Müller spent years meditating (when it comes to Parsons, I'm not that sure) and now they tell everyone that it did absolutely nothing? I'm sure they would not be in that position if they hadn't meditated. One the other hand, wasn't the awakening predetermined in the first place, so that the apparent human in his apparent story had to undergo years of meditation? 

@Nahm Of course the answer had to be like this

@allislove Yeah I think that must be the case for (almost) all teachers.

[Mu_]

14 minutes ago, Ellenier said:

@Mu_ Thats also my biggest question. People like Tony Parsons, Jim Newman and Andreas Müller spent years meditating (when it comes to Parsons, I'm not that sure) and now they tell everyone that it did absolutely nothing? I'm sure they would not be in that position if they hadn't meditated. One the other hand, wasn't the awakening predetermined in the first place, so that the apparent human in his apparent story had to undergo years of meditation? 

@Nahm Of course the answer had to be like this

@allislove Yeah I think that must be the case for (almost) all teachers.

Ya, one message i liked from a guy who claimed enlightenment was if you feel like you have choice, use it.  If it seems to yield something, why believe someone else saying its not real. 

Yet if you listen to the words of some of these messages in the attempt to see if what they are saying yields something, like the effort to surrender, and then surrender becomes its own effortless state, then why not try it out if your open to experimenting and seeing for yourself.

If choice seems to have disappeared, then thats that, why make a religion out of it.

[Nahm]

35 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

There is know God?

To know God = to know fear. 

[ItsNick]

Isn't presence just being aware that everything (in any state of consciousness) is always happening now and that time is imaginary?

I don't think you have to necessarily even be aware that the self is an illusion to realize that. Most teachers seem to point to that thing being enlightenment (realization of no-self). So I don't think that (even according to most teachers) presence is enlightenment...

[LfcCharlie4]

Again I’m biased, but read the book: 

1000 by Ramaji. 
 

It is a model (so has its limitations and isn’t perfect!) for “stages” & “depths” of awakening, “Neo-Advaitan” is very early stage awakening, typical “No-Self” nobody here kind of stuff. 
 

Rupert Spira is much more deeply awakened, although I find his descriptions are too wordy, often over complex & this can put people off. 
 

Personally, I think his teacher Francis Lucille is such a great teacher, greatly explains & answers each question, and the peace & happiness simply radiates off him. 
 

If you wanna hear a truly awakened being, read / listen to Ramana Maharshi, although the translations make it tough at times, hence why I recommend Rupert or Francis Lucille as since they speak English it is much easier to comprehend and the right words are used semantically speaking. 
 

But yeah, read 1000, I used to have the same issue as you but with Eckhart Tolle, that book was the most life changing book I ever read in the end for me! 

[VeganAwake]

3 years ago I would have said there batshit crazy...

Post Awakening they're the only ones that make any sense... ?

Interesting fact: Robert Wolfe told me over the phone that Tony Parsons is a great teacher...

Just sayin ?

[Espaim]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Cute, but God-consciousness it does not make.

This sentence just didn't make sense to me seemingly due to constituent order. Can anyone explain this?

[Samuel Garcia]

I used to go to Tony Parsons' meetings quite regularly one or two years back -- and of course they are all pretty much the same. He has a strong following, of people who come regularly and others who are just checking him out. Most of his followers do not have much peace in their hearts in my opinion from talking to them and often parrot what Tony Parsons says quite regularly (as with most other teachers!). So of course all these things about how there is nothing to do doesn't help at all.

What's really interesting however is that Tony Parsons did lots of practices, even after his awakening experience in the park. He did meditation for years and went and lived in Osho's ashram in India. His book actually originally was very dualistic, before he edited it to be very neo-Advita!

In the end, let's be interested in what actually works. Just be really honest with yourself. Try out the practices which teachers say. Tony Parsons and Jim Newman completely misunderstand self-inquiry. Self inquiry may be a practice or something you do to a beginner the way Ramana Maharshi describes it, but that soon leads to Self-Abidance - being as you are - which is a non-practice! We must be honest with ourselves - are we truly at peace? Or are we still lost in concepts?

BTW many sages have said that you only need to experience The Self once, and you will be self-realised. So different stages of enlightenment, would be just getting lost in more concepts and phenomena. We are looking at that which doesn't change.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Samuel Garcia said:

many sages have said that you only need to experience The Self once, and you will be self-realised. So different stages of enlightenment, would be just getting lost in more concepts and phenomena.

Bullshit

[How to be wise]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Not unless you're supernaturally gifted from birth with special brain chemistry.

Leo, do you consider yourself one of those supernaturally gifted people?

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Leo, do you consider yourself one of those supernaturally gifted people?

There are many degrees of this giftedness.

I certainly have some degree of it, but there are people who have it 100x more than me.

I would say that I am mildly gifted. My mind is gifted with extraordinary intuition, holistic intelligence, and wisdom. This has basically always been the case for me. It is not something I worked to achieve. Although my inner work cranked it up to 11. But I am not gifted in the same way that psychics, healers, and yogis are.

[VeganAwake]

The real Freedom lies in truly understanding that THIS is it, there's nowhere else to get, and no one to get there... there's no future fulfillment that needs take place.

That's what these so-called Neo Advaitist's are pointing out.

Here is some Jim Newman:

The solution or the end of the seeking isn't a finding. That need to find something is never satisfied; it never happens. If it does, it's very temporary. I find something and I'm afraid of losing it; I find something and I'm trying to hold onto it; I'm trying something and I'm trying to maintain it. It's never satisfied. The end of the seeking is the end of the seeker, is the end of the experience, that 'this' is real.

What's left is what's already obviously everything: THIS. This doesn't need anything else, this is already all there is. Whatever is happening—whatever feelings, thoughts, experiences are happening—that is the wholeness that is looked for. It's not the wholeness the individual's looking for. It's not the wholeness that the "I am" is looking for. It will always be dissatisfied with this. It's a wholeness that's beyond the personal seeking, beyond the personal need for something more or something else.

[Inliytened1]

2 hours ago, Samuel Garcia said:

BTW many sages have said that you only need to experience The Self once, and you will be self-realised. So different stages of enlightenment, would be just getting lost in more concepts and phenomena. We are looking at that which doesn't change.

Keep an open mind that maybe that sage is saying that because they have had mystical experiences - have become conscious of God - and perhaps even that they are God.   That is what they are conscious of.  Then keep in mind that such mystics make up less than one percent of the world population.   So relative to everyone else this is self realization.  Yet be open to the possibility that there can be infinitely more degrees of consciousness and infinitely more degrees of "wokeness".    Are you seeing now that the finite becoming infinite will always be relative and partial until it becomes purely infinite or Absolute?   Is the relativity hitting you yet?

 

 

[VeganAwake]

Check out 3:15 - 12:10

 

[Forestluv]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I would say that I am mildly gifted. My mind is gifted with extraordinary intuition, holistic intelligence, and wisdom. This has basically always been the case for me. It is not something I worked to achieve. Although my inner work cranked it up to 11. But I am not gifted in the same way that psychics, healers, and yogis are.

Does your intuition include being able to intuite / recognize the gifts of others?

[diamondpenguin]

@Leo Gura so you were pretty much born with post human intelligence?

[VeganAwake]

It doesn't matter if you sniff paint behind the paint store for the rest of your apparent existence or become the president of the United States, there's no difference whatsoever at all.

Liberation is complete freedom from any conditioned thought structure that says otherwise.

THIS is complete freedom!!

Do you have eyes to see...

[Dodo]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

There are many degrees of this giftedness.

I certainly have some degree of it, but there are people who have it 100x more than me.

I would say that I am mildly gifted. My mind is gifted with extraordinary intuition, holistic intelligence, and wisdom. This has basically always been the case for me. It is not something I worked to achieve. Although my inner work cranked it up to 11. But I am not gifted in the same way that psychics, healers, and yogis are.

Since you've manifested in my dreams one time and pointed me to complete Godhood  (I became the entire dream) you might have that psychic power.... you might've been on 5meo or something since you are in the US and when I sleep you guys are awake.

BTW you were so very authentic in my dream - we were talking on skype - you were doing some 1:1 chats with your viewers and you showed me your completely ORDINARY life - no claims of being God or anything like that... Just I was stunned by the ordinariness and simplicity of your life - you had a wife, a banjo or ukulele, you showed me your routines, played a song on the instrument and basically just spoke in a very non-egoic way - and it wasn't pretend either.   

Then at one point you raised your finger and made me really look, then basically made me realise that I am not that character speaking to him, but that I am the entire dream... Then (from memory) i can remember how I merged with the entire dream once I followed your pointing and I moved as the entire dream - it was so epic that I just have to mention it. 

This was long ago, but that dream has stuck with me because of its clarity and incredibly direct nature. Only childhood dreams and some dreams with Eckhart Tolle have stuck with me so vividly, so thanks for that. But then again, I am Leo as you say in your signature so thanks to me too  

Edited September 16, 2020 by Dodo