Meditation vs. ‘THIS’ (& The Dangers of Neo Advaita Explained)

[Consilience]

Originally this was just a reply in another thread but thoughts kept flowing and it turned into something worthy of its own thread. Thoughts aren’t quite as organized as other threads, this one was more stream of consciousness but felt worth sharing nonetheless.

Question from other thread: “Neo advaita could be bullshit so could Buddhism or any other religion. How can one know ultimately?”

 

By experimentation. And understanding Buddhism without rigorous personal meditation is impossible, hence why most people misunderstand it as well as misunderstand meditation in general.

Meditation as a formal spiritual practice does not necessarily imply seeking, as Neo Advaita always either explicitly or implicitly implies. There is enormous depth to this practice beyond stumbling into ultimate truth. There is an unveiling of the relative dynamics of self, world, another, death, life, the nature of existence, happiness, suffering, duality, creation, manifestation, relationship, communication - all of this is in addition to the possibility for direct consciousness or enlightenment, the seeing into the true nature of self and reality which is that there is only tightly bound aggregation of phenomena giving rise to a self and world, but there is nothing behind these appearances nor anything grounding their amalgamation as a solid ‘thing.’ Meditation, when done properly, allows one to literally see this self and world construction in real time. It’s no longer believed this is all a dream, we become directly lucid. 

The deep problem of Neo Advaita is that while the communications are generally spot in terms of their existential descriptions, it has a massive danger - the possibility of forming a belief in the no self. The belief life is a dream vs the direct experience. This belief vs. the direct experience is widely distinct, heart wrenchingly distinct. But because the belief is wrapped around such a solid intellectual understanding and even worse, because the belief is representing an accurate description of reality, the belief becomes that much more believable, ingraining itself even more subtlety into the unconscious mind. This, is ultimately a form of self identification, but one so subtle and sneaky, many never even see it, thinking they’ve discovered ultimate truth. Moreover, because this belief is so powerful, it does indeed provide comfort and a conditioned form of happiness, similar to the happiness a Christian would feel as a result of their religion. It’s a wicked form of devilry.

Let’s take a step back, 

What does any being really want, ultimately? Happiness. Reality tends towards happiness even when those methods are wildly dysfunctional due to existential and psychological ignorance, regardless of whether it’s recognized there is no one seeking happiness or no reality at all. The intention is always a favorable manipulation of the present to best serve the self, which when taken to its pinnacle, is unconditional happiness and when at its lowest, the pettiest scrapping by of survival. No matter what one’s conceptual or direct consciousness, happiness and self serving manipulation is always the priority. These self serving manipulations will vary wildly depending on the quality of the being’s mind in relation to ultimate consciousness. 

One of the cornerstones of meditation’s utility - it grounds the being’s understanding. Similar to how an MMA match would ground a fighter’s martial understanding, meditation grounds one’s “level of consciousness” or more specifically, one’s understanding of what THIS really is and points towards. As long as suffering, resistance, psychological challenge is arising as a result of meditation, there are aspects of consciousness that have not realized what THIS is, directly. Please understand, this does not mean pain, emotional distress, gross psychological or physical challenges never arise during meditation, it means that one is actually, legitimately, authentically experiencing the true nature of these phenomena which eliminates the meta-resistance, ie suffering, of these phenomena. 

Whereas Neo Advaita implicitly invites you to believe in the nature of reality, meditation invites you to sit down and experience it. Utterly different approaches. 

So while on the one hand, ultimate reality is indeed always present, always available, a being’s consciousness of such reality is still conditionally based on present moment experiences. If the conditions were to change, the consciousness (or in the case of Neo Advaita, belief) would be gone. Hence why practice is so powerful, it is a slow permeation of this consciousness into all moments regardless of condition, whether mundane and taking a shit, or mystical non-dual union with God. 

Is the famous seeking trap a risk with meditation? Yes, 100%. But generally this is due to a misunderstanding of meditation, poor instructions, and not rigorous enough participation, persistence, and patience on the part of the meditator. Eventually it must be recognized that the activity of seeking has nothing to do with one’s consciousness of what is true. Seeking, not seeking, doesn’t matter - truth, awakening, and liberation are possibilities and simultaneous actualities. It’s as though there is a simultaneous expansion and contraction of the drop into the ocean and the ocean into the drop. As a result of practice, reality unravels itself like an unfolding eternal fractal, the fractal as itself is always present yet the traversing more deeply into the fractal is taking place in an endless loop.

Things get really paradoxical, trans-rational, loopy, and on the surface, insane with hardcore meditation, and especially post-satori practice. 

At the end of the day, if 2 hours of silent stillness is creating problems, you can rest assured there is still much self fixation and identification, yet simultaneously no self or fixation at all. The choice - do we want to experience this liberation or pretend? Sit and you’ll find out. 

[BipolarGrowth]

What is your best advice on using proper meditation technique? What do you suggest? Sit in silence & do nothing technique? Vipassana? Etc? 

[Consilience]

3 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

What is your best advice on using proper meditation technique? What do you suggest? Sit in silence & do nothing technique? Vipassana? Etc? 

My opinion is that meditation needs to be practiced in an experimental, holistic way - learn multiple techniques from multiple masters and in a sense, follow your bliss. If that means jhana practice for a bit, do that, if that means switching to vipassana, do that, maybe shikantaza is what's resonating now, so go do that. The key is to developing enough skill to where we can reliably follow our intuition. 

It also seems that true momentum with meditation is impossible without dedicated retreat time, whether in a group or solo. 

I had a full blown, utterly profound Enlightenment experience using Shinzen Young's See Hear Feel vipassana technique on retreat so I am a bit biased towards vipassana. 

From what I can tell, alternating between a discriminatory practice like vipassana and integrative practice like do nothing all the while throwing in shamatha/jhana for when things get particularly heavy (dark night of the souls like) seem to be the most powerful. The key though is to practice with the clear understanding that what is true is always true, and no matter where we go, we are never moving towards or further away from this actuality. When the increases in consciousness from meditation are grounded in this actuality... This is meditation. At least, that's how I frame it. It's extremely difficult to even communicate or understand conceptually for myself. 

So yes, generally I'd recommend: 

- Deconstructive - Vipassana/Self-inquiry 

- Unifying - Do Nothing/Dzogchen 

- Enjoy wholesomely - Shamatha/jhana/loving kindness

- Retreats at least once a year, if not more

First two have provided more depth to consciousness for me though, as in are more non-dual. And sometimes the mind gets into such a state that the first 3 jhanas are really distracting compared to the bliss of resting as consciousness, directly. 

And anyways, I'm pretty sure you're beyond my level with meditation so what would be your advice regarding "proper meditation?" @BipolarGrowth

[Gili Trawangan]

I'm just glad I didn't come across neo-advaita while I was seeking. It's the kind of communication that is fun to listen to when you've already grasped the Absolute, but brutal to those who are still seeking.

The neo-advaitans would say that the message is uncompromising, but after a while they just sound like the advaita bear. There's no heart to it. Anyway, that's my own personal judgment, nothing else.

Someone post the advaita bear video, please 

[Consilience]

@Gili Trawangan I got you 

https://youtu.be/4KXidr0z1RY

[BipolarGrowth]

3 hours ago, Consilience said:

My opinion is that meditation needs to be practiced in an experimental, holistic way - learn multiple techniques from multiple masters and in a sense, follow your bliss. If that means jhana practice for a bit, do that, if that means switching to vipassana, do that, maybe shikantaza is what's resonating now, so go do that. The key is to developing enough skill to where we can reliably follow our intuition. 

It also seems that true momentum with meditation is impossible without dedicated retreat time, whether in a group or solo. 

I had a full blown, utterly profound Enlightenment experience using Shinzen Young's See Hear Feel vipassana technique on retreat so I am a bit biased towards vipassana. 

From what I can tell, alternating between a discriminatory practice like vipassana and integrative practice like do nothing all the while throwing in shamatha/jhana for when things get particularly heavy (dark night of the souls like) seem to be the most powerful. The key though is to practice with the clear understanding that what is true is always true, and no matter where we go, we are never moving towards or further away from this actuality. When the increases in consciousness from meditation are grounded in this actuality... This is meditation. At least, that's how I frame it. It's extremely difficult to even communicate or understand conceptually for myself. 

So yes, generally I'd recommend: 

- Deconstructive - Vipassana/Self-inquiry 

- Unifying - Do Nothing/Dzogchen 

- Enjoy wholesomely - Shamatha/jhana/loving kindness

- Retreats at least once a year, if not more

First two have provided more depth to consciousness for me though, as in are more non-dual. And sometimes the mind gets into such a state that the first 3 jhanas are really distracting compared to the bliss of resting as consciousness, directly. 

And anyways, I'm pretty sure you're beyond my level with meditation so what would be your advice regarding "proper meditation?" @BipolarGrowth

This is all great stuff. I agree especially with the intuitive approach. I think proper meditation is way more individualized than any of the major schools or teachers I’ve seen tend to present it. I also think it can be beneficial to your meditation to spend more resources on growing spiritually with other methods at certain points. This is of course just what worked for me, but I see that it could really help a lot of others who naturally struggle with long sits or structured meditation practice. There is the trap that people can forget that liberation is ultimately the goal and that you can hardly get there without optimizing some type of meditation or meditation-like practice. Eventually you have to move from the other methods back to meditation. Meditation was one of the smallest aspects of what got me to reach cessation. Now it’s supercharged by the permanent shifts which cessation triggered. 
 

I’m quite confident that I would be much worse off if I tried to follow the advice to meditate a bunch at the beginning. There was just too much resistance. I have too desirous of a personality which has never been high in discipline when things are optional. I certainly did meditate some with mainly meditation in the Heartfulness tradition which utilizes transmission. I’d recommend trying some meditation with transmission with a teacher/guru if you can find someone good. It did seem to be rather effective on me even at beginner stages. Heartfulness also meditates on the heart chakra. I think meditating on chakras can be really powerful, especially if you feel activity in that chakra already. I’ve felt a lot of activity in the third eye area lately which proved to be a great focus object for a shamatha style approach. 
 

Using past insights can be a good way to boost meditation. For example, if you’ve had some deep insight into emptiness, you can bring up the memory and work with it a bit to put you in a similar place although it’s more artificially constructed. The point is just to put you in more connection with that space before you start the meditation or maybe a bit at the beginning of the sit. Then just do your normal thing. Using the memories of deep love awakening or similar positive things can be a great way to set a really receptive emotional state to do things probably more on the shamatha side. 
 

Do you want to share what helped you transition into the ability to do longer sits? I’ve not been to a retreat yet. I’d love to go, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to meditate as much in one condensed period as what you’d see in a typical 10 day retreat for example. 
 

I also have found vipassana and do nothing to be the best. If you want, you can try switching between the two at potentially a bit of a rapid rate in the same sit. I find that going from the contraction of vipassana to the expansion of do nothing together can make both add to the effectiveness of the other. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by BipolarGrowth

[VeganAwake]

 

[VeganAwake]

4 hours ago, Consilience said:

this one was more stream of consciousness but felt worth sharing nonetheless.

LOL...

More like a reaction to beliefs being threatened....

The sense of self got brainwashed into thinking meditation is the way to enlightenment....bottom line.

Once this is recognized, it will feel better trust me... the body will no longer be a slave to thought based meditation practices as being important for spiritual growth and all that blah blah.

There's nowhere to get to and no one who could get there.

❤ 

 

[BipolarGrowth]

47 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

 

Lol pretty entertaining for us nerds. 

[gettoefl]

3 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

LOL...

More like a reaction to beliefs being threatened....

The sense of self got brainwashed into thinking meditation is the way to enlightenment....bottom line.

Once this is recognized, it will feel better trust me... the body will no longer be a slave to thought based meditation practices as being important for spiritual growth and all that blah blah.

There's nowhere to get to and no one who could get there.

❤ 

 

all have to decide for themselves do i trust their do nothing or my do nothing

[RickyFitts]

@VeganAwake Ugh, no offence but you always come across to me as the worst kind of neo-advaitist fundamentalist. No different from any other sort of religious fundamentalist, you just seem to spew dogmatic rhetoric.

[Chris365]

Meditation is also This, if meditation is what seems to be happening, along with everything else in direct experience.

There's no 'vs' other than that constructed by the illusory person... Which is also THIS appearing as a separate person imagining opposites...

[VeganAwake]

There's nothing right or wrong with meditation and yes it's THIS.

What was being pointed out is the sense of self will latch onto these spiritual practice concepts and jump through hoops until the cows come home.

 

[VeganAwake]

3 hours ago, gettoefl said:

all have to decide for themselves do i trust their do nothing or my do nothing

I get what you're saying trust me ❤ 

What's being pointed out is there isn't a you to decide or not.

I'm not trying to replace spiritual beliefs and practices with something else.

Awakening is the revelation that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops & spending years on the so-called spiritual path ISNT REAL AT ALL.(the cosmic joke)

[mandyjw]

10 hours ago, Consilience said:

This, is ultimately a form of self identification, but one so subtle and sneaky, many never even see it, thinking they’ve discovered ultimate truth. Moreover, because this belief is so powerful, it does indeed provide comfort and a conditioned form of happiness, similar to the happiness a Christian would feel as a result of their religion. It’s a wicked form of devilry.

Happiness itself is never false, it's only a thought that attributes the happiness to being caused that is false. The happiness is actually pure, raw being. Thoughts cover over it and beliefs are what gives us a reason to keep the attachment to the thoughts. The difference between the only ever now love or happiness and the thought of it and being able to catch the thought that places conditions on it, tries to own it or secure it and therefore covers over it. 

Belief in Jesus allows people to let go of thoughts that fear death or guilt themselves for past actions. It allows them to believe that they are not responsible for making their lives good or perfect. There are many thoughts that perpetuate suffering that any religion gives one permission to drop. 

There is no "devilry" in this, it is only that the attribution of the "why", the "cause" or of the needing permission to let go of thoughts is false. 

Getting a new desired object allows people to let go of thoughts that what they want isn't here. When they walk out in the driveway and see what they aren't used to seeing and they like what they see they tap into pure appreciation and awareness. This is real. The thought saying "it's because of the car" is false. It's actually the experience of a lack of habitually believed thoughts that they are experiencing. There is no devilry in this, just misunderstanding. 

When you smell perfume or a flower, it's not that it smells pretty, it's that it's so new and pleasant that you fully accept and fully let go of thoughts to take in the scent. 

So cars, Jesus, scents, neo Advaita, meditation, sex, vipassana, all of it is a "thing" that actually tends to help us let go of thoughts. Even letting go of thoughts, that's a thought. The thought of something is not the experience of it. The thought "meditation" is never meditation. 

There is no devilry in any of it, but if one believes themselves to be conditional they will experience negative emotion which is the guidance saying, "nope" to that thought. 

 

 

[VeganAwake]

2 hours ago, RickyFitts said:

@VeganAwake Ugh, no offence but you always come across to me as the worst kind of neo-advaitist fundamentalist. No different from any other sort of religious fundamentalist, you just seem to spew dogmatic rhetoric.

I get that's how it seems ❤ 

I'm not peddling a bag of tricks though.

I'm not trying to replace anyone's beliefs with other beliefs or something like that.

There can be a recognition that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops and practices attempting to find something it feels is missing.... is not a real entity within the body... it's an illusion of self which never gets satisfied.

 

 

 

[gettoefl]

1 hour ago, VeganAwake said:

I get what you're saying trust me ❤ 

What's being pointed out is there isn't a you to decide or not.

I'm not trying to replace spiritual beliefs and practices with something else.

Awakening is the revelation that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops & spending years on the so-called spiritual path ISNT REAL AT ALL.(the cosmic joke)

Awakening is the revelation that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops & spending years on the so-called spiritual path ISNT SOME FINITE FORM AND IS WAS & WILL BE GOD ALL ALONG .(the cosmic joke)

and now that one possesses this revelation the one true allness can bring that to realization and integration

i always love your sincerity and integrity, and i hope you know that x

Edited November 20, 2021 by gettoefl

[Consilience]

7 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

LOL...

More like a reaction to beliefs being threatened....

The sense of self got brainwashed into thinking meditation is the way to enlightenment....bottom line.

Once this is recognized, it will feel better trust me... the body will no longer be a slave to thought based meditation practices as being important for spiritual growth and all that blah blah.

There's nowhere to get to and no one who could get there.

❤ 

 

The thread speaks for itself brother. So do my  other posts.

Im glad you’ve found happiness and peace in this life. Im glad Neo Advaita brings others peace and happiness. But that doesn’t mean it’s true Enlightement nor peace beyond conditioned circumstance. I write for those interested in an authentic consciousness of what is true.
 

 

[gettoefl]

5 minutes ago, Consilience said:

The thread speaks for itself brother. So do my  other posts.

Im glad you’ve found happiness and peace in this life. Im glad Neo Advaita brings others peace and happiness. But that doesn’t mean it’s true Enlightement nor peace beyond conditioned circumstance. I write for those interested in an authentic consciousness of what is true.
 

 

am with you here and thanks for your tremendous insights in this thread, they resonate and accord with my practice

don't believe something, trust something and then verify it experientially

[Adamq8]

You came into existence and can just as easily go out of existence, you are not a necessary being at all, you depend on your enviroment for your survival and couldnt survive without this planet etc.

i would suggest that faith is much more profound then what some might believe, cause remember, it is your belief that Christians somehow got some "fake" happiness from believing in Christ, it might be true for you but not necessarily for others, there is something deeper within Christianity.

But ofcourse not all of the Christians is a true Christian so I understand where your coming from. 

Meditation in this context shows that direct experience certainly is different then a concept based philosophy etc, but at the same time, thoughts do represent reality and the rational mind is extremely useful and transcends the limits of the body, through reason we can come to conclusion and test it in the real world or investigate reality, that a Meditation practice somehow is more "important" then deep contemplation about the nature of reality is solely a preference, since thoughts is also included within reality and thoughts and imagination is a creative power.

Meditation is awesome, but so is prayer and contemplating etc.

If you truly study the Christian doctrine, as unbiased as possible, I believe that it would deeply resonate within the deepest part of you.

All I am saying is that, there is something of ultimate goodness in Reality and Christianity is based upon that, Jesus said i am the way the truth and the life.

One can find out that what we are is nothing, funny enough is that christian doctrine is creatio ex nihilo, creation from nothing, so it would be reasonable that we are nothing, because you cant know GOD as he is in himself, but to say that it is just empty phenomena does not explain anything at all, how does it arise from "nothing" and is ordered aswell, why dont you turn into a tree, why are you who you are? how can you even comprehend reality? Don't take these things for granted.

You cant read my thoughts, you cant create a galaxy, you cant create out of thin air, you are an agent with causal powers, but you are certainly not the ultimate agent with limitless causal powers.

So you might see the illusion of a concept based self which is in constant flux, but you do not wake up to a female body all of the sudden, you are you, no matter your internal "state"  you are still you with a certain family and a certain body etc, you did not create yourself from nothing, your parents caused you, you can paint on a white canvas, through your mind you can create, but your mind has limits, you have to use resources around you to produce anything substantial, you need to eat to survive etc.

You dont know what goes on in andromeda galaxy, why would you even know what the ultimate nature of reality is? Through meditation?

You are constantly being maintained by GOD moment to moment.

You are not Jesus either, what have you produced for the goodness of others that is even remotely near what Jesus has done?

Contemplate that.